Sump Water Level

[fishtail12]

Hi, new marine aquarium owner aquiring my setup from a friend. I have a 120 reef and fish tank and it seems like I'm needing to add about 2-3 quarts of fresh water every 2 days to the sump. At this rate it's cheaper to invest in a RO system. Is this normal? What do I need to be aware of adding this much water all the time? Thanks

[currentking]

yes thats normal. Do you have a chiller? what Kind of lights? How close to the water are your lights? All these questions have to do with how much water you lose a day.

[kb0vhy]

I lose about 1 gallon a day in my 75 with a 35 gallon sump. Running VHO's. Pretty normal to Evaporate. Just keep track of your salinity level. Evaporation can raise it.

[NeveSSL]

If you grow tired of it, you can add an auto top off system, or better yet use a controller (such as the AquaController Jr. from Neptune Systems) to control your auto top off as well as take care of many other tasks. :)

Brandon

[fishtail12]

Thanks all, appreciate the help...

[IslandCrow]

I'd definitely invest in an RO/DI unit and an auto top-off. As you've guessed, it won't take long at all for an RO/DI unit to pay for itself on a 120. The auto top-off you can do yourself pretty easily. The simplest setups are a large bucket set up higher than your sump with a siphon line down to a float valve. The more complicated setups take water directly from your RO/DI and are almost entirely maintenance free. They guys over in the Do It Yourself forum should be able to give you some pointers. I believe Melev's Reef (http://www.melevsreef.com) has auto top-off plans on the site somewhere.

[sylvius]

i agree..after a few months of lugging water from the store (that may or may not be decent quality RO in the first place), you are way better off buying an ro/di. The airwaterice typhoon is awesome and a pretty modest investment.

[bgiles11]

I have a 90 gal. I would like to invest on a RO/DI unit. How many GPD would I need, and what is a good average price for a unit such as that. I do about a 10-20 gal water change every couple of weeks.