Water Station Build

[Reef Altitude]

I am looking to build a pretty simple water station for our 200 gallon system. We already have a 25 ft hose connected to a return pump to get water out of the tank and it is so much better than buckets!

We got a metal shelf for the garage that holds 650 lbs per shelf and two 27 gallon totes so far. I am planning on a bulkhead in the bottom of each tub with tee and valves, the top with a float valve connected to RODI.

I plan to get 1/2" poly tube to run from the garage to the tank and use tees to have either fresh or salt for ATO or w.c.

Has anyone used the cheapo pvc ball valves from HD once a week for any amount of time?

This is not supposed to be expensive so anyone have a set up they wouldnt mind sharing that is not 6 pumps, specialty rain barrels, an extra breaker panel, 3 apex dos's etc?

 

[jcook54]

Man, my water station is very manual and I don't have a lot of direct information that can help. But I can speak to the ball valves from HD working pretty well. In my experience the most important thing it so make sure you throw in a few unions so you can take things apart without having the cut and weld PVC. Once I started using more unions, my PVC "repairs" got a lot easier.

 

[enderg60]

HD valves suuuuuuuuck. Rarely you can find some that are not hard to turn, but give them 3-4 years and the handle will break off. Its worth it to get a union valve. Or at least put a union on before the valve so you can change it out later.

Just stack them so you can dump the RO into the salt tote easily. No need to have multiple pumps, just keep one pump in there with the long hose on it coiled up. Keep the end of the hose in the tote to mix the water, when you need it turn the pump off and drag the hose over to where you need it.

I actually used one pump with a 30 ft hose to empty the tank, then moved the pump and used the same one to fill the tank back up for one of my old setups.

If youre doing large water changes youll want a heater as well, but no need to keep it warm unless youre using it soon.

 

[Reef Altitude]

Ok here is what I ended up doing. I did use the cheapo HD valves, it's was 6 dollars total. Glad I did because I already have a few things I would do differently. I used threaded bulkheads so I can redo the PVC if needed.

Thank you both for the suggestions, I used parts of both!