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No more water changes! Ever! Yay!

Diary
By PeterW
from the Gosh, it works! department, Section Diaries
Posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 01:50:18 PM PST
Tags: (all tags)
As mentioned on my ask-guppylog post, I've rigged up an automatic water changer system, using a mother-of-all-carbon-filters instead of a RO/DI system.  And no chemicals!



Background:  Our water is soft (GH 30ppm-ish, KH 17ppm - 1 degree) and very alkaline (pH 9.2 out of the tap).  We have chlorine and high chloramine.

Lee Harper mentioned elsewhere that he was using a custom water filter and to his suprise, it was removing the chloramine as well as chlorine.  I asked him a few questions and decided to try it myself.  Gosh!  It worked brilliantly!  And without changing the rest of the water chemistry too much.

Yes, you read that right.  It is removing the chloramine!  Completely and utterly zero readings on all three tests that I have.

I used a 2-inch ABS (black) plastic pipe, 6 feet long.  It has two end screw caps.  I drilled a hole through the end caps and threaded it with 3/4-inch pipe thread.  I glued in a 3/4 -> 1/2 inch reducer.  And screwed in 1/2-inch threaded fittings with hose pipe clamps.  I have a wad of filter fiber inside each end to prevent the carbon escaping.

Each tank has an adjustable level overflow system with a siphon to keep it level.  I'll post a photo, I can't describe it.

Each tank has a small 1/4-inch irrigation hose outlet with a flow regulated dripper.  I'm aiming for a 10% change over an hour, so a 1GPH dripper in a 10G tank => 10% change.

While I was here, I got some new stands.  Instead of aquarium stands, I've got some heavy duty garage style racks.  They actually look fairly good though, and I can now get three tanks high, which I'm pretty pleased about.   Aha! More tanks!! :-)

All the plumbing is hiden behind the tanks.  The tanks are 12-inch wide, the shelves in the racks are 18 inches.  The pipes go behind, and a 12 outlet power strip goes behind too (attached with velcro).

Oh, and the drain is nifty too.  The overflows ultimately drain into a home-depot 5 gallon bucket.   I have an aquarium submersible pump in there with a float switch (from a noisy utility/sump pump from a hardware store).  When the level gets high enough, the pump turns on, drains the bucket and then turns it off again.

In case you were wondering,  The solenoid closes when the power goes off.  I shouldn't have an overflow risk due to the bucket overflowing in a power outage, but I am going to actually test it because the overflows keep going for 5 - 10 minutes afterwards as the slow siphon levels things out.

So far, not too many leaks.  I forgot to thread-tape one of the inlet side pipe fittings, it is dripping when the solenoid turns off and the pressure rises.

The overflow design comes from here:  http://waynesworldangelfish.com/automated_water_changes.htm  - you can see the siphon arrangement in some good photos there.  Mine is similar in more ways than I realized.

Photos will be forthcoming...

< Uh oh, fish rescued from filter... | And then there was 3 >
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No more water changes! Ever! Yay! | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: No more water changes! Ever! Yay! (none / 0) (#4)
by PeterW on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 06:10:35 PM PST

I got some 3/8-inch (inner diameter) clear acrylic pipe.  With some heat (kitchen stove-top), I was able to soften it and bend it into a nice U-joint.

I also got some of the strainers from the 1/2-inch irrigation sprinkler heads and glued them onto one end with hot-melt glue.

The other end got a small hacksaw cut so that it was on an angle instead of flat, so the water could flow past.

This upside-down U slides nicely into the 1/2-inch PVC pipe near the back, and the other end with the strainer sits in the tank.

The strainer is fine enough to not let fry through, and the flow is slow enough that it wont pick up or suck up any gunk on the bottom.  Any food flakes that get trapped there are quickly disposed of by the fish anyway.

I've had a few air-lock problems, in spite of my efforts to avoid them.  A small hole drilled in the top of a few elbows solved those, I think.

I think I have some thread-tape partly blocking some of the overflow outlet tubes.  The water level on those tanks seems higher than the same overflow setting on the others.

I'm using 1-inch square sticky pads with zip-tie anchor points to hold the overflow pipes in place, and set the height.  It seems to work very well.

And.. grrr.  I've broken the seal on two 10G tanks while moving them around with water (and frightened fish) still in it.  I guess that is why the instructions say 'never move unless empty'.  I assume the uneven stresses break the pathetically thin silicon seals.  Oh well, I wanted to upgrade some 10G's for some 20's anyway.

I'll go get some photos now.



Re: No more water changes! Ever! Yay! (none / 0) (#5)
by PeterW on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 07:57:29 PM PST

Photos: http://photos.wemm.org/autochanger

[ Parent ]


Re: No more water changes! Ever! Yay! (none / 0) (#1)
by PeterW on Mon Jan 31, 2005 at 01:03:24 PM PST

OK, slight change of plans. I'm off to try and get some rigid pipe for the siphon, and heat/bend it into an upside down U shape.  The flexible pipe just won't stay put.



How about some sort of PVC pipe? They sell (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 07:56:21 AM PST

angle couplers (or what ever they are called). Glue them outside or in a really well ventilated place. (Melts in your brain, not in your hand!)

All the best!
u.s.

[ Parent ]



Re: How about some sort of PVC pipe? They sell (none / 0) (#6)
by PeterW on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 08:38:44 AM PST

Elbows. :)  Yes, I have several bagfulls of them in use already.  The reason I didn't use that sort of siphon overflow arrangement was that I'd have to drill holes in the pipe and drilling enough would have made me (even more) crazy.  I dont want fry to be able to swim through.

Although in hindsight, I could probably have just stuffed some filter foam into an open end..

[ Parent ]



Fun with PVC pipes. (none / 0) (#7)
by unclescott on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 11:45:43 AM PST

Maybe when summer comes along, if you feel like taking solvent and stainless steel wire mesh, a little tweaking is possible. (And you may need no such thing.) If needed, a little solvent is applied to the end of the exit pipe. Before the solvent evaporates (while you are doing this outside) the mesh, previously cut to size, is placed on the end of the pipe so it is held in place when the plastic hardens again. Those meshes do need to be cleaned once in a while but they keep fry out.

After visiting a meeting of the Champaign (ILL.) club several years ago, we were invited over to a member's apartment. They had a brief board meeting and then a social time. While they were doing board stuff, the rest of us were ogling his seven fairly large tanks. They were connected by 2" PVC pipes arranged in "U"s between each tank. A pump in a reservoir next to a trickle system raised the water to the first tank and it continued to flow from tank to tank and then flow by gravity overflow back to the trickle system (wet-dry if you prefer). This allowed him to add CO2 to the first tank and have it carried to his wonderful plants in all of them. Water could be changed and added to the sump. One of the other intriguing aspects of the system was that he had several 4-5-6 inch loaches, which loved to hang out in those PVC "U"s and travel from tank to tank.

There were small hummocks of hair algae, but they rather kept to themselves. The plants were healthy and vibrant. If one wanted to, the hair algae could be plucked up from their odd corners and tossed out.

Oh, did I mention that our host was a physics grad student? ;)  It was fun just watching those loaches on their travels.

I waited until this winter to repair my airpipe from the blower. One always wants PVC glue used indoors. :0

All the best!
unc;e

[ Parent ]



Re: Fun with PVC pipes. (none / 0) (#8)
by PeterW on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 07:45:36 PM PST

Bah, PVC glue is just fine inside. :-)

What I worried about was how to make sure the vapor got out of the system and not piped into the tank water.  I had temporary purge valves just to be sure.

[ Parent ]



Re: No more water changes! Ever! Yay! (none / 0) (#2)
by guppygirl on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 05:02:49 AM PST

Hey Peter W.,

Best of luck, and keep us posted!

We all have dreams of a gorgeous and low maintenance fishroom someday.

Your plan sounds awesome!

gg
:o)

[ Parent ]



Re: No more water changes! Ever! Yay! (none / 0) (#9)
by PeterW on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 07:53:42 PM PST

BTW: since it was easier, I ended up keeping it simple and draining the excess water.  I've been doing roughly two 10% changes each day, but will cut that back a bit.

There wasn't any point in having the exchange tank in the garage - I only considered that in order to have a single place for a dose controller for reconstituting the RO/DI water... which I didn't have to use.

I might have to do something special for my tetras.  The soft water is getting a larger pH swing  than I like as the CO2 gets turned on and off with the lights.

[ Parent ]



No more water changes! Ever! Yay! | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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