Competition - who has the cheapest set up for AWC ?

[D3DPrintedThingz]

Water changes on a 125 gallon aquarium are no joke. I enjoy it, because it gives me something to do vs. just staring at it . I am flirting with the concept of an automatic water change. Do a little bit every day rather than a lot all at once. I am thinking in terms of stability, there is not much stability in removing 20% of the water and replacing it with new saltwater. But I am not a scientist.

So of course I entered "automatic water change" in BRS and whoooooooooooooo expensive. I could set something up with pumps and float valves and such, but it would be gangster and it'd break and I'd get frustrated and my ATO would get in the way of it working severely.

Lets see your AWC set ups , bonus points for the DIY aspect of it (if that is a thing) and extra bonus points if you have to use a lot of elbow grease

 

[blaxsun]

This is my AWC system - just used for dosing trace elements every week. It's completely DIY (no water changes), though there is a minimum of elbow grease...

 

[FIN&BONEZ]

Toyed with the idea, but just went to a gallon a day takes about a minuet and yay no more alk spikes.

 

[n2585722]

I use the AWC on my Hydros system. I use dosing pumps for the three pumps. Since it has to disable the ATO as well my ATO is also controlled within the AWC on the Hydros. ai have 42 gallon tank and change about 1000ml a day split into three changes. Below is three screenshots of my AWC output settings.

Below is the water change schedulesettings.

Below is a photo of the pumps. The upper left pump is the fill pump. The lower left pump is the drain pump. The lower right pump is the ATO pump. The pump in the upper right is a dosing pump used to dose All For Reef. These and my 3 storage tanks are in the garage. The tank is 35ft away. The tubing runs up through the attic and walls to and from the tank.

 

[Jasper05]

I use the AWC on my Hydros system. I use dosing pumps for the three pumps. Since it has to disable the ATO as well my ATO is also controlled within the AWC on the Hydros. ai have 42 gallon tank and change about 1000ml a day split into three changes. Below is three screenshots of my AWC output settings.

Below is the water change schedulesettings.

Below is a photo of the pumps. The upper left pump is the fill pump. The lower left pump is the drain pump. The lower right pump is the ATO pump. The pump in the upper right is a dosing pump used to dose All For Reef. These and my 3 storage tanks are in the garage. The tank is 35ft away. The tubing runs up through the attic and walls to and from the tank.

What pumps are you using for awc? Is there a list of pumps hydros recommends/compatible for awc?

 

[WVNed]

I use a Hydros as well
It takes 1 water level sensor and 3 Maxijet pumps as well. It also functions as my ATO.

 

[n2585722]

What pumps are you using for awc? Is there a list of pumps hydros recommends/compatible for awc?

I use Intllab dosing pumps but my storage is in the garage 34ft from the tank. The tubing is run through the attic between the garage and the tank, but the pump is not important as far as the auto water change regimen on the Hydros is concerned. If was me I would use pumps plugged into either drive ports or the XP8 outlets and not wifi power strips or plugs.

 

[Jasper05]

I use Intllab dosing pumps but my storage is in the garage 34ft from the tank. The tubing is run through the attic between the garage and the tank, but the pump is not important as far as the auto water change regimen on the Hydros is concerned. If was me I would use pumps plugged into either drive ports or the XP8 outlets and not wifi power strips or plugs.

Thanks. Im planning my first tank. Outside of apex dosers, there isnt too much literature out there

 

[Jasper05]

I use a Hydros as well
It takes 1 water level sensor and 3 Maxijet pumps as well. It also functions as my ATO.

Thanks for the reply. I have seen your post on that before. I will have to revisit ; it was a little overwhelming for me.

 

[n2585722]

Thanks. Im planning my first tank. Outside of apex dosers, there isnt too much literature out there

Check my build thread here. The Hydros post start on page 7 Click on my Build Thread Contributor banner in one of my post. It has lost of information on the Hydros. Things changed during the time I started using it and now. When that happened I would always make a post about the changes. Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Gtinnel]

My AWC is just a old masterflex pump that I bought on eBay for incredibly cheap. I have it sitting on my brute trash can mixing station in my utility room and tubing ran through my ceiling to the tank. The pump is then controlled by a Kasa smart plug to change the water. I probably have less than $150 in it for everything.

 

[Jasper05]

I use a Hydros as well
It takes 1 water level sensor and 3 Maxijet pumps as well. It also functions as my ATO.

I read your post again. So the 1 sensor is in your saltwater source to prevent from running low? And then you use the ato sensor and fill until the water reaches it?

I have a silly question. I dont know how long your run is, but when the new saltwater hits the ato sensor and stops the pump, does the remaining water in the hose go into the sump?

I am guessing in most systems this is negligible, but if you had a long enough run and a small enough system, would this eventually mess with your salinity? Because technically if the water is slightly over the sensor and then has to evaporate to go under, wouldnt the salinity increase overtime? Maybe I am overthinking everything.

 

[exnisstech]

Toyed with the idea, but just went to a gallon a day takes about a minuet and yay no more alk spikes.

Same here. 1g a day on my reefer 170 and 4g a day on my 180g. Takes all of 10 minutes and nothing high tech to fail and cause problems.

 

[WVNed]

I read your post again. So the 1 sensor is in your saltwater source to prevent from running low? And then you use the ato sensor and fill until the water reaches it?

I have a silly question. I dont know how long your run is, but when the new saltwater hits the ato sensor and stops the pump, does the remaining water in the hose go into the sump?

I am guessing in most systems this is negligible, but if you had a long enough run and a small enough system, would this eventually mess with your salinity? Because technically if the water is slightly over the sensor and then has to evaporate to go under, wouldnt the salinity increase overtime? Maybe I am overthinking everything.

The single sensor reads the water level in the sump. This is the level the ATO fills to. Once a day or however often you want the Hydros disables the ATO and drains water from the system a set amount of time. I measured and my setup drains 1 gallon a minute.
Then after the timer expires it pumps new saltwater back to the sensor level and then turns the ATO on again.

Would a long tube change your salinity over time. I dont think so. As long as it always fills to the same level.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I use the Smart Aqua Duo AWC. I really like their system. Comes with ATO as well.

 

[Joe31415]

On one of my tanks, I just use two Versa pumps, one in, one out. It works, but it's expensive.

On my other tank, I built my own. Looking *only* at the AWC portion of this:
2 Kasa Smart Outlets. $10 x 2 = $20
2 BRS dosing pumps $80 x 2 =$160
Add some tubing and other odds and ends and the whole thing was about $200. Plus any piece can be replaced without having to buy a whole new system.

Tell one pump to run for X mins (or mls), then tell the other one to do the same. Boom. Water Changed.

However, one thing I did like about the Hydros was it's AWC system, so I adopted it into my method.
I have a 3rd Kasa switch on my ATO and I added a water level sensor. Now, when doing a water change, my ATO shuts off, the drain pump runs for 1 hour, then it shuts off and the Fill pump runs. The fill pump is powered on for IIRC 2 hours, however it can only run if the water level sensor reads dry. That means I don't have to screw around with calibrating the pumps. The fill pump runs until the water gets to the sensor (or it's been two hours). After two hours, the fill pump turns off and the ATO turns back on.

The other nice thing about this set up is that I can manually remove water (ie, acclimating something or dipping a frag) and let the system handle topping it back off with salt water without me having to babysit it.

 

[Sean Clark]

I have two different auto water changers. The more reliable of the two just turned 11. She usually never skips a beat. The other auto water changer is 9 and he needs some poking and prodding to get working sometimes; but still gets the job done. They are both self cleaning and with proper maintenance should last a good long time.

 

[D3DPrintedThingz]

I was looking at the 4 headed Jebao dosing pump. Am I dumb in thinking I could set up two of the heads to pull water from the sump and push fresh saltwater into the sump at the same rate, so it wouldn't cause the ATO I have set up to turn on.

I have never used a dosing head, or really any type of automation other than my Inkbird which is essentially a plug and play.

I could be completely wrong in my thinking, I haven't seen any examples of someone who has done it, so either it is a new idea or a bad idea. .... lol

 

[D3DPrintedThingz]

On one of my tanks, I just use two Versa pumps, one in, one out. It works, but it's expensive.

On my other tank, I built my own. Looking *only* at the AWC portion of this:
2 Kasa Smart Outlets. $10 x 2 = $20
2 BRS dosing pumps $80 x 2 =$160
Add some tubing and other odds and ends and the whole thing was about $200. Plus any piece can be replaced without having to buy a whole new system.

Tell one pump to run for X mins (or mls), then tell the other one to do the same. Boom. Water Changed.

However, one thing I did like about the Hydros was it's AWC system, so I adopted it into my method.
I have a 3rd Kasa switch on my ATO and I added a water level sensor. Now, when doing a water change, my ATO shuts off, the drain pump runs for 1 hour, then it shuts off and the Fill pump runs. The fill pump is powered on for IIRC 2 hours, however it can only run if the water level sensor reads dry. That means I don't have to screw around with calibrating the pumps. The fill pump runs until the water gets to the sensor (or it's been two hours). After two hours, the fill pump turns off and the ATO turns back on.

The other nice thing about this set up is that I can manually remove water (ie, acclimating something or dipping a frag) and let the system handle topping it back off with salt water without me having to babysit it.

If you have any pictures, or a video, I am following this about 80% but some of it is a little beyond me. I don't really ever pull too much salt water out of the tank, and with 100 + gallons if I grab a bucket I don't really think twice about the shift in salinity, but if I can have it top off salt water when needed and fresh water when evaporated, that would be awesome

 

[bushdoc]

My phosphates are 0.06, I had to start dosing nitrates to raise it to 3-4 ppm range. Just got ICP test back and with an exception if slightly lower Iodine everything is in a green zone. Any reason I should do water changes on regular basis, especially AWC?