(SA) Aerobic Septic System: Biolytix vs Biocycle vs Ri-Treat

As part of the design and build process for our new home, one of the non-trivial decisions we have to make is which brand of aerobic septic system we have installed to take all the black and grey water from the house.

Our new home will be located in the northern Adelaide metro area, on acreage, and we are planning on using the output water from the system for subsurface irrigation of lawn and shrubs - maybe a small orchard too but we'll need some convincing that that is a safe thing to do without (costly) UV treatment of the output water.

The system will be located about 5m from the house, about 10m from the nearest bedroom window (so we'd prefer as quiet a system as possible).

We like the idea of the Biolytix system, but are not sure whether it is worth the extra upfront expense (including the transport cost from Qld), and are unsure whether the local support will be available should we need it. Biocycle and Ri-Treat are the only locally manufactured products we've come across, but we're open to suggestions on other locally available products.

Anyway, we thought we'd see if we can get some comments from SA based homeone members as to the pros and cons, problems and success stories, for some of the different systems that we can source in SA, to help point us in the right direction when it comes to making this choice.

If you don't like to publicly post stories regarding a particular system, please feel free to send us a PM.

Thanks in advance.

We got a Biolytix based on its elegant design and having won the New Inventors Award.

I am sure all the systems work well and all have the advantage of re-using water.

Biolytix is a trickling biofilter whilst Bio-cycle and Ri Treat are multi-chamber systems.

The advantage of Biolytix is that the aeration system is very cheap to run $10/year versus >$300/year for the others.

The latter two also use chlorine which some would consider enviro-unfriendly. However, chlorination allows above ground irrigation and greater flexibility with how you use it.

However, SA Health regulations apply equally to both systems.

Biolytix only needs a yearly service whilst Biocycle needs quarterly servicing.

The downside of Biolytix is needing to pay ~$350/year for the 20 year warranty (that includes the service charge). This seems a little excessive for someone to remove 25kg of waste from the top of the filter and shuffle the bags around. The only moving parts are the aeration pump and the pump-out pump with associated electricals.