@clarkinks at my heavy truck shop i did all of my fueling from the totes. I figured it was cheaper than paying the drivers to drive to certain stations and paying them to fuel the trucks. So for sure they will hold diesel fuel for 5 years at least. Fuel has went up 5X as much since then $1 per gallon to now $5.
Also i had one tote that i used for waste oil from the oil changes etc. I sold it yearly to a recycler.
If a plastic or metal tank is leaking at a seam etc. See this instructional
https://growingfruit.org/t/water-tank-repairs/46993
It sounds like since you have some experience with these you know the value of the totes.
Anyone using totes?
I am. I use two totes to catch the rain of a 24x26 foot garage. I inch of rain will fill them. I have them on the north side to minimize uv damage. I believe in time the uv will destroy them.
I have the bottom ports connected together and go through a strainer and then to a 3/4 hp pump. It will run two impulse type sprinklers. I also have the pump connected to a remote control. The remote works great when you want to walk around the yard watering plants.
i wonder if you painted them with white or light colored krylon fusion paint, it would prolong their life? i would think it would take a long time in indirect light to break down that paint.
I think that would help a lot. The paint would have to be flexible.
its acrylic so i think it would be.
I have about 10 totes I use to collect rainwater off an outbuilding. Some of them are wrapped in vinyl pool liner, from when our pool sprung a leak. You can cover quite a few totes with a 20x40’ pool liner - I take out the plastic ‘bottle’, wrap it, and then shove it back in the cage. That keeps the vinyl in place, more or less. It’s not 100% opaque, but I only use the totes to water plants, and the liner seems to be opaque enough that algae growth is minimal. Pool liner is UV resistant, obviously. My outbuilding has a forklift, so I probably use my totes different that most people, in that I fill them directly at the downspouts, and then forklift them to where i want them.
In addition to pool liner, which you can get used for free, if the person is also getting rid of the pool itself, you can probably use the rigid side paneling, which is solid metal. Use self tapping screws to screw it to the outside of the cage. I haven’t gotten around to that yet. Other possible free sources I’ve considered are old worn out tarps, and used billboard vinyls. All of which should be UV treated. I’ve never trusted paint to stay on well, and I don’t want thousands of paint chips spread all over my property by wind.
One thing I’d point out, is that last I looked, all the pre-made hose adapters you can buy online use a severely necked down nozzle, like Clarke showed above in the OP. So you’re getting like 25% of the flow rate of the garden hose itself. I recommend (and use) the American Valve M71QTM. I used it to directly replace the hose bibs that my adapters came with. In general, search for “full flow” fittings. They’re annoyingly few.
We would not ever want all this dirt entering our storage so filtering before hand is necessary if you use the water inside. In my instance im watering plants so i dont care but thought i would show you.
I have left over black weed barrier landscaping fabric, do you all think that would be adequate to wrap and tape around the totes to block light? I would like to use what I have before investing in pond liner which from what I’ve read is the longest lasting…
Thanks!
If you don’t care about looks, you could do a tarp, or go to goodwill and grab some blankets, or check Facebook marketplace or a local buy nothing interest group.
If you’ll just be using them for watering plants, I would think it would be enough. I use pool liner (like from and above-ground pool) which is translucent, and it keeps the algae much lower than with no liner. Basically it just gets a little bit of algae stuck to the walls, but not enough to clog up the nozzle or pipes. If you’ll be drinking it though, I don’t know.
So are the advantages of ibc tanks the fact that they’re readily available and if maintained properly food grade safe?
I worked for a vertical grower that would store their reverse osmosis H2O in one…it was a small operation and 275 gallons lasted a while.
I worked for a larger non vertical grower (we’re talking lettuce, greens and tomatoes here, not the other stuff) that had an underground rigid plastic tank that measured in the thousands of gallons…their whole line to the public was they recycled their nutrient solution…in that grower’s defense, they tried really hard…the place was in PA…you know what likes PA?..deer, trees, some humans…oh and fungal diseases like pythium which like to hide out in tanks that recycle water and nutrients…
I interned at Living with the with the Land in Epcot…they didn’t recycle their water or nutrient solution for a reason…
So I have 925 peach trees on close to 4 acres of land… I would need a series of 275 gallon ibc tanks to provide enough H2O to get my trees through a dry spell like we had from March through last week…I was thinking if I ever got my irrigation act together it would make more sense for me personally to have one H2O tank measuring in the thousands of gallons…
I agree i have an acre and a half pond which is where most of my water is caught. These tanks are for roof rainwater catchment. It will be used on the gardens etc… it is incredibly useful to have a few thousand gallons of water around for the garden, small trees etc… These will be just over 500 gallons for now. https://growingfruit.org/t/ponds-are-a-great-investment/7033
I did this last year. One mans junk can become something useful to another man.
That’s Junk!
No it’s not, it’s a water buffalo.
I routed my chicken coop tin roof rainbarrel water to a fountain auto fill for the chickens after filtering. I don’t know if that’s kosher, but it works for me.
It’s always a struggle to keep algae from growing in the summer although its not in the sunlight. I’m thinking of trying a little bit of barley straw inside but not sure. I read it’s not bad for the chickens but I need more info. It has worked well for the birdbath but can discolor the water just a bit. A girl who works at the local co-op told me they use it for all the animal’s water on their farm.
Has anyone used it?
BTW we looked everywhere for those ibc totes secondhand but never found one. Shout out to Mike at 39th Parallel for helping you!
I use my tote for watering all the time. We don’t collect rainwater; I just fill it from the well and water at the orchard or the big garden when planting out. It’s currently in the dump trailer serving bonfire duty as we burn the piles of slabs from the sawmill. Around here these totes are plentiful as the metal cages are used to store firewood; we have 20 of them for wood. They’re set up to be moved by pallet forks in a warehouse setting and that becomes handy for moving firewood or water if your tractor has a loader strong enough to lift the weight. These are light enough that I can roll the empty tote backwards into the truck bed, slide it back and then turn it upright again. Then I fill it with a garden hose and use it where I don’t have a water source. I think this is a 230 gal tote and I wouldn’t want this full in the bed of a 1/2 ton pickup, even our old 3/4 ton squats with it and on the side of a slope it feels worse than it really is.
I don’t think they will last more then 2 or 3 years without UV protection. They sell covers on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Barlic-IBC-Tote-Garden-Gallon/dp/B0B4W9TQK8/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1KVFTQXK5IHH4&keywords=icb%2Btote%2Bcover&qid=1688223742&sprefix=icb%2Btot%2Caps%2C207&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1
