[ReefKing24]

Hey everyone it's me again, and I am hoping you can help me with this one, i have a significant amount of water evaporate every two-three days. I have a 90 gallon oceanic tank and a 29 gallon sump, my sump i fill to about 20 gallons or so, and within 2-3 days probably 10 gallons or so has evaporated. Anyone tell me what i can do to help this, i have heard of having a resivoir don't really know what one is though. Thanks for your thoughts.

Rick

[blind1993]

well what do u have running in ur tank. is it near sunlight. what is the temp

[glampka]

That's not too uncommon. I replace about a 1/2 gallon in my 30 everyday. You need an automatic top off - basically you have a float that let's water into the sump from a reservoir holding RO/DI water when it reaches a certain level. The reservoir can be anything that will hold enough water.

[lynnvangsnes]

It's probably a good idea to top off twice once a day. If you're topping off with 10 gallons every 2 days or so, your SG is going way high; maybe dangerously high. That's too much of a swing in the SG for specimens to handle in the long term; in my opinion. Yes they have water topoffs connected to either a RO/DI unit, or a water reservoir.

[ReefKing24]

Thanks guys i am going to monitor this closer and see exactly how much i have to replace and how long it lasts. Thanks for the imput, i would love a resivoir but i really have no room around my tank, to setup a resurvoir of any significance.

[reefdaddy725]

I have a 125 with a 40 gal sump and I replace about 5 -7gal every 2 days in the summer and in the winter but in the spring and fall it seems to drop off to every 3 days. Oh and BTW as long as you add the water slowly like from the RODI tube with the amount of volume you have it may drop your salinity a point but not much more than that. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just one of those things that I do all the time add water.

[SweeTang22]

it may also help to have a glass top if you dont already. also if your not using a chiller your temp could be getting to high and causeing a lot of it. metal halide or compact flouresent lighting generally runs really hot, so if thats the prob then i would deff look into a chiller and glass tops. good luck

[henwayrob]

evaporation is good thing it keeps your aquarium cool, glass tops etc will just reduce evap and cause a big temp rise, either get use to adding water every day or get an automatic top off whatever is easist for you, or spend the money to get a chiller and you will still need to add water.

[Mattfish]

Still a newbie, but everything I've read and heard says leave the tops off - the gas exchange is a very positive thing. If the price is evaporation, and my 125 loses about 1-3 gallons a day (I haven't had time to measure any closer than that), then adding the clean water in every day or two isn't a big deal. Gives me one more reason to sit in front of my tank and spend time with it.

The reservois idea sounds like the best one - I hadn't heard about it until the post below from glampka, but makes me think I ought to add this in to the setup. Of course, just added fish and a QT tank today - it's getting way too easy to spend money happily on this hobby.

[ReefKing24]

no doubt mattfish, i leave off my glass tops they actually promote the tank getting hotter, the tank cooled 2 degrees by just taking them off. I hear everyone with adding water regularly, i've been doing it for a while now. Not to big a deal just wanted to see if anyone had a better idea. Just picked up 2 new power heads hydor, or something like that new and work great.

[Mattfish]

I've got the Hydo Koralia's too and they seem to do a good job. I just heard that there's a moveable deflector which can create random current, but I think it was glampka who mentioned the deflector's don't work too good.....