Automation of R/O Reconstitution

[zeteki]

Hello all. I'm hoping for a little advice and a lot of indulgence for someone who knows little about reef systems and even less about reefs.

I'm setting up what I hope will be a completely automated filtration/misting/water changing system for amphibians (I understand they're almost as finicky as marine organisms). The plan is to use R/O water and reconstitute it using a water conditioner similar to R/O Right. Now, I could just use 2 reserve tanks for my R/O water as it's being generated and use one(already filled and reconstituted) tank while the other is being filled. Then I just add the chemicals to the newly filled tank and start using it once the first tank is empty. It has the advantage of ensuring that the concentration of minerals stays constant, but involves a moderate amount of labor to switch out reserve tanks and add chemicals.

What I'd like to do ideally is to have the water conditioner added automatically to the R/O water in the proper ratio, as needed. The conditioner could be added either directly into the reserve tank as the R/O water is generated or it could be added inline as the water is pumped from the reserve tank into the misting system (which would be pretty nifty). From what I've been reading I think the first scenario could be accomplished by using a kalkwasser reactor. Although, having never even seen one, I can't be sure. I have no ideas yet on how the second scenario could be accomplished.

Does anyone have thoughts on this plan? Reasons why it won't work or will? Or is there something already out there that will do exactly what I need?

I appreciate any suggestions. I know frogs and their water quality requirements pretty well, but when it comes to high-tech gadgetry I defer to the experts.

Thanks,
-Z

 

[boozeman]

I'm just a newbie...but, it seems to me that all you would need is a dosing pump.
then you can set some type of aquarium controller to dose it into your mixing tank and then deliver the the newly mixed water to your misting system.

 

[boozeman]

is this what you're looking for?

http://www.baskinglizards.com/product_info.php?cpath=45&products_id=143

 

[zeteki]

Yes, but on a smaller scale. I'm looking at a system for multiple rack systems. Each rack has 12 aquariums each holding 5 gallons of water and there are 5 racks. So here's the plan for the whole system:

I think of each rack as a 75-gallon system (there will be a 15 gallon sump on each rack) with it's own closed filtration system. Each aquarium in the system has a standpipe that drains overflow water down a common pipe, through a bag made of filter fabric and into the sump. The sump is divided, with the water first passing over bio balls before entering the second section of the sump, which is basically open water. It's then pumped out of the sump into a canister filter with activated carbon and a 50-micron filter. From there it goes into a series of more refined filters (probably 2 stages here) with the smallest filter being 5 micron. I'll probably have to put a few filters in parallel to get enough volume through. I haven't done the calculations yet. Once the water passes through the filters it's passed back up and returned to the tanks.

The filtration system I described above is repeated for each rack of aquariums, while the R/O system services all 5 racks. The R/O unit should have an output of ~150gpd that fills a reserve tank. This water will be reconstituted in some mysterious fashion and pumped out to all of the tanks in the room and sprayed down on the tanks from misters. 60 minutes of misting per day will result in about 1.6 gallons being added to each aquarium. This would rapidly flood the sump if I hadn't been clever enough to design and overflow into the sump that goes directly to a drain. So that means that the water in the system should be completely replaced approximately every 4 days.

Voila! The frogs get misted and the water gets filtered and changed all without me doing much of anything. The only part I've not quite figured out is how to add in the water conditioner while maintaining my state of extreme laziness.

I've been looking at dosing pumps online but from what I can tell they don't have variable flow rates and are designed to work with relatively small quantities of whatever fluid one is adding to the system. Am I understanding them correctly? Of course, my understanding of dosing pumps is about as clear as my understanding of kalkwasser reactors, since I haven't found anything that really explains how either work in practice.