auto-top off ideas

[pyro]

Well, losing nearly a gallon a day in topoff water in my 30g is starting to get annoying considering I have a small return pump chamber in my sump. If I'm not there in the morning and at dinner time, my pump will run dry.
I haven't gotten a chance to test my pH throughout the day, but I've tested it before the lights go on and before they go off and it varies less than .1 I beleive (not too sharp with colors). So I don't think I need to drip kalk. I am using "Myricle (spl) Mud" in my sump/fuge, and it is supposed to keep everything balanced... I've heard good reviews about people that use it locally, I'll run my tests and see :thinking: - I have my doubts. Figured if it does what it says it can, then it's worth it, if not, o well, good substrate for the macros

.
Anyways, down to the plan. I've heard breif plans about it and it sounds like it would work easily and fairly cheaply. I plan on buying approximatly a 2-3g gas jug and leaving it beside the fuge/sump. I will have one air line going into it from an air pump on a timer to come on occasionally. The other will go from the jug to the fuge.
I have two concerns.
Will it seal good enough?
What is the best way to secure the air line?
Thanks!

 

[daveb]

I have been using a setup like this for several months now. I sealed the tubing with silicon. I also use a float switch to turn the air pump on and off. It has worked flawlessly since I set it up. It maintains the water level in the tank to within an 8th of an inch easily....never pumping more than a few ounces of water at a time into the tank...
Dave

 

[donahue]

feel free to elaborate

 

[pyro]

I'm a little iffy about the float valve idea... I'm very partial to using them with saltwater due to the salt creep. I might end up using one anyways possibly in combination with a timer just as a fail safe or somethign along those lines. I've seen a lot of people with float valves, I'm assuming because of the convenience of them. Anybody have any negetive reviews of them? How hard are they to maintain and clean?
Thanks!

 

[starfishjackedme]

Salt creep is really not the issue. They stay clean in my experience. The two floats i have came witha suction cup mount. Don't use that. I hard mounted mine in a piece of pvc with zip ties and used some scrap pvc to make a mount in the tube to keep it from touching the walls. I fabricated a hang on unit to hold it on the sump. Also, I mounted a second float in the tube as a fail safe upside down to kill the circuit if the first one sticks and it begins to overflow. Sometimes floats stick. Have a fail safe. It sounds like a lot of work, but it's cheap and works flawless once it's set up. Filling the top off container once a month is the only maintenance with my tank anyway.

 

[daveb]

Any system has a certain failure rate... my experience with float switches is that as long as you check them periodically to make sure they are clean, and free moving, and use two, one for backup, the odds of both of them failing at the same time are astronomical. I use float switches now for my auto top off, and for my skimmer discharge tank, to shut off the skimmer if I have a skimmer malfunction with too wet a skimate so the discharge tank won't overflow. I also use float switches to shut off my main external return pump if my sump level drops too low, so my pump won't run dry and burn up, and switches to shut off the pump if my sump level gets too high. The odds of me ever having an overflow wet carpet situation are so much in my favor I don't miss a wink of sleep.
As for the original question about auto top off. I have yet to see a more reliable setup than the air pump with float switches, and certainly have found that most of the reliable systems you can buy for auto top off and dosing, using dosing pumps, cost about 30 times as much as an airpump system. I have never even considered another type of system. The only way I would is if I ever build a tank that is over 200 gallons where the volume of water required for top off would be too much for an airpump application. Right now my airpump top off system works beautifully replacing over three gallons per day of water to my tanks. I have considered investing in a much larger airpump that could pressurize a 15 or 20 gallon container so that I don't even have to fill the top off water holding container so often. I would like to get it to a level that I could leave town for two weeks without having to depend on anyone to do any maintenence on my system, other than just taking a peek and making sure everything is running.
Dave

 

[mpls man]

I have a 5 gal cont that i use and i 've been using the kent maring float, i have it mountad in my sump so when the water level goes down thw gravity will pull the water down and fill the sump to the desired level, the only problem i've run into is the float will stick closed so no water will go into the sump, it hasent stuck open, i 've only had to clean it probally 1ce a month , otherwise a inexpensive plan for water top off, now i'm going to set up a r/o system so i dont have to keep buying water, that cost me $125.00 for the filter so i think i can get the moneys worth from that soon, this was just my experence....

 

[pyro]

OK, Thanks!
One more question - how much are float valves and do they carry them at hardware stores?
That and the moonlights are the two DIY projects in the near future.

 

[mpls man]

I got my float from my lfs for about $25.00 here is a pic of mine. as far as the evap from the top off you could always go with a r/o system, i just picked 1 up from e-bay for $125.00, thats a 6 stage 110gpd filter because i'm going through 5 gallons a week also....

 

[effloresce]

i dont trust the floats, i just got a tunze auto top off, optical eye controllet and auto shutt of in case of flood/drain, alarm when to high/low, easy to read LED light solenoid, comes with pump, and can also be used as a Kalk doser.
but thats if you want to drop $160, and in 2 weeks i will be going to Mexico, and with my 55g SPS i only trust a tunze!

 

[daveb]

Do a search for floatswitch dot net and you will find these for 6 bucks....
Dave

 

[effloresce]

you will need a solenoid to shut if off in case of a flood, or it will send electricity back into the tank.

 

[gold strip]

Dave, do you have a wiring diagram on how you wire that switch into the system? Surely you dont send 115v and who knows how many amps straight through that little thing do you?
I have a reef-filler dosing pump that I am adjusting to meet evap rate but I want to put a float switch on it as back up in case the rate drops and I dont catch it.

 

[pyro]

I think I will stick with 2 float valves, one upside down as a safety.
I hate to go cheap, normally it is too good to be true, how are those 6$ things?

 

[daveb]

Yep, you sure do wire them with 115 volts... they are designed for it.. I wire them into extension cords, and then plug whatever device they are controlling into the extension cord, that way the wiring on the device stays intact..
I just cut one side of the extension cord wire, and bridge the cut wire with the float switch..
Dave

 

[gold strip]

Thanks Dave, I'll give it a try.

 

[pyro]

Do I have to order them via phone?

 

[msd2]

Something to think about instead is the tunze auto system. It by far is the most redundent, foolproof system I have seen. Its considerably more (about 150) BUT it uses a photo sensor so nothing mechanical to fail, has an internal timer that shuts down the included pump if it runs more than 10 min, and has a 3rd back up float switch. Super easy to install in your sump and to be honest this is the only one that I have ever used that I dont think twice about.
I have used floats before and your correct you use 2 because they are prone to sticking eventually.

 

[daveb]

Yes float switches are prone to sticking, if you are the type that forgets or is too lazy to do a little preventitive maintenance on your system. It is part of my maintenance routine to check and clean the float switches every two weeks. If you do this, without fail, there will be no failure of the switch due to sticking...
EVERY type of system has a certain failure rate. All one can do is try to compensate for that failure rate in the best way possible to reduce the odds of failure. If you are more comfortable spending 150 bucks on the Tunze system, go for it. If you would rather spend 40 bucks, and run a multiple float switch redundant system with an air pump, that works too...
I am as confident in my system as I could be with any system, and do not lose one bit of sleep. The odds of failure on a redundant float switch system are very very low...almost non existent if you do proper maintenance.
Dave

 

[robchuck]

The Tunze Osmolator is a great, complete auto-topoff system with all of the redundancies built in. The "eye" it uses to read the water level is also extremely accurate.
I have used several types of float swith devices with success (including the Lifereef float switch, and a DIY system with redundant float switches), except that all of the systems would add a substantial amount of freshwater, because I had the floats mounted in a relatively large area of the sump and the float would have to drop 1/2"-3/4" before it would activate the pump.