# Auto water change



## vincel892 (May 23, 2012)

Has anyone set up an auto or semi auto water change for their large tanks? Im looking to set one up for my 200 gallon. Ive done it before using a simple float valve/drip system but there is no way for me to replace the water taken out with warm water. Temps drop quite a bit so I don't want to keep doing this. 

My new plan is to put a sump pump + float switch in my sump and simply fill the main tank with my 50 foot python. I am hoping that the overflow would drain into the sump quick enough so that the main tank doesn't overflow. The sump pump would then pump the extra water in the sump into the drain. Alternatively , I can use an existing pond pump that I have and wire in a float switch + relay but that would require more work and I'm not completely sure how to do that yet. 

In terms of treating the tap water, I usually dose seachem safe directly into the tank while filling and haven't seen any problems. So I would keep doing that. 

This wouldn't be completely automatic but would save me the trouble of having to wait for the tank to drain/ fill up and save water because I wouldn't have to keep the tap running to siphon out the water from the main tank. 

Any thoughts ? 

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## harveysburger (Feb 16, 2009)

*semi-automation...*

I have a similar contraption to semi-automate water changes. I can share some details in case something in there gives you an idea for your setup

I don't like to pour water straight from the tap and don't want to use hot/warm water from the tap either because of the risk of heavy metals or whatever that might come from the water tank. I am not sure if those fears are substantiated or not but I never took any chance with that.

So for that reason I have a big ~60g food grade barrel with a heater and a small circulation pump in it. After each WC I fill it back up so by the time I do my next WC the water is at the right temperature, pH stabilized and some of the chlorine have evaporated. I have an old sump pump in the barrel and vinyl tubing from there all the way to my tank.

I also have vinyl tubing the other way around all the way to a big basement sink and another spare old pump under the tank cabinet which I use to pump water out of the tank.

I ran the vinyl inside the walls and behind furniture, etc... so it's not visible

The overall process becomes...
1. Stop the sump pump 
2. hook my other pump to the vinyl and drop it in the tank, then plug it in so it starts pushing water to the basement sink until I removed close to 60g. 
3. Put that pump back in the cabinet 
4. Plug in the pump that sits at the bottom of the 60g barrel till most of the water in it was pushed into the main tank , then unplug that pump and then fill the barrel back up.

I have a few gate valve on each end of the vinyl tubing which come handy.

So... I guess it's nowhere near full automation but since there is no drain nearby where my tank is I couldn't rely on gravity overflow in there. 
Plus I didn't feel like setting up a drip system since it ends up wasting so much more water than what I am doing above.

Another issue I had is I started off with a 50 feet python but it took a long time to fill up the tank , the pressure was too low... with an old pump Mag 9.5 it goes pretty fast


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## vincel892 (May 23, 2012)

harveysburger said:


> I have a similar contraption to semi-automate water changes. I can share some details in case something in there gives you an idea for your setup
> 
> I don't like to pour water straight from the tap and don't want to use hot/warm water from the tap either because of the risk of heavy metals or whatever that might come from the water tank. I am not sure if those fears are substantiated or not but I never took any chance with that.
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing your set up. I would love to make it somewhat slightly more automated haha. Whether I can actually get it that way is another question. My only concern with my original plan is that the overflow into the sump would not be fast enough and therefore , cause the main tank to overflow.

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