Advice needed on air valves & evaporation

[atif]

1. can anyone recommend where i can get an air valve to control air in-take into my skimmer. the one i have is plastic and very hard to control (either too many wet bubbles or not ). i have seen plastic ones in the lfs but they don't inspire confidence ...... someone must make a soild brass type with a fine control mech right?

2. what do you guys and girls use to replenish water due to evaporation? i currently use an 18oz glass from the kitchen ... there must be a device like the ones used for hamsters water bottles to achieve this automatically??

cheers

[reefrunner69]

someone must make a soild brass type with a fine control mech right?

You should also be able to find these at your LFS, just remember the brass air valve will eventually corrode being around the SW, you may have to replace it often. You should, imo, keep looking for a plastic one, there are some that are pitiful, but I've run across several that did a fine job and worked for years.

what do you guys and girls use to replenish water due to evaporation? i currently use an 18oz glass from the kitchen ... there must be a device like the ones used for hamsters water bottles to achieve this automatically??

I use an IV style doser to replace evap at night with Kalk, during the day (most of the time I have to replenish twice a day; small tank) I just use a gallon water jug filled with RO/DI water. An auto-topoff can be made fairly easily with a float valve and a resevoir (either the res is higher than the sump/tank, or you use a powerhead in conjuntion with the float valve). Look at www.ozreef.org for some DIY plans on auto-topoff systems.