270 Gallon SPS tank for JBNY
- Thread starter JB NY
- Start date
Bax
Premium Member
That screen is very cool!
Are you running your becketts "normally" or have you modded them? I ask as you're running the skimmer off the return pump. Granted, it's a major pump, 5,500-6,000 gph at like 40-50' of head or something crazy (crazy good) like that. I thought you needed a dedicated presure rated pump to run dual becketts?
Are you running your becketts "normally" or have you modded them? I ask as you're running the skimmer off the return pump. Granted, it's a major pump, 5,500-6,000 gph at like 40-50' of head or something crazy (crazy good) like that. I thought you needed a dedicated presure rated pump to run dual becketts?
Thank you for all of the information on the ATO setup! It's definitely going to help me out. And that LCD screen is pretty cool. Would be interesting if they would let you change the backlit color. Like changing to Red instead of blue if there is an alarm and maybe yellow or orange when in maintenance...but still very cool 
Thanks again,
Thanks again,
bleedingthought
New member
Unless you add a little salt to your top-off water.
melev
Well-known member
Joe, it seems plausible that if all the planets aligned perfectly, the RO/DI would be running non-stop while the sump or plumbing leaked just enough water to stay within the float switch ranges. If that occured, salinity would plummet.
What I would like to suggest is that you set up the RO system to a timer to turn one for 12 hours once a week to refill the reservoir, but be off the rest of the time. If something went wrong, only the reservoir's worth of water could be added at once.
Also...The float switch that is designed to protect the return pump from burning up: If it activates and cuts power to the pump, the water level in the sump will rise from any water draining from the plumbing and the surface area of the tank. The additional water would lift the float switch and restart the pump. Water drops down again, and the pump is shut off again. I could see this happening 2 or 3 times per minute until you noticed the situation. Do you have something programmed to avoid it being cycled on and off repeatedly?
What I would like to suggest is that you set up the RO system to a timer to turn one for 12 hours once a week to refill the reservoir, but be off the rest of the time. If something went wrong, only the reservoir's worth of water could be added at once.
Also...The float switch that is designed to protect the return pump from burning up: If it activates and cuts power to the pump, the water level in the sump will rise from any water draining from the plumbing and the surface area of the tank. The additional water would lift the float switch and restart the pump. Water drops down again, and the pump is shut off again. I could see this happening 2 or 3 times per minute until you noticed the situation. Do you have something programmed to avoid it being cycled on and off repeatedly?
Milleme
New member
Melev, the last scenario you adressed could possibly be benificial to the system. This way the water would still be proccesed through all his filtration instead of something much worse possibly happening. This would give him a chance to get home or make it to the fish room before everything flooded or burned out. That is if the warning signal was triggered, Im not sure if that would trigger the alarm or not. Would it JB? JMO of the situation.
invincible569
New member
Nice controller screen joe. Im not surprised at what you are coming up with. You need to sell those on the side (plug & play). I would for sure buy one. But only in black
But only in black 
JB NY
Active member
See that's what I get for not going into more of the automation that is being set up.
Here are a few things I left out.
When the lower float trips on the sump my main circulation pump will shut down. The AC3 will keep it off for 30 minutes, before turning things on again. This allows me time see what is happening or to get home if I am local. Or get in touch with the person watching the tank. An alarm in the house sounds and I get a page when this happens, so I will know about it right away.
I also have a water sensor hooked into a dry contact that will be placed on the floor. My floor is pitched a little so anytime more than a gallon of water is spilled anyplace near the tank, it always goes to one spot, that is where the water sensor will be placed. The event that triggers when the water sensor trips is this: Power is shut to the main water supply cutting of the RO/DI from making any more water. Top-off pump is turned off to prevent any water going into the sump. An alarm goes off and I get paged. If it is a leak in the plumbing, the water will eventually lower and the main pump will shut off.
The top-off pump goes through a Kalk reactor as well as about 20 feet of airline tubing and a john guest check valve to prevent the kalk from back siphoning into the ro/do water. That extra head pressure means that it takes about 4 hours to fill the sump about halfway. The change in salinity from that is pretty much nothing. I am lucky in that I have my father, a brother, his wife and a sister-in-law within 2 miles of my house. I also have the home and cell numbers of about 5 reef friends who I could count on to get to my house if I had a problem.
The one thing I'm actually not worried about is not knowing that there is a problem. My last tank tripped a lot, as I had things set up with very low tolerances. Actually the best alarm on the tank that actually alerted me to most of my real problems was my pH alarm. I wrote earlier all my top-off goes though my kalk reactor. Now to prevent too much kalk going into the tank and spiking my pH, I have the AC3 set to trip at a pH of 8.5, At 8.5 the alarm trips and I get a page the AC3 shuts off the top off until the pH get below 8.45. IME my pH will spike before my SG goes down. So this is another indicator that something is wrong.
For me that about as safe I can imagine. My last tank was up for 5 years. The only time I had floods were do to using vinyl tubing on some of my returns. After I re plumbed the setup to make everything hard plumbed with PVC I never had any problems again. The only other time I had a problem was when I didn't put my skimmer back together correctly and leaked water from a fitting. I put the skimmer over the sump this time so that if that happened the water will just go back into the sump. It's also the reason I put a lip and siliconed it down around the edge of the equipment stands, so that if water ever does leak it will be channeled to the front of the stand so that it will fall right where I have the water sensor placed.
I've spent a lot of time with automation over the past 4 years. At this point, I trust it more than I trust myself. I would have killed my tank about a dozen times if it wasn't for my automation kicking in and alerting me to a problem. I had a nasty habit of forgetting to turn on my heaters after doing a water change in the winter time, at least 8 times I have been woken up at 4 AM because the temp fell 2d below the set temperature. I have plugged my top-off pump directly into the wall to pump out water for something then when I turn the valve off for the hose I forget to plug it back into the controller and start pumping water into the sump. Don't know about it until the alarm trips again. And at least 3-4 other things I have done that would have caused big problems if the automation hadn't caught. As I said some people don't trust it, but IME it has a better chance of saving my tank than I do.
wow that was a lot of writing
JB NY
Active member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10612131#post10612131 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SERVO
Thats awesome Joe!
I am thinking about setting up a zoned audio/video system ran by Crestron controllers. If I do this, I'm going to integrate my ACIII into itPretty sick indeed!
Yeah you could totaly do that. I think Crestron allows you to push inofmation to it .
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10611171#post10611171 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thirschmann
so how much do i have to pay you to set up and send me one of those sweet @$$ screens?
Thanks, It's not that hard to do. really.
Thanks. Yes, I wrote it all myself.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10615353#post10615353 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by invincible569
Nice controller screen joe. Im not surprised at what you are coming up with. You need to sell those on the side (plug & play). I would for sure buy one.
Thanks Edward, It's not hard to do. Maybe when I have the tank all done I can post how you can do it on your own.
JB NY
Active member
My Becketts are not modded. You don't need a dedicated pressure pump for the becketts, but you do need enough pressure. I think something like 1000-1500gph was considered enough. For me this works great. A decent return pump is going to chew up about 200-300 watts anyway. My main pump is pulling 300 watts and doing my skimming, I'll also use it for my chiller.
JB NY
Active member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10612959#post10612959 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TTrout
Thank you for all of the information on the ATO setup! It's definitely going to help me out. And that LCD screen is pretty cool. Would be interesting if they would let you change the backlit color. Like changing to Red instead of blue if there is an alarm and maybe yellow or orange when in maintenance...but still very cool
Thanks again,
The LCD screen they sell can't change colors but they sell about 4-5 different screen colors black/white, yellow/black, blue/black stuff like that.
ReefingBuddha
New member
hey Joe, thanks for your response. Your tank really is coming together beautifully.
I don't want to burden you with asking for more information now but I would be greatful if you could let me know whenever you get the chance to post information about your screen setup. The information screen is something I have always wanted from an aquarium controller and unfortunately Neptune systems currently has no intention of releasing such an option.
Thanks and best of luck through the rest of your setup.
I don't want to burden you with asking for more information now but I would be greatful if you could let me know whenever you get the chance to post information about your screen setup. The information screen is something I have always wanted from an aquarium controller and unfortunately Neptune systems currently has no intention of releasing such an option.
Thanks and best of luck through the rest of your setup.
erics3000
Active member
On an earlier page he had this link attached.
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/634usb/index.html
He wrote all the scripts himself. I heard that is the advantage to having an aquacontroller compared to the profilux. Something about beeing able to write cool scripts with the aqaucontroller. You could just buy the profilux and then get the extra remote display screen. I have really been contemplating getting the ac3. Joe is making it easier to decide.
Joe your scripts rock!!!Thanks for sharing. that awsome project...
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/634usb/index.html
He wrote all the scripts himself. I heard that is the advantage to having an aquacontroller compared to the profilux. Something about beeing able to write cool scripts with the aqaucontroller. You could just buy the profilux and then get the extra remote display screen. I have really been contemplating getting the ac3. Joe is making it easier to decide.
Joe your scripts rock!!!Thanks for sharing. that awsome project...
Avast Marine
.Registered Member
Consider putting the "in" inline between your membrane and DI, this will give you a better idea of how your membrane and DI are performing.
Looks like its coming together nice. Attention to detail. I really "NEED" one of those crystafontz displays
. Could you go into detail the procedure a little more for connecting to a ACIII?
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