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Re: Water changes



Bill, what a great idea with the powerhead!  I have been working on a water
changer for my tank for ages and plan to have it go into a reservoir outside
to be pumped out to plants as well.  Hate to waste it down the drain and
into the septic.

There is less than 2 inches of clearance behind my tank so the commercial
overflow units won't fly to start with.  I have built one (I found a design
for it on the internet) and it seems like it should work but I don't have
much confidence in either the commercial variety or this one either!  We
have tweaked it outside but haven't managed to get terribly comfortable with
it.

Your idea is wonderful but I have a couple of questions.  I am looking for
something I can automate and not have to mess with.  I have a sprinkler
timer to turn things on/off.  If I put the powerhead down to the level I
want the tank drained to and put it on the timer, the following should
happen? Timer powers on powerhead, it starts sucking for a couple of minutes
until the timer kicks it off (before the water is down anywhere near the
powerhead) water will continue to siphon until the pump is out of the water
and the siphon should break then.  Several minutes later, another program on
the controller will kick on the water input, which is a separate line
obviously, to refill the tank until a float switch trips. (unless Bill has a
better idea!)  The drain line will have broken siphon prior to this point
and won't restart the siphon (right?). That eliminates the overflow I built
that could potentially fail and the fear of that has been what has halted
the installation.  Plus, you are draining out all "old" water and then
dumping in fresh versus mixing them and siphoning out water that has been
diluted.
Am I missing something?

Daphne who is so excited about Bill's post!