Bucket Based Auto Water Change

[iced98lx]

Was planning a dual headed dosing pump for water changes but I'm contemplating doing something more similar to the genesis system. Bucket that can easily be emptied from the bottom with an electronic valve, a float in the bucket and some pumps.

Turn off ATO
Fill bucket from sump
Drain bucket to drain
Fill bucket from fresh SW tank
Drain bucket to sump
Turn on ATO

The challenge is getting it setup so you don't need 20 electronically activated valves of various sizes and 20 pumps.

How would you do if you were to go down that road?

 

[AcroporAddict]

A dual headed dosing pump on a timer is much simpler and less complicated than what you are planning.

 

[HECS]

I seriously thought about building this, just ordered a litermeter, with the water change pump. There's so many variables to go wrong, solenoid valves, timers pumps, I felt I'd be checking constantly, just my 2 cents

 

[aaronpentz]

Doing this is pretty simple.
Minimum required hardware is a bucket two powerheads and a float switch.

Fill bucket with tank water until float switch turns on. stop and then turn on power head in the bucket going to drain. Once empty fill bucket with new water until float switch makes . Stop then turn on power head going to tank until bucket is empty.

Adjust the ammount of water you want to change by size of bucket and height of float switch.

Obviously some safetys need to be incorporated to prevent flooding and such. But an arduino should be able to handle the task quite easily

 

[iced98lx]

You've sort of specified either four pumps:

One from Tank Into Bucket
One from Bucket Into Drain
One from Salt Water to Bucket
one from Bucket to Tank

That's where it sort of hitches for me, you need some electric valves and to have the buckets be the ones that drain out of the bottom so you can use three pumps:

One from the Tank to a Bucket
One below the buckets to either pump to the drain or the tank depending
One in the new saltwater to pump into the bucket


Though based on reliability and complexity of said electric valves I would probably opt to just do 4 pumps. Still need to drain out of the bottom of the bucket to ensure accurate levels each time (completely drain the bucket).

 

[aaronpentz]

Whoops I guess I did got a little carried away after a long day

Just use a bulkhead in the bottom of the bucket and a tee under that. One port to each pump

There will always be some water left over in the bucket unless you were to find a bucket with a tapered bottom. Sorta like a upside down milk jug.

 

[EnderG60]

I actually drew up something to do this.

I currently have two dosing pumps that change 2 gal a day but it takes an hour and a half to do it, wears out the dosing pumps and Id like to do larger changes.

What I planned to do was use 1/4" tubing and some solenoid valves.

Mount your bucket above your sump.

Tee off a pump with a 1/4" line that feeds into your bucket with a normally open solenoid(#1). Then have a drain line off the bucket up high(at the 5g water level lets say) that drains back to your sump.

Have a second drain at the bottom of the bucket with another 1/4" line and a normally closed solenoid valve(#2) that runs to a drain.

Next have a pump in your new water container that runs to the bucket, and is switched off by a float valve at the high water line of the bucket.

Under normal operation #1 is open, #2 is closed and the pump is off.

For water changes, #1 is closed(power applied) and #2 is opened(power applied) for however long it takes to drain the bucket.

When done, the pump comes on and fills the bucket till the float switch is activated.

Then #2 is opened(power off) and #1 is closed(power off) and things return to normal operation with new water.

Using a bucket and 3 timers, you can easily make that for under $100.

 

[aaronpentz]

The problem with solenoid valves is they clog if using dirty water and they require some backpressure to close/stay closed. I'm not sure if the water pressure in the bucket will be enough to close the valve

 

[EnderG60]

no less risk of a dosing pump tube breaking, float valve sticking, timer malfunctioning.

 

[kaskiles]

I do this with two powerheads, two floats, and two containers.
Empty jerry can for waste water, holds 7 or 8 WC for me.
10gal tank for fresh salt water.
Put one powerhead in fresh salt water tank, put other PH in sump and both floats in sump.
Set one float for high water level, the other for low.
Set your arduino to top off the tank, then have it run the sump powerhead to the waste jerry can until the lower sump float pops; then have it run the fresh salt tank powerhead until the high sump float pops.

Easy, I've been using 6+ months now, haven't had to replace any pumps or floats yet.

 

[john08007]

Thinking about a different way to do this, not sure if this possible or if the product exists to do this. If you have 1 5-7 gallon bucket with a "bladder" in it that is filler with new salt water. the bladder has a hose on it going into your sump. If you have a pump in the sump pump into the bucket with the lid on the water going in will in turn add pressure to the bladder forcing the salt mix out. I would think it would be 1:1, pump in 1.5 gal and 1.5gal new mix will come out. I know I have seen drum liners for a 55 gal drum, not sure if they have them smaller.

 

[Reefvet]

A dual headed dosing pump on a timer is much simpler and less complicated than what you are planning.

+1 and it's much more reliable.