Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanaly
....tank space with several 10L water containers. The plan is to draw water from each. Obviosuly I don't want to crawl down there to switch from tank to tank. ...... should I create an 'octopus ' converging on the water pipe to my system (galley etc)?
2 or do I need to feed each pipe up to a central 'switching station'?!
J
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Offhand, I think you will pretty much be stuck switching
tanks or just have a tank made to fit that space. Generally, an octopus wont
work because as soon as one tank is empty it will start sucking air and the water from the other
tanks will not be drawn out. Your
pump will run continuously and not shut off and not
pump water. The probability of water being drawn equally from each tank with an octopus arrngement is low due to
boat movement, length of lines etc. There are ways to make it work but not worth the effort. One for instance would be one pump for each bottle. The switching of tanks would be from switches on the
electrical panel and not psyically swapping tanks. The space available for hoses,
wiring and pumps plus the
price of several pumps and switches might make this prohibitive.
Another method, if practical, would be to connect the bottles at the bottoms so the feed into eachother with short hoses. Then you would only need one hose exiting to the pump. This could be a real PITA with all the short hose connections but the entire system could be filled by just sticking a fill hose in only one bottle. The problem might be in finding a flat surface on the bottles where watertight conections could be made.
When I had my
Catalina 30, space for a reasonably sized water tank was just not available. I ended up with a "bladder tank" which is an
inflatable tank. Properly sized, they will fit anywhere and when filled, they will conform to the shape of the area they are in. In your case, this is probably your best option. Just buy the thing and be done with it.