Ran out of water!!!! Help

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
So much though to put into this. I was thinking if I do the totes I will have to get a pump to put the water in the tanks. I am only 5’4” and have bad shoulders so no way could I lift buckets up that high. I did all the tanks and no problem this week. I was doing a 50% water change on every tank every week but I lowered that to 30% while having my husband check the well by timing how long it takes to hear an ice cube hit the water. Each large tank caused about a one second addition to the time. I am thinking I may have to take down a few tanks in the future if it becomes worse.

I think the cost of drilling a new well would be unrealistic to us right now, the current well had to be hydrofraced and that cost a lot. About 2 years ago we put in a new pump in the well and that was quite pricey due to the depth of the well.

I am going to have to put some thought into what the best thing to do is and cost effective at the same time. I don’t want to lose my fish and I refuse to let them live in bad conditions.
 
Ever considered maybe forgetting about the well and just getting a water line from the city installed or however it works?
 
.....Where do you put the trash then?
Also have you considered building a big sump for your tanks? It's normally used for saltwater but can also work for freshwater.
 
If you want to use storage tanks, you can just get a pond pump or two and use vinyl tubing. I do this for my 220 every weekend. I unload the entire tank for about a 95% water change. I have a 4000ish gph pump hooked up to a 50 ft roll of 1” vinyl tubing. I use it to pump the water out of my tank to my front yard, and then from my storage barrels into my tank. It can unload my entire tank in about 7-8 minutes.
 
fishhead0103666 said:
.....Where do you put the trash then?
Also have you considered building a big sump for your tanks? It's normally used for saltwater but can also work for freshwater.
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I do have a sump for filtration for the bigger tanks but I don’t know how that helps with water changes, am I missing something? Simps a fairly new to me so sorry that sounds like a silly question:)

We bring the trash to the dump every week.
 
Fish Tank Travis said:
If you want to use storage tanks, you can just get a pond pump or two and use vinyl tubing. I do this for my 220 every weekend. I unload the entire tank for about a 95% water change. I have a 4000ish gph pump hooked up to a 50 ft roll of 1” vinyl tubing. I use it to pump the water out of my tank to my front yard, and then from my storage barrels into my tank. It can unload my entire tank in about 7-8 minutes.
Click to expand...
Wow!!! That is awesome, it takes me like 2 hours to do my tank! That’s a good idea.
 
Nicole, thanks for the info on the well updates you've already done, sounds like you've done what you can considering your predicament with water using neighbors!

I second Travis' suggestion on using a pump to transfer water from totes to the tank. I couldn't even imagine using buckets with large tanks. Using a submersible pump in the water holding container works well, you just need to choose one that fits your particular needs for how high you need to pump water, how far you need to pump water and how fast you need to pump water.

You will also need to make a DIY shut off valve at the tank so you can turn off the water when you need to AND monitor the amount of water left in the holding container if it's a distance from the tanks so the pump is always submerged.
 
deeda said:
Nicole, thanks for the info on the well updates you've already done, sounds like you've done what you can considering your predicament with water using neighbors!

I second Travis' suggestion on using a pump to transfer water from totes to the tank. I couldn't even imagine using buckets with large tanks. Using a submersible pump in the water holding container works well, you just need to choose one that fits your particular needs for how high you need to pump water, how far you need to pump water and how fast you need to pump water.

You will also need to make a DIY shut off valve at the tank so you can turn off the water when you need to AND monitor the amount of water left in the holding container if it's a distance from the tanks so the pump is always submerged.
Click to expand...
Ok, I didn’t think of the amount of water to and from the holding container. If you hadn’t mentioned it I probably would have overflowed my tank and burnt out my pump, bad luck! Lol

I hope this thread is useful for anyone that is in my situation. It’s crazy how my well is so much different from 10 years ago ( that’s when I had it drilled), I filled up my pool with that well no problems. Crazy the way simple things impact our environment.
 
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