Grey water put to use...

This pic only shows the lower tube that feeds water directly to bottom of sand gravel filter. There is another tube added later to deliver what water filters up from bottom to the outside pond.

Used a canning mesh bag for filtering big food bits....but fills up in two weeks so make it removable!

Using mostly plumbing bits around my property, I assembled a biofilter with three parts. Top is moss and grasses but it really just catches big bits. Below it is a sump pump bin with a layer of gravel and sand. A tube delivers first run water to bottom of filter, then a shorter tube delivers that slightly filtered water out to pond.

What's a BIOFILTER?

​This year has been busy on the off grid mini farm and studio. While adding more food gardens and flowers this summer I began to run out of water. My low flow well seemed to put out 100-150 gallons a day, but the addition summer watering brought it to a halt in July. 

It seemed to me it was time to start reusing my house water. My tiny washer uses almost 20 gallons a load alone, so what better way to second or even third use that wasted H20??
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There wasn't a whole lot of guidance online, so I winged it. So far so good, only one major revision....my biofilter wasn't (big) enough to collect the fast moving water for filtration. An additional 'biofilter' pond (and maybe later a holding tank) was necessary. I haven't tested the water yet or hooked it up to continuous watering since the new garden beds arent in as of October. 
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Being quite alkaline, many web folks say it's good for most plants, but I want it as clean as possible. Though I use biodegradable soaps all around the house, there is a lot of soap, oil and other bits to be filtered out.
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This story will be continued when new garden beds built below the grey water filter system. 

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