Running in wall RO line

Rhoads238

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Hey Everyone,

I working on setting up a new aquarium. The tank size is still being finalized and will be somewhere around 250 gallons give or take a few. I am going to have a remote ATO reservoir a few rooms away from the display tank. I recently had an electrician in to run two 20a circuits to the tank and still have a large hole in the wall that I need to patch. I looked in there and it seems like there is a gap between what is holding up the sheetrock and the cinder block wall between them. I stuck a tape measure down there and it seems like it runs the length of the house. It should save me a lot of frustration in running the tubing. The total length of the run will be about 45 feet.

I have a few questions about this, Is the murloc polyethelyne tubing safe to go into a wall? Also does it matter if it sits on the floor inside the wall? I am going to run three tubes, one for ATO and two for automatic water change. I'm thinking I will probably use neptune DOS for this. Are any of you using your DOS this way?

Is there anything important I should be considering about this?
 

John08007

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You should be fine putting that into the wall. How much space do you have? Maybe slide a 1/2" pvc pipe in there and run your lines inside that, almost like an electrical conduit.

How are you going to handle the ato functions? I wouldn't suggest a float switch in the sump, I've seen these fail. Maybe use the apex to open a solenoid at the other end of the ato line?
 
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Rhoads238

Rhoads238

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You should be fine putting that into the wall. How much space do you have? Maybe slide a 1/2" pvc pipe in there and run your lines inside that, almost like an electrical conduit.

How are you going to handle the ato functions? I wouldn't suggest a float switch in the sump, I've seen these fail. Maybe use the apex to open a solenoid at the other end of the ato line?


I was thinking about using a break out box with a combination of a mechanical float switch and an optical switch, just like a tunze osmolator. I think making it redundant should help. Also with the dos I would be able to program a max amount of time that it runs for. I think it should be pretty safe.

I was also thinking that I would put my old apex in the fish room. I have a bunch of the energy bars from my last tank. I think they're still usable with the new apex. i would also have to run an aquabus through the wall. There would have to be an aqua bus extension cable to make the distance. Its pretty dusty inside the walls. Maybe i should electrical tape the connection to keep dust out?
 

John08007

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There is a limit on a USB length, if you purchase a long one it will have a repeater and not apex compatible
 
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Rhoads238

Rhoads238

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There is a limit on a USB length, if you purchase a long one it will have a repeater and not apex compatible

I heard about this because I mentioned about it to my IT guy at work. I also saw that Neptune does make an extension cable so I would think that it should work. I know there’s a lot of sketchy companies that would sell something knowing that it wouldn’t work. I don’t think that Neptune would do that but I guess you never know.

https://www.marinedepot.com/15-ft-a...I8pTAgNm87AIVf_LjBx15wgwTEAAYASAAEgLWIfD_BwE&
 

K7BMG

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I completely agree if you can run a conduit instead of the bare cables.

I would oversized the conduit. it's cheap and will give you permanent access for more tubes or cables if you steal up the walls.
 

John08007

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I wasn't aware Neptune made a long cable, that will work then. For shorter lengths a standard USB will work. If you put a pipe in i would also run a string in there in case you need to pull something else through down the road.
 

Pistondog

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I was thinking about using a break out box with a combination of a mechanical float switch and an optical switch, just like a tunze osmolator. I think making it redundant should help. Also with the dos I would be able to program a max amount of time that it runs for. I think it should be pretty safe.

I was also thinking that I would put my old apex in the fish room. I have a bunch of the energy bars from my last tank. I think they're still usable with the new apex. i would also have to run an aquabus through the wall. There would have to be an aqua bus extension cable to make the distance. Its pretty dusty inside the walls. Maybe i should electrical tape the connection to keep dust out?
Run conduit larger than you think you need. And no 90 bends, you'll never pull thru it. Use sweeping, large radius bends.
 

Tastee

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I have an Apex based ATO and AWC setup using a remote RODI reservoir located outside my house. I run 3 RO lines (two AWC and one ATO) about 40’ through 1” PVC tubing along with a 12v cable for the PMUP. The FMM for the ATK sits inside the tank stand and I just cut and extended the PMUP cable to stretch to the reservoir. My conduit runs along the outside of the house but the same approach will work inside a wall.

In my case I have two tanks and the other tank is near the RODI reservoir, only 10’ away so the DOS units I use for the AWCs (both tanks have this) are connected to the Apex in this tank using one of the standard long Neptune cables. In your case you will need to also run an Aquabus cable in your conduit. Larger conduit may be needed for this, particularly if you don’t want to cut the Aquabus cable and would certainly make it easier for any maintenance needed in future.
 

ariellemermaid

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Ok, so it’s been 1 year now, what solutions did you come up with? I ask because I’m literally doing the exact same thing. Electrician is coming in 3 days to install 2 circuits and I plan to use those access holes to fish tubing to an unfinished storage room; our new “fish room.”

For the AWC I plan to just use RO tubing in the ceiling and wall. That seems pretty straightforward.

For the ATO I’m not sure what to do but I like the idea of a reservoir in the fish room. One option would be to use my osmolator with the switched plug accessory to control a more powerful pump, in which case I’d just run whatever size tubing the pump accepts. It sounds like what you’re planning is making your own ATO using the apex, a pump, and sensors which I hadn’t thought of before. But I guess either way I still have to pick a pump that can handle the head pressure (I’m going through the ceiling) but which isn’t ridiculously powerful. What pump did you end up going with and what tubing?
 
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Rhoads238

Rhoads238

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Ok, so it’s been 1 year now, what solutions did you come up with? I ask because I’m literally doing the exact same thing. Electrician is coming in 3 days to install 2 circuits and I plan to use those access holes to fish tubing to an unfinished storage room; our new “fish room.”

For the AWC I plan to just use RO tubing in the ceiling and wall. That seems pretty straightforward.

For the ATO I’m not sure what to do but I like the idea of a reservoir in the fish room. One option would be to use my osmolator with the switched plug accessory to control a more powerful pump, in which case I’d just run whatever size tubing the pump accepts. It sounds like what you’re planning is making your own ATO using the apex, a pump, and sensors which I hadn’t thought of before. But I guess either way I still have to pick a pump that can handle the head pressure (I’m going through the ceiling) but which isn’t ridiculously powerful. What pump did you end up going with and what tubing?

So I ended up using a combination of methods for my ATO. I ended up using a kamoer pump combined with a tunze osmolator and a IOT relay (link below). The way it works is I use the tunze for the water level sensors and then put the wires that go to the tunze pump into the relay. When the water level is low, the relay gets powered and turns on an outlet that turns on my kamoer pump. The kamoer is great for this because it won't cause a syphon since my ato reservoir is higher than my sump. The thing that is good about using the relay is I only use one outlet on my energy bar, it also means that I don't need a bulky power converter because the tunze one only comes in eu spec. I'm really happy with how this setup is working so far and would definately recommend doing it this way.

Another recommendation i have about this is when you are running the tubing from the reservoir to the tank i would also run two extra lines for auto water change. Its better to do it now than have to reopen the walls later.

Let me know if you have any more questions about it!

 

ariellemermaid

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Awesome; thanks for sharing. That item doesn’t look like it’s available right now but it’s crazy how many ways there are to accomplish things!
 

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