Grey water to reed bed to AP

[jackalope]

Btw... How come you say you guys in the States are behind on this grey-water usage thing...
I thought you chaps invented the idea

Since most of the people who make up the sanitation codes and building codes have taken control, we aren't allowed to re-use our gray-water in most cities/counties/states. They've decided that gray-water is more toxic than sewage, so we can't have our sewer separated from the gray-water. When I was a kid, in the '40's and 50's, we ran the gray-water direct to the gardens and fruit trees - and no one ever seemed to get sick from it ..... amazing what new technology and a college education can destroy! I like your idea of using reeds to clean that water ..... if I could grow a garden here, I'd cut into my sewer pipes under the mobile home and I'd use the gray water to feed the garden and grow cat-tails in my back yard! Cat-tails are good eating, kinda like a cross between onions and garlics, as I remember. I could get away with that here, we only have a little over 100 people in town!

[jackalope]

I have to get used to the idea that I need to conserve water.
On the property that we have bought there are 4 houses on the land.
It's an agricultural piece of 3.5 hectares. Each house has it's own septic tank..... Each household has 5+ people living in.
My first concern or job that I will have to tackle there is the consumption of water.

This isn't entirely on topic as far as waste water, but it is on topic as far as water conservation
For collecting rainwater - Clik


Just another idea for you, like dennis was saying.

[wh33t]

Lets see if you guys can lead me with this one...

I have to get used to the idea that I need to conserve water.
On the property that we have bought there are 4 houses on the land.
It's an agricultural piece of 3.5 hectares. Each house has it's own septic tank..... Each household has 5+ people living in.
My first concern or job that I will have to tackle there is the consumption of water.
My idea is to collect all the grey water...( water from the shower, bathroom basin and washing machine) pipe it to an outside reed bed configuration where the water will flow and heal.
This I would like to then pipe back to the individual houses for the use in flushing the loo's. (this obviously becomes black water and is never used... (goes to the septic tank, same as the water from the kitchen sink and dish washer)

The extra water coming off the reed bed, I would like to have this then go into a a few settling ponds. With water cleaning reeds and marginal water flowers purifying the water.
From the settling pond I would then have the 'cleaned' water go into the main water pond.
This pond will be for the soul use for holding water.
This pond too will have reeds and oxygenating plants.
It is this water from the last stage pond that I want to use to supply the water to my AP/Hydroponic system.
So................there you have it so far.....
Has anyone used a reed bed to 'clean' grey-water? If so i'd love to see or hear of your set up.
Please let me know if i'm crazy to even think I could do this......I believe it's possible....
I just have to get the system figured out....
Any comments?

Check into Earth Ships. They have the whole process you've described built right into their homes. Great thread topic! I learned a lot about!

I'm really interested in Duckweed. I may go scavenge a bunch from the wild.

[redd]

Lets see if you guys can lead me with this one...

I have to get used to the idea that I need to conserve water.
On the property that we have bought there are 4 houses on the land.
It's an agricultural piece of 3.5 hectares. Each house has it's own septic tank..... Each household has 5+ people living in.
My first concern or job that I will have to tackle there is the consumption of water.
My idea is to collect all the grey water...( water from the shower, bathroom basin and washing machine) pipe it to an outside reed bed configuration where the water will flow and heal.
This I would like to then pipe back to the individual houses for the use in flushing the loo's. (this obviously becomes black water and is never used... (goes to the septic tank, same as the water from the kitchen sink and dish washer)

The extra water coming off the reed bed, I would like to have this then go into a a few settling ponds. With water cleaning reeds and marginal water flowers purifying the water.
From the settling pond I would then have the 'cleaned' water go into the main water pond.
This pond will be for the soul use for holding water.
This pond too will have reeds and oxygenating plants.
It is this water from the last stage pond that I want to use to supply the water to my AP/Hydroponic system.
So................there you have it so far.....
Has anyone used a reed bed to 'clean' grey-water? If so i'd love to see or hear of your set up.
Please let me know if i'm crazy to even think I could do this......I believe it's possible....
I just have to get the system figured out....
Any comments?

A very inspiring idea. I'm glad to have found your post. Using grey water is a great way to conserve water. I think your idea of a reed bed is perfect.

[rfeiller]

Redd welcome to the forum!

how about going to the thread "a place to say hello" and introduced yourself. Thanks

[Julian]

Ju

Lets see if you guys can lead me with this one...

I have to get used to the idea that I need to conserve water.
On the property that we have bought there are 4 houses on the land.
It's an agricultural piece of 3.5 hectares. Each house has it's own septic tank..... Each household has 5+ people living in.
My first concern or job that I will have to tackle there is the consumption of water.
My idea is to collect all the grey water...( water from the shower, bathroom basin and washing machine) pipe it to an outside reed bed configuration where the water will flow and heal.
This I would like to then pipe back to the individual houses for the use in flushing the loo's. (this obviously becomes black water and is never used... (goes to the septic tank, same as the water from the kitchen sink and dish washer)

The extra water coming off the reed bed, I would like to have this then go into a a few settling ponds. With water cleaning reeds and marginal water flowers purifying the water.
From the settling pond I would then have the 'cleaned' water go into the main water pond.
This pond will be for the soul use for holding water.
This pond too will have reeds and oxygenating plants.
It is this water from the last stage pond that I want to use to supply the water to my AP/Hydroponic system.
So................there you have it so far.....
Has anyone used a reed bed to 'clean' grey-water? If so i'd love to see or hear of your set up.
Please let me know if i'm crazy to even think I could do this......I believe it's possible....
I just have to get the system figured out....
Any comments?

[Julian]

Hi head rush
my post seems to have come unstuck. Anyway my question to you is. We are retiring to Great Brak soon and we are building a new house there. I very much want to install a grey water system leading into a small ground dam with reeds which can be used for garden irrigation and as a pond for fish and water birds. Now have you got anywhere with your design and application of a grey water system. If so are you prepared to share any of your info as we are not very far from Plett. Thanks for all forum chat.
Julian

[foodchain]

I have/am doing something similar now with my pond. Not using grey water, but using the pond's reeds, cattails, and assorted plants to purify the water as the bioload exceeds what I can use in my growbeds. I effectively created my own nasty grey water with an excessive bio load. When I tried to use the grobeds by themselves they ended up not being enough. So a smaller pre bed if you will went in, and solved my problems. Got nice flowers too. Different plants though absorb at different rates.
Pick your plants!
In marine systems I have used all kinds of Macro algaes, mangroves, etc and even algae screens in a screen filter like setup to achieve this.
In Paddlefish production, I have seen duckweed used. Also seen water treatment plants try duckweed as well at some of the plants I worked at as a commercial diver. Why the engineers put all the valve handles at the bottom of the crap tanks I have no idea, but they kept me employed.

In MY opinion, you have a good idea, however it's not going to be for water conservation. And here's why: Look at the surface area of the water ponds you are talking about, look at your weather and you're going to lose a lot to evaporation, transpo evaporation, etc.
Now add in the pumps it's gonna take to do this, and have them big enough to compensate for the resistance of the pipes, head pressure, etc.

doable, yes. Practical, not so sure. I guess this would depend on the elevation and fall your property has. I think its a good idea, but more for general conservation as you are effectively creating a "wet land" and as such increasing environmental habitat. Though would be then in theory taking habitat from whatever is there now.

If you wanted it or not, with large bodies of water wildlife comes, this CAN be an added benefit or a nuisance depending on your view. Ducks will show up. Frogs, with all thier noises will show up. If this bothers you, you have to give this some thought. For me, I love it and bought the ducks I wanted rather than letting ferral ones move in. But you need to give it some thought none the less.
IF you have enough fall, consider a hydrogenerator. There are micro ones available that may not produce a huge amount of energy, but they help reduce the opporating costs.

SOME people in the US are using grey water for such purposes, and just not advertising it.

[Bioritize]

If you believe it is possible it IS!!!

Go for it man. I have plans to do something similar with our new piece of heaven. We are filling our first pond right now with the seasonal irrigation water that comes down from our mountains. It currently runs through a few reed beds and into the first pond. I have all sorts of ideas I would like to try, one uses a micro hydro generator due to the fact that we have more than 100 feet of fall from the top of the pipe to where it dumps out.

Go for it bro, the more notes and pictures you take the better we can learn and help you with it.

[Kaisei13]

Hello everyone, I found this thread while researching greywater systems and thought the idea for adding in a aquaponics systems was great. Here is a quick drawing I made of my idea and I would love any feedback (negative comments are welcome!!) you could give.