AWC ideas

[vkpatel238]

Hello, first post (and first fish in hopefully a few days!!). I'm thinking about how to make my AWC more efficient - currently i have a GLH Doser with optical level sensors, with the pipes laid into various nooks in the walls, but my issue is the process is slow, and take around 1 hr to do a 2litre water change! I'm sure this is wearing my dosing pumps, so i was thinking of alternatives...looking through the forums i think i have 2 options:
a. put submerisble pumps into the SW water tank and the sump and have the GHL controller turn on the pumps when needed. My worry is head height as the pipes going up and over in the ceiling...does anyone have experience with this and any recommendations on pumps?
b. i've seen a few post on using something like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/17036099122?iid=264694369352 . My question was how does this connected to power and/or my ghl controller?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[reefwiser]

I use the Stenner dual head pump foe years to change water using my Profilux.
What you do is figure out how much water you want to change. Then see how much water the pump delivers in one minute. You then set up a timer on the socket that the pump is plugged into.
Set up the times you want to run the pump. To reach how much you want to change a day.
One thing to note use a phosphate test kit and try not to drive phosphates down to zero. As you can run into a Dinoflagellates problem

 

[Gtinnel]

I do a similar AWC with the tubing running overhead through my ceiling to the tank. I am using a old masterflex pump, with a multi channel cartridge style head, connected to a cheap wifi outlet to set the time that the pump runs. Throughout the day mines runs for a total of 90 minutes to change close to 2 gallons, which for my masterflex pump is full speed. I have the pump and mixing station in a utility room and I can still her the hum from the motor in the adjacent living room.

With the head pressure I'd think your best option is probably some kind of peristaltic pump. Sometimes on ebay you can find some older, heavy duty lab grade pump for fairly cheap. I have about $150 in my masterflex and it is built like a tank.