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Bad back and carrying 25L contaners-Options?

alanchown

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Joined
20 Dec 2008
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129
I have recently shifted over to using RO cut with tap water. I fill 25l containers and pump in tank using the inlet on my FX4.
I have a bad back and carrying the 25l containers is crippling me.
I have seen the chap in Green Aqua using a booster pump to feed the RO straight into tank. But if I'm changing 50% the temp drop must be huge? Is this doable?
Plan B is to plonk the empty containers next to tank and if the pumped RO is quick enough fill up the evening before, but Mrs C may not be impressed.

Alan
 
I use containers with RO too, but I only carry them half full, I just have an extra container and move one, then move the second and tip it into the first. I try and fill two halves when I run the RO but if I have a full one - I just jug out half into the second rather than lifting n pouring (with a 2L jug it's only takes 30 seconds to do).
 
I never worrie about the temp drop ( it can happen in nature too)
I regularly put the gardenhose in my 400 gallon to do a large waterchange ( leave it running a few hours) which makes the temp drop from 25 to 18 or so. If you take an hour or 90 min to do the 50% change i wouldn't worrie.
 
It would take at least that. If I'm cutting with tap could use that to balance temp.
 
Could you not pre heat the RO by putting a heater in it for a few hours? Just a thought.

When I had a 200 L tank and did large changes I’d run a hose from the kitchen mixer tap and adjust the temperature as it came out the tap.
 
Your first point would be my plan B. I.e fill containers adjacent to tank to save carrying. Issue would be the time it takes to refill. However I have a booster pump on order.
Your point 2 is what I was doing before I started using RO.
 
Carpet or wooden floor? I've seen people using large plastic water containers on trolleys with castors on. Wheel up to aquarium and use a pump to fill.
 
Where’s your RO filter ?
Does it fill a barrel ?
If so then fill it with the required mix and drop a pond pump in it to pump the water to your tank

How do you heat the water in your home? If it’s a combi boiler use warm tap water for your mix

Are you treating the tape water you use with anything? If not then using your filter to fill the tank isn’t a good idea, you will be killing the filter bacteria





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The Fluval FX6/FX4 have a spare tank fill/draining input/output, so when filling tank the water bypasses the filter media

I normally fill mine with as much cold tap water I can. Tank rarely goes below 18C when I do it. Although in winter when the water gets really cold the flow though the shower mixer is pants so mix with hot water at the same time
Don't have heaters on tanks any more as the after monitoring the temps it never drops below 20C except on WC day.
I'm with 'Ed' as it's just like a downpour of rain landing on a small stream/river/pond. Was fishing on the river Lawrence in Canada one summer, whilst waiting for bites we would swim in the river to cool off, the water was tepid near the bank you didn't have to go out far and the temp soon dropped , and the river was really wide. So fish are use to sudden temp changes in nature but there are limits OFC
 
Carpet or wooden floor? I've seen people using large plastic water containers on trolleys with castors on. Wheel up to aquarium and use a pump to fill.
My house is too small and full of family junk, I have bought and tried a trolley,a bit of an assault course!
 
Where’s your RO filter ?
Does it fill a barrel ?


Are you treating the tape water you use with anything? If not then using your filter to fill the tank isn’t a good idea, you will be killing the filter bacteria

It's only the RO that goes via filter and I'm pretty sure it bypasses media.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I think I'm going to try pumping with RO straight in. The issue is I have a 2 hour window on Saturdays to get the job done, so if the booster pump does the job it will save a lot of lifting! I use about 30% tap so can use that to adjust temp if it goes to out of kilter.
 
From what I can make out you produce the RO yourself, don't want to carry the containers and using a container on wheels is out of the question.
Unsure quite of your setup etc so I'll as some questions - where do you normally produce your RO, how/where do you store it and how long does it currently take to make the amount you require?
I'm also unsure which RO unit you have or what you're expecting from the booster pump (or would get)

All of this is just guesswork but If it was possible how about moving the RO production so it's stored somewhere higher than your aquarium, upstairs even?
Store the RO in one big container and depending on your RO unit fit a float valve to that container so it shuts off when the container is full.
If this or something similar is possible then there's all kinds of things you can do to simplify things further.
 
I make my RO in the garden at present from a garden tap. I 'make' around a 100L. Storing upstairs won't get past Mrs C. It take around 3-4 hours I guess. A large container at height is something I've been thinking about but space again is an issue.
 
I used RO a lot with marines. General rule of thumb, RO water will be reduced by 4 times from the manufacturers quoted amount due to variables in mains temp and pressure. A booster will then double that quantity
 
I'm assuming the booster purely boosts pressure and not temperature?
 
I make my RO in the garden at present from a garden tap. I 'make' around a 100L. Storing upstairs won't get past Mrs C. It take around 3-4 hours I guess. A large container at height is something I've been thinking about but space again is an issue.
Making RO outside in the winter? :eek:

No idea how far you are wanting to go, spend or other details so I'll just give you a scenario on what I could execute here with relative ease and possibly work around things you've said so far:
I have a cold water storage tank in my loft as part of my heating system so have water and could quite easily add another for the RO unit to fill on a float switch, below the storage tank is the airing cupboard and I could quite easily drill another hole through the ceiling so RO water from the storage tank was quite literally on tap in the airing cupboard, connect a hose adapter onto the tap and you now have RO at height which could be delivered directly to your aquarium through a hose- If you could get permission for something like this or would work is very much a different matter.
 
Your cold water supply ideally shouldn't go above 20C because of legionella, esp in cold water storage (should be above 50C for hot water tank) We monitor/log our water temps at work because of legionella and the winter temps drop below 10C easy ( temp from memory)
 
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