Automatic Water changes. It doesnt get any better then this.

[AquamanE]

Calibration and Set Up of LM3

First off the Calibration:

This was a topic discussed early in this thread as a disadvantage of the LM3. The following was my experience yesterday with it.

The calibration is very simple. It took me less than 8 minutes to perform it. I did however require an extra set of eyes since some of my lines are a good 10 feet away from the pump, so my fiancé helped. Basically you run the pump in calibration mode for each pump individually to reach 500 ml. What the pump does with this is figure out the flow rate and time it needs to reach the 500ml. I think this is an excellent feature.

what it does is take into consideration the length of tubing, and i guess head pressure into consideration. For me it made sense that one side needed to be pumped at 30ml faster rate since my new saltwater side tubing is ~25 feet since my SW is in the garage. For the old water dump i have ~ 8 feet of line. I will eventually try a side by side test but for now am taking the machines word for it. Since Stenner does not take this into consideration: Could this be why I have a difference between in and out??

The Set up it is also quite simple. You let the device know how much water you want to change out per day. In my case 2.5G/day, thats 9.46 L/day. What the device now does is divide that 9.46 liters into 150 times per day and does the work for you (mind you taking into consideration the RATE that came out of the calibration, so both pumps work at a different RATE).

I will closely monitor my SG for the next few days on a daily basis to make sure all is right.

More to come.........

 

[gettaReef]

AquamanE, thank you for writing up this review as I plan on using the LM3 for my AWC system. Hope all goes well!

 

[walkabout]

I'm sorry for bothering everybody but I would really like to know where those pumps are available I am looking and I must of missed it somewhere along in this thread because I have been reading it and I can't remember where you guys said it was this is my water change station thank you for looking and hope someone gets back to me I want those pumps

 

[Sacohen]

Which pump are you talking about?
There are about 3-4 different versions of an AWC in this thread.
First was the Stenner (easily found on the web)
Then there was the ThermoFisher D3138-13 w/Masterflex 7024-20 Pump. These were sold used on Ebay and I don't think they are listed anymore.
There was another one off Ebay, but I can't find it in the thread.
The latest thing being tested in the LiterMeter III

 

[mwminer]

I think Stenner is easiest to set up and hook to Apex

 

[reefhappy]

I use a liter meter III and love it! Reliable, ultra precise and easy to set up, I have it running up 8' across 30' and back down 8'. Never a hiccup in a year and a half and they have come down in price since I bought the unit and remote pump.

 

[reefhappy]

I have it set to change out 2.5 gallons a day over the course of 24hrs. Haven't touched a siphon or water bucket in the year and a half and love it.

 

[mwminer]

Suction side is 45feet an reject water is 110feet. Yeah it's along ways for waste water

 

[AquamanE]

Day 4 of running the LM3.

Cant tell when its running cause its so quiet and it sits in a closet behind my tank. I know its working because my fresh SW gets lower every day. Sump levels are intact. Specific gravity has not budged 1 ppt. :bigsmile:

 

[DRThompson]

I'm sorry for bothering everybody but I would really like to know where those pumps are available I am looking and I must of missed it somewhere along in this thread because I have been reading it and I can't remember where you guys said it was this is my water change station thank you for looking and hope someone gets back to me I want those pumps

Stenner - http://www.lockewell.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_6_30_33

Liter Meter http://spectrapure.com/AQUARIUM/LITER-METER-DOSING-PUMPS

Masterflex or others can be found on ebay....search using the words "cole parmer" or "masterflex pump"

 

[choff]

Some impressive DIY rigs folks have set up. I just put a genesis on my system about a month ago doing 6x1 gallon water changes daily.

The one issue I see is dealing with evap in my SW mix tank which is 60 gallons. I planned on mixing SW weekly, but by the end of the week I'm adding higher salinity water to the dt. Now my twv is 350 so I don't expect the needle to move much over any given week, but over time if it could be problematic if not accounted for. I'm thinking if I start with a slightly weaker solution to balance it out by the end of the week.

How do you account for it?

 

[reefhappy]

beings I only have 2 pumps on my lm3, I have 1 pump removing water at a set rate say 10 liters a day. I have my fresh SW add 9.75 liters which in return has my ato pumping an extra .25 liters of fresh Rodi in my tank a day. Took me several months to get the amount on each pump correct but works well on my system and keeps everything between 34.5 and 35 ppt

 

[AquamanE]

Some impressive DIY rigs folks have set up. I just put a genesis on my system about a month ago doing 6x1 gallon water changes daily.

The one issue I see is dealing with evap in my SW mix tank which is 60 gallons. I planned on mixing SW weekly, but by the end of the week I'm adding higher salinity water to the dt. Now my twv is 350 so I don't expect the needle to move much over any given week, but over time if it could be problematic if not accounted for. I'm thinking if I start with a slightly weaker solution to balance it out by the end of the week.

How do you account for it?

Why is you SW bin evaporating so much?? What is "twv"?

 

[AquamanE]

beings I only have 2 pumps on my lm3, I have 1 pump removing water at a set rate say 10 liters a day. I have my fresh SW add 9.75 liters which in return has my ato pumping an extra .25 liters of fresh Rodi in my tank a day. Took me several months to get the amount on each pump correct but works well on my system and keeps everything between 34.5 and 35 ppt

If you calibrate the LM3 you should not have an extra .25 liters of fresh water being pumped in. It should remove and add the corrected (calibrated) amount each time.

 

[reefhappy]

Yep it does and I have it calibrated right, for my tank. I do that so the ATO pumps the other. 25 liter with Rodi to counter the evap of my mixed water.

 

[Sacohen]

AquamanE had a good question of why you are lossing so much water to evaporation in your SW resivior?

If you have a sealed or pretty well sealed storage tank you should not have that much evaporation.

Whatever evaporates will condense and go back into the water.

 

[reefhappy]

I can't speak for choff but I mix 40 gallons about every 2.5 weeks and is in a closed container. I mix to 1.026 and at the end of the batch (2.5weeks) it is up to almost 1.028-1.030. Combined with the fact you can not get an lm3 calibrated exact on all pumps. Over the course of a month and a half my tank would climb over 35ppt.

 

[AquamanE]

I can't speak for choff but I mix 40 gallons about every 2.5 weeks and is in a closed container. I mix to 1.026 and at the end of the batch (2.5weeks) it is up to almost 1.028-1.030. Combined with the fact you can not get an lm3 calibrated exact on all pumps. Over the course of a month and a half my tank would climb over 35ppt.

I havent had that issue with the LM3 but did have that with the Stenner. I would compensate by mixing my SW bin to approx 32-33ppt.

 

[choff]

Twv = total water volume

My SW mix tank is not sealed all that well. It's a 60 gal sealed drum that I cut the entire top off of and then use a lid from another barrel that fits well, but not perfect. This works well because I have a several wires and tubes going in and out. I keep my mixing pump running so there is quite a bit of turbulence when the water level gets low increasing evap. The first week I went from 1.026 to 1.028.

I am going to make some adjustments this weekend to get a better seal to minimize this and see how that works out.

Otherwise I will either go reef happy route and calc the amount of rodi needed to bring me inline or figure out the curve and start with a weaker solution and end with a higher solution with a mean of 1.026 over the course of the week like aquamanE.

 

[AquamanE]

Twv = total water volume

My SW mix tank is not sealed all that well. It's a 60 gal sealed drum that I cut the entire top off of and then use a lid from another barrel that fits well, but not perfect. This works well because I have a several wires and tubes going in and out. I keep my mixing pump running so there is quite a bit of turbulence when the water level gets low increasing evap. The first week I went from 1.026 to 1.028.

I am going to make some adjustments this weekend to get a better seal to minimize this and see how that works out.

Otherwise I will either go reef happy route and calc the amount of rodi needed to bring me inline or figure out the curve and start with a weaker solution and end with a higher solution with a mean of 1.026 over the course of the week like aquamanE.

Sometimes good things have minor drawbacks.

In the case of AWC's ive found myself testing SG more than ever before. I now test 3-4x/week wher as before maybe once a month. :mmph:
But what is better, lifting my hydrometer for 30 seconds more frequently, or lifting buckets and taking lots of time to do waterchanges? :couch2::couch2: uke: