High Tide Aquatics

180 Custom Gallon Starfire

Also I doubt your alk, mg, ca will last you very long. You may also want to rethink those containers. With that size of a tank, when it gets into the swing of things I would expect you to be dosing over 200ml of the alk and ca a day.
 
One option for the topoff water is to use the dosing line you plan for magnesium for the top off water- it's pretty easy to dial in the amount of daily water you'll need. there's also no risk of it staying 'on'. the downside of course if you'll have to manually add mag, but you won't have to add a separate topoff system.
 
I love how clean it looks!

Some thoughts:

The drains seem to come in right next to the dosers. A bit of a concern about splash, and salt creep.
2.5 gallons seems small for a 180. I go through that in 1 day on a 240.
Is the carbon canister behind the sump? Hard to tell. If so, might be hard to change
once the skimmer is in.
 
SoulFish said:
Only starting out with a 2.5, there is a screw top on it. I am thinking of putting a quick disconnect on the float switch line and just take it out and fill it up.. or unscrew it and pump it in.

BTW, going to take that water release off and hook that up to a float switch that will open once the water level drops.

Got any better ideas? Always open to changing it up.
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Have any additional pictures for under the stand with that current setup? Have you checked out what I was thinking for supporting a 5.5g tank in my stand in my Tank Journal? With the setup I'm thinking for my tank stand and ATO, I'm going to be affixing a permanent airline tube that will have a quick disconnect so that I can easily pump RODI water in there when it's time to fill up. The only time I'd need to remove the tank for any reason is for maintenance which I'd image would be few and far between.
 
Thanks guys, rethinking the top off. So I'm going to increase my top off jug to 5 gallons, maybe 10 if necessary. That being said I will not be able to fit it into the sump. So going to relocate it to the kitchen cabinets, which my wife is not happy about. Not to mention I will now need to drill a hole through the wall and side of the cabinet to a place that is large enough to hold the container.

I picked up a Tsunami auto top off kit yesterday and will have the pump external along side the sump and pump it out of the jug and into the sump. Just not sure how the wall drilling will go :( Another option would be to drill down to the crawl space then back up through the bottom of the cabinets, but I don't like the idea of drilling into a finished floor, even if it is underneith the cabinets.
 
I went back and looked at all your progress. WOW!

Looks like there is a sink in the corner right behind the tank. Which cabinet are you going to use for top off jug?. It looks like you could come right thru the area where there is already two water supplies under the tank. Going thru the cabinets should be no problem. You and your wife will be the only people that know the holes are there! ;)
 
Thanks, Exactly! The freshwater top off tank will go in the cabinet next to that sink, out of site, and also it will free up tons of room in my sump. That way I can build a isolation, nursery, etc section for livestock if necessary. Drilled out the holes last night, tonight going to run the hose and hook it up tonight. The jug is a 5 gallon poly tank, but if I need to I will have enough space to upgrade to 10 Gallons. The goal would be that it only requires one fill up a week.

Sat fingers crossed the plumber will come out to put the plumbing in place and start'r up. Also go word from Coral Vue the skimmers are due in early next week, so should have my skimmer up and running the end of next week.!!!!!!

Now aquascaping ......
 
Is the RODI also in the cabinet next to the sink?
If the RODI has an automatic fill valve and is connected to the top off tank, it is
totally automatic and you barely need a top off tank at all.
 
The RODI system is in the laundry room, and plumbed into my 165 gallon Saltwater reservoir & 55 gallon Freshwater reservoir. I was hesitant to have my top off connected to an endless supply of water, just in case the float/pressure switch malfunctioned. Or if my tank developed a slow leak.

I have heard of one guy that lost his entire tank due to a tiny slow leak on his sump. Basically his bulkhead was leaking, and he didn't notice the leak since it was slow. And over a course of a month his top off was adding more and more freshwater to accommodate for the leak. So everything was unnoticeable until one day when he came home from work and his salinity had dropped so much it killed all of his corals.

If I need to fill up my 5 gallon bucket manually I know how much freshwater is going into the system, so if I ever got into that situation, I would see a rise in the freshwater consumption and it would prompt me to test the water and start to hunt around as too why the tank was requiring a higher than usual amount of top off. Not to mention if the top off pump malfunctioned, it could pump out the whole 5 gallons into my system and it would not hurt anything.
 
I have read that RO/DI puts out really pure water after it runs a while. The implication being that running just for TO would not get the best water, just the 'start up' water.

Anybody have any data to prove/disprove my rumor mongering? :
 
gimmito said:
Heard similar stories...too many failure points in auto top offs plumbed that way.
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I had it happen on a system I took care of, and that triggered me years ago to invest in a Cole Palmer doser so I could set it to the amount I ned, then also stuck it on two float switches. The only issue i ever really had was it pushed through a Nilsen reactor so i had to deal with build of on the output tip. I never did go to a 1/2" line like Rich suggested.

aqua-nut said:
I have read that RO/DI puts out really pure water after it runs a while. The implication being that running just for TO would not get the best water, just the 'start up' water.

Anybody have any data to prove/disprove my rumor mongering? :
Click to expand...
 
aqua-nut said:
I have read that RO/DI puts out really pure water after it runs a while. The implication being that running just for TO would not get the best water, just the 'start up' water.

Anybody have any data to prove/disprove my rumor mongering? :
Click to expand...
 
Well plumbing is in, a few leaks, still need fixing. Not sure why we had leaks, clean cuts, new glue, but guess thats the way it just goes sometimes. Anyway. getting very close, that tank runs fairly quiet, slight gurgling, but no toilet bowl noise, and the water in the standing pipes is broken up with a T so it doesnt swirl. Hopefully the skimmer will be in on Thursday and the couple leaks on the return can be sorted out. The water test was just with freshwater, .... just in case. But the floor supports held nicely and the tank didn't squat too much. Only compressed about 1/32 of a inch. Or that's the size of the space of movement in the trim work on the cabinet.

8445039070_8f4c44f8ac_z.jpg
 
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