Show me your water storage

[OutColdCRNA]

Here is mine. Air tight dog food containers that I added bulkheads to. Ro In the top and gravity fees to the bottoms to mix salt. Been using this for years. Simple and great for a small tank.

 

[Karen00]

I would like to see it as I will NEVER have room for some of these water stations i see in this thread lol They are pretty awesome tho! Great job everyone!

These water stations make me realize i will never have a larger tank than i probably have now lol

Mine is a 3g Home Depot bucket with a heater that I mix my salt in. I don't even aerate. LOL. I use bottled distilled water for topoffs so I don't even need a bucket for that. Seeing some of the setups on here also makes me realize I will probably never have anything much larger than the tank I have now unless I get a house upgrade. Haha.

 

[R33FDr3amer]

Mine is a 3g Home Depot bucket with a heater that I mix my salt in. I don't even aerate. LOL. I use bottled distilled water for topoffs so I don't even need a bucket for that. Seeing some of the setups on here also makes me realize I will probably never have anything much larger than the tank I have now unless I get a house upgrade. Haha.

yeah and a house upgrade is probably not gonna happen for me lol I will look into the 3g bucket. I may just go your route I thought about one of those water storage containers with a handle, they're like 6 gallons or something, and mix up enough to fill that using my bathroom as my mix room. I bought a ro/di system so I can make my own water. We will see...but yeah a house upgrade is a no so a 125 gal+ is a no too sadly lol

 

[Karen00]

yeah and a house upgrade is probably not gonna happen for me lol I will look into the 3g bucket. I may just go your route I thought about one of those water storage containers with a handle, they're like 6 gallons or something, and mix up enough to fill that using my bathroom as my mix room. I bought a ro/di system so I can make my own water. We will see...but yeah a house upgrade is a no so a 125 gal+ is a no too sadly lol

I actually did buy a 5g bucket to do the salt water but my water changes are so small per week it sat there for quite awhile so I use the 3g bucket but probably mix up just 2g which lasts me a couple weeks. Also, because my tank is fairly small I actually change the water using a coffee mug (it's now dedicated to that purpose. I do a quick gravel clean and siphon out about a gallon then I do a quick stir of the fresh saltwater and refill the tank using the coffee mug. I know when I'm done refilling when the water level reaches the piece of masking tape I have at the side of my tank for my water line. That's about as high tech as it gets for me. LOL

 

[MamaP]

I love seeing all these water storage solutions and mixing stations! I'm curious, though, how do you keep algae out of them?

 

[Joe462]

I love seeing all these water storage solutions and mixing stations! I'm curious, though, how do you keep algae out of them?

Its RODI so there are no nutrients to feed the algae and also no should be no algea due to it being filtered out so you would have to introduce the algea then it would need nutrients.

 

[MPS]

A couple of questions for you guys - as I have a 230G ready to ship but the whole nightmare of water changes is giving me a bit of a pause to reconsider.

Do you add the salt manually? Is that just before the water change? What about heaters? Is there a heater in your saltwater reservoir?

I will be adding salt once the tank is empty. I’ll be making a full batch at a time that should last me about a month.
mill be doing auto water changes at a rate of 1.7 gal/ day over a few hours. I don’t expect there to be any real affect on the temp so no heating or cooling needed.

 

[MPS]

yeah and a house upgrade is probably not gonna happen for me lol I will look into the 3g bucket. I may just go your route I thought about one of those water storage containers with a handle, they're like 6 gallons or something, and mix up enough to fill that using my bathroom as my mix room. I bought a ro/di system so I can make my own water. We will see...but yeah a house upgrade is a no so a 125 gal+ is a no too sadly lol

I started with a simple RODI system mounted under the sink in the kitchen of my apartment. I’d drip water into a 30gal trash can then mix the salt in. Every 2weeks, that can say in front of the display for the better part of a weekend. I used that method right up until this coming weekend when my 150gal mixing station / AWC goes on line. The mixing station is overkill for now but once I recover from its cost, I’ll be upgrading to a larger tank and grow out.

 

[Tdoan]

I decided to go a little bigger my tanks are 250 gallons each allows me to mix enough water to do auto water changes on both my 300 gallon systems of 3.5 gallons each a day for 1 month or so. The largest that would fit thru my basement doorway

Nice setup, where did you get your tanks?

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Nice setup, where did you get your tanks?

From here

Plastic-Mart Homepage | Plastic-Mart

Plastic-Mart offers a wide range of high-quality plastic storage tanks and accessories. Find the perfect solution for your liquid storage needs. Shop now for reliable and affordable options.

www.plastic-mart.com

 

[OutColdCRNA]

From here

Plastic-Mart Homepage | Plastic-Mart

Plastic-Mart offers a wide range of high-quality plastic storage tanks and accessories. Find the perfect solution for your liquid storage needs. Shop now for reliable and affordable options.

www.plastic-mart.com

I bet shipping on this tanks is insane!

 

[((FORDTECH))]

I bet shipping on this tanks is insane!

Yeah I want to say it was 350 to ship no matter how many tanks you bought

 

[Tdoan]

From here

Plastic-Mart Homepage | Plastic-Mart

Plastic-Mart offers a wide range of high-quality plastic storage tanks and accessories. Find the perfect solution for your liquid storage needs. Shop now for reliable and affordable options.

www.plastic-mart.com

Thanks I will look into it.

 

[Hallowhead]

Do y'all use the same pump to push your mixed salt as well as fresh RO to ATO?

 

[Forty-Two]

Some of you guys have inspired me to create a system.

Ill work with what I have - which is some Royal Exclusiv water containers, a Profilux and some switches. Hopefully Ill have the selenoid and 2 mechanical switches coming next week to start making it work.

 

[Forty-Two]

Do y'all use the same pump to push your mixed salt as well as fresh RO to ATO?

Right now Im using a Profilux and dosing pump for ATO. Eventually Id like to get to fully automated water changes, so Id stick with the Profilux and dosing pump if possible and just do 2-3 gallons a day. On the current setup the issue is the waste water - its not setup for it. Once the 230 comes then Ill likely put in a waste water line and use for fully automated water changes.

 

[Mathew0]

Hello,
I am brainstorming my water storage setup, and have been having trouble figuring out how to fill my "salt" side without having it backup into my "fresh" side. Seeing all your photos, I'm highly confused by all the plumbing. I have 2 food-grade plastic 55 gal drums. I will be putting in a float valve in the "fresh" one. My plan was to simply connect the 2 tanks with a hose and let gravity fill the "salt" side. In my head, it seems like all I would need is a ball valve to stop the "salt" side from filling when I do water changes. But, the backflow is still a consideration at the refilling stage. That brought me to the idea of a check valve. It would require both.
I'm wondering what you all think of this.

Also, I'm wondering how to keep a bunch of algae from growing in the fresh side as it sits full for days/weeks? Do you guys keep a bunch of freshwater snails in there? Maybe a pleco

 

[tydeck]

Simple. 5 gallons RO water and 5 gallons premade SW. Both from LFS.

5 gallons of each every 2 weeks. $10 each time. Well worth it for my small tank.

 

[Joe462]

Hello,
I am brainstorming my water storage setup, and have been having trouble figuring out how to fill my "salt" side without having it backup into my "fresh" side. Seeing all your photos, I'm highly confused by all the plumbing. I have 2 food-grade plastic 55 gal drums. I will be putting in a float valve in the "fresh" one. My plan was to simply connect the 2 tanks with a hose and let gravity fill the "salt" side. In my head, it seems like all I would need is a ball valve to stop the "salt" side from filling when I do water changes. But, the backflow is still a consideration at the refilling stage. That brought me to the idea of a check valve. It would require both.
I'm wondering what you all think of this.

Also, I'm wondering how to keep a bunch of algae from growing in the fresh side as it sits full for days/weeks? Do you guys keep a bunch of freshwater snails in there? Maybe a pleco

I have never had algae show up in my RODI storage, if using RODI, any algae should be filtered out before it gets to your container and there should be no food source if any algae should happen to get in there. Plus not much light in there.

I suppose your plan with ball valve and check valve should work though only until they reach an equaliburum, meaning if you started with a full fresh water container you would only be able to fill the salt halfway. you could solve this by putting one on top of the other so the fresh can gravity feed to the salt, would also eliminate the need for a check valve. Or use a pump which is what i think most of us do when setting the two tanks next to each other. That is what the "confusing" plumbing allows. I have a pump that i can pump fresh to salt, and use to mix and circulate the salt tank.

 

[Jubei2006]

Do y'all use the same pump to push your mixed salt as well as fresh RO to ATO?

I have a small iwaki pump that pushes RO/DI to the salt water bin, and connected to push RO/DI or Saltwater to the sump. So yes, one pump to rule them all.