Neptune dose pumps

Deborah Armay

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Anyone using a Neptune dosing system for auto water changing? Thinking of doing 3 gallons a day. Don’t have set up for large reservoirs so will be using 5 gallon water jugs unless someone knows of large water containers that would look nice in living room. Another question- do u still have to clean the inside of the tank. Currently I do 30 gal water change weekly and syphon sand as well as scrub glass. Thanks
 

Tft12

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If you want to use larger water reservoirs maybe you can find a way to hide them by building them into something that looks decorative. In an old BRS video they built an ATO reservoir into an ottoman.
 

JoshH

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Even with AWCs you will still need to periodically siphon detritus and other things out of the tank. AWCs absolutely can help maintain stable levels in your tank and remove Nitrates but they will not remove the things causing nitrates to accumulate. Now it certainly cuts WAY back on the manual siphoning tank cleaning in that respect but cleaning the glass will still be needed probably at the same rate you do it now.

What's your living situation like? Do you own? If so does your place have a garage, unused closet or basement you could store your water in? The DOS can pump and pull quite a distance...

@ca1ore uses a DOS for his water changes so he might be able to chime in here as well
 

Reefnoobz90

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That seems like more work than doing the water change once a week. If you're doing 3g per day you're going to have to refill the 5g bucket daily. Also are you going to have a second container for the waste water? Do you have a basement? Pop a hole in the floor or down a wall and have a larger container in the basement. That's what I do and then I ran a line to a drain for the waste water.

I still do a monthly 5g or so old fashion water change just to blow off the rocks or suck up a piece of stray algae.
 
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Deborah Armay

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Even with AWCs you will still need to periodically siphon detritus and other things out of the tank. AWCs absolutely can help maintain stable levels in your tank and remove Nitrates but they will not remove the things causing nitrates to accumulate. Now it certainly cuts WAY back on the manual siphoning tank cleaning in that respect but cleaning the glass will still be needed probably at the same rate you do it now.

What's your living situation like? Do you own? If so does your place have a garage, unused closet or basement you could store your water in? The DOS can pump and pull quite a distance...

@ca1ore uses a DOS for his water changes so he might be able to chime in here as well
Thanks. I own my house but the tank isn’t near the garage (not heated in Kansas) or a closet n the basement below is fully finished.
 
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Deborah Armay

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That seems like more work than doing the water change once a week. If you're doing 3g per day you're going to have to refill the 5g bucket daily. Also are you going to have a second container for the waste water? Do you have a basement? Pop a hole in the floor or down a wall and have a larger container in the basement. That's what I do and then I ran a line to a drain for the waste water.

I still do a monthly 5g or so old fashion water change just to blow off the rocks or suck up a piece of stray algae.
Yea that’s what I was worried about. Will the Neptune dose pump be able to pump water up a story?
 

Waters

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I use the DOS to change 3 gallon a day, monday through thursday. On fridays I manually remove 5 gallons so I can clean up the tank at the same time. I pull new water from a Brute and dump old water back into a Brute....which obviously won't look good in a living room. You could probably use large plastic dog food containers though and hide them in cabinets?
 

Waters

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Yea that’s what I was worried about. Will the Neptune dose pump be able to pump water up a story?
I believe the DOS will pump up to 24 feet vertical. I don't think there is a limit horizontally but I might be wrong.
 

Mrx7899

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I do 2 gallons a day and my water storage tank is on the other side of my house about 35 ft away and the dos has no problems pulling water that far. My waste water is run to my washing machine drain. It pumps 8ft up to my ceiling across my house and down 8ft to my sump.
 
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Deborah Armay

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I do 2 gallons a day and my water storage tank is on the other side of my house about 35 ft away and the dos has no problems pulling water that far. My waste water is run to my washing machine drain. It pumps 8ft up to my ceiling across my house and down 8ft to my sump.
What r u running the water through and how did u hid it?
 

SuncrestReef

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I believe the DOS will pump up to 24 feet vertical. I don't think there is a limit horizontally but I might be wrong.

You are correct, the DOS can pump up to 24 vertical feet. The horizontal distance does not matter.

I drilled a small hole through the wall in my living room from my tank to my mixing station in the garage and ran 1/4" tubing for auto water changes. I have the DOS on the wall in my garage so I don't need to hear it running in my living room. The AWC works great.

IMG_6350.jpg
 
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Deborah Armay

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You are correct, the DOS can pump up to 24 vertical feet. The horizontal distance does not matter.

I drilled a small hole through the wall in my living room from my tank to my mixing station in the garage and ran 1/4" tubing for auto water changes. I have the DOS on the wall in my garage so I don't need to hear it running in my living room. The AWC works great.

IMG_6350.jpg
Thanks. Great info!
 
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Deborah Armay

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Hope u are still looking at this forum. I’m not having much luck finding instructions on running tubing through finished walls. I will need to cut a small hole in the wall and run the tubing through the ceiling of finished basement to a room under the steps. Any good places I could find instructions? Haven’t done much DYI in this department
 

JoshH

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Hope u are still looking at this forum. I’m not having much luck finding instructions on running tubing through finished walls. I will need to cut a small hole in the wall and run the tubing through the ceiling of finished basement to a room under the steps. Any good places I could find instructions? Haven’t done much DYI in this department

What kind of help do you need? Are you planning on running the line into the wall then up into the ceiling and across your house then back down in the wall behind your tank?
 

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I have a 100g system and do 1 gallon per day. I was real skeptical at first but have checked my salinity a bunch and it’s been spot on every time. Very happy with it, I just wish they had a 4 head unit like everyone else does. Just so I could also dose 2 part. I just have 2- 12 gallon trash cans in my closet for the awc. If I was you, like others suggested, I’d just build a little shelf or something and put as large of containers as possible in there. I did 12 gallon trash cans so I could make water once a week and not worry about it running out(new water side) or overfilling(from the old water).
 

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