Fish's new tank project

[Fish]

Haha, if you look aound you can find sometimes find one for almost what they will charge you for a peristaltic 'aquaruim doser'.


As for my external pump - I have been talking to Nate and he has been awesome to deal with! I will be buying a replacement pump from him.

Cheers,

- Chad

[woodcarver]

http://www.tylermerrick.com/content/css_notes.php
Hey Chad ,I just came across this site that has some good info on the Coralife skimmer , this might be redundant at this stage but just in case here it is
....................................Dave

[Fish]

Dave,
Thanks for the link, it was really considerate of you to post it.
For the next few days, I'm going to go wild fixing problems I never even knew I had
At the very least it will help me get it dialled in properly.

- Chad

[untamed]

That dosing pump does sound very nice, but I'm not sure you'll have a lot of luck using for evaporation replacement.

When I first setup an evaporative replacement system, I tried to use a peristaltic pump, figuring that I could dial in the exact amount of evaporation. What I learned, was that I was always wrong. One day, too much..the next...too little.

Evaporation isn't constant. It changes based on environmental humidity and temperature. In the end, I changed over to a float switch based system and it worked better.

[Fish]

Concerning the rates of evaporation being slightly different every day, more common is the rate changing slightly between day and night. The level drops slightly during the days and rises more during the night hours. The minor changes in humidity temp etc are not enough to significantly effect the water level as a day to day average. Any significant changes, especially in a temperature controlled dwelling like a home of office, will occur from season to season - not day to day. And the tank is never left long enough without a water change to make a difference. I used one of these pumps to dose a 2gal nano for a couple years and it would take at least two weeks for the water level to creep less than one centimeter either up or down. Because I was usually doing water changes more often than that, it was never anything I had to address.
I have settled on the rate of 0.32ml 8x's every minute and for three days it has been holding the water level in my sump at the exact water line mark I drew on my sump with a sharpie - just under the line in the evening, and just over the line in the morning. If it looks like there is a net gain or increase in the level at the end of the week, I will increase or decrease the dosing rate by one stroke per minute.
I wouldn't trust a float switch to do my topoff. Not saying there's anything wrong with it - I just think there is too much risk of it sticking on or off for my personal preferance. I've had the float in my toilette fail more than a few times and that has a more bouyant float, is immersed in pure cold fesh water with less mineral content, and never has algae buildup or snails, etc.

Cheers,

- Chad

Edit: photo updates on page 21

[Fish]

Today I met with Nate and picked up another Coralife pump from him. He was super fair to deal with and I would highly recommed him to anyone looking for equipment.

Because I don't really have any other photos, I took this one to show my topoff return line. The tubing comes up through one of the holes that I drilled for electrical cords and injects FW into the first chamber of my sump 8 times/ minute.







Cheers,

- Chad

[untamed]

Originally Posted by Fish

....And the tank is never left long enough without a water change to make a difference. I used one of these pumps to dose a 2gal nano for a couple years and it would take at least two weeks for the water level to creep less than one centimeter either up or down. Because I was usually doing water changes more often than that, it was never anything I had to address....

I've gone both ways and the float switch worked way better for me. I'll offer two ideas that could give you peace of mind.

1) Use two float switches for redundancy. The chances of both switches failing at the same time is pretty remote.
2) Push the water in through VERY low volume irrigation drippers. That way, the system is incapable of delivering water really fast, even if the floats fail. If the float got stuck "on", it would still take 24 hours or more of continuous pumping before the tank level would start to rise.

One question though...When you do a water change, it is only a partial volume change, right? You're not doing a 100% water change. So if your evaporative system has pumped a bit too much water in there, you will have diluted the system and will be running slightly low salinity. If you want to correct this during a water change, you'll have to adjust the salinity of your replacement SW higher to compensate.

[nanopodreefer]

Hey, things looking great had a couple comments, sorry if I missed any of this earlier in the thread.

- how does one get in touch with Nate, where does he work?
- why did you choose to take out the bubble trap in your sump? have you any problems with the bubbles now going over the partition
- I bet at lot of us could appreciate a price breakdown of your setup

Thanks, ohh ya i'm looking forward to another tank video tour someday, hint hint, hehehe

Take care,
Nano