what tank maintenance can you automate? FYI

[Sk8r]

First, it's a real good thing to start out doing everything by hand, so you learn how your tank responds. Get a logbook [small notebook], establish a test schedule [own your own tests!!!!] and write down the exact numbers. You will learn a bundle about how your tank reacts, how much water it evaporates daily, how hot it runs, how much buffer/calcium/magnesium it's eating up, and how it reacts to water changes.

Once that educational period is over, you will have identified certain tasks that make it impossible for you to travel, scared to leave your tank, and in general---you are asking yourself if you have become a Tank Slave.

Other reefers have been this path and have gotten inventive.
Here are suggestions of what's out there.

1. your own ro/di: numerous reliable sources on this site. If you hate scraping algae, this is a must.

2. autotopoff. This rig consists of a float switch, two electrical plugs [one male, one female], a sensor light, and a dual float switch. You put the float switch in your tank, connect the female plug to a maxijet pump in a bucket of ro/di, run a hose to your sump/or tank, and plug the male plug into the wall. It tops off by teaspoons, and makes your tank more stable. If you like leaving for a week without pickling your fish in Dead Sea water, this is for you. If you want to go for two weeks, tell a tank sitter to [via a second small maxijet] pump the second bucket of ro/di into the main bucket and to doublecheck that the hose is safely secured in the sump.

3. timer. Timers can be had at the supermarket. Some are quite clever. Lights should always be on timer. Your corals and fish know when 'dawn' ought to be, and 'dark' should happen every day at the same time.

4. automatic feeder: they do exist, but the honest truth is, as long as fish are generally well-nourished and do not predate on each other, you can leave them unfed for a week and they will survive handily. With Aunt Bessie pity-feeding them for a week from a can---the tank's survival is not guaranteed.

5. dosing controllers...basically a set of switches and such...can control all sorts of things. I don't use one myself, but they are nice. Do your research.

6. wavemakers: lps corals in particular like to be tossed rather than blown. There are a number of these devices. I personally think they keep fish from being bored. We look at a tank and 'see' the configuration of rocks, but for the fish, they perceive much more geometry there. The currents are their environment, and varying current that changes direction in a somewhat random way IMHO provides some mental stimulation.

7. calcium/alkalinity dosing---kalk or kalk reactors for tanks under 150, or tanks without too many corals; calcium reactors for tanks above that. These will hold calcium and alkalinity steady as a rock so long as your magnesium levels [lovely piece of chemistry] stay up. So you dose only magnesium, oh, just occasionally, like every couple of weeks, after testing, and for the rest, the calcium and magnesium just stay steady. Stony coral loves it.
The difference between a kalk reactor and a calcium reactor, operationally speaking, is that a kalk reactor can only inject as much kalk in ro/di as ro/di can naturally dissolve. A calcium reactor can inject more than that. So if you have a really 'hungry' huge tank, or a tank with inadequate evaporation [which drives a kalk reactor]---a calcium reactor is your critter.

8. and of course, your greatest automation---your rock and deep sandbed: if yours are healthy enough, you get NOT to clean filters, even for primarily fish tanks. If you think you need more sandbed---get a large sandbottomed REFUGIUM with live rock and cheato. That can increase the 'digesting' power of your tank immensely, and might be able to free you from filters entirely. It also feeds certain fishes, dragonets, some wrasses, etc. AND it diminishes algae in the display tank so that you don't have to scrape your walls or pick caulerpa off your rock.

[kau_cinta_ku]

and if your like RHF you can even automate your waterchanges

nice writeup again sk8r

[Sk8r]

kau cinta ku, thanks---I *wish* I could automate my waterchanges---and mine are only a saltbucket-ful. Which reminds me....[sigh]....

[Haksar]

Thanks Sk8r,another great write up.You cud also add a web cam just in case to monitor in your personal website .

[lastduke]

a great post, I am thinking to use a cheap PLC to manipulate all the sensors/subprocess will be really nice system. but the sensors will be extremely expensive.

[Dustin_p]

Automation is great... I'm a control engineer for an automation company... I just haven't got totally comfortable with my tank yet.... I guarantee once I am I will have a computer controlling it. I'll probably make the program freeware for fellow reefers if there is a desire for it

[Sk8r]

The world will more than beat a path to the door of inventors---you would become a saint among reefers: those who figure a new automation or program deserve it.

Those of you who have technical expertise are SOOOO welcome over in the DIY forum, too.

And everybody, the DIY forum has ways to make-your-own just about everything, from kalk drips to reactors to sumps, down to drilling your own tank to make it reef-ready [shudder---oh, the pitfalls in that one]. Mostly they work well.

[howdy777]

some good info.. thanks.

[Sk8r]

One other thing: if you have a large sump/fuge relative to your tank size, water changes are much simpler...I am reminded of this because I just ran mine. Never did shut down the pump and the main tank didn't notice it was happening.
Step one, unplug the auto topoff.
Step two, draw off water from sump via maxijet 1200 pump.
Step three, put in new water via same pump.
Step three, plug in autotopoff.

If you have a very large sump relatively speaking [mine is a 30g sump for a 54g tank] you can get away with this. Only the sump water level will sink appreciably, and you just have to be careful not to expose your heater to air [they can explode if taken from water] or to expose your return pump intake. Outside of that---a few inches fall in sump level, no sweat, no problem, no great fuss.