auto daily water change system
- Thread starter hvusalt
- Start date
I'm no pro but that sounds excessive. Your going to go through a ton of salt. 55 gallons would be 11 days. Plus you would need some sort of safeties or you run the chance of pumping 55 gallons into your display tank. Then you run the chance of emptieing your display too depending on how you plumbed it.
dilligaf29
Well-Known Member
there is a meber on here i belive he has a setup that changes a gallon a day i belive i will try to look i think he had a thread
dannyp02908
Non-member
I think Chris does the gallon daily. Cilyjr screen name. Maybe he will chime in.
drsalomon
Well-Known Member
I use litermeter for continuous water change. I do about
2 gallons per day. Use bubler in salt makeup water to keep it fresh and circulating. It splits the changes by 15 min all day. If i were doing it again, would use neptune dos. I actually route the effluent from one set of tanks into a second set which serves as my frag growout tank. Then i pump water from second tanks to waste. This system equilibrates params in two sets of tanks yet keeps the somewhat seperate.
2 gallons per day. Use bubler in salt makeup water to keep it fresh and circulating. It splits the changes by 15 min all day. If i were doing it again, would use neptune dos. I actually route the effluent from one set of tanks into a second set which serves as my frag growout tank. Then i pump water from second tanks to waste. This system equilibrates params in two sets of tanks yet keeps the somewhat seperate.
OP
OP
hvusalt
Non-member
I am big fan of this guy and in his video he mentioned the tank owner used his daily water change and bio pellet reactor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkCBbWOCwHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0_zc4_8tSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkCBbWOCwHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0_zc4_8tSE
phg1960
Well-Known Member
I was looking into doing something like this a couple of months ago. I didn't like the idea of using pumps since they can be very uneven outputs and can fail to start unless kept very clean. There just seemed to be too many variables and chance of things going wrong.
What I ended up doing is using two Hanna Inst. Dosing pumps. I have the BL20 which pump 4.8 gph. They are adjustable, so getting them to match output was a piece of cake. I have them on a timer that runs them for 15 every day. This changes just over 1.5 gallons daily for a total of about 11 gallons a week on a system of 190 gallons. So 5% per week.
They have only been running for a month now, but I am very happy with the set-up. No more manual water changes! All I have to do is refill the holding barrel weekly. (Although I could go two weeks without having to).
The only thing I don't like about them is that they are fairly loud. They work on a soleniod to pump and make an audible clicking sound when operating. So I run them late morning to not disturb anyone. Since my sump in in the basement, I really don't notice it, but it would be a whole other story if it were in my living room.
What I ended up doing is using two Hanna Inst. Dosing pumps. I have the BL20 which pump 4.8 gph. They are adjustable, so getting them to match output was a piece of cake. I have them on a timer that runs them for 15 every day. This changes just over 1.5 gallons daily for a total of about 11 gallons a week on a system of 190 gallons. So 5% per week.
They have only been running for a month now, but I am very happy with the set-up. No more manual water changes! All I have to do is refill the holding barrel weekly. (Although I could go two weeks without having to).
The only thing I don't like about them is that they are fairly loud. They work on a soleniod to pump and make an audible clicking sound when operating. So I run them late morning to not disturb anyone. Since my sump in in the basement, I really don't notice it, but it would be a whole other story if it were in my living room.
choff
Non-member
I have been running a Genesis water change system for almost 2 years and it works flawlessly. It has dual float switches checking to make sure I have premixed salt and my sump level is ok before it activates. I change 1 gallon of water every 4 hours. It could not have been simpler to install and easy as pie to setup and run. It will run you about $4 or 500 though.
One caveat, your ATO. Genesis sells an ATO too, but I thought it was a waste of money since I have an apex. So what I do is I have my ATO come on every 4 hours but on a 2 hour different cycle than the Genesis so they don't run at the same time. Example, WC at 4,8,12 etc and ATO runs at 2,6,10 etc.
If you go the diy route, that's the one thing you have to figure out is how to turn off your ATO while your doing the water change.
Add in a skimmer neck cleaner with a 1 gallon over flow collection chamber and my weekly maintenance is almost nothing. I mix a 60 gal drum of salt, empty my skimmer overflow and I'm done. I have to clean the neck and head monthly.
One caveat, your ATO. Genesis sells an ATO too, but I thought it was a waste of money since I have an apex. So what I do is I have my ATO come on every 4 hours but on a 2 hour different cycle than the Genesis so they don't run at the same time. Example, WC at 4,8,12 etc and ATO runs at 2,6,10 etc.
If you go the diy route, that's the one thing you have to figure out is how to turn off your ATO while your doing the water change.
Add in a skimmer neck cleaner with a 1 gallon over flow collection chamber and my weekly maintenance is almost nothing. I mix a 60 gal drum of salt, empty my skimmer overflow and I'm done. I have to clean the neck and head monthly.
cilyjr
Chris
I do auto water changes as well. The genesis is the pricier way th do it. But it works I think Paul uses this as well.
I'm more like Dr Solomon but I bought a dual head parastaltic pump (dual heads on 1 motor) so I know it's moving the same amount of water from both the tank and salt resorvior. I do about 2 gallons daily (just under) and the pump runs a few minutes every 30 mins.
I did this Bacause many talk about trace elements that are needed and a lot of people dose but there is really no great way of testing for them (not with out spending a lot of money anyway). So this way I feel I'm taking care of that end without really putting consience thought into it.
Some may say that this is not an efficient way of nutrient export due to the small changes mixing with the old water and it pulls old and new alike however randy holmes-Farley wrote an article stating pretty much the opposite which I will link at the bottom.
I've been using this system for about 3 years I think. And feel it has contributed a great deal to overall system health. I saw someone mention above that they felt this would be expensive but if you figure on doing 20% monthly and you divide that up to daily (in my case every half hour) then will you will spend exactly the same no matter how you put the salt in. I do use plain ol' instant ocean because it's cheaper and it's not over inflated with ridiculously high parameters( who wants alk at 13dkh and calcium at 550?). It is my opinion that a largish (40 to 1 million gallons) mature system is going do some type of alternative dosing (2part, ca reactor, kalk, something)so why buy salt that has a higher chance of parsipitation in the holding barrel.
That's my thinking and here's the randy holmes-Farley article
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php
I'm more like Dr Solomon but I bought a dual head parastaltic pump (dual heads on 1 motor) so I know it's moving the same amount of water from both the tank and salt resorvior. I do about 2 gallons daily (just under) and the pump runs a few minutes every 30 mins.
I did this Bacause many talk about trace elements that are needed and a lot of people dose but there is really no great way of testing for them (not with out spending a lot of money anyway). So this way I feel I'm taking care of that end without really putting consience thought into it.
Some may say that this is not an efficient way of nutrient export due to the small changes mixing with the old water and it pulls old and new alike however randy holmes-Farley wrote an article stating pretty much the opposite which I will link at the bottom.
I've been using this system for about 3 years I think. And feel it has contributed a great deal to overall system health. I saw someone mention above that they felt this would be expensive but if you figure on doing 20% monthly and you divide that up to daily (in my case every half hour) then will you will spend exactly the same no matter how you put the salt in. I do use plain ol' instant ocean because it's cheaper and it's not over inflated with ridiculously high parameters( who wants alk at 13dkh and calcium at 550?). It is my opinion that a largish (40 to 1 million gallons) mature system is going do some type of alternative dosing (2part, ca reactor, kalk, something)so why buy salt that has a higher chance of parsipitation in the holding barrel.
That's my thinking and here's the randy holmes-Farley article
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php
cilyjr
Chris
This is is a nice system for changing water but this is not a continuous automatic change system. It is more a way to change water without hauling buckets. I have a system for this as well which is separate in case I'm required to do a big water change for whatever reason.
In this video he manually switches from ato to wc and this changes out water in a way the float switches allow the mag to not over fill the smaller maxijet.
bvs12
Non-member
I also do daily water changes. I use a 2 head doesing pump. It works great because one motor spins both doesing heads so it is always even. I do 2 water changes a day at 1 1/2 gallons each. I have seen great results and am very happy with it. Don't even have to turn off my ato because it is so even at removing and installing water.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
cilyjr
Chris
Art if you remember I did this as well at first set up to have a continuous qt tank. What I decided however was that to have a qt without any biofiltration (liverock) the changes would need to be much larger on the main tank to keep up with Ammonia production from any quarantined animals. In the end I decided it wasn't worth it and in my recent rebuild I re purposed the space
cilyjr
Chris
This is what I'm doing. There 2 factors to consider when assuming the motor is pulling at identical rates however. 1 is tube length and the other is height. If using a single motor dual head pump (such as masterflex) and only 1 side is pumping up 15 feet high but the other is only 2 feet from the tank, the 2 foot length can over time pump slightly more water.
I should say that's likely a small difference. I'm just stating so you will still check salinity from time to time as it could lead to a deficit or surplus at some point.
Flame Angel
Past BRS Pres/2016MOD
Pictures, pictures, so we can follow along... Eye Candy.
drsalomon
Well-Known Member
I actually monitor salinity with apex and top off either with rodi or salt makeup water depending on salinity. I do double check with refractometer weekly because apex salinity probe drifts with biofouling. I also have a float valve in bottom of 20 gal container of makeup salt water to stop the auto topoff and email me when it is depleted. The air stone is also held in the bottom of makeup water vat to ensure optimal aeration. To hold both of these in place I fashioned a mount out of those moldable plastic strips. Will upload pictures later.
I agree that you have to factor length of tubing and elevation changes which effects back pressure and you dont want to necessarily assume that both pump heads need to rotate identically. The litermeters allow you to calibrate by measuring volume in and out.
I agree that you have to factor length of tubing and elevation changes which effects back pressure and you dont want to necessarily assume that both pump heads need to rotate identically. The litermeters allow you to calibrate by measuring volume in and out.
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