continuous water change...

[dreamreefer]

anyone know of a good way or system in setting one up? I'm thinking of a second overflow with small amt of water going out, coupled with another small amt delivery from a premixed reservoir. at least, that's the start...

 

[Cheekymonkey]

If you do the math on the change its not that effective, if you think in small #'s like 1% of water volume being replaced you are going from 100% of what you are removing to only 99%, thats not much dilution, even if it is happening constantly. When you remove all the water before you replace something, the dilution is much more effective.

 

[dreamreefer]

I usually change about 15% weekly. for this setup, since its continuous as you've pointed out, I'm thinking of have a flow rate that changes 30% of water weekly, basically doubling when I do on manual basis. 15% is about 7 gallons, so 30% will be 14, which means 2 gallons per day to be swapped out, hey that's not bad, or I can do 3 gallons a day, that'll be 21 gallons per week. i just wanna enjoy some benefits out of this, which is time taken to do manual change and hopefully help the system to maintain some stability...

 

[mbbuna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10992531#post10992531 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cheekmonkey
If you do the math on the change its not that effective, if you think in small #'s like 1% of water volume being replaced you are going from 100% of what you are removing to only 99%, thats not much dilution, even if it is happening constantly. When you remove all the water before you replace something, the dilution is much more effective.

thats not true. constant water changes are almost just as effective. this article talks all about it

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

tracking the nitrate numbers over a year the article showed like a 4% difference in favor of all at once water changes

the easiest way to set something up like this is with 2 dosing pumps or something like a litermeter3

 

[dreamreefer]

thanks for the tip! mbbuna...

 

[mbbuna]

your welcome, let us know what you come up with

 

[dreamreefer]

looking at the article i'll explore the type of pump he uses (2 head diaphragm)...personally I'm against using 2 seperate pumps because if any one fails, you're screwed either way. in fact i wanna try not to use any at all if possible (only way is gravity feed or siphon. I'm thinking of splitting the drain from tank and use a valve to control the flow rate for outgoing as waste water as well as incoming. this can be running 24/7 or on a timer. I think I'll use ielectronic solenoid with a timer to open/shut the gates of exit and entry at the same time.

but looking back at the stats, the article states that a 30% continuous change is the same as 2.6% of a manual change, that's a huge diff...not sure if its worth all that work, only appealing to me because of the automation, stable water and for vacations...

 

[rjrobert]

Re-Read the article, I think you missed the numbers.
Cont. removed 25.92% of impurities
1 x 30% change removed 30% so thats a difference of 13.6%. while that is a "little" less efficient it has many benefits' and it's not that less efficient. With an automated system you could increase or decrease the percentage changed weekly with just a parameter change on the pumps controller. In my oppinion this is definetly the way to go and I hope to have this running in another month or two.

 

[timrandlerv10]

new water placed higher than the tank, draining by siphon into the tank, and water being sucked off the overflow into waste. water stops coming down, water stops being wasted.

no power involved.

do you need to circulate the prepared new water? like a mini jet in a 55 gallon drum in my attic?

 

[dreamreefer]

rjrobert,

if you're serious, take a look at the dual head Reef Filler pump from champion lighting (under dosers), i think i like that. at least its controlled by 1 single unit. if the pump fails, nothing happens. i suggest doing good research as to getting the right size for your tank. the one thing i'd test even after getting the pump is to make sure the draw on each head is exactly (reasonably) the same...i'd turn it down and let it drip for a few hrs and compare the weight of water being delivered on both heads just to make sure. any difference will screw up my auto-topoff, hence salinity...

that's not bad i think i've found a solution, hey thanks mbbuna for the tip!

Steve

 

[m2434]

In college, I worked in a research lab. Our system had a salt reservoir, with saturated salt water, and an RO reservoir. The RO filter was on a float switch and it would come on automatically. The water flow from the RO reservoir, to the system, was controlled with flow meters/controllers and there was an overflow to a drain for water out of the system. A salinity monitor controller was used to add saturated salt water to the incoming RO water. We also had pretty much every conceivable monitor know to man, and autodialars to page us if any parameter was off. For the most part the only maintanance was changing filters and adding salt to the salt reservoir. I would kill for a system like this at home, but don't have an extra few hundred thousand $$$$$$

 

[dreamreefer]

for a few hundred grand, I'd buy an island off south pacific and have my own natural reef , yeah I'll take 2 please! you guys are most welcome to come by and pick up some frags!...just kidding