"Wasting" water with large tanks

[magpie]

Please don't make too much fun of me as I have been mulling this around for awhile in my head and it's a legit concern of mine.

I moved a year ago and my initial plan was to get a larger sized tank, 180+ gallons. But we moved to the high desert and it is just more apparent here that water is a resource that everyone tends to be wasteful with. It's not an indefinite thing. Hell, I don't even have kids but it's giving me some pause to consider even just a 50% WC (and I used to do 75% in my 65 gallon) would be dumping 100 gallons of water down the drain a week.

How do you all deal with this? Does it even cross your mind? Does anyone here save the water from changes to do anything else like water for landscaping? I know you can't potentially drink it but...

I can keep smaller tanks of course (currently love my little 20 long) but the fish I covet most (LJ bichirs, larger cichlids) need larger tanks for life.

OK, opening myself up here for all of the hippie / left wing comments.

Thanks for any thoughtful insight.

 

[piranhaman00]

I know there are definitely a few members here who reuse the water. Using it to water the grass/trees ect. is a great idea. Not only is it saving you water, but the water from the tanks will be full of nitrates and such that will work as fertilizer for your landscaping. I have even heard of people saving the water to flush toilets! Anything you can do to reuse the water is great.

Hopefully some others that do it will chime in

 

[duanes]

I always use tank water twice.
My water changes are semi-auto and old water is pumped to the veggie or other gardens and trees (the nitrate also helps avoid adding some fertilizer).


I also use old fish water to flush toilets, and water house plants..
And take advantage of rain whenever possible.

 

[tlindsey]

I know there are definitely a few members here who reuse the water. Using it to water the grass/trees ect. is a great idea. Not only is it saving you water, but the water from the tanks will be full of nitrates and such that will work as fertilizer for your landscaping. I have even heard of people saving the water to flush toilets! Anything you can do to reuse the water is great.

Hopefully some others that do it will chime in

I hate to waste water after wc's so in the warm months dump it on the flower beds, plants, and flush toilet with it. Makes me feel better putting nitrate filled water to good use. I have to pay for it so why not lol.

 

[magpie]

I always use tank water twice.
My water changes are semi-auto and old water is pumped to the veggie or other gardens and trees (the nitrate also helps avoid adding some fertilizer).

also use old fish water to flush toilets, and water house plants..
And take advantage of rain whenever possible.

Thanks for your respectful responses guys! I kind of expected it to be a little bit of a **** show. . I’m already feeling better about this. I do like to have plants in my yard so this might be a perfect solution if I can work out the logistics.

Duane, could you go a little bit more into the specifics and mechanics of how to do partial auto changes, and how you collect the water to do these things with it?

I use a sink / python for my smaller tanks but I’m thinking if you used a shower or a tub it would be easier to collect the water. Then you would have to manually move it in buckets or the like to use outside. How do you get around this?

For flushing toilets, do you just leave a bucket by the toilet?

 

[PYRU]

I use it for plants...

I guess you could use one of those pitcher type filters and drink it how do you feel about having a slight ammonia taste to your water?

Stock very light is about the only way to really somewhat conserve

 

[skjl47]

water is a resource that everyone tends to be wasteful with. It's not an indefinite thing

Hello; I get your point and do agree that "acceptable" water is not indefinite. Overall there is a water cycle and some may think that can clean the water and all will be fine. However it is the pollution of the air and our holding basins as part of the problems. Clean water may fall from condensation out of the air but it will pick up stuff from the air ( I tried collecting rainwater back in the 1970's but it was slightly acidic.) and if it falls onto contaminated soil, into contaminated pools and rivers then it can be out of range for our use.

How do you all deal with this? Does it even cross your mind?

Hello; Been crossing my mind for decades. One thing I have done is to stock my tanks with fish very lightly the last few decades. I also keep live plants which I harvest to help keep my water quality stable a bit longer. I do use tank water on outside plants but not down my drain as I have a septic system.

I don't even have kids

Hello; Back in the mid 1970's as I was working on my masters degree I was focusing on environmental studies. During that time it seemed clear the single more impactful problem was to be the increasing human population. I decided to be childless and in fact did not father any children.
I sometimes play an offset scenario in my thinking by saying to myself that by not bringing additional children into the world that I should get to use a bit more resource such as water. Even for myself this is pretty flaky and I still tend to be conservative with water and with most other things.
A personal goal is to leave a smaller environmental impact footprint. I bought a house ten years ago and have a slab basement so could have bigger tanks but have not so far. some of this is the greater use of water and some is keeping tanks is a bit more of a chore at the age of 71.

But if you remain childless for life then I do think this may well be the single thing an individual can do to reduce a personal impact on things such as water. All that water which is not being used for showers, laundry and material production of things for children that do not exist can be put into your tanks. Also you likely will still use less water in tanks than for even one child.

 

[Seedy J]

I use a sink / python for my smaller tanks but I’m thinking if you used a shower or a tub it would be easier to collect the water. Then you would have to manually move it in buckets or the like to use outside. How do you get around this?

Instead of the gravel vac tube that came with the Python, I use a gravel vac with a squeeze bulb and connect the "out" end of the squeeze bulb to the long Python hose. Then you can run it to your garden, toilet, wherever. I don't feel too bad about using water to fill my aquariums (can't be as bad as the folks living in deserts trying to have green lawns for purely aesthetic purposes), but using running water to empty them seems silly.

 

[Steve_C]

I wouldn't say it's a hippie tree hugger thing, I think it's a valid concern for some people. With that said I also think some things can be a non worry as well. Water shortages are more a product of distribution than actual shortage of water, so using more water in a area like this (highly populated suburban city) really isn't going to have any effect on the actual supply. Not to mention water down the drain does run through a treatment plant which is pumped into river systems as treated water which then eventually evaporates, goes up, turns to rain and then the cycle starts again.

In areas like you mentioned where you are now (high desert) I can see it being a bit more of a concern so something like some catch barrels to pump your WC's into to reuse for garden and such would probably be beneficial and make you feel better about using the amount of water.

 

[duanes]

[QUOTE="magpie, post: 8029356,

Duane, could you go a little bit more into the specifics and mechanics of how to do partial auto changes, and how you collect the water to do these things with it?
For flushing toilets, do you just leave a bucket by the toilet?[/QUOTE]
Yes I always have old water filled 5 gal buckets next to the toilets.
As far as partial water changes, all my tanks (about 1000 gallons) were on sumps, so after closing a valve leading to the tanks, it opens a line and pumps water outside to the garden, very simple.
The PVC to the outside is mostly permanent, although gets disconnected in the dead of winter.