limited water changes... next step, overkill

[Magnum Man]

commercial push locks are pretty reliable... 1/4 inch line keeps me from drowning, in the case of a leak, and all the outlets are above

 

[Magnum Man]

thinking about this with my morning caffeine... I would guess I'll see a lot of spawn dancing, as I gradually increase my water change volume, and that will likely continue, and will probably continue if I get to weekly 1/3 water changes...
whooo hooo rainy season is here...
.... in other words, spawning will likely increase as the volume of water changes increases
that could be good, or bad, depending, in my community tanks...

 

[Magnum Man]

1st and 2nd power water changes, about 10 gallons on the 1st, and about 15 gallons, on the 2nd... took less than 5 minutes to drain, and refill both tanks, and no buckets involved... just before bed, just wanted to test for function... the strainer I ordered, was not 3/4 NPT like it was supposed to be, and I don't have an outlet for the pump out pump, so that's on an extension cord... I just rubber banded a mesh bag over the suction pipe... so a few tweaks to make, but really happy, with the function....

 

[Magnum Man]

these tanks are on opposite sides of the group of tanks, I did these two, to make sure there were no issues with the hose lengths.... I don't think I wanted to do a maximum change on the 1st try, also the RO tank is room temperature, it's been full for a couple days... I should heat it some, as the well water going into the RO is pretty cold, at least before I start doing 1/3 water changes, on all the tanks...

 

[Magnum Man]

one thing that drives me crazy, is when various hardware, doesn't take the same tools... so I just ordered 25 heavy duty stainless hose clamps... with some of the fittings coming with their own clamps, I literally needed 4-5 tools to put this together... 3 different hex head sizes, with both straight and phillips slots... the new clamps are all 5/16, so I can keep one nut driver here for servicing... I bought a 100 foot roll of clear food grade fiber reinforced hose to run through the ceiling to pump RO water to other tanks, not in my main group... that is great stuff, but not very flexible, I'm also using it for the pumped to the drain line... then I have both vinyl and silicone hose for use around the tanks... I like the silicone brewery hose it's thicker, and flexible, but not sure if it'll handle the suction line or not yet, so I use it for the fill line, and am currently using vinyl for the suction line... the way I have that line set up, right now, I don't seem to need increased flexibility, but so far, I've not tried to do the 10 gallon tanks with the suction, that will tell me if I need the additional flexibility of silicone from the pump to the tank suction line...

 

[Magnum Man]

8 tanks, water change of between 10 and 15 gallons, completed in about 15 minutes, with no water bucketed... I'm drawing water from one end, and filling from the other end... one tank, a 55 gallon, I filled over the heater, so I could monitor the temp... it started at 78 degrees, and. dropped to 75 degrees, with a 15 gallon water change... so I definitely want to heat the RO tank, at least a little, before going to larger water changes... since the RO holding tank is completely sealed from fill line, to over flow line... I'm thinking a heating pad, I was initially thinking under the tank, but rethinking, I think on the side, that's against the wall... it's an interior concrete wall, so it should be at least close to room temp, so should be a good spot for it...

 

[Magnum Man]

well one advantage to this system, is I can do a water change everyday if I wanted to... some of my more crowded tanks, could probably use a water change every other day, for a week or so, only doing a 15 - 20% change ( until I start heating my RO storage tank, and once I can start doing larger 1/3 tank changes , I can go back to doing those on the weekends, but doing the smaller changes, literally takes 1 minute, and 2 button pushes and no pails, so I can fit it in anytime... in fact I took the bucket out of my work area

 

[Magnum Man]

as far as "the" system goes... the vinyl hose seems to be working out OK, but I need to add a 90 degree elbow at the pump, to eliminate a kink starting to form, and get my strainer end replaced, then it'll be great...

 

[Oldspartan]

these tanks are on opposite sides of the group of tanks, I did these two, to make sure there were no issues with the hose lengths.... I don't think I wanted to do a maximum change on the 1st try, also the RO tank is room temperature, it's been full for a couple days... I should heat it some, as the well water going into the RO is pretty cold, at least before I start doing 1/3 water changes, on all the tanks...

Can you integrate a washing machine mixing valve into your set up, or is the source water unsuitable to mix with the R/O?

 

[Magnum Man]

I'm only be adding back well water on my shrimp tanks, regularly... maybe a very little to a couple other tanks later, after a major increase in water change volume...

 

[Magnum Man]

My replacement parts were held up over the weather, it showed up today, they sent me the a whole new system, minus the actual filters... so lots of spare parts