Auto Water change through skimmer questions

How much does a skimmer change throughout a day? 50%? 100%?

Lets say the production of a skimmer can go up as much as double.

Over the course of the day that means I am losing up to 5 Gallons a day / 24 hours = .208333 gallons an hour.
The dosing pump can accomodate nearly double that with using a half hour on and half hour off schedule. And only triggers when salinity is lower than X. So the only place it should ever float is between the number I establish as x, and the number that exists after adding .39625 gallons of salt water (adjustable by how much salt I add to the mix)

 

I really appreciate the time you are taking to discuss this with me! Thank you!

Based on that math, I see a solution not a problem! It would take over 5 gallons to even move from 1.025 to 1.026 (this is over the course of an entire day!!). Meaning my floating number is half of that swing! My parameters should be even more stable than I was thinking!

 

I would assume that the skimmers output could change several thousand percent over the course of a day actually. Normally you would be correct, 50-100%. However, certain chemicals can make it overflow endlessly. For example epoxy is notorious for this. Who knows what can cause it to overflow though. Perhaps your neighbor decides to spray paint something outside and the fumes get into your house and cause the skimmer to go crazy.

However, if you use my bucket suggestion for example, then if it overflows too much, the extra will just go back into he tank. Without such a safeguard you could have big issues. Still it's may not be great, a lot of crud will collect at the air water interface at the top of the bucket and potentially go back into your tank. However, this is probably better than dumping too much water.


---
- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Sure thing. And it's a solution if you have the attention span and commitment to monitor it daily. You can still have issues. For example, if you just rely on notifications and the apex e-mail interface goes down, it could be a few days before you realize something is wrong. That can add up...

Also, that is just adding saltwater or changing saltwater. Your also have evaporation and are adding top-off water.
So, you have all of the interactions between failure points to consider. If your diligent maybe you can do it, but it will still be a lot of work and I'm sure there are other things that can go wrong we haven't thought of; there always are. IME though low tech is the most reliable, high tech fails, so whatever you do, keep it simple




---
- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

So really, the biggest failure point.. is me! If I trust it too much, it's going to end up burning me. I may end up dropping the skimmer if it proves to be too much of a variable. I will definitely be watching it very close.

 

The auto top off isn't really a variable. The salinity is like a basketball than only bounces when the overall salinity drops below 1.026. The auto top off will keep water levels even, and when I water down my salt levels to a point that is below 1.026 I'll add 0.4 gallons of salt water... over time I'll dilute it down with auto top off and then the ball will bounce again. But since it only bounces when the salinity drops!

 

So, I if I were to add .4 gallons of salt water mixed to 1.035 to 180 gallons... What would my salinity be? I

(180 * 0.025) + (.4* .035) = (180 + .4) * x --- I think

So then, x=.02502217294900221 and so on... So the salinity swings are that little per "bounce" Between that and .024999

 

Well, I don't know you, so, I'm not sure how much of a failure point you are

Other than you, the skimmer is the biggest failure point. I think the BB pump is 600gph? So, that means it could potentially dump all 180g on your floor in about 18 minutes... (of course it won't because the sump would run dry, but I'm illustrating ) even if it only dumped say 20g (after all, you are using it in a way it's not intended for, so who knows what will happen). What happens if then the salinity meter malfunctions and the ATO comes on instead of salinity. If you replace the .025 water with 20g of .000 then you have .022 and a decrease of ~12%. That's a lot for one day. You would never see that due to evaporation, so, that's a bigger problem than the ATO alone could cause without getting stuck on. Even with this system though he ATO can still get stuck on of course.


---
- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Well, You math looks anyways... BTW, I'm not trying discourage you, just playing the helpful skeptic, in hopes it will help you get it right. The idea is very cool


---
- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Very helpful! Last thing I need with a new idea, is people who agree with everything!! I'm going to look around tonight for a holding container like you suggested that will back dump into the sump. That's really the only way to guarantee I don't end up skimming like 10+ gallons one day because of something weird.