Cali Kid Corals

automatic water change

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pixelpixi

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Does anyone here run an automatic water change system? I ordered an LM3 for my calcium reactor and I'm thinking about getting two add-on pumps for water changes. One pump would move water from my SW reservoir into the tank, the other would move water from the tank to the drain. I'd run a 1/4" tube about 20' through the crawlspace to the drain, since there's no floor drain near my tank. Float switches would turn the whole thing off if the SW reservoir gets empty or the sump gets too full.

I'd probably need some sort of inlet filter for the waste pump. Any suggestions on what to use for that?
 
Thanks Jeremy. Aldie or Tong, if you see this... any other thoughts/suggestions about setting this up? Did you use any sort of filter on the inlet to the waste pump?
 
Welcome to the auto water change club :), it was a life saver for me, as I never did a water change for my 120G + 70G system manually up to this point. The flip side is it made me lazy, and I hardly can keep up manually changing water for my two 12G nano tanks. I thought about doing auto water changes for my nano tanks as well, but it just does not make sense to put several times more money in water change than the setup itself.

You setup is very similar to mine, except I also use a third LM pump with level sensor for top off, and I do not run any filters (except I use a small sponge to plug the end of line that draw water out). It will take some time to figure out how to balance the pumps and keep the salinity steady. Actually I never got it perfectly balanced in the last two years, but the swing is very small, and salinity changes very small. All I do is check the water level every few days, and make small adjustment when salinity goes out. Nowadays I probably measure salinity once every one to two months.

I also used 1/4" tub placed inside PVC pipe (I want to protect the small tubs from rats or other animals inside crawlspace) that runs across crawlspace, and I think this might have been the biggest mistake I made. Calcium will build up in the tub and clogging it, and I have to run vineager every half a year or so to prevent the clogging. If not too late, you might want to consider using 3/8" or larger tubes instead.
 
Do you know about how much evaporation you have daily Erin? Sorry I forget what sized tank you have.

Edit: ack! I just realized you wanted an auto water changer not just a top off! My bad :D
 
You can check my tank thread for a diagram on how I have mine set up. It's similar to Tong's.

If you are going to run a tube for topoff and you use kalk, be sure to NOT run the kalk through the tube. It clogs up quick. You should invest in a kalk reactor and place it on the tank end so that only RO water runs through the line.

My wastewater line doesn't really clog and I have run it through 1/4" tube for two + years. It seems like good advice to try running vinegar through it every now and then though.
 
Not only will kalk clog it up, it will make you go through tubing MUCH faster. It is best to push water through the kalk reactor.
 
Jason: I -love- the idea of feeding the waste from the display through the QT tank! It's such an elegant solution to the problem of maintaining QT tank water quality. How has that worked out for you?

One could even go a step further and use a simple heat exchanger to keep the temperatures in the two systems locked.
 
I may be wrong here however, I don't think the LM would be good for a calcium reactor. The LM works by turning on in intervals, it will not give you a consistent effluent from your calcium reactor.
 
The water exchanger works ok... two things I've learned.

1) You will need a top off for the frag tank fed off the waste water or your salinity will drift too high.
2) You still need a skimmer on the frag tank.

Other than those two thing it works great.
 
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