Garden Water Butt As Water Tank For Aquarium

[lgarvey]

Hi,

I bought a 100 litre slimline plastic garden water butt to store in my utility cupboard next to the washing machine. I plan to get an RO unit and have it filling the water butt, then use a pipe and a pump to get the water back into the tank when it's ready.

However, I didn't consider whether the plastic butt could in anyway contaminate the water? Ultimately I'm doing this so I can have much purer water, and healthier fish, so i want to make sure that nothing I'm using is going to cause problems.

It is the second item down on this page: http/www.waterbuttsdirect.co.uk/viewall.htm

Advise is much appreciated! =)

L

 

[Nick16]

watter butts are generally fine. the things to be careful off are.:

1) rotting leaves and other objects at the bottom of the butt releasing chemicals. so be sure to clean it out first.
2) the water will need filtering through some very fine mesh to remove any cr#p.
3) depending on where you are located the rain water can be very different to your tap water. where i am the tap water has a high GH whereas rain water is 'soft' so you have to bear in mind what fish you are keeping or want to keep and what type of water they prefer. also you cant chop and change between tap and rain if this is the case. it is the same for PH.

 

[DJ ArKaDaRkA]

watter butts are generally fine. the things to be careful off are.:

1) rotting leaves and other objects at the bottom of the butt releasing chemicals. so be sure to clean it out first.
2) the water will need filtering through some very fine mesh to remove any cr#p.
3) depending on where you are located the rain water can be very different to your tap water. where i am the tap water has a high GH whereas rain water is 'soft' so you have to bear in mind what fish you are keeping or want to keep and what type of water they prefer. also you cant chop and change between tap and rain if this is the case. it is the same for PH.

i thought about using one for waterchanges so i can just chuck bucketloads in and have a small pump, pump it in my tank so not too desturb things too much

or fill it and keep pumping water threw it all the time

 

[lgarvey]

That's great. Thanks.

The garden butt will actually live indoors next to my washing machine, but it has the right profile to fit in that space, hence me buying a garden butt. It'll be perfectly clean, and the water going into the butt will be RO mixed with some cichli salts.

My fish are going to love me, I think. Woot.

Cheers!

L

Ps. Yes. That's exactly the plan. I'll have an RO unit with an auto shut off sat on top of the water butt filling it up. I'll have a small pump and a 7 meter pipe. Once a week i'll turn it on, fill the tank with water, add the cichlid salts. I'll leave it to stand for the night so that it will come up to ambient room temperature (I could also put an aqauarium heater in there if it really needs it), and then the next day I'll do a water change and fill teh tank directly from the butt.

I have a pretty efficient procedure to getting the water out of the tank too. I have a large gravel vac connected to a length of hose pipe that I put out of teh window and directly into the gutter. I'm determined to never have to lug any buckets!