Circulation for 210g saltwater mixing container?

[Spar]

In the next couple weeks I am getting in a 210g water storage container (37" Diameter, 72" Height) that I will be using for mixing saltwater. I will probably keep the water volume below the 3/4 mark rather than all the way up. The bulkhead is at the bottom so I was thinking of drilling and adding a 2nd bulkhead at the top so I can circulate the water from bottom to top to maximize water turnover when mixing. I will have a separate bulk-head added at the bottom and separate pump to transfer water as needed to my sump (part of my automated system).

Other than with the 2nd bulkhead at the base, i am basically mimicking what Marc documented on reef addicts for plumbing:
http://reefaddicts.com/content.php/283-Plumbing-Primer-how-to-do-it-correctly/view/3

My first question is what GPH would be optimum for mixing and then continuously circulating mixed saltwater? Marc uses 800gph in his. Would seem like a reasonable gph, but worth bringing up the topic. I would assume that with 6 feet of head pressure it would be reduced down to at least 500gph in the end.

And regarding the 2nd pump that will transfer water to my tank, the reason I am doing this instead of what Marc does with using a ball valve is because it is part of an automated water change system, so I want the outlet (using an Apex) to determine when the water transfers rather than a manual mechanism. My concern is that if the pump is on the ground and the piping is on the ground all the way to my sump that the water pressure from the height of the water in the container will force continuous water through the pump and piping. And a check valve wouldn't suffice here since the water is going the same direction as where the risk is. If I were to run my piping up from the pump (on the ground) to above the water container height (say 7 feet up) and then run it back down and to the sump, will this kill the water pressure's chance of causing a continuous flow?

 

[Guest]

Why put another at the bottom just use the one you have add a T and some ball valves then you will only need one pump


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[Spar]

@kuyatwo wrote:

That is my point about making it automated. It will run each morning at 6:15am. Unless there are big and safe solenoid valves?

 

[Guest]

Personally I would not automate it that 250 gallons of water that can spill in your house and it is saltwater at that. Mixing i would automate but putting in your tank that is an accident waiting to happen


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[Spar]

Automation should be fine as long as put the preventative steps in place. I just need to make sure that the continuous flow risk is stopped and made risk-free.

One way around this would be if rather than an extra bulkhead at the base that I put the pump inside the container instead and pump upward through the water and out the top, then down and over. May actually be easier than my other option anyway... I hate bulkheads anyway.

edit> also worth noting is that this container will be in my garage, so out of harms way of my wife's new hard wood floors. Two floods in the past couple weeks has put me in deep water already [smilie=punch.gif]

 

[bimmerzs]

I have a automated setup and you are just gonna have to trust me that you do not want to automate a large pump on that volume of water. A peristaltic pump setup is really the safest approach to auto water changes or pumps that will do ~1G/min accounting for the head pressure. Here are pumps other than peristaltic that will work but they are submersible. http://www.genesisreefsystems.com/products.php?cat=8 I would also suggest having it do the auto waterchanges during the hours that you are home also.

Cheers,

 

[melev]

Mine should be hooked up soon, then you can compare what I did for automated water changes. I didn't want to run any risks myself. I have a ball valve on the water change feed that I'm planning to use, that way I can limit the risk to only when I have that valve open. I don't know if I want to run it daily or do a weekly water change yet. Kinda nervous if my latex tubing were to burst/split and leak out all my saltwater spraying something down that shouldn't have gotten wet.

 

[Spar]

Thanks all for the feedback. I thought about the peristaltic pumps, but doing 4.5 gallons per day isn't even possible with those pumps. And I like the idea of adjusting the water change levels based on switches + timers rather than just a timer, for general stability.

My primary concern is my lack of trust in the Apex. Had nothing but problems with the EB8's. Had two instances recently where one of the outlets just turned on randomly (semi-blown triac) causing my RO top off in my coral QT to flood my fish room, once bad, other luckily I was there randomly at the time. I will be taking the assumption that if I use outlets 4 or 8 then that issue won't happen.

I run the auto waterchange (is in place at the moment, just with 44g rubbermaid containers instead) at 6:15am each morning, so ya I should be home no matter what at that time unless I am travelling, but my wife would be anyway. Will turn it off for vacations.

I think I figured out my siphon-effect fix. I am going to draw up my plan for how the setup will go. Will have 3 of the 210g containers. 1 for RO, 1 for normal salinity saltwater and 1 for hypo saltwater. Basically my plan for the pipes to the fish room will be to have them go upward to at least the height of the containers. I will then have a PVC arm that T's off and goes inside the container from the side (near the top), plugged at the end, but will have holes drilled in it, at least 3. This way it will null out the siphon. Marc, it would be great to compare to yours while mine is still in writing. I won't get to plumbing for at least a month.

Also one other point to point out is that the water will not be transferring directly to the aquariums. I have a 10g staging tank for each of RO and SW in between that is set to refill once daily (~6 gallons worth). Then a MJ1200 transfers from the staging tank to the aquariums. This helps to limit the amount of damage caused directly to the aquarium in case of a massive failure.

Is there a method available that I could incorporate where I setup a water sensor that will cut off complete power to an outlet (e.g. where the EB8 is plugged into) when triggered? This would rule out the Apex issue...

Still plenty of time to brainstorm!

 

[Spar]

Here is what I was thinking in terms of the Apex failure prevention:
http://www.plumbingsupply.com/waterwatcher.html

$82 is a bit steep though... Anyone know of anything similar that would save me a few dimes. I would probably want a few of these.

 

[Guest]

There is suppose to be water sensors that go to your breakout box. So you will get emails and texts from your apex


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[Spar]

@kuyatwo wrote:

Ya, but I am looking for something to cut the outlet to the EB8 completely, e.g. something to prevent Apex failure. Basically making for 3-4 levels of controls in place to make sure flooding is prevented.

I did just figure out on the Neptune Systems forum on RC that my current flooding issue is likely due to using MJ1200's on TRIAC outlets rather than the mechnical relay outlets. I just ordered 2 EB4's to replace the EB8 for controlling the MJ1200's. Should fix that issue.

I woke up this morning to a high sump level (RO water pump stuck on). Having the 6 gallon limit within the 10g staging tank paid off on that one. May have fried the MJ1200 though.

 

[bimmerzs]

They do make peristaltic pumps that can run constantly so they can do mch more than 5G a day. I have 4 that were originally used in laundymat application's that I found off of ebay. I changed the hose out and they will transfer a gallon in 7 minutes which is what I want to provide a slow safe waterchange. I pump from the tank overflow and pump to the sump and strictly do a time based waterchange, also I limit pump run time with code. My entire tank is run by the pex and I have never had a problem with it malfunctioning. Any issue that I have had was strictly something I omitted or added in code /setup that I shouldn't have. I highly suggest using the simulator to check your programming before making it live, believe me you will never be able to eliminate every single source of failure but you can certainly reduce it to the point that there has to be several failures across multiple functions before you kill your tank. Leak sensors are your friend hooked to a breakout box. I went crazy with float sensors for everything at first but it got to the point of being totally over complicated so I reduced those to 4 total and put mechanical floats in reservior's and the like that physically stops flow along with solenoid valves to control any water input.

 

[Spar]

@bimmerzs wrote:

What is the simulator? That would have been helpful early on with my testing. My code is already completed and has been functioning correctly for a month now with no issues (other than TRIAC caused ones; unrelated to the code), but I had just monitored it visually every day for the first 4-5 days to make sure everything was moving along correctly. I had tweaks each of the first couple days but seem to have it all figured out now.

My auto water change system is further complicated by the fact that it is working across two aquariums (4 technically if you count the staging tanks for RO and SW). After top-off and draining the coral QT, it first transfers water from the DT to my coral QT, then refills the DT with new saltwater. I have "issue" virtual outlets setup to tell me if a switch at any point in the process stays on longer than the pump is intended to stay on (within 15 seconds of each anyway), and if so it halts the remainder of the water change process. The code looks a bit over dramatic, but it stops switch failure and my coral QT from draining if something else isn't happening as expected. You can see my code here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2052436

@bimmerzs wrote:

Regarding the leak sensors attached to the breakout box my issue is that as long as they are connected to the Apex it will do nothing to prevent Energy Bar outlet failures which is exactly what has been going wrong for my lately... lesson learned and am getting two EB4's to replace them so no longer having to deal with the TRIAC's, but I still don't want something to go terribly wrong there as well for whatever reason that I can't predict, so would rather have a leak sensor that completely cuts off the power source to the EB8/EB4's completely. This is my current research project on how to make this happen without breaking the bank. $80 is the cheapest I can find right now.

@bimmerzs wrote:

Do you have some sketches and/or pictures of how you have this setup? Regarding the solenoid valves, are these the fridge/RO sized tubing or thicker?

 

[bimmerzs]

I don't have any sketch's, I did draw it ot initially but that was a few years back now. The solenoids are sized for regular ro size but you can also replace these to increase the tubing size to gain some additional flow but the orifice size in the solenoid will still be the bottleneck. There are some larger electrically actuated ball valves that you can use. http://www.panner.com/assets/pdf/GFElecActBall.pdf which are actually more suited for applications where you want postive control of draining/refilling situation's with more powerful pump's... it's just pricey to do and if you use this method I would put flow sensors inline as secondary backup and to also tie into the Apex to alert you of waterchange activation etc. I will say that the main reason for me reducing the complexity of my setup was due to not being able to really determine what was going on if I'm traveling and something happened. Also made it nearly impossible to have someone come over and try to figure out an issue. If I travelled and something interlocked and stopped in the middle of a larger waterchange, then I would be kinda screwed since I couldn't exactly just keep the waterchange portion disabled and let it top off with freshwater. Since you will be home everyday then that scenero would not be such a big issue for you.

Cheers,

 

[Spar]

I like the idea of those Electrically Actuated Ball Valve's, but wow the price is insane! Finding them online for $300+. Some of the cost would be offset by not having to purchase a 2nd pump though. But ya, I agree you would have to tie it into the Apex for sure and set some strong controls around it. Would be a bad situation if that got stuck on. Would need a 2nd switch to cut off the circulation pump if the water level breaches a certain point.

I travel quite a bit for work as well, but the good part about doing small daily auto waterchanges is that if/when it does stick and cause a 1/2-way waterchange it is manageable to manually complete it. Likely to only entail 2-3 gallons of a bucket transfer and then the system can be shut down until I get back. I do plan to never have this running when my wife and I are on vacation, just leaving the RO Top-off going. If it will be an extended vacation I will just plan my QT cycle to where nothing is being QT'ed at the time.

 

[bimmerzs]

Yup agreed on the smaller WC's...I was doing 2.5G daily and also had the ability to do a larger 30G that I tied to a feed program. Here is that simulator I talked about on te lower righthand side of my favorite website. http://www.kenargo.com

Cheers,

 

[melev]

One thing I'm trying to anticipate is a way to assure the drain tubing doesn't clog up with something like a stray valonia. If the 3g doesn't go out as the 3g of new goes in, the salinity over time will be affected. I'd like some type of mesh strainer to assure only water exits. I haven't found a good holder yet.

 

[bimmerzs]

@Marc wrote:

You could implement optical level switches. Should not be to hard to find one to suit our needs. I did research these a while back, gotta see f I can find the info but I'm pretty sure I would have had to have the output go to energize a relay and use contacts off the relay to connect to the APEX. http://www.dwyer-inst.com/Product/Level/LevelSwitches/Optical/SeriesOLS

edit: went over these and remember why I didn't try these, you have to clean it periodically and they are not good for liquid's that leave a deposit.

Cheers,

 

[Spar]

Marc, the quantity/gallons of my water change system is dictated by the distance between 2 switches, and then the same switch that dictates the height stops the refill as well. So if something gets stuck causing say 1 gallon to drain instead of my intended 4.5 gallons, then exactly 1 gallon will refill instead. Is that possible to implement on your setup?

This actually has me thinking... I have a control in place that would halt the process (e.g. the refill) if the lower drain-level switch never turns off. My thoughts are that this will indicate either 1) the full amount didn't drain (not a big deal technically) or 2) too much drained, e.g. the drain-level switch may have stuck. In either instance, there is no attempt to transfer in new saltwater to replace the drained water... obviously causing concern for the coral on my top frag-rack. My drain pump is attached to the side of the tank just barely below the drain-level switch and would only be possible to drain another 2 gallons or so if #2 occurred. But I should have enough mixed saltwater in my staging tank to replace the full 6-7 gallons if that happened. I am thinking that in either case I should remove that part of the kill-process indicators.

 

[melev]

I see what you mean. That's definitely more complex than what I had in mind. But the switches definitely add a measurable safeguard.