Bucket Elimination - Feedback Appreciated

[greenfish]

I posted this on another forum so I appologize to those who read this twice.

I live in an area that the water is very inconsistent. I deceided to get RO/DI so I could have stable water. I hooked up my RO/DI unit in my garage because that was the only place I had space. I intend to use straight RO/DI mixed with R/O-Right for my tank. My RO/DI is approximately 15-20ft from my tank.

I was brainstorming about a future project(s) and I wanted to get some feed back on them to see if you think they are feasible and to get any ideas or suggestions you may have.

Project 1 - Tank filling
Put a small tank/holding container in the garage
hook up a float switch from the RO/DI unit to the container
hook up a pump to the container capable of pumping water directly in to the main tank
run a pipe from the pump to the tank (my tank is on an exterior wall with a crawl space underneath so plumbing this should be relatively simple)
put a heater in the container
prepare the water with R/O Right & heat to main tank temp
gravel vac the main tank
flip a switch that would start the pump
I am not looking at wanting to create a fully automated water change system but just something that would make things easier.

Project 2 - Tank cleaning / water the plants (I like this idea but I'm not sure about this one)
Place a rubbermaid container/garbage can outside right on the other side of tank
Plumb a pipe from behind the tank to the container outside
Figure out a way to siphon from gravel vac in to the pipe filing the container outside
connect some kind of pump to the container outside
install a drip irrgation system that originates from the pump and waters my yard/plants
connect a second line from a nearby faucet to the drip irrigation
it would be really cool if I could automate this system to turn on the pump and water at a preset time and if the container was empty to pull the water from the faucet and turn off the pump (I was thinking float switch & solenoid or something like that).
I have no power along that wall outside so if anyone has any creative ideas to get around this issue. I was figuring push come to shove it could come through the wall from inside.

Sorry for the long winded post but once my brain gets going.......

 

[XXFirefighter]

I would run a tube right from the RO unit to a fuge under the tank and have it top off by itself. No need for large containers and the amount of water going in will be minimal so temp makes no diff !

 

[greenfish]

I would run a tube right from the RO unit to a fuge under the tank and have it top off by itself. No need for large containers and the amount of water going in will be minimal so temp makes no diff !

I probably should have metioned that it is a freshwater planted tank. I though about doing something like this but my concerns were that adding straight R/O water would not contain the trace elements that would be Vacuumed out with the gravel vac. By filing up a whole container, I could treat the water consistantly and replace all water taken out in one shot.

Do you think the RO/DI unit could push the water itself down a wall, 12ft or so under the house, and then up in to the stand? I was thinking that it could not.

 

[XXFirefighter]

I dunno if it could or not...
My Culligan drinking water RO unit has a pressurized holding tank and will push alot of water....
MAybe you can look into that?

 

[greenfish]

I have one of those tanks for the drinking water attachment and it does push water pretty well. Ok I did not think of that. Maybe that could save $$ and I could run only a small pump from the bottom of the stand to the tank. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[greenfish]

I am rethinking project 2. Seems too complicated. I will probably try to do something a little simpler than this but along the same lines.

Anyone else have any ideas or suggestions?

 

[sevise]

I run my RO/DI unit directly to my tank for topoff. It runs through 25ft of 1/4" tubeing, over the course of the run it goes up 4ft. I'm sure it hurts the flow some but not noticeably.