A few ways to move water... - Orchid Board

WaterWitchin · #1 04-24-2020, 12:04 PM

I’ve been PMing with a fellow OB member about RO and ways to move water. Since some of this will be picture dense, I’m putting up a thread about ways to move water instead of attempting to do so via PM. Hopefully it will be helpful to some others as well, depending on ones setup, number of orchids, etc. Feel free to join in with ideas!

Around 2007 I got tired of hauling orchids from around the house during winter months and watering in the sink, so I moved some heavy duty shelving units from my store to the sunroom on first floor of my house. The number of orchids I had acquired had also exponentially grown over the past five or so years in a frightening way. (Orchids tend to do that). I continued to move each one and water them over a big pot with a grate on top. I had two aquariums in the next room, and used the water from them to water the orchids via a pump and tubing, or used a hose with shutoff valve attached to the kitchen sink and snaking it across the house to the sunroom. There was a 200 gph pump in bottom of the jar, and I opened the window enough to snake tubing out the window so as the pot filled, I could use the leftover water on the fern bed outside the window. Fancy jar, but a big bucket would do the same.

Around 2013 or thereabouts, I was scheduled for hand surgery. Knowing there would be a prolonged time period where I wasn’t moving pots around, I bought boot trays from Gardner Supply and some 1/2" PVC. I laid the first black on top of the shelf, then marked and drilled a hole through the tray. Inserted the end of the pipe into the hole with about a half-inch sticking up, and cut the pipe so it ended about an inch above the next tray down. Then drilled a hole thru the second tray, down one shelf/tray and repeat.

Then I drilled a hole from the sunroom floor into the basement, then stuck the lowest tray’s PVC through the hole. Beneath it in the basement (a/k/a WaterWitchin’s BatCave) is a drain where excess water at times flows out of the house to a spot downhill where there are well-watered trees. I ended up later with another room with a couple shelves of orchids (I told ya they keep reproducing) and did the same, but in the basement the pipe connected to a rubber tubing that snaked along the floor over to the drain. This is how it looked before I drilled the bottom try and shoved the PVC further into the hole in the floor.

When I watered, I started at the top and worked my way down. Here’s an old picture showing how the shelf looked in place.

By then most of my orchids were in SH. The ones in bark were on overturned saucers or pieces of light grate so they didn’t sit in the water that flowed through the trays. This particular shelving (it’s pretty popular among orchid folks) has the ability to be slightly tilted in the direction you want the water to flow. I found that was important instead of having water go over the top of the tray when watering and pouring over a hardwood floor. Very messy.

When I first did it, I used silicon around the tube where it entered the tray. I don’t fool with that anymore and just make sure it’s a tight fit. I did end up putting a bathroom sink strainer insert over the top of each pipe… clogged pipe from LECA or bark is also messy.

Time went on, my two large house dogs morphed into two more large dogs. The orchids continued to expand, and I had to move them to the BatCave in winter. Just too much dog, too much orchid, not enough space for all.
Plus I’d stored the aquariums, and was looking into using RO as I had too many plants by these time that wouldn’t tolerate the crappy water from my tap.

I installed a utility sink in the basement, a dedicated set of pipes for RO, and installed the RO in the basement.

The orchids now live under lights in the BatCave in winter months, and the RO container eventually became a 55 gallon storage container. At the bottom of the container is a 750 gph pump. Tubing attached to the outflow with a ball valve, and enough hose to stretch to all the shelves in the room (room walls were just put up this past winter.)

I bought a plug with a remote on/off switch, and I can be across the room, turn off the water and turn back on as needed. The shelving and trays remained the same, and flow into the same drain as they always have.

When the moved to the basement I installed a MistKing for humidity that goes off a few times a day. It’s supplied by a large storage container. There’s a small hole at top, and I used to just move the RO tubing over to it for filling.

Now that I recently put a shut off valve on the RO (another whole long fiasco of a story) I find I need a splitter to easily use one tube or another to fill the two containers. This would also work well for someone who wanted to use the RO for not only orchids, but as drinking water, etc.

So those are a few easy ways to move water inside your house to suit your needs. Outside moving of water is much easier.

I'll try to get pics up of the latter part later on today.