So here's the idea, I'm not sure if it will work or not so any feedback would be greatly appriciated. I want to set up and ATO, an auto water exchange, and possibly and emergency pump in case things go bad. My main tank is in my basement against the outside wall of my house. My water (RODI and SW) are in the furnace room more in the middle of my basement. I ran 5 - 1/4 in lines from the furnace room through the ceiling, and down the wall beside my tank. I think I am going to purchase the Spectrapure single tank level controller so that I can hook it directly up to my RODI, split the line and still have RODI for my sw. For an auto water exchange I was thinking about (this is what I'm not sure about) putting a pump on a timer in my SW resevoir to pump water into my display and set it to be on from say 20:00-20:07 hours then put another pump on a timer in my sump to pump to my floor drain and set it to be on from say 20:02-20:09. (total time amount on my be different, I would like to time it to exchange about 6 gallons 3x per week). In theory if I used identical pumps in both my sump and SW reservoir they should move the same amount of water, but my concern is that they don't and my salinity either goes to high or to low depending on the pump. if they are on the same amount of time and one pumps 5 gallons and the other 6 I'm going to have problems. Does anyone do this now or have any better ideas? I looked into the Litermeter III, but don't want to spend that much money if there is another way. The other thing I was thinking about was trying to set up some kind of a backup pump if something goes wrong (power goes out, ato doesn't shut off, etc.) to pump water out of my sump to my floor drain by setting up a sort of reverse ATO. Is there a way to set up a float or something high in my sump to where if it is activated a pump would turn on and pump water from my sump to a drain? Any advise would be appriciated.
Auto water change / plumbing question
- Thread starter adoucette
- Start date
What about a pump on a timer to draw sw out of dt and then have a float sensor to shut it off at a certain level. Then have one on the new sw that does the opposite, pumps until float sensor turns it off. I would think if you have both timers set for the perfect amount of time for each process there wouldn't be any chance of the floats failing and causing havoc. Just an idea, and ill be following along to see what you end up doing.
Ok so from everything I can find it appears that the specific gravity for a reef tank should be between 1.023 - 1.027, most seem to agree on 1.025 as "ideal". It seems to me with that much of a range and taking out only 6 gallons 3x per week on a 180g tank it would be pretty hard to have a swing big enough and quickly enough to cause problems. As long as I check the specific gravity once or twice a week it seems like it might work?
I would go with water level sensors (float switches). I still like the idea of setting them on timers so that they will only pump at certain times. The biggest problem that I have found with trying to use 2, seemingly identical, pumps is that there are too many variables affecting the flow. First of all the pumps are not accurate enough to be considered identical. Second, you would have to have EXACTLY the same amount of head pressure. Using the float switches would eliminate these problems and use any two pumps that you want.
As an example, I would put both pumps on the float switches. Then I would set timer one to turn on pump one at 12:00am and stay on until 12:15, though it should be turned off by the float switch before that. At 12:20 pump 2 would turn on and stay on until 12:35, though again the float switch would turn it off before the timer.
I would also recommend putting the ATO on a timer to keep it from adding freshwater during the water changes.
I hope that makes sense.
As an example, I would put both pumps on the float switches. Then I would set timer one to turn on pump one at 12:00am and stay on until 12:15, though it should be turned off by the float switch before that. At 12:20 pump 2 would turn on and stay on until 12:35, though again the float switch would turn it off before the timer.
I would also recommend putting the ATO on a timer to keep it from adding freshwater during the water changes.
I hope that makes sense.