treating and storing rainwater - Orchid Board

RJSquirrel · #1 08-21-2010, 06:09 AM

Any of YOU treat and store rainwater?..
How long can it go untreated stored?
Should it even be treated?
What do YOU treat it with?
Been trying to find good material for rainwater collectors. Of course RW is about as pure water as you can possibly get before it lands on your roof goes down the gutter and into your receptacle. Thats where you pick up stuff you dont want on your plants. I never thought about birds/mammals/reptiles/ crapping all over the roof or fungus, mold and leaf rot just hanging out in your gutters. Or even parts of one them JET blue ice cubes dropping in off a plane...( uh thats not an asteroid son, thats a giant turd). Your collected RW picked it up, then you pick it up, and then your plants pick it up...
In ag areas you could have lots of nitrates and pesticides in the RW. In the city you could have more suspended particulate matter (smoke dust soot etc etc and junk from no telling what else.
I dont want to disinfect the water with chlorine as The use of chlorine to disinfect RW combines with any decaying organic matter to form trihalomethanes which cause cancer in lab rats..(mcdonalds causes cancer in lab rats too...).. I dont want to drink the water its just for plants but I never knew you could collect so much more than RW with RW.

Any clues here please fill me in and help a clueless RW collector figure out how to keep his precious supply of good ole durty south texas RW safe for plants and thank you again!!!

cb977 · #2 08-21-2010, 08:21 AM

I have 3 rainbarrels around the house and we keep a rack full of gallon jugs full of RW. I go through it rather quickly, using about 8 a day, but I never treat it with anything. After a while, some of the jugs start looking a little green and they get tossed. Haven't seen any ill effects

Ray · #3 08-21-2010, 10:36 AM

If you keep it out of the sun, it should last for a very long time without issue.

When I lived in KY, it was very common for homes to have underground cisterns to collect rainwater for household use.

If you have to treat it to keep crud at bay, I'd think a small amount of Physan or bleach would do the trick nicely.

cb977 · #4 08-21-2010, 10:49 AM

Forgot: I do add a little bleach to the misting system container in the room. I don't use it every day so by the time I fill it with fresh water the bleach has dissipated.

Gin · #5 08-21-2010, 03:55 PM

Mine is collected from the greenhouse roof pumped out of the catch barrel into 33 gal trash cans with lids there is a mosquito dunk in each can from there it is moved into the green house into another 33 gal trash can .

RJSquirrel · #6 08-21-2010, 11:28 PM

using a small amount of bleach or physan isnt a bad idea for the small amounts that I'm using which is about 5 to 7 gallons a day...Haven''t had any KNOWN issues. Just had a small fungus outbreak that took a few plants down fast and trying in the future to reduce any issues with my space. I didn't know until this week how fast a fungus can spread and trash plants in a tight area..My watering habits seem to be the culprit bec I didnt have any issues with the plants before I started using RW that had been stored in the cabinets. If the containers weren't cleaned out and sterilized with steaming bleach there chance of just about anything growing in there..Me playing with "mycorrizhael fungus spores" being the Mad Scientist probably didnt help any at all...

thakshila smith · #7 08-22-2010, 04:05 AM

I pour tap water to the plants. That full of chlorine . You may having lot of space to keep rainwater . Gallons gallons of them. When you run short of RW what do you do?
I have checked that plants grow very faster and bigger when in the rainy season. There is another method we use rain water.
We can dig deep wells or shallow wells and rain water is collected in that. Just like " jack and Jill went up the hill " story.
And we draw from the well . Before the tap water came we use that way. No chlorine .No fungus.
Sue, you prefer rain water bec it is minus any preserver ?
I must repair my well soon.

RJSquirrel · #8 08-22-2010, 08:09 AM

well water is too hard, well too shallow, need to dig deeper to find better water and deeper into pockets more deep well is

RosieC · #9 08-23-2010, 08:00 AM

I've only just started collection rainwater but so far I've not had to treat it.

I'm sort of keeping an eye on it to see if I think it's going to need it but so far so good.

Poison Ivy · #10 08-24-2010, 10:18 PM

I have those rain barrels to collect water from my gutters, and a few 5 gallon buckets to collect water where the trees drip off most.
I keep mine shaded, so they don't go green (grow algea), and keep covered to misquitoes can't lay eggs in them