Evaporation

Hi All

I was curious to here from you about how you manage the evaporation in your marine tanks, for the volume and temp you keep it at , how much you need daily ?

Mine is a 4ft x 18x 18 and seems to go through 600ml to 800ml daily at 26°c. - not sure if that's a lot but it is regularly needing top ups... and I would like to automate this some how?

There is a reverse osmosis (RO) auto top up system available, ask any where at a reputable aquarium shop or the guys at Bens shop, age of aquariums, for some advice on products and check the link on here at their web site if you like to see the costs of this type of thing.

Heaps of evaporation is normal, I loose around two and half litres a day.

With NWMS algae assistance or any reasonable amount of algae/syano,than toping up is much simpler, you see there are some nitrates and phosphates in our drinking water and a lot of other things that if not removed after a simple evaporation top up can be a slight issue to the over all aquarium.

I use straight tap water with neutraliser in first; fill the bucket from the tap and ad to the sump, I put in enough for two to three days evap,of course it reduces the salinity, but the rubbish about the detrimental affects of this are just that, rubbish, if you are careful and there are safeguards in place!

As long as the salinity does not vary beyond two to possibly three points on the specific gravity tester, its no big deal.

If your tank water is kept roughly at .023 like mine, than a one to two point drop is okay, once you sustain salinity at lower than .022 for any length of time, bacteria attacks start on your corals and fluctuations in fighting and mutations occur with in the protists community of the oxidising protists, than more PH problems as your biological community has to alter to suit

Also algae, symbiotic or not, will react and effect your PH as well.

The bio filtering used commonly is a delicate system, this being a live rock run tank, the salinity variation may set off some slight PH fluctuations, with out cascaded waters in the system some where or at least a strong water surface tension broken somewhere with in the waters of the aquarium to help off set this potential partial or total tank killer from happening.

A skimmer does not do a very good job of keeping these types of issues in check!

A cheap way to auto top up is, if you have a little extra room, is to make up your neutralised waters and store it,(sought of),you than get a plastic jerry can type of container, camping shops have drums, all kinds of things suitable and take the lid off one end and use a soldering iron to make two small holes in the lid for micro sprinkler riser hosing to fit into them, make a frame to support the jerry can up side down next to the tank.

When you turn it up side down I used to have homemade silicon plugs I push in the hose ends to stop early water getting out of the drum until it is in place.

Have the two hoses coming out of the lid totally sealed around them, attach them together and make one 10 mil shorter than the other one and place them in the water with the water in your sump at the level you want, have the shortest hose at the waters level and this will automatically top up while there is water in the jerry can/drum.

I used to use large coke bottles like this on a homemade frame or in the filter area at the back of the tanks at the ekka for my comp tanks so they looked after them selves and not have others putting in the wrong waters in when caring for them.

Hi Liquidg

Thank for the info and answer mate, I like the idea of automating this to introduce small amounts regularly...... my salinity is around the .023 and doesn't vary much at all.....still trying to work out that NWMS for my application and I would like to include some kind of auto top up' I will check out the link provided

Cheers