Almost Automated!

[Dragonfly]

Yesterday, my wife and I ran the half inch polytubing all around our basement rafters for the new drip system. Right now I only have six tanks down there and can do a twenty-five percent change in everyone of them everyday in about 20-25 minutes and a fifty percent change once a week in about an hour. I am cutting into my water supply tomorrow and should be up and running tomorrow or wednesday. At that time (assuming all goes as planned) I will be doing the same daily water change but it will not require me to siphon and refill manualy, freeing up that time to stare at my fish. I will still do the fifty percent once a week.
I had to share with you all because I know you can appreciate the amount of time we spend on changing water and any sort of time saving measure is always appreciated. Keep your fingers and fins crossed that I don't flood my basement.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend and I have to say again how happy I am about this new site. I think I will have to say goodbye to others because there is not enough time in the day to participate in more than one effectively.

Alex

wtg, alex, anything that you can do to make your water changes easier and your water cleaner, will pay off in spades for the health of your fish.

rick

[Dragonfly]

Thank you, Rick my reasons were definitely two-fold, not only simplification, but also I realize/notice that everyday water changes rather than twice a week as I use to do them makes a world of difference in growth of all my fish and also their general happiness. They seem to want to eat twice as much though which has me preparing beefheart and buying worms more frequently than I care to think about, but heah, anything for the King right?

Alex

[Bill_P.]

I really need to make a full automation system,



I am either going to do it by taping in to the house hold plumbing, or i just got this new idea of using a condensation pump. Not sure if it will work yet or not.


Bill

[DarkDiscus]

I WISH I had the mechanical talent to do something like that.  For now there is no need as I can easily handle the 4 tanks I'll have running fully, but when I someday set up a full scale fishroom, it would be nice to know I could set something up like that.

Good luck with the system Alex!  You never know, I may be hitting you up for tips at some point!

John

[Dragonfly]

John,
Thank you. I as I am sure many others that are more experienced will be more than happy to lend a hand. By the way, I am not very technically/mechanicaly inclined, nor am I a plumber so if I can do it anyone can do it. I will keep you posted how it works.

Alex

alex, a word of advice then, since you admit to not having a TON of exp. when connecting threaded fittings, or compression fittings, there is nothing wrong with getting the odd leak which must be tightened to stop. if you don't get any leaks, then either you are better than most plumbers, or you are making your joints too tight. the problem with over-tightening, is that sometmes your fittings will strip, or you will squeeze the joint compound too tight (small, or thinly) or the ferrules will deform too much and the joint will leak over time. be aware of not over-tightening as you do it, and you will see what i am saying. when you turn water on for the first time, you should get a drip here and there. just turn on a 1/4 turn on the valve, and you will just need a little tighten in the right spots.

also make sure that your pipe is cut straight across, to ensure maximum contact across the joints, and to bottom out all pipes into fittings. snug fits are best. you won't need to really reef them to get them to stop dripping.

also ensure that the fresh water feed to the fishroom is isolated from the rest of the plumbing system with a good quality ball valve. you never know when you will want to shut things down to work on them. good materials work better than cheap ones. cheap stuff is made for an excellant plumber to make work. anybody should be able to get the good stuff to work right for years to come with the right amount of care.

hth, rick

[Dragonfly]

Rick I suppose I should have qualified my statement about not knowing what I am doing. Running hose, inserting the drip nipples and hanging 1/4 tubing to a drip plug is simple, the actual plumbing tie in is being done by my father-in-law and he was a plumber all his life. He is inserting a cut-off in case I need to shut it off. Thank you for the mention about leaks, I will be certain to have company when I first turn it on.

Sincerest Thank you's,

Alex

[Dane]

Here's how I used to do it -

http://members.cruzio.com/~dane/waterch.gif

The blue object is a Little Giant sump pump.

Just above the blue sump pump is a "tether switch" which is floating in the sump. The tether switch turns on and off the sump pump. You set the "on" and "off" points by where you tie wrap the tether.

It's simple - When the drip system adds enough water, the sump pump kicks on and pumps water out the white drinking water hose onto a very green lawn :)

The tube tie wrapped to the output of the Mag Drive is a "fail safe" level switch which shuts off the RO in case the tether switch fails.

I used to this setup to change 100 gals a day for 2 years with no problems :D

[GulfCoastDiscus]

Alex,
Did you drill all your tanks? I just finished drilling all my tanks and run each over flow into a 1" pipe to the drain under the sink.
I'm running a 3/4" pvc from a 330gal storage tank to drip lines to all my tanks excluding breeding tanks. Breeding tanks are on a separate drip line from a 165gal RO storage tank.
I will only siphon the debris from each tank daily. Each tank will automatically change water at 50% wc daily.

I have 18 tanks and it use to take me 1 1/2 hr. I timed it today just siphoning debris and only took me 20 minutes.

Now I can go on a vacation with no worries. ;D ;D

Dan

[Jean]

;D Some pics would be fantastic if you can!


Jean ;D 8)

[GulfCoastDiscus]

Hi Jean,
I'll explain the pic the best I can. Here's a pic of the 330gal storage tank. The green hose is the incoming water from the faucet. There's constant incoming water at all times to a stop valve to refill the storage tank. The water first goes thru a micron filter then a charcoal cannister before going into the storage tank.
The 3/4" pvc sends water to all the aquarium. The small line coming off the pvc is recycling the water back to the 330gal storage tank from a green peat bucket. The waste water from the RO also goes in the peat bucket then overflows through a panty hose to filter small particle of peat. It sound a bit complicated but really very simple. Take a look at the pics.

Dan

[GulfCoastDiscus]

To prevent back pressure on the pump, there's a return with a valve to control the pressure going to all the tank.

Dan

[GulfCoastDiscus]

This pics shows the pvc to the aquarium. The top pvc is airline anf the lower pvc is the water drip lines.

Dan