DIY Drip System with City Water: Is a Treatment Resevoir Necessary?

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Mastiffman

Mastiffman

Gambusia
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Nov 2, 2010
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Was preping to setup a Drip system on a 2 African Cichlid tanks. A 100g and 120g both on the same drip system and drain line. Both have their own Seperate Filtration.

Would I "For Sure" need a treatment tank and If Not, then what would be the maximum amount of water allowable to change out per week with this type of setup taking into account that I wouldn't be using a treatment tank? If a treatment tank "Is Indeed" Necessary... Then what is the best method for a treatment tank on a drip system.... (maybe using Float Valves as a backup on both Tank and treatmet tank?)

Please! Experienced Members only! Sorry, no Offense intended... I just don't want to take someone's word for it by what they've "heard"...

Thanks a ton and I look forward to the responses!
 
I live about an hour south of you and have a drip system set up for a while now. It has been about 6 months and it has ran 24/7 at one gph. My tank is 265g and changes out 24 gallons a day or about 10% per day. I do not use any type of treatment reservoir or any chemicals. Most breeders around me and north of me are the ones who told me that they just use city water for their breeding tanks. One breeder said my set up is solid but if I wanted to be even more cautious I could add a carbon filter in line. Just like you would if my universal Ice maker kit was hooked up to a fridge and not my fish tank. I do however drip the new water into the intake side of the sump. So it mixes with the water that is being filtered and goes through the filter pads and the bio balls then into the bottom of the sump and then pumped into the tank. Now the drain is also in the sump so I guess some of the "new" water goes directly down the drain but who knows how much. Here is a link to my DIY build and a link to my last photo shoot. As you can see the tank is doing great and no mysterious deaths, if you have any questions just ask.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...478-No-more-water-changes!!!!-Sorry-long-post.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...tions-to-the-265g-Hap-Peacock-tank&highlight=



Josh
 
Hey Josh!

Thanks for the response! What type of fish are you using the Drip system on? I will be setting this up on my mothers new Kitumba Frontosa 110 Gallon and maybe a 120 African Cichlid tank as well. Would this make a difference because I use aragonite in the setups of mine so that buffers the water. Do you think that it won't buffer the water much or will it denpend on the amount fo water dripped per hour?

Once again, thanks for the reponse!
 
I have a Lake Malawi, all male Hap/Peacock tank with crushed coral as substrate and about 500 to 700lbs of limestone. The second link is 70 some pictures of the fish and the tank.
 
I know you said, "Experienced" only and I also know I don't qualify, but I wanted to point out a possible issue with the above. If your city water system uses chloramines instead of chlorine, you will definitely need to treat it as otherwise it would build up in the tank until the fish were killed (it doesn't evaporate like chlorine - or at least not nearly as fast). I think that could easily be fixed though by simply doing a drip system within a drip system. In other words, instead of a treatment tank, you could drip the water directly into your tank or sump and separately have a much slower drip that drips dechlorinator at a rate consistent for treating the new amount of water per day. Let's say you need 100 drops per day to treat it, simply divide 86,400 seconds in a day by 100 and you need roughly one drop every minute and a half to cover it (keep in mind that some of both the dechlorinator and the untreated water will go down the drain every day). I'm thinking a commercially available I.V. drip would be perfect for that.
 
I've run my drip system off of city water for a long time now. All I used is a chloramine filter and then go directly into the tank.Very simple really.
 
Pharaoh said:
I've run my drip system off of city water for a long time now. All I used is a chloramine filter and then go directly into the tank.Very simple really.
Click to expand...

What kind of Chloramine filter do you use or where did you get one? I went to lowes today and they had an inline chlorine filter for like $33 but it said nothing about chloramines. Sorry didn't want to hijack the thread but we all could use this info.
 
Gervahlt said:
I know you said, "Experienced" only and I also know I don't qualify, but I wanted to point out a possible issue with the above. If your city water system uses chloramines instead of chlorine, you will definitely need to treat it as otherwise it would build up in the tank until the fish were killed (it doesn't evaporate like chlorine - or at least not nearly as fast). I think that could easily be fixed though by simply doing a drip system within a drip system. In other words, instead of a treatment tank, you could drip the water directly into your tank or sump and separately have a much slower drip that drips dechlorinator at a rate consistent for treating the new amount of water per day. Let's say you need 100 drops per day to treat it, simply divide 86,400 seconds in a day by 100 and you need roughly one drop every minute and a half to cover it (keep in mind that some of both the dechlorinator and the untreated water will go down the drain every day). I'm thinking a commercially available I.V. drip would be perfect for that.
Click to expand...

I also thought about this with just dripping in prime. Like a cheap and easy doaser. I was thinking a plastic syringe hung on my stand above the sump with airline coming off the bottom tied in a knot or series of knots so it would drip in prime at the appropriate rate. Pretty easy I think. Is there a test to test chlorimines. My chlorine reading always read zero but have never tested chlorimines. But my fish don't flash and I haven't lost any in over 6months.
 
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