Awc with high salinity storage to reduce footprint

[Reefering1]

Thank you. That actually means a lot. Every now and then, I'll get the urge to engage in meaningful conversation. Hehe

When it comes to the concentrated brine idea, I think there's some promising uses for the application. Although, I think it's still in its infancy and has a lot to be discovered, I think peristaltic pumps make it viable to explore.

I was so scared that my salinity would creep one direction or the other. But I've been doing this for over a year now and it's no different than what the skimmer does to salinity (throwing out a cup of skimmate each week to have it displaced with rodi). Not to mention, the jury is still out about the unknowns about what other trace elements are being precipitated from the concentrated salt mix and how that effects a reef long term.

As far as the arduino, I'm not a coder, I struggle with comprehension. my advice and what I did, is to befriend someone that knows a lot about software and coding, then be at their mercy. But his advice would be to get a starter kit and start with the blinking led tutorial and go from there. Haha

And perhaps @shoedy will bring his talents to this hobby.

Dang I thought I had my guy. I guess no better way to learn than using it.

 

[shoedy]

If you're going to use a peristaltic pump, and as long as they stay calibrated, it'll maintain salinity. The only time evaporation becomes an issue is if you run one peristaltic pump at a time. But if you run all 3 pumps simultaneously (concentrated brine, rodi and waste) then you won't disrupt the evaporation level.

As mentioned precipitation is your biggest concern. I've taken it to 70ppt without any visible signs of precipitation. I'd be curious what your experiment yields.

As for the DOS, I'm not 100% sure that would be the best option because of the way the software breaks up dosing with tdata. Ideally you want all pumps to run at the same time and I'm not familiar enough with DOS to know if that's possible.

I made my own arduino based awc that allows for easy programming based on what I mixed the concentrated salt to. I'm lazy and dump 2 bags of salt in roughly 55 gallons and whatever that mixes to (sometimes 60ppt, some thimes 65ppt) gets put into the awc. No more mixing to exact numbers haha.




No this communicates with my diy kalk controller, and that communicates with apex in a very basic way.

Although, you might want to check github because there are some great patches into fusion. Some that mimic modules and also read data. For me that's far beyond my scope of expertise.

Thank you for all this information. On Monday there's a national holiday here and I'll set up a little experiment and mix the brine to 90ppt. My Milwaukee refractometer goes up to 150ppt but that is the only device I have in the range to measure it in.

So you don't measure when mixing? Do you have a conductivity probe then somewhere in the loop or how does that work?

I did some arduino work a long time ago but it has come a long way since and I see that it also supports (micro)python nowadays which makes it even easier. Any recs on hardware, compatibility on peristaltic pumps and/or examples of electrical wiring will be much appreciated.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

So you don't measure when mixing? Do you have a conductivity probe then somewhere in the loop or how does that work?

Yes I measure, but only to know what it mixed to. I use the hanna conductivity meter. And that gets put into the awc controller.

Any recs on hardware, compatibility on peristaltic pumps and/or examples of electrical wiring will be much appreciated.

I used the trinamic drivers specifically the TMC5160. They allow for stealth chop and spread cycle (2 silent stepper applications) they use these chips in the versa and now the dos qd.

Stepper is just an Amazon 24v neman 17. I can provide the link of you wish.

This build basically used an arduino nano every, rtc, tmc5160's, nextion HMI display, and the appropriate resistors, capacitors, plugs etc.

The UI is local, no wifi or BLE. Just the touchscreen.



The PCB was custom, which if anyone who's designed one will tell you, it's not too difficult.

As for the stepper drive, that's where the fun begins (for me). I designed a cycloidal 3:1 gear box that drives the peristaltic pumps rotor and then a 3d printed case to house everything.

@Reefering1, this is where my skills are: in modeling

 

[shoedy]

Yes I measure, but only to know what it mixed to. I use the hanna conductivity meter. And that gets put into the awc controller.

I used the trinamic drivers specifically the TMC5160. They allow for stealth chop and spread cycle (2 silent stepper applications) they use these chips in the versa and now the dos qd.

Stepper is just an Amazon 24v neman 17. I can provide the link of you wish.

This build basically used an arduino nano every, rtc, tmc5160's, nextion HMI display, and the appropriate resistors, capacitors, plugs etc.

The UI is local, no wifi or BLE. Just the touchscreen.



The PCB was custom, which if anyone who's designed one will tell you, it's not too difficult.

As for the stepper drive, that's where the fun begins (for me). I designed a cycloidal 3:1 gear box that drives the peristaltic pumps rotor and then a 3d printed case to house everything.

@Reefering1, this is where my skills are: in modeling

This is awesome! I'm going to fill up my cart and tinker a bit in the next few weeks. Did you print the pump heads yourself? The design is stunning!

Wish there was a more plug and play option for the pumps to connect to the arduino as I don’t have the skills/tools readily available and it’ll take too much time.

Might go for the arduino giga bundle as it comes with a display included.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I was so scared that my salinity would creep one direction or the other. But I've been doing this for over a year now and it's no different than what the skimmer does to salinity (throwing out a cup of skimmate each week to have it displaced with rodi). Not to mention, the jury is still out about the unknowns about what other trace elements are being precipitated from the concentrated salt mix and how that effects a reef long term.

Are you a bot that just copies others statements and posts them back as your own? I’ve been noticing this behavior in other threads and it’s strange to me, being a human. Just curious

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Yes, that's me...

I do mix salt to roughly 60ppt and dose it to beat the evaporation wall for dosing kalkwasser.

I made my own awc that has software that takes the gray matter out of the process.

I simply tell the awc what the premixed concentrated salt mixed to and it does all the calculations for me.

It's not suited for the application of lowering the salt storage container foot print. But the concept is basically the same.

Just off the top of my head though, the purpose as intended by @shoedy is to reduce the footprint of storage containers. The rub here is that whatever you're dosing from the concentrated salt needs to be offset by a precisely metered amount of rodi water, which will need to be in another storage bin.

With all that aside the math is pretty straight forward. If your target salinity is 35ppt and you dose 1L of RODI , you would need 1.4L of 60ppt to achieve 35ppt.

Concentrated Salt - Target Salinity = Delta Salinity

Target salinity ÷ Delta Salinity = Salinity Ratio

RODI in ml × Salinity Ratio = Concentrated Salt in ml

Example:

60-35=25

35÷25=1.4

1000×1.4=1400

Plug in any number for you concentrated salt, RODI and your targeted Salinity, and it will give you the proper amount of each to dose.

This is pretty ingenious. I dig it.

 

[shoedy]

…

Although, you might want to check github because there are some great patches into fusion. Some that mimic modules and also read data. For me that's far beyond my scope of expertise.

Do you have any examples of these? Might be interesting but can't find any

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

Wouldn’t it be Better to disguise it. I saw a Round Woven Sea Grass Container, that had a Saltwater Barrel inside it. Also he set a timer, to quickly change the water via a Persilitic Pump Pair. The Timer, shut his return pump off. Pumped the new water, into the tank. Old water was pump out of the sump. He is an engineer,and designed the system himself.

 

[PuertoReef]

I have a salt mixing bin, I am thinking I may try to see how salty I can keep the water in this salt mix tank which is an approx. 60 gallon tank. Let's say I can get it to 60 or 70 ppm, then I would dose 70 ppm salt into a small reservoir tank, along with dosing some RODI into that reservoir. Perhaps it would be a little 5 gal reservoir. This approach would potentially double the amount of salt water I can store between mixing new batches. My system volume is about 140 gallons, so if I do 1.5% per day automatic changes, that uses about 2 gallons per day of salt water. So my 60 gallon salt water mixing bin tank is good for 30 days between mixes at 35 ppm, but I figure I could get 60 days between mixes if using 70 ppm saltwater. Currently I have a PM2 + Salinity Probe on my salt mixing bin, I would probably add another to the reservoir to automate monitoring of the mix. Will keep you posted, the key concern seems to be at what level of salinity will salts start to precipitate out of solution.

 

[shoedy]

I have a salt mixing bin, I am thinking I may try to see how salty I can keep the water in this salt mix tank which is an approx. 60 gallon tank. Let's say I can get it to 60 or 70 ppm, then I would dose 70 ppm salt into a small reservoir tank, along with dosing some RODI into that reservoir. Perhaps it would be a little 5 gal reservoir. This approach would potentially double the amount of salt water I can store between mixing new batches. My system volume is about 140 gallons, so if I do 1.5% per day automatic changes, that uses about 2 gallons per day of salt water. So my 60 gallon salt water mixing bin tank is good for 30 days between mixes at 35 ppm, but I figure I could get 60 days between mixes if using 70 ppm saltwater. Currently I have a PM2 + Salinity Probe on my salt mixing bin, I would probably add another to the reservoir to automate monitoring of the mix. Will keep you posted, the key concern seems to be at what level of salinity will salts start to precipitate out of solution.

I’m currently designing my own water tester as it took priority over this (it’s a different design than others and will post this soon). Please share your results as I want to get back on this when I can!

 

[TokenReefer]

I have a salt mixing bin, I am thinking I may try to see how salty I can keep the water in this salt mix tank which is an approx. 60 gallon tank. Let's say I can get it to 60 or 70 ppm, then I would dose 70 ppm salt into a small reservoir tank, along with dosing some RODI into that reservoir. Perhaps it would be a little 5 gal reservoir. This approach would potentially double the amount of salt water I can store between mixing new batches. My system volume is about 140 gallons, so if I do 1.5% per day automatic changes, that uses about 2 gallons per day of salt water. So my 60 gallon salt water mixing bin tank is good for 30 days between mixes at 35 ppm, but I figure I could get 60 days between mixes if using 70 ppm saltwater. Currently I have a PM2 + Salinity Probe on my salt mixing bin, I would probably add another to the reservoir to automate monitoring of the mix. Will keep you posted, the key concern seems to be at what level of salinity will salts start to precipitate out of solution.

Maybe there's something I don't get about this but don't you need even more space because you need an intermediate mixing container? I'm trying to see how this works as a space saver :thinking-face:. But yeah I think you can double the salinity then mix it with rodi in another container to get it to the right desired salinity, but trying to understand why? You mentioned it'd give you more time between so I guess that's a consideration. More volume = more time I suppose. But no matter what you will have to bring the volume up from the concentrate. I don't see a way around it. I must be missing something.

 

[shoedy]

Maybe there's something I don't get about this but don't you need even more space because you need an intermediate mixing container? I'm trying to see how this works as a space saver :thinking-face:. But yeah I think you can double the salinity then mix it with rodi in another container to get it to the right desired salinity, but trying to understand why? You mentioned it'd give you more time between so I guess that's a consideration. More volume = more time I suppose. But no matter what you will have to bring the volume up from the concentrate. I don't see a way around it. I must be missing something.

I don’t see the necessity of an intermediary mixing container as you could just dose the salt and rodi water at the same time. It would get mixed in the sump quickly anyway

 

[TokenReefer]

I don’t see the necessity of an intermediary mixing container as you could just dose the salt and rodi water at the same time. It would get mixed in the sump quickly anyway

Yeah I suppose that would eliminate the intermediate but puts heavy reliance on calibrated dosers and calculations and leaves little room for either to be off by much...in my eyes. But that wasn't the question so you can weigh the risks yourself. I suppose it can be done in that manner then. Definitely keep us posted if you do, because it might be a problem solver for some people I think if it can be figured out.

 

[PuertoReef]

I don’t see the necessity of an intermediary mixing container as you could just dose the salt and rodi water at the same time. It would get mixed in the sump quickly anyway

The only benefit of the intermediary container is to have a holding area where you can be confident you're at or close to 35 ppm before it goes into your tank. If you feed the tank with RODI + Super-Brine with two dosing tubes, I worry what if the Dos Head fails for one of them, or similar, and so it just creates a bit higher risk situation. So instead of alarming on the salinity in my actual tank being out of range, I could instead alarm if my mini-reservoir for salt water changes gets out of range, and when that happens, temporarily disable the automatic water changes.

Maybe there's something I don't get about this but don't you need even more space because you need an intermediate mixing container? I'm trying to see how this works as a space saver :thinking-face:. But yeah I think you can double the salinity then mix it with rodi in another container to get it to the right desired salinity, but trying to understand why? You mentioned it'd give you more time between so I guess that's a consideration. More volume = more time I suppose. But no matter what you will have to bring the volume up from the concentrate. I don't see a way around it. I must be missing something.

Yes, I hear you, but I have the mixing bins in a closet adjacent to our tank, and the limiting factor on saltwater storage is the giant 60 gallon tank that stores it -- a small 5 gallon reservoir (or smaller) like those used for an ATO reservoir, is a small additional space burden if we can effectively double the capacity of our salt mixing bin from 30 days of changes to 60 days.

Keep in mind, we make RODI with the watermaker, so we never run out of RODI and don't have a space constraint for RODI water. The only space constraint is for storing salt water. So by storing the super-salty water, at say 70 ppm, we double the capacity of the saltwater storage.

 

[shoedy]

Sure, there is inherently more risk to it just because of the added complexity of one extra element/pump in the equation. There are safety measures one could deploy though to increase confidence. In my mind one pump on the awc that I have right now could already fail in the current situation resulting in a salinity change. I don’t do that big of water changes unattended for weeks though to go unnoticed.