Will This Work?

[Brian]

Here's a question..

If I used one of those 55 gallon barrels that we all love...

Drilled a little hole near the bottom of it, ran some RO tubing out of it....

then drilled a little hole in my sump and hooked up a float valve (like the ones from AWI)

Obviously the drum would be sitting higher than the sump and it would be gravity fed.

Think it would work?

 

[RichT]

Should work fine. But be aware that if the float valve fails, all 55g of RODI will be in the sump, dropping the salinity and probably wiping out the tank. You should come up with a redundant back up to prevent that from happening. Such as a float switch and solenoid valve or something similar. ( and I should practice what I preach)

 

[Phyl]

I'd go (alright we went) the www.autotopoff.com route. We have our pump in the RO bucket on a timer with the ATO plugged into it. 4x a day the switch kicks on and pumps the requisite amount of water out of the RO/DI bucket into the sump. The pump is only on for a minute or so (via ACII) so there is a finite amount of water that could be erroneously fed into our system due to a skimmer malfunction or other water displacement crisis. We're very happy with the implementation.

 

[blange3]

Cool!

Just happens to be my next project after I recover form the lighting and Cape May sleepover party!

Not to mention Dr. Mac!

Guess I'll recover just in time for Christmas!!! ;D

 

[RichT]

Question:

If a boat is a hole in the water you dump money into.
Whats a reef tank? (HUH?!?!? That guy most be smoking something)

HEY!!!! The next post is 1000 Phyl, what's it gonna be, a pad? Should be special IMO. Or you could be like Bill and pad away.  ;D

 

[Phyl]

I hadn't even noticed! Of course now I've gone and made a muck of it. Don't even know what post 1000 was!

A Reef is a box of water that you dump money in!

 

[Brian]

Or a reef could be a box of money that you put water in!


I will look further in to that auto top off thing... Not for awhile though.....lol

 

[steve68]

Brian that is exactly how my top off works only difference is my barrel is only 35 gallons, as far as the float valve failing it depends on the brand, i have a kent float valve & it works great, we all take risk when doing auto top off no matter what RT we go electronics can fail 2.


it will work.

 

[RichT]

, we all take risk when doing auto top off no matter what RT we go electronics can fail 2.
it will work.

100% agreed Steve.

My thoughts are to incorporate a normally closed solenoid valve in the line so that the only way top-off water can be introduced into the system is if the valve is energized by a float switch and/or a timer. Having said that (and yet to implemented myself) if you were to use the combination of the float valve, float switch, solenoid valve, and timer you would basically have tripled the fail-safe measures of your system. I.E., if the float valve is calling for water, the timer would have to activate the solenoid valve to allow the water to flow. Once the desired level is reached, the float valve stops the flow. If the float valve happens to fail, you could have a normally closed float switch stop the flow by opening the circuit, before the top-off level reached undesirable levels, closing the solenoid valve. HTH

 

[Phyl]

Our redundant systems have already prevented overdilution of our system. I highly recommend having at least two ways of controllnig the top off to prevent an accidental salinity drop.

 

[Brian]

Okay...

So if I bought that Double Switch Sump mount shown here:

http://www.autotopoff.com/products/DS1/index.htm

That comes with a solenoid....what else would I need to complete that setup?

The solenoid thing is totally new to me....I understand what it does...but not sure how to implement it.

 

[ebqwert]

I ordered parts from my cousins company that sells electronic motor controls and other control systems.

They way i have it configured is as follows:

there are 3 probes of different lenths. The longest one is the common. when the water level drops below the middle probe the controller activates a small pump which feeds water from a 5 gal bucket into the sump until all 3 probes are submerged.

I have a mechanical float on the 5 gal bucket to top that off from the RO/DI unit.

If anyone want to help me design a system - it might be a cool project similar to the calc reactor.

I can get the parts at a favorable price.

Eric

 

[RichT]

Is this like the solenoid you got:?

Because this is actually a relay:

 

[Brian]

Damn...I thought that was a solenoid....So I would need to buy a solenoid to make that one (from the link) work at it's full potential?

I havent purchased anything yet....this for a future project.

 

[Phyl]

Brian, we use that product from ATO to turn on/off a pump that feeds water back to the sump (rather than a gravity feed). So we didn't need a solenoid. We used uniseals to run the pipe out of the bucket and a regular float valve to keep the 55g bucket full all the time. If you've bought that item from the link you just need a pump.

 

[Brian]

Cool...

Thanks!