tunze osmolator questions

[scarletknight06]

I'm in a little bit of a unique situation and was wondering if you could help. I've had to downgrade and all my livestock is in a 50g rubbermaid stock tank and I've been having to manually top off because if I used a float switch, it would allow too much evaporation and since I topoff with kalk it would cause a ph/alk swing. Problem is I have to be away from my tank for a week and a half at the end of august, so i need someway to topoff/dose kalk.

Would the osmolator work for me? I guess I'm asking how sensitive is it?

[rvitko]

It is accurate to within a mm. Provided you can set it up so it pumps up, i.e. reservoir is below the tub. It should be OK. You also need to know that kalk will destroy the osmo pump so if you don't have a kalk reactor you should have spare pumps on hand.

[Fursphere]

In my experince, the osmo is about 80% - 90% accurate.

its a great device, but it needs calm water surface. If you've got lots of waves or ripples, it won't know what to do, and i'll keep filling untilt he sensor is underwater, then it wait for the water to evaporate below the sensor to top of again. This creats a 1" - 2" water level swing. No biggie, but its not a perfect.

Depending on your water volume and tank size, a 1" swing may not be a big deal at all.

This is just what I've notice with my osmo that I've been using for 6+ months now. Its never failed on me, its just not perfect. :)

[scarletknight06]

sounds like it wont work for my application. thanks for the responses though.

[rvitko]

That is true, it needs a calm surface but usually this can be arranged by placement and baffles, if the surface is calm, it really takes no more than 1mm to trigger the top off.

[scarletknight06]

problem is the surface isnt calm because everything is in one stock tank and i have to provide enough flow for my sps

[Fursphere]

There is probably a way to rig it up where it'll work right. Built a baffle system / barrier like Roger mentioned.

You'll just need to be a bit creative. ;)

[NwG]

Just a little trick I have seen for for sumps/tanks with a little too much wave action... Get yourself a plastice waterbottle, the 12oz kind. Cut the top and bottom off so you are left with a plastic tube... Now mount this around the sensor bracker.. you can use superglue, a few zipties,.. anything... This will stop the waves and ripples from effecting the sensor... plus it only cost...NOTHING!
Nate D

[scarletknight06]

hmmm....do you think that would work even with the large surface area of the rubbermaid stock tank and still provide steady topoff?

[scarletknight06]

also im not sure if it would mount correctly on the lip. can some post of picture of the mounting bracket?

[Fursphere]

This is the problem I have with the Osmo:

http://www.fursphere.com/sump08.jpg

Notice the sensor UNDERWATER. It'll stay like this under it evaporates down to the bottom of the sensor, then fill up like this again. Pretty silly.

It still works fine, it just overfills due to "not perfectly still" water surface.

[NwG]

How do you have it hooked up? It looks like it may be syphoning all the water from your res. ????/

[rvitko]

Depending on how big the tank is the pump does run about 10 seconds over being full. Also, as NWG pointed out, the top off should always be directed to the main tank to avoid siphons.

[Fursphere]

Originally posted by NwG
How do you have it hooked up? It looks like it may be syphoning all the water from your res. ????/

My reservior is about 40 gallons (rubbermaid tuff trashcan).

thats only about an extra 3 gallons I'd guess. Maybe the pump I'm using is to big?

[rvitko]

What pump are you using?