Automated water changes with dosing pumps?

shiftline

shiftline

New member
Hi Guys.

I have a 12G nano tank (sumpless) which I would like to automated water changes are. The tank is a fluval edge with very limited space.

Im thinking of using an optical sensor and possibly a mini float switch as a fail safe.. is the tank only has 5x7 opening and i want the tank to look clean as possible it has to be very minimalistic


I was thinking of using 2 dosing pumps.
1piped to a drain to suck out a small portion of water (say 1% ~ 450ml) per day and a second pump to add in pre-mixed salt water. The second pump could either be timmed or just rely on the float/optical sensors. This would require 2 1/4" lines to be run about 15-20' to a near by room.

Has anyone built a similar system?

so far i have ordered an optical sensor and a few various float switches.
 
I have a 4 head jeabo dosing pump set up on my 50G. 2 lines for dosing and 2 lines for water exchange. Once all the lines are in place you can calibrate the pumps so they are very close to the same pumping rate regardless of differences in length and elevation of the two lines. I change 110ml per hour 24x7. It has been operating just as good as my LitermeterIII system, for a fourth of the cost.
 
shiftline said:
Dual head in as you add it as the same time you are taking it out? Interesting say to do it
Click to expand...

yep, works quite well. just place the inlet and outlet as far apart in the tank as possible. the water change efficiency loss by doing this is negligible.
 
Excellent idea. Could suck out of the aquaclear hob and drip it in just above the water line. In theory its pulling from the bottom and the new water is mixing in with the aq flow.

Any recommendations of pumps?
 
lots of options, I've gotten some cheap masterflex units in the past and there are currently some very inexpensive watson-marlow three channel pumps one ebay for ~$50
 
How do they compare to the cheap China doing pumps? They look a lot more heavy duty. Have you used the Watson marrow ones? Is there any risk of water back feeding through them?
 
Raul-7 said:
They are built to last; no risk of siphoning. But they are loud!
Click to expand...

Noise depends on what you get for a drive. All of mine that I use for dosing and water change are quieter than those cheap dosing pumps! Mine are all 24v DC motors so I can run a speed control to quiet them even more.

Here's the watson marlow pump I was thinking of:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181538562490?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Has adjustable tension so you should be able to dial in and calibrate each tube to pump exactly the same (might need to do that once in a while as the tubing wears out)

You'll need new tubing and connectors since it's been running ink by the look of it but still a great buy. Looks to have a low rpm motor which would be great for small volume water changes.

I just picked one up but haven't gotten it yet. I plan to use it for dosing two part + mag.
 
Automated water changes with dosing pumps?

I just ordered one too! How often do you figure I would need to calibrate it? I want to set this up on a fluval edge so I wild need to Have it super precise to prevent overflow!

Is the tubing it uses pretty standard? Would you use the same stuff the full length. Or just in the roller/pump area then silicone or RO water tube for the long runs?
 
Last edited:
shiftline said:
I just ordered one too! How often do you figure I would need to calibrate it? I want to set this up on a fluval edge so I wild need to Have it super precise to prevent overflow!

Is the tubing it uses pretty standard? Would you use the same stuff the full length. Or just in the roller/pump area then silicone or RO water tube for the long runs?
Click to expand...

Not sure on calibration, possibly only when you install the tubing, but then check it once in a while.

The tubing looks like ~1/4" air line size but won't know for sure until I have the pump. You'd use a tubing like norprene or pharmed in the rollers (looks like that's what's in it) and attach airline or whatever, to the other end of the barbs for the runs to tank, drain, and from fresh saltwater bin. Tubing and connectors should be available at US Plastics or possibly locally somewhere. Air line might actually work depending on how strong the motor is but wouldn't last as long in the rollers.

They generally pump pretty slowly so a flood shouldn't be an issue as long as you have at least a half inch of room at the top of the tank and look at it on at least a daily basis. With Evaporation I think a flood is highly unlikely.
 
Automated water changes with dosing pumps?

I may have less room that that to work with. I'll measure it when I get home but ideally I never want the water to drop below ye color and put air bubbles in the tank
5922a0944e3fb5626d369d51fa4e3cfe.jpg


Ideally the water level will stay consistent about 75% the way up the collar/rim

I'm in Canada but may be able to find the tubing at a medical supply type is store. If you find suitable stiff online let me know!
 
You'll probably want something like the Hydor Smart Level Controller that has a very low profile sensor and high water cutoff/alarm that would be able to be concealed on the tank collar and maintain precise control of water level.

Keeping up with evaporation is very important to maintain salinity when doing automated water changes. I don't imagine evaporation will be too significant with such a small surface area of water so salinity drift wouldn't be huge without one but you'd need to keep an eye on it and make periodic adjustements as the AWC would remove a small amount more saltwater than it is putting back in due to evaporation. Not many ATO sensors would work to maintain such tight control and be easily concealed on that tank.

Though you may find that you can have one of the AWC pump channels push slightly more water back into the tank than is removed to compensate, but you'll just have to wait and see I guess. (I do this on my system to make up for saltwater removed by my skimmer) In fact this may work to your advantage if you are not able to get two of the pump channels calibrated to match exactly. So the ATO might be something to add after the system is up and running for a bit.
 
Automated water changes with dosing pumps?

The pump i ordered has 3 heads. I only really need two. But may be able to sneak in a little bit of RO if I can dial it down enough

How precise is the hydro smart level?
 
Not sure exactly how precise. Haven't looked at the specs but from the video of it working looks to be 1/4" precision or better which is about as good as it gets for ATO with that kind of reliability given your space constraints.

I doubt you'll be able to use the third channel for ATO. the adjustment is going to only be in the ball park of +/- 5% or so I would guess.

However I use one of my existing pumps with three heads on one motor to do water changes between my display and frag tank. Pumping fresh saltwater to the display, draining water from display into frag system (on the other end of the house) and then taking water from frag tank to drain. works very well. Though that is using masterflex pump heads and a motor that is probably a bit more powerful than this watson marlow unit but who knows, I haven't found specs yet. good peristaltic pumps are quite capable of pumping long distances and tens of feet vertical generally.
 
Is there any very tiny float valves to mechanic cut flow? So far all the ones I find have big bobbers. Either way u do it I want to have 2 types of sensors as a safety. The optical will be the main one.. Still trying to find a second
 
you'll be hard pressed to find a small mechanical float valve. I thing your best bet as a saftey is to use a slow pump for ATO and set it on a timer that is adjusted to only run for a little longer than your needed run time for ATO so that you have time to catch it in event of a sensor failure. Or just use a small ATO container to limit any flood in event of an issue.

The fluval Edge leaves little room for such things. and is one of those neat tanks best kept where you will be likely to look at it often.
 
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