Grey water into fish pond?

[Baht Man]

The cement rings are in and there is absoutly no way it will seep into the ground as it's all clay. The first set is 2M away from the fish pond (with an area from .75 to 1 rai) and supports the kitchen and one bathroom.

The second set supports a guest bathroom and the laundry room and is almost as close.

It's not practical to run field lines and if proves to be harmul to the fish, I'll uust have to pump it out to the patties when they get full.

There will be only two folks staying there, and an occasional guest.

Any thoughts??

[fatbob]

I gather you have a decent plot of land. Grey water, washing machine, hand basins, kitchen sink and showers run onto the garden or if you have a gutter out front take it there if you don't want it on the garden. Run each toilet to a separate double ring tank with an o'flow pipe 300mm from the top, solids stay in first tank, clear water runs to second tank. I have done it this way in my place and never needed to pump out, no smells or problems.

[Barney]

Baht Man,

I have been looking at various water system that I will build into my house design. Namely village water storage, storm water storage and grey water which should not be stored for any length of time but released often.
Any way I have been looking through a website that might be handy.

www.greywateraction.org

here's an excerpt from them below

Basic Greywater Guidelines

Greywater is different from fresh water and requires different guidelines for it to be reused.
1. Don’t store greywater (more than 24 hours). If you store greywater the nutrients in it will start to break down, creating bad odors.
2. Minimize contact with greywater. Greywater could potentially contain a pathogen if an infected person's feces got into the water, so your system should be designed for the water to soak into the ground and not be available for people or animals to drink.
3. Infiltrate greywater into the ground, don’t allow it to pool up or run off (knowing how well water drains into your soil (or the soil percolation rate of your soil) will help with proper design. Pooling greywater can provide mosquito breeding grounds, as well as a place for human contact with greywater.
4. Keep your system as simple as possible, avoid pumps, avoid filters that need upkeep. Simple systems last longer, require less maintenance, require less energy and cost less money.
5. Install a 3-way valve for easy switching between the greywater system and the sewer/septic.
6. Match the amount of greywater your plants will receive with their irrigation needs.

[Baht Man]

I gather you have a decent plot of land. Grey water, washing machine, hand basins, kitchen sink and showers run onto the garden or if you have a gutter out front take it there if you don't want it on the garden. Run each toilet to a separate double ring tank with an o'flow pipe 300mm from the top, solids stay in first tank, clear water runs to second tank. I have done it this way in my place and never needed to pump out, no smells or problems.

The 2 grey water tanks are totally seperate from the twp pcv toilet systems.
I'm talking grey water only that will not perk.

The question really is what about overflow into the pond???

Forget the garden, forget gutters.

[fatbob]

If you put grey water into a fish pond it wont be a fish pond for long, the soaps will take out all the oxygen and the pond will stink, grey water has to run out onto the ground and be dispersed immediately.

[parrot]

Don't know how much land you have to play with but.......you could try a natural method of diluting the soap effects in grey water. Our grey water.....washing machine, showers, dishes' flows into an area where we planted pandanus ใบเตย. The plant loves moist areas, spreads easily, and can be used in a variety of ways.....natural green dye, food flavoring, room fresheners, floral arrangements. I don't have the source available......but many years ago when we noticed some ill smells from the run off area, I came across something on the internet that suggested pandanus. After the plants took hold, the smell cleared up and has not returned. I don't know if the same idea could be applied to your question......but it might be worth some research/testing. Will it be FDA approved? Probably not......but then 99+% of Thais don't wash their dishes in hot water.....and yet.....remarkably....they live another day.

A couple of lessons we've learned about grey water......be sure your family keeps food scraps from flowing down the drain......even tiny rice bits. Easy to do with a good wire screen at the drain hole. Wipe plates/frying pans of any remnants of cooking oil with tissue (throw into the garbage) before washing. Buy a liter of EM (effective microorganisms), available at the gardening stores on Makkaeng Rd, a liter of black molasses, and mix up a monthly batch of EM to pour down your drains. And finally, no fair peeing while taking a shower.

A few weeks ago, out of nowhere, a pair of mangrove pita birds set up shop in the pandanus.......raised a few chicks.....and have since flown off.
Good luck with dealing with your grey water.

[qon]

It is a good idea to add a small pit or grease trap in between the kitchen and the tanks, with a mesh basket for easily removal of solids that make way down the kitchen drain. It also helps preventing food reaching the rats and pests, I read somewhere rats and mice are territorial and lazy animals, they prefer to live only within 100m of their food source.
Deal with any septic with chemicals separately from organic, chemicals will slow or kill organisms that break down the waste, when well balanced there is no smell, lots of methane. The run off water looks clear enough but don't use it on your vegie patch, specially leafy legume, due to possible high E. coli bacteria. Run off grey water has to go somewhere, poor lower land people! in dense area dispersion pipes must be designed in the system, under ground if possible, surface run off can be unsightly and smell. Unlike the locals, who like to hide their septic tanks in the back of the house, we put it right at the front (land fall permitting) for easy servicing, hidden behind bushes. We put the kitchen septic at the rear with buried concrete dispersion pipes.

[rick]

With 1 rai of water pollution from the grey water is unlikely to be an issue unless there is a lot of it - also take into account what chemicals go into it. Oxidation ponds successfully treat full blown effluents in many warm countries and outflows from them are used for fish farming. Also you say only overflow. If overflowing regularly, I would actually deliberately dig a shallow channel about 1 metre wide from each tank to the pond and fill with gravel and plant something like sugarcane, reeds or some such plant. By the time the water actually reaches the pond it will be half clean all ready and filtered.

all Our grey water just empties into a bare ditch which then runs through some banana trees to join up with the gutter in the road; it only makes it that far in the wet season. Usually soaks in after 3 or 4 metres. Been doing that for a long time and only the first few metres are dirty. One of the improvements on the list is to build a small sump to catch waste food and then gravel it in.

[maaka]

on the rock where I have my island cabin, some dudes in regards septic, pump the liquids thru shallow underground plastic pipes, which have sprinkers heads at certain distances. This is all covered with earth mounds, or bunding...then they plant it with wetland plants, to help soak up the liquid, and help filter it all as well...

me I will try whats in the diagram

[Baht Man]

It is a good idea to add a small pit or grease trap in between the kitchen and the tanks, with a mesh basket for easily removal of solids that make way down the kitchen drain. It also helps preventing food reaching the rats and pests, I read somewhere rats and mice are territorial and lazy animals, they prefer to live only within 100m of their food source.
Unlike the locals, who like to hide their septic tanks in the back of the house, we put it right at the front (land fall permitting) for easy servicing, hidden behind bushes. We put the kitchen septic at the rear with buried concrete dispersion pipes.

Good thoughts.As all my drains come from the back of the house, the rings were put there, close to the pond, in clay soil. I'm going to take a couple of pics today and maybe that will give a better idea of what I'm dealing with.

Thanks

[Baht Man]

And finally, no fair peeing while taking a shower.

Now, how is that even possible. It's a ritual I've been carrying on since I was a young lad, and a tradition passed down for generations in my family. It just feels so.... well.... natural....

[parrot]

Shortly after we moved into our rental in town, we noticed a terrible smell alongside the house and also coming up through the kitchen drain (no P trap). As was common then (and maybe still now?), grey water flowed through a U-shaped drain that ran alongside the house.....presumably into a main city drain. The U-drain was covered with heavy cement blocks that could be lifted to allow cleaning the drain. There were two depressed areas in that U-drain that allowed solids to settle.
It was obvious that previous tenants or the landlord had never cleaned those areas.......and the smell was horrible. I understood now why the city employees prisoners to clean the black muck from the street drains in the city.
Once we cleaned those areas of muck, prevented food scraps from flowing down the sink, and enacted a no-pee zone in the bathtub, the bad smell never returned.

For anyone who might still have those type drains alongside their home........the drains are a breeding ground for mosquitos...especially the little black'n'whites that carry the dengue virus.

[BigRick808]

I didn't read through all of these posts so I don't know if this has been mentioned....

I suggest that you not do it. Soaps and detergents will cause an overgrowth of algae and very likely cause a problem with oxygen exchange, killing animals in the pond.