maintaining water level

[ClownieandBilly]

hi, i am having major difficulties in maintaining water level.i am using an auto top up system in my sump to add r/o.last week i had a problem in that i came home to find my sump level ok but my top up system had added 15 litres of r/o to the system and main tank was almost overflowing.i turned off my auto top up and over a few days adjusted level manually until it had settled down.i was adding around 2-3 litres a day for last 3 days to top up my sump to the correct level.but today i have noticed the level i main tank has dropped around 3/4"-1" and sump remains ok (marginally higher)it seems that evaporation is causing the main tank level to drop
i am very confused and would like any help possible.i can not move on to set up my kalk stirrer until i get the basic water level stable


THANKS FOR HELP

 

[OrionGirl]

Is the salinity stable?

I would remove the auto topoff, and determine how much water you need added daily manually, then set the system up to drip this water into a jug or tub where you can measure it--and set it to provide the correct amount of water without messing with your main tank.

 

[reefpicker]

Hi,

I am not sure what you are confused about, but I assume that you are concerned that the amount of water your tank is evaporating is abnormal. It is not.

It is very normal for a tank to loosse about an inch or two of water in a couple of days. It will really depend on your tank shape, size, lighting and your sump size, shape, etc. All this parameters will affect your evaporation rate. Adding a sump will increase the evaporation. So what you are seeing is normal.

It seems that you can not trust you auto top-off system. Perhaps you should contact the manufacturer to see if they can help you set it up properly.

I have noted before in this forum that my technique to keep salinity constant is to use a drip unit, which slowly drips fresh water onto the tank. I have used Kent's AquaDoser before, but you can build your own.

It is an inexpensive, yet reliable system. The AquaDose can clog sometimes, but at least if anything goes wrong with it you will not affect your salinity or your tank level that much.

I do not know how the sump top-off system you have operates, but limiting its freshwater supply might prevent future disasters from happening (i.e only have enough water supplying it so that it does not overflow if it feeds the entire water supply to the sump).

HTH