Auto water change REALLY?
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What brand of salt mix? This might be a case for using a cleaner mixing brand for awc. I used instant ocean for awc but it did heavy cake, I have used TMP for years with no residue now but I didn’t think about it clogging
Greybeard
2500 Club Member
Yes... Tropic Marin salt, mixed WELL with a 1900gph mixing pump for a day before the DOS line was put in place. There is no residue in the barrel, never has been.
Fascinating.
I mix my salt in a separate barrel and transfer it to the SW water change reservoir after it's been mixed. I use IO (which is notorious for buildup), but haven't seen any build up in my lines since I started in October 2019.
I wonder why the clog formed, or how if using TMP. That stinks, bad luck for sure.
ca1ore
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FWIW, I am in complete agreement with you. I think a new reefer should take at least the first year to learn his or her tank .... learn to recognize the sometimes subtle signs that something may be amiss. Then be mindful of the pros and cons of hobby grade automation. I have ‘invested’ in more modules than most folks here on R2R (maybe more than all), yet it is mostly for monitoring and alerting. Where I do use control, it is in places where I retain some level of external (to apex) redundancy.
ca1ore
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Had the same thing happen when cleaning out my mixing barrel. Grey residue plugged up the hose barb on the new water side of the DOS. Apex salinity probe may not be awesome but it is directionally good enough to catch something like that. In my case the DOS head made a funny noise so I noticed it right away.
I guess I look at water changes as a complete package that includes everything else. It’s always the way I have done it and seen/heard reefers doing. Possibly with how easy it is to do auto water changes now that is the past way of doing it.
lefkonj
Active Member
AWC is just another automated task. When I have to get into the tank to feed or clean I just shut of the pumps and such and do it, don't have to then worry about the water change itself. I guess it could lead to laziness but then again there are people who don't do water changes, so not sure it matters if that is how you roll.
I’m one of those people who sarcastically posted it takes me 3 seconds for water change cause that’s how long I press my button for connected to breakout box and apex. I see you question blowing rocks off with turkey baster well to respond to that again takes me 0 seconds because I have programmed my apex to put my mp40 into nutrient transport mode 2x a day at 80% when normally run at 30% and this blows off my rocks and stir up all detritus. IMO my method is much more effective as you only blow rocks on days you do water chan I do it 2x a day.
Another win for having a controller
Another win for having a controller
i love my apex and my auto water changing It provides. I have never had to blow off my rocks because I have no sand. my detritus ends up in sump socks when I max out flow for 15 minutes. I love working on my tank and respect what your saying, but I guess it just depends on the person. You can definitely get lulled in a false sense of security with automation. However, what I do To try to avoid that Pitfall is substitute the extra time it would take to do water changes, with Religious testing of nitrates phosphates double checking my apex trident numbers. Tweaking this or that in a constant battle to keep everything as stable as possible. As we all do.
I am getting to my point lol. As I have seen this hobby change over many years, new things some good some bad have led to us keeping difficult corals alive that at one time was thought to be impossible. Auto dosers, water changer and ATO’s all can be extremely valuable tools, but they are not in my view, set it and forget it! but valuable tools that need to be monitored and checked just like amy other piece of equipment.
it took me a while to jump on board especially with-auto dosing. relying on a machine to dose my tank .....no way lol. But I eventually came around and now I love it.
gray808
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Vette67
Reefing since 1997
For me, the purpose of the water change is detritus removal. I otherwise notice no difference before and after the water change. I keep my other tank parameters stable, and could probably get away without doing water changes. But having been down that road 10 years ago with disastrous results, I have decided to make water changes part of my routine. So I agree with the OP in that I would see an AWC as more un-necessary than useful, without the detritus removal. One of the reasons I have a 150 gallon sump is so that no matter my water flow, the sump is never turbulent enough that detritus can't settle. I see it as my dropout box, and part of it's purpose is to allow a place for detritus to settle, making it easy to siphon out. When the bottom of my sump gets covered it light brown sludge, that's my visual clue that it's time for a water change.
I did think of that as I have small mandarin so I plan them during daytime when most fish active and mandarin are hiding in the rocks and won’t get sucked up threw power head accidentally.
schuby
Valuable Member
I use a DOS for my AWC, for 2 gallons a day. I use 2 5-gallon jugs: one full of fresh saltwater & one empty for old saltwater. Every 2 days, I exchange the fresh jug & dump the old/waste jug. It is easy to see if one of the pumps isn't working correctly by the water levels in the 2 jugs. Checking salinity once a week let's me know if I need to recalibrate the DOS.
WHO HAS GOT THE DATA?
Daily 2% water changes vs larger 10-20% water changes weekly or bi weekly. How do each maintain trace elements? I would also like to know how it reduces the bad but that is heavily dependent to n how much you add.
Daily 2% water changes vs larger 10-20% water changes weekly or bi weekly. How do each maintain trace elements? I would also like to know how it reduces the bad but that is heavily dependent to n how much you add.
KStatefan
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I’ve set up a AWC system on my new tank and have a 25 micron pool filter I built to polish the water. if I need to I can charge with diatomaceous earth and filter down to 2 microns. Although the pool filter is huge and there are smaller options I couldn’t resist the price. One of the returns has a line on it so I can blast the rock work. Solved the Dino/Cyno issues this new tank had overnight.
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