This post is part 1 of 2 dealing with water changes. Part 1 focuses on ro/di storage, salt mixing and the general layout of my water room. Part 2 will discuss the Continuous Water Change System.
The Water Room
I don’t have space for a fish room, so I’m calling what I do have a “water room”. This room is in fact my furnace room. It is physically about 10 feet from the aquarium, but there is a door and a hallway in between the two. The furnace room is of average size and is big enough for several reservoirs and all of the ro/di equipment. It also has plumbing for both a water source and a drain.
I do have access to the ceiling from several vantage points. Also, the wall behind the aquarium leads to a closet under the stairs. This means that I can run plumbing or any other system hookups between the two rooms with relative ease.
You can see the water heater and furnace on the right. The wall on the left was just vapor barrier over insulation, so I mounted 3/4" plywood. I sealed the floor with “Kitchen and Bath” caulking. We also did the floor with an epoxy so there is no exposed concrete anywhere. This is the starting point.
The picture above is the room as it is now with everything functional. The rest of the pictures in this post just attempt to show what’s going on.
There are a couple of details worth pointing out in this picture - The first is that the sink is supported by brackets (Lee Valley) rather than legs. These laundry tubs come with really cheap legs that aren’t much good for anything. The bracket also frees up space under the sink for things like salt and buckets. The second detail is the florescent lighting. The room is inherently dark and I think it's important that you can see the water that you are working with.
I’m not a plumber and learning to weld isn’t in the cards. Fortunately, the plumbing in my house is flexible. I used “Shark Bite” fittings for everything which makes plumbing really easy. This picture shows where I tee’d off one of the main lines. I installed a shutoff right after the tee so that I can isolate my plumbing from the rest of the house.
The RO/DI is a key part of the system. The RO unit on the left is an old Kent Marine Maxxima unit that feeds my ATO reservoir. The RO unit on the right is a Vertex Puratek 100GPD unit that is currently only used to fill my RO/DI reservoir for salt mixing. This gives my capacity to change roughly 25% of the total water volume in my tank every day.
The system is pressurized with the use of Lifegard Aquatics Quite One 3000 pumps. I’m not a fan of these pumps but for occasional use where noise (or random failure) isn’t a big deal, they fit the bill. The pumps and reservoirs are isolated with ball valves and knife valves, so replacing a pump is relatively straight forward.
The ro/di reservoir is the one on the left (closest to the wall). The reservoir next to this is the salt mixing tank. There is a third reservoir capable of holding 200 gallons of prepared saltwater that is used for salt water storage.
The picture above shows two lines coming into the saltwater reservoir. The line that is currently connected is a loop from the pump attached at the bottom of the saltwater mixing tank. This pump runs for 10 minutes every 4 hours just to ensure that the water doesn’t sit in the pipes. It can also be turned on as needed when I am moving water out of this tank.
The line that isn’t hooked up to anything is for RO/DI water from the other reservoir. This comes into play only when the lid is off as shown in the next pictures.
Inside the saltwater mixing tank there are two Korallia Evolution 1400GPH pumps. These run continuously to ensure the water is constantly agitated, but the primary function is to facilitate rapid mixing of salt. Consider that this is 2800GPH of flow in a 50 gallon tank. That’s over 50X turnover. The pumps are directed at the bottom of the reservoir to keep the salt suspended and avoid settling.
Note: Since taking this picture, I have found that by angling both powerheads inwards towards the wall of the barrel, I can create a circular water current similar to a whirlpool. This allows the flow to be cumulative instead of canceling. I've found that this is more effective at keeping unmixed salt in suspension.
I also used a paint mixer attached to a drill when adding salt to the mixing tank. It takes me about 10 minutes to make up a batch of saltwater. I would always try to wait 24 hours before using the new saltwater, but in a pinch it would probably be suitable for use after about an hour.
To allow the lid to close, the power cords had to be routed through a hole I drilled in the reservoir.
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In these pictures, you can see the clear tubing on the outside of the reservoirs. These enable the water level to be observed without opening the reservoir. They are attached with threaded bulkheads and an L shaped MPT to barbed hose adapter. There is some Velcro that easily slides along the tubing that I use to mark the water levels. I’ve also taking the time to calculate and mark increments of 5 gallons on the tubes so that I can keep track of how much water I’m using.
Another detail in the above pictures is the platforms and leveling feet. Each reservoir has it’s own platform and is leveled independently. These are the heavy duty feet from Lee Valley that someone else pointed out in another thread (thank you). One of the requirements of installing all of this equipment is that it be removable if/when we want to replace the furnace or hot water tank. I won’t be fun to take it all apart, but it also won’t be difficult.
As I’m not a plumber, the only way I could hook up the sink was to the drain in the furnace room. This works well enough. At some point I may have a plumber come and hook it up to the main drain, but I have no plans for that yet.
Note: It was pointed out that the way my sink drains is actually against building code.
These taps (left) allow me to pump out either RO/DI or saltwater into the sink. More to the point, I can fill a bucket from here. Their positioning is adjustable by loosening the union - they are pushed out of the way when not in use.