Automated water changer question?

[koa25]

So I am coming up training that will be 2-3 months long. I was thinking about hooking up some dosing pumps one from tank to drain and one from a premixed barrel of SW to the tank. I would have the controller remove equal parts from the tank and replace it from the barrel. Have it do small water changes either daily or once a week if possible. Has anyone does this kind of thing and am I under thinking this? Just curious and looking for feed back. Cause if this can't be figured out I'm going to have to take my tank down most likely, don't have anyone locally I can rely on to take care of my tank right.

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[SABOB]

Fly me to Hawaii and I'll take care of water changes


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[koa25]

Fly me to Hawaii and I'll take care of water changes


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Take care of my dogs and feed my fish and you might have yourself a deal. Might be cheaper to fly someone here to do all that then automate the tank and kennel the dogs ha ha.

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[SABOB]

I love dogs and fish.....and Hawaii


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[Big_Pun]

Take care of my dogs and feed my fish and you might have yourself a deal. Might be cheaper to fly someone here to do all that then automate the tank and kennel the dogs ha ha.

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when are you leaving I'm off all summer!!!

[koa25]

Ha ha. I leave June 3rd and either come back august 1st or or September 5th.

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[ramsey]

I plan on setting something similar up but using 5g buckets, float switches and my controller. One 5g bucket fills up with waste water (then drains) with one float switch. The other fills up with NSW then pumps into the tank. I'll have a high float to know when it's full, then a low float to know when it's empty. That's the current plan anyway.

I've thought about the dosing pump thing too but if they were off from each other by much, you'd have problems.

If you want something premade, check out the genesis water change system. It's a little pricey but it's the only thing premade I've found.

[koa25]

I plan on setting something similar up but using 5g buckets, float switches and my controller. One 5g bucket fills up with waste water (then drains) with one float switch. The other fills up with NSW then pumps into the tank. I'll have a high float to know when it's full, then a low float to know when it's empty. That's the current plan anyway.

I've thought about the dosing pump thing too but if they were off from each other by much, you'd have problems.

If you want something premade, check out the genesis water change system. It's a little pricey but it's the only thing premade I've found.

Oh man. That is pretty cool. But pretty pricey. Never saw that before. Lots of cool gadgets out there.

If you had them turn on and off at the same time and just have it replenished down flow from where it was being taken out you shouldn't have an issue. Plus between evaporated and the ato it should keep it stable yeah?

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[ramsey]

Oh man. That is pretty cool. But pretty pricey. Never saw that before. Lots of cool gadgets out there.

If you had them turn on and off at the same time and just have it replenished down flow from where it was being taken out you shouldn't have an issue. Plus between evaporated and the ato it should keep it stable yeah?

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In theory that would work. I'm just skeptical about how accurate a dosing pump would be. One thing that might help is to have a salinity probe as a failsafe. That way, if the salinity swings +/- .001 SG, you can either run the "waste" pump a bit and top off with fresh water (if the SG is too high) or run the NSW pump to top off (if the SG is too low). You'd obviously have to use some logic on your controller that says "if SG < 1.025 for 30 minutes, shut down ATO and top off with NSW for n amount of time". Hopefully that makes sense. You want to make sure you're getting a good sample size over a period of time or the dosing pumps will be constantly trying to adjust things.

After thinking through that, maybe I will just get a salinity monitor and dosing pumps instead of my 5g bucket idea. :P I'll have to see what kind of programming it would take on the apex and if it's even possible.

[allan]

How about having your controller turn off your top off on Monday at five, then at 5:15, open a valve that will open a valve on your sump that will lower the level by five gallons, the salt water reservoirs will begin to fill the tank because of lowered level until it's full. Then at 6:00 your ato turns back on and the water change is complete.

But the container holding your premix would have to be quite large, 100 gallons? Five a week would be somewhere around 80 gallons.

Seems easier to fly one of the guys out. Actually, it's Hawaii, let them fly themselves out, and you provide the room. And look through their posts to ensure you don't get one that doesn't do water changes. :-)

[Big_Pun]

Ha ha. I leave June 3rd and either come back august 1st or or September 5th.

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perfect!!

[kkiel02]

Brb doing water change now...

[Flyride95]

Guhhhh 3 more days until I fill up my 44gal brute. Don't remind me. Lol


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[Big_Pun]

using a controller to do it is doable but getting one that you can monitor with ease is your best bet.also a salinity probe would be recommended, i would also make it to where i can control salt and fresh through net, as to able to shut one off and top off manually to compensate for fluctuations.

fyi im still open to stay over ;)

[koa25]

In theory that would work. I'm just skeptical about how accurate a dosing pump would be. One thing that might help is to have a salinity probe as a failsafe. That way, if the salinity swings +/- .001 SG, you can either run the "waste" pump a bit and top off with fresh water (if the SG is too high) or run the NSW pump to top off (if the SG is too low). You'd obviously have to use some logic on your controller that says "if SG < 1.025 for 30 minutes, shut down ATO and top off with NSW for n amount of time". Hopefully that makes sense. You want to make sure you're getting a good sample size over a period of time or the dosing pumps will be constantly trying to adjust things.

After thinking through that, maybe I will just get a salinity monitor and dosing pumps instead of my 5g bucket idea. :P I'll have to see what kind of programming it would take on the apex and if it's even possible.

Yeah, a lot of my job has to do with writing if, and, then equations when doing pulls against data bases so I could easily set that up for salinity and such. I just got my reef keeper the other day and plan on setting it up this weekend. I heard their salinity probe is pretty inaccurate though. Is that what everyone else has heard? I've never used an elite. Is it that programmable?


How about having your controller turn off your top off on Monday at five, then at 5:15, open a valve that will open a valve on your sump that will lower the level by five gallons, the salt water reservoirs will begin to fill the tank because of lowered level until it's full. Then at 6:00 your ato turns back on and the water change is complete.

But the container holding your premix would have to be quite large, 100 gallons? Five a week would be somewhere around 80 gallons.

Seems easier to fly one of the guys out. Actually, it's Hawaii, let them fly themselves out, and you provide the room. And look through their posts to ensure you don't get one that doesn't do water changes. :-)

Ha ha. Not a new guy that uses tap water ha ha. Straight tap here might kill fish. It's pretty hard and heavily treated. Mostly reclaimed.

But I would most definitely have to turn off the ATO. Was already planning that. Dumping 5 gallons FW into the tank would be no good. I have a 55 gallon drum. I'd probably just have to do smaller water changes if it ends up being 3 months. Looks like 2 and I'm hoping it's 2. Small water change is better than no water change is my thinking and I only have zoas and fish. So a little higher parameters won't be horrible.

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[koa25]

using a controller to do it is doable but getting one that you can monitor with ease is your best bet.also a salinity probe would be recommended, i would also make it to where i can control salt and fresh through net, as to able to shut one off and top off manually to compensate for fluctuations.

fyi im still open to stay over ;)

Ha ha. Appreciate it Chris. I may try to figure this out first. If I can figure this out now it will save me more headaches in the future. Control ability over the net isn't too easy with the reefkeepers yeah?

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[Big_Pun]

Ha ha. Appreciate it Chris. I may try to figure this out first. If I can figure this out now it will save me more headaches in the future. Control ability over the net isn't too easy with the reefkeepers yeah?

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no it's not but it can be done. really liking apex fusion, simple to use and so far working well