Saltwater Mixing station

[n8n]

Good Morning,

 

I'm upgrading/replacing my saltwater mixing station, and am in the early stages of it.  My old station was some brute trash cans with a cheap powerhead in the s/w and I used buckets to tranfer water from one to another, and then buckets to get the water in the house.  I noticed slowly but surely junk would accumulate in the bottom of the tanks I think it was from frequnetly opening the trash can lids and the use of buckets (directly dipped into the trash cans)

 

My goal is to have a mixing station where the water is "more sealed" (in that i'm not using buckets to transfer water from one place to another), with the ability to get water out in cleanly through piping fittings, and also optimally the ability to fully plumb it to the tank.

 

What I have currently:

 

• 93g cube aquarium directly on other side of wall
• large adjustable shelving unit installed on other side of wall
• RODI Unit producing water with plumbing to the shelf
• Tunzi ATO with plumbing to the shelf and power (on/off) controlled by Apex outlet
• A small drain line with pump from sump of tank to drian
• A small line (not in use) from sump to the shelf to auto-fill with saltwater.
• Horizonal Containers on order from plastic mart

Here is the shelf and the space:

 

I decided to go with 35g containers since they will fit nicely on the shelf and also be the right size to cover a "normal" water change on my 93g tank.  The current plan is to use four of them.

 

• One to hold saltwater that is ready to use
• One to be mixing saltwater
• One to hold RODI water
• One that will be used by ATO.

I ended up with four in my design because I want to do a Gravity Fed setup.  The top level will be the RODI reserve.  The middle level will be the s/w mixing reserve and the bottom level will be both the ready S/W and the ATO reserve side-by-side.

 

I did this because i wanted the S/W and ATO reserves phyiscally lower than the waterline in the sump to insure here is no possibility of an uncontrolled syphon.  The outlets to the sump will be positioned slightly above the waterline so it cannot reverse syhon either.

 

The containers have 1" outlets on them, They come fitted with only outlet at the bottom and a large circular top.  There is a position on all the containers to add a second 1" outlet.  When I ordered them, i ordered extra bulkheads that fit the containers so I can install the second inlet/outlet where desired.

 

The general design on the s/w ones will be to have both outlets installed, and to install a pump between them to circulate/mix the water.  The openings are at the bottom, but in the past it seems like salt likes to collect at the bottom the most so I don't think there is to much harm in having the inlet and outlet to the pump on the bottom (but on different sides of the tanks).  The other advtange of doing two equal height connections is there is no/little head loss on the pumps so I should beable to either go cheaper on the pumps or get alot more circulation.

 

Need something that I can use with 1" piping, almost zero head loss, for 35 gallons of water.

 

Anyways I will take some pictures of my drawings/designs and let folks give me tips/answer questions obviously.  I'll post more pics as a take them.

 

The room is in the garage so frequently the temperature shifts.  Even on the coldest day last winter I did not see it go below freezing (I kept checking).  I'm not exactly sure how hot it will get in the summer.

 

I'm also planning on geting a few large eheim heaters I can drop in the Ready S/W reserve to quickly heat the water up on the day of water changes.

 

Thanks!

 

-Nathan

Edited July 9, 2015 by n8n

[n8n]

I've decided I will mod my tunze ato to do both salt and fresh water.

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1677003&highlight=osmolator+apex+saltwater

 

I keep having salinity issues with the amount of water skimmer is removing. Looks like less than $50 bucks to get the relay and extra osmolator pump. Probably have it manual to start and then get apex conductivity into controlling it.

 

Also thinking about using DOS to do water changes. I'm trying to figure out if bi-monthly 15g (15x2). Vs daily 1 gallon ( 30 or 31 ) is the same.

 

Initially I was thinking pumps to empty half of sump while return is off 15g per change. Now I'm considering automatic 1 g a day.

[smallreef]

Interesting...

[n8n]

Here are the tanks I ordered 35 gallon. Also some measurements. The water line in the sump is about 10" in the sump, The living room where the tank is, is about 3" below the ground floor. The ground floor is about 16 inches above the garage and stands lowest setting is 3" above the garage floor. The tank and stand are maybe a foot apart with a wall between the living room and garage. The containers top water line is 19". The stand for the tank has the sump maybe 1" above the floor.

 

Anyways there is a drawing. It looks to me like I'm pretty safe with them on the lowest shelf with maybe 1" to spare to prevent a syphon. Ato will push water in and I'm still trying to decide if I will use apex dos or something else when I do water changes.

 

 

 

[n8n]

This is what I'm considering. Essentially will use power heads to mix and gravity to get water to different containers.

 

 

[n8n]

I wired up the relay and second Tunze ATO pump.    I can now flip a switch and easily switch between RODI top off and S/W top off.  I'm going to make sure no power = RODI top-off so even if something wierd happens it will default to RODI top off.  In the future I plan to get conductivity probe and let apex control this.  My Skimmer is pulling out 1/2 QT a day so i need to frequently at S/W to salinity doesn't slide.

 

Here are pictures of the construction:

 

image

 

image

 

image

 

The box/plug/wire is from home depot, the relay is from Radio Shack.  The extra pump was something like $20 bucks from marine depot.  Probably have less than $50 dollars invested to beable to switch between S/W and RODI top-off.

[s2nhle]

Tagging along. Thank you for sharing.

[n8n]

Plastic Mart delivered the containers UPS Freight.  Make sure if you order them you have somewhere a truck and get to.  They arrived on a pallet nicely wrapped up.  Everything looks in order.  I placed them on my shelving and started doing measurements and dry fitting and such to determine the final pipe setup.  I made the decision I did not like the RODI reserve being above the RODI so I moved it down to the lower shelf which means the system is no longer gravity fed to go from RODI -> S/W Mixing.  I'm going to add a pump so I can turn on the pump when I want to move the water the few feet up to get it into the S/W Mixing.  I also decided to go with internal circulation powerheads to mix instead of expensive bulky external pumps.  I've seen it down both ways on pictures and forums and it just looks like one of those debatable topics.  Honestly as long as salt gets mixed i'm fine with it.  The last picture is fabrication of the PVC some of it is glued together some of it is dry fit, some of it remains to be purchased (due to a minor adjustment I'm making to the plan).  The switch in the picture obviously switches between S/W and Fresh ATO.  

 

 

[n8n]

To be continued ..

Edited July 18, 2015 by n8n

[Mattiejay6]

looks really good so far! I like what you have done! Why is your skimmer pulling so much?? are you skimming really wet?

[n8n]

The skimmer I think is set appropriate, when its idling it's well below the collection cup. I've never really see it flooding fast. It's producing dark stuff so the color of the skimmate looks correct. If it was wet I would expect it to be a lot more clear. I'm feeding 2 silver sides three times a week to the beasts in my tank plus either apex pellets or myses shrimp. Only what they can consume in about 90 seconds ( twice a day ).

[s2nhle]

Looking great. Any update on this.

[n8n]

The system is operational on third batch of saltwater. I was waiting on two remaining parts that should arrive today to call it done and post pics. Currently it is doing 3 gallon automatic water changes every night. I just took 20g manual water change out last night to put 10g into two other tanks and and flipped ATO to s/w and reset Tunzi every 9 minutes and it even "topped off 20g".

 

My old style was one large change monthly 20-30% / gallon and the cleaner of the water would goto fish only qt ( more like observation and medicate only if necessary ).'

 

Currently I have my hospital tank up I noticed some white dots on my copper banded butterfly so he's on his own and getting 50% weekly water changes since hospital is not cycled.

 

Anyways pics will go up soon.

 

Thanks

Edited July 24, 2015 by n8n

[n8n]

So here is the system,  I made a few adjustments as I was building it and talking with the boss.  (my other half).  Anyways so, originally I wanted it three levels, with RODI reserve on top, mostly gravity fed, but after some measurements I didn't like the idea of the RODI reserve being above the RODI unit itself height wise.  The top is on the top of the tank above/at the top of the water line but still I wanted to be extra careful so I ended up with the two level design that you see.   

 

Moving it from three to two levels meant one of the lines would no longer be gravity fed, so I had to purchase an additional pump (to move water from the RODI Reserve to the mixing tank).  

 

Another change, was originally it was all going to be plumbed together so I could have the water go directly from RODI to Mixing with the turn of a knob.  Taking my wifes suggestion Instead Its ran to flexable piping that can simply be stuck in the big opening on top when i'm adding the salt.  I have to open it up to add salt, as far as I know there is no automatic way to have it shoot salt into the mixing container.  By doing this, it makes the two sides independent of each other.  The left side is salt water, the right side is RODI.  The only area the they are plumbed together is the very bottom which is a drain incase I have some need to get all the water out of the system.

 

There are far more true union ball valves on this system then required.  At one point I wanted to make the system symmetric.  For instance there is a true union ball valve at the connection to every tank that allows me to remove it from the system easily.   There are also ball valves near the end of pipe runs (where the pipes are open to allow access to water) to let me close it off and prevent any bugs or anything from getting up in the piping.  (this is in my garage) on shelves.

 

The little black caps on three of the tanks are two inch bulk heads with a short piece of pvc dry fit into it, with a rubber cap on it.  Basically it allows me to put stuff in the tanks through the 2" bulk head and then have a small slice with a razer blade in the cap to allow a cord or tubing out.  For instance on the ATO tank the two cords coming out are the power/water to the tunzi ato.   On the salt water ready container, it is also a saltwater ato, plus a tube for the DOS water changing, power to a circulation pump, and a heater for the winter months if i feel i need to warm the water up some.

 

There are many ways to set this up, I intentionally went with using magnetic hydor circulation pumps to mix the saltwater instead of plumbing a circle with an external pump.   The small powerheads take far less electricity (like 5 watts vs. 50 watts )

 

Normally I would have raised the tanks up so they were high enough off the ground to fit a bucket under them, but in this case, I wanted them well below the sump on the other side of the wall so there was no possibility of them siphoning into the house.   Because of that I have a small pump to get me some head pressure to get the water into buckets should I want a bucket of ready mixed saltwater.  

 

The ato setup pictures were above and it is operational and working.  I took out 20 gallons last night from the display and flipped the ato to saltwater, and let it refil the sump.   Every 9 minutes I flipped it off and back on, and let the return pump run some so the tunzi wouldn't automatically cut-off at 10 minutes.  The only reason I needed the 20 gallons in buckets was to do manual water changes on my other two tanks.  (I take the less-nasty water out of my display and move it to fish only QT / HT ).

 

Its in my garage so it doesn't have to be overly pretty but I still want to work on the electrical side to make it a little more tidy.  I'm considering getting another EB8 for my apex and putting everything in the garage on it so I can control it with apex.  The ATO is setup to fail to freshwater, it only pumps saltwater when there is electricity going to the relay.

 

Feel free to ask any questions or make any suggestions (assuming they are easy for me to fix/change

 

 

 

 

 

 

[s2nhle]

So how is everything now. does it work as expected?

[n8n]

So how is everything now. does it work as expected?

 

Everything is fully operational for the current tank, but i plan on doing some expansion when I switch from a 93g to a 210g tank.  I went out of country on vacation and it kept tank topped off, and did automatic 3g water change every night while I was out.  So in last 30 days its probably changed 90 gallons of water for me (3 gallons at a time) over each night.  Plus i've done a couple water changes the old fashion way with buckets on quarntine tank.

 

Wife has authorized me to add a pipe through the living room wall (from the tank to the garage) that is not visible, so I plan to directly plumb 1/2" off the mag drive drain to the sump, so i can do speed refills if I ever need to do a large water change. 

 

I plan to run either a single 1 1/2" pipe or maybe a 2" pipe hard plumbing, and use it as a conduate (kinda like the wya you do electrical) (i've been approved for 1 pipe)  and then run some soft plumbing through it for the tunzi s/w ato, tunzi fresh ato, dos s/w input, dos drain, as well as hopefully fit 1/2" soft tubing in it for speed filling if necessary.

 

Thanks for asking

 

-Nathan

[s2nhle]

Wow, automatic water change while you are out of country. Very risky. You must be very confident with them.

[habutti]

Okay, nice set up. Can you make a video explaining the setup and flow of things?

[n8n]

Wow, automatic water change while you are out of country. Very risky. You must be very confident with them.

Does it every night light clockwork while I'm sleeping. No worries

[s2nhle]

Great work. I may copy the RODI top off and S/W top off switch from you. Thanks,

[n8n]

Okay, nice set up. Can you make a video explaining the setup and flow of things?

So the top right on is hooked to RODI. It basically is either always full when I need it or filling up. Takes less than a day to fill.

 

The bottom right is a huge ATO reserve. I refill it maybe once a month. Turn knobs and gravity makes water go from RODI to ATO.

 

The left side is saltwater. The top left is mixing. I put water in it ( mag pump pumps it from top right to top left ) and add salt. There is a hydor magnetic power head that moves water around. Low voltage and inexpensive.

 

When I feel the water is correct salinity and mixed I turn knobs and saltwater goes from upper left to lower left. There is a circulation pump here too as well as a heater. At that point I proceed to mix more.

 

The end result is 35g ATO, 35g RODI water, 35g saltwater ready to use, and 35g of saltwater mixing. I very rarely have zero saltwater ready.

 

As for automatic water changes I use apex DOS. It's basically two dosing pumps. One pumps to laundry washer drain, other pulls from ready saltwater. As for ATO I have two tunzi pumps hooked to same tunzi controller with a switch and relay. I can flip a switch to go from fresh to saltwater top off.

 

For example I did a 15g water change on my qt. I set the ATO to salt and took 5g out of display and put it in QT with a bucket. The tunzi refilled the display with fresh saltwater. Afterwords I flipped the switch back to fresh ATO.

 

Another example every night it automatically removes and adds 3G to tank while I sleep. It's like 30g every 10 days or since its continuos ( adding while its removing ) equal to like 26% effective water change. If I back it down to 2g then it would be equal to a 26% change twice a month.

 

Hopefully that helps you understand. The new tank is a 210 plus sump so what I'm doing will be half as effective if I keep at same rate. It also means I'm mixing fresh water 3 times a month.

[n8n]

Great work. I may copy the RODI top off and S/W top off switch from you. Thanks,

The switch design I have you can plug into apex eb12. When you power on outlet its salt. Power it off its fresh. If you have conductivity probe ( and trust it ) you can tie it directly to ATO and apex will pull automatically from correct reserve to get salinity perfect.

[habutti]

Thank you much, it clarified it for me. I thought that for some reason the system would shutdown for the 3 gallon removal/addition., but instead it is putting water in as it pumps water out., neat

[s2nhle]

thank you very much for explaining in detail about he RODI top off and W?W top off switch.

[n8n]

Thank you much, it clarified it for me. I thought that for some reason the system would shutdown for the 3 gallon removal/addition., but instead it is putting water in as it pumps water out., neat

 

This article explains it in detail: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/

 

I don't want to sound like a complete geek but basically, if you do one 30% water change you obviously changed 30%.  if you do two 15% water changes obviously its less effective because some of the water you added was also removed... 27.8% if you refer to article... then you could do like three 10%s or even 10 3% ...  or lets say, you do 3,000 water changes with a little cup, and even to make it more difficult you are adding and remove water at the same time...  so even with the smallest amount at the same time, that 30% only drops down to 25.92%.   So the very most water you will "lose" from adding water while removing it at same time, no matter how small or large the increment is, is about 4%  of total water volume of the 30% change.

 

So how to figure it out (to be extra extra sure?)  you basically write a math equation, and then you determine the limit of the equation (basic calculus) and that will give you the answer, but there is no reason to have to even bust out a calculator the url above has all that stuff already worked out with pretty graphs.

 

Anyways i'm really quite happy with continuous water changes.  (continuous = adding and removing water at same time)  i don't have to worry about turning the system off when the water gets to low, and i don't have to worry about fiddling around with adding water to figure out how to get it to correct water line.   I let my ATO do its job and keep the tank topped off.  When I want to do the water change, the ATO turns off, and one accurate dosing pump adds a very specific amount of water, while another dosing pump removes a very specific amount of water.  Afterwards the ATO kicks back on and can level anything out if there was evaporation or whatever to cause it to be even a tiny bit short.  Its like no-brainer easy water changes.   All I do is goto my mixing station verify salinity of newly mixed water, flip some switches to get water where it goes and add some salt to the mixing thing to make more, and then go back to cruise control.  

 

Sometimes i'll vacume out gunk in bottom of sump or substrate, in that case i just flip switch on ato to saltwater, and just vacume to a bucket and let ato refill tank.  As long as i don't go too fast the ato can get the tank refilled without running return pump dry.   only difficulty is dumping the bucket of water  out, the system refills itself nice and easy.