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Automatic Water Changing System (build ideas)


Aftaburn

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There are potential disadvantages yeah... such as the cold incident or if someone doesnt treat water that needs treatment... anything automatic could potentially fail & you definately want to try to ensure against this.

Sump contamination is another possible issue.

My sump has a treated not treated flip card on it (hardly used by me but my flatmate finds it handy as a reminder).

What is a supersump???? thats simple... in this case a big one (I know most of you think of sumps as things to do with filtration so let me clarify "this one isn't a filter" its a holding tank).

So far as a picture of a supersump... yeah something big & plastic that holds water.

How to set this up...

You will need:

Something that holds sufficient water to do a waterchange (dont bother with anything not big enough to completely refill whatever tank/set of tanks you are servicing).

I managed to get a big plastic drum which is about as big as I've space for but I would like something about 5x the size.

Why bigger is better... its faster, its less mucking around... fill it up, get the water to the correct specifications & that part of the job is done & you can concentrate on tank cleaning instead of mucking around with refill water.

Somewhere you can get head from (gravity fed system) ie height.

1. Get big plasic drum

2. Get food grade plastic hose (depending on how much height you have you may need to consider pressure issues so trust me on this one get stronger hose than you think you need (could even consider pressure pipe if a permanant installation).

3. Consider if you need to be able to dismantle it for cleaning/servicing & make that possible (I have a couple of disconnectable sections I can run a pullthrough through if needed).

4. Get good quality taps/gate valves.

5. Probably get or have a drill & hole saw.

6. Get a stainless seated ballcock if you want water to cut off to prevent spillage.

7. Get hansen fittings to go through your drum (some drums might not need these).

Meathod: Find somewhere higher than your tanks for the sump to live (remember this thing could be seriously heavy).

Drill hole near bottom of drum & install hansen fitting.

Drill hole near top & install ballcock

You dont have to use a water purifier for water coming in but I prefer it... I have run mine off the kitchen sink which has a mixing tap set... this meant I had to completely redesign how I get water out for the sink to make it work.

I also found it an advantage to modify the water purifier inlet outlet arrangement to allow for less bottlenecking.

My plumbing arrangement isn't exactly anything you'll normally see so expect to have to be able to design something to get around awkward tap arrangements.

The website photo of the sink...

Left pipe to sump

The rest look at the plumbing it should be fairly simple to see whats going on.

If you cant work it out from this then I would suggest consultation with someone whos vaguely plumberish.

Overflow system... better to syphon tanks.

The bottom pic show water out from sump I have 2 outlets so I have water in 2 places when needed.

The ballcock I havent photographed but shouldnt need to.

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~aftaburn/sump.htm

Hope thats useful.

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At work and didn't have time to check if this had been suggested before but...

If you live in the cold, dark and damp bush, like I do, you could mount a dehumidifier up high somewhere and drain that into the system. I seem to empty mine every other day. It must hold 5 - 10 ltrs when full

Just a thought.

Also this here might be a good read.

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  • 2 months later...

I have been thinking about doing this my self. Unfortunatly i do not have a land lord that would let me plumb thru the floor to the tank.

My idea was to have to sensors in the tank and a timer system so the tank is pumped/siphoned out perodically.

I found a way of makeing a simple diy sensor on this site.

http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=4651

This curcuit is setup slightly different to what you are after but can easily be modifiyed.

So that when your timer goes off the tank drains to the bottom most sensor then the tank fills untill the upper most sensor.

By haveing a tank of pre mixed water you could just fill the mix tank every month or so. or right from the tap or filter.

You would however want to have some redundancy in the system so extra sensors and some normally closed solinoid valves would be a good idea. If you are keen on trying this approach i would be happy to help with the technical side of things.

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Re: plumbing through floor... I have similar issues... what I did was run (cable tied out of the way) my plumbing down the stairs using 19mm hose so the flowrate is ample.

If you've got somewhere high enough & strong enough to put a sump you have to be able to get to it... plumbing therefore should also be possible just perhaps not particularly pretty.

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