Auto Water Change The good, the bad and everything in-between

[dpete9]

So my brilliant SD friends, I have a question for you.
I am in the beginning stages of planning out a auto water change system. I travel a lot and I just don't trust or feel comfortable with asking my friends to actually change the large volumes of water the fry I have need.
I have put it off for a while because of two reasons.
1. My significant other is dead against it ( I think I can work on that)
2. I am really worried that I will come home and something will have went wrong and the house will be flooded or the tanks empty and dried up fish laying at the bottom.

SO my question is can does anyone have some stories to share? good, bad or somewhere in between? If so what happened wrong, and what did you do to correct it? or what did you do right that made it work..
any and all comments welcome. I have a 3 wk vacation coming up in June and I'm telling you there is no way I am trusting this to my neighbor. my experience is they're good at feeding what you tell them to feed the fish, but suck b-hind when it comes to water changing.

[dpete9]

Also. What kind of safeguards do you all employ to prevent flooding. Details please! Keep in mind I live in Europe and just finding a freak'n float valve is a nightmare. I brought one with me from America, but I need more. Finally gave up and purchased a plastic toilet float-valve the other day.

[ZX10R]

I work in the electrical engineering deparment at my work and we do all kinds of automated projects. If you wanted to spend big bucks you could get everything automated and monitor it from any web access point. But like I said you are talking some money to do that and if your significant other isn't on board like mine then good luck. Looks like you might have to trust someone for this.

[dpete9]

I work in the electrical engineering deparment at my work and we do all kinds of automated projects. If you wanted to spend big bucks you could get everything automated and monitor it from any web access point. But like I said you are talking some money to do that and if your significant other isn't on board like mine then good luck. Looks like you might have to trust someone for this.

Ouch.. Nope I don't have the big bucks, personally.

[dpete9]

How about something as simple as
1. a pump in the tank set on a timer to run for 15 - 20 minutes a day (or whatever it measures to get a 80-90% water change) with it plumbed to the drain..
2. the pump in the sump timed to shut off at the same times.
3. 80-90% is drained pump in sump timed to turn back on.
4 Water aging barrel plumbed in to the sump with a float on it. as the water empties from the sump it's re-filled with fresh from the aging barrel

What's the thoughts on this?

[T_om]

First, is the "significant other" you mentioned there daily? If so, can the "significant other" turn on/off a valve?

If the answer to the above is "yes", then the flooding danger is no worst than it would be if you were there yourself. Also there are two types of automated water changing systems. Those that are 100% automatic and will run unattended, and those that are manually initiated. I always used the latter. Start the change... then when it shut itself down, close the master valve. Of course, this will not work when you are away but all it takes from your stand-in is turning it on to start, then off after the change is accomplished.

Tom

[dpete9]

First, is the "significant other" you mentioned there daily? If so, can the "significant other" turn on/off a valve?

If the answer to the above is "yes", then the flooding danger is no worst than it would be if you were there yourself. Also there are two types of automated water changing systems. Those that are 100% automatic and will run unattended, and those that are manually initiated. I always used the latter. Start the change... then when it shut itself down, close the master valve. Of course, this will not work when you are away but all it takes from your stand-in is turning it on to start, then off after the change is accomplished.

Tom

Nope. It will be a neighbor coming over only 1x per day. I will have some auto-feeders set and then 1 x per day they'll come in and feed some beef-heart. and make sure there is no water leaking anywhere. That's the most I think I can expect from them.

[dpete9]

Ok, I think I'm treading in unfamiliar territory here.
I'm going to try to figure this one out on my own. On a low budget. I'll post pics when I figure it out, wish me luck!

[tannin]

My bad experience is with float valves/switches. I was trying to implement a sump auto top up.

I have yet to find something reliable at an aquarium store. I had a mechanical one and it always leaked. I also had one that operated an electrical switch connected to a pump, and the float always jammed - then the power supply for the DC pump burnt out .

I guess my next attempt will be with something better quality than "aquarium quality".

[Bart V]

If you have a sump and a drain installed, you could set up a ball valve on your drain to drain VERY slowly. Float valve auto top-off would replace the water constantly. I have seen others mention systems such as this on this forum. not sure how they work in practice, or what methods are used to filter or condition your constantly flowing top-off water. Maybe RO or carbon block prefilters? Either way, It may be one low-cost option.

[Harry Marsh]

I have drains at the top of all my tanks. Bulkheads running to drains

Why not just put a very light drip on the tank?
Perpetual water changer, slow

No risk of overflow. Maybe a risk of chlorine, if water not treated
I plan on doing a perpetual drip after I get the ro unit working

[Floppy Fin's]

Do you not have a local aquarium shop owner, well versed in Discus care, or if not well versed, willing to take some house training? He could do partial bucket water changes, and I believe a once a day feeding for adults would suffice.. Young ones may take more detail feeding.
Or perhaps a live in house tender??
Best I can think of.
Floppy Fin's

[dpete9]

Well guys and gals I finished my very basic auto water change system I've had it up and running for 2 days now and all is fine. Unfortunately it took some time to round up the parts I needed, now I don't have much time to watch it before I leave for vacation.

[dpete9]

So here's what I did.
Tank: Plumbed a 75 gallon tank with two overflows. running to two separate DIY wet/dry drip filtration below and than from them to a sump. Inside the sump I have one 300 watt heater and a 2500 liter per hour pump. The pump returns the water to the tank with a series of pvc pipe cut and fitted around the top of the main tank. there are small holes drilled throughout the pvc pipe and the water flows like rain all the time into the tank.

Fresh Water: I use a 300 liter rainwater barrel. It is fed directly from the tap with cold water. there's a float inside the barrel so it always stays full. I have two heaters inside the barrel for a total of 500 watts.

Auto water changing system: from the storage barrel I have a bulk valve (called through- floors here in NL) and a hole drilled 5 inches from the bottom of the barrel. from that I connected 1/2 pvc pipe and run it to the sump for the tank. it is then connected to a stock tank float (better for lower pressure situations). Now the easy part! I have a 2500 liter per hour pump sitting tight to the bottom inside the tank. It is connected to a hose that runs outside the house to the garden. The pump is plugged in to a timer. The timer is programmed to go off every four hours or so (1 hour after they have been fed by the auto feeder) for a total of 15 minutes. I have found it pumps out about 30% of the water and all the poo/ debris on the bottom in 15 minutes. It hardly needs to be said, but when the water in the sump is then being fed back in to the drained tank the float in the sump drops down and the water starts filling in from the storage barrel.

kinks.
1. The first float I bought was not a livestock water tank float.. it was a plastic toilet float.. it was just too slow it would take the entire 4 hours to refill the tank level in-between drains. Bought a livestock float.
2. The pump was draining too fast. I think a 1500 liter per hour would have been enough. To fix that problem I had to drill a small hole in the hose inside the tank so not all of the water the pump is pumping is draining out.
3. After the pump finished pumping the water continued to siphon outside. To fix this I had to have the level of the hose outside where the water exits the hose above the height of the tank water level. Problem solved.

Unexpected bonus:
the fish have a habit of pecking at whatever is on the bottom of the tank even the poo.. so they end up pecking at everything and pushing it to a place where they can't reach it anymore and then let it be.. in this case the place is right under the pump. so when the pump turns on the first thing that goes is the pile of poo the fish pushed under it.


ANYONE HAVE ANY COMMENTS? THINGS I COULD DO TO IMPROVE IT?

[yusufm52]

Nice, how long have you teste the system?

Yusufm52
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