Twin Titan Tanks Part 2 (Controls & mechanical)

[terrors r us]

Hey terrors,

Thanks for posting all your information and pictures about your system. It was very helpful. I am working on something along the same lines but on a much smaller scale. Your effort and resources have paid off.

No problem....if you have more questions I'm happy to help, if I can,,,,
Did you check out part 3 yet?

 

[rbarn]

I seen your link of your L shaped tank which looks very nice so I must say that from one MFK to another, I am very surprised you think the controls are crap.

First of all I have 2000 gal that are automated and about another 500 gals that are regular(fluval filter, jag heaters, etc, no automation just your standard stuff.) With the standard stuff there is allot of manual maintenance( many pails of water , gravel vac's, always checking that the heaters are working right,etc).
It takes me allot more time with these smaller tanks than with my 2000gallons of automated tanks.....

Remember that I have tanks running off the same system in different rooms and at the start(when I wasn't sure what to expect, I had my tank C(150gal) (which is connected to my 750gal) overflow.....the water reached the top of the tank and started running onto the floor..
Luckily I have my flood sensors(which noticed the water and automatically shut down the entire system and went to alarm state, so no more water spilled onto the floor...
When I got home I only had a small mess to clean up and the water never reached my hard wood floor in the living room.
Another Catastrophe avoided due to automation.

To do a water change(300 or more gallons) it takes about an hour and I never have to lift a pail, just turn the handle for back wash and push a couple of buttons on the touch screen......everything (temp, level, etc is monitored and it goes off without a problem.)

I read many times about peoples heaters malfunctioning, well in my case my tank would go to alert state and let me know(shut down the heaters) before all the fish get cooked.
It actually happened to me when I was on holidays and a friend looked after my tanks for me....he would come over twice a day to feed the fish..
Well there was a heat wave that week and the temperature in my tanks rose to 87 F(and climbing).....the tank when to alert state and the yellow light came on...my friend noticed and called me.....I told him to remove all lids, open all windows and get the big fans going in the house.....another Catastrophe avoided.........(Acrylic tanks hold heat allot more than glass)

I can tell you more Catastrophes but they were always avoided and now I have all the bugs out.

I don't have time to do daily checks of everything on my tanks thus the automation is great...

Also I am an Electrician/Instrumentation tech. which is why I can do something like this...allot of the stuff I got from work and I have friends that work in the plumbing wholesale, so I was lucky that it wasn't that expensive for me and very challenging to achieve.

I do admit that I could of done without some of the things I put in, but it was my first time to create something of this magnitude and it's done now......

I don't expect everyone to understand the entire system but this is MFK's, is it not?
So you can love it or hate it but this is close to what you would see in a public aquatic place(scaled down of course) and IMO you can never have enough automation....now I can concentrate on my breeding projects and not my maintenance.....

Cheers......

After having woken up to Niagra Falls in the living room at 3am I am with you on having back ups for the back ups for the back ups. I love your use of idustrial grade logic controllers and automation. I hope my system ends of looking half as clean as yours when I finish my tank.