Rain Barrels
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Rain Barrels
Posted by R-N on March 25, 2023 at 8:53 pmWhat is the best way to connect multiple rain barrels to prevent them from over flowing?
R-N replied 1 year, 7 months ago 17 Members · 26 Replies -
26 Replies
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I went with a 1000 gal tank 🙂 with a rain event there can be a deluge of water and a 55 gal will fill up fast. I have seen people link several together, but I guess you have to plan on where the water will go once they are all full. You can design and over flow that pipes to another locations once the barrels are full.
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I made a simple system in two different places on my house where the rain pours down heavily. Didn’t want to mess with downspouts since I don’t already have them, so I covered the “catcher” barrel (actually $20 WalMart trash cans) with window screen secured with a bungee cord. I followed the directions from this YT video to cut holes and connect them, using the linked gaskets he recommended and mounted a spigot at one end from which to fill my watering cans.
I have 7 barrels, in one spot and on the other side of the house I had room and attached 14 together = 21 x 32 gallons each trash can allows me to store 672 gallons of rainwater!
I will say they were tough to assemble because it’s hard to get the pipes in those gaskets, but we’ve had no leaks whatsoever!
Video link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BI6LPNxFPdU
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I bought the exact ones he linked in the YT video, from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072QR9KR6/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=purposedri002-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B072QR9KR6&linkId=e01d7ce56ed3b92eb5a541c9e5428319
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Sorry, I just copied it from the YT video so I could get a reply out quickly. When you’re trying to figure something out, you want answers fast! 🙂
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Thank you LotsaKidz! That was exactly what I was asking. Thank you for all the info! Have a great and wonderful day!
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I use one of these 42 gallon Brute cans as a reservoir for my chicken nipple watering system. Works well and no light can penetrate to grow algae.
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That’s awesome! How do you keep leaves and pine straw out of your gutters, so it does not clog up into your barrows?
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What kind of trash cans? I noticed he used brute but will any brand work or are they not strong enough?
- This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Bonnie-Blue.
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I used these from WalMart. I’ve used them as real trash cans for years, so I knew they were sturdy, and I’ve had this system going since last summer and all can were full and no leaks or bulges or collapses, so I’m pleased.
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We use ibc 1000 l tanks, if you can get your hands on them.
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can you retrospectively paint them? our unpainted one ended up with about 6 inches of sludge in the bottom and it would clog the tap. Since then our new ones we take the tank out of the frame, wrap in black plastic and put back in the frame, so far so good
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You can buy a fitted black outdoor UV “fabric” cover on Amazon with the hole/flap in the top and Velcro or zipper closures costing US $15-20. Hubby tried spray painting one black and after one can decided it wasn’t worth his time or the cost to paint it.
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I would like to interject a possibility here, for those that end up with significant Alge or inches of “sludge” in the system.
Perhaps, it has less to do with light than with “nutrient load”Alge is alive, it needs to eat. If there is little or no food, no amount of light will produce significant populations of Alge.
Start at the roof (material is less important than many think, but not completely irrelevant) and determine how many places material such as leaves, dust, etc there are (if any) to remove it prior to arriving in the tank.
One of the below leaf diverters in line between the gutter downspout and the tank (preferably at a level you can easily and often walk by and check if it needs to be cleaned off) has two screens, one to stop leaves and larger bits, and one to trap much smaller material) as well as a 1mm-ish where the water drops into the tank (as well as ANY place bugs or other critters might possibly be able to access the innards of the tank) should suffice.
Keep the nutrient load low, and there should not be alge. There will (and should) be a biofilm on the inside surfaces of the tank, and at the air/water interface, and yes there should be a small sludge layer at the bottom. These are normal, these are good, and these are layers of organisms that trap and possibly eat those nutrients or heavy metals thereby cleaning the water. Just make sure not to pull the water out right at the bottom (sucking in sludge), keep it about 4 inches above the bottom, and not pulling from a location that would suck in that very top biofilm layer. Those layers, if tested, SHOULD have higher levels of the icky stuff, which means they are working to keep them out of the water column you draw from.
Oh, and dumping chemicals in to kill stuff, disrupts this. If you’re needing chemicals.. something else is wrong upstream in the system.
Annual cleaning, should not be needed either.
For those wishing more than just my say so, I’ll put a reply to this reply with sources.
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Thank you for the additional information. Very helpful.
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We had three black IBC totes and two clear. We bought black covers for the white ones
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