Drip and water preparation

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
N

NemoNemo

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 8, 2010
11
0
0
Canada
Hi All,

I'm sure some of you've done this before but unfortunately I did not find an answer to my question yet looking though multiple drip related threads.

I'm a discus keeper and have a basic drip system on cold water with overflow on my 180 gal. tank that I'm looking to upgrade. The two main upgrades i'm aiming for are:

1. Adding the chloramine filters, I can get a two stage from the filter guys.
2. Mix the water to the temperature I need. And here is a trick part here how to affectively mix both hot and cold water?
3. Consider future addition of R\O unit.

Option 1 is using the temperature mixing valve, but the trap here is most of them require 0.5 gpm flow rate for stable operation. The flow I would need is as low as 0.03 gpm. Does anyone use the mixing valve for drip systems at low flow rate? And one thing to consider is say the boiler breaks, how to at least continue the drip on the cold water temporarily.

Option 2 is to "T" both water supplies both with it's own valve, say ball valve, for water flow adjustment. But here I need to ensure avoiding the backflow, i.e. cold water does not flow into my water heater...So have no idea which check valves could be used.

thanks,
Oleg
 
I purchsed this and the refillable cartridge from filter guys. I highly recommend filter guys, they were very helpful. But the carbon did not effectively remove chloramine for my drips system at 1-2 GPH.
GAC.jpg
It removed the chlorine and left ammonia. In time my BB grew to breakdown the ammonia with no ammonia reading in the the tank.
 
thermostatic valve for mixing, going to be costly. >= $300.00
 
gavigan1;4971399; said:
I purchsed this and the refillable cartridge from filter guys. I highly recommend filter guys, they were very helpful. But the carbon did not effectively remove chloramine for my drips system at 1-2 GPH.
GAC.jpg
It removed the chlorine and left ammonia. In time my BB grew to breakdown the ammonia with no ammonia reading in the the tank.
Click to expand...

Carbon doesn't ever remove Ammonia, you would need an R/O for that and may still have some left if you used lower quality membranes and low pressure. Chlormaine filters are simply reaction based filter the breaks the bond allowing the chlorine to be removed.
 
NemoNemo;4967773;4967773 said:
Hi All,

I'm sure some of you've done this before but unfortunately I did not find an answer to my question yet looking though multiple drip related threads.

I'm a discus keeper and have a basic drip system on cold water with overflow on my 180 gal. tank that I'm looking to upgrade. The two main upgrades i'm aiming for are:

1. Adding the chloramine filters, I can get a two stage from the filter guys.
2. Mix the water to the temperature I need. And here is a trick part here how to affectively mix both hot and cold water?
3. Consider future addition of R\O unit.

Option 1 is using the temperature mixing valve, but the trap here is most of them require 0.5 gpm flow rate for stable operation. The flow I would need is as low as 0.03 gpm. Does anyone use the mixing valve for drip systems at low flow rate? And one thing to consider is say the boiler breaks, how to at least continue the drip on the cold water temporarily.

Option 2 is to "T" both water supplies both with it's own valve, say ball valve, for water flow adjustment. But here I need to ensure avoiding the backflow, i.e. cold water does not flow into my water heater...So have no idea which check valves could be used.

thanks,
Oleg
Click to expand...
I'm actually considering somthing similar for my wild discus tank. I have the chloramine filter already, so here's the route I decided to take:

- Won't be a 24/7 drip system

- Cold water will feed through the chloramine filter into a storage bin, that will be heated and aerated. Water level in the bin will be controlled with a float valve.

- I will have a small pump in my sump (close to where my overflows comes in) that comes on a set intervals throughout the day. This will drain XX gallons of water every XX hours, straight to my sewage drain.

- I will then use an automatic top-off controller like this one hooked up to a small pump in the storage bin to refill the water in the sump as the other pump is draining (water will pour in near my return pumps in the sump). This water will come from the storage bin, and will be pre-heated.

Hope that helps! It's still an automatic system, but at set intervals, instead of a constant drip. You can use a small pump, then a timer that comes on several times, or maybe just once, to give you the water change size you like :)

And with this setup, there's no risk of flooding. If the power goes out or a pump fails, nothing floods, you just won't have a water change done. The only potential problem is that if the return pump in the storage bin fails, your sump won't get refilled. You can mitigate this risk by doing water change in several small intervals, that way you have enough time to catch any problems and avoid running the system dry.
 
nfored;4971451;4971451 said:
Carbon doesn't ever remove Ammonia, you would need an R/O for that and may still have some left if you used lower quality membranes and low pressure. Chlormaine filters are simply reaction based filter the breaks the bond allowing the chlorine to be removed.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the carbon is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Ammonia is the result of breaking the chloramine bond. Any adequate filter shouldn't have a problem handling the excess ammonia.
 
I know its unrelated, but I have always thought about a 2 barrel setup in replace of dosing pump or chloramine filter.

Thanks still would have over flow drain like they would for a normal drip system. Then have the first barrel have a pump in it that comes one for 15 minutes a day, enough to pump in X gallons.

The first barrel would have a heater and a float switch, the float switch would turn on the pump in the second barrel when the first one reaches 50%. The second barrel would be hooked up to the water line and have a float switch that keeps it full of water..

The second barrel would either have prime added to it X days depending on how often barrel one refills, or be does using a cheap dosing pump. The only reason i thought about this was that its cheaper then both a chemializer or mini-doser and cheaper then choramine filters.
 
gavigan1;4971399; said:
I purchsed this and the refillable cartridge from filter guys. I highly recommend filter guys, they were very helpful. But the carbon did not effectively remove chloramine for my drips system at 1-2 GPH.
GAC.jpg
It removed the chlorine and left ammonia. In time my BB grew to breakdown the ammonia with no ammonia reading in the the tank.
Click to expand...

I'm planning to get filters from filterguys too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom