Water change plumbing

[tgamble713]

After a very large break, getting back into having a reef tank. In my previous experience, I had a smaller tank, and just used a simple siphon and two Home Depot buckets for water changes. For my new larger tank, I’m hoping there is a solution that doesn’t require me to drag 40g trash cans all over the place.

I’m planning this in an unfinished basement, so have time to add plumbing before the drywall goes up, but not sure what I need.

My Ro/di setup and mixing stands are in a utility room about 40ft from the planned aquarium location, with a few doors and windows in the way. Could I run a couple .25” pex lines from the aquarium to the utility room and drain/feed water that way? Not entirely sure if a siphon can be attached to pex and run that far?

greatly appreciate any advice, or Links to forum posts I missed explaining something similar.

 

[MnFish1]

After a very large break, getting back into having a reef tank. In my previous experience, I had a smaller tank, and just used a simple siphon and two Home Depot buckets for water changes. For my new larger tank, I’m hoping there is a solution that doesn’t require me to drag 40g trash cans all over the place.

I’m planning this in an unfinished basement, so have time to add plumbing before the drywall goes up, but not sure what I need.

My Ro/di setup and mixing stands are in a utility room about 40ft from the planned aquarium location, with a few doors and windows in the way. Could I run a couple .25” pex lines from the aquarium to the utility room and drain/feed water that way? Not entirely sure if a siphon can be attached to pex and run that far?

greatly appreciate any advice, or Links to forum posts I missed explaining something similar.

Congrats - on your new tank. Here is my suggestion:

Do not plumb behind your drywall. I have a brute trash can - that I fill with RODI via a float switch. I add salt and mix overnight with a pump (which also heats the water) - overnight per salt instructions. The next day I siphon off the desired amount of water using a python type system. When I'm ready to fill the tank, I screw the python onto the pump in the container - and pump the water directly in.

A 40 gallon water change takes about 15 minutes. No carrying, no mess, and no spilling.

The tank water drains into a sink installed in the 'utility area'. The tank is about 30 feet away.

On the other hand (it was unclear) - if you're wanting to do an automatic water change system, you could certainly do this. I just thought it would be one more thing 'to break' or 'go wrong'. But - the python method is extremely simple requires no further equipment/technology, etc.

Hope this helps - and again good luck/congrats with your new tank!!!

 

[sdreef]

Here are a couple posts showing how I set this up. I ran 1/4” John guest rodi tubing to a garage. The run was about 90-100’. I use the apex DOS for my set up for continuous water changes. I use a spectrapure pump in the stand to draw ware from the garage to the stand for the ATO. I’ve used this set up for two years and it’s worked well for me.

Mixing Station / Automatic Water Change

I have been planning out a 300 gallon build, and wanted to make the maintenance easier and minimize carrying water through the house. So finally put together the mixing station located in my garage and have started using daily automatic water changes with a DOS on my current tank. I routed...

www.reef2reef.com

Remote ATO in Garage

I am in the process of planning out a 300 gallon build and most of my filtration will be located beneath the tank. In order to maximize the space, I wanted to locate the ATO reservoir in the garage which is about 90 feet away. Since I already owned the Neptune ATK V2 for my current system...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Joe31415]

I have two Versa Pumps. One near by tank that draws water out of it and empties it into a bucket in my basement. Another one by my new water and pumps water from the basement up to the tank.
Any peristaltic pump with a stepper motor should be able to move specific amounts of water. That is, you can set it to change X Gallons of water at a time. However, for unrelated reasons, what I usually end up doing is just adding or removing some amount of water by manually running the pump, then correcting the level with the other pump.

One issue people run into is with their ATO. If you don't want to unplug your ATO during the water change, IMO, the best way to do it is to start the pump for the new water a few minutes earlier than the pump that takes water out of the tank (or start them at the same time with the new water pump running faster). The idea being that it keeps the ATO sensor submerged until the end of the process.

The Versa pumps are nice, but I'm likely going to get something cheaper for my 20g AIO, invert/frag quarantine tank. Granted, changing 3 or 4 gallons of water takes all of five minutes, but I hate dumping the water in there and kicking up all the crud on the bottom. Of course, if I never do a manual water change, that crud on the bottom is going to accumulate and it's a bare bottom tank so it looks bad in a hurry. I don't know. $140 for two BRS dosers would work, it's more expensive than, ya know, not buying them. But having it constantly exchanging water (about 1.5L per day with the 1.1ml dosers) is probably better than 4 gallons a few times a month.

 

[WVNed]

I would suggest looking at 1/2 inch polyethylene tubing. It can use push to connect fittings also. I push water from my sump to a drain with a pump for water changes. Another pump does the refill and a third does the ATO all run by a Hydros so it is automatic. and the ATO isn't an issue.

 

[JGT]

I ran 1/2" PVC from my sump to my slop sink and from my FSW container to my sump. I have a pump in my FSW container and my sump. I connect everything to a Kasa smart strip and created scenes. First scene, turns everything off in sump except WC pump and pumps out 40+ gallons into my slop sink. Scene 2 turns off WC pump in sump and turns on WC pump in FSW container which pumps in 40+ gallons of FSW into my sump. When done, Scene 3 turns off FSW container pump and turns everything back on in sump. Works like a charm.