AWC with Dosing Pump (slave / master ?)

[ilikefish69]

I am looking into purchasing a Jebao DP-4S dosing pump, and the plan is to use it for auto water change. I would like to set it up to pull water out of the sump, and then push new salt water into the sump (in front) for a slow, automatic water change. The plan would be to change 1-2 gallons of water every day rather than 20 gallons each weekend. The worst my tank looks is after a water change, and I am thinking the stability that I have finally reached is getting thrown off by adding a significant amount of new water all at once.

Any experience with this, and also dumb question but what is master / slave mean in terms of dosing pumps? I'm talking to a gentleman on FB marketplace and he said it is a master and slave set up

 

[HankstankXXL750]

How many gallons is your tank?

 

[ilikefish69]

125 with a 30 sump

 

[HankstankXXL750]

I wouldn’t think that a 20 gallon WC would affect things that much. But I do think the auto water change is good, but not sure you will get as much benefit at only a gallon a day. Maybe better to do 5 gallons at a time and do it 4 times a week?

 

[Joe31415]

I can't answer the specifics regarding the numbers, but using two dosing pumps to do daily water changes is very common.
One tip that I have is, unless you're also going to cut power to your ATO, start the fill pump before the drain pump. This will help make sure the ATO sensor stays in the water instead of thinking the level dropped and topping off.

 

[Joe31415]

Also, the slave/master thing usually refers to a "master" pump that handles all the 'smart' aspects of the pump (getting signals from your phone/cloud, handling which pumps turn on and off at what time, etc). The slave pumps need to be connected to a master pump.
I've never used the pump you show in the OP, however, notice how this one doesn't have any controls on it. It'll get all it's directions from the master pump and can't do anything on it's own.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I used a single dual head pump for AWC of about 1% daily and think such a setup is an excellent plan.

That said, I do not know anything about this specific pump.

 

[Txoutlaw]

There is a guy on YouTube with this pump doing a gallon a day on his 50g.

 

[kilnakorr]

I would mostly be concerned about how long it will take the doser to run a gallon, and the wear on the pumps.
If it needs to run 45 min every day, I don't see these cheap dosers work for very long.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

While I have pretty good luck with the Jebao powerheads, I had trouble with this dosing pump. Replacing the tubing, which you're going to have to do pretty frequently, is a nightmare. I tried 2 - 3 different sizes and it never works quite right. I suppose if you spend $15 for a new head every time you need new tubing, you'll be okay, but that's going to get really expensive.

I partially automated my water changes using this Kamoer pump. It doesn't explicitly state that it's rated for continuous dosing, but the pump has a long motor life and the case has a fan, so it can probably run for extended periods without issues. Plus, it takes big tubing that's easy to replace.

 

[dieselkeeper]

I thought dosing pump do it over a 24 hour period. I dose nitrates to keep at 10 ppm. If it doses it all at once, I think I would see that in my corals looking bad.