A pic of my 75 g today 1 year details.

Here is the room my tank is in, it is my excersize room, the tank keeps me motivated to excersize and the 1" hard rubber matting that the flooring is makes it easy to clean water spills.
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Tony, great tank! Tell me more about the water changes. What is a litermeter and how does it worK?
 
The water changes are done with the use of a Litermeter. The Litermeter is a peristalic pump. The main unit has one pump attached to it, but you can plug more pumps into it. So to do the water changes I have one extra pump plugged into it. The pump is great because it has a calibration capabilitie, so you calibrate the two pumps so they are each pumping the exact same amount of water. I simply have one line running from a 35gallon rubbermade container of saltwater , I make the saltwater once per week or two, that line goes from the tub to the litermeter pump to the sump. Then I have another line running from the sump back to the 2nd litermeter pump from the pump the line runs to my waste . The litermeter is plugged into a timer , the timer is set to come on on Sunday from 8 am to 8pm. The litermeter is programed to pump 5 gallons of water in a 12 hour period. You can program the litermeter to pump what ever amount you want.
The nice thing about this method is that you do not have to carry water to the tank and from the tank. So no risk of spills at the tank. I make my water in a spare room next to my tank room, so all the water making is done there and stays there.
Here is a pic of the Litermeter. you can see the 2nd pump in this pic , it is the small black box next to the litermeter
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Thanks for the great post tonym10. I also have a 75 gallon setup that I hope to make as fully automatic as yours. I just hope my tank looks 1/2 as good as yours when I 'm done!! It might take me more than a year but that's ok since I will enjoy the work in progress. Your post has helped me a lot in envisioning what I want to accomplish.

I was wondering if you had any pics of your sump?

Also, how do you control the RO/DI shutoff? Does it shutoff automatically when your container fills?
 
Litermeter is the brand name , do a google search, You can get it Marine Depot I think.

I have pics of the sump. Click my gallery and look threw the differant pages . I do have the RO/DI unit controlled by a float valve that would turn it off automeatically if I forget to. But I do not rely on that as a way to keep the rp/di water tank filled. I have heard that it is not good for the ro/di water to constantl being turned on and off. I guess the first part of the ro/di water is not as clean as the rest . So when my ro/di holding tank gets low I turn on the water to the ro/di unit , usually leave it on all day and by the end of the day it is filled, then I turn it off, but if I forget to turn it off it wont overflow because of the float valve. I only need to fill it like every couple weeks.
 
OK... so you have 5 gallons being exchanged in a 12 hour time frame once per week. Cool... do the pumps remove 5 gallons first, then add 5 gallons? or are they simultaneous? If you remove 5 gallons, does the top off come on?...I guess my question is, are you changing out good new water and or top off water with the waste? The tank looks great so I know it works....
 
The water is all mixed together when it is changed, the litermeter swithes each pump on and off, one pump will run for maybe 10 seconds, and then maybe a minute later the other pump will run for 10 seconds maybe less maybe more then the other pump, they are calibrated so they do not each run at the same amount of time, because each pump has its own differant lines with its own head pressure. The topoff water litermeter is its Litermeter that one is always turned on, unless the sump level is high enough , then the level switch turns that pump off.

To understand you really need to read the directions of a litermeter
Spetrapure makes the Litermeter
Here is the link to the manual. Read the manual , it will make sence then
Litermeter manual link
 
Super! I had gone to their website and studied it, still your explanation helps me. While it is pricey, it may be the best answer I've seen for automation of water changes. I'm curious... I assume you do before and after water testing...is the 5 gallons changed in this way, sufficient to keep the parameters where you want them? Do you still on occasion find a need to do internal tank vacuuming?
 
Very nice looking! I don't think I'll ever go for your level of automation (though it sounds very cool) but it's nice for a newbie to see a success story, and in just a year. Thanks for the pics!
 
I have been doing these 5 gal water changes pretty much from the beging , so I cannot tell you if water perams would be differant if I did not do them. I feel the water changes are good not only to remove old water , but the new water is adding minerals that are slowly being used. My water perams are perfect for me, all zeros, since adding the refugium my phosphates are zero too. I use no form fitering other then the rock and skimmer.
And no I do not need to vacume the sand at all, never did, and my sand is pure white, no dirt , no growth. I guess my clean up crew keeps it nice.
 
I have 1 sand sifting star. Dwarf hermit crabs, zebra hermits, Turbo snails, nausarous snails,and some other snails.There is alot of small snails. Two emerld crabs.
 
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