auto top offs

[weez1959]

Any reccomendations for auto top off? I can't wait to have one of those! I'm still doing it the tedious way which is adding a litre or 2, three times a day.
With my current set up there's no room for an auto top off. I can barely get my skimmer cup out of the sump area without spilling a drop or 2.

[charlie]

I am still part of the bucket brigade Louise. That way I know it gets done and I don't have to do any serious wet vacuuming. Sorry, no help here.

[Reefland]

I have seriously considered one, but have never added one. Our current setup isn't too bad, open two small John Guest valves, and let the tank replenish every evening for about 2 hours straight from our RO/DI unit.

[weez1959]

I think my problem is when I made my sump I didn't leave much room where the return pump is, the baffles are too close so I have to keep on top of it all day. Morning noon and night That why I'm looking to use an auto top off.

[Reefland]

Yeah with the evaporation only occuring in the section of the sump with the return pump, this can be a problem when that section is made to small. Usually though, the size of the return pump warrants the section being large enough to handle 1 day of evap.

[mbunakeith]

since you dont dose kalk with your topoff, you could easily hook up a float switch in your sump. i took one and mounted it on top of my sump. i took a piece of acrylic about 10x10cm, drilled a hole in it for the switch, adjusted the float where i needed it and glued the acrylic onto the top of my sump. you could easily fit it in between your baffles. check it out. it makes your life so much easier it's unbelievable. just dont dose kalk with a float switch...you will regret it. i topoff with straight tap water,but you could run the line from your ro unit just as easily.

[zhenya]

I've been using this device for about three years now without any problems. Haven't failed me yet.... I have it hooked up straight from my RO/DI where output is split between the storage tank and my tank. The double sensor concept works really well and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

[mad_dog01]

I bought a 10 gal tank and used a reeffanatic auto topoff unit from Premium Aquatics. It has 2 hi/lo sensors and takes up no room in the sump except a small 3 inch by 3 inch sensor unit in the sump. I plumbed the pump from the 10 gal tank to the sump and my RO/DI unit feeds the 10 gal, I manually fill the 10 gal from the RO unit as i want to regulate if something goes wrong I'll only pump 5-7 gals into the sump and not overflow the tank and sump. No more buckets and redundency with the two sensors so if one goes bad the other with take over with no overflow.

[xinumaster]

I'm working on my auto top-off and continuous water xchange system. But stupiiiid Spectra-pure can't keep up with the demand on their LM3 dosing pump. Here is the diagram of the project am working on. I will need to do a 3gal RODI top-off and 7gal SW change every day.




perry/xinumaster

[Reefland]

Hi Perry,

That looks pretty elaborate. Out of curiousity, what is the size of the system and why a 7gal saltwater change each day?

[xinumaster]

The main tank is 375g. Sump is 110g.

[Reefland]

Nice. Do you think the daily water changes are needed though? A larger water change less often (50 gallons per week) is more effective than 7 gallons per day in my opinion, although a little more labor intensive.

[xinumaster]

Less labor. All that is needed for me to do is turn the valve to move RODI water to saltwater container. Then add salt and turn the valve again to allow the pump to mix the salt. The pump is on a timer that turn on every 4hrs for 1hr to mix the salt.

Here is my current tank. Still young about 2mo old.


Lots of salt I ordered at FS.

[weez1959]

Cute little guy!
Nice tank too! I wish mine was that big, I'm all excited over upgrading to a 90g

[CSeaSee]

I guess if you can swing the expense... and I thought my system was low- maintenance!

[rjs5134]

WOW, I'm impressed. Boy is my wife gonna be pissed, now I have another item on the to do list.

[dougc]

I've been using a Tunze Osmolator for a couple of years and it has been very reliable. It has an optical sensor as the primary trigger to add water and a mechanical float switch as a backup. Further, it will only run for a maximum of 10 minutes, at which point it shuts down until it is manually reset. There is little danger of overfilling.