How do you "top-off" your nano reef?

daily by hand...but i'm probably going to be buying physh1's ato system sometime soon here.

Auto from physj1's californiareefs.com as well.

By hand. I'm going to get the system in May... Need it badly w/ the MH.

By hand as well. I need an auto top off thingy. I think I will install one when I do my 60 gallon tank.

just built my DIY auto top off over the weekend. Will post pics soon for nano cube owners.

I do it by hand, mostly in the morning and at night, if I'm around to do that. I'd love to get an auto-topoff system, but I'm not sure if i'll get that before I add a sump. I'd rather not have the float switch in the main tank.

i have 4 fish tanks so i used both methods, lol but building my top off sistems for everything is much easier

by hand, evaporation seems to vary for me from day to day, so daly i take Specific gravity readings and add freshwater accordingly

i use auto top off thingy called "my wife"!b

tsunami auto top off system

Top off by hand in morning before work and at night when I get home.

My 2.5G doesn't need top-off more than every other week, so I do it whenever it looks low. My glass lid helps a whole lot for evaporation prevention.

Right now I do it by hand. When I upgrade to the 40 I plan to eventually add some type of auto-topoff system

I love my auto-top off system, I don't know how I got by with out one before

Everyone seems to mention that they all have "auto-top off's" but nobody metions which one they have or if they made it themselves.. that is the information this thread really needs...

I use a float switch, battery powered air pump and two 2 liter bottles linked together. It's a nice piece of mind knowing that during these dry winter months the odds of my sump pump running dry while I'm at work are greatly reduced. Until I put a cover on my sump I would go through a 2 liter a day!

i just do it by hand

lookin low better flow sime more water in

Mine is soe one of a DIYer. I have a maxi-jet 900 that pumps the water in when the floatswitch gets low. Salty Dawg made the snail gaurd and bracket for the float switch.

I am considering taking on this project this weekend. Where whould i obtain this siad "Float Switch" I think i can manage getting the rest of it together.

www.floatswitches.net

i used to have a float switch untill the damn thing stuck and flooded my kitchen. now i dont trust the thing. it still does my topoffs though when i plug it in

I have an auto top off....but I'm too lazy to install it,but I'm not lazy enough to top off everyday...go figure.

5 gal water carboy, grainger float, air pump.

Can't get any easier.

Later
JimC

liter meter III run thru a kalk reactor.

when my tank starts sounding like a waterfall and the noise is annoying i top it off then

Tunze Osmolator..

Talk about cheesey..here is MY auto topoff system. Fill it, walk away. No stuck floatswitches. Hey..it works. LOLOL . SH

Some bunny has been stealing from the hospital again!

autotopoff floatswitch turns on an airpump which pressurizes a 2 liter filled with distilled limewater and fills my 4G tank.

Kalk drip one gallon per week on my 5.5

http://www.reefwebsites.com/agu/kalkdrip/

One quart dumped in sump daily....

Izzue

I keep a thing of water beside my nano tank and when I need to do a top off I just take some air hosing, put it at the level I want it to go down to and drip it into my tank. I refill the thingy every 2-3 days.

I might try DIY'ing an auto-top off system soon for if/when I have to go away. We will see ^__^.

ghetto drip ATO (IV line and 1/2g jug)

i use dual floatswitches from autotopoff.com. connected to a small pump in a 3g resevoir. i add all my supplements to the resevoir and it lasts about 1 week. it tops off once every hour,and i gotta say its made top
off so much easeir on me and my inhabitants. cuz honestly i would forget alot and by that time my salinity would
have jumped from .25 to .28 in less than a day. now i litteraly have no fluctuation!!! just make sure to clean your floatswitches from time to time.

i add spring water/
i used to buy water from the pet shop....very expensive
then i started to by water from petco...about 7 bucks for 2 gallons...what a rip
then i figured i would start using regular spring water since it doesn't have chlorine.
i haven't had any problems and it is soooo easy
i go through about 1.5 gallons a week in a 24g aquapod with two additionl fans
i can't see a need to buy more equipment..since i am always looking at the fish I am right there to top off

7 bucks for two gallons is a rip!!!!!!! at my LFS its .25per g of ro/di and .75 for ro/sw premix. i make sure to bring my two (5g) jugs when i go. im getting ready to convert my 110g fw over to sw reef. lugging water from the fish store isnt going to cut it anymore , im going to have to get an ro/unit.

I did the real getto one. Cost me not a thing I had everything I needed to make... I know wow...I will buy a aftermarket cup holder for cars to clip on the tank to try to hide the bottle. I will make the syphion hose into a drain incace of back filling. I have the drip set a 1drip/5secs keeps the tank at the same hight all day, refill every morning and about 3/4 of the bottle is used in 24 hours.

i used autotopoff.com its 61 bucks w/shipping I love it!!!

I just ordered the Tunze Osmolator 3155 from Marine depot (good price of $175 shipped). It comes tommorow. I will use a 5 gallon bucket to contain RO water, and finally I will be able to take a week off if I please from topping off.

[quote name='lil'wrasse cool' date='Aug 9 2007, 11:11 AM' post='1245445'] I did the real getto one. Cost me not a thing I had everything I needed to make... I know wow...I will buy a aftermarket cup holder for cars to clip on the tank to try to hide the bottle. I will make the syphion hose into a drain incace of back filling. I have the drip set a 1drip/5secs keeps the tank at the same hight all day, refill every morning and about 3/4 of the bottle is used in 24 hours.



Hey I like this set-up, can you elaborate a little more? I want to try this out at home on my 20-gallon

All you do is drill 2 holes in a cap of a bottle and put one short air line and one air line that will go from the bottle to the tank. Make sure its a good tight fit. On the long one add a air valve so that you can control the drips. Thats the construction of it....
Once you put water in it blow in to the short one to get the water to flow into the long hose. Then set the drip to match you evap rate... You can do the calc. but Id start off with 1 drip evey 2 secs and adjust from there... My evap is about 1 drip every 6-7 secs. Mark a line on you tank or sump to see if the drip rate is to high or to low...
Thats all I can think of pm me if you cant get her going...

By hand and imm to broke to get something to auto top of my tank and my evaporations varies all the time so i just add fresh water to make up for that

RO water every other day.

Every other day, but it usually takes all afternoon/evening to do.

1 - Open gallon of distilled water
2 - Open lid to tank
3 - Pour in water
4 - Test with swing arm
5 - Adjust with more fresh or salt water
6 - Retest with swing arm
7 - Close lid
8 - clean swing arm
9 - toss empty jug in trash
10 - watch wife dig through trash and yell "THIS IS RECYCLABLE!"
11 - say "so?"
12 - Get yelled at some more because she had to dig through trash to pull out recyclable stuff
13 - have to make up something about how sorry I am for making her dig through trash
14 - make fun of recycling since all recycled items cost more than raw material items
15 - Feel bad for making wife dig through trash, so I cook her a nice dinner
16 - But I forget and throw away the tin cans and plastic containers I emptied out of the fridge
17 - get yelled at some more for not washing the empty tin cans from the food I cooked
18 - tell her that I am not wasting water to wash garbage
19 - complain to her about how her FOUR recycle bins take up 1/2 my garage space
20 - Listen to her say "well most of that is because of your distilled water jugs from your fish tank!"
21 - say THATS IT WERE BUYING AN RO/DI MACHINE!



j/k its not that bad

Like this:



Here's a clearer view from an experiment to determine if diffusion from salt to fresh water can occur in this setup (it doesn't):



I've got more info. on this setup in my 'tank thread':

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=172031

I use a Tunze Osmolator.

I have yet to find a more reliable ATO, but if there were one, I would upgrade immediately.

please tell me how to set this up
i have the exact bottle hahah

jbj ato