Auto water change?

[RJH829]

Thinking about a simple waterchange idea with maybe a 10 gallon tank a small pump and pvc up to my 45 gallon display. Syphon water out manually but refill by the pump with mixed water. Any ideas? Anyone done anything similar?

 

[FishyDP]

I am thinking about setting up an auto water change system myself.. there are some specific products you can buy for this, but come with a price tag of course. Check out brs/marine depot, I am pretty sure they have some.

I guess it all depends on the application. If you are using it to do say a 1-2% change every day or every other day, you could simply buy some small pumps and set them up on a digital timer. One pump would turn on for x time to pump water out of display/sump. The other pump would then pump the same amount of fresh sw back in shortly after.

If you are using the auto change system to do larger water changes, you will probably want more control. You could simply plug the pumps into outlets with switches. Flip one switch to pump the water out, another to pump it in.

There may be better methods out there, but I personally like low tech systems..I have not tried this auto change system myself, it's in the "developmental" stage right now haha, but in theory could work..

 

[RJH829]

I am thinking about setting up an auto water change system myself.. there are some specific products you can buy for this, but come with a price tag of course. Check out brs/marine depot, I am pretty sure they have some.

I guess it all depends on the application. If you are using it to do say a 1-2% change every day or every other day, you could simply buy some small pumps and set them up on a digital timer. One pump would turn on for x time to pump water out of display/sump. The other pump would then pump the same amount of fresh sw back in shortly after.

If you are using the auto change system to do larger water changes, you will probably want more control. You could simply plug the pumps into outlets with switches. Flip one switch to pump the water out, another to pump it in.

There may be better methods out there, but I personally like low tech systems..I have not tried this auto change system myself, it's in the "developmental" stage right now haha, but in theory could work..

That sounds good I'm going to kick around the idea for awhile but if I go for it I will post many updates, not to much info online so I'm going to plan it up

 

[Brian_68]

I use a litermeter III for daily water changes. I have a 50 gal tank mixed with fresh saltwater that it pumps from. It pumps up to the main tank daily about 4 gallons in a 125 tank. The overflow drains to the sump. I have another overflow in the sump plumbed to a drain so all the excess goes down the drain. I also have another litermeter III that adds evaporation water daily as well, about a gallon a day in my case, that I dial in to get the right volume for evaporation. Works great for me, just need to occasionally refill the 50 gal saltwater makeup tank and test the main tank salinity weekly to make sure it does not drift.

 

[Reef-junky]

If your going to make an auto water change system then I don’t see the point of standing there and flipping switches. I wouldn’t trust timers as well if the timer fails a lot of water could get pumped in or out. Regular pumps are not going to be accurate enough you would have to use a decent dosing pump but at that price I would start to consider this

 

[FishyDP]

Auto vs semi-automation, high tech vs low tech..it really comes down to preference and how much you are willing to spend. I have had more issues with sensors than I have had with simple timers and pumps..

 

[LegendaryCG]

I'm using an Apex DoS to change 1 gallon a day. It's rather expensive if you don't already have an apex to purchase it for just that purpose though. It does work quite well every day I empty a 1 gallon container and fill a my clean one. A bigger holding container would be a little more conveint but I feel like keeping it smaller prevents any major screw up from an equipment failure plus it's nice and light and easy to move around unlike lugging big buckets.