Water change with a sump???

[jgvergo]

Newbie question: I am building a 30 gallon sump with the "typical" three chambers. I will set up the baffles so that the first two chambers are at a constant level and the return pump chamber is variable based on the total volume of water in the system.

If I siphon water out of my display tank, is there a way to replace it by pumping water into my sump? My DT will be 85 gallons and I'd like to be able to do up to 33% water changes.

If I pump the new water into the return pump chamber of the sump, I'm worried about pumping it too fast or too slow. Too fast, and I could overflow the sump. Too slow, and the return pump will get lots of air in it.

 

[eea60]

I just turn my return pumps and skimmer off and siphon what I want. I then put some of the water back in my display and the rest in my sump as I have the return pumps back on. I like to have the power heads on while adding water to help it mix with the remaining in the display. I don't put new water in on corals (usually I put it in over the power heads) and I have never had a problem doing this but I make sure temp and salinity match.

 

[ballroomdude]

you could automate things and put a small pump with drip line at 1 gph of newly mixed water into the tank and another of the same setup in the last chamber of the sump pumping and dripping into a drain at 1gph.

You'd get 24 gallons a day changed without turning anything off or doing anything as far as carrying buckets. Makes life really easy.

 

[jgvergo]

you could automate things and put a small pump with drip line at 1 gph of newly mixed water into the tank and another of the same setup in the last chamber of the sump pumping and dripping into a drain at 1gph.

You'd get 24 gallons a day changed without turning anything off or doing anything as far as carrying buckets. Makes life really easy.

I love the idea, but how do you ensure that the two drip lines are operating at the same rate? Being off by 1-2 gallons a day could have serious consequences.

 

[ballroomdude]

You hook up 3/8" airline from the pump with an airline regulator valve in the end and calibrate them to match. This way you have precision control over the drip rate.

 

[ballroomdude]

Good video as a how to. Just hook it up to a pump instead of a main water source.....

 

[saltyphish]

Seems like dosing pumps would work better for this since they are calibrated and run measured doses. More accurate that way imo. Never done it personally but have read a few build threads where they use them for that and claim no problems.

 

[ballroomdude]

Could definitely be viable but also may be a bit more expensive. Either way you aren't carrying buckets anymore