My inexpensive drip system
- Thread starter rallysman
- Start date
Ok the grey is the water line. The blue line is the 1/4" pipe. Then there is a bottle (any bottle) filled with activated carbon to remove all of the chlorine. Then it goes into another 1/4" line into another bottle of scrubbies to remove ammonia. Then it goes into the 1/4" line again into the 2gph rose garden drip, right into the tank.
The black box is my tank.
The black box is my tank.
Well since my water has chlorimines wouldnt it be the same to have carbon to remove the chlorine and the scrubbies to remove ammonia?
AiR foRc3 wUnZ;1146071; said:
Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloramine
Chloramine can't be broken down by a simple biological filter like what we use in our tanks, and carbon doesn't break it down either from what I understand.....Seriously, go check out Neoprodigys thread. He addresses this issue directly. I can't tell you if it will work or not because I don't have to deal with it. With no first hand experience I don't want to tell you what will or will not work.
I’ve seen it suggested in a number of places that one can’t remove Chloramine with carbon and thus more complex chemical dosing systems are needed.
However, this isn’t true at all. High quality granular carbon chloramines filters have been available for some time and they are now relatively cheap.
Here in the UK, I use the one half way down this page (search for chloramines):
http://www.ultimateaquatics.co.uk/acatalog/Water_Purifiers__eg_Metalex_.html
It will as stated remove chloramines from 40,000 litres of water meaning it will last for several years on all but the largest aquaria.
Further, it is not true that the by-product of chloramines removal, ammonia, then requires further chemical filtration techniques.
Since chloramines when added into tap water are done at such very low levels the amount of ammonia produced as a by product is proportionally very small. When combined with the fact that you are using a drip system and thus not changing large volumes of water in bulk you have a further dilution effect such that the ammonia will remain undetectable due to the action of your existing biological filters.
In short, the water changer will produce only as much ammonia as you might find with a slightly increased fish load and thus ammonia filtration equipment dedicated to the output of the chloramines filter is not necessary.
Edited to add: It is perhaps a better idea to assume that your water company will indeed begin using chloramines without notice. I checked with mine when they would use chloramines and they replied that they had a policy of notifying a number of businesses which might be sensitive to such things but that it was not their policy to notify individual households when they use chloramines regardless of the effect it would have on aquarium fish.
You water company of course may not be run by such uncaring people.
However, this isn’t true at all. High quality granular carbon chloramines filters have been available for some time and they are now relatively cheap.
Here in the UK, I use the one half way down this page (search for chloramines):
http://www.ultimateaquatics.co.uk/acatalog/Water_Purifiers__eg_Metalex_.html
It will as stated remove chloramines from 40,000 litres of water meaning it will last for several years on all but the largest aquaria.
Further, it is not true that the by-product of chloramines removal, ammonia, then requires further chemical filtration techniques.
Since chloramines when added into tap water are done at such very low levels the amount of ammonia produced as a by product is proportionally very small. When combined with the fact that you are using a drip system and thus not changing large volumes of water in bulk you have a further dilution effect such that the ammonia will remain undetectable due to the action of your existing biological filters.
In short, the water changer will produce only as much ammonia as you might find with a slightly increased fish load and thus ammonia filtration equipment dedicated to the output of the chloramines filter is not necessary.
Edited to add: It is perhaps a better idea to assume that your water company will indeed begin using chloramines without notice. I checked with mine when they would use chloramines and they replied that they had a policy of notifying a number of businesses which might be sensitive to such things but that it was not their policy to notify individual households when they use chloramines regardless of the effect it would have on aquarium fish.
You water company of course may not be run by such uncaring people.
ok well i would like to set up one of these for my future 150, for my parents ease for when i go to college, but anyways can you explain number 1 to me. if the valve is normally closed how does the water drain?rallysman;1144038; said:
i was also thinking maybe i could rig up a valve connected to a float so if the water got to high it would close the valve. so when the power went out it would stop draining, but then wouldnt the new water over flow the tank if the power was out for a long time?
soggysandwich;1236657; said:
The solenoid valve has a coil that (when energized) will pull the valve open. When the power fails, the valve goes to it's normal (closed) position. It's not failsafe, so if you did this I would advise putting an alarm in the sump to let you know when the water level got too high.
