So a little update on my recent project I've been working on. I've had an RODI filter for a hot minute now, but not a very good setup. I have a finished basement in my house and have been using the half bath in the basement for my water setup for my RODI. It has worked so far for my nano aquarium but moving forward with this hobby I feel like there is definitely room for improvement, Luckily my husband is supportive with this and her has been helping me improve my DYI skills. So I knew that making water changes and more specifically making the fresh and ease of making saltwater was important. Luckily I have married a fantastic man that understands this!! haha. So i explained to him what I wanted to accomplish and a way that we could do that. I took some ideas of different mixing stations and what I wanted as far as available fresh water and how I wanted to make saltwater and how often.
The best solution I could come up with is was a long 20 gallon tote on top of a 44 gallon mixing gallon tote. Previously, I have been filling up the 44 gallon with the amount of RODI I wanted and then mixing salt. I plan on doing 10% water changes which is a total of about 6 gallons at a time, so filling up the 44 gallon with saltwater will last me a couple weeks in between having to mix more. As much as I would love to make automatic water changes work or even run a tube up to the tank, it's just not possible for me. Especially at my DIY skill level and not wanting to make permanent changes to my house.
Anyway, for that very long explanation of why my set up is the way it is, here is what I came up with. I started with planning the frame. I knew I wanted to get it simple but still look nice for my basement. We went to Lowes and Home Depot and picked up some 2 x 4's, 3/4 in sanded plywood, some paint, and some plumbing for the 20 gallon tote. The stand needs to be sturdy but not overly concerned with it since it's only supporting 20 gallons max. I also want to be able to store the 44 gallon brute underneath the stand. No pumps will be used and gravity will be my mode of transport for the RODI water.
We went a little out of order and had to wait to paint until the next day because of daylight, but here's a picture of where the stand will be and how the RODI unit will be mounted and booster pump installed. I'm using the AquaticLife Smart Buddie pump. Super easy to install and automatically flushes the unit so I don't need to remember to.
I learned a lesson a few weeks ago that no of us want to learn the hard way and that is to never forget to turn the RODI off! Haha. So for this, i finally decided to install an auto shut off and some redundancy to prevent this. Luckily when I flooded our basement bathroom, its all tile and drains into the garage, so no real damage done. But now this is going over actual flooring so I definitely don't want that to happen again. I installed a float valve in the 20 gallon tote and also bought the Flood Guardian optical auto shut off. For the auto shut off valve, I installed the Aqua FX high pressure valve on the RODI unit. They provide a Youtube video on how to install it and it was very easy. I have the Flood Guardian set just below the float valve so that it'll shut off the unit first, with the float valve as a back up. One cool feature with the Flood Guardian is that once it shuts off, it stays off until it's either power cycled or you push the button to start it up again. A timer could be used to power cycle it, but right now I just press the button when I want to make water. I like this feature because now its only making water when I home rather than just whenever.
The tote plumbing is very simple. I have all 3/4" piping and used a bulkhead for the tote walls. On the inside of the pipe, I put a 90 degree elbow facing down so that it draws water from the bottom and creates a siphon to empty the tote completely. On the other side, I have a union, a ball valve, an elbow, and then a barbed fitting with vinyl tubing attached.
