Low Light - High Tech - Automated 180!

gpodio · Aug 23, 2010

Hi all, thought I'd start a thread about this new tank I'm setting up. Last few years it's been hard to find the time to keep up with all my hobbies, so at the start of the year I decided to take down my 180 gallon reef tank which has been my second wife AND third child for the past 4 years...

My plan is to set it up as a very low maintenance planted tank... Everything short of pruning the plants will be automated. This is the only way I could justify setting it back up... Unfortunately I am aquascape challanged, but a hard-core tinkerer so I apologize up front for the lack of "art" in this tank, but I promise good stuff on the tinkering / DIY side

So in June I set out to the local creek to collect some rocks...

PS. The white stuff on the overflows are corals that had grown onto the plastic, I tried to remove these but I was scratching the plastic in doing so. The acidic water of the planted tank should dissolve this in a couple months...

Seeing I had a lot of tinkering ahead of me with the automation and lighting stuff, I decided to plant the tank with some test plants to see how things go...

Obviously these plants all need to go, I have been receiving plants all week and they are growing out in an emersed setup until I have enough mass to replace what's there now. Meanwhile I can play with the environment and see what works and what doesn't...

Lighting is still up in the air, currently only using 2 overdriven 40W T12 Aquarays, working better than expected! I do have more under the "hood" but not sure if or how I will use them just yet.

That's it for now, I'll add details about each aspect of the setup over the next couple days...

Best regards,
Giancarlo Podio

gpodio · Aug 24, 2010

Lighting

The light fixture I built when I first got the tank and was setting it up as a reef tank. Here are some pics from the build:

Bulb layout:
[======== 110W T12 VHO ========]
(250W MH) - (400W MH) - (250W MH)
[======== 110W T12 VHO ========]

Not wanting to change things too much I decided to replace the T12 VHO Actinics with T12 GE Aquarays. T12's take overdriving above 2x better than smaller diameters as they don't get as hot so worth trying... Originally I thought I would at least need a midday burst from the two outer 250W metal halides so I put two 10,000K bulbs in there but so far doesn't look as if I will need them unless I choose a more demanding foreground cover. Worst case they will be used for taking photos...

There are also two circuits for moon lights, I had originally used LEDs for moonlighting but they look very artificial as they are too concentrated and cause a spot light effect. I ended up using CCFL (same stuff that's used to light up cars, computer cases etc.), one circuit is blue, the other is UV (Blacklight). The blacklights were amazing over the reef tank as they would make the corals fluoresce, however in the planted tank a lot of the organics in the water show up and make it look cloudy. The blue moonlights look good, besides certain fish there is little in a freshwater tank that will light up as a reef tank would under moonlighting so the effect is minimal, I may replace the UV tubes with white or green.

Lighting summary: (1.2WPG)
- Two 40W T12 GE Aquarays 9325K overdriven (ODNO) to 110W each using an ARO VHO ballast (12 hr period)
- Two 250W Coralife 10,000K SE Metal Halides (Currently not in use, may become a midday burst)
- CCFL Blue Moonlights (4 hrs after lights out)

Phil Edwards · Sep 1, 2010

I'm sorry to see that beautiful reef taken down, but your plant tank is going to be equally beautiful and a LOT easier to maintain. :clap2: How are you automating everything? Just leaving the old ATO and dosing mechanisms from the reef in place?

Regards,
Phil

gpodio · Sep 7, 2010

Phil Edwards said:
I'm sorry to see that beautiful reef taken down, but your plant tank is going to be equally beautiful and a LOT easier to maintain. :clap2: How are you automating everything? Just leaving the old ATO and dosing mechanisms from the reef in place?

Regards,
Phil

Hi Phil, it took me a little while to convince myself to tear down the reef... it was time!

The automation was already partially in place for the reef, I am using a HAI home automation controller, video hub and dedicated server to handle everything. I spent much of last week getting the firmware upgraded and configuring the new features, iPhone app and so forth... Some details still need to be figured out, in particular with regards to dosing ferts and deciding what I'm going to pre-mix and what will be dosed independently. I also have a hospital feeding machine which is dosing Metricide as a constant drip rather than daily doses... not sure if that will be replaced or not, I'm having difficulties controlling it through the RS232 interface, it's currently running on it's own program without any feedback to the automation unit... meaning I have no way to control or monitor remotely. The rest is working great, soon I'll have the cameras installed and will be able to actually see the tank remotely too, that will be a nice touch!

I'll add details on the automation shortly. You can also see part of the setup on the reef page:
http://www.gpodio.com/180g_build.asp

Regards,
Giancarlo Podio

virgo888 · Sep 5, 2010

that's a nice reef setup. post new freshwater pictures once it's fully established.

gpodio · Sep 8, 2010

Automation

Here is the first part of the automation setup...

Controller
The controller is a HAI OmniLite home automation system. These are typically used in homes for automating lighting, blinds, air conditioning, security and such... not what you'd normally use for an aquarium but I had a couple of these units from a previous project so I figured they would work well.

Here is a picture of the controller and computer being used as a web server and remote access:

Up top is the computer... followed by the video hub which can accomodate 8 cameras and 8 touchscreen consoles. On the bottom is the housing for the main controller and add-on cards such as serial interface, X-10 interface and so forth... The photo is a little outdated now, there's a lot more wiring in there today

Power Distribution
Luckily when I initially set this up I decided to build a mobile power box for all the switches, this proved to be a good idea as I moved the tank from where it originally sat as a reef tank:

All the devices are "ALC Branch" units which mean they are controlled by independent control wiring such as CAT5 or similar. While this is a little more complex to wire in an existing house, they offer some advantages over X-10 based units which can falsely trigger on and off or give inaccurate device status feedback to the controller. Each outlet is rated at 600W and can be manually controlled by the switches on the left side of the box. A "scene controller" is also used to run macros such as performing non-scheduled water changes, turning the lights on for a couple hours when visitors arrive, emergency "all-off" functions and so forth...

Web Server
The web server allows me to access everything remotely from any computer on the internet. It is limited to things like checking status, viewing video streams and running macros. It is unable to program the controller through the web interface... had to buy a "dealer" component to simplify programming the system.

PS. Again this is an older picture and shows the programs I had running for the reef...

Touchscreens
The touchscreens allow you to monitor and program the controller so these are a little more useful than the web component if you decide you need to make a change to the system. Video can also be streamed to them which hopefully will be working in the next few weeks...

iPhone
One of the new features that was installed with the latest firmware is support for mobile devices! Although I wonder just how important it is to have this, it's kinda neat to be able to perform a water change from your phone... :loco:

Vadimshevchuk · Sep 11, 2010

That is an awesome tank! Did you make the lights dim able?

gpodio · Sep 13, 2010

I tried a dimmable balast when it was a reef, I wanted a slow ramp up to full intensity to simulate a sunrise, but that was impossible as the dimming ballast needed to be on at 100% for 10-15 minutes before it allowed you to dim it. Dimming the bulb full time seemed to chance the overall color of the light and I assume the spectrum with it... in the end I opted for regular ballasts and just vary the light period and pendant height to change intensity as needed.

Giancarlo Podio

chonhzilla · Sep 12, 2010

This is the craziest command center I have seen. Well done.

fishyjoe24 · Sep 16, 2010

hi ARE THERE ANY UP DATES?

finsNfur · Sep 19, 2010

Wow, you don't do things in a small way, do you? I bet the new tank looks great by now. The old one was certainly stunning.

gpodio · Sep 20, 2010

Filtration

Filtration is composed of an Eheim Pro 3 2080 canister filter and a smaller 2217 on battery backup. I'm using the Eheim intakes inserted in the tank's overflow boxes, these also act as surface skimmers. The return of the filters are plumbed into the tank's return plumbing...

A Coralife Turbo Twist 18W UV sterilizer and a Hydor ETH 300W heater are plumbed in-line with the canister return.

A SEIO M1500 (1500g/hr) is used in the tank for circulation

gpodio · Sep 20, 2010

Auto Top-Off (ATO)

The auto top-off is left over from the reef setup. Originally the ATO was connected to a timer which turned it on for a couple hours twice a day, this was important to reuce TDS creep through the RO membrane. I have bypassed the RO and DI stages so only the pre-filters are used.

The RO/DI filter:

The float valve keeps the bucket full of filtered water. Inside the bucket is a little Eheim pump connected to plastic ice maker tubing going to the tank:

PS. The bucket is also useful for dosing things over a couple days such as traces...

This is the solenoid float switch that senses a low water level in the tank and turns on the pump in the bucket above:

...and this is the tube from the pump in the bucket:

Automatic Water Changes

With the ATO in place, I only needed to find a way to remove water from the tank at a rate that was slower than the top-off rate. I used a second little Eheim pump inside one of the overflows to pump water out and into a drain:

The "T" splits the flow from the pump between the drain line and a short piece that returns water into the tank (I bent it by heating it). This serves three purposes:

- Breaks the syphon of water draining out the tank once the pump stops
- Slows down the rate of water being drained to make sure it's not faster than the top-off rate
- Stirs up the organic film that tends to accumulate on the surface inside the overflows

The drain pump is controlled by the computer and turns on for 12 hours every friday. This is about 100 gallon change. The slow rate causes no swing in PH or temperature. Although the carbon block filters in the ATO 'should' cover most bases, I do add 30-40ml of Tetra AquaSafe in the tank once a week to avoid any long term accumulation of anything they may miss.

WeedCali · Sep 21, 2010

That is so awesome! i wanna see more pics and info on this!

dennis · Sep 21, 2010

Waves hi to Giancarlo, waves hi to Phil!

Beautiful reef you had there but nice to see you back on this side. That controller is terrific. It may seem like overkill to some but I can't imaging dealing with a tank that big without some automation. Think of standing there with a hose and siphon for your weekly water change

The auto top off is my biggest envy (well, that and a house with a tank that big in it).

For scaping though, you totally need larger rocks, much larger rocks. You should throw a scaping party!

gpodio · Sep 21, 2010

Thank you! I admit I've never been an aquascaper and I'm still trying to kick the habit of collecting plant species... However the rocks did bore me, I've removed them from the right half so the tank now looks like a 50:50 igwami/dutch layout. The H. micranthemoides that covered the foreground is also gone, that served extremely well as a filler during initial setup, I've replaced it with glosso on the substrate and HC in the cracks between the rocks. In the following month or so I will decide which look I prefer and tear out the half that looses the vote.

I've also started to use the 2x250W MH lamps for a 3 hour midday peak, so I'm kind of dropping out of the "low light" category for now but once it fills in I'll see if the growth remains compact with the fluorescents alone. Using a sunrise/sunset program I had in place for the reef tank, it's cool to see the plants tilting East in the morning and West in the afternoon... I wonder if such movement helps in any way compared to static lighting, I would think it could effects flow patterns and shadowing to some extent... The 400W bulb is coming in handy for taking photos and x-raying the fish

As soon as I have enough plant mass to play with I will see if there are any locals interested in a scaping party! Anyone here from Philly??

Other updates, I've started dosing 1ml per hour of Metricide 14, this should speed up the HC as I only had a small sample to start with. I'm growing HC and glosso emersed again so that will help provide the bulk I need soon.

On a side note, I had a friend/plant dealer come visit the other day... Oddly he was interested in a tiger lotus I've had for 10 years, he said he hasn't seen specimins like this in a long time... the ones he had pictures of in his catalog seem very blandly colored and the patterns on the leaves are hardly noticeable... I think he's just comparing it to his own (limited) resources honestly, but he's got me curious about it as I was debating removing it from the tank and therefore letting go of it permanently... Probably just environmental differences.

Regards,
Giancarlo Podio

Aquaticz · Oct 9, 2010

Giancarlo... I am awe struck & You are amazing. You have a techie mind for sure. . Iam subbing so I can see you tweak things and make this system most definetly - one of a kind. Excellent work

cliffclof · Oct 15, 2010

I would like to see the tank and how well it is all working.

Esteroali · Oct 15, 2010

You must have a very, very big brain.

gpodio · Oct 21, 2010

Thanks! I'll take a photo this weekend and try to continue the write-up... we're pretty much caught up now, I spent the last week or so rewiring the house and reconfiguring the network, added a NAS to use as storage for the video cameras and so forth... I want to record an entire year of this setup and watch the tank go thorugh it's various stages and problems and being able to access the logs of what was added, test results and so forth... I have been keeping detailed tank logs for over 20 years and they are so worth the effort, seems like every time I open a page from the past I learn or remember something new. I also keep photos as a visual log to complement the written one, but a video log should be fun, specially sped up as a time lapse.

The most interesting part of having such a setup is that everything is planned for, there is little room for human error and the results are very evident when you tweak things. I had started to use the metal halides for a midday peak and clearly did not work out well at all... BGA started to cover the entire foreground, rocks and eventually onto the plants. I let it get to a "bad" point on purpose and then started to play with the program, making a single change at a time and waiting it out to see what effects it had. On BGA it's just so eivident that too much light was the key cause, at least in this case, but so was 'something' in the water... I started by letting the system perform a 24 hour water change, by the time the change was complete it was evident that the thickness of the film had greatly been reduced, the glosso under it was visible once again, but a day after the fact it was back to normal. I repeated this 3 times over the course of a week until I no longer saw any benefit of doing so. I then shut down the midday peak and returned to my original plan of a "low(ish) light tank". The reduction of light stopped it from spreading and I vacumed the remainder out last week. The tank is now operating on the two 40W AquaRays for 12 hours a day (overdriven @ 110W each). Turning the UV light on or off seemed to have little to no effect on the spread of BGA.

The substrate is also showing signs of maturing, long gone are the initial "fuzzies" typical of a new tank and the crypts are no longer showing any signs of deficiencies (seemed like nitrogen deficiency). The floaters which were struggling initially and melting away are now being purchased by the local fish store on a bi-weekly basis. Pretty soon I'll be able to start playing with fertilizer doses and so forth, still need to reach the volume of plants I need to fertilize the tank as I want to.

The automation of the ferts is my next thing to tackle. So far the Kangaroo feeding pumps I'm picking up for peanuts on eBay are working well but cannot be controlled by my controller... so in the spirit of a fully automated and remotely controllable system, these cannot be a final solution for me, but they are incredibly accurate and cheap on the used market. A couple models do have an RS232 port so perhaps there may be a way to control them, I will have a busy end of year with other things so this is likely going to be dragged out a little.

That's about it for now, the glosso is still filling in but has spread throughout the entire foreground. HC struggled to keep a hold on the Flourite but it's still present in some areas. I have a bunch growing emersed so once the BGA is fully gone I will attempt to plant it again. Have also been adding more fish, trying to build up a nice army of cardinals and ottos. It's actually the first time I see ottos school like this, there's about 20 of them and they all stick together or in two tight groups, very cool! SAE's jumped out... I guess they didn't like it in there

PS. Big open tank = big surprises! So far I have found a football, a pair socks, bouncy balls and the dog's bone in there... oh and a couple Yougioh cards too... Paw prints on the glass may be a hint that the cat may have fallen in there too. Wish the camera was rolling for that!

Cheers
Giancarlo Podio

Revan · Oct 25, 2010

Ciao Giancarlo, complimenti per questa bellissima vasca ed in particolare per l'ottimo lavoro con il fai-da-te e per la parte elettronica e di automazione

Ciao

Claudio

Hi Giancalo, compliments for this beautiful tank and in particular for the DIY work, for the electronic and for the automation

Bye

bratyboy2 · Oct 25, 2010

Update?

cliffclof · Jun 20, 2011

Still interested in seeing pictures. Hope everything is okay.

HKN · Jun 23, 2011

you had a badarse reef.....

nap83 · Aug 31, 2011

this is insane! any updates?

popomon · Aug 31, 2011

an update would be awesome

gpodio · Sep 7, 2011

Wow it's been a year already...

Well unfortunately my new job has taken over everything else and I have not touched this tank since my last post. Luckily the automated setup has been working well and has taken over my role of "keeper" until I find time to tend to the tank again.

Here are some changes and notes since my last post:

- CO2 and ferts ran out around Christmas and were never replenished. The higher-light plants perrished while the ferns, anubias and crypts have been growing very healthy. I'm happy with that.

- The two 48" AquaRays powered by the VHO ballast were just too powerful for a non-CO2 tank, i turned them off when I started to see some BGA growing. Lighting has been reduced to 2x250W MH bulbs for 4 hours a day.

- Fish load was increased to keep NO3 levels above 0. My kids helped out so it's looking more like a "Walmart Biotope" than anything else.

- Filters, gravel and glass have not been touched since initial setup, I will clean out the filters in a month or so, gravel looks great so not touching it, glass has never needed cleaning in this tank, I was thinking it may be due to the angle of the light and how little of it hits the glass surfaces...

- Feeder is set to twice a week, some flake and some algae wafers. No skinny fish in sight.

- The automation system has been rock solid and has survived through several power surges and outages. I did loose one controlled outlet due to a faulty 400W MH ballast, luckily I had spare outlets and I don't use the 400W bulb in the middle of the fixture anyway so no big deal.

That's about it for now, overall I'm very happy and lucky to have gotten this working so well before changing job as it would have been a disaster without automation. I still get a kick out of turning the lights on remotely with my iPhone when I know we have visitors... that part doesn't seem to get old

I will post a picture when I'm back home this weekend...

Regards,
Giancarlo

londonloco · Sep 7, 2011

subscribed...can't wait to see these pics!

Low Light - High Tech - Automated 180!

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