Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - making water changes easier with plumbing?

prosper · 05/23/2018, 05:36 PM

im in the design process of my 90 gallon upgrade, and I'm trying to make all maintenance easier and faster. the biggest pain in the *** (as anybody with a reef tank knows) is water changes. but Id seen people with auto water changing systems... Im 16 and I have no where near enough money to blow on one of those things but I still want to make water changes easier. my idea was put a 10 gallon below my sump empty with a Bunch of powerbeads. this would be for mixing salt. this tank would have a pump in it and the pump would push water into the main display. then I would probably put a T valve on the overflow main drain line, (I'm plumbing it for Herbie) and off of the T valve run hose off the stand. this way I could just mix the water in the 10 gallon and then pump it up and turn the t valve so all the water I pumped up would go into the system, and the water going down the overflow would be drained into a bucket, removing it from the tank.
I came up with the idea in English the other day and drew it out, but I can't figure out how to plumb the "return" from the mixing tank to the DT without drilling another hole for a return in the tank, or getting one that hangs on the back. does anybody have any suggestions on making this work? also has anyone done anything similar that could give me some advice?
I hope this is on the right topic...
thanks,

Prosper

05/23/2018, 05:36 PM	#1
prosper Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2017 Posts: 107	making water changes easier with plumbing? im in the design process of my 90 gallon upgrade, and I'm trying to make all maintenance easier and faster. the biggest pain in the *** (as anybody with a reef tank knows) is water changes. but Id seen people with auto water changing systems... Im 16 and I have no where near enough money to blow on one of those things but I still want to make water changes easier. my idea was put a 10 gallon below my sump empty with a Bunch of powerbeads. this would be for mixing salt. this tank would have a pump in it and the pump would push water into the main display. then I would probably put a T valve on the overflow main drain line, (I'm plumbing it for Herbie) and off of the T valve run hose off the stand. this way I could just mix the water in the 10 gallon and then pump it up and turn the t valve so all the water I pumped up would go into the system, and the water going down the overflow would be drained into a bucket, removing it from the tank. I came up with the idea in English the other day and drew it out, but I can't figure out how to plumb the "return" from the mixing tank to the DT without drilling another hole for a return in the tank, or getting one that hangs on the back. does anybody have any suggestions on making this work? also has anyone done anything similar that could give me some advice? I hope this is on the right topic... thanks, Prosper