Rain barrels

[tjudy]

I am going to install some rain collection devices on my gutters, and I am researching the best way to do that. I have 5 gutter zones on my house. My plan is to capture rain from all of them, but only one will be for aquarium use (I have far more perennials than I do fish). I have seen several different down spout diverters offered for sale. Some are simple and others are complex. If you are collecting rain I would like to hear how you do it, especially if you are collecting for the fish. How do you guard against the collection of toxins and unwanted microorganisms during the initial flush of effluent? Do you filter the water as it enters the barrel? Do you filter it later, or at all? Do tell...

 

[apisto-nut]

I filter after " before it enters the tank " with a carbon block run inline with the garden house and small pump .
I do this to fill barrels in my basement used at a later time for WC's

 

[Iku]

Hi Tjudy
I collect rain water exactly from the roof of garage in center of Chicago. I use this water into my apsito tank from few months and never had any problems. I don't even filter it. Just pour into tank. I only add something to get lower pH.

 

[patriciathorney]

I have the same issue. But i think its a lot more easier if we filter the water as it enters the barrel.

 

[briztoon]

G'day Ted,

You can install a First Flush Diverter. This makes sure "most" of the nasty stuff on the roof does not collect in the rain water tank. I don't prefilter my rain water tank water before using it. I use a 50/50 mix of rain water and tap water and hope the chlorine and chloramine takes care of any nasties in rain water. My fish still breed, and don't appear to have any health issues.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I've got some of my water butts with U-tube diverters like Briztoon's, and some with just a spur off from the down pipe. I've not noticed any difference in water quality, but it is useful to have a coarse screen somewhere to screen off the birds-nest, leaves etc. I seed all the water butts with Daphnia, this both trickle feeds the fish and also gives me a warning of any catastrophic loss of water quality (no Daphnia or dead Daphnia)

I've mainly got my water butts daisy chained together, this means that most of the sediment collects in the first butt, and I collect the water from the last butt in the chain. I link the butts at the bottom with taps, and this allows me to take one butt at a time for cleaning, with out losing all my water.

You can see the 2 barrels on the left of the picture are joined.

cheers Darrel