Rcpilot
Reef enthusiast
I'd like to start a thread about automation. Specifically, I want to talk about automating a large frag tank.
Some of you may have read my recent thread in the Reef Discussion forum about purchasing a LFS. While that deal fell through, I have decided to move forward with a 90g frag system. However, the tank will not be at my home. I live in a rather small apartment and simply do not have the space for this tank. The tank will be set up at my friend Pete's place of business. Pete owns a security business and he has offered to let me use part of his retail space to run my farming operation. The system will NOT be in plain view of the public. It will be in a heated warehouse where access is strictly limited to immediate members of his family and one or two trusted employees.
Obviously, a farming operation in a 90g tank will require a lot of work on my part. I have no illusions that this will be easy, trust me. But I'd really like to work on automating the system to some extent. I don't want to go so far as to automate the water changes. I can do that weekly or twice a month.
My goals:
1 - Monitor the system from my home PC. This will require a PC at the retail space where the tank is to be located. No big deal. I have enough spare parts lying around to build a pretty decent PC and there is internet service in the retail space.
2 - Standard system monitors such as pH, temp, alk, calcium.
3 - Automated dosing/system stability. Automated dosing is important. Ability to perform manual adjustments from home is not so important. I live about 3 miles from the space where the tank is to be located and can usually drive there in about 10 minutes. If something were to go drastically wrong with the tank, I know my personality well enough to know I wouldn't be able to sit at my PC and "watch it" I'd have to drive down there and get wet. Where do you get the chemicals to dose the tank? How are the chemicals pumped into the tank when the system monitor determines that levels need adjusting?
4 - Automatic top off. This system must be VERY reliable. I have read hundreds of horror stories involving stuck floats, crashed tanks and massive floods. I'm not sure how to do this. I have done a lot of reading on this and my gut tells me to have a large vat/tank to store RO/DI water and use a pump to top-off my sump on the tank. There is a floor drain close to where I will set the tank, so a massive flood isn't a huge concern. But running hundreds of gallons of RO water down a drain isn't something I want to do.
Any help and discussion is very much appreciated.
Some of you may have read my recent thread in the Reef Discussion forum about purchasing a LFS. While that deal fell through, I have decided to move forward with a 90g frag system. However, the tank will not be at my home. I live in a rather small apartment and simply do not have the space for this tank. The tank will be set up at my friend Pete's place of business. Pete owns a security business and he has offered to let me use part of his retail space to run my farming operation. The system will NOT be in plain view of the public. It will be in a heated warehouse where access is strictly limited to immediate members of his family and one or two trusted employees.
Obviously, a farming operation in a 90g tank will require a lot of work on my part. I have no illusions that this will be easy, trust me. But I'd really like to work on automating the system to some extent. I don't want to go so far as to automate the water changes. I can do that weekly or twice a month.
My goals:
1 - Monitor the system from my home PC. This will require a PC at the retail space where the tank is to be located. No big deal. I have enough spare parts lying around to build a pretty decent PC and there is internet service in the retail space.
2 - Standard system monitors such as pH, temp, alk, calcium.
3 - Automated dosing/system stability. Automated dosing is important. Ability to perform manual adjustments from home is not so important. I live about 3 miles from the space where the tank is to be located and can usually drive there in about 10 minutes. If something were to go drastically wrong with the tank, I know my personality well enough to know I wouldn't be able to sit at my PC and "watch it" I'd have to drive down there and get wet. Where do you get the chemicals to dose the tank? How are the chemicals pumped into the tank when the system monitor determines that levels need adjusting?
4 - Automatic top off. This system must be VERY reliable. I have read hundreds of horror stories involving stuck floats, crashed tanks and massive floods. I'm not sure how to do this. I have done a lot of reading on this and my gut tells me to have a large vat/tank to store RO/DI water and use a pump to top-off my sump on the tank. There is a floor drain close to where I will set the tank, so a massive flood isn't a huge concern. But running hundreds of gallons of RO water down a drain isn't something I want to do.
Any help and discussion is very much appreciated.
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