Subject: Re: Grey Water

From: "Scott O'Keeffe" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 23:49:12 +1000

One of the keys to making any nutrient stripping system work is a harvest.
Nobody has mentioned that.  Without a harvest, the uptake of nutrients by
reeds, or whatever, will drop off, and nutrients will build up in the
system.  You need to harvest biomass, to remove the nutrients.  So what will
you do with the harvested material?  I'm not suggesting this is a stumbling
block, just something you have to consider in your design and planning.
Having designed some of these things myself, I think your best bet might be
to reconsider.  Is your objective to have ponds or is your objective to
dispose of nutrients?  If it is the latter, I would opt for a small orchard
with a subsurface irrigation system.  Make it big enough that you can shift
where you are irrigating.  You need some good figures on quality of grey
water, and, if you use land disposal you need some good soil tests.  You
need to do a lot of work.  As for the house in Sydney...  I watched that
programme.  It was very interesting and informative.  One of the big things
it got across was just how much work is involved in maintaining a system in
working order.
Scott O'Keeffe

Reedbed wrote in message ...
>
>
>Haig <[email-masked]> wrote in message
>news:[email-masked]...
>> Mark,
>>
>> my understanding is that any biological nutrient system is dependent on
>the
>> food requirements of the species chosen.