Need help designing a w/c and filtration system

[wizzin]

So I've been away from discus for too long. I recently started my own business and am now home pretty much 24/7. This means I have time for discus once again. After some negotiations with the boss (aka wife) she has agreed to this with one condition. One tank! She says I can get one very nice tank setup and that's it. I've settled on an AG 180 gal w/ the 2 overflows. I haven't decided on what the tank will look like yet in terms of decoration. I did the planted thing and while it worked, I don't know if I want to get into that again. I'm not crazy about bb tanks but I understand their worth in terms of cleanliness. I'll cross the "look" bridge when i get there.

For now, I'm trying to design the water change system and have to admit I'm a bit rusty in terms of filtration setup these days. I want to do a sump/wet/dry filtration system hence the tank with overflows/drilled. I think that's a better route for doing a wc system imo. So here's where I'm at on the design:

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Here's what I'm stuck on, and maybe I'm over complicating this, I need to be able to switch solenoid valve "e" to open and "f" to closed to initiate the drain procedure, but I also want to be able to close "e" and open "f" once the water reaches the lower float valve. Ideally, the wc supply pump from the reservoir is started when the low water mark in the display tank is reached. That way I'm not dumping fresh water from the res down the drain.

I've been googling some float switches and solenoid valves but I'm finding more dishwasher repair parts than what I think I need. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

What I'm aiming for is not a fully automated w/c system. I'll still monitor the parameters of the reservoir and manually add/adjust the mix of r/o and straight water to get the right mix. Ideally, I want to be able to manually run the system too. I'd love to do smaller wc's every 2 days or something on that schedule, and the system is really just to help.

Anyone have any advice?

[discussmith]

I think you will find what you think is over complicating is not complicated enough. You will have to turn off your sump pump when you start a change or you will run the sump dry. You cannot open valve "f" after closing "e" until you are done with refilling the tank or you will flood the sump before the upper float sees the tank is full. Depending on how you set up the drilled overflows you can only remove water to the lowest opening, and if you have one very low you could unintentionally drain all the water should a valve fail to close. You will need zero pressure solenoids as gravity will not supply enough pressure to open and close normal solenoids designed to turn on and off water on a pressurized house water system. "f" should be normally open and held closed while "e" is normally closed and held open, and these valves are expensive. You will need to either design a control system with float switches and relays or you will need to purchase and program a PLC which is also expensive, to be able to tell what and when to turn stuff on and off, open or close. I find it's much safer and easier to control a system if you don't make the filter part of the removal system. I have a pump setup with a float switch attached that plugs into my controller. I drop it into the tank when I want to do a water change and it runs until the water level reaches the float and shuts off. I then remove it and push a button to start the automated refill. The filters and heaters are powered by an outlet through the controller so when I do a water change they automatically turn off and when the high float stops the refill they all turn back on. The storage system works the same way so it automatically begins to refill itself once the change is completed and the circulation pump and heaters turn off while being emptied and back on once the storage is refilled. This is only needed if you remove almost all the storage water. There is more but it's getting late.

[wizzin]

discussmith, Thanks for your thoughts! I realized after I posted this that I hadn't mentioned shutting down the return pump in the sump. I was looking at the Neptune Systems Apex controller last night and I really like that it's got a browser interface. The more I thought about it though, the more I started to think about keeping it low tech. More out of fear of the system failing and causing harm to the fish than anything else. I used to use a little pump to drain tanks when I had a big rack system setup and I think that might be a good low tech route. Since the tank will have the corner overflow boxes there might be enough room to hide the pump in one of the boxes and put a check valve on it's line. Instead of automatically controlling it, I could just flip a switch to initiate the tank drain. Refill from the res could be a manual switch operation too.

As much as I like the automation idea, it frankly scares me. It's not the price of equipment so much as the threat of failure. I'm sure if I spent enough time and money designing it I could limit the potential for failure, but then I'm spending more time and money designing a plumbing system than caring for the fish and getting good fish. On the other hand, the monitoring probes on the Neptune are tempting just to get good readings on the water params. I might get the Neptune anyway for monitoring and that way if I want to expand it to use it to control pumps or floats I could.

As you can see, i'm still working out how to setup this tank. Thanks for taking the time to help me!

[ExReefer]

I have gone back to just one large display tank too (aside from a 29G QT tank). With just one tank, do you really need to automatic WC's? If you are going to be keeping adults in a display tank, you won't need daily WC's. Just a thought. Good luck.

[wizzin]

The more I think about it and talk about it the less I want to automate it. Exreefer, You're exactly right. It's just a display tank and I'll buy adults from Mike @ CODiscus. I have no interest (nor facilities anymore :( ) to deal with breeding. The goal is to keep them healthy with good water quality. So as of now, that's what I'm going to do. I'm till going to do a reservoir storage barrel and I'll plumb a pump to refill and I'll plumb the tank to drain w/ a pump as discussmith suggests. Keep it simple :)

This also means I can get to fish quicker :) It also means more money for better quality things like the 72" amazon 3d background and a good filter.

[ExReefer]

Nice! Mike has great fish. I've been to his house and purchased from him before.

Even though you don't want to breed, it will likely still occur, but you can just let nature take it's course in the display tank. With a bunch of adults, breeding is hard to stop, but you don't have to raise the fry if you don't want to. I personally don't have the time that's required to raise fry. Plus, I'd probably have to sell them locally at some point for a price I won't be happy with. It's a lot of work for very little, if any profit (depending on your cost of your personal time). It's is a beautiful sight to see though.

[wizzin]

Yeah, I got some fish from Mike in the past moik (Vince) picked them up for me and housed them til I could pick them up. They were beauties. They spawned for me several times and I ended up selling them for some decent scratch. This should be interesting. The last time I did this I started with a 55 gallon and ended up with 18 tanks! Hence the wife's stance on "only one tank!". Yeah, we'll see how that goes.