The first thing that comes to mind stems from my days of running aquariums. Some of the longest lasting and abundant filter material is polyester quilt batting. It is cheap, approximately $10 to $15 dollars and can be found at most craft suppliers. I found some at Wal-mart in their craft section. It comes in a roll, can be cut and you can easily cut it to fit your application, wrap something around your tubing to secure it (I am thinking rubber band or something easily removed) and can be taken out to rinse off or throw it away and cut another piece. You can experiment with how tight you wrap as this may affect the flow rate, I am just guessing here. Thanks for the idea of a filter, I hadn't thought about that, but I will be putting a filter using the method described above, because if I know one thing about water storage, it always grows something "yuck." Good luck, and if you found out another something that worked for you please get back to us.

It's the pump that makes the noise. What size of pump are you planning on using? How much filtration you need depends on how many fish you have in there. You don't need to buy an expensive filter system. Any large tupperware storage bin or container will do the same job. Fill with filter media, bought at a pet store or homemade (nylon bath scrubbies, pure bbq lava rock, etc. etc.) pump the water into the top and let it run through the media and out the bottom (drill a hole here). Presto! A pond filter that does the same job. Its just a container with filter media that pumps the water through. You can buy the same commercial filter media by the bag. You'll want to transfer a little filter media from your pond filter to give the bacteria a head start. (I assume you have a bio filter for your pond?) Otherwise you'll have to let the filter run with one tiny fish for a couple of weeks before there's enough bacteria growing in it to do a good job - ditto for storebought filters. All bio filters work on the same principle. You can buy bacteria to jump start your filter but I've never done that and don't know how well it works. All it needs is a little ammonia (fish waste, pee) to get started. You should do some research so you understand filters, bacteria, pumps, ponds in general and how they work before you buy anything or put any expensive fish in it.

Since the cost difference between the two sizes is small, I would go with the larger softener. The size of your home, number of bathrooms, and your indication that you will have a large number of guests at a time make the 2.0 cubic ft softener a better choice. When it is just the two of you, it will go up to 12 days between regenerations, which is fine with your water quality. The following requirements are for an industry standard softener. If you are looking for a non-electronic softener, Kinetico offers the more reliable options at a premium price (and you would need to deal with a local Kinetico rep). Any decent softener vendor should be able to provide the following: High quality American or German made resin. This will provide a tight size distribution for optimal flow within the resin Since you have CITY WATER: 10% crosslinked resin. The oxidizers that city water treatment plants use, such as chlorine or chloramine, are harmful to softener resins. Higher crosslinking will resist chemical attack longer. Top basket. This serves two purposes. It sets up a proper water distribution during normal operation and prevents resin loss during backwash. Gravel underbed. Since you will have a larger residential softener, this is very important. The gravel underbed is there to set up proper flow patterns, improve backwash, keep the bottom basket in place, prevent basket failure, and prevent channeling. Many softener sales companies like to leave this out or sell softeners with a vortex system instead. Vortex systems weigh less than gravel so they cost less to ship. In addition, they are a more expensive item that adds profit for the softener salesperson, but provides no additional benefit to the homeowner . It simply adds another piece of equipment that can break. Fleck or Clack valves. If you choose Fleck, get the 7000sxt. These set the industry standard. Be aware that you will not be able to purchase Clack valves online. This is not a problem if you purchase locally. The valve should regen based on water usage, not time. Noryl bypass. Most softeners are available with either Noryl or stainless bypass valves. Both are good valves, but the noryl tends to be more reliable when not used for long periods of time. Install the softener with a three-valve bypass. This will make it so much easier if you ever need to remove the softener for repairs or wish to take it with you when you move. Use full-port, quarter-turn valves. This post was edited by aliceinwonderland_id on Mon, Mar 31, 14 at 10:31

Yeah, you're right with the carbon block. The flow rates would not be suitable for POE - my mistake. I'm not surprised that you find customers that are worried by "bacteria". I think many people hear that word and get afraid - I said so earlier. The fact is the vast majority of kinds of bacteria are harmless to humans. But I'm sure lots of folks would be scared by seeing a petri dish full of them just the same. I'm sure lots of folks would be suprised how many things they consume and touch would also cause a petri dish to overload with bacteria. Our goal though should be accurate information. If someone's fears still prevent them from doing something that's their choice. We should distinguish between bacteria that is a hazard to people (pathogenic) and ones that aren't. Water, air, objects, and food are all full of bacteria and we need to understand the actual health risks. Trying to avoid all bacteria is impossible. Trying to reduce harmless bacteria is wasting money that could be spent on efforts that actually do provide a health benefit. The link below is very interesting. It is an article from Water Conditioning and Purification Magazine. The article is titled "Bacteria in Drinking Water - Public Health Implications" and is dated July 2002. It is a consensus review of material from a NSF International and World Health Organization (WHO) International Symposium. The article specifically talks about activated carbon and the growth of bacteria - among other things. It's fairly, uh er, dense, reading but if there's any hardy souls still reading this thread they might find it interesting. I encourage anyone to read the entire article, and, for that matter, peruse other material on the site. But, for those who want the executive summary, below are some choice parts. Oh, I have no association in any way with this publication or it's authors. I'll note this article talks about tests with POU devices, I'll be doing another post shortly with another reference that talks about POE and POU jointly. This article at least clearly shows that changing from POE to POU will not prevent drinking "bacteria". It talks about the health risks of this bacteria and I believe that POE and POU have largely the same health risks. POE carbon-based devices are not nearly as common as POU so I'm not surprised these large organizations don't focus as much attention on them. In the quotes of the article below, know that "HPC" is a measurement of naturally occurring bacteria. ************************** "Interestingly, HPC levels in foods haven't raised the same concern as in the drinking water industry. It's not unusual to find very high numbers (>50,000 cfu/gram or ml) of HPC bacteria in a wide variety of foods such as pasteurized milk, cheeses, meats, yogurts and fresh produce. HPC bacteria consumed with food is generally several orders of magnitude larger than those consumed in water. A million HPC bacteria have been documented on a single gram of leaf lettuce and carrot sticks.(1)" *********************** "Granular activated carbon (GAC), commonly used in the water treatment industry, is known to concentrate bacteria and their growth substrates. As water passes through the GAC, bacteria may also be released. Point-of-use (POU) treatment devices have been shown to reduce the level of waterborne gastrointestinal disease and remove known microbial pathogens. It's not uncommon, however, to note a significant increase in HPC bacteria post treatment, possibly several-fold higher than the influent water. Re-growth of bacteria in POU devices occurs frequently during periods of non-use." **************************** "In addition, HPC bacteria didn't survive well at low pH (i.e., conditions of the human stomach). In fact, only 1-2 percent of HPC bacteria were found to have possible virulence factors, but still weren't associated with human disease." ************************** "Several large epidemiological studies were conducted in an attempt to define the public health impact of HPC bacteria in drinking water. The first was conducted in the United States and showed that a large number of households using various GAC POU devices had high HPC levels but no demonstrated health effects.(5) Likewise, a recent study conducted in California attempting to correlate HPC in tap water to gastrointestinal illness provided no such evidence.(6)" **************************** "In summary, an overwhelming body of evidence from human feed studies, animal studies, epidemiological studies, risk assessment, and virulence data all confer there's no medical rationale to control HPC concentrations in drinking water. The general consensus at the HPC symposium was that such common bacteria in drinking water wasn't associated with a significant public health risk."