Flow meter in-line with DOS

reefdiver73 · Mar 7, 2022

Curious if anyone has put a flow meter in-line with the DOS and if anyone can recommend any.
My perfect one would be a pair that could alert if the two start to mis-match in flow.
The reason I'm thinking about this is just yesterday, I found 15 extra gallons of water in my sump! This was only 3 days of 5 gallon water changes where the water removal was not happening. It ended up being a clogged line. Easily solved by using an air compressor to blow out the line, but this could have been bad if it had gone another couple of days without me catching it.

Increased salinity and an overflowing sump for starters.

If it had been the clean salt line that clogged instead of the waste water, I would have been suffering from decreased salinity and would have been scratching my head about it for a few extra minutes I'm sure -- because the ATO would have kept the sump at the correct level. I also probably wouldn't have caught it quite as quickly.

I could just add an optical level sensor an inch or so above the correct sump level, but I was wondering if there's any way to monitor the actual flow through a DOS.

SuncrestReef · Mar 7, 2022

Neptune's 1/4" flow sensor only works between 3 - 12 gallons/hour, but the fastest the DOS can pump is 1.3 gallons/hour, so this idea won't work. Additionally, the DOS does not run continuously, so it will run for a few minutes and then stop for many more minutes to cool the pumps, then repeat. Using a flow meter for a stop and stop situation would be difficult to alert you of a problem.

A better solution is to limit the amount your ATO can deliver at a time, and limit how frequently it runs. Figure out how much water typically evaporates when you're not running the water changes, then set your ATO to alert you if it runs longer than expected. Then when you're running the AWC, if the ATO tries to add more water than expected, it can alert you.

See this page for the specs on Neptune's flow sensors: https://www.neptunesystems.com/fmm-accessories/

reefdiver73 · Mar 7, 2022

I wasn't worried about using a Neptune product. I'm wondering if there is a highly sensitive 1/4" flow sensor of any sort.

My DOS didn't run too long or too short. It ran precisely the duration it always does. The line was clogged and so nothing was actually flowing even though the DOS was doing its job.

Interesting idea on watching based on ATO. That would alert if too much water were removed from the system. I also need a solution for saltwater being added without any waste saltwater being removed. That second issue is what happened to me.