Doser / water removal automation question.

[clambert122]

So, I inherited a reef tank that I am converting to freshwater.

It uses a 30 gallon sump under the tank for filtration / heating / oxygenation.

One of the items gifted to me was a Liter Meter III, with 3 dosing pumps.

I also bought a Neptune Auto Top off system ( will buy an apeks eventually and then convert it all to salt at some point in a couple years )

My plan is to use the doser to do 3 things.

1.) pull out 6 ( maybe 8 if I can find a better way to design the area the water will go / pull from ) gallons of water from my sump daily.
I will then rely on the Neptune to re-add water from a different 6-8 gallon source.

Sadly I have no access to a wet wall / water line where the tank is located. So I am relying on 2 5 gallon jugs for each.

2.) dose the sump with water conditioner based on the amount of water taken out / added each day. Also basically 1ML a day ( 5ML for 40 gal )

3.) dose sump with plant conditioner based on daily water add ( 5ML per 50Gal ). basically a little less than 1ML a day.

4.) The Neptune ATS system will monitor the Sump levels, and add water to sump as needed.

5.) make sure the litermeter pumps that doses / removes water can be remotely turned off as a fail safe in case I cant get home.

Does this seem accurate and reasonable? And are my assumptions on where / how to monitor / add water correct?

I have never used a doser or Sump system before, but it was donated to me, and this seemed like a good use. All of this seems kosher to me, but I just was hoping that someone could add an extra set of eyes and maybe add anything I might have missed?


Thanks!

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

I assume you have no fish in the tanks right now. I'm not at all familiar with salt water and can't imagine why anybody would want to remove a reef or change it back to freshwater in general - so I would suspect most here would think you were crazy To me the only reason to change back to freshwater is because saltwater is a lot more work and fish, reef pieces etc are very expensive. But what a cool gift.

Basically you are removing the water from the saltwater tank to a fresh water tank so you need a new source of water (freshwater treated with something to breakdown the clorine. Is that the 5 mills you're talking about. I don't' know if you need 5 mls for a 40 gallon tank but if that's what the directions say then follow them.

What do you mean by ""if I can find a better way to design where the water will go/pull from" mean = does it mean you have no place for the subpump to go?

I don't know the rest is lost on me. I would take a bucket and a siphon and keep removing water from it until it's all gone, dumping the water in toilet. I'd clean the tank of all residue from the salt water, and wipe it down with plain water until it looks shiny and new. I'd probably put a couple of buckets back into the tank and then remove them to "rinse" the tank.. Then I'd go to wherever you plan to get your fresh water from. Since there is no fish in the tank you and put the conditioner in after you put in the water or put it in one bucket at a time. Keep adding water until you are about 3/4 of the way there and add decorations (because they displace the water) then fill the tank up to nearly the top with fresh water. Add your conditioner if you haven't read it already. Read the article on cycling the tank on this website - it can be done with Ammonia - takes 4-6 weeks or you can buy a bottle of Tetra Quick Start Plus to add bacteria to your filter and your water and substrate. My filter - an aquaclear is a pain in the butt but it works really well. I has a sponge at the first filter, then a packet of carbon then finally a bag of ceramic beads where most of the good bacteria will live (so you never want to wast the ceramic beads). I only was the sponge if it gets so gunky that I have to because it too has bacteria in it.

Get yourslef a water test kit by API that measure ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and PH. Ammonia and nitrites should be zero, nitrates should be low and PH is generally between 6 and 8 depending on the fish you have. I keep my water at 7 to keep most everybody happy. If it's still showing some nitrites or ammonia you can follow the instructions in tank cycling. The idea being to convert Ammonia to Nitrites, Nitrites to Nitrate and if the nitrates get to high it's a dirty tank. If you have anything but zero Ammonia or Nitrites you need to continue to cycle or pour in another bottle of Tetra Quick Start Plus. If Ammonia and nitrite stays at zeo 2-4 days in a row I'd say your tank is ready for fish. In the meantime you should also buy a kit that measure the amount of minerals in the water (ie., if the water is hard or soft) so buy a GH/KH kit. and you'll see what kind of water you have. There are some things you can do to alter it but it can be tricky. PH: the ph in my city is 9,4, there aren't any fishes I know of that can handle that high of PHl so I could give up on fishkieeping for look for something called a Neutralizer (it's a powder in a plastic container) add a little bit to each bucked of water or if the water is all there - follow their instructions. Too much just makes to water really cloudy and it will be cloudy for about 2 hours afterwards lately but your PH will be exactly 7.0. There are also bottles of liquid that move the PH up or down and they work great when you have a special situation with PH and measure exactly.

Anyway - I have no idea if I answered your question, saltwater fishing is even more infolved so if you've done that before I'm sure you know all about tank cycling, water hardness, PH etc. But you have a lot of fancy gadgets to move water with - but the whole idea is to move the water which can be done with fancy gadgets and buckets or just buckets. Good luck to you.

 

[clambert122]

I assume you have no fish in the tanks right now. I'm not at all familiar with salt water and can't imagine why anybody would want to remove a reef or change it back to freshwater in general - so I would suspect most here would think you were crazy To me the only reason to change back to freshwater is because saltwater is a lot more work and fish, reef pieces etc are very expensive. But what a cool gift.

Basically you are removing the water from the saltwater tank to a fresh water tank so you need a new source of water (freshwater treated with something to breakdown the clorine. Is that the 5 mills you're talking about. I don't' know if you need 5 mls for a 40 gallon tank but if that's what the directions say then follow them.

What do you mean by ""if I can find a better way to design where the water will go/pull from" mean = does it mean you have no place for the subpump to go?

I don't know the rest is lost on me. I would take a bucket and a siphon and keep removing water from it until it's all gone, dumping the water in toilet. I'd clean the tank of all residue from the salt water, and wipe it down with plain water until it looks shiny and new. I'd probably put a couple of buckets back into the tank and then remove them to "rinse" the tank.. Then I'd go to wherever you plan to get your fresh water from. Since there is no fish in the tank you and put the conditioner in after you put in the water or put it in one bucket at a time. Keep adding water until you are about 3/4 of the way there and add decorations (because they displace the water) then fill the tank up to nearly the top with fresh water. Add your conditioner if you haven't read it already. Read the article on cycling the tank on this website - it can be done with Ammonia - takes 4-6 weeks or you can buy a bottle of Tetra Quick Start Plus to add bacteria to your filter and your water and substrate. My filter - an aquaclear is a pain in the butt but it works really well. I has a sponge at the first filter, then a packet of carbon then finally a bag of ceramic beads where most of the good bacteria will live (so you never want to wast the ceramic beads). I only was the sponge if it gets so gunky that I have to because it too has bacteria in it.

Get yourslef a water test kit by API that measure ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and PH. Ammonia and nitrites should be zero, nitrates should be low and PH is generally between 6 and 8 depending on the fish you have. I keep my water at 7 to keep most everybody happy. If it's still showing some nitrites or ammonia you can follow the instructions in tank cycling. The idea being to convert Ammonia to Nitrites, Nitrites to Nitrate and if the nitrates get to high it's a dirty tank. If you have anything but zero Ammonia or Nitrites you need to continue to cycle or pour in another bottle of Tetra Quick Start Plus. If Ammonia and nitrite stays at zeo 2-4 days in a row I'd say your tank is ready for fish. In the meantime you should also buy a kit that measure the amount of minerals in the water (ie., if the water is hard or soft) so buy a GH/KH kit. and you'll see what kind of water you have. There are some things you can do to alter it but it can be tricky. PH: the ph in my city is 9,4, there aren't any fishes I know of that can handle that high of PHl so I could give up on fishkieeping for look for something called a Neutralizer (it's a powder in a plastic container) add a little bit to each bucked of water or if the water is all there - follow their instructions. Too much just makes to water really cloudy and it will be cloudy for about 2 hours afterwards lately but your PH will be exactly 7.0. There are also bottles of liquid that move the PH up or down and they work great when you have a special situation with PH and measure exactly.

Anyway - I have no idea if I answered your question, saltwater fishing is even more infolved so if you've done that before I'm sure you know all about tank cycling, water hardness, PH etc. But you have a lot of fancy gadgets to move water with - but the whole idea is to move the water which can be done with fancy gadgets and buckets or just buckets. Good luck to you.

It was my friends reef tank. He went on vacation and some type of chemical issue happened with his doser, everything was dead when he got home. In an act of dispaear he gifted the tank to me.

Its been in storage a few years, and I am now setting it back up. I WILL eventually make it a salt water tank. But for now, I am going fresh due to the level of work involved. Once I can sink money into better automation I will convert to salt / reef.

Also, I may be moving in a couple years. I dont want to risk getting it built up and in 2 years have to ear it down. much easier life for the time being with a nice planted fresh water tank.


So, I can run the water FROM the tank into a sink discreetly. I have no easy way to return water TO the tank though. so I have put together a way to use 4 five gallon drums that I can place in a discreet cabinet that is near the tank to pull water from.

I am an engineer by nature. Buckets are far to simple for me. If there is an easy way to do it, I would much rather overcomplicate it and take the manual labor out of it.


So. I will have a liter meter that takes the specified amount of water out of the tank ( draining from the sump ) and drain that into a sink.

I will have a Neptune ATS that will then put water back into the sump to replace the water taken out by the litre meter. ITS water source will be either 2 five gallon jugs I will just have to refill every day, or possibly 2 sets of five gallon jugs. Just depends on how well I can engineer the water source.

The Litre meter will then also add roughly 1ML a day of plant fertilizer directly into the sump.

The litre meter will also add roughly 1.2ML of water conditioner every day directly into the sump.


I hope that gives you a better understanding of how I would like it to work. And I have test kits and all that.

The idea is to move water with gadgets, and haul buckets as little as possible.

This is for a 150 gallon tank btw.

 

[mcordelia]

The only thing that I'm thinking is that if the sump is below the tank, the water level of the sump will never go down whereas the main tank level will. So I am wondering if you need to have your auto top off measurement probe (don't know how that works) in the main tank, and depending on how quickly it responds to changes in water level may need to add directly to the main tank instead of the sump, though if the water is added slowly enough for the sump to not overflow it should also not overflow the main tank. Another plus of using jugs for replacement water is that you shouldn't overflow too badly curious though, if you only have a jug that holds enough for one water change, isn't it not really taking the work out of the water changes?

 

[Kyle E.]

liter meter

For some reason this really cracked me up LOL. I couldn't stop laughing.

 

[clambert122]

The only thing that I'm thinking is that if the sump is below the tank, the water level of the sump will never go down whereas the main tank level will. So I am wondering if you need to have your auto top off measurement probe (don't know how that works) in the main tank, and depending on how quickly it responds to changes in water level may need to add directly to the main tank instead of the sump, though if the water is added slowly enough for the sump to not overflow it should also not overflow the main tank. Another plus of using jugs for replacement water is that you shouldn't overflow too badly curious though, if you only have a jug that holds enough for one water change, isn't it not really taking the work out of the water changes?

Na, it defiantly comes out of the sump.

The tank is fed by a hose that runs ffom the sump under the tank, all the way to the top of the tank, pretty much at the same level as the overflow.

Water gets pumped into the tank from the sump. This causes it to overflow back into the sump. The tank will stay at the same water level using this until the sump is totally dry.

So, as long as I never let the sump run dry, water will always get cycled back into the tank. The tanks water level never ever changes until the sump is empty.

So, as long as I monitor the water level in the sump, and refill there as needed, it should work.


I have for the most part got it all figured out and working. I actually bought a commercial water reservoir instead of just building my own cause im lazy like that

 

[clambert122]

For some reason this really cracked me up LOL. I couldn't stop laughing.

Ya, Its a pretty good name. Gave me a small chuckle. Although the Beatles fan in mew would rather call it the Liter Maid.