auto-water change in a nano how much how often?
 

i wanna set up an auto water change in my jbj 28, how much should i be changing monthly?(i know this question is pretty open ended, more or less just looking for what guidelines)

10% weekly is pretty standard.

so 2-3 gallons.

how will your water changes be automated?
you might find monthly water changes too far apart. weekly or bi-weekly can work well. but hey, everyone's tank is different.

I do a 5 gallon water change once every 2 weeks on my BioCube 29.

I'm also skimmerless. Everything is doing fantastic with this frequency.

I was thinking of using two of those brs 50ml/min on timers one to pump out tank water and then one to pump in fresh sw, spaced out once or twice a day. I'd have to cut power to any ATo system of course, and time them to run in the appropriate order.

I feel like I could use a controller but those aren't cheap

I would do some more research on this method before you do it.

I tried this type of a setup, and it really dosn't work well at all.

I think the risks involved skyrocket too with such a small volume of water to begin with. Not saying that's a reason not to try it =)

What risks are we talking about?

Your critiques are greatly appreciated

I don't really know exactly. I think there was a thread about doing these and salinity shifts are possible. A shift when you're working with smaller volumes seems likely or no? How will these be done?

With brs peristaltic dosing pumps(50 ml/min) on digital timers, they say they're quite accurate....

For starters, if one of those timers or pumps die and you don't notice, the result would likely be catastrophic. Especially in a nano.

This approach is ok so long as you are there to observe the process and can intervene if something goes wrong. I certainly would not rely on it to just work automatically 100% of the time. And by Murphy's law, that ONE time that you're not there is when it will fail.

Even my profilux dosing motors vary greatly in the amount of drift they have as they get a bit dirty. I'd be so concerned about the setup that continually testing the source water and the tank water to ensure it's always working would be far *more* work than regular changes. I could be worrying about nothing though I do that...

Continuous water changes are an option with your setup i.e. dozens of small water changes each day to equal 10% change per week.

Try some sort of feedback to detect problems. E.g. float switches hooked to a controller to trigger when too much water is added or not enough removed.

the brs 50ml/min units are LOUD. heard that from the two people who i know own one. One even sent it back twice - both times BRS advised it was normal noise.

for such a small tank bite the bullet and just do it weekly or every two weeks. Its not going to be more than what fits in a 5 gallon bucket.

if you still want to do it and automate it - get one of those auto water changer things. Expensive but it has fail safes in place which is what you want incase something goes wrong.

WHAT!! Auto WC!! Seriously, your young & only have 29 gals :lol: I really don't think it's worth your trouble to try to automate, might cause you more trouble & money then it worth. Just my 2 cents.

P.S WHERE'S THE PICS OF THE TANK DUDE!!

most pumps and timers are more reliable than me so i dont mind putting the life of my tank in their hands lol, if something goes wrong i should be around.

greg: im one stand a bit of plumbing, about 10-20lbs of branch rock, and an mp10(at least thats it for now) away from starting a build thread, lots of pictures i promise

It would be sweet to have a AWC for sure, can't wait to see some pics after the mods that I helped you with.

oh its gonna be nice, thanks again for the help man!