Auto Water Change ideas???
 

Any body have an auto water change setup - I would love to see pics and hear iedas...

What equipment are you using, valves, timers etc...

I am open to any suggestions and thoughts on this :)

Thanks

I'll followup with this.
Mine is still a messy draw on paper :lol:
I modify a model I found on the internet. It was for fresh water, so need to draw some more mess to make it SW compatible :lol:

I've been wanting to do a continuous water change for a while with a 2 head peristaltic pump.
Old water out, new water in, 24/7.

This must be very interesting.
Mine is still look like a big messy draw in my book :lol:
Nothing came to nowhere just yet :redface:

I am interested to see what we come up with...

I will do a drawing of what I have in mind and you guys tell me what you think - stay tuned :)

I have thought about this idea for a couple years, but found it too complicated with too many things that could go wrong. I am satisfied with just making waterchanges as simple as possible by using hoses and pumps instead of packing buckets and stuff like that around.

here is my idea:

I want to use a lawn sprinkler type valve/ switch off a "T" on the drain going to the sump. once the valve is open, the water will go down a floor drain (tank is in the basement). this will run on a timer for once or even twice a week (small amounts at a time). Once the time is up - the valve shuts. The pump in the sump will continue running and this will cause the sump to fall low in water level. The low water level in the sump will then trigger an auto top off switch that will fill back to the right level.

This is big picture - detail needs to be ironed out...

what do you guys think?

The trick is automatically adding the salt, you could keep a storage tank with premixed water but I still don't see that as automatic. I've set one up that was fairly simple but not 100% automatic. Basically just pump water out into a drain on a schedule either weekly or daily (pump and timer) and simply let the auto top off fill the tank back up. The top off was connected to constant supply with a direct RO hook up and larger pressured storage tank. All you had to do was add a consistent amount of salt ever week (straight into a 'special' sump chamber) and just to be safe monitor salinity monthly. Very simple system, no need for a large storage tank and probably the easiest to actually operate. I did experiment with some hoppers to automatically add the salt but in the end it's pretty easy to add a few cups of salt ever week.

search lazy reefer I think... there is a detailed guide of his water change system

I Googled "lazy reefer" and didn't come up with anything...