Water mixing bucket

birch

New member
I have always used the 5 gallon orange bucket from home depot for my water mixing and changing. Is this ok to use and are there any better 5 gallon buckets out there that I should use? Thanks.
 
I use the same buckets for saltwater stuff, carrying water and water changes. Never had any problem with them. I use a big garbge can to mix water, because I mix a large amt of saltwater. You should be fine.
 
I've always used the home depot buckets along with the buckets that the salt comes in. Never had any problems with chemicals leaching or anything like that. In general you want to use food-grade plastic: http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/plastics.html is a list of suitable plastics.

if this is correct then everybody on here is using a non food safe plastic bucket. I'm assuming they're safe because everybody uses them, but the link says otherwise.

Plastics To Avoid
If you know that a plastic container or bag is not made of food grade material, you should not use it for brining. If you cannot determine the food grade status of a container or bag, you should not use it for brining.
Examples include:
5-gallon utility buckets from the home center
 
Maybe we should be avoiding the home depot ones. U.S. Plastic corp lists the 5-gallon buckets as food grade. Maybe the home depot buckets are made of different plastic or the original site was referring to brining only.

I don't use any bucket for mixing and in the time it takes to go from my RO/DI collection container to the tank I doubt that enough chemicals are leaching in from the bucket to make a difference.

That said, I still think the home depot buckets are fine. I think it falls under the category of not being able to tell what plastic it comes from rather than knowing that it's not food grade.
 
I have used the HD buckets a few times without observing problems. But at the time, I didn't know they were not food safe. Since I have a larger system now, I use the Rubbermaid Brute containers, which are NSF-approved (food safe).
 
I've used those Homer buckets for years. I don't store my RODI water in them since they are only 5 gallons, but I use them for mixing up batches of saltwater. Never had a problem. I'm assuming being "food grade" requires some sort of certification? I'd always assumed the homer buckets would not be food grade since why would HD pay for that for their buckets? Either way, never had a problem. Maybe don't store water in them for weeks/months on end? I dunno.
 
The Homer buckets are grade 2 plastic which is definitely food grade. It's used for milk, juice, and other foods. I checked last night.
 
Good to know, I started using the Home Depot buckets for my Ca and Alk reservoirs and didn't even think to check if it's food grade.


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