How to change water??

[ghever]

Hi All

My new 180gal is here this week...it will be in my office room, which is adjacent to my storage garage room where my sump and all other equipment will be.

The tank will be a barebottom tank.

I will have a closed loop as well as a return pump.

I am trying to automate my water changes and was hoping for a little advice on how to do it.

Do you guys prefer removing water from the sump Or from the display tank or both?

For getting water out of the tank, I was thinking of T-ing off my closed loop intake side....so I would have a ball valve before the intake side of the pump...so when doing a water change, I would just close the ball valve and divert the water flow to piping leading to my sink in the garage.

For getting water back into the system, I would then have a pump connected to my saltwater tub and pump it back in from this same piping that leads to the drain.. i would just T it off before the drain.

I know its hard to picture....I can post drawing if it helps... but if you guys have any ideas, let me know.

thanks
G

 

[bnlimit10]

Great Idea, one flaw. If you do it that way you would also have to turn off the pump during the water changes, otherwise it i will run dry. I would do it just as you said, however it would be on the return side the first t would pump water out of the tank, really quickly I may add, and the second t is where you would pump water back in. Thats if you want to use the closed loop side, you may find out that this will drain too much water too quickly for any accurate measure. I would suggest to do this on the piping that leads to your sump and the return can be done in either the cl or the main return. Keep in mind that in order for this to work you would need a strong head pressure pump on the refilling side, strong enough to overpower the other pump in that circuit.

What I did is in my tank I have another inlet that is always closed unless I am pumping water in, the drain is done out of the sump drain. I am very happy with these results.

 

[hawaiianwargod]

Just make sure to mark how much water you take out and vive versa with water you put in. Do not do it simultaneously unless if you are using littermeter III.
hth.

 

[Virginia Reef]

My preference would be to remove water from the sump. For this you need a sump that may be considerably larger than otherwise planned. If you do this you never have to worry about draining the tank down and impacting various living things that may get exposed.

I presently have to drain from the tank and always feel a real time pressure to refill the tank.

 

[jdenton]

Randy Holmes-Farley has a thread about continuos water change. The idea is to drain and replenish simultaneously. The suggestion is to let the replenishing water be colder than the tank so it will sink while the drain is higher to still pull out old water. Of course if you are draining from the sump and replenishing to the tank you would be removing old water. When doing small daily changes, which an automated system makes easy, then the difference in water temp is insignificant. See this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=843525&highlight=continuous+and+change

 

[ghever]

thanks guys...

I don't really think I want to do drain and replenish at the same time necessarily...

I was thinking of draining first, then replenishing.. so that my CL pump would not run dry.

I was also thinking if drain from the main tank, I could possibly tap into my return from sump plumbing, and this return plumbing goes back into the tank via bulkheads drilled into the top cross brace of the tank... so that water would then be pumped up the return from sump line, up and over the tank outside, and then into the tank pointing down through the bulkheads on the cross braces... essentially there would not be any water pressure, only pressure from head.

I dont think I can drain from the plumbing coming back to my sump return, because that will be coming from my overflow drain....cant really do anything out of there....

So my draining can come from these 3 places:

1) Main tank via closed loop intake side
2) Main tank via closed loop output side (this might be trickier because I have an OM 4 way and so the water would come from either 2 holes drilled half way up the tank or from 2 holes drilled at back of the tank at the bottom)
3) From sump

Replenishing would then come from following:

1) Through same line used to drain water, using a ball valve to divert flow from saltwater tub back to tank.
2) Just refill sump back to original level
3) Through return from sump plumbing, tapping into this plumbing with a T and running a line to pump taking water from saltwater tub and pumping water back into tank through the return plumbing.

Confused? I am

 

[skireef]

I have been using this method for 15 months.
Unattended automatic waterchanger
I have completely forgotten that water changes were even performed many times...what could be better.

 

[ghever]

I am thinking of doing this now...

I looked over my sump and I have a ton of bulkheads in it (i bought it from someone who planned lots of bulkheads)...and I have a spare bulkhead in each of the three compartments...

It is a 120gal sump....I estimate I will have about 200-250 gal total system water.. so a 10% water change every week or other week is around 20-25 gal. I was thinking of setting up a manifold idea like ReefMeister, except my manifold would be external, so that I would join the plumbing from each of the compartments together and then use a pump to pump out the water.

Very first time I do this, I would turn off the system. Then measure water level in sump. Then pump out water measuring 25 gallons and then marking where that water level is. Then pump back fresh clean saltwater in to the original water line.

Now I have accurate markings of where water level should be for a water change and also where to refill to. Its probably not 100% accurate, but should be within a half gallon or so I would think.

What do you guys think?

 

[skireef]

I don't see why that wouldn't work. You just have to be there and watch the entire process, and shut it off at the right moment.

Too labor intensive for me.

 

[ghever]

after having to spend hours doing a water change, I'll be glad to be there to watch it for 10mins...

 

[pyro383]

Now onto the water change station. My entire desire was to stop lugging water from being made upstairs and taking the waste water back up. In this room overhead pipes are accessible that lead to the outside spigot and in-ground sprinklers. I also have the waste line behind the wall for the waste water of the RODI.

Here is the overview of the room.

This is an airwaterice compact reefkeeper 100gpd with a quick flush installed.

The supply water as mentioned above with gate valve.

The waste water enters the main waste line.

Water storage via a 32g Rubbermaid garbage container.

Float valve, temp. heater & powerhead.

Now I needed to build a stand to hold 2 water containers.

 

[pyro383]

The bottom container holds the saltwater mix. The valve you see there is where the mixing pump (mag 9) will go once the old tank is taken down. It will pump water to the top of the can into a bulkhead and drop inside the container.

The top container holds fresh RODI via the float valve, and with a simple turn of the ball valve it will flow water through the 1ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ flex pvc into the bottom container for mixing in the salt.

 

[pyro383]

Here is the manifold from the pump. The ball valve closest to you when opened allows the water change waste water to go to the home waste line. At the bottom you can see the check valve.

 

[pyro383]

The pipe that you see here is for the water change drain line. It is made from 1 Ã"šÃ‚¼Ã¢â"šÂ¬Ã‚ pvc.

It then leads across the ceiling and as you can see there will be an a/c duct in the room.

It then ties into the main waste line that was built around each of the window wells in the basement as they take in some water.

 

[skireef]

My salt water mixing setup is similar to yours with the 32g trash can above the 32g salt mixing can. I let the RODI water flow into the upper can with a kent float valve to shut off when filled. I then add a pre measured amount of salt into a resivoir in the line from the upper to the lower container.....this allows the resivoir to be rinsed out when the water flows down through it.

This is the feed water for my automatic water changer. I only have to mix new water every two weeks.

Since you already have the drain, automating the water change shouldn't be difficult

 

[skireef]

Perhaps this will clarify.
Pour in salt, put on cover, open valve.
Come back later, close valve.

 

[ghever]

I was just thinking.. since my water tank will be above my pump and above the sump water level...if I am trying to do auto top off, water will continuously flow to my sump form the RODI container wont it due to gravity and pressure?

If so, I guess I would need to either use a solenoid instead of pump and use gravity to feed the water to the sump... or I could just put a pump inside the container and feed the water up through the lid and then back down to the sump.

Any thoughts?

If I use a solenoid, any idea where I could find one? I am just worried that flow with solenoid might be slow...then again I guess there really isnt a big hurry to top off the water.

I still think a pump is best idea...