***How-To*** Automatic Water Change

[dipan]

Thanks Antipodes ...

Unfortunately, any restriction I make to the input or output of the ATO peristaltic might be detrimental to the pump. Hmmmm ... I might have to come up with alternative logic (once I figure out how programmable logic works!) or get another float to use just for topoff.

Another issue that I'm having is that if I enable a feed pause, the logic and timer continues to run. The water level rises in the sump during a feed pause causing an alarm on draining that runs for more than 20 minutes (in my case). I guess the simple solution is to have thew AWC only run at times when I wouldn't possibly enable a feed pause, like in the middle of the night.

 

[Antipodes]

Thanks Antipodes ...

I guess the simple solution is to have the AWC only run at times when I wouldn't possibly enable a feed pause, like in the middle of the night.

Or you simply don't press the feed pause until your water change is complete.

I know what you mean, I set up a water change and then made a manual selection overide for the lights and everything keeps going. Spotted that very quickly and ended up resetting everything.
For me, my seawater top up puts in about a gallon every 10 seconds, so can't afford to have that run too long.

I always run my water change when some one is present. Every third day at 1200. Means if anything should go wrong then it is simpler to fix. If I am away or the house is empty, then it is a setup for a disaster. OK if everything works properly, but it only takes one problem to cause an issue.

 

[unze]

So in a scenario that you want to make a manual water change to your tank. how do to disable the level sensors/others so that alarms are not activated?

At the moment i have to turn off the power to the profilux to make water changes to my tank as there is no way to turn these off until i have completed the water change and have to wait a little longer to get the ph/temp to stabilize.

 

[Antipodes]

So in a scenario that you want to make a manual water change to your tank. how do to disable the level sensors/others so that alarms are not activated?

At the moment i have to turn off the power to the profilux to make water changes to my tank as there is no way to turn these off until i have completed the water change and have to wait a little longer to get the ph/temp to stabilize.

For my auto change I disable the alarms buzzer for between 2200 and 0700.
This means I get an email when I do my water change, but the buzzer is not going off for 5 minutes while the probes stabilise and the temp comes up.

Yep, you are right it would be really nice to not have to do that with a bit of programming from MR GHL.
And yes you are also correct that there seems to be no way of disabling alarms while you are doing maintenance. (At least none that I could see). This in itself is a big problem, as you have turned everything else off to do maintenance and why should the probes and alarm continue while you are in maintenance??
So you need to turn the controller off? Why have maintenance pause abilities?

 

[gamesnokia]

If I do regular (small daily) RO feed water changes - how do I maintain salinity of my water - as the new water will be RO fresh water. Can I cope with salinity issue using dosing unit?

Thank you

 

[dipan]

If I do regular (small daily) RO feed water changes - how do I maintain salinity of my water - as the new water will be RO fresh water. Can I cope with salinity issue using dosing unit?

Thank you

I don't think that taking even a small amount of saltwater out and putting RO in is a good idea for a water change, even if you attempt to balance it out with concentrated salt additions. You are much better off setting up separate mixed saltwater tank and using that for the water change. Saltwater out ... saltwater in. No salinity issues. I would only use RO/DI directly in the tank for evaporation top off only.

 

[gamesnokia]

Thanks, will try to find place for salt water tank