Filling her up
 

Well, after my tank water LOVES to evaporate, i am forced to top it off each and everyu night (loose about 3 gallons in the day). I don't have the $$$ to buy a pump and auto-top off system, nor do i have the means to keep a RO system going right now (can't set one up in the apartment).

As it stands, i have been adding dechlorinated water (using seachem prime) and it has been working fine. Does anyone foresee any isses using dechlorinated water? I honestly can't think there is any harm as i have already noticed that my fuzzy mushroom coral and borwn polyps are growing quite well and extremely happy. Also, as of tonight, i have also noticed that there is 3 purple mushrooms growning on the LR that i got. I didn't even know that there was any around this rock. I just looked today and there was 3 mushrooms, one is the size of a dime right now and have some bright neon green spots on it (looks healthy).

Any ideas in Calgary on where to get a small auto top off system? Thanks

You are correct. You're SUPPOSED to use dechlorinated water anyway.

You are losing 3 gallons out of 50g in a single day???

My open, 300g system with over 1000 watts of lighting, and close to 500 watts of internal pumps loses 4-5 gallons per day.......

But anyhow, RODI or distilled water from the grocery store in 5g jugs would be better, but lugging 1 of those almost every day would suck.

Use the dechlorinated water for now obviously, but long term save up for an RODI and top off system.

My 40G evaps close to 5G a day when its this hot. :sad:

I picked up an Auto-Top-Off off of AB Aquatics. It works great and best of all its only $50 tax in. Add an old powerhead and a small length of tubing (everyone has these lying around) and an empty 5G salt pail and you are good to go. You still have to top off the bucket everyday but the tank level and params are more stable this way.

http://www.abaquatics.com/

Wow! Maybe I am just "lucky". I don't need any fans blowing across my water, maybe that helps reduce evaporation.

1. Your tank is in the basement.
2. The fans are the biggest contributor to evap.

:wink:

Yeah probably with my big surface area of water because of my big sump, I don't need the fans for cooling. And yes it is in the basement.

I had a 110 and 50 with no sumps in a second story apartment during the summer and don't remember high evaporation though, but again, no fans across the water at all, my lighting was seperated from the tank so there was little/no heat transfer.

The salinity swings without auto-top off of 10% evaporation per day must be pretty significant?

This is what I expected when I first got into Marine aquarium keeping, without an auto top-off, 1 1/2 years ago. But, IME, 10% evaporation caused an increase of only about 0.001 - 0.002 SG.

Cheers:smile:,

Thats not too bad at all.

I get about a 0.01 - 0.015 swing with SG it seems.

If i can get these lights hung from the ceiling (or raised higher with wood or something) then i THINK i will be ok ... i am thinking maybe another 4" or so.

anyways, i will look into that top off system. Gonna Need something but at least it will be a help!

:surprise:! Are you sure? That's quite a big swing.

Cheers:smile:,

reply`
 

How does that work? If the fans are cooling the water then there should be less evaporation, no?

I wouldn't even know how to scientifically explain how this works, but I know fans contribute to evap. Even if I turn my bedroom fan on, I get double the evaporation. plus, I've ran fans across my water and I seen horrible evaporation so I had to stop using it.

Yeah ... that is generally what i have been reading from the refractometer ... though it doesn't seem right at all.

Given that 5 gallons shouldn't raise the SG that high.

I think i will have to recalibrate it

Ok, I think this is how this happens...
Water evaporates cooling the tank, but without air movement the moist air remains above the tank.
Air can hold only so much water so when it becomes saturated evaporation slows down but then the cooling also slows.
With a fan moving the saturated air away it allows for more water to evaporate keeping the tank cooler but also increasing the amount of water that is allowed into the air.
Make sense?

Dan

I agree. Makes sense to me. The key is the movement of the humid air out of the way, IMO.

Cheers:smile:,

reply
 

I guess that makes sense Dan, thanks.

My tank evaporates a couple of gallons a day as well, about 8-9 gallons per week. So I adjusted the baffels in my sump so that I don't have to fill it up as often.

I have 200g of volume and use 14 gallons a week of top off water rigged through a 7 gallon camping water jug, (nice volume & fits behind the tank), hooked to a Kalkreactor and on to a float valve in the sump... no salinity issues, and I control the evaporation rate by turning my fans up or down through a dimmer switch... I use a chiller as well but control over the evaporation rate for me is as much for Calcium maintenance as it is for cooling...

Well after recalibrating my refractometer, i did the tests again in the morning and then at night (when the water was gone)

In the morning it was reading a perfect 1.025 ... in the evening it was at the most 1.0258 ... jsut under 1.026.

So i don't think that is a BAD swing .... i could be wrong and i am sure that i will be told if i am wrong :)

Thanks all

No...I would say that is not a bad swing at all (0.0008). Like I said earlier, IME I got swings of 0.001-0.002 with 10% evap.
Maybe you meant to say in your previous post the other day that your swings were 0.001-0.0015 and not 0.01-0.015? Just a thought.

Cheers:smile:,

I lose about a g a day since I put up stronger fuge lighting and top up with tap water. I have an issue of sorts where my ph, alk and Ca levels a all really high but I don't get really worried as I am getting some coraline growth and the corals are all pretty happy. I'm not sure if that is from the top off water or not.

I looked at a few different ATO setups but those float switches everybody uses is less expensive ATOs seem to me like they could be trouble. I ordered a TOM Aqualifter which is a small air driver water pump that can move about 3.5 gph. I'm going to use it to pump make up water from a bucket and set it on a timer to control how much water it pumps. Should work pretty well I think and it only costs about $20.

2 years now without so much as a peep of trouble out of my cheapo ATO... (touch wood)... since I put a Kalkreactor instead of mixing batches of kalk I haven't had to descale the float valve... I've also kept my topoff limited to 7 gallons for when something DOES go wrong... I'm counting on it and 7 gallons won't make much difference in over 200 g of volume... It's all how they're thought out & designed. I had thought of a dosing system, read every where and decided to go this route & couldn't be more satisfied with my decision.