Idea for Auto Water Change system

[fishfreak1242]

So I had this epiphany today about an automatic water change system that I thought I would share and see if it is do-able, since doing water changes is starting to be another annoying task.
So how the system would work is during a normal water change I would turn off my A.T.O and then un-plug my return pump for my sump and then a bunch of water would back siphon until it reached a little hole in my return pipe. So I had an idea of inserting a T on the return pipe and a check valve below it with some PVC going to a bucket, so that whenever I turn off the pump, the back siphoned water would go down through the return pipe and stopped by the check valve and then out into the bucket. Then I would calculate approximately how much water was lost and then have a pump pump that water back in with a float valve to shut off the pump when the water reachs the bottom of the bucket. That way all that I have to do is shut off the return pump and ATO and then turn on the pump, making water changes a breeze. So is this idea do-able?

 

[Keith P]

Can you sketch your idea? I'm having a hard time visualizing this.

I wanted to do small automatic daily water changes. My idea was some what like yours. My idea requires a bucket with a float switch and 4 pumps and a ton of relays... Ultimately, I have not been able to think of a system that will be reliable enough for me to sleep well at night.

 

[jhart]

I Have an Idea for perfect water changes . My Idea includes 2 peristaltic pumps and a 30 gallon garbage can.. one pump takes 1 gallon of water out of you main system per day.. In the 30 gallon garbage can you have 30 gallons of R/0di water made mixed to 1.025 sG.. and you drip back 1 gallon of 1.025 per day back in ..
A more complicated way would be to use a conductivity controller..by hanna($250.00). 2 peristaltic pumps($200 ea.) a 15 gallon can ($40)and a Dialysis filter($40) to strip your water of Salt. Exact way the dialysea works.. but without spending $4000.. Your r/odi is used as your make up water with a float switch.
how It should work.. 1 pump sucks water out of your system through the dialysis filter , this strips your water of salt , as this happens your SG falls, the hanna controller has thresholds when the conductivity hits a set point it turns on the other pump which pumps R/0 water into your 30 gallon bucket which is full of salt when the water is pumped in water slurrys over the top into your system at a high sg the controller has set points when the salinity is in the set point range it turns off the pump thats adding r/o into your bucket .. you do this every 30 mins for 3 mins long perfect water change..

http://www.automatedaquariums.com/h_983313.htm

 

[junglebase]

Ultimately, I have not been able to think of a system that will be reliable enough for me to sleep well at night.

I hear you.. in this hobby nothing is 100% foolproof.... just be careful with all these DIY projects.. my 2 cents!

 

[KathyC]

Fishfreak...are you planning on simply using a siphon to get the water to move from your sump to the discard bucket? If I'm picturing this correctly - the water will stop flowing from the sump once you get to the point where the water level in the bucket is equal to the level in the sump.
A low flat sort of container (that sits lower than your sump would help..but would be a pian to empty)

Keith - the downside to doing daily water changes is that you don't make much of an improvement in your water quaility as with each change you are also taking out a portion of the 'new' water you'd added the day before

 

[tosiek]

yeah the problem is reliability. There are ALOT of ways to hook up a auto water change process. But efficiency, and complications that can and will cause a flood are what your going to be facing. Also the purpose of an auto water change is to reduce completely the work you need to do while doing the water changes. Your still going to have to plug and unplug alot of things as well as monitor it all while its happening and carry water buckets. Also unless you have a drain right near your tank your not reducing that much work.

If you look around, check out litermeter with the water xchange module. You can set up a waterxchange module w/ an auto top off on a litermeter to dump and pump water into back into your tank for a water change. Problem solved without crazy plumbing, check valves, unplugging, ect. All you would need to do is press a button and dump a bucket. Its just expensive (170$ for the module, 150$ for a top off unit, LM3 = 400$) but its pretty much foolproof an you can set it on an amount of water to change daily.

IMO, if i had the extra cash and room for 2x 20g containers without beeing an eyesore, i would set up daily small water changes using the litermeter. Swap out xamount every 2 days and just mix new water once a week. But that would be more about providing a more stable enviroment for the tank, different approach that a weekly or biweekly larger water change. And ideally i would be throwing all the bad water into a drain so i would only have 1 extra water container.

Anyways, some food for thought.

 

[basiab]

the downside to doing daily water changes is that you don't make much of an improvement in your water quaility as with each change you are also taking out a portion of the 'new' water you'd added the day before

I would tend to agree but the guys on wetwebmedia, who are supposed to be pros, say that multiple small changes are better than equivalent large changes.

 

[fernandokng]

Tosiek - don't you need to worry about Auto Top off as well with the Litermeter? How do you ensure you have the proper salinity when you're changing water + evaporation?

yeah the problem is reliability. There are ALOT of ways to hook up a auto water change process. But efficiency, and complications that can and will cause a flood are what your going to be facing. Also the purpose of an auto water change is to reduce completely the work you need to do while doing the water changes. Your still going to have to plug and unplug alot of things as well as monitor it all while its happening and carry water buckets. Also unless you have a drain right near your tank your not reducing that much work.

If you look around, check out litermeter with the water xchange module. You can set up a waterxchange module w/ an auto top off on a litermeter to dump and pump water into back into your tank for a water change. Problem solved without crazy plumbing, check valves, unplugging, ect. All you would need to do is press a button and dump a bucket. Its just expensive (170$ for the module, 150$ for a top off unit, LM3 = 400$) but its pretty much foolproof an you can set it on an amount of water to change daily.

IMO, if i had the extra cash and room for 2x 20g containers without beeing an eyesore, i would set up daily small water changes using the litermeter. Swap out xamount every 2 days and just mix new water once a week. But that would be more about providing a more stable enviroment for the tank, different approach that a weekly or biweekly larger water change. And ideally i would be throwing all the bad water into a drain so i would only have 1 extra water container.

Anyways, some food for thought.

 

[KathyC]

I would tend to agree but the guys on wetwebmedia, who are supposed to be pros, say that multiple small changes are better than equivalent large changes.

The guys on wetwebmedia don't always hit the nail on the head. None of us are perfect

 

[jhart]

without a dout I believe small water changes is the way to go.. so i disagree ..
smaller water change imo is the way to go , no change in temp. salinity is gradual in and out no spikes at all.. constant replenish of elements . its been working great for me so far..

 

[jhart]

Tosiek - don't you need to worry about Auto Top off as well with the Litermeter? How do you ensure you have the proper salinity when you're changing water + evaporation?

Evaporation dosnt affect your salinity at all..

 

[fishfreak1242]

wow this thread has really grown. Anyway, let me try to explain my idea a little better and I'll try to get a drawing up of my idea. My idea is pretty simple it's just hard to convey my ideas.
So how it would work is normally when I do a water change, I have to turn off my return pump to my sump which back siphons a bunch of water back into my sump. My idea is to put a T on the return pipe with a check valve below it so that when I turn off the pump and water back siphons, It will be stopped by the check valve and then go through the T into a separate bucket.
Then after the water has all gone to the bucket, I would have a separate bucket that would have already mixed SW in it, which would pump back the same amount of water to the sump (there would be a float valve at the bottom of the bucket, so when the water level goes all the way down, it would shut off the pump). Hopefully this clears things up a little bit.

 

[ReefNut]

I made mine and had it in service for two years now.Small water change is done every day if I'm home or not.Good for almost a month.
In a nut shell-2 pumps,2 timers.
First pump,(Mag 7 used to mix and transfer from basement in a 50 gallon container,and first timer is used to deliver approx 1.75 gal in 5 min. to system.Pump is throttled back on delivery because its difficult to get accurate transfer on only 1.75g.I also have a safety float switch if water level in sump gets too high to kill pump.
Second pump is a peristalic pump that sucks water out in about two hours,on seperate timer.Suction tube for pump is set at normal sump level,sucks air at that point.
I haven't done a manual WC since.Worth every dollar spent!!!

 

[fishfreak1242]

I made mine and had it in service for two years now.Small water change is done every day if I'm home or not.Good for almost a month.
In a nut shell-2 pumps,2 timers.
First pump,(Mag 7 used to mix and transfer from basement in a 50 gallon container,and first timer is used to deliver approx 1.75 gal in 5 min. to system.Pump is throttled back on delivery because its difficult to get accurate transfer on only 1.75g.I also have a safety float switch if water level in sump gets too high to kill pump.
Second pump is a peristalic pump that sucks water out in about two hours,on seperate timer.Suction tube for pump is set at normal sump level,sucks air at that point.
I haven't done a manual WC since.Worth every dollar spent!!!

That sounds like a good idea. My idea isn't really for when I'm not home, but so that I don't have to do any work when i go to do a water change. Do you have a picture of the system?

 

[ReefNut]

Here's a picture of pump with suction tube.The float switches you see there are part of an auto top off.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y255/fio1086/CIMG0352.jpg
And here is a picture of delivery tube throttled.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y255/fio1086/CIMG0351.jpg
The system doesn't matter
if your home or not,thats what so good about it.

 

[cali_reef]

how It should work.. 1 pump sucks water out of your system through the dialysis filter , this strips your water of salt , as this happens your SG falls, the hanna controller has thresholds when the conductivity hits a set point it turns on the other pump which pumps R/0 water into your 30 gallon bucket which is full of salt when the water is pumped in water slurrys over the top into your system at a high sg the controller has set points when the salinity is in the set point range it turns off the pump thats adding r/o into your bucket .. you do this every 30 mins for 3 mins long perfect water change..

http://www.automatedaquariums.com/h_983313.htm

I don't understand what you will archive by taking out just salt, nor how a filter will only take out salt while leave H2O behind. I don't think the $4K dialysis works the way you described.

 

[cali_reef]

I made mine and had it in service for two years now.Small water change is done every day if I'm home or not.Good for almost a month.
In a nut shell-2 pumps,2 timers.
First pump,(Mag 7 used to mix and transfer from basement in a 50 gallon container,and first timer is used to deliver approx 1.75 gal in 5 min. to system.Pump is throttled back on delivery because its difficult to get accurate transfer on only 1.75g.I also have a safety float switch if water level in sump gets too high to kill pump.
Second pump is a peristalic pump that sucks water out in about two hours,on seperate timer.Suction tube for pump is set at normal sump level,sucks air at that point.
I haven't done a manual WC since.Worth every dollar spent!!!

How do you deal with evaporation? and do you still check your SG? if yes, how often?

 

[ReefNut]

How do you deal with evaporation? and do you still check your SG? if yes, how often?

SG hasn't been affected.Auto top off keeps sump level within 1/2".I guess SG could be affected over a long period of time but I haven't noticed any change.I check it probably once a month.
I've become pretty lazy but thats why I made it automatic.:tongue1:

 

[tosiek]

Evaporation dosnt affect your salinity at all..

Unless your getting alot of salt creep when water evaporates, your SG will start to rise. You might not see a big difference in larger than 75g systems but at 50g, 5g of water evap will raise your salt readings up .001 or more.

Evaporation has to cause some sort of affect on your salinity levels, otherwise we wouldn't get salt spots when drops dry on our glass, floor, ect when we play with our tank. H20 breaks down and leaves behind all the other stuff in the water including nutrients/minerals.


Also, for the litermeter thing fernando was asking, ATO was not included in the explaination. It was automatically figured into the equasion that an ATO was already established and would have to be adjusted and monitored regularly.

Ive run a Ro tube straight from my RO/DI to a float valve in my sump and am working on a solenoid to shut off the feed if i get an overflow or something happens with the valve. For water changes i pull the plug on my pump which fills my sump to max to keep the float closed then start removing water from my display as well as some from the pump. For the Auto water change system it wont work so well. For the speed at which the Litermeter would pump and remove water i would have to close my line somehow and that would be as easy as adding a solenoid hooked up somehow to the litermeter feed. Power goes to the pump and shuts down the solenoid. I dunno, just throwing idea's out. i haven't thought about it much.

For the most part, in a cleaner sump, the float valve cleans itself out leaving no build up on the valve to get stuck and overflow your tank unless you have a source of calcium addition near the valve. I dose mine right into the display to avoid constant cleaning of my return pump. Once calcium deposits start on a pump/opening it tends to accumulate in that spot more often even after cleaning it. Probably not the best way but it works and has been more reliable than a float switch that can get stuck to salt creep from spashing.