Continuous change system, + FW surface skimming.

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Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Oct 8, 2007
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Thousand Islands Region Northern New York
I liked the rallysman DIY change system but I cannot drain water from the sump since I need a pretty high level because my pumps are so monstrous. If I lose power, my back up generator runs out of LP gas, and my UPs runs out then the water that spills back into the sump will be drained out. When power is restored I will not have enough water in the sump to charge the pipes when power is restored.

I plan on making a DIY system with an electronic float switch, timed relay (that goes from 1 second to 999 minutes), secondary control relay w/ AC power detection circuits, a pump rated for on/off duty cycles, a 25 PSI regulator, surface skimmer, and drip emitters for the feed.

Every sump that I have usually ends up with a nice film on the surface that I have to manually extract. My plan is to tie a tom aquatics aquarium surface skimmer to the pump. When the water level rises, the pump will turn on for about 6 minutes to drain water below my target area. Then the emitters will fill it back up again. If both of my main pumps fail (highly unlikely), then the AC detection circuit will fire off another relay that shuts down the ejection pump. This way if the pumps fail I will not pump display water out. I will also have an emergency gravity overflow that will never let my sump overfill.

I am currently reading through a grainger's catalog and hopefully they have the stuff in stock.
 
Since I like to keep things simple, I would keep the gravity fed flow through system intact and enlarge the sump capacity or put the drip overflow drain directly on the tank itself instead of the sump. How much more water volume do you need your sump to hold? You can increase sump capacity by adding another connected sump or replace your existing one with a taller/longer one.
 
I don't mind making things complex as long as fail safes and redundancy are built into it.

The sump is about 184 gallons and runs with about 90 gallons in it. When the pumps stop I get about 45-55 more gallons in the sump. The sump system is under the tank and the tank is a divider that splits my office/lab from the kids play area. I cannot go any higher because I need head room for maintenance. I cannot go any bigger because I have used all available floor space in the stand. I cannot build on the outside because that would be unsightly. 92 gallons of operational volume is quite big in itself.
 
I added the Rallysman system to my 120XH. It was really easy and I didn't need the extra carbon block since my house already has a set of whole house filters.

I went with a 1GPH emitter. I bought some 2GPH emitters for the 579 gallon but am still waiting on the skimmer, float, and relays. I have already run the feed and drain lines.
 
Check later in the thread. I have a couple of other ways to evacuate the water from the sump. You can put a normally closed solenoid valve on the drain line so it will close in a power failure, or you can use a float switch setup (which works very very well for me).

Each with each system, you'll lose a bit of water when the power comes back on, but if your pumps are large they'll get the water back in the system quickly enough to not worry about it.

Page 3 has more pix in this thread:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69707&highlight=drip+system+float+switch

you can also make another small container to attach to the sump which will only hold the float switch.

I thought about setting up 555 timers attached to a relay to delay the pump from coming on, but I found it's not necessary.
 
Is that float switch adjustable to 1 inch?

My plan is to just let the pump run for a set amount of time whenever the float switch activates the relay. This will allow me to pump out ~.5" of water. I will be using 2x 2GPH emitters so the pump should run about once an hour. I also have a bulkhead at the top of the sump that feeds into the same 1 inch drain line. This will provide for a fail safe if the ejection pump fails.
 
you can adjust it to 1" (perhaps even less)by sliding a rubber stopper on the rod that holds the float.
 
Update... The system has been running on both my 579 and 120XH for a couple weeks now.

Test 1 Sunday, Jan 6, nitrates were reading between 10-20 ppm markers
Test 2 Sunday, Jan 13, nitrates were between 5-10 ppm markers
Test 3 Sunday, Jan 20, nitrates were between 0-5 ppm markers

I believe that for the next couple months readings should stay between 0-5 ppm. As the Fish get larger it may increase.

I have 4GPH on the 579 gallon and 1GPH on the 120XH.
 
GOOD WORK....., Just make sure to keep your tap water filters funtioning and you will h ave a beautiful system.....
 
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