EI dosing with continuous water changer is it possible?

[DavidW]

I'm part way through setting up a continuous water changer on my tank and was wondering if I would need to adjust how much nutrients I add to my tank to compensate for the water changer and if so how I work out the macro and micro nutrient amounts to add and if the combination would work together.

The system but it will work as follows:

Water passed through a hma filter with added additional housing containing JBL silicaEx into a 100 liter water butt with a float switch, the water then flows through a drip line into the tank.
The sump return has a tee with a 6mm drip line that feeds into the water waste pipe. Both drip pipes have ball valves to allow me to control the flow.

I'm aiming to change the full tank volume 430 litres per week.

I've also got a Jebao auto doser with will be dosing macro and micro ferts as recommended in the EI thread but am unsure how the water change will effect the level of ferts I'm using.

Does anyone have have any thought or experience using a continuous water changer with EI dosing?

Thanks

 

[ian_m]

At a simple first guess, if you are changing say 20% each day increase the dose 20% ? Extra 20% EI dosing will have zero effect on your fish.

Where are you dosing your dechlorinator ? HMA's are not guaranteed to remove chlorine and especially chloramine. I assume just dose your water butt.

Couple of other points, what are your fail safes ? Many people have had issues with continuous water changers especially if a planted tank, with leaves and detritus blocking overflows, weirs, pipes, float valves etc.

How are you going to remove the detritus build up at bottom of tank and stuck to plant leaves ? Weekly vacuum ?

 

[DavidW]

HMA's are not guaranteed to remove chlorine and especially chloramine.

I've got a 3 stage HMA filter one of the cartridges is carbon, I was told this was all I needed by the LFS. I've been using water from the filter without adding any chemical to it for 2+ years and haven't had any issues, but would be interested to know if the LFS told me some porkys about the HMA removing all chlorine.

Many people have had issues with continuous water changers especially if a planted tank, with leaves and detritus blocking overflows, weirs, pipes, float valves etc

The continuous water out will be running from the main sum return so this shouldn't get blocked, the feed in will go into my middle compartment which has been pre-filtered so there is no debris there and I will be adding a float switch to this too. I've got a circulation wave maker in my main tank which helps with keeping plants clean but I also clean dead leaves and hover the plants once a week and make sure the weir to the sump is clear.

If the sump return pump stops I have enough spare capacity in the sump for it not to overflow and if the tank drain get blocked there is an emergency drain and the return pump also has circuity which will turn it off if it runs dry. Hopefully I have enought fail safes to stop anything major happening.

As I said above I am quite keen to find out if the HMA doesn't remove all chlorine as I keep discus.

Thanks

 

[ian_m]

The two issues HMA filter users encounter is exhausted carbon prefilters and chloramine.

Exhaustion of pre-filters is very common as you have no idea what the chlorine levels of the incoming water is in the first place.

Read here about HMA filters and chlorine & chloramine.

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/hma-filter-which-one-to-buy.35946/

Biggest issue is emergency chloramine being added to the water being broken down to chlorine, which gets absorbed and ammonia which passes out into your water.

One of the local fish shops I visited always tested his HMA water for chlorine and ammonia, and yes he had seen ammonia present in the HAM filtered water once.

Generally small amounts of chlorinated water in your tank will quickly dissipate, especially with high organic waste fish (discuss). Similar with ammonia, especially if water is allowed to stand before adding to the tank.

Better of course, is to just dose your stored water with Prime (or even cheaper sodium thiosulphate) and then no worries.

 

[DavidW]

Ok, will get some prime. I think I'm going to need to adjust my system so that it only fills once the water butt is nearly empty so I can dose the correct amount of prime. I think If I get a water timer I should be able to do this I'll need to see how long it takes for the butt to empty and how long it takes to fill to get the timer setup properly.

 

[ian_m]

You need one of these to do your water changes. Simple.

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/how-to-use-a-plc-to-control-your-fish-tank-part-1.42993/

The 8 input 4 relay output version is only £100 odd.

 

[alto]

Depending on water filter set up, removal of chlorine/chloramines should not be a problem - just select suitable cartridges & ensure recommended flow rates, maintenance etc
You can add Prime as an additional step but this should not be necessary

adjust my system so that it only fills once the water butt is nearly empty

talk to your water filter expert about this change - most water filter systems are designed with an expected continual flow, if you change to an interval flow, some sort of bacteriostat tech should be applied to the cartridges (eg silver impregnation) or system (eg UV or automated circulation)

 

[DavidW]

I've always used the hma to fill up a tank once a week, let the water stand and heat up to 28 degrees for a day and then done a water change. I've never had any issues I do have a UV steriliser in my sump. I've looked around and I can get a 5-20 micron bacteriostat stage 1 filter for my HMA.

I'm going to get a flow meter for my water supply so I can monitor how much water has gone through the HMA so I can more accurately work out when to change the filters.

There's a lot to consider when setting up a continuous flow to an aquarium. Once I workout the fine details out I'll post in my journal how I've set things up 🙂