Ok, my DT is located in the living room and it's a 150. Not exactly easy to tote RO water bucket by bucket. What are some of the ways you guys get large amounts of water to your storage tanks and then into your DT? I am thinking about drilling a hole through the floor, and running a pipe through it and storing the RO water in the basement and then just pump it up into the tank. Only bad part, is the basement is very cold in the winter and this could pose a problem.
I was also thinking about storing a spare 55 behind the couch and using that, problem with that would be how to get it to that tank from the RO unit. This will be a total Pain in the arse. Is RO/DI water REALLY that important? I keep zoo's and have some frogspawn, and a sinularia.
I have a mag pump with 50' of clear tubing. When I do a water change I drop the pump right into the display tank and run the tubing to the toilet. Then I drop the pump into my trash can where I mix my salt water to fill the display back up. Takes about 10 minutes to swap out 25 gallons.
Everything is on the same floor. I think it would work with an even longer run of tubing but not sure how it would handle head pressure going up a floor.
I like tanksters idea. A good spot would be a utility/laundry room to keep fresh ro and pre made saltwater. Long hose, water storage containers and a good mag pump, and you are ready to rock!
A peristaltic pump is your best bet when it comes to higher heads but they pump slowly. For an autotopoff it would be perfect, I have on pulling water from my garage 40 feet away no problems, but for water changes it would take forever. Peristaltic pumps have the advantage you do not have to worry about backsiphons or flooding due to their design and do not require check valves or air gaps.
You kind of need a pump that will do say 12-15 feet of head, with a check valve when pumping up, and can be started and stopped remotely. Last year I bought an outlet strip for christmas lights with a remote control so I did'nt have to go outside and unplug things, maybe something like that to control the pump from upstairs with the water stored downstairs? Just throwing out ideas here.
I store my water change water in 5G clear drinking water jugs or the blue camping jugs with handles from WalMart. I have a 20 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck trash can on wheels I wheel in to the room, add a few jugs of RO/DI, salt and a powerthead to mix it up and pump it to the display. For draining a Python siphon would work. For my ATO reservoir I have a 23 gallon Rubbermaid recycling can mounted in my garage which fills directly from the RO/DI via a solenoid valve and float switches then feeds in to the house and sump via a peristaltic pump and controller mounted under the tank next to the sump.
Peristaltic pumps have the advantage you do not have to worry about backsiphons or flooding due to their design and do not require check valves or air gaps.
You kind of need a pump that will do say 12-15 feet of head, with a check valve when pumping up, and can be started and stopped remotely. Last year I bought an outlet strip for christmas lights with a remote control so I did'nt have to go outside and unplug things, maybe something like that to control the pump from upstairs with the water stored downstairs? Just throwing out ideas here.
I use an extension cord as long as my tubing and plug it in next to the tank so I can turn it on/off by plugging/unplugging it.