Another Air Powered Auto Topoff

Air powered auto topoff.

Well, I stole some ideas from users here:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=12304

and here:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/showthread...&threadid=21786

I, of course, took a few liberties with the design. I did not want to

shell out the cash for a carboy. I already had a 3 gallon polycarbonate

water jug (from whole foods). My fiancee had actually paid for the

jug and all the water that day, so to me, it was free! The only problem

I was facing was that whole foods was out of caps for these jugs the day

that I got it (I was sent home from the store with a plastic bag and some

rubber bands keeping the water in the jug). I toyed around with the idea

of "making" a top for it, possibly even from rolling up duct tape around

the hoses through the lid. Upon further thought, I decided that this was

stupid. I went up to whole foods and bought another jug, and asked for

an extra cap. The nice customer service lady did give me one, but I was

shocked to learn that the jugs were $16 somethin each! At least they

sold them with the first fill up of water for free.

By this point, my floatswitches had arrived, and I had gotten the rigid airline tubing... Time to go to work! I hooked up a small airmpump (stolen from my freshwater imac tank) and drilled holes in the cap, cut the rigid airline to length,

and sealed up the holes with aquarium sealant. I went hopefully into

the kitchen to test. I got the water to rise a whole two inches above

the top of the jug. So I jumped in my car and ran to petsmart and picked

up a slightly larger air pump and some cat litter (if you don't keep the

woman happy, you will not have a reef!). When I tried again with the

larger pump, I got to about 7" of head. This just wasn't working. Still

in denial about the container I was using, I stopped by petco a few days

later and purchased the biggest, baddest pump that they had (40 bones!).

Eager to see things work, I hooked it up. I had now gotten to a grand

total of about 10" of head. This would NOT work. The pump created

enough pressure that I was able to listen to the hissing and find out

where I was losing pressure. The friggin cap! So now, I had to find

some way to seal that cap. I wanted to find some sort of gasket and

started thinking about what I could use. My eye fell upon the woman's

kitchen implements. There is a rubber mat that she uses to peel garlic

and open jars. It looked about right... I then thought a bit more about

the situation. It would be very unwise to use one of her tools for my

tank. I already have enough ill will towards the reef by her, no reason to

add insult to injury. So, popping open another beer, I asked on irc

what I might be able to use around the house. The first answer was

plastic wrap. I thought that this might work, then came the real answer,

from vern. "use a condom"

I ran to the bedroom and dug through the nightstand. AHA! I wiped off as much of the lube as I could and slid it

down over the neck of the jug. I cut off the tip (ouch!) and then screwed

on the cap. I took the whole thing to the kitchen and tested. I now had

over 47" of head from the floor. My tank is only 43.5" high. Success!

Now I am in process of getting the floatswitch set up right, and will post

pics when done. Anywho, thanks Vern. Watch this space for finished pics

and more info.

let's see if this image will actually post...

and this one...

I hope this worked.

-q

One more pic, with the top on:

-q

Hahahahaha nice use for a condom. What brand did you use? Trojan, Gold Circle Coin? ??? Oh Lusty...

will it make a difference if it was ribbed..................

Durex, lubricated (not spermicidal), non-ribbed. The lube was wiped off of both sides of the condom, but there is still very much of a residue, which really helps while screwing on the top. (oooooooh.. that has connotations...)

I'll be trying to get the floatswitch rigged up tonight, so we'll soon see how effective this will be.

-q

It's a sticky subject but its about time someone brought up the issue of safe 'reefing'. Nice to see responsible reefing. So you finally got to use one of those?! Well, you have to start somewhere! Safe Reefing. I dont know if it really is such a good idea, considering the threat if you dont have one when you need one, and one of you is enough... "Oh, baby, wait, I know where I have a spare!!" Trojan-Reef. So do you plan to change that after every fill or just keep using it over and over? Uh, buddy, I dont think the resovoir tip is quite big enough to constitute a top off container for a reef. You know now that you just spermicided the whole tank...no baby fish now! Please tell me you put it to good use before you cut it up...then it isnt as bad a waste of a 'fun-bag'. Be careful when screwing cuz you could break the condom. A few other jokes come to mind as well, but I cant hog them all. Nice...

Which air pump did you wind up using?

speakeraddict

The air pump used is a TetraTec 200. Dual outlets, 200Lph air output. I hooked it up to the bubble bar in my tetra iMac tank, just for giggles, and it darn near turned the thing into a protein skimmer!

-q

Finally got off my lazy butt and finished up my auto-topoff.... for now. I was having some trouble figuring out how to mount the float switch. I wandered aimlessly through Lowe's and came to my favorite spot in the store: PVC fittings! This is what I came up with:

It is a 1.25" plug and a 1.25" cap fitted together with holes drilled so that water can get in and out of the fixture. It is affixed to an unused maxijet holder. I had to shim up the part on the maxijet bracket with a piece of scrap acrylic.

I initially super glued the PVC to the bracket, but that failed. I do not know if it failed because I was too impatient and put it in tank before it had cured fully (I used gel), so I tried again, and zip tied it this time. It's held up, so far.

Since I haven't enclosed the portion of the extension cord that is spliced, I put a hook into the wall and hung it up above the tank, just to be safe. I hooked up a night light to the output of the extension cord to test the water level and adjust it just right. Here is what it looks like from the top:

Sorry about the bad quality pics. I need a decent camera. Anywho, the concomseal seems to be holding up just fine. I tested the whole rig with my tank by removing some water (salinity had crept up anyways) and letting it top off by itself. Works like a champ! Hope this helps some people.

Incidentally, I spent WAAAAAAAY too much money on this project. *sigh* But I figure the money spent can be attributed to entertainment, as I LOVE doing this kind of thing. Oh, and I had a great excuse to buy a dremel (my black and decker batter powered wizard thing is CRAP, I tell you. CRAP!). While I was at it, I picked up a diamond bit, so I'll have a tank drilling and overflow build article soon too!

-q

wow qfour20, that has to be one of the best looking snail guards I've ever seen. outstanding.

-skeletor-

Well, I have decided that this setup by itself is not sufficient. I will be adding a kalk container (I would call it a kalk reactor, but that implies a more involved setup than this). I have a 1gal drinking water jug that I have put some rigid tubing into. The water will enter the jug through the long stem, exiting just above the floor of the container. This will stir (somewhat) the kalk on the bottom of the container, pushing kalk out of the top. I'll get some pics up tonight maybe and let everyone know how it went. Here's to hoping it works!

-q

How will it build up pressure? Won't the tube have to be 1ga jug have to fill completely with water first? That'd be a helluva lot of kalk, right? Maybe I'm confused on this one. I think you should Build something with a funnel for kalk. Let me see if I can explain and maybe it will work.

Take a funnel, Ping-Pong ball, and some way to cover both ends water tight.

Hrm, crude, but Maybe?

Materials:

-Large Funnel

-PVC Pipe

-Ping-Pong Ball

-Two Caps for either end of PVC

-Drill

-Air-Line tubing

Cut off the "nozzel" on the funnel and make a hole big enough for the pvc pipe to go in. Make sure the PVC fits snuggly aroudn the ping-pong ball, but still always it to move up and down. Place the pvc inside the funnel, half in the funnel, half out. Seal it to the funnel with some silicone. Drill small holes in a circle around the PVC pipe on the inside of the funnel. About 4 should be fine.

On the bottom, drill two holes big enough for airline tubing. Put the ping-pong ball inside the PVC pipe and put the caps on either end. Take the airline tubing and seal it to the PVC one in/one out. Fill the funnel with kalk.

-- In theory the water would run through the tube, fill up the PVC chamber and make the ping pong ball float upwards. Then the kalk would be allowed in through the hole no longer blocked by the ping pong ball. When it shuts off, all the water should cycle through and the ping pong ball should return to the bottom, sealign off the kalk. Heres a pic if it makes any sense... it's just an idea!

I jsut realized that ALL the water would not leave the tube... so Here's a redraw:

The one gallon jug I have in mind will be completely filled with water. That way, fresh water enters into the sealed chamber from my auto-topoff, which then stirs the Kalk sediment at the bottom and forces mixed kalk out of the top. I'll get some pics tonight if I can get it set up.

-q

"...the woman's kitchen implements...", I'll have you know that the best chefs in the world are men...

I know this seems silly, but wouldn't it be possible to use an existing pump in the tank to accomplish a topoff I'm thinking something along the lines of a pressurized float valve. I have something like this that feeds a humidifier. Basically, the house water pressure is pumping in to it, water level drops and opens the valve, etc. etc.

I'm thinking a jug that has a joined tube with an existing pump or something... Am I crazy?

First off, you wouldn't want to use "house water pressure", since that would be unfiltered water. I, along with almost everyone at this site, recommend using only RO/DI water from a well maintained filter. Now, if you bought a RO/DI filter to use and hooked the output up to a float switch, that would work great. You would want to make sure that the RO/DI unit you buy has an "auto-shutoff valve". Basically, this valve detects when the output is turned off, and shuts off the input to the filter too. This will greatly preserve the life of your RO filter. You could just simply hook up the output of the RO/DI unit to something similar to the float switch in a toilet.

Here are a few ready-made float valves that might be useful:

http://www.aquaticeco.com/aquatic1v1/itemp...passitemid=4838

Good luck, and post pics if you decide to do it!

-q

I think you misinterpreted his point. He was comparing the house system to one that exists in his tank. He was not proposing to use the water from his house.

Right, I didn't mean using tap water. I don't even use that in my freshwater tanks.

I'll have to try and draw up what I'm thinking. I remember an expermiment in science class (8th grade, long time ago..) showing water boiling at room temperature. The teacher attached a hose to the side of a faucet and turned it on. When he opened the valve, air was drawn out by the moving current in the closed jar. If the jar were filled with a syphon tube in the water, it makes sense that when the "circuit" was open you could use the existing flow (assuming you had some type of pump on the outside of the take) to draw water from another container.

After further research, using a condom IS NOT SAFE REEFING..... Repeat... DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE A CONDOM FOR AN AUTO TOPOFF. The condom seal breaks after just a short period. I had to replace my 3gal plastic container with this one:

It is a 5gal glass carboy from the local brew store. Carboy + top stopper ~=22.00 USD. Good price, if you ask me. I'll Keep everyone posted for long term performance.

-q

Are you dosing that water? If not it looks hella cloudy. Maybe it's the camera...

-Justin

Very perceptive. I am dosing kalk with my water, and in the move from one container to another, some of the kalk flowed back into the main reservior. I have the kalk in a seperate container, and have not yet gotten a check valve to keep the water from flowing back into the pure water container.

-q

Well, after months and months of use, the rigid airline tubing finally slipped out of the stopper. This was because I was very short sighted in designing the stopper assembly. I did not take into consideration that I would need to *gasp* REMOVE the stopper.

I had been pulling the stopper out by the rigid airline tubing, but I knew it was just a matter of time until that failed. It did this afternoon when I went home to fill up the carboy on my lunch break. I removed the silicone and threaded a zip tie through the hole in the stopper, and put a small piece of airline tubing through the loop, perpendicular to the rest of the airline tubing so that it butts up against the underside of the stopper.

I then threaded through the original rigid airline tubing. Unfortunately, I am out of aquarium silicone, so I'll be stopping off to pick some up tonight. I'll post pics later. (pics posted.... duh!)

Full view:

-q

This is utterly amazing. By far on of the best walk throughs I've ever seen. I want to set one up on a much smaller scale. I was thinking of using a 1g water jug w/ a screw on top (w/ the size of my tank this should last 3 weeks). I'm not sure if the top will be air tight, but that shouldn't be hard to find out, also I don't need a lot of head pressure. Where did you get the swith from? and is the float switch sitting loosely in the PVC? I found on that's just shy of 1" diameter, would I want 1" PVC?