That's the cat's MEOW!

[daninthesand]

I was in home depot a few days back because I had heard of people using toilet tank float valves in automated water change systems for their fish rooms. I looked around and found the usual ones with the big round float valves, or the cylindrical float that slides up and down a tube. Too cumbersome for my needs.

So I asked the kind home improvement expert in the plumbing section if he knew of any smaller devices. I explained my needs (for my fish room storage tank) and of course I got the usual weird look. "fish room? Not toilets?" He said i have just what you need. "This is the cats meow in toilet valves"

He showed me the device I pictured below. Nice and small. All parts are plastic and the metal is stainless steel. And the best part it is adjustable. The instructions say that you can raise or lower the water level by about two inches for every 1/4 turn. He was not sure if it would work if mounted sideways.

So i decided to try it out. After all only 16 bucks. Canadian. Plus a few bucks for an adapter to attach a hose to it. About 5 bucks. I do not have a digital camera so I can't show you the device installed, but I scanned the valve so you know what it looks like. The screw with the metal spring is the adjustment knob.

The device works by water pressure on a diaphragm inside the round part of the valve. The screw adjusts the spring tension on this diaphragm, which determines how deep the water will be before the valve closes. Its so simple its a stroke of genius in my eyes! And the diaphragm and valve seat can be replaced if need be.

Mounting was easy, shmeezy. Drill a 1" hole in the side of your barrel. I chose about 1 foot from the top of my 55 gallon drum so I could reach inside the barrel to adjust the screw. The stem attaches like a bulkhead fitting. Take off the retaining nut, leave the gasket on (included) and insert the valve through the hole you drilled. IE the valve and gasket are inside the barrel. Screw on the retaining nut, snug it up, attach a hose, and turn on the water. That's it! A few minutes of adjustment to get the water level right and you're set.

As a precaution I added an overflow at the top of the side of the barrel for the odd chance this valve stops working and does not shut off. The overflow goes to my house drain.

I filled the barrel 4 times without any problems. The last time I did my water change was early this morning, before work. When I left I just turned on the water supply to the barrel and went to work. Tonight I came home to a barrel full of water, exactly at the height I had set it to, (about 2 inches below the rim). Heated, aged for 12 hours, and ready for water change.

The device is called a "FillPro" ballcock and is also sold under the name "Peerless"

http://www.lehmanpipe.com/DGrp.ASP?a=260

http://www.cornerhardware.com/hardwa...amp;cat_id=539

So far so good and I don't have to stick around or worry about running to turn off the water....

Hope you can make use of one of these. It sure has come in handy for me.

Daniel

PS. the yellow dots in the picture is where the water comes out. And the device is only about 4 inches long. And oh yes, I should also add that if your holding tank has a wall thickness of less than maybe 3/16 of an inch, like for a rubbermaid container or whatever, you will need, to get an extra thick gasket, or use two, to get the retaining nut to screw down tight. My barrel wall is 3/16 " thick and the nut just barely screws down tight enough to seal. Any thinner and the threads will not reach low enough to make a tight seal.

[Denny]

i used one of these to replace the old valve in my shop toilet and you are right, they are much better than the old style float valve.

denny

[daninthesand]

I found these devices at Canadian Tire for only 12 bucks. Exact same valve. Just different packaging.

Dan,

Doesn't it piss you off that everytime you flush a toilet in your house the waste goes to your holding tank? Maybe I misunderstand what you're doing there... :P

Dave

[daninthesand]

Actually Dave, its the other way around. I use my waste water from my fish tanks to refill my toilet tanks. Ha ha ha.

[Jeff]

Daniel,

This is a great idea. Is it still working well? How does it know to stop filling?


Jeff

[daninthesand]

Jeff.

Yes it is a great idea. But not my original idea. I've heard of this before. But I never knew these exact types of toilet tank "ballcocks" as they are called, existed. I never seriously thought about using these before since the typical ballcock is so large and bulky with the metal arm and the float valve and all that. Look inside your toilet tank and you'll see what I mean.

But this thing is quite small. and the metal parts are stainless steel.

How does it work? VERY WELL! and like MAGIC!

Similar to a pressure regulator like I use and repair at work. Spring tension on a diaphragm. Welders will be familiar with this concept. Or anyone who uses high pressure regulators and flow meters.

I took the thing apart before i installed it to see how easy it would be to replace the parts. Dead easy. There's a rubber? (or some other material) diaphragm (replacable) that is attached to one end of a lever. The lever is mounted to the assembly in the middle by a fulcrum (balance point, like a see saw). At the other end of the lever is a small rubber valve (also replacable) and valve seat. How it works is that the water pressure in the barrel transmits a specific amount of pressure to the diphragm depending how deep it is. IE the deeper the water (ie the deeper the ballcock) the higher the pressure. (sort of like scuba diving, get it?). Well, the adjusting screw adjusts how this lever balances based on the pressure exerted on one side by the diapghragm (due to water depth/pressure) and the pressure from the water flowing in from the supply line. A screw turn adjusts this balance. It is a simple matter of turning the screw until you get the water to the level you want. I suppose you could mount this thing anywhere on your water barrel, or aquarium for that matter. As I said before I chose to mount mine about a foot deep. I figured thats how deep it would sit in a toilet tank. But I suppose you could mount it anywhere. As long as it is in the water.

(NOTE: I found out after this post that the deepest this will work is about 14 inches. That does not mean the maximum depth it will fill is 14 inches. It means that you must mount the valve no deeper than say 10 inches or so to ensure it will fill your barrel. So if your barrel is 30 inches deep, don't mount the valve near the bottom of the barrel or else you won't be able to fill it past 14 inches from the bottom. Mount it 10 inches from the TOP of the barrel so you can set the level to just barly fill the barrel and then shut off.)

So far this thing has worked flawlessly. The water level is always exactly about 1/2 inch below the overflow for the water barrel. Now that I have been able to find an easy local source for around 12 bucks I'm thinking of using these for filling my tanks as well. But that is another story altogether. (someday if it works I'll post the details)

Potentially there could be some problems. But I'm willing to take that risk. The valve, if it fails, would over fill the barrel. But an overflow is in place for safety. I might come home to a running valve, and big water bill, but that's possible for any of my toilets as well. (I'm gonna replace the ballcocks in my toilets with these. I can adjust the water level in the toilet tanks, and save some of the wasted water for my fishies )

The rubber (or whatever) parts might contaminate my water. I though about that. Take it or leave it. But so might the rubber washers on all my taps, hoses etc. That too is a chance I am willing to take. My opinion is that it is a small chance.

For the amount of time it saves me, I think it is worth it.

Since I am lazy and forgetfull, at least I have a good way of filling my barrel without any risk of water damage to the hardwood floors in my basement! Then there is the added bonus. Since I chose to run this very slowly by using a 1/4 inch line and controlling the flow to the valve with a small stopcock valve, the water trickles through the sediment and AC filters. I believe I get more crap and chllorine removal this way.(hopefully not too much of the good stuff though) The AC filter is designed to work with low flows.

Try it out, It works like a charm. When I'm done my 100 gallons of water changes (which takes about 12 minutes), the Fill pro ball cocks continues on its merry way, monitoring the level in my barrel and shuts off when the barrel is full. I think its about 3 to 4 hours. But I never really timed it since I'm sleeping when it shuts off!

This thing really is the cats meow. It makes me purr as I lay in bed ready to sleep, knowing I will wake up, go to work, and come home to new fresh clean water ready for the fishies. And it cheap. Low tech , need no batteries , and it works on basic physics, which is fool proof. Even for a fool like me!

And Oh yes, did I mention I really really REALLY like this thing? In case you could not tell

Daniel

BTW Nice website, Jeff. Great Discus!

[ronrca]

Cooool! And its available in Canada! Bonus! Thanks Dan for sharing! I think I will go and up a couple just for the fun of it! I was wondering what to use as a float shutoff device and you just solved that. Where do I send the hugs and kisses? ;D :-*

[Jeff]

Thanks for the info and the compliment. I'm gonna give it a try. It sounds like the way to go.

[Al_M.]

Hey Dave
With all your inventions you need to start aplying for some patents
Al M.

[daninthesand]

Sure thing...George.

[ronrca]

:'( :'( I went to Home Depot and could not find anything like the Fillpro! I wonder why? Maybe you could send me some Dan! ;D

[daninthesand]

try Canadian Tire cheaper there.

or try

http://www.amresupply.com/retail_par...artNum=ULN228E

about 16 bucks Canadian

there's one in edmonton

http://www.amresupply.com/edmonton2.php

Search engines are wonderful things. I did a search for "fillpro edmonton" and found the above links in about thirty seconds of searching time.... ;D

[Fish_Fin-atic]

Hey Dan, sounds like a really handy device - great idea, and thanks for sharing I'm definately going to try one of these things out on my barrel (as soon as I get a barrel, that is....I'm working on building a fish room right now) My concern is, as you mentioned, the valve may fail eventually.

I wonder if there is any way to maybe put on a safety valve which would kick in if the first valve failed? I guess you've installed the overflow as a precaution, but I'd like to go further than that if possible. I'm in a condo, and I dread the thought of ever flooding the people below me Anybody have any thoughts on this?

[daninthesand]

Go further than an overflow? How much farther can you go????
I suppose if you do not have access to a drain close to your barrel that would be a problem.

A back up fill pro? hmmmm. that might be a challenge. No matter what you do, if one failed (ie never shut off) how could you stop the flow from the faulty one? The other valve could not possibly stop the flow from the busted one.

On a similar note though you could use two fillpro's to adjust yur R/O mixture. Just run R/O output to one valve and your "normal" water to the other in the same barrel. Not an original idea since I've seen this here before, I think in the "for sale" section. Using anothe type of float valve.

Adjuting the screw on each fill pro however would give you a proprtion that would work for you. Trouble is both valves would start at the same time. But you could adjust when they stopped to get you ratio. And this would be variable because of the adusting screws. Simple on and off float valves dictate the ratio by their installed height. Once the hole is drilled for the valve, that's it. No adjustement.