How to connect my IBC to my hose drip irrigation system?

[Samuel1988]

Morning all,

I have just got hold of a couple of IBC's & I wish to use them to store water and deliver it to my crops via some old hose pipes I'm using for my drip irrigation system.

However I am a little stuck in that I am unsure of how to connect them up, anyone got any tips?

Many thanks,

Samuel

[Samuel1988]

IBC From a distance



Here is my IBC

[Alison]

You can buy screw on attachments that connect to normal hose pie fittings, have a search on eBay. I have one on mine but it may be worth raising you IBC slightly as you would a water butt too.

[Thelma Sanders]

IBC HOZE HOSEPIPE STILLAGE TANK 59MM SCREW ON REDUCER CAP TAP WATER CONTAINER | eBay
or a double pipe connector
IBC TANK WATER BUTT 2 VALVE WITH ON/OFF TAPS HOSE CONNECTOR HAZELOCK COMPATABLE | eBay

[Samuel1988]

Thank you for your replies

Samuel

[Bigmallly]

Hi Samuel, how do you plan to harvest the rain into your IBC's?

[Samuel1988]

Thats the next problem to solve lol

I'm not sure if you can see on that picture but to the right i have guttering on my shed - I need to find a way to get some guttering to the IBC's.

Any ideas on what to do?

I will try to find a better shed pick now to post.

Samuel

[Bigmallly]

Swap the IBC for the stuff against the shed. Then run the guttering into the IBC. It would be an opportune time to do as Alison says & raise the IBC, maybe use some of those pallets.

[Samuel1988]

The guttering into the waterbutt to the right is just out of shot - I will need to work out some way of connecting up the IBC's and the waterbutt.

I also need to put guttering around the roof sides and not just at the bottom of the slope.

[Bigmallly]

You don't need guttering round the sides as they would serve no purpose apart from collecting raindrops.
If the Waterbut is already connected to the gutter, could you not put the waterbutt slightly higher than the IBC & put an overflow from the waterbutt into the IBC or Vice Versa.

[Samuel1988]

How would I go about installing an overflow?

[Bigmallly]

How would I go about installing an overflow?

Connecting Water Butts - Water

[Kristen]

The guttering into the waterbutt to the right is just out of shot - I will need to work out some way of connecting up the IBC's and the waterbutt.

All my IBCs and Water Butts (blue barrel, whatever) are at the same height (as near as I can make it). IBCs are big and bulky to try to get next to a shed (and look ugly next to the house of course!), so I have smart looking water butts on the house downpipes, cheap & cheerful ones on the greenhouse gutter downpipes, and the IBCs along the hedge out of the way, so to speak. Because they are all, give or take, at the same height I connect hoses to the taps on them, and join all the hoses together. All the storage then maintains the same level.

If you do "overflow" then the others only fill when the first overflows, and when they are empty you still have water in a more remote water butt. If they are all within a yard or two of each other I expect it is no odds though ...

Having connected them all together, by hoses on their taps, I can then just Tee off that hose for any irrigation I want. In the main I use a large open-topped water button (circular corrugated & galvanised) into which I can Dunk a watering can - takes far too long, in my book, to wait for a can to fill from the piddly little taps that are fitted to water butts, but the hose can be connected to irrigation systems on a timer, or manual "tap", as flow rate is less important (some pressure is needed otherwise the far en gets no flow, but other than that running it for 10 minutes, or 2 hours, to get X litres-per-plant makes no odds once it is automated.

[Kristen]

P.S. I have some IBCs with no taps fiitted. I site them a foot lower than the rest and drape the hose over the top of them so that it reaches to the bottom. When the other butts fill to the brim they overflow into these extra IBCs and self-prime as a syphon, thereafter they are part of the system and will syphon back as the water is used, and the level falls, in other containers. I resent the price of connectors for all the IBCs, particularly as I have 14 of them