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#26
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Then all you did was move the drain hole up from the original posistion, I do not see any advantage to the change. The nice part about the lower drain hole is that you technically have a full time water change going on (small amounts a lot of times) and from what I have read, this is more desireable than larger infrequent changes.
I change 34g of my 100G system weekly and 20 per week on my 24g nano. My 125 gets about 15 (fo), I wish I had a floor drain
__________________
"It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear" |
#27
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kmleah... FWIW, its sounds to me like the long way around the barn, at best, and frankly... a host of problems beyond the challenge to plumb more likely.
I think you might be missing our point here... or we are missing yours.
__________________
"If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day... but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." |
#28
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Hi Anthony,
Thanks for coming out to Boston last week - it was a great talk, although I had to run out before the end. Anyway, this sounds like a good system, but I don't see how it can be run truly constantly. Not sure how frequently you could have the pump go, but too frequently or in too small volumes each time and the auto-top-off would not function very well, resulting in increasing salinity. Correct? I was throwing around an idea of potentially doing something similar to pH monitor-based CO2 injection system, by hooking up a dosing pump to a digital salinity meter (I'm no electronics expert, so have no real idea how to do this). To maintain salinity at the target leve, the pump would dose water, but it would be hooked up to brackish water rather than RO/DI, so it would need to overcompensate the evaporation to maintain salinity, resulting in excess water out the overflow drain. Ryan |
#29
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thanks kindly Ryan... Boston was a truly wonderful time/club.
As per your salinity concerns... 'twas answered/addressed earlier in the thread: "Now you may be wondering... isn't that slight overun (<1/2" over float switch level) adding a little bit of salt to the tank and increasing my salinity slowly over time? Well... theoretically yes. But if you will worry about that, then are you also calculating the similarly lost salt due to salt creep? Heehe... point is, either way its a small amount of salt. And either way, with or without salt added or exported (creep)... you still need to make slight corrections over time to the tank by checking salinity. If its a big deal (large sump)... you can compensate then by making your new seawater used for auto-water changes just slightly less saline." Indeed... without a WCD, your salinity can/will still change and stray over time through various habits (kalk dosing, salt creep, misadjustments on make up water, etc). We are always and often using our hydrometers/refractometers for various things. So for the huge time savings and benefits of a WCD... the occasional check and tweak of salinity is a small matter.
__________________
"If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day... but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." |
#30
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I caught your point that continual evaporation of that extra 1/2" that's not topped off will drift salinity up (not accounting for other salt export from creep, skimmer, spray, etc).
My point was just that the surge from the wc has to be infrequent enough so that the 1/2"+ evaporates and you get some FW top-off. In my 20g nano, daily evap is ~1/4" - so with daily SW inputs to a 1/2" high drain, the auto-top-off would never trigger! In other words, this system probably has some minimum tank size limit to work. In fact, I guess I could get rid of FW top-off and just use your WCD but with brackish water instead of SW. The equation is something like: salinity of WCD water = target salinity * (1 - e/(e+x)); where e equals estimated %evaporation per day and x equals the target %water overflow per day. Having a salinity meter-controlled system would be much better, but I don't know if it's possible (and much more expensive for equipment) Ryan |
#31
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More often... folks with WCD systems simply make their WC water slightly less saline to (over)compensate for the diff... unlike a meter (hobby grade salinity meters have been historically unreliable/inaccurate), the adjusted SG water is at least reliable (cannot fail) and is simple enough.
__________________
"If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day... but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." |
#32
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However, if your WC water is less saline, it will be less dense than the tank water, causing it to rise in the water column, so the water you skim off down the drain will partially be new water, defeating the purpose of the automatic water change system.
It would be better to manuallly adjust the salinity back where you want it by removing some saltwater and replacing it with fresh on occasion. |
#33
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Quote:
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#34
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Quote:
Disadvantage: I must be there to conduct water changes, unless I put both the return pump and the WC pump on day/night timers to turn one off while the other is running. I'm going to look into the solenoid thing, though. |
#35
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"Disadvantage: I must be there to conduct water changes"
... you see, that's the not-so-automatic part of your automatic water change system
__________________
"If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day... but if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." |
#36
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Gotcha!
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#37
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Quote:
this is an automatic water change system, not a "Gotta be there" water change. Also the "solenoid" program creates another point of failure and then 2 more timers? If you are going that route, there is an even easier way to do this. But again defeats the purpose of this job If you have power failure, you lose 2 to 4 gallons, the system can make that up pretty easily when it has a 35G reservoir behind the fill system. The idea is keep it simple, reliable and fail safe. Otherwise you just may as well break out your python and drain the thing by hand. Thread title "How to plumb an automatic water change system!"
__________________
"It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear" |
#38
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Quote:
One idea would be to incorporate a rotifer tank in this system. Something like: a. At the top, a 10g tank with new water at ~1.019 and frozen phyto added manually each day, dripping into - b. 2 2g rotifer bottles (for redundancy in case one crashes), overflowing into - c. the main tank at ~1.024, overflowing into - d. sump, with overflow drain to sink, or enough extra height so you can manually remove water every few days when you add new SW to the 10g on top. You've got auto-water change, -top off and -rotifer feeding all in one. You'd need to check salinity regularly, and keep a careful eye on the roti pops as you would with any live culture. Ryan |
#39
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Quote:
100 Gallon tank 100 Gallon water change = 100% water change 100 one gallon water changes = 90% water change I think, I can not find the chart now but hey that is plenty effcient if I am even close to his chart. ON the roti feeder, couldnt you just keep this system seperate from the auto top off? What I mean is that the auto topoff is pretty important (even more so when on vacation, and the only reason I had to make one btw) I like the idea but again the KISS principal is sort of the goal here? Neat concept however.. As long as it would not contribute to the failure rate of the system (key word was "careful eye on roti pops")
__________________
"It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear" |
#40
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Quote:
In terms of failures, there's no electricity involved at all in the water change/top-off system (just the sump pump). As long as the sump can hold the main tank overflow w/ pump off + ~14g, if I drop dead it still won't overflow. The roti culture will be tricky - I haven't read about anyone having it auto-drip to the main tank, so that might be a problem. If it crashed, at worse I'd be dripping frozen phyto water straight to the main, which isn't bad (I'm staying away from growing live phyto in the top 10g - I think frozen concentrate will be easier and better). On %water change, I think if you keep total % the same (e.g. 1/24% every hour, 1% a day, or 7% a week) and assume removal or excretion of X molecule is constant (e.g. not concentration-dependent), the concentration of X molecule in the water asymptotes at the same concentration. There's an article in Advanced Aquarist that shows graphs for this. Ryan |
#41
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kmleah
The salinity of the water for the change system is offset by the temperature. The cooler water is going to drop to the bottom of the tank. By the time it warms it will have diluted enough with tank water to offset the salinity issue. ( I had to try this first btw in the kitchen, my better half thinks I have stepped of the deep end) Quote:
__________________
"It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear" |
#42
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sorry, I meant that now I understand the point. Quote:
I am beginning to think that keeping it simple, means at least turning a couple of valves by hand while I watch. |
#43
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The reason that more concentrated salt solutions sink below less concentrated salt solutions is that salt adds density to the water. More salt, more dense. Less salt, less dense. When you tried this for yourself in the kitchen (my husband would sympathize with your wife) did you try only the temperature test, only the salinity test, or did you test both salinity and temperature differences to see how they offset each other? It would be interesting to see how both lowering the salinity and the temperature would affect water levels. How much temperature offsets how much salinity? How did you distinguish one "kind" of water from another to determine the result? Thanks, Kathy |
#44
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The problem I see is the rotifer tanks overflowing into the main tanks. Rotifers pollute their water beyond belief, and were I to simply let them overflow with their water into my larval tank, the larvae would die very quickly from the incredible pollution. I prefer to spend the time to filter and enrich my rots before I feed them to my babies. I would not overflow them with their nasty water into my display tank either. Yours is not a bad idea. It is an idea that we have all noodled over at one time or another, but there is no getting around the funky water issue, so I'll just keep doing it the old fashioned way. I keep my rots in water jugs by the basement sink so I can filter off some rots, do water changes on the jugs, feed and treat for ammonia, and wash up the equipment very conveniently. Cheers, Kathy |
#45
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Kathy
I tested as it would be in the tank. I set the 81 degree water at tank salinity 1.026 and the 78 degree water at 1.024 (water had some dye in it so I could see it) I dripped the water in from 1" above water level and it sank to the bottom It did appear to loose some of the content on the way down but the vast majority of the new cooler, lower salinity water did make the bottom of the tank. I dripped 1 gallon of the cooler less saline water into a 10 gallon tank full of water fresh out of my 75G sps tank. (water change day) so it only cost me 1 gallon of good water , I am as cheap as I am curious I have read your thread and your endeavors with the fish fry in the breeders forum I think it was. Quote:
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"It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear" Last edited by Randall_James; 12/05/2005 at 01:17 AM. |
#46
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Wow, great experiment, and thank you for telling us the details. It is good to know that that combination works.
I am also as cheap as I am curious. I hope you enjoyed the third attempt thread. The fish are nice and healthy and starting to be ready to leave home. I don't know whether to be happy or sad. The fail safe method you describe is probably my best bet: semi automated for the absent minded. thanks, Kathy |
#47
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Quote:
One question I have is whether the roti jug water would get that funky if ~0.5g of new SW was trickling through it per day? Of course, a population of X density would create the same amount of waste w/ or w/o flow-thru, but it would be less concentrated in waste than if you had added water straight from your isolated roti jug. But I would really like to find someone who's tried a flow-thru roti system (success or failure). Cheers, Ryan |
#48
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Quote:
__________________
"It's a dog eat dog world and I feel like I am wearing milkbone underwear" |
#49
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You are most welcome Randall and Ryan. Both of you may want to check out Joyce Wilkerson's Clownfishes book. And if you are going to culture phyto (wait, that's a different thread) , and/or rots, the Plankton Culture Manual by F. Hoff is good info also. Clownfishes is everywhere, but Florida Aqua Farms has the culture manual as well as other great things like live cultures, and mesh filters. Were I starting out, I would save money and buy the kit. I chose to be cheap, bought a little at a time, and ended up paying big time in shipping costs etc.
Hope this helps, and sorry to hijack. The topic of this thread is : AUTOMATIC WATER CHANGES. Sorry Anthony. Kathy |
#50
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Cutting holes in acrylic
Anthony, just got your book!
Great stuff! Makes Sprungs books look like a beginner. :-) Hehehe, just kidding Julian. Could be off the thread here, but it's my first post! I've read every thread in regard to CLM's but could not find anything on what tool to use to cut holes into acrylic. I have an existing 55 gal Tenacor acrylic tank with only one floor hole in it, the old corner overflow. It's filled with water and coral. I don't want to empty it. I would like to cut some holes where they should be near the top, to add additional water flow. Along with that I would like to add a CLM for better water circulation. Right now I'm using the old "Power heads in the display technique":-) So let me have it! I guess after 15 years I'm a beginner again. :-) Peace Tom C |
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