The 10 Minute Water Change

http://www.3reef.com/forums/i-made/my-tunze-osmaolator-automated-water-change-89115.html

That was my write up. It worked great. The Tunze ATO is great... but really you could incorporate the same with any ATO.

Basically you use a relay to switch between your top off pump and your water change pump.... so you dump water... the ato does not come on, but the fresh salt water tops off to proper level. No measuring or expensive dual peristaltic pumps. If you can dump to drain then you will have it made. You could totally automate your salinity with a conductivity probe.

The write up should get you started. A couple of posts down from the first I post the water change article from Randy Farley. Cliffs notes are after the numbers are crunched a 30g water change per month is as effective as changing 26g a month but doing that a gallon a day. So daily water changes are 86% as effective as doing one large monthly change.

 

Awesome setup. I'm jealous I don't have the room for something like this, so tired of filling up a garbage can in my living room. I've toyed with the idea of putting the water change setup in my garage and then running the pipes through the crawl space under the house, but I've been far too lazy to pull it off.