The tank automation build thread.

[caferacermike]

Today I finally have some time and most of the needed materials, and most important-spare cash to begin my ATO and 2-part system. Today I will be focusing on the ATO with some work applied to the 2-part set up. I need to make a run somewhere (be it Fyr's, HDepot, or Walmart) for 3 digital timers.

I cleaned my 55g screw top barrel with some pool cleaning acid and then drilled for the bulkhead and then mounted the bulkhead.

I then moved my current RO/DI station back a few inches to make room for the barrel.

I looked around under the tank for an appropriate place to make my mark and then drill through the wall into the garage.

Upon the success of penetrating my wall, I taped all of my RO and low voltage extension lines together and pulled them through the penetration.

I was not excited about using the supplied suction cup for my electric float switch so I felt adapting it to an extra Mag Float would be a much more secure and reliable mounting method. I've since pulled out the glue and attached the float switch to one side of the Mag Float. Currently waiting for it to dry.

I'm now waiting for my drill batteries to recharge as they were dead when I started. I will post more later today as the progress makes head and time permits.

[caferacermike]

Continuing from above a few hours later:

Now that I'm set up for the ATO, I need to begin working on it.

First item was to drill my sump in such a way that I could mount 3 bulkheads. Yeah sure I could have just put all the tubes near the return line and zip tied them, or at least drilled 1/4" holes and pushed the tubes through that, but hey that's just not the Pawlowski way. Instead I drilled 5/8" holes and mounted 1/4" bulkheads in them and pushed the tubing into that. I also extended it with 6" pieces on the bottom side. I wanted it to look as clean as possible.

Next it was on to the garage. I needed a place to easily mount everything that was not as cheesy as just screwing it all to the sheetrock.

Mounting the peristaltic pump that will be used to push the ATO water. I also made the tubing connections at this time.

On to some reworking and rewiring. I drilled a 1/2" hole in the barrel and mounted a very tight uniseal into that. I then cut the plug end off of my maxi-jet Kalk stirring pump and pushed the wire through the uniseal. I then soldered and heat shrinked the plug back together. I gutted the wiring within the ATO and replaced it with new 2 wire that is 15' in length. After some soldering and replacing the cover it should be as good as new.

Back inside the house it was time to place my Mag-Float adjustable ATO float switch within the sump and make some temporary test connection from the ATO to the float.

Then it was time to plug it all in. Note that I still have not gotten the redundancy timer, nor the timers for the 2 part yet. Within a minute water began trickling from the peristaltic pump. I then hooked the finished tubing that goes to the tank back up after verifying the water being pumped in the garage.

Miss Victoria went out to the garage for me and verified that as I activated the float switch that the pump did indeed turn off and on repeatedly.

My ATO is a success. Currently it is catching up my top off very slowly just as I wanted. Don't you just love it when you plan it all out, buy good equipment and have it all just work the first time?

[caferacermike]

Mounted the remaining pumps.

Filled the 55g barrel with about 50g of RO/DI and 3 cups of Kalk powder, ran a stirring pump for about 2 hours.

Mixed up a batch of Bulk Reef Supply 2-part solution and connected the jugs to the pumps.

Wrapped it all up by heading to the store to get digi timers. Added the power strips. Programmed the timers. Purged all of the lines so that each tubing was full of it's desired solution. Tested all timers using corrupted "current time" so that each phase of the cycles were tested in "auto". Reset each timer to the correct current time. Manually ran the "Drew's peristaltic pumps" Bulk Reef to check for calibration. They were very close to the stated 1.5ml per minute so I set the timers to run for 45 minutes, once at midnight for the Alk and once at noon for the CA. Verified that the maxi-jet comes on with the timer being used for the Alk, easy enough as the timer has two plugs in it. Tidied up all of the wiring and labeled all jugs and pumps.

Finished product.

[stoneroller]

Very nice Mike; I like the clean organization.

[AlexKilpatrick]

How did you hook the tubing into the jugs of two-part?

I have the same pumps, but I am waiting on an controller to set them up. I would like to dose the two part in small measure all day instead of all at once.

[diabeetus]

holy poop! thats really awesome! great job

[caferacermike]

How did you hook the tubing into the jugs of two-part? I used the 1/4" John Guest/Murlock bulkheads, same as everywhere else on the build. Look at the 55g barrel picture when it is full of water to see how the tubing "passes" through it. I also attempted to show it on that jug of Alk and you can see it on the white tubing passing through the sump. Of course it doesn't pass through but is actually 2 pieces of tubing. I can quickly and easily push down on the top and release my jugs for working on them. Due to the use of a peristaltic pump, I have no worries of a mess as the water cannot leak out of the tubing once it has been removed.

<BRS stock photo

I used a 5/8" paddle bit for the hole and carefully drilled through the center of the cap that came with my BRS jugs. If you should order from BRS, make sure to tell them you want all plastic bulkheads. I got some from them that had a metal ring for the lock nut. Not wanting to have any chemical reactions, I decided to replace them with new bulkheads.

I have the same pumps, but I am waiting on an controller to set them up. I would like to dose the two part in small measure all day instead of all at once.

I chose to dose my 2 part once a day for each part due to most manufacturers directions saying to dose that way. By dosing 12 hours apart I avoid the collision of the Alk and CA which can cloud a tank or it binds to basically make aragonite sand. I felt that by dosing 1ml (basically a drop) per minute over the course of an hour that I would not saturate the tank and cause any fluctuations. I guess I could experiment with dosing several times a day as well. You can easily, and within a cheap budget, dose your 2-part with the same digi timers I got and use your more expensive controller ports for something else. I bought GE timers that can allow 20 programs per day and can be controlled to the minute. So in my case I could easily run the pumps for 3 minutes per hour 20x a day for the same results.

Edit to tidy up response.

Edited November 8, 2009 by caferacermike