Now that Neptune has a quiet DOS system, I'm reinvestigating doing continuous water changes throughout the week. I have a tank of saltwater that supplies one DOS head to add water to the tank and I have the other DOS head pumping water from the tank straight into a sink drain. They work at the same time, at the same rate.
Right now, I run the pump as fast as possible on the weekend with the ATO turned off. At the end, I can tell by the water level if one or the other pump is not working right.
If I switch this to do tiny water changes all day long, the problem I see is that:
- If the pump putting in water stops or gets clogged, it could be hidden by the ATO system "topping things off". However, I should be able to see/measure the salt water level in the salt water tank to get a rough warning that something is going on
- If the pump pulling tank water out stops or gets clogged, it could be hidden by tank evaporation
I'm failing to come up with a good way to be notified if the dirty water pump isn't working since it doesn't go to a tank (so it can't be measured).
PH will surely indicate the failure eventually and that seems like one way to detect this, but it appears as though PH meters are expensive, somewhat unreliable and hard to calibrate?
I haven't found any kind of detector that can measure flow in a 1/4" pipe, especially really low flow.
Any ideas?
Right now, I run the pump as fast as possible on the weekend with the ATO turned off. At the end, I can tell by the water level if one or the other pump is not working right.
If I switch this to do tiny water changes all day long, the problem I see is that:
- If the pump putting in water stops or gets clogged, it could be hidden by the ATO system "topping things off". However, I should be able to see/measure the salt water level in the salt water tank to get a rough warning that something is going on
- If the pump pulling tank water out stops or gets clogged, it could be hidden by tank evaporation
I'm failing to come up with a good way to be notified if the dirty water pump isn't working since it doesn't go to a tank (so it can't be measured).
PH will surely indicate the failure eventually and that seems like one way to detect this, but it appears as though PH meters are expensive, somewhat unreliable and hard to calibrate?
I haven't found any kind of detector that can measure flow in a 1/4" pipe, especially really low flow.
Any ideas?