Constant drip water change system

[lipadj46]

I have read that you don't really need to heat the water in a drip system due to small amount of water being added. I think this makes sense and if your heater is properly sized, the heater will take care of heating the new water.

I know some folks with large tanks doing large water volumes a day and it does cost quite a bit of money to heat the tanks with just electric aquarium heaters. Many use a mix valve to use hot water from their home hot water heater as they are more efficient.

[rcomeau]

What is the main benefit of aging the water?

Water will be more acidic, lower PH, if it has carbonic acid in it. Aging degass it as CO2 especially if the surface of the water is agitated where the CO2 is released by using a pump head or air stone to facilitate the process. The PH of my tap water consistently raises from about 6.5 to 7.0 after 3 hours of agitation and heating. The purpose of aging is to create water that has a PH that is very close to the PH of the tank water if/when the tank water is getting agitated resulting in the same degassing. Aging avoids the PH swing of adding low PH water to a tank that is already degassed.

I do not have experience with a drip system. I think the idea is to maintain consistent PH by consistently adding water.

Seachem's webpage that describe Prime seems informative.

I do not believe that you will effectively be able to remove ammonia with a bacteria filter that is in line with municipal tap water. Bacteria filters need to contain bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite, another type of bacteria to convert the nitrite to nitrate, and another type of bacteria to convert the nitrite to nitrate. Your design does not circulate the water to give that time to occur. Instead, it risks flowing water with chloramine in it through the filter. The chloramine is put in the water to kill bacteria. The first bacteria will get killed by the chloramine. The second bacteria is suppose to grow from the nitrite. Instead, the first bacteria never creates it, if it did, the nitrite flows away, and/or the chloramine will kill that bacteria as well. The result will likely be that you will have a very dead filter instead of it containing the bacteria that is needed to effectively filter. I realize that you intend to try to filter out the chloramine before it gets to the filter with bacteria in it. Are you sure that it will get ALL of the chloramine?

A local discus store has a very large inventory of discus. Over 100 tanks full of discus all on a 'drip' system. It actually flows much faster than dripping. My guess is about 1 gallon/minute. He said he uses a lot of water and does not treat it. He also keeps the room at 82 deg F to avoid the need to heat the water once it is in the tank. I did not ask him if he heats the water before dripping it in. There is likely a lot more going on with his system that I do not know about.

I change 50% of my tank water every other day with a custom automated system. Many lessons learned during that project.

[Octavio Salles]

I do not believe that you will effectively be able to remove ammonia with a bacteria filter that is in line with municipal tap water...

Yes I realized that. In my last project update I did not put a biological filter in line with the tap water. Instead I'm going to use in line only a large carbon block filter to remove as much chloramine as I can. The biological filters will be recycling the aquarium water.

I plan on flowing 120 liters of water (31 gallons) per day, which should represent an approximate 25% water change daily. Once the tank is running and mature, I will adjust that new water flow for more or less, if needed.

[Poco]

You can also look into HMA filter to remove chlorine/chloramine.

[davidw]

Great discussion here.... for me I prefer direct water changes

[Octavio Salles]

You can also look into HMA filter to remove chlorine/chloramine.

I've searched the internet a bit and found some conflicting information about it. Not sure what exactly is an HMA filter, but it seems like a 3-stage filtration, with the first one being a polypropylene filter followed by 2 carbon block filters. This certainly seems to produce a better water as the final result, and since it's so cheap to build and maintain, I might just go that route.

thanks

[Poco]

I've searched the internet a bit and found some conflicting information about it. Not sure what exactly is an HMA filter, but it seems like a 3-stage filtration, with the first one being a polypropylene filter followed by 2 carbon block filters. This certainly seems to produce a better water as the final result, and since it's so cheap to build and maintain, I might just go that route.

thanks

Here is more info on HMA http://www.devotedly-discus.co.uk/ac...A_Filters.html

[Octavio Salles]

Ok I think I'm finally reaching a decision as to what would be the ideal pre-filtration for the tap water before it enters the tank. My goal is to avoid having to use Prime. I thought of using this order of filtration:

- 10 inch canister with 3 micron polypropylene filter (to remove organic solvents - not sure if I need it).
- 20 inch canister 5 micron carbon block filter (mostly to remove chlorine and chloramine).
- 10 inch translucent canister filled with Purigen to remove ammonia.

If polypropylene filter is not really needed I might just use a second carbon block. My main worry is chloramine and ammonia. According to my city water data, chloramines here are added in 3 ppm concentration, while ammonia NH3 stays around 0,95 ppm. Indeed, most of my ammonia tests read around 1 ppm.

What do you think? Is Purigen ok to use in a canister filter like that? I should also mention that before entering the tank, this new water is going to drip inside a HOB filter filled only with ceramic rings, so that may help in removing some ammonia before it enters the tank.

[cjr8420]

http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_systems.htm about 1/2 way down page they have drip system filters and regulators.seems like 2 carbon blocks is all u really need but not sure what exactly the $14 chlorimineupgrade is

[Octavio Salles]

http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_systems.htm about 1/2 way down page they have drip system filters and regulators.seems like 2 carbon blocks is all u really need but not sure what exactly the $14 chlorimineupgrade is

Great site. The $14 chloramine upgrade is a catalyzed carbon block, like Pentek's ChlorPlus cartridges. Unfortunately I looked at some websites here and I can't find this product. I could have it shipped internationally, but it would become quite expensive in the long run, specially having to replace it every 2 or 3 months. So I'll probably go with 1 or 3 micron polypropylene filter, two 5 micron carbon block filters and a 5" canister filled with Purigen. Hopefully this will work.

[Octavio Salles]

I'm thinking of using a SUMP filter below my tank, instead of large HOB filters. This way I can dump the new water directly into the SUMP and hide the heater, plus have more biological media. One doubt I have however is how do I control the overflow to match the rate of new water coming in? I think I don't want to place this overflow in the SUMP itself because then I would be taking a lot of new water out of the system before it even reaches the tank!

If I place a second overflow in my tank (one will be for the SUMP, the 2nd one for waste), would it work? I never had a SUMP so I'm having a bit of a hard time to figure it out.

[Octavio Salles]

I made a simple design (sorry for my rather poor Google Scketchup abilities) of a sump I imagine could work. I would like to get some opinions.


Outside overflow box, but without a syphon to avoid any problems of syphon break and flooding the tank. Remember I travel a lot so I need to almost eliminate all chances of a flooding. Inside this glass box there will be a sponge on the intake, just disregard the tube sticking out on top of it, I could not find just the image of a sponge to use there. This sponge will be cleaned frequently. It will also avoid the odd fish or whatever getting in and clogging the pipe.

The water intake will obviously be protected by egg crate and there will also be a fine mesh over the box to avoid jumpers. The glass frames at the edges of the tank should help too.


Here the sump, with all the pipes.

The new water dripping in, pre-treated outside by one polypropylene filter and two carbon block filters (so, free of debris and hopefully chloramine, but with a little ammonia), will drip in the 1st. section of the sump, so that it has more time to mix with the tank water and to pass through all the bio media in the 2 middle sections of the sump.

Sump isolate line will be closed during normal operation, this is mostly a maintenance line or to control pressure from the return pump.

The excess water bulkhead drilled just above the water level at the last section of the sump is my main concern. Will this work? Is there a better idea?

[CrazyAngels]

Nice Job Octavio, sure looks like you are putting lot's of thought to your system. Hope to see all your hard work put into reality soon so you can start enjoying your hobby.

[Octavio Salles]

Nice Job Octavio, sure looks like you are putting lot's of thought to your system. Hope to see all your hard work put into reality soon so you can start enjoying your hobby.

Thanks! I am excited about it. I can't start the project right now though, but will in a couple weeks.

[DiscusBR]

Wow, what a sophisticated plan, Octavio. Good job. I have no technical expertise to help you, but I wish you good luck. Any idea of when the tank will be ready?

PS: Voce viu a mensagem privada que mandei?