Has anyone tried slowing down their filter roller?

[Joe31415]

I love my filter roller, but have run across two problems.
1)I notice my salinity drifting quite a bit. One of my suspects is the filter roller. My theory is that when it advances and the sump level rises, all that extra water has to evaporate before the trips again, raising the salinity. Might not be the culprit, but it's my working theory and this will rule it out as the cause.

2)When the flow of water into the DT has stopped (typically either the return pump is off or the return nozzle is temporarily blocked by a snail crawling across it), the sump level rapidly rises. This kicks on the filter roller which runs until the level sensor falls back down. My roller runs pretty fast and probably wastes at least a foot of filter material before the water can drain out of it. However, it really only needs to move just a bit. For example, if I know I'm going to be turning off the return, I'll tap the advance button to move the filter just an inch or so, which is plenty to drop the level.

My thoughts are to add in a resistor or dimmer to slow it down and give the level inside the filter time to drop before it rolls out way too much material.

Something I'm surprised it doesn't have, and I may have read that other's have, is a setting so that it'll only advance by some set amount over some given amount of time. For example, it'll roll one inch, then wait 5 minutes before rolling out another inch if the level sensor is still reading high. But mine doesn't have that, so I'm thinking the next best idea is to find a way to slow it down.

Edit, I have the AquaMaxx (Aqua Forest) AF-1, I believe.

 

[BryanM]

I do not believe a filter roll can be responsible for salinity changes.

can't help more as I do not have experience with that filter roller... It does its thing a lot different than redsea's reefmat.

 

[Snoopy 67]

If you have a controller you may be able to program that parameter.
IF I'm going to turn off the return pump I turn off the roller too.
A snail over the return nozzle should not slow down a pump that much IMHO.

 

[Joe31415]

I do not believe a filter roll can be responsible for salinity changes.

My theory: As the filter gets dirty, the level in the sump remains about the same. Once it advances, it dumps a bunch of water into the sump, raising the water level. All that water needs to evaporate before the ATO can kick on again.

Of course, now that I'm thinking about it, that also means that before the filter advances, the ATO had to add extra water to maintain the level, so maybe they cancel each other out.

If you have a controller you may be able to program that parameter.

I do have an Apex, but haven't spent any time programming that type of stuff in. In a perfect world, we'd have a reliable salinity probe and I could use that to change how it handles topping off.

In my head that would be:
If the salinity is correct, the ATO acts like it normally does
If the salinity is high (high enough to warrant correction), the drain pump would remove some water and the ATO would top it off, which is essentially what I do to lower it)
If the salinity is low, I'd either shut off the ATO or top off with salt water instead of RODI.

Part of this depends on what I do for my AWCs. Currently, I have two Versa pumps that drain and refill (what should be) the same amount of water. I've been considering switching it over to how I handle a different tank. In that tank, the drain runs for some set amount of time then the fill pump runs until it hits a level sensor. I like this method because there's no need to worry about calibrating the pumps and bringing it to the same level every
day helps, I think, keep salinity in check and correct salinity problems. My other tank does this with three smart outlets on timers, but I assume I should be able to do this with the Apex as well.

A snail over the return nozzle should not slow down a pump that much IMHO.

I wouldn't have thought so either, but it does. It should be noted that the snail in question is quite large and can easily cover enough of the return nozzle that water sprays out like when you put your finger over a drinking fountain or garden hose. Also, my return pump runs relatively slowly, so it probably doesn't take much.

In fact, another thing I've been meaning to program into the Apex is to shut off the filter roller (and possibly skimmer) if the sump level gets too high.

 

[BryanM]

My theory: As the filter gets dirty, the level in the sump remains about the same. Once it advances, it dumps a bunch of water into the sump, raising the water level. All that water needs to evaporate before the ATO can kick on again.

Of course, now that I'm thinking about it, that also means that before the filter advances, the ATO had to add extra water to maintain the level, so maybe they cancel each other out.


I do have an Apex, but haven't spent any time programming that type of stuff in. In a perfect world, we'd have a reliable salinity probe and I could use that to change how it handles topping off.

In my head that would be:
If the salinity is correct, the ATO acts like it normally does
If the salinity is high (high enough to warrant correction), the drain pump would remove some water and the ATO would top it off, which is essentially what I do to lower it)
If the salinity is low, I'd either shut off the ATO or top off with salt water instead of RODI.

Part of this depends on what I do for my AWCs. Currently, I have two Versa pumps that drain and refill (what should be) the same amount of water. I've been considering switching it over to how I handle a different tank. In that tank, the drain runs for some set amount of time then the fill pump runs until it hits a level sensor. I like this method because there's no need to worry about calibrating the pumps and bringing it to the same level every
day helps, I think, keep salinity in check and correct salinity problems. My other tank does this with three smart outlets on timers, but I assume I should be able to do this with the Apex as well.


I wouldn't have thought so either, but it does. It should be noted that the snail in question is quite large and can easily cover enough of the return nozzle that water sprays out like when you put your finger over a drinking fountain or garden hose. Also, my return pump runs relatively slowly, so it probably doesn't take much.

In fact, another thing I've been meaning to program into the Apex is to shut off the filter roller (and possibly skimmer) if the sump level gets too high.

Reefmat just poured water over the fleece. It advanced periodically, and you could program how much advance.

No weird water level changes