Updating My Water Change Setup
At the recommendation of several local reefers, I have increased my water change rate significantly, from 15 gallons every two months to 40 gallons a month. In order to facilitate this, I hade to make a few other changes…
I was not happy with all the effort that it was costing me to get water changes done and I was not doing them anywhere nearly enough. So I set up a few helpers to get me going again. First I put a pump in the R/O reservoir to move water out of there faster instead of siphoning it out all the time. Then I plumbed the output up to an elevated 20Gal tank with a bulkhead installed. Then I put a valve on the tank, ran a power strip to it and hooked up an air pump and a heater (actually two heaters)
Here is what it looks like set up. It’s not terribly pretty, but it sure is functional and much easier to use to get make-up water ready. I can also do 20 gallons all at once instead of three 5 gallon buckets. I still have to siphon out the old water into the buckets, but at least the new water is automatic.
I set up a kind of Under Gravel Filter arrangement to provide mixing and circulation. Here is what that looks like in action. The stupid thing wanted to float so I sank some clean mason jars in there to hold it on the bottom. I don’t like them very much because they are not enough weight and they hold 2 quarts of water from being drained out. I have to figure out some different safe weights. I am also floating a Styrofoam case lid in there (removed for the picture) as a bubble barrier so I dont leak water all over the place from over spray.
