Jump to content

AUTO TOP OFF


perren

Recommended Posts

Tunze units are good, why take the risk to save a few dollars by going cheap.

They are nice and simple and also have a 2nd level to warn you if the water level is too high, saved my tank on numerous occasions.

plus the Tunze units are supported in NZ.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use a peri pump and a timer. Never failed in all the years I've used it

I'll 2nd that, my last autotop off unit failed and stopped pumping, almost ran the return pump dry, lucky I noticed it in time.

Evaporation is fairly consistant in each season, so you can estimate how many litres per day you need to add and work that out on a basic analog timer (more reliable than digital) versus the litre/hour rate of your peristaltic pump. Mine comes on for 10 x 15 minute intervals at various times throughout the day, which equates to 0.75 litres dosed at each interval or 7.5 litres per day during winter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Different approach to this would be to always drip water into the tank throughout the day and have an overflow unit which drains anything before it spills over / overflow.

Theres afew DIY overflow designs on the net and in the DIY section which are based on cheap pvc pipes if you dont want to drill holes at the top of your tank.

So long as the DIY units dont loose their syphon, they should keep on working. Good though to have a slow drip rate and a water alarm for peice of mind so that even if the overflow stoped working, the alarm would notify you when the water level is too high and also the slow drip rate would mean that it can cope for say up to a day defore flowing over the tank.

Also helps with water changes (its chnaging the water for you the whole time and all you need to do is clean teh gravel from time to time)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Couple of problems with doing it this way.

1) I go through over 60 liters a week, don't really want to figure out how to suspend that above my sump or display.

2) As the water level lowers in the holding drum the drip rate will change

3) if anything goes wrong, and all the water dumps, you wont know unless you notice the drip has stopped or your inverts are turning up their toe's because of the salinity drop

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...