I've got an idea!

[allan]

Hah, I forgot about the face book thing. Yeah, my last name was changed by my grand dad or great grand dad in the early fifties. He added the La to it to avoid child support. Of course I come from a family (on my father's side) of bull poopers... and it's a trait that I've seem to have picked up.

I had to laugh at that Todd. Gloria is holding me to my last statement "Honey, I swear that I don't have to buy ANYTHING else!" That's why all of my supplies are sent to your house to "give" to me because you "don't need it".

Kevin, I think the lot of you are probably correct. I liked the idea of building a system that would automate a function... I'm going to see what I can do with a really small system. I should be able to speed up any benefits or problems if I deal with a 20 gallon system with no fuge. I've got some texas trash that I can experiment on.

I did a 15 gallon water change this morning, will be doing another one tomorrow since I've still got 15 of mixed water sitting in my closet. I guess i don't really mind doing water changes.

too much

[neogenix]

What I've been planning on doing is masses of small water changes in an automated fashion. While not removing the need to change water, it may remove the hastle you're talking about, and shouldn't cost more than around 10 or so dollars a month... I had in mind having pre-made, circulating, salt-water ready to go (in the 100 - 200g range), and doing a gallon or more, per day day, which would bring me to above my 10% change... essentially pump out to staging pair of containers with measured float switches.

Here's the process:

* Pump to staging A from storage
* When high float switch in staging A triggers to say water is in container at level, shut down ATO, and pump water out of tank into staging B
* When staging B triggers it's 'high' float switch, start to pump water from staging A into tank
-> If *tank* 'high' float switch is triggered, or salinity is raised above a certain point, or below a certain point, *alarm* and wait for user (continue with ATO disabled, and cease all operations).
* Once pumping has been completed from A, and 'low' float switch has been triggered within the staging tank, stop pump, and re-enable ATO
* Then pump water from B to waste

This'd also allow me to have a large container of mixed water somewhere far from my tank, and only needing two lines running to my tank. Similar to what Dipan has for water storage / salt water storage. The reason i bring this up is that I've given a lot of thought to yearly costs for water / replacement (assuming that you ignore the environment, and assuming you're doing a 10% change per week, in a magical perfect world..). What i figured was at around 200G, I'd be paying give or take 4 dollars for the water (10 if you include waste from your R/O, I use mine to water the garden, and for other things, so I don't), and around 50 or so for the salt, depending on brand. If I then ran a Evo 750+ in the source tank, i'd be spending around 3 - 5 dollars per year for running the powerhead. If I used 10.5G per week (1.5G per day), my replenishment rate would be around 200G every (just under) 20 weeks, giving me a yearly cost of around 12 for the water, 150 for the salt, and lets say 10 for the electricity, so safely under 200 dollars. Granted the capital outlay for this would be in the region of around at least a few hundred dollars, but it should remove any need to add supplements to the tank, and hopefully keep most of the measurable thresholds within any reasonable range... ph/etc... I do however wonder what this would do to 2 part dosing...

Also, while your idea sounds pretty cool, I'm not aware of any reasonably priced UV lighting that would be able to actively remove all the critters within a reasonable price range, without having to circulate it through the UV system... although I'd have to look into that more, it's certainly an interesting idea, although would you not be worried about starting a potential cycle in your vat of water each time you worked on it? Without livestock, and a balanced system, some of the critters may just die, and leech more stuff back into the water. That said, some of the chemicals you'd have to add back may far exceed the above mentioned costs... which could probably be halved if you just did less frequent water changes. Great idea thou!

[allan]

My current set up is similar to what you've outlined above, sans the automation and recovery barrel for waste water. My ATO fills to a predetermined level and the surplus is sent to my mixing barrel.

There I add salt and other materials to spice up my WCs (kalk and Epsom salt). I used to have a mixing pump in there but I had to use it when one of my returns up and died on me. But I do have a return pump in there. Flip a switch and water from the mixer is sent to my system.

So, have you ever run a mixing pump in your mixing barrel continuously? It warms up pretty quick. At one gallon increments this shouldn't have an affect on your systems temp, however... It seems that I remember reading somewhere that temperature affects salinity readings. If so would a warmer water read higher salinity, thus lowering your tanks salinity over time?

I like it though. Seems that the parameters of the system would be much more stable.

As far as the UV is concerned, I envisioned a high powered UV lamp enclosed in a custom glass submersible sitting in the middle of the barrel. Over 12 to 24 hours the morbidity would be very high IMO. The excessive die off would serve as nutrients in the next barrel for the macro.

[ErikH]

http://www.aquariumwatertesting.com/...lysis_0208.pdf

What salt are you using to kick this project off with?

[ErikH]

As part of your experiment you should get as many test kits as you can for the known supplements so you can test the water over time. You should be able to pinpoint which elements your tank uses up more readily than others. I figure you could probably do your method for a year or maybe even two before you would need to scrap the water and start with a fresh water change.
I didn't change the water in the 75 for a year, and had great growth with the CA reactor. I may have just convinced myself to buy a new reactor since the TE are coming from dead skeletons... In fact, that's probably the difference, in the wild corals are built over themselves and I am sure there is some kind of breaking down of the old skeletons which replenishes the TE for new growth.

[jroescher]

Here's the process:

* Pump to staging A from storage
* When high float switch in staging A triggers to say water is in container at level, shut down ATO, and pump water out of tank into staging B
* When staging B triggers it's 'high' float switch, start to pump water from staging A into tank
-> If *tank* 'high' float switch is triggered, or salinity is raised above a certain point, or below a certain point, *alarm* and wait for user (continue with ATO disabled, and cease all operations).
* Once pumping has been completed from A, and 'low' float switch has been triggered within the staging tank, stop pump, and re-enable ATO
* Then pump water from B to waste

What are you using to control all this?

[neogenix]

My current set up is similar to what you've outlined above, sans the automation and recovery barrel for waste water. My ATO fills to a predetermined level and the surplus is sent to my mixing barrel.

There I add salt and other materials to spice up my WCs (kalk and Epsom salt). I used to have a mixing pump in there but I had to use it when one of my returns up and died on me. But I do have a return pump in there. Flip a switch and water from the mixer is sent to my system.

So, have you ever run a mixing pump in your mixing barrel continuously? It warms up pretty quick. At one gallon increments this shouldn't have an affect on your systems temp, however... It seems that I remember reading somewhere that temperature affects salinity readings. If so would a warmer water read higher salinity, thus lowering your tanks salinity over time?

I like it though. Seems that the parameters of the system would be much more stable.

As far as the UV is concerned, I envisioned a high powered UV lamp enclosed in a custom glass submersible sitting in the middle of the barrel. Over 12 to 24 hours the morbidity would be very high IMO. The excessive die off would serve as nutrients in the next barrel for the macro.

Re: Return Pump -> That's why I was thinking about using a evo powerhead. It's small, cheap, and adds little to no heat.

Re: Heat and Salinity -> You're certainly right about the salinity, but I would assume that over time, it should even out. i'd be testing the water in the salt water vat on production, which should have it at a reasonable temp... Interesting idea though. In texas during summers, that would certainly change the salinity...

Re: UV -> Did you look at any models for this?

What are you using to control all this?

Reefkeeper Elite currently, but will probably move to something else at some point as I'd like different logic options which none of the current controllers offer.