Stray Voltage/Inaccurate PH reading

[thekameleon]

I have thought about a skimmate alarm/pump or auto water changing, but it appears the ATO capabilities are all wired to one ATOExtendedTimer... Now if we had separate timers for WL ATO, SingleATOHigh and SingleATOLow. Then we can effectively have 3 independent ATO/drainers... Hint hint... nudge nudge

[rimai]

We had them separate in the past and it was a nightmare to deal with all of the different ones.
Everyone was getting confused about which value to change, so I decided to combine every ATO timeout into a single location to make things easier.
But if you are doing something other than ATO, you really don't want to use timeout anyway, right?

[thekameleon]

Here are the scenarios I am thinking:

A skimmate toilet of sorts now before you laugh here me out. Once the skimmate gets to a certain or at a specified interval a electric water valve (similar to the ones used in washing machines, opens up and water is then pushed into the holding tank. Now the holding tank has a drain line that goes into the sewage system. (I was thinking the point of where washer house goes into). I could use a standard toilet valve to control the fill. Now I would need a timer to engage to turn off the valve once it is triggered.

I would also love to completely automate my water change. So auto fill my 55G water container... auto mix in salt in and stir it up for 6 hours, initiate water change mode on the reef angel, drain the sump (it hold 55g of water), then fill it from the water barrel, turn off water change mode on the reef angel... Presto... automated water change.

[rimai]

Interesting...
I'm sure doable!!

[thekameleon]

Ahh I forgot to mention in the water container, I would have a temperature probe as well, with a heater for the container. This way I can match the temperatures. I am not so worried about exact salinity matching as I would have a fixed about of salt prepared ahead of time for mixing. Now the biggest challenge is how to I had the salt automatically. My first thought, would be to pump water into the salt holding chamber and let it naturally just dissolve into the flowing water. I wonder though if the salt would eventually clump up or block the water flow... This is going to be my home depot project for sure

[rimai]

You definitely don't want to do that.
Parameters will be all messed up.
You will have supersaturation which will cause the calcium to precipitate and you will loose a lot in the precipitation.
I'm no chemist, but once it precipitates, it's hard to bring it back. That's the theory of the calcium reactor. You drop ph so low that it starts dissolving calcium back into the water.

[thekameleon]

OK so I am up for creative ideas for automating the addition salt to RO water.

[lnevo]

I would automate a gradual continuos change and just mix up a batch every week. Set your ato relay based on salinity.

[thekameleon]

Its the mixing part I want to automate. I know that 38 grams of salt can be dissolved into 100 grams of water... Is there a risk in mixing a concentrate salt water and then mixing that?

[rimai]

If it were just salt, it would not be a problem.
The problem is that we use a salt mix, which included some other chemicals that when super saturated, react differently.
The soluble Ca for one is going to become a precipitate and your water will be cloudy and you will loose lots of the Ca in the process. I'm no chemist, so I don't know the exact reaction that happens, but I do know that it does.
With the loss of Ca, you will need to supplement with dosing later on. It's just a waste of the good salt mix... lol
I wish there was a good method of doing this too, but the only thing I can think of is mechanical shaker