Wet's Battery powered air top-off...$10.

[Undertheradar]

heres the new and improved bracket system I am using. It is a piece of 1/8" acrylic bent into a narow 'Z'. This allows the pump to hang on the side of just about any tank. Then I drilled a 3/4" hole on the bottom. The pump hangs on this from it's clip...down and out of sight. The top part of the acrylic gets two 1/8" holes for the bolts that hold the PVC pipe strap and what not. I had to make this for someone because they were going to mount the top-off on the main tank, but the clip on the air-pump only has a 1/4" clip... The float on this one also would have to be mounted higher than the sump mount model. This bracket allows the pipe to be adjusted higher than the old version.

 

I think I will start making these buggers for $25 + shipping. I had to go up from $20 because after I run out of the bulk buy float switches I will have to buy the $5 ones. Oh, and the cap I include is for/from the one gallon gatorade jugs...$5 a jug, but hey, it's summer so I can use the gatorade...LOL.

[Undertheradar]

oh, and the pic:

[Undertheradar]

the pipe also has two small holes in it now...one in the top for the water feed line to mount in more securely...and one above the float to allow fresh water to spill out right above the float after it goes through the pipe. My hope is that this will knock off any critters that might trip the float in the tank with a dose of fresh water. My snails fall off when I spray fresh water at them... Of course making a guard out of a pill container would be good too.

[Undertheradar]

from the back...

[C Jerome]

I just finished making my top off. I used a battery air pump, and a 32oz wide mouth Nalgine as the container. I have not mounted it yet but in playing with it I notices that a siphon was easily created and not easily broken. Any ideas on how to minimize the chance of this happening before I mount it? Let me know

 

Jerome

[Undertheradar]

the water supply should be mounted below the outlet, and the outlet mounted above the water line.

[bevans]

Just as idea, for those of you who are trying to use this topoff for freshwater topoff as well as dosing, I have an idea which might work...

 

Keep the 2 containers as previously discussed, but rather than running them in series, run them in parallel. What I mean is that you can put a tee on the airline going to the bottles and pressure both at the same time. The tricky part is trying to dose a smaller amount than the makeup. To achieve this, you can put the 2 bottles at different elevations. The pump will supply the same pressure to both, so the required difference in elevation (from the makeup/dose water level to the tank level) will cause a different flowrate for the 2 bottles.

 

It will take some trial and error to get the elevations correct, but I think that this may be an option, rather than the timer and just dosing at night. Since I am a noob at this, I do not know if dosing 24/7 is better than only at night.

 

Hope this helps, and great job on this design UTR, I should be ordering my parts this weekend. If this does not make sense for some reason, please let me know and I will see if I have any other ideas.

 

Bryan

[Undertheradar]

I just dump the stuff that I want to dose into the top-off water itself. The only exception is a kalk reactor top-off, but that requires a whole other set of rules. I have never seen a reason to go to this extreme in a nano however. I mean, dosing a 2 part calcium system on such a small tank has really never been a problem....then again, I have seen my share of nano-reactors.....

[jamesj525]

Hey! I just built one of these based on your original post. It works great and was really easy! Of course, it's only been in there for five minutes, so we'll see. I'm going on vacation in two weeks and needed to come up with something. Anyway, thanks for the info!

[Carl_in_Florida]

Are you taking orders yet?

 

Carl

[Samc]

Are you-since their are no patent laws to get around this time!

 

Sam

[tylernt]

If you are using a Nokia cell phone charger, realize:

 

1. The wattage that the airpump draws should be less than the wattage the cell phone charger is rated for.

 

2. The greater the difference in wattages, the greater the voltage you are feeding to the air pump. Since I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that these little chargers are unregulated, that means that a 500mW charger driving a 50mA airpump is NOT going to deliver 3.6v. It's probably going to send 5v or more. So grab your voltmeter and check it while the pump is running. You may be slowly frying your pump with excessive voltage!

 

Since I'm posting anyway, let me voice my opinion on the floatswitches.net switches: they are completely safe at 110VAC with low current (wattage) usage. That said, DC is safer for humans when water is involved.

[wbeavers]

I really like the auto top off idea. It is a great concept. The idea of using an air pump for a dosing pump is not such a good idea. It will work, but the diaphram in the air pump will wear out quickly. Any time you greatly throttle down a diaphram air pump it causes severe stress to the diaphram.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by wbeavers

I really like the auto top off idea. It is a great concept. The idea of using an air pump for a dosing pump is not such a good idea. It will work, but the diaphram in the air pump will wear out quickly. Any time you greatly throttle down a diaphram air pump it causes severe stress to the diaphram.

 

I don't get this statement. How is pushing air into a bottle with RO/DI water any different than pushing air into a bottle with RO/DI & limewater mix?

 

I made one of these by the way, and I love it! It's impressed a lot of the guys I work with too. My only beef is that it's setting right next to me on my desk at work, so my heart skips a beat every time it fires up. Between that and the bacon double cheese burger diet I'm on, I don't think I'll make it to my next birthday.

 

Has anyone tried using a similar air pump, but a more quiet one?

[Undertheradar]

"Any time you greatly throttle down a diaphram air pump it causes severe stress to the diaphram."

 

FYI, crack one of the DC versions open and you will see that they are not diaphram pumps. They are piston driven (works better w/ DC). I have been running the battery one for about 6 months now and it hasent skipped a beat. You might assume that 'all that back pressure' is bad...HUH? Thats what they are designed for in the first place (remember pumping airstones underwater aint easy either)! Operation as an ATO is a cakewalk for these pumps compared to providing constant air to a portable container with who only knows how much back pressure because of whatever depth and airstone. The minute or two that these are on a day is very little wear&tear all things considered. I have even rigged up another with the nokia 3.3v charger. It sounds much louder, but works great. Often in DC devices, they are using parts with tolerances much higher than the specs. Why? Cuz rather than make a new pump every time, they raid the parts bins and see which supplier can provide a good pump...sometimes the ratings are 3x or more what they normally run just because they were the readily available part and still compatible. So far Im on month 3 with the nokia version...well see. A few bursts a day, even at a slight overpowering, is not alot of wear. Keep in mind were talking 30 second bursts or so...not alot of time to build up wear&tear, heat, friction, etc.

[Undertheradar]

"1. The wattage that the airpump draws should be less than the wattage the cell phone charger is rated for."

 

Sure you dont mean the other way around? I mean, wouldnt you rather have a 2v charger on this rather than a 5v?

[tylernt]

Originally posted by Undertheradar

"1. The wattage that the airpump draws should be less than the wattage the cell phone charger is rated for."

 

Sure you dont mean the other way around?  I mean, wouldnt you rather have a 2v charger on this rather than a 5v?

I was speaking of wattage, not voltage. If you have a 50mW charger trying to supply a 100mW load, your voltage will drop and things will overheat. With most solid state electronics, too low of a voltage is no problem, things just don't work. However, low voltages can harm motors when there's not enough field strength to spin things up. That's why variable speed motors use Pulse Width Modulation, not variable voltage. But now I'm rambling... sorry.

[wbeavers]

Originally posted by Wolf

I don't get this statement. How is pushing air into a bottle with RO/DI water any different than pushing air into a bottle with RO/DI & limewater mix?

 

The auto topoff may run a couple minutes a day depending on tank size. The doser will run constantly. If this a piston pump it will hold up better, but don't count on it's longevity. I would keep a spare pump on hand. As for the auto top off it will work great because it isn't on long enough to accumulate damage to the sealing surfaces.

[Wolf]

Roger that. The two-part ATO/Doser that I was referring to earlier in the thread would run the two different pumps in synch with the lights, so the ATO with RO/DI would be on during the day, and the ATO with the kalk would be on at night, when the PH is low. Although, as UnderTheRadar pointed out, these pumps don't have diaphrams.

 

And in retrospect, I think such a system would be overkill for a nano with a clownfish and a few soft corals.

 

Now for the love of God, would somebody please help me come up with a way to quiet this thing down? Otherwise, I'll have to add Depends to my aquarium budget.

[Undertheradar]

you could give it some back pressure to slow it down, and in the process, quiet it a little. Otherwise, making a little sound box with padding might be your best option.

[trmiv]

Is there a way I could mod this for use on a nano cube that has the overflow mod. the back section varies with evap, so I could somehow get the float back there.

[wbeavers]

"Now for the love of God, would somebody please help me come up with a way to quiet this thing down? Otherwise, I'll have to add Depends to my aquarium budget."

 

Penn-Plax makes a model similiar to this that they call the Silent Air. I found it at Pet solutions.

[jtsam]

i'm interested in trmiv's question (even though i dont have the overflow mod). how would this fit in an nano cube? would i need to cut a section out of my hood, or would is sit low enough where i wouldnt need to? undertheradar, i want to buy one of these things from you, are you still taking orders?

[bevans]

Originally posted by jtsam

i'm interested in trmiv's question (even though i dont have the overflow mod).  how would this fit in an nano cube?  would i need to cut a section out of my hood, or would is sit low enough where i wouldnt need to? undertheradar, i want to buy one of these things from you, are you still taking orders?

 

I have one built, but the design is a bit different than UTR's. The unit cannot extend as high on a NanoCube without cutting a section of the hood off. The way that I have done it is to have the float switches mounted below the edge of the tank instead of above it as UTR hs done. This is probably not a major problem, assuming you do not mind running the level of the rear compartment about 3-4 inches below the overflow. You will still need to cut a small gap in the back of the hood so that the support will fit, but there will not be any obvious mods unless you look at it from the back.

 

As I said, mine is built, but I have not had a chance to install it in the cube yet. That will hopefully happen this week some time. If my explanation is not adequate, please let me know and I will try to sketch this up for you to see what it looks like.

 

Bryan

[jtsam]

yeah, i guess that wouldnt really work for me because i havnt done the overflow thing and i dont really know how i could with all the stuff in my tank. maybe i'll just have to cut up the hood some