Sonora Desert Fish Nook (mini fishroom)

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Then there were three. Made modifications today. Decided to add a 3rd join between my two sump sections to increase flow and have them maintain similar levels. So out it all came and drilling commenced.

CleanThirdHole.jpg

Here you can see the new join between the sumps once they were re-installed.

ThenThereWereThree.jpg

I also tired of waiting for all 6 tanks to drain through a single 1/2" solenoid. THe fact that the bottom and middle levels also needed to have check valves installed to prevent water from tanks above filling them during a drain cycle also slowed things down. So I decided to add two additonal solenoid valves and removed the check valves. Now each level drains down seperate lines through it's own solenoid. All 3 solenoid valves are controlled by the same relay in the DIY aquarium controller, so I didnt' have to make any expansions or changes there. It's nice to have it faster. Photo is blurry, but you can see that just below each level of display tanks there is a solenoid valve mounted on the wall to drain water away...

ThreeDischargeSolenoidValves.jpg

Did some other work with the dosers and probes, but I'll make that part of another update.

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Finally got around to finishing up the dosing pumps. I have 3. They are configured, calibrated and installed.

DosingPumpSetupAndCalibrationThroughTermite.jpg

Now the science and techy parts begin as I've set them up in Node-RED and now need to make the dosing part of water changes. I'll play around with just dosing water from each of them for a few weeks until I know I have all the automation set..

DosingPumpsInstalledOnEquipmentPanel.jpg

Getting hard to stay focused as I'm enjoying working in the gardens more. I expanded the butterfly/bee/hummingbird garden around the perimeter of my back enclosed patio... they are already feeding on the nectar. this was yesterday, a very rare rainy day april day in the desert (we are having a big drought)..

ButterflyBeeHummingbirdPerimeterGarden-NewlyPlanted.jpg

[Shan_Evolved]

Damn Peter you definitely got an itch to scratch LOL

[FischAutoTechGarten]

I like learning new stuff. The dosing pump holder was an opportunity to work with Lexan (cuts and drill). Three dosing pumps gives me an opportunity to experiment with remineralizing, macro and micro nutrients.

Yesterday, I submitted code samples to Atlas-Scientific, NodeRED, and WhiteBoxLabs for working with Atlas-Sci EZO devices (probes, pumps, meters, etc...) in NodeRED. So folks who don't mind a tiny bit of light coding can create their own DIY aquarium controller.

The garden, yeah.... i got carried away in 2020 and 2021 (with Covid, what else is there to do but improve stuff around the homestead?). That's a topic for another thread altogether...

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Doing a bit more software work on the DIY Aquarium Controller for the FishNook. Dosing pumps work good now. (And no, I haven't found a water soluable remineralizer for my RO water.... So I will use that 3rd doser for something else). I need to build a user interface for the schedule.... as the scheduler that triggers the 'Start' even is hidden in the code..

image_2021-05-14_172403.png

just trying to stay motivated to finish this up...

[LizStreithorst]

Peter, are you sure you will ever finish up? Surely you will always find something that needs tweaking or reconfiguring. If you actually do finish up I bet you will find some other project that if it were mine, I'd just patch together so it worked for me and my simple mind. Knowing you, you will find something that is just as far over my head and this one with the FishNook is to me.

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Liz,
Probably right... I'll never be finished. LOL.

The changes ae beginning to show very good results. The plant growth is much better, with allot of pearling coming from many of the plants throughout the day. Some of the stem plants that were brittle are quite strong now. Many new leaves are replacing older damaged leaves on my broadleaf plants. The fish are much more active and are putting on some size (lots of fat ottos, cories, and shrimp, my bleeding heart tetras are looking like mini discus...LOL).

I attribute 3 things to all of these improvements (one of which Discus folks will appreciate):

1. I do 40% water changes wiht remineralized RO water about every 3 to 4 days on average (twice a week) now.
2. The above mentioned reminieralization to yield a GH around 4 to 5 and a KH around 1 to 2 and consistent fertilzation.
3. Consistent ph of 6.8 overnight and 6.5 during the photo period. However, going to bump the hysterisis for the pH/CO2 valve control from .025 to .05... It will allow slightly greater swings, but will switch my relay less often (don't want to wear it out prematurely).

Funny, I no longer use my airpump at all. Not even at night.

My wife dutifully extracts smails from the tanks and scolds the assasin snails for not earning their keep each morning. She likes the tanks allot.

[FischAutoTechGarten]

This is a build thread, so let's get back to some improvements. I've stepped up my water change regimen on the FishNook... and of course I have 6 full display tanks on line. I can do a 40% water change on the entire system (6 display tanks, 2 sump tanks) with the 53 gallons I have available (it's 65 gallons of storage, but it's not filled to the top and you can't pump out the last 5 gallons). I'm doing that about every 5 days now... So, I'm doing 6 x 40% water changes a month.

To produce 53 gallons (well more, because I top off between water changes and grab 5 gallons for the quarantine tank too in between as well) every 5 days means that nearly 100 gallons is going to my garden... That's allot. Of course when I do that water change... 53 gallons leaves my FishNook and also goes to the garden.... So yeah... 150gallons every 5 days. I'd like to knock that down a bit. It's so much water that a family of Gambel's Quail have taken up roosting under my neighbors Orange tree that benefits from the water too as it's soooo lush and cool (especially in this 110-115degF heatwave we've been having).

I've been researching how to improve the ratio of RO water to waste on lots of forums.... when suddenly the manufacturer of my system emailed me information on an Upgrade kit they offer to reduce the wasted water. I liked the idea. It went on Sale, then I bought it.

So, in the bodega, time to move things over a bit to fit more cartridges..

ROWaterPrepUpgradePlanning.jpg

Everything was moved over and the new holder installed... Basically the waste from the 1st 3 cartridges goes though a 2nd round of RO Membrane and DI Resin... The outputs of both combine to go into the water storage vessel.... It's the waste from the 2nd round that ends up as the final waste. I followed the recommendations to do install the flush adapter for 30 minutes before adding the DI cartridge...

ROWaterPrepUpgradeStartupFlush.jpg

I don't think DI is necessary, but it came with the kit.. so I'll use it.... What is interesting is the 1st round of purified water the exits the first set of filters won't have passed through the DI cartridge... Whereas the 2nd round of purified water that exist the second set of filters will have passed through the DI cartridge... So not 100% of the water that I am producing will have a near 0 TDS... That's okay with me... I'm remineralizing anyway...

ROWaterPrepUpgradesComplete.jpg

Yes, I did go back and enter the dates on the cartridges.... I put 12/1/2020 for the 1st set.. and 6/1/2021 for the 2nd set. Yeah the first set was installed before that, but very lightly used.
It will be easier to remember the replacement cycle if I stage them 6 months apart.

So, it will be interesting to see: 1. how much faster the water gets produced. 2. if I can detect less water in the garden.

UPDATE: The water is produced much faster... which make sense.... For every 6 gallon used, I used to see 2 gallons of pure water.. .So now for every 6 gallons used, I see about 3.33 gallons produced.. More produced from less.... and of course with less waste...

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Well, I always promise to cite the good with the bad in this FishNook adventure. Today was the bad. This morning I saw a bit of water on the floor and traced it to Display Tank #3... I saw that the cork underlayment was saturated, but all glass was dry... This meant that I had a leak in the bottom pane or the bottom pane seams... What I found upon inspection surprised me... a cracked corner.

This is where it's my fault. A year ago as I was de-rimming, de-basing, drilling the glass, I noted a small chip near one of the corners. I added a bit of extra silicon... let it cure for 48 hours... then tested that tank like I did all of the others for two weeks... completely filled... on the stands on my patio.... I describe that process early in this thread.

Now, some 8 months later, this tank is leaking at that location. So, I'm going to then take this tank down. That requires moving all of the fish and plants to the other 5 aquariums. Then, I will get another 20 gallon long, de-rim, de-base and drill it.... Another thing that I am doing is adding/doubling additional cork. Display Tanks #3 and #4 have the thinnest cork... The others have slightly thicker cork.... THe sumps even have two layers of cork... So that is what I will do with this new tank...

Bummer... It's a bummer becuase my wife broke her leg in NY two weeks ago... We are back home in Arizona and still awaiting the 1st of 3 surgeries that she requires. So, it's a bad time to have to do something major to the Sonoran Desert Fish Nook.

DisplayTank3Leak.jpg

[FischAutoTechGarten]

My wife has had her surgery and is recovering, so I'm moving on fixing up the replacement aquarium.

This one was a bear... might have been the toughest rim and base that I've ever removed... and it's a brand new aquarium. Glad that it's done. I will drill for the bulkheads later and then get this thing set in place. Should be on line by Friday evening.

For the Desert Aquarist Society (Tucson Area Fish Club) August 14th meeting, I'm going to do a workshop on cutting and drilling aquarium glass. We have to hold it in an outside location and electricity is questionable... but I have all cordless tools with lots of batteries so it will be a good opportunity to pass something on to others.

DisplayTank3Replacement.jpg

Random musing....

The more I work in the FishNook there is a re-occuring thought. I wish I'd built custom 32"x16"x16" or 33" x 15" x 15" Display Tanks. There's something about wanting to get an entire aquarium out of one 48" sheet and fit in the stand point print, hence the very specific dimensions. (of course I guess at that point you are just about at the dimensions of a 40 breeder, but I don't want to go changing stands and the extra length would take too much space away from all of the wall mounted equipment.)

The extra height would be nice to allow the stem plants a bit more growth and depth would have been nice to allow more an easier time of cleaning the glass without plants crowding against it. It would have been fun to take it to the limits of the stand width and have an overhang front and back for effect.

Maybe version two of the FishNook in a few years.

[LizStreithorst]

Peter, please give your wife good wishes for a fast recovery. Sometimes it seems that the bad stuff all comes in a bundle. You and I already know that the Nook will be a whole different thing in two years. I'm glad that I'm not such a perfectionist.

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Peter, please give your wife good wishes for a fast recovery. Sometimes it seems that the bad stuff all comes in a bundle. You and I already know that the Nook will be a whole different thing in two years. I'm glad that I'm not such a perfectionist.

My wife's recovery will be long. 3 months before she can stand or walk and 10 months before the screws/plates come out. The work trip in NY was difficult. A young uncle passed away unexpectedly and as we were all preparing to attend his funeral my wife fell down a flight of stairs, breaking multiple bones in her leg. Worst of it is over as we got back to Arizona and had the necessary surgery. Now the pain and medicine/anestesia sideeffects have subsided; it's the long recovery ahead. I'm becoming quite the suzy home maker, honing my cooking skills for sure.

I don't know Liz... I look at all of the work I put into this FishNook and I think.... 'My goodness I could never do that again' ... (That said, if I ever find affordable glass some day, I'll consider building my own 32 gallon tanks and replacing each of the 6 20 gallon long display tanks 1 by 1 over a 6 month period.)

Meanwhile, it's taking all of the motivation I can muster just to get this one leaky tank replaced.....

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Followup...

It turned out the tank was not leaking... it had overflowed and the cork underneath had absorbed so much water that it was wet for a long time.... I had let too much frog bit gather on the surface and just plugged the exits causing the tank to overflow temporarily (of course as it overflows the frog bit flows higher..which allows the water to exit again...kind of fixing the problem itself... sans a bit of spilled water)...

Well.. I have a spare de-rimmed and drilled tank.

What is interesting is how time flies. I'm soon coming up on having had the FishNook up and running for an entire year! I intentionally let allot of plants grow really long... I'm doing a big trimming this afternoon to take allot of plants to the Desert Aquarist Society Fish Club Auction tomorrow in Tucson AZ. Here's a photo of the jungles...

DisplayTankGrowOutJunglesPriorToTrimming.jpg

[LizStreithorst]

Whenever I see another post to this thread I wonder what my mad scientist friend us up to. My tanks are always too full of plants. I take them to my LPS or if they get out of control like my Jungle Vals that I just toss on the compost pile.

[FischAutoTechGarten]

What I found was that by allowing allof the red root floaters to multiply on top, and by letting my stem plants grow so long such that they grew sideways along the top of the length of the aquarium, that it caused all of the stem plants to have very tiny leaves (or no leaves) at the base. I had deprived the lower level of light. When I trimmed it all I took ALLOT of trimmings to the club auction, but was disappointed in that they all looked so thin. Oh well. It was the first club auction where I sold more things than I purchased.

It was a good exercise because more experienced club members analyzed some of the clippings that I had for sale and let me know that I was being a bit stingy with my iron supplement dosing.... So I appreciated the guidance. Always learning....