# What do you do with waste water?



## BJRuttenberg (Sep 25, 2005)

What do you do with your tank's waste water each week? You know, the water you get back from water changes. I feel ridiculous dumping down the drain, so I started watering the weeds/grass outside with it. What do you all do?

Also, to whomever has an RO system...what do you do with all the excess waste water which gets discarded by your RO unit?


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

I use a fair bit of my old tank water to water plants, both inside and out, but some goes down the drain as it would use a fair bit of time to carry all the water outside for the plants!

I have an RO unit. All the 'waste' water from it goes straight into my Koi pond as the water has been prefiltered by carbon and pre-filter and is fine for them! All the water from cleaning the pond filters and water changes is pumped onto the garden - I don't put any of that down the drain now.


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## FernMan (Jun 4, 2006)

Yeap,

I do the same. Water all my houseplants! They do great and I do have many. Specially the Ferns, the staghorn fern, the boston fern, the orchids and on and on... boy do they love it!


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

My continuous water change system gives me about 5 gallons of waste water per day. During the summer I use it to water my plants on the deck, but as it gets colder, those plants don't need the water, so it gets dumped onto the plants on the ground below the deck. During the rainy season the waste water is just wasted.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Mostly dump mine down the drain, although sometimes I'll take a cup or 2 and water the plants.


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## Bill Weber (Jul 17, 2005)

My aquarium water goes right out the window. there is sure a nice patch of moss between the stone patio below.

The waste water from my RO is collected in a 32 gallon trash can and is suplemented with TAP water. I age this for a week and use it to do my fresh water planted tank water changes with.

And, I fill a couple of 5 gallon water jugs and use it for drinking water during the week.


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## gotcheaprice (Sep 4, 2007)

Right next to the 2nd story window, so I siponh it out with a long hose and have someone hold it while I water plants


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## skinns (Apr 8, 2004)

I have a wide range of healthy house plants that are a refection of watering with my waste water from my tank. Before I did this I had trouble keeping plants alive indoors..


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## aquaman3000 (Dec 1, 2005)

Make Kool-Aid to serve to neighbors you don't like!


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## Adragontattoo (Jun 3, 2007)

I used to rent a basement in a house that had the best 3'x6' patch of grass in the neighborhood. Too bad the rest of the yard looked like a dustbowl.

My father used to come pick up gallons of waste water to feed to his plants, now that I am an hour away from him, it isnt feasible.

Since I live in a condo, I cant really use the water so it ends up going down the drain or into the planter that the building has under my balcony.


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## Kelley (Aug 27, 2006)

I water my house plants and outdoor plants with the waster water. Also, whenever I clean the nastiness out of my filter, I pour it right on the house plants. It really works to keep my plants healthy!


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

WC water and RO waste water go down the drain. It recharges the aquifer and comes back up the well in a few years. The only thing that is "wasted" is the power to pump it out of the ground the 1st time.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

guaiac_boy said:


> WC water and RO waste water go down the drain. It recharges the aquifer and comes back up the well in a few years. The only thing that is "wasted" is the power to pump it out of the ground the 1st time.


I think the second law of thermodynamics would say that water is in fact being wasted when you do that. You can't cycle anything without some losses - or as thermodynamicists would say, the entropy always increases.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Hehe, entropy of the system may increase, but the principle of conservation of mass states that water isn't "lost". It just goes on to "a better place". 

The real reason I waste it is that my tanks are in the basement below ground level. I could theoretically "re-use" the water, but only if I used electricity to pump it back up to some useful place. I'm not about to go back to the bucket method of aquarium-keeping. Besides, water around here is measured in acre-feet, not milliliters. I know I should be a thoughful earth-person while observing my ecological duties, etc, etc. I just enjoy the convenience of plumbing and electricity to much. I probably eat too much corn-fed beef, burn too much fuel, leave too many lights on, and let the water run too long while brushing my teeth. I once wasted a million gallons of water in one single day doing a flush-out of a city water tank. I remember thinking then that I probably wouldn't waste that much water during the rest of my life - hehe.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Your great great grandchildren will hate you for allowing their water to be wasted! Ok, make that your great, great great grandchildren. (or theirs)


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## BJRuttenberg (Sep 25, 2005)

Thanks for the replies...I just wanted to know because I live in a tiny apartment, dont have any plants and am looking for ways of reusing my waste water because I do'nt want my great, ad infinitum, grandchildren to hate me for my negligence...[-X :hippie: 

I ultimately would like to live up to a sustainable standard (as I think should be applied to all of society), and It seems to me that an aquarium would contribute an inordinate amount of waste water if not recycled. :bathbaby: 

I think I also heard that some European countries (Germany, perhaps?) are not allowed to "throw water away," or remove it from their tanks. If this is true (could someone verify/refute :---) ) then how do they sustain planted tanks (I am of course assuming they keep planted tanks)?:crazy: 

Peace, eace:


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Efficient new toilets flush a couple to 4 gallons of water each time. A shower uses around 10 gallons. But, watering a good size lawn takes tens of times that much water. So, my attitude is that tossing 5 gallons a day from an aquarium is a drop in the bucket. In California the biggest user of water by far, like 100 times as much water, is commercial agriculture. No major water savings is possible without reducing agricultural water use.

The ocean has two things we need - lots of water and lots of potential energy. It is long past time to get the two together to produce desalinized water for domestic usage. That isn't practical for Idaho, but for California it is obvious.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

House plants. I used 20 gallons of waste water today and still didn't get to all of them.

It's great for garden plants too. Even in winter when it's cold and snowy. Thise chemicals will eventually get down to the roots.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

guaiac_boy said:


> WC water and RO waste water go down the drain. It recharges the aquifer and comes back up the well in a few years. The only thing that is "wasted" is the power to pump it out of the ground the 1st time.


I think that is true only if your waste water goes into your septic tank. Mine goes through pipes to the municipal sewer treatment plant, where after treatment it is discharged into a local river and thence to the Atlantic Ocean.

An aside: We have a water crisis in some parts of the country, such as much of the Southwest, because much of that area is a natural desert and yet the population there is growing rapidly. There should be a land use policy to discourage growth where the natural resources are not sufficient to support it.

Bill


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## Angry the Clown (Aug 26, 2006)

In the summer, I run the drain from my Python out into the lawn... especially onto any problem areas. It greens right up, and is some of the thickest St. Augustine you'll find! In the winter, I collect some for my M-I-L's Betta bowl, in which she maintains anacharis and java moss. The rest runs down the drain. Thankfully we only have about 3 months of winter here.


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## gotcheaprice (Sep 4, 2007)

Hehe, I'll tell my mom about all your success stories on the nutrients for plants. We have a small garden with lots of flowers, so hopefully it'll help them grow nicely.


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## armedbiggiet (May 6, 2006)

gotcheaprice said:


> Hehe, I'll tell my mom about all your success stories on the nutrients for plants. We have a small garden with lots of flowers, so hopefully it'll help them grow nicely.


This would help your garden for sure. I have a town home and my grass and plants are much better than others on the same role.


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## armedbiggiet (May 6, 2006)

How do u collect the RO waste water safly? Since I find out the RO wast water are almost twise more than it produces, I am thinking to take that thing off...


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## puttyman70 (Aug 7, 2007)

hoppycalif said:


> Efficient new toilets flush a couple to 4 gallons of water each time. A shower uses around 10 gallons. But, watering a good size lawn takes tens of times that much water. So, my attitude is that tossing 5 gallons a day from an aquarium is a drop in the bucket. In California the biggest user of water by far, like 100 times as much water, is commercial agriculture. No major water savings is possible without reducing agricultural water use.
> 
> The ocean has two things we need - lots of water and lots of potential energy. It is long past time to get the two together to produce desalinized water for domestic usage. That isn't practical for Idaho, but for California it is obvious.


All new toilets are 1.6 gallons per flush and new tub/shower valves are 2.5 gallons per minute. All of this is federally mandated. Some very expensive showers with multiple heads like this http://www.kohler.com/video/index.jsp?bcpid=203719180&bclid=203709844&bctid=229518145 
can put out as much as 21 gallons of water per minute. I have personally installed these. I agree with Hoppy. If someone can use 210 gallons of water in a 10 minute shower just because they can afford it I feel no guilt changing the water in my tank no matter what I do with it.

BTW I water my house plants as well. Just wanted to rant for a minute.


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