# RO Water Storage



## davideyre (15 Jun 2009)

i know that there is little benefit to ro water in terms of most plants, but i'm interested in keeping soft water fish and so am contemplating creating a set up using ro water.

adding an ro unit under the sink looks fairly straight-forward, and i can see how with a float valve and shut off valve how i could get the system to switch off when my storage container of choice was full.

what i am less sure about is the most economical storage container to go for, looking at the ro-man website the 50-100 litre tanks seem pretty expensive, but maybe that what you have to pay?? certainly if you compare the tanks with cost of a couple of jerry cans, the tanks look expensive. but then it is harder to see how to stop the jerry cans overflowing when full without watching them all the time and doing it manually. any thoughts? what do those of you that use ro water do?

thanks.


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## ceg4048 (15 Jun 2009)

Hi,
    I didn't do anything fancy when I collected large quantities of RO. Just get a couple of the large plastic rubbish bins and shut off the tap manually. The fill rate is slow and it will become predictable, so just keep an eye on it. I used to keep the bin in the stall of  a spare bathroom shower so if there was a spill it would simply drain. Then I'd use a pond pump and garden hose to get the water from there to the tank.

The RO man system sounds great if you have the money though.

Cheers,


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## chris1004 (15 Jun 2009)

I use a fair ammount of RO water some weeks as much as 300 litres and I use barrels which I bought from here:-

http://www.waterbuttsnbottles.co.uk/5L- ... /c-11-112/

I have found that the 30litre barrels although heavy when full are just about managable, I wouldn't want to move anything heavier around so would bear that in mind if its an issue to you. They actually hold around 35litres when full to the brim.

Clive is spot on when he says that the product water rate becomes very predictable. My mains water pressure is around 20psi which is on the low side but mainly due to my house being on top of a hill. I have fitted a pressure pump which increases the pressure to around 80psi when required. The upshot of which is that I have two speeds of producing RO water which comes in very handy indeed. 

If I turn the Ro unit on without the pump then it takes about 12 hours to fill a barrel which means that I can turn it on before bed or before leaving for work in the morning and the barrel is nearly full when I wake up or return home from work respectivly. Alternativly with the pump on the barrel fills in around 3 hours.

My RO unit is installed in my bathroom upstairs (under a cover for asthetic reasons) and when drawing off water the barrels stand in the shower so if there is any overflow its really not a problem as it just goes straight down the plughole. The pump is 24V and housed in a water tight casing and is supplied with 24V from my fish room/den/study/junk room (depending on which person in the house is describing it  ) which is adjascent to the bathroom.

When full the barrels are moved into this room and heated/treated prior to use as required.

When filling my planted tank which is downstairs in my living room I simply run a syphon hose straight downstairs. It is worth explaining at this point exactly how I do my water changes.

All I use is one hose which is long enough to reach from my planted tank in my living room, to both my downstairs kithen sink and the barrels in my fish room upstairs (not at the same time though). On one end is an adaptor which is identical to the spraybar adaptor from my main external filter (EX1200). So all I do is turn the filter off (using the output control valve) unplug the spraybar within the tank, plug my hose in instead, secure the other end into the kitchen sink (via a homemade bracket) and turn the filter back on. That gives me about 10 minutes to clean the glass make a coffee whatever. When sufficient water has pumped out I turn the filter off but leave the hose connected to the spraybar adaptor, take the hose, which remains full of water, upstairs and put it in a barrel of prepared water which has other barrels connected via syphons to it whereby they effectivly become a battery of barrels(again secured in place with homemade brackets). I then go back downstairs and unplug the hose from the spraybar connector and the syphon starts automatically as the hose is already full of water. This is then secured in place again with a homemade bracket and I finish my coffee or whatever else I was doing. All that is left is to empty the hose, coil it up and store it away when the tank is full. Job done in 20 minutes 100 litres in and out and not a drop spilt.

So you can see with a little thought and using the natural head height of the house it may be benificial to you, if you can, to install your RO unit upstairs rather than downstairs and utilise your bath/shower as a safety overflow. It could save you a fortune on stop valves/large tanks not to mention the space under the kitchen sink (which is hers  ), if you didn't notice those barrels in the link provided are stackable.

When you think about it all you really need is a water supply and a drain which can usually be sourced on every level in the house (kitchen, airing cupboard, bathroom or loft in a typical house) even if it means utilising the outside guttering if you wished to instal it in your loft. Your not really limited to the length of piping that you can use so it shouldn't be an issue. 

If a pump is required just be very carefull what and how you fit it if its in a bathroom, preferably nothing higher than 24V with the transformer housed outside the bathroom area for safty reasons. Electricity and water don't mix and bathrooms are particularly prone to danger due to the damp air that occurs at bath/shower time and the naked wet flesh (oh er  ) hense pull cords and shaving transformers both of which keep you detatched from the electric. 

Another point worth consideration is that if your kitchen sink cupboard is anything like mine it will have an array of toxic chemicals stored in there and although unlikly if contamination were to happen it could easily prove to be fatal to the fish. IMO the easiest way would be to have a spilage of somthing like bleech which gets onto the output pipe which you then put into a barrel. But to be honest its more likely that my clumsy Mrs would damage the unit by stuffing to many empty carrier bags in there, honestly we have bags in bags in bags in bags for what reason I have no idea. :?  :?  

Regards, Chris.


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## Ed Seeley (16 Jun 2009)

I have a 100l slimline water butt fitted with an automatic top-up valve that shuts the RO unit off once it's full.  I was always flooding the garage before!  I have a full-bore tap at the bottom to allow the water out rapidly to fill 25l water containers to move the water to the tanks.  Dead easy and quick and no waiting around for containers to fill.


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## bazz (16 Jun 2009)

Ed Seeley said:
			
		

> I have a 100l slimline water butt fitted with an automatic top-up valve that shuts the RO unit off once it's full


hi ed,
i don't suppose you could leak anymore info on the shut off valve at all please? i have the same water butt in my kitchen, and it would be nice to be fully automated without risk of flooding!
cheers and thanx in advance,
bazz!


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## amy4342 (16 Jun 2009)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Auto-Shut-Off-Kit ... 7C294%3A50
this is the one I use in my vat. It works lovely and it's easy to intstall


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## Bluedave (17 Jun 2009)

I just use 5 gallon (25 litre)water barrells - like the larger camping ones.


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## Ed Seeley (17 Jun 2009)

bazz said:
			
		

> Ed Seeley said:
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> 
> 
> ...



I got mine from RO man but they don't seem to list it any more as a complete kit.  It looks the same as the one in the Ebay link above.  A small float valve sits in the barrel and the shut off valve is plumber into the pipework.  Dead easy to fit and worth every penny.  The only thing I'd change on my system is to fit a larger Hose Pour Tap.  These have a ball valve in them so that they allow the water to flow freely when open and won't block.  They also open and close with just a quarter turn of the handle so they are very quick to turn on and off preventing floods!


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## davideyre (18 Jun 2009)

thanks for all the replies - much better advice than my wife's suggestion of a toilet cistern above the tank full of ro water, and the pushing flush to fill the tank after a water change!!

have also looked at loft water tanks - these seem a bit cheaper the ro-man tanks, but would work similarly to ed's waterbutt.


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## chriscrook4750 (16 Oct 2009)

most garden centres sell rain water barrels ideal


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## Ed Seeley (16 Oct 2009)

chriscrook4750 said:
			
		

> most garden centres sell rain water barrels ideal



Some water butts are made from rather low-grade recycled plastic that are said to release compounds into the water.  I'd be wary of using them for RO water.


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