As the city water users move onto Level 3 water rules rangers will step up their monitoring of watering use outdoors from tonight.

The new rules mean all sprinklers and hoses are banned, and the only outside watering can be done with a regulation bucket limited to two hours an evening.

Water services director Bruce Logan has admitted that while it might be un-Australian to dob in people doing the wrong thing under the water rules, it's also un-Australian to cheat.

The water patrols are part of the regime to force the daily water use down from its present level of about 22 megalitres to 15 megalitres - or the equivalent of a drop from 0.2% of Chaffey capacity to 0.1% capacity each day.

If Tamworth can meet that benchmark, then the Tamworth town users will have a period of grace for the present water rules of about 50 days. 

If consumption doesn't drop, then Tamworth risks being tipped into the harsher Level 4 restrictions where the only residential water use allowed outdoors on gardens and lawns is with recycled water.

Saturday's general outdoor restrictions also brought some more self-imposed blanket bans on council-owned parks and gardens.

The council yesterday admitted it had already introduced some reduced watering regimes in an attempt to save water - either by cutting the frequency of watering on sports fields and roundabouts, using more bore water in places where it was available, and investigating alternative bore water options in others.

Tamworth Regional Council's horticultural manager Brian Sheedy said major roundabout watering had been cut to 20minutes only three days a week as another step in finding water savings.

At the regional sports precinct at the Longyard, the watering is done using backwash water from the Calala treatment plant while the equine centre also uses recycled water stored in its dam.

The council also hopes to hook up a new bore that will water major parts of the Botanic Gardens in the next week or so.

The council has already stressed that it cannot turn off the water on all its parks and gardens - not just from an aesthetic point of view or an environmental one, but also from health and safety and financial viewpoints.

"We are cutting back our watering where we can and we are reducing the frequency of watering sports fields so we're not doing it from an optimum moisture level but on a conservation level, like watering at night, and not watering if weather conditions change," Mr Sheedy said.

"But no, we can't just stop watering altogether because we will get to a point where it's unsafe for people to use them and then we would have to close them."

"We are investigating how we can conserve where we can but also looking at options in the longer term to not use potable supplies."

While some residents have claimed the council was using the cover of darkness to keep its watering secret, Mr Sheedy said it was to optimise the effect and avoid evaporation.