Does anyone here do automated continuous water changes.

I have a MJ 900... valve it down and say time the pump 1 minute to remove 1 gallon from the sump... just to get me to 1 gallon a day. But the salt water ATO will put in what ever was removed so I don't need to figure out how much to time that or match them in any way.

Just using float switches, you can come up with any scenario you want. Just turn a pump on to pump out water...assuming the water level is to where your ATO normally maintains it... then the SW ATO will just replace what is gone and shut off where you set it.

The breakout box is only $40 but for the Apex the "PM 3" module is $90.... so just to run float switches will take that.... but the PM3 module is the same one to do the conductivity probel too.... so maybe just using float switches and the PM3 would be cheaper.

Now if you had a big tank you could do this a couple times a day, but don't really see the need even at 5 gal shots it would still not be too disruptive and that would be for a 500g system.

 

interesting idea.

I know a friend with a tunze osmolator in my club has his system do automatic water changes. It looks like you want constant water changes, I will see how he has his set and see if that will translate in any way to what you want to do. He has no controller for the tank, but he is an EE, in the HMI/ PLC field so he might have something funky going on. I know he uses x10 in his house and has EVERYTHING wired to it.

My understanding is that you would need another ATO this one for SW swaps. if not, I need to re read your thread a little more

 

Very true the ATO system would stop when the desired level is reached. The only question is that the ATO is designed to use fresh RO water, how will it stand up to harsh saltwater and what happens when if the float switch blows?? I had a buddy of mine that had a overflow in his display tank, due to the fact the ATO flow got stuck. He came home to mess.

 

thats pretty cool.

you would still need a ATO for freshwater right???? how would you keep the fresh water ATO from messing with the saltwater "refill" after the pump drained the water from the sump?? i guess the fresh ATO would have to be on a timer to be off anything the water change was going on.

 

He will be able to control the RO ATO with the Apex. For stability and water quality, it is best to run your ATO once or twice a day, not cycle on and off all day long.

So, you would just have the RO ATO off during the water change time. This would keep it from interfereing.

 

DUDES...check this out....

Easy Tunze Ozmolator based Auto Water Change system - Reef Central Online Community

 

Wow... I guess being a egg head comes in handy for things. Way cool.

 

You need a controller... so at say

"if time > 21:00 ATO off.
if time > 21:05 SWC on
if time > 21:06 pump on
if time >21:07 pump off
if time > 21:10 SWC off
if time > 21:11 ATO on

 

the realy idea with the tunze is pretty cool.

i wonder if some precise timing/ added float swtich with the apex, you could get arounfd the "SPG creep"

 

I think it would be easy to overcome. Just add a little RO into the SW batch weaken it a bit. I would need to weaken a bit with 2 part.

Now I'm thinking of adding in a conductivity probe to this sceme and I could automatically maintain a salinity with the probe and two sources of water.