Hi, everybody Joey here again, and welcome back so in today's video. We're going to be revisiting the old project
I did in the past titled how to never do water changes in today's video
We're going to talk about what it is how [it] works
Some changes in updates. We did as well as addressing some concerns you guys had in the past plus
We're going to talk about some pros and cons to running a system like this in that video
We talked about never doing water changes again however. We still did the water changes. We just didn't physically do them
We did them with a drip system
And we use the drip system to either eliminate or extremely spaced out our water changes in that video
We used a drip irrigation system
[that] would typically cost you about [twenty] dollars [to] deliver our water to our aquariums
[I] wanted to replace that [entire] method because it's not necessarily easy to find a complete drip irrigation system for a couple [of] reasons
Sometimes they're simply not in season at other times
They're really expensive
$20 tends to be the average
but they can be a lot more so I decided I [would] try to lower the cost for you as well as
Simplify the build it turns out irrigation companies are extremely common. You just have to get on [Google] and search for water irrigation
systems I found several and once I discovered the
Individual parts that I needed I was then able to find them and source them on ebay and Amazon for really cheap
Now all the parts that I'm about to list I'm going to leave the product numbers in the description below as well as their detailed
Information so you can easily find everything that you need the first thing you're going to need and arguably the most
Important is a pressure regulator
now what this does is it attaches to [your] water source sort of like a
Garden Hose would do
Then you can turn on your water and what this does is make [sure] that the amount of water coming out is always the same
Amount it's never less
And it's never more
The benefit of having this is that it's not going to put out too much pressure and blow off your drip emitter and just gush
Water all over the place
So this is extremely important
Now previously we used to have a rubber pipe on the end and then we would try [to] drill into the side and [run] some
Hose off of it, but I thought [that] was really cumbersome, so I came across a threaded swivel now. This is a [3/4] inch
male adapter that will go right on your pressure regulator and on the end of it is a
[quarter-Inch] Barb which is made for
Quarter-inch airline hose which is exactly what we're going to add on next
Airline hose is really cheap though cost about 10 cents a foot if you're buying it in bulk
the Hose will attach
[directly] onto the end of the [barb] the next thing you're going to need is your actual drip emitter now
this thing is going to allow you to regulate how much water you're actually dripping and
Whether you want to open it wide open or close it a little bit is both fine
Because your pressure regulator is going to allow you to do that
Meaning that if you do need to close it quite a bit
It's not going to allow the pressure to build up enough to blow this off
Now you can get drip emitters that have a set gallon per hour like half a gallon an hour one gallon an hour two gallons
an hour
Personally though I prefer the circular type this allows me to go from 1 to 10 gallons per hour each click is a gallon
So it's really easy to use
now the cost for all this is a big perk it was five dollars and fifty cents [for] the pressure regulator [a] dollar ten for
The threaded swivel adapter fifty five cents for the Drip Emitter and two dollars for 20 feet of airline hose
So we're at about nine dollars and fifteen cents less than half the price of purchasing a full kit plus. It's much more simpler and
User-friendly all we have to do is attach this to our water source attach the adapter
Then the hose and then the drip emitter before we get to how it works so I want to talk about some concerns
Now there was two main concerns the first was heating your aquarium some people had the concern that adding a slow drip of cold water
Was going to overall impact the temperature of your aquarium causing your heaters to turn on more
I on the other hand had mentioned that because I'm not using hot water to heat up my water drink water changes
I'm actually saving money
I came to that conclusion based on my eight years of experience with a drip system
Perhaps the heaters are turning on a little bit more
But the power that it took to heat my water up and do my water change far exceeded the heaters
so in the long run
[I] was saving money, but if that's still not the case with you what I suggest doing is simply putting a container above your aquarium
With a small do-it-Yourself bulkhead in the side
And simply [allow] the fresh water to pour into the bucket come to room temperature
And then overflow as room temperature into the tank [at] least it wouldn't be as cold however
I simply don't think that's needed a couple of other concerns is that when you're doing your water changes you have to siphon [and/or] clean
Your gravel and if you have a drip [system]
You wouldn't be doing that, but that's not really the point of the drip system however
I decide I should probably address that anyways you can all but
Eliminate needing to siphon your gravel [and/or] sand by simply having sufficient
circulation within your aquarium if not, I have a video on how [to] do a
Do-it-yourself gravel vacuum with something as simple as an air pump
Having to do that a few minutes a week is definitely a lot better than having to do full water changes the second Concern was
Treating the water before guests your aquarium now. I have to admit that I'm on a well, so I have two benefits
I don't have to treat my water during water changes and water is technically free for me
Meaning I don't have a water bill
[so] I could change as much water or drip as much water as I want month to month
But many of you need to treat your water before it gets to your aquarium
So previously I would just put my emitter in the tank with the water dripping out of it
However like I said some of you guys are on
Municipal water meaning that your water is probably going to have chlorine or chloramines in it some of you also have to deal with
Phosphates and even nitrates so you guys will remember the project on how to do
crystal-Clear water changes
It was basically the idea of treating the water before it hits your aquarium
By using a PVC pipe and a suction cup and putting holes in a cap filling it with carbon
Ammonia remover or whatever else you'd like and then running your water through that prior to it getting to the aquarium
while this project was actually inspired by the
Idea that we needed to treat our water prior to getting to the tanks for the drip system?
Now one of the cheapest ways to remove mean from water is with activated Carbon activated Carbon though comes in two forms
It's either loose [and/or]
It's already prepackaged in little mesh bags
So I wanted to come up with two projects that will help
Accommodate each ways that the carbon comes in we're going to use water bottles to do this now the first one will be
Addressing prepackaged carbon that's already in mesh bags. You want to take a water bottle and cut the top off [of] it
Then drill a hole big enough for a suction cup
Then you want to take a suction cup the type that has the nub on it these are very common in heater holders
You probably have a few extra suction cups like this laying around
You want to drill a hole into the side of the bottle [just] big enough for that nub to fit in
You'll then want to drill some holes
In the bottom of the container how big and how many doesn't really matter however I would suggest going with at least five that are
a quarter inch in diameter
now we have a container that can hold your
Prepackaged carbon the last thing you'll want to do is drill a hole the size of airline hose right above the suction cup hole
Now all you have to do is suction cup this to the inside of your aquarium
find your airline hose through the top hole that we created and then of course add your drip emitter [onto] the end and
that's it the suction cup will hold everything in place the drip emitter will ensure that the
Airline can't come loose as well as control the flow of the water going to it the water exiting the drip emitter is
Treated by the activated Carbon prior to hitting the tank and since it's going at such a slow rate. It'll also remove chloramines
Loose carbon tends to be a lot [cheaper] because you can buy it in bulk so to treat your water using loose carbon
We'll also get a water bottle
Except this time we'll drill a hole in the top cap the size of the airline hose
We'll drill a hole in the side of the bottle the size of a suction cup again
and then at the bottom
We want to use a tack and poke in as many holes as we can
These holes will [be] too small for the carbon to fall out of yet
There will be enough small holes for the water to freely flow through for this type
We remove the cap
Put the airline hose through it
attach our drip emitter
put the cap back on and
Then suction cup everything to the side of the tank now again the same things going to happen [all] of that
Fresh water is going to drip down through that carbon and be treated before it hits the tank
The Carbon that we use is going to last us a ridiculous amount of time simply because we're only dripping water through it
So if I was only dripping a gallon an hour this amount of carbon would last me about four months
So in order for this [to] work
We need to have a way to remove all of [that] extra water
and you can do so with drilling your
Aquariums and or sumps and adding in a drain that leads to a floor or you could use a PVC
Overflow and overflow all of that extra water and have that water overflow to a drain somewhere
But another [option] is to add a float switch to your aquarium that turns on when your water level
rises
Activates a pump and that pump will pump all of that extra water out [of] your tank
Whether it pumps it down to a drain or a larger container that you can deal with once a week
Whatever the case may be [that]
[is] just another idea, but luckily I have videos on how to build sumps how to drill aquariums
And how did make a float switch, okay?
So now let's move on to how much water you should be dripping to your aquariums, then let's talk about the pros and [cons]
So the amount of water you should be dripping to your tank
Simply depends on your tanks inhabitants my suggestion is to simply
Experiment with it and do testing over a few weeks. See which flow rate is right for you
You don't want to drip too much and waste water
But you don't want to drip too little and not be diluting the water enough to have optimal water quality
So obviously a drip system is not necessarily for everybody you need a specific set of circumstances to run a drip system
you need a continuous water source as well as a drain somewhere and
Not everybody has those but that doesn't mean these aren't great systems in fact. I swear by them
I've been using drip systems for the past eight years
And I'm not going to stop anytime soon now besides that there are some other pros and cons some of the cons are the fact
That you do need a drain and a consistent water source
Whether or not it saves you money or not is something that people will argue all the time
[the] main thing is that they save you time on tanks that are running drip systems?
I don't do regular water changes usually I'll do a water change once a month or every two months
Sometimes every three months it really depends on how much water I'm dripping and the stocking of the tank
Even if you didn't do a water change for a few months you would have to top off the water due to evaporation
But a drip system also takes care [of] that so you don't have to do any top off these are also
Only good for a freshwater aquarium
[these] also bring extreme stability and consistency to your
Aquariums in fact when it comes to water changes versus a drip system
Drip systems in my opinion bring far more consistency let me explain what I mean, so we have drip systems
And we have water changes now over time our
aquariums get dirty
Nitrates build up the salt organics everything that we want to remove
Now as these build up we test for the men since when they get to a certain spot
We like to dilute them with a water change a few days later, though
They start to rise again. So we do another water change
And they start to rise again eventually we need to do really big water changes
As you can see though there's not a whole lot of consistency
This is a great example as to why I like to do [30%] water changes every three days
so I don't get these peaks nearly as high when
[it] comes to a drip system. It takes a lot longer
For things to get bad in your aquarium simply because we're continuously adding water to the system
But that doesn't mean they're going to not climb anymore. Just means they're going to climb extremely slowly
Eventually we will have to do a water change, but that might be one month two months three [months] away
And when that happens we're only right here where we would be at one week apart with regular water changes
Then that would dip down [and] then slowly rise again as you can see the drip system offers far more
consistency
So a drip [system] can eliminate water changes depending on the system
If not it could [potentially] prolong [your] water changes and the space in between them by a drastic amount what I am
personally [after] though is the
Consistency that it offers. I can assure you that any aquarium that I've ever run with the drip [system]
I have never had any issues with it and or ever worried about it. Anyways guys I do plan on
revisiting some old projects from the past
But I hope I don't need to do them too often if you guys have a suggestion or one that you would like me [to]
Revisit any time soon let me know in the comment section below anyway, so that you guys enjoyed today's video
I also want to thank you for watching and I'll see you guys [next] Sunday for a new do pure self project