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n2585722

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Everything posted by n2585722

  1. Now to the sampled inputs, The first is the one for alkalinity. Below is the setup for the sampled alkalinity. They type is iV test. The the particular iV tester is selected since there can be more than one in a system if you have more than one tank that needs testing. Then the test type is selected. In this case it is alkalinity. Then you set the safe range and graph limits you want. Then there is an offset setting you can use to set it to match another alkalinity test if needed. The stale sample notification is the length of time it will go between readings before it considers the reading stale or old. Notification level is the level of importance of the notification. In Hydros there is none, yellow, orange or red. None is no notification. Next is the pH sampled input. The type again is iV test and the tester is the same as the alkalinity since I only have the one. The test for this is sampled pH. The rest of the settings are about the same as alkalinity except it is pH values on the safe range and graph value limits. The last one is the sampled salinity input. the type and is the same as the other two. The test is sampled salinity in this case. The rest of the setting are the same except for the values on safe range and graph value limits. The next screenshot is of my input page for my hex tank where the X10 and iV are at. The sampled and static inputs have the date and time of the last test which is what is being displayed in the tile. The static input is a new inout you can setup and enter data from manual test auch as the Hanna tester. The other new input is from a flow meter on the output of my return pump. The salinity probe for the Hydros is reading about 1 higher than the pinpoint was. If i use the Hydros calibration fluid om the Pinpoint it reads the same as Hydros. So I am working on slowly dropping the level some. I used BRS refracto juice on my refractomer to calibrate it and it reads the same as the Hydros. I tested the Pinpoint calibration fluid with it and it read just shy of 36. Not sure which is right but neither is far enough from the other to be to concerned.
  2. I have a Hydros X10 and iV. The iV is a vessel that is used to do alkalinity testing using Hydros controllers. Below is a photo with the beaker in place. There are slots for 2 probes and it comes with three pieces of hard tubing to use with the flexible tubing and place them in the slots made for them in the top at the back. The iV has a magnetic stirrer built in that runs off of a drive port. The X10 is a controller with 4 precision dosing pumps built into it. These pumps can have the flow rate varied. I have set one as low as 3ml a minute to as high as 100ml a minute. The pump use stepper motors and are bidirectional also. The X10 also has a probe port for either a pH or ORP probe. It also has a salinity port. If you are using this with the iV you will use these ports for it. It also has 2 drive ports. The iV requires 1 so that leaves one for another dosing pump. More on that later. It also has 4 sense ports. These can be used for several things such as temps sensors, leak detector, flow sensor and more. The photo is below. Power is supplied by either a power supply that it does come with or you can also use the Kraken to supply power when it becomes available. It will also supply power to the bus for controllers that do not have a power input other than the command bus. I built a tray to sit the iV on and my KH Carer. It has a lip to hold a minimal amount of water. I also have a leak detector to place in the tray to halt the test if water is detected. Below is a photo of the tray in place on a cabinet. The camera on the front right corner is aimed at the tank. The tank to the left of the KH Carer is not in use but in case of an emergency it could be filled and used I guess. I have it setup to do alkalinity testing. It also get a sample reading for salinity and pH just before the test starts. I have a Apera salinity probe. It is the same one that comes in the salinity kit which is the probe and 2 bottles of the 2 calibration fluids needed for calibration. The test sequence is basically a drain of the beaker using the drain pump. I have mine going back to the sump. I am also using a Intllab dosing pump set to 50ml a minute for the drain pump. It is the one in the bottom of the photo above, Once it runs a specified time it stops and the fill pump comes on and fills above the normal amount for the test. It turns on the stirrer for a few seconds. It then drains using the fill pump this time. It stops after it has had plenty of time to empty the beaker. Then it starts a fill using the fill pump long enough to start filling the beaker. This is to make sure the fill tubing is full. The drain pump comes on again long enough to make sure the beaker is again empty. It then fills the beaker with 100ml of tank water for the test. It stirs and for a few seconds then get sample readings for pH and salinity. It then starts dispensing reaget into the beaker and measure the result. It keeps this up until the pH gets to around 4.05. It then stops and drains the beaker while the reading is calculated for alkalinity. There are several methods you can choose from when setting up as to how the reading is calculated. once the beaker has had time to completely drain. It fill with tank water and the stirrer is turn on for a few seconds. then it remains idol until the next test. The reason for the drain and fill after the test is if the pH probe were to sit in the pH 4 solution till the next test the pH reading would be about .1 low from a realtime probe reading. So it sits in near normal tank water till the next test. I originally had this setup stand alone with just the X10, iV, drain pump and leak detector and also controlled a wifi strip so I could power down the KH Carer if a leak was detected. It will also halt the iV test. I now have the X10 in my collective with my other controllers. Since then I have added a water level sensor and a flow sensor to the inputs on the X10. I now only have one sense port left at the tank. That is about it for this post. I will post more detain on the setup for doing this along with the two pumps on the X10 I am using for dynamic dosing.
  3. I figured out the issue on the phone. Auto rotation was off in the settings and it will not display unless it is and the phone is horizontal. I got some readings outside today with and without clouds as a comparison. The first one is without the clouds and the second is with cloud cover. The CCT seems to be right on these. I tried it on the tank again and now I get unknown instead of the wrong reading.
  4. I was using my surface and when I plugged the Parwise into the USB it recognized it and I opened up Microsoft Edge and it went to the the web app. Luckily there is a pause on it so you can pause the screen and get a print screen and paste it input the paint app and crop it and save as a file. I have not tried the time part of the app yet. I will have to figure out how to keep in in one place for several hours to take advantage of that feature. There is a icon of the sensor that switches it to air and submerged mode. I guess there is a difference that it has to account for when submerged. I was planning on taking it outside and get readings from the sun but it was cloudy all day today. i tried it on my Android phone and when I tried to go to a certain mode it kept showing the outline of a phone rotating to horizontal position but when I place the phone like that it kept showing the same thing so it may not be compatible with the phone or I need to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge. I will have to try again with the phone and see if I can figure it out. This is the first day I have had to try anything on it but so far I am liking it.
  5. I got a Parwise meter this weekend to check my lighting with. I have a PAR meter but it does not do a spectrum graph of the light. So I decided I would try this out. I have a DIY LED fixture that has 6 neutral white LED that are driven by a 1.5 amp Meanwell LDD driver. These LED's will take 3 amps but the 1.5 amp driver is the largest one in the LDD series I use. There are 2 strings of 6 royal blue one driven by 1.5 amp LDD driver and one drive by a 1 amp LDD driver. There is also a string of 6 UVA LED's driven with a 700 ma LDD driver. I also have two RGBW LED's, a deep red LED and a Cyan LED. There is 4 strings with these. The deep red is in the string with the red diode of the RGBW's and the cyan is with the green string of the RBGW strings. All 4 of the strings are driven by 700 ma LDD drivers. The RGBW strings are controlled by my Archon at this point. The other high power strings are controlled by the Hydros system via 0-10v to PWM converters. The normal maximum settings are below. Hydros: Neutral White 55% Royal Blue 45% UVA 38% Archon: Red 50% Green 50% Blue 50% White 60% The first screenshot below is the lights when they were at there normal maximum settings listed above at coral depth. The second screenshot is with all lights at 100% at coral depth. The third screenshot is at the surface of the water at normal maximum settings. The forth screenshot is at the surface with all lights at 100%. At the moment all I have is a colony of Duncan coral and a coupe of candy cane corals but they seem to be doing very well under the max settings I have set. Also the light seems natural when looking at the tank and even any photos look ok without using any filters. There is a photo of the tank without using any type of filters under the LED settings listed above.
  6. I had a Cooler Guys fan fail. It just quit working and does not even try to turn. My guess is it is a electronic failure. I got it in August of 2021 so it almost lasted 2 years in a harsh environment since it was used for cooling the tank water as it flows through the sump. There are two fans doing this and both failed. The other would try to turn but would not turn unless you spin it by hand and it would eventually quit. That was a mechanical failure. I got two more Cooler Guys fan to replace the two bad fans. I moved the exhaust fans down to the cooling fan bracket for the sump since they do have some protection for use in that environment and used two backup fans in the exhaust position until I could get replacements. The first photo is of the failed fan after I clean off all the salt creep. The second photo is of the two new fans mounted to the fan bracket for the sump. The screenshot is of the temp graph. The 1.2 degree increase was during the replacement of the fans. Both the exhaust and cooling fans were off line when the temp increased. It takes both sets of fans to keep the water cool since it uses evaporative cooling. If there was no exhaust for the sump area the humidity and temp would increase to the point that evaporative cooling would no longer work. So there is two of each fan just in case of a failure of one fan it would continue was an impaired level until the failed fan can be replaced. I do keep a couple of spare fans of the same size. Eventually they will be Cooler Guys if all goes well with these.
  7. They added some new stuff to the Hydros. They now have float switches and a triple optical sensor that hook to the sense ports. I am already using float switches on the sense port but had then configured as optical sensors. I switched them to the float switch mode. Below are two screenshots from before i switched. It did not change how the worked but now does referr to then as float switches and has the icon for that. Below are three screenshots when changing the sense mode setting. The first one is before changing it and the second one is the popup menu for selecting the mode type. The third is after changing the mode type. That was the only setting I needed to change. Below is a screenshot of the same 2 pages in the first screen shot after the change. I have 10 float switches in use. There were already installed from the previous controller. There is also a sense mode for the new triple level sensor. Now to the other feature they added. It is the alert output type. When you create an alert output it can turn on an output when that type of alert is active. If you use override to turn the output off it not only turns off the output it will also turn off the lights and sound on the controllers themselves. Below are the three alert outputs I created. There is one for each of the they alert levels. I do not have an output device assigned to these since I plan on using some lights that are controlled by the controller for double purpose duty. The first screenshot below is a combiner used to combine the yellow alert output with the original Jelly fish crystal output for the lights. The second one is the combiner used to combine the orange alert and the original globe output for the globe lights. The third screenshot is the combiner for the red alert and left light houses. These are setup then same except for the two inputs and the output device on these. The use the combiner output type with two inputs and the combiner mode is OR since we want the output on if either input is active. These outputs now control the output ports that the corresponding lights are on. The next output is alert active. It is a combiner type output and has the inputs. The inputs are the yellow alert, orange alert and red alert outputs. The combiner mode is OR here also since we want this output on if any of the three alerts are active. This is used to turn off the four original light outputs if there is an alert. That way we can turn on lights in a pattern to signify the different alerts. The lower level alert will be on if there is also a higher level alert. They start form yellow then orange and highest red. Below are the original outputs with changes made to get this to work. The first one is the left side light houses, the second is the jelly fish crystal, the third is the globes. Those three have their device output changed to none since they are now used in the combiners outputs listed earlier. All have the depends on set to the alert active output and the dependency mode set to off if on. So here if there is an alert we want to disable these outputs since the alerts will light the lights in a certain pattern to signify the type of alert. The forth screenshot is the right light houses. The only change to this output was to add the depends on and dependency mode of off if on. This output is off on all alerts but when there is no alert all lights are either on or off. so if any are off with others on then there is an alert. Below are two photos of the lights when in normal operation. I do have one light house on the left that has a bad bulb so it does not light. The first photo is with the lights off. The second one is when the lights are on which they are on from 5pm till 10pm. They belong to my wife so she does get something out of the controller. The next photo is when there is a yellow alert. Only the jelly fish crystal is lit the others are off. The photo below is an orange alert. The jelly fish light and globes are lit. They are easier to see than they appear in the photo since the lights in the globes are going on and off. Below is a photo of red alert. The jelly fish crystal, globes and the left side light houses are lit and the right side lights houses are off. Of coarse a red alert is hard to miss since the sound on the controller is going off also. With 10 controllers it is quite loud. These lights are in the living room where we spend most of our time. The tank cannot be seen from that room. I wanted to try out this feature and decided to use lights that were already controlled by the controller and since these were in the living room I figured they would work with a little more complex setup. If I like it ai may add another wifi strip and setup some lights just for alerts but I am not sure what the wife would think of that idea. These are hers and already in place so no problem using them. That is about if for for updates at this time.More to come though.
  8. I got some photos with the camera today. I got the emerald crab to get rid on the bubble algae. So far it has not messed with the coral. I am not sure where the bubble algae came from. I have not added anything in over 5 years and it just popped up and grew incredibly fast. It does seem to be disappearing in places.
  9. I usually do compare the old and new readings. It gives me an idea of the difference in the reading from old to new by testing with both two to three times when switching. If fact with the phosphate I still had a couple of packets of reagent and went back and tested with it with this solution and it was off the other direction more than the new reagent was. It was .08 off reading high but it is expired now. I just had a couple left that I didn't use. With that tester you have to buy the reagents in lots of a 100. I only test once a week so if I am lucky I will get a new batch like I did this time. The expiration date is in 2025 on this batch, but I got it directly from Milwaukee this time.
  10. I got some Fauna Marin reference solution to check my testing equipment with. Below is a chart with the results. The Hanna Alkalinity tester shows no difference between it and what the referecne is suppose to be for Alkalinity. The Hanna calcium was off 1.18%, Hanna nitrate was off by 8%, Milwaukee phosphate was off by 15%, Red Sea Mag Pro was off by 2.66% and my refractometer was off by 2.86%. The phosphate meter is the oldest meter which is about 14 years old. I did notice the last batch of reagent I got was a lower reading than my previous reaget so it could be a variance in the reagent I still have a couple of packets so I might retest using one of them, but I am ok with 15% on phosphate. The Hanna HR Nitrate also was a 8% difference but for that 8% is ok for me. The others were close to the reference that I checked. It is only a 100ml bottle and most test use 10ml at a time so It won't last too long if you have a lot of test meters or kits to check. I used near 50% of it testing the ones I did. I figured I would post if anyone else is interested in checking their test equipment against a reference. I will probably do this on occasion of if I have a reason to think one of the testers or test kits is off.
  11. There was a new app and firmware release for the Hydros Wednesday. One of the main differences is the ability to choose different time frames for the graphs. There is also graph value limit setting in the input settings to keep the graph values within those limits. The limits only apply to values after these settings are setup so any previous readings are not affected by this setting. Below are some screenshots of my graphs in the different time frames. These are set for one month. Also the Hydros can get readings from the Kamoer KH Carer now. I have not had mine for a complete month so I do not have a complete months worth of data yet. Below is graphs for temp and pH that go back a year. You can see the three times my AC unit was out on the graph. Below is a screenshot of the popup to select the time frame. Below are a couple of screenshots of the temp and pH input with the graph value limits setup. For temp I have it set to between 73 and 82 degrees. This keeps the graph from expanding for outliers in the data. The second screenshot is for the pH input. Below is a screenshot of inputs for my hex tank. The third and forth tiles are data from my KH Carer. There is a time and date of the last test from the KH Carer. I have it set to test at 6:00am, 2:00pm and 10:00pm. The test takes about 30 minutes to complete so the time on the readings are at the end of the test. Since I brought up the KH Carer here is some data and a graph comparing readings from it with the Hanna tester and the Hydros pH probe. I have noticed that after it adds buffering the KH reading will drop compared to the Hanna. They will overlap again but it takes somewhere between 12 to 24 hours. I may go to a once a day testing, but I also plan on trying a different buffering recipe first to see if it reacts faster to it. Currently I am using baking soda and DI water. I have some baked baking soda mixed up to try after I go through the plain baking soda that is in use.
  12. Now for the button box on the right. This only has one button hooked up. That is the DI dispense which is basically the same as fresh saltwater dispense. Below is the screenshot of the DI dispense input settings. It is a 0-10v input type and input mode is button. The 0-10v input port is the same one used by the other two button boxes. The trigger voltage on this one is 1v so if the controller sees a voltage between .5-1.5 volts then this button is on. The event duration is set to 10 seconds and second press ends event. The resistor in series with this switch is a 115 ohm resistor. Below is the DI dispense output. It is a generic output type with a input count of 1. The input is the previous input button. It is set to active when on. The output device is one of the AC outlets on the wifi power strip in the garage. I use the button for dispensing DI into containers for various uses. I need DI for some of the test and for mixing reagent and KH buffering for the KH Carer mainly but since the button makes it so easy to get small amounts from the DI storage I am sure I will be using it quite a bit. This is the schematic I used to come up with the resistor values. The big difference between this and mine is the 5v and ground connection are reversed on mine. that also means the voltage output at each switch is also reversed. The voltage on mine from left to right is 4v, 3v, 2v, 1v and 0v instead of what is labeled on the diagram. , The input has 5v when there is no button pressed and the switch is off. So basically I reversed the connections at pin 3 and pin 6. This schematic is posted in the Hydros forum in the DIY section. The input I used is pin 5. Here is a link to the post where I got the schematic from DIY 0-10V Input Switch Box (5 Switches) .
  13. Now to the center box. It has the fresh saltwater dispense push button and the AWC pause switch. The settings for the fresh saltwater dispense button are in the screenshot below. This is the 0-10v input type and the input mode is button. The port is the same one used for the previous box. This one is set to 4 volts so if the controller sees 3.5-4.5 volts it turns on the fresh saltwater dispense button. The event duration is 10 seconds and pushing again will stop the event. The resistor in series with this switch is a 2k ohm resistor. Below is the output controlled with the fresh saltwater dispense button. It is the generic output type with 1 input. The input is the fresh saltwater dispense button. It is set to active when on. It uses outlet 1 on a wifi power strip in the garage as the output device. I use a PMUP pump for this and it can be powered from a force port on the Kraken when it is available. The Kraken has 8 24 volt force ports and 4 12 volt direct drive ports. The PMUP uses a Microfit 3.0 connector. I got mine from Mouser. With this output if I press and hold the button it will dispense until I release the button. Most of the time I am not using much since the tank has AWC. I do use it to flush out the carbon in a reactor before I use it on the tank. Below is the settings for the AWC pause switch. Again it uses the 0-10v input type. The input mode is switch instead of button. It uses the same input port as the rest of the buttons. This one is set to 0 volts so if the controller sees a voltage below .5 volts this switch is on. The data type is on/off and it is set to on when inside range. Notification level is set to none. If this switch is on none of the other switches will work. So it also locks out the other switches. This works great for me since I usually turn off AWC when I am going to be out of town for a few days. This switch has no resistor since the target voltage is 0. Below is the output that is controlled by the pause ATO switch. It uses the generic output type with one input. The input is the pause ATO switch. It is set to active when on. When the switch is on this output is on. This output is for AWC halt. It is the combiner output type and has two inputs. The first input is low FSW. If the fresh saltwater goes low then we do not want to run another water change after the current one finishes. The other input is AWC pause which is the previous output. Below is the water change schedule settings. The type of schedule is water change regimen. The water change count is 3. It does three water changes at 7am, 1pm and 7pm each day. The start time is set to 7am the end time is set to 1am. This was done since each sequence includes the off time between it and the next water change. This also has to be included on the last one even though there is not another change. So that is the reason for extending the end time to 1am. This is set to run every day. It is also set to run all days of the week. Now to the settings that pause the AWC. The depends on is set to AWC Halt. The dependency mode is set to off if on. So if AWC halt is on the schedule will not start. Any schedule in process will complete the process. The dependency is used on the schedule instead of the AWC output for two reasons. Using the one on the output will immediately stop process and also stop the ATO from running since it is also a part of that output. Using depends on on outputs that have multiple outputs will affect all outputs. So if dependency mode is set to on if XX and XX is met all outputs will turn on. That also applies to off if XX also. Depends on takes precedence over any of the other output settings. Below is the AWC output settings. It took three screenshots to get it all. It is a automatic water change output type. The high level input is the sump full sensor. This is used for the ATO and the fill pump. The next is a low level sensor. If this is set then it would drain down to that sensor the fill back up to the high level sensor. Since I use dosing pumps for this I don't use the low level sensor. I have it set to run the drain pump for 8 minutes under the drain duration setting. I don't use the leak detection here since I have three leak detectors I use it on other outputs which will kill power to the pumps if a leak is detected along with some other sensors as well. The ATO output port is on my X4 in the garage. The power safe range is set from 1-1.9 watts. The power notification is set to orange. So if the wattage is not within range the controller will send a alert. The drain output port is also on my X4 in the garage. The safe range for this pump is set from 1-2 watts. It is also set to a notification level of orange. The fill output port is a X2 in the garage. It also has a safe range form 1-2 watts. The fill and drain pumps are the same type and model of Intllab pumps. The ATO pump is a Hydros dosing pump. It is also set to a notification level of orange. The depends on statement is not used on this output. Advanced settings have been enabled for the ATO. I would suggest doing this. Set the values in the settings to match the needs of you tank if you are using a Hydros for ATO since these will limit the amount of water that can be added in a given time. I set the minimum off time to 15 minutes. With this setting it will only run every 15 minutes. This with maximum on time limits the amount of water that can be dispensed. I have the maximum off time set for 6 hours. This setting will only cause an alert to be sent. It will not turn on the pump. If it goes 6 hours without topping off something needs to be checked out. I have the minimum on time set to 45 seconds so it will run at least that long once it starts regardless of the high level sensor. I have the maximum on time set for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. If it goes that long it will send an alert that maximum on time has been exceeded. The next setting is the important one. I have run past max on time set to off so it will only run to the maximum on time then turn off. It will still send the alert. If this happens then things need to be checked unless you are still trying to get it set correctly for your tank. It will stay off until the high level sensor goes wet or you intervene by overriding to off or on and then back to auto. The drain and fill pump outputs also have their advanced settings enable. Both are maximum on times. The drain is set to 12 minutes and run past max on time is set to off. The fill is set to 18 minutes and run past max on time is set to off. Both have a notification level set to orange. So if either pump hits max on time I will get an alert. That is it for this box. Next will be the last one. It only has one button connected on it. There is a second button installed but it is not connected at this time.
  14. Now for the setup in the controllers for the switches. The first settings are from the first box on the left. I will start with the mix ready button. The first screenshot is the inputs I have visable on my garage page. These inputs are related to things that fo on in the garage with the RODI, ATO,AWC and All For Reef dosing. The mix ready tile is in the second row third from the left. It is currently off which is normal if it is not beeing pressed. Below is the settings for the mix ready input. It is a 0-10v input type. The input mode is button. The 0-10v input port is my X4 in the garage and it is input 4 which if you are using the quad cable it is the orange 3.5mm plug on that cable. The trigger voltage is set to 3 volts. So if the controller sees between 2.5 and 3.5 volts on that 0-10v input channel then this switch input will change to the on state.The event duration is set to 10 seconds. After it is pressed then the on state will last 10 seconds. You do have to press it for a few seconds to activate it anyway. It is set to end the event on the second press. This is not important on this input but I do have one that it is and it will be next. The resistor that is connected to ground on this button is a 750 ohm. There is also a 510 ohm resistor attached from the input to a 5 volt source. The switch input is used by the output below. This output just changes the input to an output so it can be used by the other two outputs. It is the generic type. It has an input count of 1. The single input is the mix ready input. It is set to active when on or pressed. All the rest of the settings are default since they are not used. The next output is the mix ready latch. This is used to keep the mix ready output in the on state after the mix ready button has been pressed. The signal that turn it off is the mix ready output turning off. It is the combiner type and has 2 inputs. One is the mix ready start output and the other is the mix ready output itself. It is set to xombiner mode OR which makes this a OR gate. If either input is on this output is on. Since this output will turn on mix ready provided the mix low sensor is not dry. The mix ready output will then keep this output on. Non of the other settings are used on this output. Below is the mix ready output. It is a combiner mode output type. It has two inputs. One is the mix ready latch and the other is the low mix output. The low mix output is inverted So when it is not low this input will he seen as high or on in this combiner. Once it goes to low level then the output will he seen as off in the combiner. Since this output uses the AND combiner mode which makes it an AND gate it takes both inputs being seen as high or on. So the Mix ready output will turn off also causing the mix ready latch output to turn off. Also the The sensor that low mix uses is also used to trigger the RODI on and the mix fill solenoid on. This will refill the mix tank with DI water. The only thing left after it is full is to add the salt mix and then press that mix ready button so the Hydros knows it can be used to refill the fresh saltwater tank. The other button in that box is for the work bench light. When pressed it turns the bench light on and if I press it again it will turn it off. It also has a timer set so it will go off after 30 minutes if I forget to turn it off. It is the 0-10v input type and it also uses the button input mode. It is also on the same input port as the first button. In fact all the buttons and the switch in these boxed are on the same input port.The difference is this one triggers at 2 volts. So if 1.5 to 2.5 volts is seen by the controller then this switch will turn on. The event duration is set to 30 minutes. It is also set to turn off if the button is pressed again. If I forget to press it again it will turn off in 30 minutes. This switch connects a 310 ohm resistor to ground. Below is the output set to turn on the bench light. This uses a generic output type. It has one input and that is the bench light input. It is set to be active when the input is on. It uses a XP8 output in the garage as the output device. The bench light is plugged into that output. That is it for this box. I will resume with the center box next.
  15. Continuing with the button boxes below is the parts for the one that will be mounted above the fresh saltwater tank. The switch with the yellow button is a momentary switch and the one with the red button is a push for on and push for off switch. Other than the switches it is the same as the other until the resistors and wiring are installed. The next photo is with the GX12 connectors installed. Below is the box completed other than the wiring and resistors. Below are the parts of the third box. It is basically the same except for the switches. Below is the inside of one of the boxes after installing the resistors and wiring. This is the one that will be installed above the fresh saltwater tank. This is the one that has the push for on and push for off switch. This switch grounds the signal line which causes 0v on the 0-10v signal. This will also prevent any other switches form working as long as it is on. This switch is used to pause my AWC. That means any scheduled auto water change will not start while this switch is on. If one is in progress it will finish. The other switch grounds two resistors in series with it and connected to the input. In this case the resistors are 1000 ohms each to form a 2k ohm resistor. There is a 510 ohm resistor form a 5v supply to one of the pins on the GX12 connector. Between it and the two 1k resistor you get 4 volts on the input. It does not have to be exact. If you choose 4 volts on the input setup if it is above 3.5 volts and below 4.5 volts it is considered 4 volts as far as switch input settings. More on this and the other boxes later. This is a photo of the three boxes ready for use. The black pushbutton is not in use. If I need it I can use 10 volts instead of 5 volts and add it in. I would also have to change the settings on the other buttons since I doubled the voltage. The trigger point for the one mentioned earlier would be 8 volts instead of 4 volts. Below I added some labels to the boxes for the buttons. The box on the left has the button to activate mix ready on the top and the button to turn on the bench lighting on the bottom. The middle one has the button to dispense fresh saltwater from the tank to another container when pushed. It will keep the dispense pump running as long as it is kept pressed. I also have a valve on the dispense line. There is about a 1 second delay for turn on and turn off. The pumps are Neptune PUMP pumps. The bottom button switch paused the AWC and disables the other switches when pressed. It will stay in that state until the button is pressed again. The box on the right has one button in use and that is DI dispense. It is the same as fresh salt water dispense except it is from the DI storage tank but woks the same. The bottom button is not in use at this time. Here the three boxes are mounted to the front of the workbench above the appropriate tanks. The tank on the left is the mix tank. The middle tank is the fresh saltwater tank.The tank on the right is the DI tank. All that is left here is the cables between the boxes. The tanks are on the Brute dolly's so they can be rolled out from the work bench if needed. I do have to do that when adding salt mix to the mix tank. This is a photo with the cables installed between the boxes. I will continue with this on another post. There is a couple of third party people that make button boxes for the Hydros or breakout boxes for the 0-10v inputs. I am a electronics technician by trade so I made my own but I did use a modified version of a resistor ladder network used by one of the third party guy's making these.
  16. I finally got around to making my button boxes and mounting them to the workbench. There is three of them. I put one above each storage tank. Below are a couple of the boxes I used. They are 80 X 50 X 26 mm boxes. Marking them for drilling holes. This is going to be a side hole for the connector that the cable from another box or the controller attach to. I used GX12 4 pin connectors since I had enough of them to finish all three boxes. This is marked for drilling the holes for the push button switches. I only had to do this with one box. I have a drill press so once the holes were lined up for the sides I drilled all of them before going to the top and did the same with the top. Below is a drilled box and the parts for it less the wiring and resistors. The push button switches were push on then push again for off but since all but one switch have to be momentary I opened up the ones I wanted to be momentary and removed the latch mechanism then reassembled them. That makes them momentary or on only when pushed. This will be the box above the mix tank. One switch will be the Mix ready switch and the other will be a switch to turn on the lights above the bench. The mix ready switch when pressed will cause the mix ready latch output to turn on which will turn on the mix ready output. These outputs do not have an actual output assigned on the controller and are only used as logic. Once on the mix low sensor has to go dry to reset the mix ready latch. At that time the controller will refill the mix tank with DI from the RODI until the mix tank full sensor goes wet. It also turns on the stirring pump once the water level is above 60%. It also turns it off when it drops below 60%. It will not use the water to refill the fresh saltwater tank until I press the mix ready button. The bench light push button will turn on the bench light when pressed and turn it back off when pressed again. If it is not pressed again the controller will turn off the light after 30 minutes. This is a photo of the box from the side. Photo of the box with the two GX12 connectors installed. A photo with the two switches installed. This is a photo of the box complete without the wiring and resistors. Each box will have different resistors since they will be on the same 0-10v input. I will continue with the other boxes and the switch input setup in another post.
  17. I will have keep that in mind if I use Lysol. I set my stand directly on the concrete slab and used carpet squares but the stand has a lip you can slip the edge of the squares under so you cannot see the edge of the squares. That is not as good of an option as one piece carpet but it does make it easier to clean if there is a tank mishap. Just remove the squares and hose them off. Let them dry and reinstall them.
  18. I received my Kamoer KH Carer Friday. I got it hooked up and calibrated Saturday. It test alkalinity and also give a pH reading. My understanding is the pH may not track to one calibrated for tank water since it is calibrated at different cal points. It can also add buffering to the tank to maintain the alkalinity. The test frequency is from once a day to once every hour. I set mine for three times a day. It appears to be built well. It was not too bad setting it up and calibrating it. I also set it up to use Randy's recipe for alkalinity buffering. Below is a photo after setup and calibration. Water remains in the beaker after testing to keep the pH probe wet. It will drian that water and refill before testing. It has a stirrer built in. I currently have it set to rinse twice since I am dumping the water back into the tank. It adds the testing reagent a small amount at a time and stirs after each so it does take a while to test, about 30 minutes. This is a side view. There is an empty 10 gallon tank beside it that is there just in case of emergency need. Here is a view from the side with the pump heads. The clear door is kept closed with magnets and can easily be pulled open. Below is a photo with the side door open. Below is a photo of the back of the unit. The green tubing is water coming from the tank. The yellow tubing is from the testing reagent tank. The black tubing is from the KH buffer tank. The blue tubing goes to the tank and is the one used to dispense the buffering agent to the tank. The red is the waste from the testing and in my case it goes back into the tank. Below is the readings from the first test. The pH is 8.0 and the alkalinity is 8.4. After the test completed I check the pH on my Hydros and it was reading 8.06. So those seem close enough for me considering that the probe on the Hydros is about 1.5 years old. I have only had it up and running for a few days but so far I am impressed with it. I will have to post some screenshots of the app once it runs for a while. It is the same app that is used with the Kamoer dosing pumps. Below is a Hanna test done right after the first test on the Kamoer.
  19. I still had the tubing so I cut it. The discoloration is on the outside from the rollers. They had the same discoloration as the tubing. The inside looks clean. It was only pumping DI water as an ATO pump.
  20. The Hydros dosing pump I use for my ATO has been in use a little over a year so I decided to change out the pump tubing since I got some spare tubing. I took some photos during the replacement. Below is a photo of the pump head removed from the pump and the spare tubing. Below is a photo of the pump head with the back cover removed from the back side. Below is a photo with the roller assembly and the tubing assembly removed. Below is a photo with the clips removed from the old tubing and installed on the new tubing. Below is a photo with the rollers removed from the bracket. Below is a photo of the tubing installed and the rollers and bracket installed back in pump head assembly. Below is the pump head with the back cover back in place. It is ready to be installed back on the pump assembly. Below is the front view of the pump head after tubing replacement, Below is the pump in the lower right without the pump head installed. Below is the pump head back on the pump. I just need to connec the tubing back to the barb fittings. Below the tubing has been hooked back to the barb fittings and pump is ready for use. I do plan on getting a spare pump head for this when they are back in stock. The tubing removed looks like it could have went longer before replacement. I can get a lot longer on the tubing on this pump than I can get with the tubing on the Intllab pumps but the Hydros do pumps cost more than the Intllab pumps. Also on the Intllab pumps you can adjust the flow rate. The Hydros is fixed at 43ml a minute which is not an issue since in most cases you can just change run time to get the amount added you want. The only pump it will not work for in my system is the one used for dosing All For Reef. That one is set to 12ml a minute and even at that I have to mix the All For Reef at half strength to get 6 doses a day in. I could always reduce that to once a day if needed, but I have 5 of the Intllab pumps and only using 3 at this time so I can wait for a while to get new pumps. Other than the flow rate the Hydros and Intllab are interchangeable on the system since they use the same power jack.
  21. Ok the graph for the first DI reservoir refill is below. Iwas doing some testing also before the refill. I also drained the tank and cleaned it before refilling it. So the sensors were disconnected for a while when doing that so that had an effect on the graphs. The first graph is the sensor DI full. It is normally dry on this tank unless it was just refilled. This sensor shuts off the RODI when it goes wet. The second graph is the DI level sensor which is a pressure sensor. The third graph is the DI low sensor. This goes dry when the DI reservoir goes low starting the RODI to refill the tank. The last graph is the new input which is the relay that will show wet as long as it is not energized. It will go dry when the RODI On output is on. The RODI is on as long as this input is dry and there is no leak. Below in the first screenshot is the outputs state after it has ben running for several minutes. The second was just after the first hour it was running. It started at 2:21. The third is after a minute from the second screenshot, The flush runs for a minute when first turned on and then repeats every hour. Below is the log for the RODI output that was created to control the input solenoid and the flush solenoid. The fill started at 2:21. The feed output which power the input solenoid turned on and stayed on until turning off at 6:11. The flush valve turned on for 1 minutes and repeated the 1 minute process every hour until it turned off. The boost output which I don't use turend on and stayed on the entire time. Below is the log for the RODI On output. It turned on at 2:21 and turned off at 6:11. The previous on and off cycles were from testing or the RODI timer output turning on. Below is the RODI refill output which is what triggered the other previous outputs to turn on. It turned on at 2:21 and off at 6:11. The flush and booster pump outputs are not used on this output. I use the RODI type here since it has the built in process for filling from a low level sensor to a full sensor. You can do it without using this output vut it requires 4 outputs to replace this one output. That is about it for adding a flush solenoid to the RODI unit that the Hydros controls.
  22. I decided to try out the automatic flush in the RODI Filter output type but to do that I needed to create a RODI filter type output that would be on regardless of which of the three things was turning it on. I already use the RODI Filter type for the DI refill solenoid and the Mix Refill solenoid. Since you can only use an actual output port once I could not set the output port on each of the two others using the RODI filter output. I created another output to power that solenoid and the input solenoid to the RODI input. The issue was that inputs are required to turn on and turn off the RODI input type. So I had to create an input that was tied to an output to accomplish that. The used is in the screenshot below. I called it RODI control. The type is sense port. The sense mode is water level. So it will show as wet or dry. The port is connected to relay contacts. The relay is energized by another output I will go ofer later in the post. The sense port is on my Control 4 in the garage. The notification is none. Now to the output that energizes the relay. The type is combiner and the input count is three. Input one is RODI timer. This turns on the RODI 6 times a day to refill the RO bladder if needed. The bladder is used to feed the ice maker in the fridge. Input one is not inverted. Input 2 is DI Refill. This is the output that turns on the solenoid between the DI out on the RODI and the DI reservoir. Input 2 is not inverted. Input 3 is the Mix Refill output. This output turns on the solenoid between the DI out on the RODI and the mix tank. This input is not inverted. The combiner mode is OR. The output device is set to the output port that energizes the relay for the previous input. Next is the output created to power the RODI input solenoid valve and the added flush solenoid valve. The type is RODI Filter. The feed output device is the output port that power the RODI input solenoid. Since this is a 12v solenoid powered by a small DC power pack the wattage se is quite low. So the power range is set from 6.5 watts to 8.5 watts. the notificationmlevel is set to orange. The flush output device is set to the port that powers the new flush solenoid valve. The power range is set the same as the feed settings since it is the same type solenoid power the same way. I don't have a booster pump on the RODI unit but I setup the output temporarily for now just to see how it reacts. Since I don't actually have it powering anything the power range does not matter or the notification level. The high level input is set to the input created earlier so when it is wet it will turn on this output. The low level input is set to the same input since a dry reading will turn on the RODI output. The leak detector setting is set to the RODI leak detector. If wet it will turn off the two solenoids controlled by this output. I did not set a start time or end time so it will run anytime the inputs are dry and turn off anytime they are wet. The depends on is set to the leak garage output. The dependency mode is set to off if on. Enable advanced settings is set to on. The minimum off time is set to 5 minutes. The minimum on time is also set to 5 minutes. The maximum on time is set to 5 hours. Feed run past max on time is set to off and the notification level is set to orange. Below is a photo of the RODI with the new solenoid connected. when it is on it bypasses the flow restrictor. The is a manual flush valve integrated into the flow restrictor. I will finish this in another post. I have graphs of the inputs and logs for the outputs while refilling the DI reservoir.
  23. I got my nitrate down now. So I decided to check it with the low range hanna tester also. The high range reading was 3.4 and the low range test was 3.57. Below is a graph of the nitrate level over time. It took a little over a year to get it down just using AWC. I bumped up the amount of the water change each time. It was set to 11 minutes for the drain pump which is a Intllab dosing pump. I have been going through a fresh saltwater tank full about every 19 days. Of coarse there is a low level sensor and a full sensor in that tank so it is not completely emptied or completly filled each time. It is a 20 gallon brute can so my guess is that is about 16-17 gallons used on a 42 gallon tank. Now that it is down I reduced the changes to a drain time of 9 seconds. Increasing the AWC volume was the only thing I have done to change things so my guess that is the reason for the drop.
  24. I found an issue with my setup for the wave pumps. Either something changed during a firmware update or it was not working right when I set it up but when I pressed feed mode in the app it would not run the feeding flow schedule. There is a new app and firmware update that was release earlier this week. It was still dropping the pumps to their lowest setting. You cannot turn off the EcoTech pumps completely from the Hydros but they do run at a very low speed. I fixed it by adding another output and using the same output I use to trigger the feed mode when my feeder runs. The only thing is if you go back to normal mode the flow pumps will stay in the feed mode for at least 30 minutes which is no big deal. Normally I do not press the feed mode on the app since it automatically goes into that mode when the feeder runs. Below is a screenshot of the new output I called it 42g Feed Off. It is a constant type output and will normally be in the on state. There is no output device assigned since this is only used for logic. Active in modes in the second screenshot is set to be inactive in both feed mode and low power mode. I have a different schedule that will run for low power mode. Depends on is unused on this output. I also had to add an input to the output in the screenshot below. I added input 2 to this output. It is the previous output. So input 2 is the feed off output. This output is inverted since I want this output off unless it is on feed mode which is when feed off is off. The combiner mode is set to OR since I want this output on if either input is active. Input 2 is active when the feed off output is off. Nothing else was changed on this output. So now it will use the feeder schedule for at least 30 minutes if either the feed mode is pressed in the app or the feeder runs. Below is the feeder flow schedule. The schedule is the flow pattern type. The flow pattern is set to constant speed. The speed is set to 6%. So the pumps will run at 6% in feed mode or if the feeder runs for at least 30 minutes. The start time and end time is set to 00:00:00 so it will run any time of the day as long as the depends on is met. The depends on is set to the 42g Feed Mode output. The dependency mode is set to off if off. So if the 42g feed mode output is off this schedule will not run which is the normal state. Below is one of the normal schedules which run when the time of day is within their setup schedule. All of the other schedules are the same as far as the settings for feed mode so I am only posting one of them. This one again is a flow pattern type schedule. This one has the pattern set to SPS reef. The max speed is set to 70%. This is 70% of the max speed set for the pump. I use EcoTech pumps so that is set on the pump and not the Hydros. Also since I use EcoTech there are 3 outputs that are automatically setup when you turn on EcoTech mode in the Wave Engine. One is same side, one is opposite side and the last one is back. This is in relation to the master pump, but in this case the master pump is the Wave Engine and not an actual EcoTech pump. I put all three in the schedules. The one used by a particular pump is set in the pump itself. So I figured it was a good idea to setup all three just in case a pump gets changed at least it will run a pattern. This particular schedule will run at noon and run until 4pm. The rest of the settings are at defaults except for depends on and dependency mode. Depends on is set to the 42g Feed Mode output just like the feed mode schedule but this one and the rest of the other schedules except low power mode have the same depends on and dependency mode settings. The dependency mode setting is off if on. So if the 42g feed mode output is on then this and the other schedules other than the feed mode schedule and low power schedule will not run if the 42g feed mode output is on. That is about it for the changes.
  25. I got some additions for the tank today. I got a cardinal, 9 snails and a emerald crab. It has been over 4 years since I added anything to the tank. I have some bubble algae that showing up. Not sure where it came from but hopefully the emerald crab will keep it in check.
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