Looking to upgrade to manly size reservoirs. Suggestions?

[DrFever]

I would do everything I could to minimize any "point loads"...orienting large tanks so they span several joists, preferably over a load bearing wall below but i think depending on how old the house is 3500 - 4500 pounds i think would be a safe marker 18 - 30 people jumping up n down on top floor all day wouldn't bring the house crashing down many people set up gyms upstairs with just that 2000 pounds pluss what do you think a waterbed weights in at ??? you think ppl put water beds upstairs a king size water bed can hold 235 gallons depending on manufacturer could weight over 2000 pounds easy

 

[queequeg152]

I understand. Well I guess that is out as far as the upstairs thing goes. Would be workable in the basement on the concrete.


I want to be able to house a large volume of RO for use without too much complexity. I've looked to dosers with concentrated stock tanks and such, but what about the RO? My RO wouldn't be fast enough to do any inline injection. I'm sure there are options available for quick RO, but that sounds extremely expensive.

Also like lots of water in case I have to leave for a little while. I've ran blumats in a 5k garden off of 3 raised 55 Gal barrels circulating with another lower 100 gal farm tank and was able to leave for almost 10-13 days without missing a beat. Obviously nobody wants to leave a grow unattended for a multitude of reasons, but a week or a little more is sometimes unavoidable.

if you truely need so much ro water i would suggest you invest
(yes it will be a nice chunk) in a pressure boosted system.

the local pet store by my office has a 1000gpd system with a 35 gallon pneumatic accumulator that serves their huge assortment of salt water fish tanks.

i think this is the unit they have.
http://www.watts.com/pages/_products_details.asp?pid=5607

you can pressure boost an under sink system, and add additional membranes in parallel, but that will yields little given the diminutive size of the under sink membranes.

alternatively, reevaluate the need for RO water.
barring some fairly extreme water quality issues, most tap waters are wholly suitable for hydroponics.
with that said,where i live. our water contains something like 900mg/l sodium. this water will kill perennial flower beds if one is not careful.
this summer, i will collect ac condensate and rain for my DTW fertigation system.

alternativly you can set up a 60+ gallon accumulator for your ro system. during irrigation events you can draw down larger far far larger volumes than your ro unit could provide. this will require a reasonable pump however.

alternatively you can blend ro with tap water. you just need to build a manifold equipped with rota meters and good gate valves, or even better true proportioning valves.

 

[theother]

Yea, that's what got me thinking all of this upstairs stuff. I'm a blumat guy and just happen to have an upstairs laundry room which I've used for RO watering making purposes in the past. I've also done several circulating SWC hydro setups in which I used gravity and multiple floors to achieve things. Just never on a larger scale.

I need to top feed an 8k coco garden and making everything as turnkey as possible for a caretaker. I typically like to have the same amount of RO already made as what my nute rez would hold. When nute rez is empty caretaker pushes button (or opens valve) to replenish nute rez with RO, addback Jacks + Calnit, and that work is done for another 7 days or so. Flinging pumps around from multiple rez makes a mess so I like to make it essentially a one step process.

Bulk RO, Bulk Jacks rez, and the ability to feed 72 plants under 8000w sealed w/co2 in 2 Gal coco pots multiple times a day to run-off.
Any ideas is appreciated. Will prolly just go with linked Toter 96 Gal cans or regular 100 Gal hydro rez (already own 1).

What does your tap water look like? It might be possible to run a couple of good sized sediment filters and a carbon filter inline and still have enough pressure for the injection system. I don't think it cleans the water a ton but it definitely removes some, maybe an inline uv filter to handle any bacterial stuff. I feel your pains on ro, it sucks storing it.

 

[DrFever]

found this interesting as per code its measured by pounds per sq foot

http://www.african-cichlid.com/Structure.htm
and another thing popped in my mind older homes were made of oak solid woods

todays new homes are made from soft wood

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. All good feedback here. Sorry if I derailed your thread a bit Smurf with my needs.

Tap water at the 8k coco basement project is kind of shitty. 280ppm +
I know people who work with it, but I just try to eliminate those factors from my gardens. I like using RO. I'll be mixing Jacks + CalNit so I guess I should just try it and see.

My personal projects are well water at 420-620 ppm. I'm not sure what all it is as I haven't had it tested. I run it through a house sediment and merlin. It eats filters with a thick red cake/clay material. I've tried booster pump because of poor rates..also tried pairing with a tall blue but got water hammering (starved for water) even with the proper order of install (and several other attempts w/ various configs) . Would have to upgrade my main well pump I guess. I've turned up my pump pressure switch a hair and now just run merlin without the booster pump. It takes a while to fill a 55 gal barrel, but I'm not really paying for it and it's been adequate so far so long as I stay ahead of myself. Trying to feed 12 lights at times there have been some little close calls with available good water and ultimately long hours. Waiting and pump, mixing, etc, etc.

 

[the gnome]

here's a 400 Gallon Free Standing Water Tank 29"W x 65"H x 62"L

btw I use the brute 32 and 40gal trash cans, hdpe2,
I had 3 new ones in my room.
there's no off gassing ime.
I don't think those 96 gal cans are hdpe?
I'm not sure but I was looking at those and they may be made of a different material than the smaller Blue brutes

 

[theother]

here's a 400 Gallon Free Standing Water Tank 29"W x 65"H x 62"L

btw I use the brute 32 and 40gal trash cans, hdpe2,
I had 3 new ones in my room.
there's no off gassing ime.
I don't think those 96 gal cans are hdpe?
I'm not sure but I was looking at those and they may be made of a different material than the smaller Blue brutes

It's just a hunch but I believe they are hdpe, my experience is at 55 gallons hdpe holds water with more bulging than I really like to see, I suspect if they where ldpe they would just completely disto and spill. Of course whoever had them should check the tag.

I'm pretty happy with the 55's, what I do is just bulkhead the 55's together and then have a float valve fill hose at the top of one of them, I then have a 40 gallon brute up on a stand with a 750 gph pump inside it feeding out through the bulkhead at the bottom to my valve for filling and another bulkhead at the bottom that fills through the float valve at the top of one of the 55's. The ro goes first into the 40, then trickles down to the others. I can fill fast from the top can, and the pump is on a switched outlet with the lights in the mechanical room. If I need more than that 40 gallons I turn a pump on in the bottom of the 3 55 gallons and refil the 40. It's elaborate but I usually have all the water I need (just under 200 gallons)

On a side note I bought one of the mondi sump pumps for hand watering. The thing is incredible, absolutely produces an even stream through a watering wand. If I had it all to do over again I would have just used 4 of the 55's on the floor and one of those mondi pumps to fill up the nute res.

I can promise you this, the longer you do this the less you will like watchi res's fill slowly from gravity. I like to keep shit terrifyingly fast, keeps me from daydreaming I guess. I used to flood on the regularly because it took so long to fill shit that I would go do something else, that didn't turn out to work well for me.

Actually at one point we had a mechanical room with a pond liner on the floor that unintentionally held more water than I would have suspected.

 

[the gnome]

I use a std water pump for my hand watering in soil.
and I agree,--->fast!! its the only way to go

 

[cyat]

Ionic hardwater formula and tap!

 

[queequeg152]

good topic..

32 ladies in 3gl bags of pure coco under 8k.

how the fawk does one irrigate that?!

here's my attempt of a plan:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/attachment.php?attachmentid=344933View Image

155gl res.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/attachment.php?attachmentid=344934View Image
1HP portable utility pump

elemental solutions 1/2hp water chiller hooked up to a 1110gph water pump inside the res.

1/2hp utility pump as a waterfall to circulate everything 24/7..

yfilter, backflow preventer, 1/2 pvc all the way, riser sticks to 4 port octobubblers for each table, will be running in a large rectangle spanning 20x1.5ft that comes back to the pump..

questions:

-I'm looking for a programmable timer that is by the second for the feed pump..any one have good feedback on one they like?

-I have never ran a pump outside of a tank, always inside. Any tips or pointers to keep everything running smoothly? I have seen diagrams putting a filter in between the pump and the tank. Is this necessary?

-I really want to use some type of mister setup, the tee at the end of 1/4 tubing does not water the coco evenly for me right now.. even two per plant.

-SANITATION, please, I need to know how to keep this tank as clean as possible, only two hands making shit happen around here and very little space..vinegar or bleach? how do I keep the drip lines clean?

-I'm running jacks/calnit/fulpower only from start to finish. nothing else except some root bloom and vam in the coco. My only concern is the fulpower. I'd rather only use it as a foliar and maybe every time the res is running low and I'm going to clean it.... I run it at 5ml/gl now from a-z and it works fine but thinking about cutting it out in the res for this large a tank to keep things simple and easier to clean makes sense.

-would running a pump outside the res for the water chiller be more effective? If so will it require another filter in between the tank/pump/chiller. I do know that the pumps I use in-tank currently get dirty very fast.

-am I wasting my life with the chiller...haha! I have heard many negative comments about them, plus its going to be outside the room for a change in an area that stays around 70. I enjoy lowering the temps down to 55 in the last week though, they always frost up and finish nicer when I use one. Its just the damn mess they make that makes me question its use...




time to smoke a bowl...

its really not that much water to be honest. you just have to alter your perspective a tiny bit...

sounds like you are trying to water the whole thing with high flow emitters all at once... instead imho you should be irrigating in zones of no more than 5gpm with a maximum of 6 zones.

why 5gpm and 6 zones? that is the practical limit of small booster pumps. 6 zones is the practical limit on cheap lawn irrigation systems.

i grew rockwool toms a few years back... 3 per slab. plants grew out to like 13 feet, pruned to a single vine, so these are not small plans mind you.

i forget the exact figures, but each slab got like 2/3rd of a a coke can of water per site per watering ycle. waterings were like 6 times per day, and once just before dawn.

the max gpm at any one irrigation was tiny. this had more to do with rockwool than it does the limitations of my pump though.

i always reccomend quality diaphragm pumps for this task because they are fantastic with their pump curves being near vertical... meaning the GPM value veries very little with respect to the pressure(total static pressure) of the system.

these pumps will happily hum along at 40-50, even 100+ psi if you wish... but most high flow pumps will not operate much beyond 60psi.

this amount of pressure allows you to use quality emitters like the netafim spray stakes(my fav.) and arrow emitters.

mind you these are lower flow emitters... single digit GPH for the most part save for the large nursury emitters. this means your irrigation cycle will be measured in minutes, not seconds depending on how frequently you are irrigating.

regarding your questions.

there is nothing wrong with the jet pump you are linking... its just ULTRA overkill.

jet pumps require priming so you must make sure it stays primed all the time or it will free wheel, possibly cooking the motor.

you need the pump at lower elevation than your minimum water level.

you dont really need a filter on the inlet side unless you are pumping trash water.... like form a leafy pool, or roof gutter or something like that.

agressive filters will reduce your flow rate considerably with this type of pump. just get a foot valve + coarse screen if you get anything. this will kill your check valve concern+ filter concern with one stone so to speak.

you can use any check valve you wish(you dont need one with a diaphragm pump). swing check valves foul less easily... so it might be the way to go with a organic soupy type mess.

i reccomend chlorine for sanitation. its cheap... VERY cheap, and the most effective provided you can dose reliably.

get a FAS-DPD test kit. i posted a while back regarding why the FAS test is far and away better... please google for those posts if you are interested in hearing my opinion.

if you have the cash... and the issue of sanitation is critical to you, consider getting a dosing pump.

reccomend the vanilla pulsatrons. get the smallest GPD rating you can find. you will probably have to dilute the bleach solution to reach an appropriate dosing ratio...mind you these things are designed to treat waste water effluent and well water. most are rated from 10-100gpd larger than that you usually find peristaltic pumps.

you can also get into a bellows type dosing pump... much simplier, but not cheaper from my experiance.

i have quite a few bellows pumps and they are lovely, but most lack ANY variability in flow rates. do not recommend one for this application.

im sorry... but chillers are fucking stupid. they can only be justified as a means to be 100% organic imho. even then, there are chemicals that work well enough to sanitize clog prone equipment that can still be considered organic.

if you maintain around 1ppm free chlorine, you should have little to no problems what so ever with biological fouling. problems occur when you dont chlorinate for long periods of time.

in the latter case you can build up biofilms that are heavily resistant to low level chlorination. you have to break up these biofilms, or pump more agressive levels of chlorine or perhaps even caustic cleaning solutions.

i just stopped chlorinating all together. i ran a batchwise rig. i just scrubbed out the reservoir every cycle... around 10-14 days.

my tap water is very hard. i fond that 99% of maintenance was due to calcium carbonate precipitation rather than biological fouling. its minimized by dropping the amount of calcium nitrate, and adding more HCl... but it still develops albeit at a slower rate.

the poly piping is so cheap i would just cut it out and re run the emitters on the new pipe. removing the barbed emitters from the polypipe is a huge bitch though. takes like an hour to remove them all and recover all of the hose clamps and barbed elbows, valves and cleanouts etc.

instead of replacing the poly pipe yo ucan jet out the pipe with high pressure water... this will remove like 60% of the calcium carbonate, but i just trashed the pipe.
you can also pump acid... but again too much work.

 

[queequeg152]

heres my old system in case you are interested.

im mostly linking it because it covers alot of what i was talking about. including those lovely netafim spray stakes.

in the thread i erroneously state they are 3gpm... they are 3gph.

http://thehotpepper.com/topic/34550-diy-fertigation-controller/

fwiw. i ended up abandoning the ec and ph control scheme... it simply would cost me too much money. i sat down one day and parted out what i would need for a real assembly with real parts and everything including valves and purging... check valves tubing and tools... was well over 500 bucks. just the cable i needed to interface that stupid PLC with my computer was going tobe like 40 bucks.

batchwise works fine though. like i said it was only every 10-14 days depending on season and plant maturity.

 

[queequeg152]

all this makes me want to just hand water twice a day without a chiller or anything...not trying to go crazy on this, just wanted a simple system with the right tricks to maintain it, but no way is any of that simple enough for me right now unfortunately...

thanks for the info Q..back to the drawing board.

im just bad at explaining shit really.
its not complicated at all. most of whats in that thread is related to the control of EC and PH automatically. like i was saying, you dont need to do any of that if you have a large enough reservoir.

its almost exactly the same thing as a hose fed drip irrigation system.
the only difference is the use of pump equipment to pressurize the system instead of municipal tap water. IMHO, controlling a pump is simple, just not idiot proof plug and play.

if you can figure out how to wire relays and shit for a lighting system... then you can easily wire something like pump control system.

the box you see mounted on that shitty OSB panel is a simple lawn irrigation controller i got on ebay for like 18 bucks or what ever... i dont remember. its mounted on OSB because this was basically a breadboard proof of concept build using scrap that i had hanging around.
i ended up ditching alot of the valving you see in favor of compactness and simplicity. what you are seeing as some complicated mess is really just a simple piping manifold that allowed me to send pressurized tap water to any of the zones manual. when yo ditch that, it becomes far simpler looking.

why did i go with a lawn irrigation controller rather than a drip irrigation controller?

because the lawn irrigation controller has what is called a master pump or just pump relay... basically the controller sends power to the pump relay like 1 second before sending power to the solenoid that lets water flow to a zone.

you dont even need a controller with a master pump relay... you can use something like a current sensing relay provided its sensitive enough, or just wire up a reg. relay that shares all of the zones line voltage such that it turns the pump on whenever any of the zones are active, but i digress...

this whole system imho is simpler than some of these elaborate power hungry systems people build.... RDWC, HPA, the thing with the ebb and flow buckets?

its just differs in that it requires a control scheme to run the pump equipment and solenoids. i get that you might be unfamiliar with relays and shit, but i promise you, if you wanted to you could build this easily, its stupid simple.