Easy Tunze Ozmolator based Auto Water Change system

[igadget56]

I bumped into this old thread, what a GREAT idea. I don't like electricity,
it scares the S*** out of me. So I went to Radio Shack, the guy there
told me any 12 volt transformer would work with the 12 volt relay. I soldered
the wires , then put on a ton of liquid tape. I think it turned out pretty
good.

Attachment 190998

Attachment 190999

Then I tried this pump.

http://www.attwoodmarine.com/store/p...500gph-12-volt

This is how it looked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MHSO...ature=youtu.be

Do you guys think this to much flow. 18GL a second?

[igadget56]

I bumped into this old thread, what a GREAT idea. I don't like electricity,
it scares the S*** out of me. So I went to Radio Shack, the guy there
told me any 12 volt transformer would work with the 12 volt relay. I soldered
the wires , then put on a ton of liquid tape. I think it turned out pretty
good.



http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p...urrent=072.jpg

http://s346.photobucket.com/albums/p...urrent=073.jpg



Then I tried this pump.

http://www.attwoodmarine.com/store/p...500gph-12-volt

This is how it looked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MHSO...ature=youtu.be

Do you guys think this to much flow. 18GL a second?

[igadget56]

Do you guys think this to much flow. 18GL a second?

What are you nuts? 18 seconds to pump a gallon.
I could restrict that!

[scolley]

That looks like it would work, from what I can see. But as far as the 18g/sec, if that's the speed you need, then that's the speed you need. Must be a big system. If it's not a big sump, the speed of that pump might be putting in salt water so fast that it overshoots the Osmolator cut off level a bit before it's actually cut off. You'll have to try it and see.

[igadget56]

It's a 40B. Should be done sometime tomorrow, I'll let you know how it's
going. Lucky the RKE timers can be to set the second. Might have to use
4" pipe.

[alienz]

Love this idea! Thinking about how I could do this on a similar smaller tank like Steve started with. Only problem is I don't have a sump and waste water would have to be pumped into a waste bin rather than to drainage.

So I can't think of anyway of really doing this without having the waste water pumped to a location higher than the tank itself.

Does that sound right? Otherwise I'm just asking for a siphon correct?

*EDIT* Actually if I use a peristaltic pump I should be able to reach drainage. So I could use a controller to

1. Switch on relay to change osomolator pump to salt
2. Switch on the peristaltic pump for X minutes
3. Switch relay back to freshwater top off

Or should I completely turn off the osomolator while the peristaltic pump does its work?

[igadget56]

I think if you just keep the hoses from your
pumps out of the water that sure work.

[alienz]

Well I would need to keep the hose from the peristaltic in the water. Otherwise it's not going to be pumping anything out of the tank

Just would have to be very vigilant on keeping that tubing clean of any obstruction.

[scolley]

Originally Posted by alienz

Just would have to be very vigilant on keeping that tubing clean of any obstruction.

IMO that's a pretty serious consideration. I've got 6 different peristaltic pumps in operation now, and a couple of spares. I LOVE them. But the vast majority have tiny hoses that could get gummed up badly with the stuff you find in a sump. You can get larger diameter ones from AquaticEcoSystems.com (I've got one). But those are mucho expensivo. One thing you COULD do (a little complicated) is use a regular pump to pump the needed amount of waste water from the sump to a holding container. And inside that holding container you could have the intake to the peristaltic, but it could be behind some kind of filter that kept anything from it from clean water. Granted, you could put a filtered peristaltic intake into the sump too. But IMO any kind of filter in a sump is going to get gummed up pretty regularly. Having a two-stage pumping system might eliminate some of that - especially if you put a course foam filter on the pump intake.

Also keep in mind, while you are pumping water out of your sump, you've got to power the Osmolator down. You don't want water coming back in (fresh or salt) as you are pumping discharge. And if you used a peristaltic pump to drain your sump, that could be a LONG time. But with a two-stage drain, you can pump out quickly, continue your water change, and let the peristaltic take its sweet time to drain your discharge container.

Just a thought.

[scolley]

Originally Posted by alienz

Or should I completely turn off the osomolator while the peristaltic pump does its work?

Should have answered this right off...

Yes. Turn off the Osmolator until you've pumped as much water out of your sump as you want. When that's done (because you did it a specific amount of time, controlled by some controller or timer), THEN you switch the relay to salt, and THEN you turn the Osmolator back on. Let the Osmolator pump salt back in (figure out how long that is and add a few minutes for safety's sake). When you know enough time has passed for the salt water to have been topped off, switch the relay back to freshwater - plain old ATO again. You're done! :thumpbsup:

[scolley]

Oh yeah... my controller's been doing this every morning for nearly three years now. Works like a charm. Just make sure you're salt reservoir has salt water, and your freshwater (RO/DI) reservoir has fresh, and you're good.

[alienz]

I'm going to give this a go. Could end in disaster, but that's pretty much par for the course. Better to do this before the livestock goes in right

Anyone who has been doing these micro water changes daily have you found they take care of the need to dose?

[FNHFan]

PowermanKW,

You mentioned that you had adapted 1/4" tubing to a maxijet 900 for your draining pump. How did you accomplish this? What kind of fitting did you use to attach that small a diameter of tubing to it?

THanks!

[dunc101]

Scolley,
Thanks for this thread. This inspired me to set up my own automatic water change using my osmolator that I have had set up now for about two weeks.
Here is my setup:
I have 3 Tunze Osmolator pumps now.
1 pump serves as my ATO, another I wired to a 12 volt 1500 mA rated DC adapter that serves as my salt water drain pump. The line runs from my sump, about 15 feet across to an adjacent bathroom (goes through master closet and then runs to the bathroom) and then up 2 feet into the toilet. The third pump is my newly made salt water pump which I have sitting in my bedroom closet adjacent to the fish tank. It pumps up around 2 feet out of the brute trash can, back down and across 10 feet or so, and then back up 5 feet into the overflow.
With my setup, it takes approximately 5 minutes to pump out 1 gallon of water and right at 7-9 minutes to pump that 1 gallon of water back in (it depends on how high the water is in the brute trash can atm).

Anyways, I thought I would give share the APEX code that I am using. I am currently utilizing a feed cycle to perform my water change until I get to "trusting" the system better.

Description of below scripts:
1.) Whenever FeedC is activated, ATO turns off
2.) The relay turns on when FeedC is activated and will remain on for 25 minutes AFTER FeedC completes
3.) The Tunze pump in my sump turns on for exactly 5 minutes to pump out right at 1 gallon of water.
4.) The ATO turns off for the duration of FeedC and stays off for another 5 minutes after feedC because of the Defer 05:00 (this is used for my other feed cycles mainly and the defer is not needed for this application). Because the relay is ON for 25 minutes after FeedC, the new salt water Tunze pump will begin pumping water back in the DT. In case I were to ever run out of new fresh salt water in my brute, the osmolator should warn me b/c the ON time of the SW pump is greater than 10 minutes.

[FeedC]
5 minutes

[Tunze Saltwater discard pump in sump]
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If FeedC 000 Then ON

[Salt water relay]
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If FeedC 025 Then ON

[Tunze Osmolator ATO]
Fallback ON
Set ON
If pH > 08.35 Then OFF
If FeedA 005 Then OFF
If FeedB 005 Then OFF
If FeedC 000 Then OFF
If FeedD 005 Then OFF
Defer 005:00 Then ON

I am currently running this twice a day (when I get up in the morning and before bed) for a total of about 14 gallons a week wc on my 90 gallon reef.

[scolley]

Too cool Duncan! It sound's like you set it up perfectly.

I'm sure it will server you well.

You mention running the changes as manually initiated until you "trust" the system. Always a good idea. But after a few years of running this I think it is trustworthy except the one flaw to my original design, one area where the system is not to be "trusted"...

There is no failsafe if your new salt water reservoir is low. I've posted this before.

On a couple of occasions I have neglected to ensure that there was always enough water in that reservoir. That leads to the saltwater running out as a water change (refill with saltwater) is occurring. That causes a loss of the siphon in the line from the reservoir to the sump. And when the ATO is turned back on, whatever saltwater was needed to bring the sump up to its normal level (but didn't make it because of the lack of salt water) winds up being filled with freshwater by the ATO.

In my case, one cycle of this is not a real big deal. But multiple cycles of that would be bad - draining saltwater, NOT refilling with saltwater, then refilling with freshwater. Don't want to do that too many times.

IMO that could all be changed with the addition of an electronic float switch in the saltwater reservoir, just above the line where there is enough water for one more water change. See part number FLTSWV18W-AH in this link. That switch would server as a low-water condition sensor, and you'd change your code to skip that cycle if the saltwater reservoir was low. And assuming the reservoir was covered and no light got in, you don't have to worry about algae or critters jamming the float switch.

But I digress Duncan... great job. How's running the line to the toilet working? I guess you are a bit dependent on someone flushing between cycles?

[dunc101]

Originally Posted by scolley

Too cool Duncan! It sound's like you set it up perfectly.

I'm sure it will server you well.

You mention running the changes as manually initiated until you "trust" the system. Always a good idea. But after a few years of running this I think it is trustworthy except the one flaw to my original design, one area where the system is not to be "trusted"...

There is no failsafe if your new salt water reservoir is low. I've posted this before.

On a couple of occasions I have neglected to ensure that there was always enough water in that reservoir. That leads to the saltwater running out as a water change (refill with saltwater) is occurring. That causes a loss of the siphon in the line from the reservoir to the sump. And when the ATO is turned back on, whatever saltwater was needed to bring the sump up to its normal level (but didn't make it because of the lack of salt water) winds up being filled with freshwater by the ATO.

In my case, one cycle of this is not a real big deal. But multiple cycles of that would be bad - draining saltwater, NOT refilling with saltwater, then refilling with freshwater. Don't want to do that too many times.

IMO that could all be changed with the addition of an electronic float switch in the saltwater reservoir, just above the line where there is enough water for one more water change. See part number FLTSWV18W-AH in this link. That switch would server as a low-water condition sensor, and you'd change your code to skip that cycle if the saltwater reservoir was low. And assuming the reservoir was covered and no light got in, you don't have to worry about algae or critters jamming the float switch.

But I digress Duncan... great job. How's running the line to the toilet working? I guess you are a bit dependent on someone flushing between cycles?

Thanks, Steve. The part that I am a little leary about is not the system itself as the logic is sound, but the 'human error' factor. For instance, last week, I accidentally bumped the relay power cord that turns on the new SW pump when I was fiddling with cords under the tank. This caused the new SW pump to not turn on and I had about a half gallon of kalk water in the tank (human error) before I realized it. Everything was fine though, so I was relieved. Strange thing is I could wiggle the power cord and hear the Tunze relay switch click on and off. Once I moved it from outlet 4 (relay outlet) on the Apex to a solenoid power outlet on the apex... I haven't had this occur since. Wiggling the cord doesn't seem to effect anything anymore as I thought I may have had a bad soldering connection.

As far as running the discard water to the toilet, I don't have to do anything. The cord goes up and into the overflow pipe which trickles down into the toilet and the excess water from their just flows into the sewer =). Works great.

[scolley]

Hmmm... yup, understand your concerns about the physical system. And yeah, it sounds like you may have a powerbar problem. But as you alluded to, that's not really unique to this. These are the same concerns we have anytime we start creating automated systems. Risk goes up. That's why KISS is so popular.

But Anti-KISS saves me SOOO much work. I'll just manage the risk.

And got it on the toilet. Thanks. Dummy me, I was just thinking about draining into the reservoir on the toilet. The obvious - drain to the drain tube - never occurred to me. Douh!