Auto water change advice

[jason12345]

hello, i need some input on a water change device. so far it seems very popular to do a setup with a dual head pump, however they are not cheap. I have a small tank and i feel a continuous water change would immediately take out some of the fresh salt water.

So how much more efficient would this be then a "flow through" type water change? Where there is a drain at the sump and new water is pumped in that displaces the old water that then forces water out the drain. A system kida like what fw people call the drip waterchange except for with s/w. Ato will be fine and dandy as max will be quite near the drain level. such a system will allow for much cheaper equipment needs.

 

[zachts]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=22954995#post22954995

this thread talks about the efficiency losses of continous water change somewhere. it's only a few percent less than doing a manual water change.

Ebay right now has several good deals on pumps and motors, just search around, there are several fixed speed masterflext units for around $90 which could run multiple heads and would last a life time.

I built my whole water change setup for under around $250 I think, still haven't added it all up but the pumps were pretty cheap, I found a great deal and jumped on it and used the money I saved on the pump and heads to fund the rest of the system.

I contemplated a flow thru for years but never wanted to rebuild and re-plumb my tank and house to make it feasible. the dual head pump option was perfect for me, wish I found out about this approach years ago. I actually use a three head pump to swap water from display to frag tank then to drain to save on water changes in two tanks located in opposite ends of the house with only one setup.
:beer:

 

[ca1ore]

a "flow through" type water change? Where there is a drain at the sump and new water is pumped in that displaces the old water that then forces water out the drain.

FWIW, not advised as a 'continuous' solution. Works fine until you have a power failure, then all of the water that drains down form the display goes out the drain. Cap the drain and do it as a periodic water change, is fine.

 

[zachts]

FWIW, not advised as a 'continuous' solution. Works fine until you have a power failure, then all of the water that drains down form the display goes out the drain. Cap the drain and do it as a periodic water change, is fine.

Most of the good automatic flow thru desings use a solenoid to open the drain line to prevent that problem.