How fast do you go through your ATO water?

[buzzfin]

About 1.5 gallons/day on my 100g.

 

[Reefer Matt]

That sounds about right to me. My 135 gallon fowlr uses about a gallon+ a day. I just use an elevated 5 gallon bucket with tubing going to a float switch in the sump for topoff. Then I refill the bucket every 3-4 days as needed.

 

[sfin52]

With Hewbie’s new home and the sump area being really warm until I can get the carpenter to install the cooling fan. I discovered I’m going through 2-4 gallons of water every other day or so. Which seems like absolute insanity to me. How much do you go through? The tank is a 120 with sump and around every other day I’m filling the 5 gallon ATO container.

Mine tank is in the basement running with the swamp 5 gal about ever 3 days.

 

[BryanM]

Logical, but hadn't thought about going from 110 to 220 gallons, and it using far more ATO water. Glad the new reservoir is larger.

 

[Cael Gallery]

It takes me about a week to go through one of those larger reefcans (40 litres i think, not sure in gallons) on my red sea g2 750. Summer, Southern Australia in a shed with usually lots of fresh air coming through the open door.

 

[PotatoPig]

That doesn’t make sense to me but either way I was going to add one because it does get very warm under the sump and it’s closed in. So to prevent mold etc. I am adding one. Part of the reason I’m getting so much now is because the sump is really warm and humid.

So the humidity is helping prevent water from evaporating there. More humidity = less evaporation.

You’ll get more evaporation when the air is dry. If you’re somewhere where the weather is very cold and you have your heating on then the air in your house will be very dry, which makes it easier for water to evaporate into it. Chances are you’ll see much more evaporation in winter than summer.

Evaporation = Energy

It takes energy to evaporate water. Quite a lot. Blowing air over the water will very effectively cool the tank, same as how a fan blowing on you in summer will evaporate sweat and cool you.

If you put a fan in there the heaters will turn on more hours of the day to replace the energy you’re drawing from the tank, which will evaporate more water.

In terms of your energy bill - every gallon of evaporation is about 2.25kWh of heating you have to supply to the tank to maintain the tank temperature.

 

[Otterly Ridiculous]

I go through about 4 gallons every 3 days with a Marine X 110.4 I have to top off my RO system every 3 days.

 

[Luisn17]

I recall Vic from WWC stating the normal the normal evaporation is about 1-2% of the total volume. I see about 2-3 gallons in the summer from my 240 DT. About 2 gallons now in the winter.

 

[56longroof]

I use 2 gallons a day in my 150.

 

[IceNein]

I think evaporation is a pretty complicated issue. It depends on the tank size, the room size, if the room is open to the rest of the house, the relative humidity of the room, tank temperature, and probably even more that I'm not thinking of.

Someone could have a 75 gallon tank in a 10' cube room where the door is shut most of the time, and it will have less evaporation than if the tank is in a large living room connected openly to the rest of the house. So in many ways saying "I have a 75 gallon tank and it feels like it's evaporating a lot, how much does your tank evaporate?" is a question that isn't going to provide a useful answer unless many other parameters are considered.

But to add another useless bit of data to the pile, my 15 gallon tank evaporates roughly 1.5 gallons per week.

 

[KrisReef]

I know it is. And I hope that adding a cooling fan to the sump area cools it off and there’s less evaporation.

Adding a cooling fan might actually increase evaporation.

My tank gets all the RODI it can drink, and consumption varies a lot. It drinks more in winter than in summer!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I refill my 18g ATO container weekly.