AWC?

Hey friends, im thinking about building an auto water change set up and was wondering the pros and cons people have experienced from using an AWC.

 

I have one. Easier than lugging buckets, no more procrastinating.
Eliminates the need for worrying about all the random trace elements and such.
But does not eliminate the need for dosing Ca/Alk, or nutrient removal.

One key thing: You need an automated way of checking the salt water reservoir.
Float switch on an Apex for example.
So it stops the water change and send you a reminder.
Otherwise, if you forget, which you will, it pumps water out and air in.

 

do you feel that chaeto + AWC would be enough for nutrient removal?

and if i did a 2% water change every day. that would replenish 2% of the cal/alk/mag. would that be enough to keep the tank stable or would dosing still be required?

 

It all depends on how stocked your tank is and your salt mix.
My bet : Nutrients will be fine, but you will still need to dose Alk + Ca.
2% per day is a lot though, so might work.

There are all sorts of great graphs on that here:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/

 

its for my 90g +20g sump, so probably do 2gallons a day.

 

I used to do 1% per day and didn’t see any change so I stopped and went to the other extreme of no water changes. I did it back towards the beginning so the tank was barely stocked though. I kept the plumbing intact though so I could start it back up if I ever chooses to. Since going without water changes, I don’t know that I’ll ever go back.

 

Here's a great article on all things water-changey. Last I heard, Randy Holmes-Farley was doing automated 1% daily water changes.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

 

sweet ill give it a read.

1% spread out all day or 1% daily at once?

 

He spread them out through the day. I don't think that detail is in the article, but the Google hits on his ReefCentral threads do.

 

I had this setup for a couple years. My biggest problem was the dosing pumps would start to get out of sync so often that my salinity was just all over the place. I used litermeter3 pumps, which could have just been a bad choice.

I would recommend checking your salinity often, at least once a week if not more just in case.

I think using some of the nicer dosing pumps these days + a smart ATO like the Neptune ATK would help.

I once looked into the the Genesis systems:
http://genesisreefsystems.com/products/automatic-water-change-systems/

Coupled with the topoff, it seems to be the safest way to go about it. I just don't know many people with it to know how well they worked.

 

I used a DOS that ran in the middle of the night. I had it pull out the 1% and then add it back in. I think it took about 2 hours to do it. The ato needs to be off the whole time though. I ran it off a single head on the DOS so there wasn’t any calibration issues with one head being slightly off from the other.

 

Do you guys still do this? Or decided to go another way?


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I still do AWC.
Also, I use litermeter3 pumps, controlled by Apex, with no problems.
I tried zero water changes for a while. Worked for 6 months or so, then things went poorly.
But with the ICP testing and so on, more viable these days.

Everyone is different...

 

I use cole palmer peristaltic pump, two channels.

Quiet, consistent result. No complaint.


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I gave up on it, doing manual water changes still works well for me.

 

Yeah, but 10-15 gallons would be a pretty big wc for you. It would be about 10% for me, and only 2.5% for some of the other tanks on here.