# Automated system



## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

This adventure actually started 3 years ago. I bought tanks and equipment off a former local fish club member that was getting out of the hobby. He apparently raised angelfish and sold them to the local stores in the 80's and 90's when there was an issue with the Florida fish farms and their angelfish dying. He stated that back then, he made a killing on the sales. He was getting out of the hobby and starting a motorcycle detailing shop as a new hobby. I had a plethora of tanks from this, including 4 drilled 55's and 16 drilled 20's. The stuff sat in my garage for almost two years before it was started.

Fast-forward to a year and a half ago - my brother-in-law had been out of work and I connived him into helping me set up the system.

The plan: 16 20 gallon tanks on a top rack, 4 55 gallon tanks on the bottom racks with an automated water change system. The original owner's system had a centralized wet-dry filter system that I canned based on space restraints and fears of an overflow with that much water running through a system of pipes. The 20 gallons would be used mainly for fish/fish breeding, with sponge filters for filtration. The 55's would be planted tanks for my "farming". The water change system would have storage tanks, filtered via a reverse-osmosis system. The 'waste water' would go into one tank to be used for water changes. The RO would fill up another tank with an overflow to the waste water. The reason for this setup is to have RO for later needs, with filtered water for water changes (my water supply has chloramines). Placing straight water and 'dechlorinating' it in a storage tank will eventually lead to nitrate buildup in the tank - the chloramines would be eventually broken down to chlorine and ammonia, the ammonia would be turned into nitrate by bacteria. Not something I would want for the fish or the planted tanks over time.

The local LFS uses 2x4's and cinder blocks for their rack system - seemed cheap and sturdy enough for my uses. We got the tanks cleaned, the racks put up, and the automated water system and air system mostly setup. My brother-in-law gets new job and moves out to Southern Cali. The system sits in my basement for another year. 

Fast-forward again to 6 months ago. One of the local plant geeks is out of work. He used to work at local fish stores. I connived him into finishing the job. "It'll only take you a couple days, not much left to do". 10+trips later, It's finally done! 

Front shot - there is another row of 20's on top of 55's in the back.









a couple of the planted 55's:


















As the 20 gallon tanks were being filled, there was bowing of the 2x4's. This were placed with the 4in width 'placed flat'. This had to be placed with the 4inch witdth 'vertically' with braces placed between them:









the water distribution and air distribution systems. The "T delivers water to the the 2 sides. The single pipe is the air distribution system.
Initially I had 2 inch PVC for the air system - lost too much pressure. That had to be changed....









Each tank has a bulkhead on the back for drainage. This goes into a large PVC pipe in the bottom, which then drains into the basement drain. Initially there was 1 inch tubing from the drainage pipes to the floor drain. This caused a backup and airlock - it had to be changed to 2 inch PVC piping as well.



























The planted tanks needed to be automated as well for my needs. The lights and CO2 are on timers. Each tank has 2 96w CF bulbs over them. I used a dual manifold regulator from www.greenleafaquariums.com and it has worked very well. There has often been an issue with others trying to 'divide' a CO2 tank to multiple aquariums - this has worked without a hitch for me.
The fertilization system uses the small pump method. It turns on for 3 minutes a day. One issue was the amount of flow in 1 minute without some type of 'regulator'. Without some type of restriction, I'd a very large storage tank with 500+ml being distributed per minute. (the tanks are near-level with the floor, greatly reducing the 'head' pressure that usually limits the flow of this method) Tim (connived person #2) thought about using air flow regulators. Teflon tape was used at the 'knobs' to prevent leakage. After tweaking (apparently time-consuming) it has been quite consistent at providing 15ml per 3 min .
Water flow is achieved by a powerhead on top of a sponge filter. The filter helps with particulates as well and gets rinsed out once a week.









The water storage system as mentioned above. We tried the pressure valves for RO units, but they did not work (would not shut off the pressure). I finally found a switch system that would fit my needs. It worked well, however there is a regulator for the system that lets you limit the time that the system stays on - used by people with sumps to prevent an overflow, if they are using it as top-off for their sump. This was malfunctionin,g so the regulator turned off after 5 minutes of use. The vendor was quite slow on sending me the initial equipment purchased, and was quite slow on sending a replacement - took two months til this system was finally working properly.


















The twenty-gallon tanks will be used for fish breeding. Filtration is via sponge filters. There are 4 shoplights above the 20's for lighting. There really is fish in there now 


















For the air pump, I purchased a linear air pump - not too loud considering the number of tanks it is supplying. To reduce vibration noise, it is hung on the side of the rack.









I can now have planted 'farms' and try an actual aquascape on my 75 gallon!









Some lessons learned:
1) an automated system is expensive! Despite getting some used equipment, it probably cost over $2500 for the supplies alone.
2) an automated system is time consuming to set up. It probably would have taken me another couple years to do it myself without the tons of help I got.
3) No matter how much you think it through, there will be setbacks - adding to lesson #1 and lesson #2
4) The amount of time and money saved over time should be well worth it. With the amount of tanks I had, water changes alone took over 2 hours. Now I can spend most of my time enjoying the plants and fish, and working on breeding. With my schedule being so unpredictable, this is well worth #1 and #2


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## intothenew (Aug 1, 2008)

must.....not......look. I would never leave the basement.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Wow! That is some set-up. I see that you really aren't done yet. I don't see the comfy chair or the beverage frig! 

What type of fish/inverts are you going to breed?


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## AQUADWELLER (Dec 16, 2008)

That's great hooha! Sorry to burst your bubble I'm certain once you have perfected your system, you'll find ways to improve on it...hahaha


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## Pinto (Mar 22, 2008)

Very nice setup. It must been a super pain on the automated setup.
I guess you glad now that that's done for now.


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## modster (Jun 16, 2007)

wow.... this is just amazing. How much does it cost each month to keep the system running?


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Nice system! I'll have to reread this thread later when I get my own place in a few years haha!


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## rjfurbank (Jan 21, 2008)

Very cool! Wish I had a basement. . .


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## orlando (Feb 14, 2007)

Very cool 

Question? what is the black box next to your RO filter?

-O


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## FishandTurtleJunkie (Apr 14, 2007)

Nice and clean. I have a similar automated system, and love it.


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

Thanks for the comments folks!



Tex Gal said:


> Wow! That is some set-up. I see that you really aren't done yet. I don't see the comfy chair or the beverage frig!
> 
> What type of fish/inverts are you going to breed?


lol, the chair and the fridge are next! Currently I'm going to try to breed some rasbora species - celestial pearl danios, espei rasboras. But really I'm planning on trying to breed anything I can - tetras, malawi cichilds. Working on the Breeder's award program for the local fish club.



AQUADWELLER said:


> That's great hooha! Sorry to burst your bubble I'm certain once you have perfected your system, you'll find ways to improve on it...hahaha


lol - I was actually thinking of putting another rack of 10 gallons on top - must resist!!!!



Pinto said:


> Very nice setup. It must been a super pain on the automated setup.
> I guess you glad now that that's done for now.


I thought it would be a straight-forward setup, but I guess with every DiY project there's always problems that arise!



modster said:


> wow.... this is just amazing. How much does it cost each month to keep the system running?


I haven't calculated it yet - it's only been 'running' for about a month now. Right now it changes about 400 gallons of water/week, and it has 1100 watts of light on for about 8-10 hours a day....



orlando said:


> Very cool
> 
> Question? what is the black box next to your RO filter?
> 
> -O


that is the float switch controller I mentioned. The 'knob' on it is to set a maximum 'on'time - used for people who are topping off sumps/aquariums directly with the switches.



FishandTurtleJunkie said:


> Nice and clean. I have a similar automated system, and love it.


Thats the way to go if you can! Did you run into specific problems setting it up?


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## FishandTurtleJunkie (Apr 14, 2007)

No problems on mine. I am only running the system on a single tank, rather than multiple tanks like you have. 

It looks like you have a sump plumbed in line. Any problems with C02 loss with it?


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

Actually the bulkheads are just for water changes - no sump set up. That was another reason I didn't set up a centralized filtration system (CO2 use/loss)


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## FishandTurtleJunkie (Apr 14, 2007)

I learned the hard way on a multiple tank set-up with a common sump - going through 20 Lb of C02 in a month was not uncommon.


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

We had a member in the local club who had problems with his CO2 levels, which probably were attributed to his tank having a sump....


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## Uncle Rico (Oct 22, 2007)

I am strangely aroused.........


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

lol

there's no pics of me in there so I'll take that as a compliment


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## Travis.808 (Apr 2, 2009)

WOW that is quite the setup! I'm pretty awestruck everything looks awesome. If I let my "hobby" get to that point I would probably be single again! I have to figure out how to use Jedi mind tricks to get my wife to like aquascaping as much as me! LOL


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## Pinto (Mar 22, 2008)

hooha said:


> I haven't calculated it yet - it's only been 'running' for about a month now. Right now it changes about 400 gallons of water/week, and it has 1100 watts of light on for about 8-10 hours a day....


Hmm, 1100? Wow i wonder if anybody will be knocking anytime soon


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## zdam20 (Mar 8, 2009)

I have an ro system set up that I hooked up to a 45 gallon brute container. As I use some ro water it turns on my ro and refills the container. No eletronics to quit in power outage or fail. It does require drilling a small hole in the side of your ro water container. Not a problem with plastic. Here's a web site for what I use.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=14690


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

Travis:
Let your wife know how much less time it would take to maintain your tanks. Right now,it takes me five minutes in the morning to feed 14 tanks of fish(including breeding) and maybe a half hour to an hour weekly for plant trimming, depending on how caught up I get. I don't have to spend two ororw hours doing water changes on only a portin of the tanks any more.

Zdam20: 
I tried multiple setups with those types of valves as well including calling the company for tech support but could not get amy of them to work. The current system is set to 'off' with the power off. I couldn't get the system to turn off with the plastic valves....


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## Travis.808 (Apr 2, 2009)

hooha said:


> *14 tanks of fish*


This is why I'd need the Jedi mind tricks LOL


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I think we need px update. Close up shots of the tanks and fish please!


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