OT: Rinsing out 'B-Alanine' from a poly IBC container to use as rainwater reservoir?

[gellfex]

As gardening season moves along I've been thinking about the next stage of my gardening setup: capturing roof water. Water and sewer charges here are crazy expensive (the sewer is calculated by how much water you use) and I have a 1000 sq ft roof with a single leader. A 1/4" rainstorm would give me 156 gallons! I already use a drip irrigation system, so what I need is a reservoir and a modest pump.

There's a place nearby selling 330 gal PE IBC containers that contained B-Alanine for only $40! Google says "β-Alanine is a naturally occurring beta amino acid, which is an amino acid in which the amino group is at the β-position from the carboxylate group." Sounds pretty harmless to me but I'm no chemist. Anybody have any caveats to my just rinsing out one of these and using it?

[wierdscience]

From Googling it you should be careful if you're pregnant or breast feeding 🤣🤣

Apparently it's used in making vitamin supplements and your body makes it's own.

[jcfx]

Buy the tank and use it, worse that can happen is your plants will grow boobs or you will from consuming the plants.

[gellfex]

Buy the tank and use it, worse that can happen is your plants will grow boobs or you will from consuming the plants.

Too late, I've already got me 'man boobs'!

I found an MSDS, but it's not that useful: Toxicological Data on Ingredients: Beta-Alanine: ORAL (LD50): Acute: 1000 mg/kg [Rat]. So, I'd have to eat like 4 oz of the stuff to get sick, but I can't imagine there's really very much absorbed into the PE wall to leach out. And then it would have to be absorbed by the plants. Does it bioconcentrate like PCB's?
https://hmdb.ca/system/metabolites/m...pdf?1358893572

[johansen]

Probably harmless. Might even be useable by the plants as a source of nitrogen. My guess is sunlight would break it down

[gellfex]

Probably harmless. Might even be useable by the plants as a source of nitrogen. My guess is sunlight would break it down

Thanks. That seems reasonable. I just can't believe they're selling these things in their steel cage for $40! Must be some FDA rule that prevents re-use by the vendor. New they're like $500!

[sch]

Doesn't seem to be very toxic judging by this article: https://maxedmuscle.com/gym-showdown...e-vs-creatine/
Was wondering what the diff was between ordinary alanine which is all over proteins in our body and the foods we eat
and beta alanine, which is not usually in food, but apparently is a supplement used by weirdos.

[outlawspeeder]

I am doing the same this year. Living on a well, it not a good thing to water and dry out the well. Mine had some kind of butter used in microwave popcorn packs. On the way home I stopped off at a car wash. the hot water and the drive to the next car flushed the remaining stuff out.
I set mine on cinder blocks two high.

Good luck with it all.

[JRouche]

Sounds like you scored. Buy as many as you can. They hopefully were bought from the mega muscle place that used these for raw chems? If so get as many as you can. They are clean.

Nice tanks at that price. JR

[wierdscience]

I once bought a dozen 55 gallon steel drums that previously had lemon oil in them. They all had about a 1/2 gallon left in the bottom which I dumped out behind the shop and rinsed before de-heading. The place smelled great for months after that.

[Ian B]

Just give it an overnight soak with a dimethyl cadmium solution and drain it - it'll be fine. Ian

[old mart]

I would just put a couple of gallons of water in it, shake it up and drain. Repeat twice and its ready to use.

[Ohio Mike]

For those that don't know an IBC is an Intermediate bulk container which is a poly tank (usually HDPE) with a metal cage around it. Prices around here range from $30-60. Sellers usually get more for "food grade" containers that held cooking oil and the like.

[old mart]

I would rather rinse out b-alanine than vegetable oil any day.

[mattthemuppet]

if they're those white coloured plastic tanks in cages then be aware that you may have an algae problem in the future.

I have a 150 gallon rain water tank feeding a drip line on a timer, plus filling up watering cans for the other beds. It also collects condensate from my house AC. It's way too small - fills very quickly in a thunderstorm and then doesn't always last until the next storm, though the AC condensate helps. If we were staying here longer I'd look into a 5-600 gallon tank and put up guttering all round the house. Remember that most drip lines are 1 gallon/ hour, so that should give you a good idea about how long the tank will last between fill ups.

Wouldn't worry about the B-alanine at all. You'll have way worse washed off your roof and the plants really don't care.