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Old 04-16-2009, 07:05 AM
msobon msobon is offline
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Well it's a interesting question but really it depends on how complicated and how automated do you want to go and what type of a water change process you want to do.

First of ideally water changes IMO should be done with introducing the new water slowly instead of just draining "X" amount and pouring in "X" amount of water mixed with exact to similar salinity/temp.

Ever do a water change without any corals reacting to it? Usually you wont get it perfect dead on and you will get a reaction to diff water paremeters, basically a very quick change paramaters and a natural way of adjusting to that change by the corals, which can be stressfull to the inhabitants.

Ideally I would say you would have another tank by your sump which would be attached to your sump via valves usually a "IN" and an "OUT" to the sump plus a "Drain", the drain would be used to empty out the waste water.
You would add a float switchthat would take care of the fresh water feed, solenoid or mechanical (either one does the job). Solenoid would be hooked up to the RO/DI filter(assuming that what you use).
This would fill the tank to a desired level you would probably want to have it match the level in the sump.

So at the moment you have a tank that auto fills, is sepearated by valves to the sump, what else do you need?
Since the tank is a seperate unit, a heater and a water motion device would be needed to mix the salt.
Once those two things are in place you would be able to add the salt, let it mix and heat up to a preset temp and salinity would still have to be measured manually.

Once this is ready, you would open the "IN" and "OUT" valves that would be attched to your sump and let the water pasively exchange, this could be done over a few days so basically that water would become part of the water volume in the tank. Once this has taken place you would close the valves for "IN" and "OUT" and Open the "Drain" valve whch would be hooked up to your drain letting the water empty. You would close th valve and let the RO/DI will the tank with water again.

Now this change system would still require you to turn some valves and throw some salt in, but in a more controlled and less messy way! No hoses, no buckets, unfortuanatly not fully automated! :P

I think the biggest pain for a water change is the carrying water/ pulling hoses etc.

Turning a few valves and mixing salt isn't that bad.
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