Waste water from an RO water purifier

Peanuts3

My husband recently set up a marine fish tank and has a water purifier. 

After me asking for a water butt for years he decided to get one and said he would link it up to the drainpipe for the garden and he would also put his waste water in there from the water purifer.

I've just clocked he has no intention of connecting it to the down pipe and it is just for his waste water and he wants me to use it on the garden.

There was me, thinking oh fab I'll have rain water for the garden and my plants will be so much better off for it, but now I'm thinking I'll just be using poorer quality water than that that comes from the hose.

Does anyone else use waste water from a purifier on their garden ? I need some persuading it isn't going to damage my plants.  I'd much rather use rain water :-( Really annoyed.

We are on light sandy soil as well so the garden benefits from being watered, although due to being on a water meter, I try and keep this to a minimum. 

Any advice gratefully received. Thank you.

Dovefromabove

A marine fish tank ... very beautiful .... but won't that be salt water???  Not good for your plants 

Peanuts3

No he doesn’t add the salt until after he has purified it and he gets pure water. there is waste water which comes out of the purifier which  wI’ll have a higher concentrate of chemicals than tap water.  

fidgetbones

I would get the rain butt connected to the down pipes, and the waste water from the purifier down the drain.

Pete.8

Tap water contains all sorts of stuff. Local water authorities produce a 'list of ingredients' of their tap water. The ingredients list for my tap water runs to 2 pages.
The RO system is designed to remove most of these ingredients leaving very 'clean' water

The runoff contains the stuff that the RO membrane has removed.
It depends on the efficiency of the RO system, they use a lot of water - I think it's something like 10+gallons to produce 1 gallon of RO water.
So it's not really that different from tap water - it just contains the extra ingredients that are now missing from the pure RO water that has been produced.

I'd say if there are plants you'd use tap water on, you'll be ok with the RO runoff

PS I'd LOVE a marine tank, they are amazing - but I'll will stick with my tropical fish for an easy life

Last edited: 20 January 2018 16:05:50

Dovefromabove

Peanuts3 says:

No he doesn’t add the salt until after he has purified it and he gets pure water. there is waste water which comes out of the purifier which  wI’ll have a higher concentrate of chemicals than tap water.  

See original post

 Right ... understand now .... thanks