Setting Up To Do An Automatic Water Change.

[dredgy]

Hi thanks for your input though you don't raise anything I'm too concerned about.
 
1. My tap water is chlorine/chloramine free so I do not need to dechlorinate the water. There are trace amounts of fluorine but nothing enough to cause a danger. If feasible I might jam some filter carbon in the hose.
2.  Will be connected directly to water mains so no pumps to fail. As it will be an overflow system, if the water drops a fair few inches it will cut the siphon. Though if the plan I have currently got works, I will not need a siphon.

Gave up eventually, as got a water softener, rendering the hot water
unusable for fish and also doesn't actually clean the tank. All the
dirt and crud still collected at the bottom of the tank, requiring
hovering up.

 
Not really after something to clean, just to keep water fresh and ease the stress on the fish. I do have a bucket-less gravel vac and will have some mussels soon, though my tank keeps itself mostly clean at the moment, just some occasional poop.

 

[dredgy]

Doing this today, very annoyingly to make my original design work I did need a siphon effect and I couldn't run a hose discretely in a continously downhill fashion - it now needs to run down and then back up into the disposal. Which means my design is completely not what I wanted - it will just be a drain/refill. Still infinitely better than buckets though

 

[dredgy]

Okay, so after deciding that a siphon wasn't going to work, I bought a powerhead to pump water out. Of course once the water was draining, it created a siphon rendering the powerhead unnecessary. 
 
Without the powerhead, the tank drains roughly 100L/h. So with two hoses both set to 100L/h (I don't have a flow restrictor for my tap so its a bit fiddly at the moment) I can run both simultaneously and continuously without much drop in water change. However because of the flow rate (at minimum 100L/h, with the powerhead on 1000L/h, as opposed to the 4L/h of my original drip-design) I can't keep the system running 24/7 because it would drive my water bills through the roof.
 
 
However - it works for my purposes and is visually, almost invisible.
 
 
Here are some pics.
 
1. After I got the holes drilled as unobtrusively as possible and ran the hoses through behind the drawers:

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2. The hoses connected to their respective pipes. Nothing overally imaginative here, all I have to do is open the tap to begin the siphon and open the other tap to refill.
 

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3. The finished, barely noticeable product:

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[Chad]

Does it just go into the kitchen sink drain?

 

[dredgy]

Yup.

 

[Chad]

Very cool.

 

[Lunar Jetman]

I do have the huge advantage of my tap water being fine for my tank

What do you mean by this? I thought most countries treat their tap water to make it drinkable. If not then its not likely to be safe for fish.

Also you don't half have a lot of booze in your flat!

 

[dredgy]

I had it tested quite extensively, there is fluorine/fluoride in trace amounts among other things, but no chlorine or chloramine registered. It is possible my building has an independent water supply from a bore, since it is high in copper. My building is partially independently powered as well so it wouldn't surprise me. However I might have the inflow hose run through a box of copper to help it a bit.

And the booze (with the exception of the whiskey/brandy) is all from corporate sponsorship lol so it piles up. That's less than half of what I actually have.

 

[liamsmith15]

I reckon your onto something that we all dream of. a virtually maintainace free tank! just gotta clean the filter!

 

[dredgy]

And feed the fish lol

 

[liamsmith15]

That might help...