FishyFishy!'s 210g of Fantasmic! Fishalicious! Fauna!

[Kryptic4L]

grats on the water change system. Best money A person can spend on equipment imho.

Yours looks very well thought out, If you ever have the desire to get rid of the electrical cord run through your house, I have been having good success with the wemo system from belkin. Just turn on and off my ro pump using my phone.

[asylumdown]

This amount of flexibility makes me mad jelly.

I literally just spent the last 15 minutes following all the pipes in your tank/plumbing diagram. My only advice would be:

Find some way of labelling all those gate valves in a really in your face manner. By my count you've got to change the position of gate valves on different floors 12 times in a specific sequence to complete the entire circuit from water change, to salt water storage refill, to ATO refill. It's probably the weakest point in your system as it introduces the potential for absent-minded human error. In my system the same pump that empties my water change chamber also drives my GFO reactor. Since the GFO reactor is always running, I put two gate valves between the pump and the drain just to be safe. However, twice now I've gotten interrupted or distracted during a water change and opened the valve to my GFO reactor, turned the pump back on, and walked away without having closed the gate valves to the drain. Thankfully my ATO sounds like a bucket of water pouring in to a toilet so I've caught it really quickly both times, but I'm definitely the weakest link in the system I built.

In your case all it would take is absent-mindedly leaving that gate valve to the upstairs open when you refill the salt water storage bin to either empty half your RO container on to your upstairs floor, or in to your system depending on how you left the valves after the water change.

I know it adds cost and it's redundancy you'll probably never need, but if it were me, for peace of mind I'd want there to be one pump and a dedicated run of pipe just to bring salt water up to the water change tank, and another pump and run of pipe for the fresh water. That way you'd only need to worry about changing the position of two valves (Fill ATO reservoir or salt water reservoir), and they'd both be on the same floor and right in front of you when you needed to change the plumbing 'state'. That would also make it physically impossible to accidentally foul your stored fresh water with salt water.

I'd be constantly second guessing myself and running to the basement to make sure I wasn't filling my ATO reservoir with salt water the way it's set up. But then I'm an air head. Other people might not have the same challenges I cope with on a daily basis.

However, your system saves the need for a second pump and is a way more efficient use of pipe space. I'm still mad jelly, just make sure you're extra careful.

[FishyFishy!]

Thanks adam!

There is a chance of human error as usual. However the way I plan on doing this, will be in stages, so that there is less changing of valves all in one sequence. Hopefully, If I follow my plan, things won't go bad! I hope to mix my salt container a few days before the water change, so hopefully that would eliminate a mishap when turning valves.

The only real chance of failure here is the chance that I leave the valve to the RO bin open when filling the sump. I do plan on having a cheap/small controller for my water change system to control perameters in the future, so maybe I could also do a float switch that turns the Mag24 off when the level in the sump reaches a certain level. It might be an idea with or without a controller. I do have an old JBJ ATO with dual float switches that actually might work great for this! I will put it to use.

I also have built (not shown yet) two 1/2" overflows on the brutes that lead directly to the floor drain just in case they boil over. This will help if the float switches in my RO unit fail.

Hopefully by doing the water change in a span of a couple days (in regards to mixing the salt water before hand) it will eliminate a few chances of valve turning errors.

[FishyFishy!]

I got a small bit done last night. I was able to install the cord hiding panduit under the first sump to hide wires. This stuff is awesome! and so easy to work with. Sure did tidy everything up so far. Hides all the extra wire from the American DJ powerbars and extension cord for the water changing system nicely.






And yes.... eventually the underbelly will get a coat of paint lol

[daplatapus]

Looks good, man. Love that panduit. Definitely the nicest way to clean up wiring.

[FishyFishy!]

So, I need some advice. Should I continue to run my manifold off of the fuge/frag tank return pump like I originally designed. Or should I run it from the 1st stage sump via an extra Mag12 I have sitting around? I would have it recirculating back into the tank because the 1200 gph would be a little much for the manifold, considering only 3-4 outlets would be in use.

I figure if the manifold for the reactors (carbon, GFO, and calcium reactors) are fed directly off of the 1st sump, the water will be straight out of the display, and would be in the best position to be polished/filtered. What do you think?

I also like the location of the manifold on the right wall. it overhangs the tank, so if I did have any leaks, it would leak back into the sump. If I fed it with the bottom return pump, I would have to mount it on the back wall, and if it leaked, it would hit the floor below.

[FishyFishy!]

I also got the frag tank and rack all set up, and the two fuge tanks all done (except for the acrylic overflow teeth....have to go to concept). The taller rear tank will have an 8" DSB and floating mangroves. It will cascade into the bottom fuge which will house the duplex sump idea (egg crate structure on the bottom to create a benthic zone, then live rock, and cheato on the top). It will then overflow into the live rock compartment of the return sump.





And the whole thing (minus the return sump)