Auto topoff ???

Discussion in 'I made this!' started by VT rules, Apr 18, 2006.

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  1. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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  3. rwana99

    rwana99 Plankton

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    fail safe top up

    The danger of just running a timer is that if your evaporation rate varies for any reason, you could be in for a bit of trouble. How about running a float in series with your timer? You could set the timer so that at max duration your pump won't overflow your tank, and the float would maintain the proper water level while preventing the pump from coming on if your evaporation rate was lower than expected.
    This set up would require both the float and the timer to fail before you were in any danger of a flood.
    You could also wire 2 floats in series with the timer for even more redundancy, but maybe thats getting a bit extreme :)
     
  4. coug

    coug Astrea Snail

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    I've seen two different types of "refill" techniques used before, one is your typical perhaps miniaturized version of a toilet float(lift up the back of a toilet and it's got a big float in it that refills it). The other was a drip meter, used on sump based aquariums. You'd have a tank and then below or underneath it a sump. And inside that sump would be a pipe or tubing that would drip water either slowly or somewhat quickly into the sump depending on how low the water level was. I've never built anything myself but I believe the basis behind it was that once the water got a certain level not only would the drip meter slow down but if the water go too high in the sump it would auto drain.
     
  5. Dustin75

    Dustin75 Fire Shrimp

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  6. Dustin75

    Dustin75 Fire Shrimp

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  7. Jason McKenzie

    Jason McKenzie Super Moderator

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    Both are good, solid top off solutions

    J
     
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  9. Dustin75

    Dustin75 Fire Shrimp

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    Thanks, just thought I would get some reassurance before I bought it.
     
  10. mamachipy

    mamachipy Astrea Snail

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  11. Pisces23

    Pisces23 Sea Dragon

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    I'm using the Melev's Reef DIY top-off and the only problem I had was when I accidentally up my top-off resevoir higher than my sump. When the aqualifter switched on a siphon was created and freshwater kept flowing into the sump. Luckily I was nearby and caught it. Other than that I've had no issues (knock wood!).
     
  12. cuttingras

    cuttingras Starving Artist :)

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    I just looked at that one the other day. I work out of town, up to a month at a time and my mother in law takes care of all my pets. Pretty much she just feeds them. I added the new ro/di and it's great however, she doesn't remember to add water until it's like 2 inches down.... Wish I lived closer to a major city where there was someone who knew how to take care of them. I'd hire them, like fish sitters....