One DOS for AWC on TWO tanks?

[Klyle]

Has anyone attempted this and been successful or not? I did the mod to the pumps where converted the lines to rodi tubing. I can’t see why if I added splitters and ball valves I would just simply have to turn the valves depending on which tank was getting wc that day…This seems very do-able. Am I overlooking anything here?

 

[CasperOe]

Following to save some money on my three wee nano tanks!

 

[Klyle]

I

Following to save some money on my three wee nano tanks!

Nice! The only thing I can think that might be an issue is if you calibrate the dos on tank a but tank b is significantly closer or farther away…idk I’m just guessing here. Even if they were off, as long as they were off by the same amount it won’t matter. There has to be people that have done this before

 

[CasperOe]

I

Nice! The only thing I can think that might be an issue is if you calibrate the dos on tank a but tank b is significantly closer or farther away…idk I’m just guessing here. Even if they were off, as long as they were off by the same amount it won’t matter. There has to be people that have done this before

The thought didn't even struck my mind until just now I was looking for three used DOS or Versa's on eBay. Will stop looking for now and consider your brilliant plan from a man that has more sense than I do!

 

[areefer01]

At first I was going to say no but then realized you mentioned valves to direct flow manually. I'm assuming manually anyway. If so then the challenge is calibration. Calibration is based on the final setting and/or run length of tubing. Continuous. At least based on my understanding and use of the DOS. I do not do AWC but standard dosing be it 2 part previous or current single AFR.

If you could get the run length of tubing equal then it could work. This is possible by using equal lengths and coiling up the left over on the shorter run. Should be easy to test. Run the task and let it calibrate and see if they fill up equally after changing directions.

 

[Klyle]

The thought didn't even struck my mind until just now I was looking for three used DOS or Versa's on eBay. Will stop looking for now and consider your brilliant plan from a man that has more sense than I do!

Haha…glad to help. It was actually my crazy neighbor’s idea. He’s usually asking ridiculous questions and coming up with ways to unnecessarily McGuyver my tank…or my cat. Things I will never actually do. He suggested using the DOS for both tanks. I was like, NO! That won’t work. Well I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’m sure I can make it work. Turning some ball valves sounds way easier than carrying water! If u end up doing this I’m sure the rodi conversion to the pumps will be necessary. There’s plenty of info online about that

 

[Klyle]

At first I was going to say no but then realized you mentioned valves to direct flow manually. I'm assuming manually anyway. If so then the challenge is calibration. Calibration is based on the final setting and/or run length of tubing. Continuous. At least based on my understanding and use of the DOS. I do not do AWC but standard dosing be it 2 part previous or current single AFR.

If you could get the run length of tubing equal then it could work. This is possible by using equal lengths and coiling up the left over on the shorter run. Should be easy to test. Run the task and let it calibrate and see if they fill up equally after changing directions.

My thoughts exactly! I’m glad we are on the same page…

 

[CasperOe]

Haha…glad to help. It was actually my crazy neighbor’s idea. He’s usually asking ridiculous questions and coming up with ways to unnecessarily McGuyver my tank…or my cat. Things I will never actually do. He suggested using the DOS for both tanks. I was like, NO! That won’t work. Well I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’m sure I can make it work. Turning some ball valves sounds way easier than carrying water! If u end up doing this I’m sure the rodi conversion to the pumps will be necessary. There’s plenty of info online about that

I reckon you should try and let me know how you get on I have one DOS doing water change on my big tank.

I have 3 x Red Sea Max Nano I want to hook up, so I will likely get another DOS for them and try it out.

Btw, don't want to know what weird McGuyver-stuff you do with your cat

 

[Klyle]

I reckon you should try and let me know how you get on I have one DOS doing water change on my big tank.

I have 3 x Red Sea Max Nano I want to hook up, so I will likely get another DOS for them and try it out.

Btw, don't want to know what weird McGuyver-stuff you do with your cat

Did I say cat? Haha yeah that’s messed up. Obviously I meant car. What would u like to know exactly? The rodi conversion part or how I end up actually running the lines and valves and such? I’m going to order the parts of Amazon so hopefully this is something I can do next weekend

 

[CasperOe]

Did I say cat? Haha yeah that’s messed up. Obviously I meant car. What would u like to know exactly? The rodi conversion part or how I end up actually running the lines and valves and such? I’m going to order the parts of Amazon so hopefully this is something I can do next weekend

Lines and valves I think I can work out- but it would always be helpful and handy to see how someone else is doing it!

As for the RODI-conversion, might be brain fog on my part but I simply don't understand why RODI (.. and conversion whatever that means!) would be a consideration when talking about AWC

I mean, water goes in and out at the same rate at the same time. No RODI should be needed, right? I do nothing of the sort on my big display tank.

Well, apart from the 150 ml. of water i remove daily thanks to Triton..

 

[CasperOe]

Lines and valves I think I can work out- but it would always be helpful and handy to see how someone else is doing it!

As for the RODI-conversion, might be brain fog on my part but I simply don't understand why RODI (.. and conversion whatever that means!) would be a consideration when talking about AWC

I mean, water goes in and out at the same rate at the same time. No RODI should be needed, right? I do nothing of the sort on my big display tank.

Well, apart from the 150 ml. of water i remove daily thanks to Triton..

Just figured out what you're on about ;-) It's the 1/4" RODI connections to the dosing heads, right?

 

[Klyle]

Just figured out what you're on about ;-) It's the 1/4" RODI connections to the dosing heads, right?

Yes sir! Just the fittings, not actually RODI

 

[CasperOe]

Yes sir! Just the fittings, not actually RODI

I'm off the drink for today I reckon Cheers pal, I look forward to hearing how you get on! When I am home from working offshore I'll give it a go with my three tanks as well!

Can't find these fittings anywhere in the UK, might bring some home from the US next time i'm over.

 

[Klyle]

Yes sir! Just the fittings, not actually RODI

I will gladly post my progress…hopefully I’ll have it done within a week. I don’t know if you saw areefer01’s post but they mentioned something about calibration also and keeping the lines to each tank the same length. I was already thinking that but a great idea. I will update wins / fails on this post.

 

[Klyle]

I'm off the drink for today I reckon Cheers pal, I look forward to hearing how you get on! When I am home from working offshore I'll give it a go with my three tanks as well!

Can't find these fittings anywhere in the UK, might bring some home from the US next time i'm over.

Off the drink- u foreigners and ur expressions! Haha I’m just messin with u. But I am curious, does that mean uve been drinking? Because I have…and if it comes down to it, let me know and we’ll get u some “proper” fittings. I just found 5 x 1/4” rodi check valves for SIX DOLLARS!! That is crazy because Ace Hardware charges more than that for just one.

 

[Klyle]

Off the drink- u foreigners and ur expressions! Haha I’m just messin with u. But I am curious, does that mean uve been drinking? Because I have…and if it comes down to it, let me know and we’ll get u some “proper” fittings. I just found 5 x 1/4” rodi check valves for SIX DOLLARS!! That is crazy because Ace Hardware charges more than that for just one.

Not check valves, ball valves. Told u I was drinking

 

[areefer01]

I will gladly post my progress…hopefully I’ll have it done within a week. I don’t know if you saw areefer01’s post but they mentioned something about calibration also and keeping the lines to each tank the same length. I was already thinking that but a great idea. I will update wins / fails on this post.

I think we are on the same page, yes. Get everything set up first. Run the same length of lines which is the critical part. The doesn't won't know or care about any valves. I'm assuming you will run the DOS AWS task but it assumes you run the get started setup which includes calibration. Thus setting up everything first, verifying the line lengths, run initial setup, then task.

Note that I've not done what you are suggesting but just walking through how I would do it or think it should work. So I do believe we are on the same page. Once you finish the task you could setup a test and do a gallon change on each to see if it is close. That would be easy to correct if so.

Hope your day is going well.

Edit: suncrestreef (user name I believe) has a few threads on auto water changes. Not doing this but at least covers the setup or how he does it. He is a good person and Neptune savvy. If it helps any.

 

[Klyle]

I think we are on the same page, yes. Get everything set up first. Run the same length of lines which is the critical part. The doesn't won't know or care about any valves. I'm assuming you will run the DOS AWS task but it assumes you run the get started setup which includes calibration. Thus setting up everything first, verifying the line lengths, run initial setup, then task.

Note that I've not done what you are suggesting but just walking through how I would do it or think it should work. So I do believe we are on the same page. Once you finish the task you could setup a test and do a gallon change on each to see if it is close. That would be easy to correct if so.

Hope your day is going well.

Edit: suncrestreef (user name I believe) has a few threads on auto water changes. Not doing this but at least covers the setup or how he does it. He is a good person and Neptune savvy. If it helps any.

Awesome. Thanks for the info. I didn’t like the idea of the pumps running in opposite directions so I didn’t do the calibration through the AWC task but either way, it’s calibrated. I can get all the fittings and hose I need for less than $40 so I’ll be ordering that tonight and getting started as soon as it arrives. I would think if you had one run that was much longer than the other and you coiled up say, 40’ of tubing in order to match the lengths, just the actual coils in the tube would cause some resistance. Maybe I’m wrong but I think the larger diameter of the coils, the less resistance you would end up with- thus closer to calibration.

 

[Klyle]

I am happy to report the DOS seems to be working very well for both tanks. I ordered a bunch of murlok ball valves and splitters and just finished running the lines this morning. Something I didn’t realize until I was hooking everything up- only four ball valves and two splitters are needed. (I’m sure this is very obvious but I didn’t realize it until I had everything hooked up) Because I am using the same new SW for both tanks, no splits or valves are needed on the input from the SW bin…and the same for old SW out. Once I had everything hooked up, I did calibration on the “original” tank. Once I had that done, I closed the two valves going to that tank and opened the two going to the other tank. I redid the calibration and was just a couple mL’s off…i repeated this process two more times, switching from tank to tank. I don’t know if it was from purging air from the lines or what, but after I calibrated both tanks multiple times, it went from being a couple mL’s off here or there, to being dead on 40 mL. For both tanks. I didn’t measure the distance of the lines but they are definitely not the same length…one tank is about 5 to 10 feet farther than the other. But so far I am super pleased. Turning a couple of valves twice a week is way easier than carrying 5g buckets up the steps!

 

[CasperOe]

I am happy to report the DOS seems to be working very well for both tanks. I ordered a bunch of murlok ball valves and splitters and just finished running the lines this morning. Something I didn’t realize until I was hooking everything up- only four ball valves and two splitters are needed. (I’m sure this is very obvious but I didn’t realize it until I had everything hooked up) Because I am using the same new SW for both tanks, no splits or valves are needed on the input from the SW bin…and the same for old SW out. Once I had everything hooked up, I did calibration on the “original” tank. Once I had that done, I closed the two valves going to that tank and opened the two going to the other tank. I redid the calibration and was just a couple mL’s off…i repeated this process two more times, switching from tank to tank. I don’t know if it was from purging air from the lines or what, but after I calibrated both tanks multiple times, it went from being a couple mL’s off here or there, to being dead on 40 mL. For both tanks. I didn’t measure the distance of the lines but they are definitely not the same length…one tank is about 5 to 10 feet farther than the other. But so far I am super pleased. Turning a couple of valves twice a week is way easier than carrying 5g buckets up the steps!

See, that's exactly what I was hoping for! Very, very pleased it worked out well for you- that's fantastic! Once I am back from working away in about a month I will give it a go with three tanks and let you all know how it's working out for me!

Interesting that your lines are not the same length - although if the lines are all full of water and all the air purged, it shouldn't matter much with a good dosing pump like the DOS!

Thanks for bringing us along!!