Daily water changes using a dosing pump

[MargieInAZ]

I have a 75gal tank, plus 20gal sump. I've been doing regular water changes, and everything has been running pretty smoothly.
But I've been reading that some people do daily water changes, to keep things more consistent. It seems like the people who do this usually have a nano tank, though.
But I was thinking about setting up two dosing pumps in my sump. One to bring new water in and one to take water out.
If I set it up with a 20 gallon or so plastic trashcan on one side with new salt water mixing in it, and another can on the other side to deposit waste water into, then set the dosing pumps to remove about 2 gallons, the replace the same amount, but hooking them up to timers about 1 hour apart, how would that work? It could run every day, and I could dose the new water with my two part so that that would go slowly into the system. So, total turnover weekly would be about 14 gallons or so. Then once a month, or every six weeks I could still do a 20% or so water change to clean the sand and blow off the rocks.
Has anyone tried this before? It seems like it would be a more stable tank than doing less frequent, higher volume, water changes. And less maintenance for me.

Please let me know if I'm missing something here. Or if you think this would work. I don't think I've seen anyone else setting something like this up, so I'm wondering if there are drawbacks I'm not thinking of.
Thanks,
Margie

 

[an411]

You can do it I think its a good idea and I am leaning toward doing something like that myself. Spectrapure sells something that does this the use of there liter meter i think its called the water exchange. it works with the liter meter 3

 

[WaterKeeper]

Hi Margie from the southwest battle ground states.

Public aquariums near the ocean have done that for years. They constantly add fresh NSW to their display. Our problem, as reefkeeper, is that salt mix costs money and, over time, it can be a drain on the budget if added continuously. If you can do it then, yes, it is a great method to maintain any tank.

Man I'm glad that regular commercials are back on the air. Even if they are for Sham-Wows.

 

[KarlBob]

The other element to think about would be top-off. You'll always lose some water to evaporation, so you have to add fresh water to maintain a stable salinity. This doesn't mean that your plan won't work, just don't try to make up for evaporation by adding more salt water than you're removing. If you're taking 2 gallons of old water out each day, add 2 gallons of new salt water, plus enough DI water to compensate for evaporation.

I don't know how fast your dosing pumps would be, but with an hour between them, you might see your water level rise and fall a little bit. As long as your tank never overflows, the only problem I can see might be losing siphon in an external overflow.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

But I've been reading that some people do daily water changes, to keep things more consistent. It seems like the people who do this usually have a nano tank, though.
But I was thinking about setting up two dosing pumps in my sump.

Check out some of the threads on automatic water changes. Many of us do that for small or large tanks, with dedicated pumps like dual head reef fillers, where you can change 30 gallons per day. I change 1% daily.

For example:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1481798

and


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1478719

 

[MargieInAZ]

Thanks everyone.
I think I'll give it a try then.

Tom, if I set it up right, I wouldn't have to use any extra water than I'm already using with my water changes - except I guess I would be adding in one more normal water change to suction off debris from the rocks and sand. But that could be just a 5-10 gallon thing if I get efficient at it. My daily water change could be just 1-2 gallons, depending on how it goes, which is basically what I'm doing anyway every two weeks.

KarlBob, I did think about the top-off issue. I've been doing that manually to this point, but I could just make the fresh salt water a little more dilute than normal and increase the amount I'm adding to the tank by the amount that evaporates/day. That has changed a little lately since going from summer to winter. But I could check salinity frequently at first until I reach a good mixture, then check it once a week to make sure everything is still going well.
I keep a pretty close eye on my tank as it is, so I think I'd notice right away if the water levels were rising or lowing at all, other than the time during the water change itself.
The dosing pumps I've been looking into deliver about 3-1/2 gallons/hour. So, I think I'd put the timer to run for 1/2 hour at first on both outgoing and incoming water, then go from there. Once that's established I could play around with diluting and increasing the incoming water to compensate for daily evaporation.
It seems like it would take a little tweaking at first, but once set up (at least for the season/temperature of the house) it seems like a very low-maintenance way to maintain water quality and go longer between manual water changes.


edited to add: Thanks Randy. We were posting at the same time. I'll check out those threads.

 

[WaterKeeper]

:thumbsup:

:lol: I can see where you don't want to change anything manually if you have triplets.

 

[MargieInAZ]

Yep, I already "change" about 20 diapers a day. I don't need to add water changes on top of that, if I can help it, LOL.

 

[tankslave]

Hey Randy, is that reef filler very loud? I see it's a diaphragm pump.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, it is pretty loud. Definitely not for living room use, but in a basement or garage it is good.

 

[FLSharkvictim]

My Mixing Station

My Mixing Station

I have a Neptune DOS, hooked up to my Saltwater Mixing station and a Apex PM2 Module, Probe as well as a Temp Probe. No complaints.