MD500_Pilot
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New Water Plumbing / Pump / Chiller Layout
New Water Plumbing / Pump / Chiller Layout
In keeping with my new tank and plumbing install, I wanted to share the rest of my plumbing layout in hope of getting some feedback from those that have gone before me.
So I live in Arizona where it gets 115 degrees in the summer. As a result, I am going to need a chiller for our tank. But we also do our own gardening and we want to use all of the fish water to water our plants. We currently do that by hand, but we recently used all this extra time with the kids out of school to trench up our yards and build a dedicated garden irrigation system complete with six different zones and the ability to feed that irrigation system with either stored old fish tank water or street water depending on the availability of old fish tank water. We also just decided that we were going to convert part of our yard into a hydroponics solution. For water changes, we have a 330-gallon IBC tote where we make and store remineralized RODI water.
I am a very DIY person and drag my family along for the ride. I wrote my own open-source pool control software, my son and I are writing our garden irrigation software and I have my own tank management and monitoring software completed already with full power control of all components. I now want to extend the automation to include semi-automatic water changes and the ability to utilize a single chiller to chill my tank, my hydroponic nutrient solution and my remineralized RODI water for water changes. I also need the ability to recirculate water in my nutrient tank and my RODI tank as well and then be able to pump RODI water back into the tank after my water change. So I designed a solution that I think meets all of those needs and I was hoping some of the more savvy folks here could look it over for any flaws that I may have missed.
Few things to note:
1) From my tank, I will have gate valves on my two bean-animal siphon lines as well as my water change line. The bean animal valves will be used to tune that system and the gate valve on the water change line will be manually opened when I need to do a water change to prevent a failure of my software or pumps to create a full siphon or otherwise drain my tank. Hence the "semi-automatic" part of the water change process. Other lines may also have gate valves to help adjust flows as needed. This is not nor ever will be a "fully automated" water change system, it will always be manually run.
2) One way valves will be installed where necessary to prevent loss of siphon as well as reverse water flow in the manifolds.
3) I am using two different size pumps. The main tank pump is a 100 since I need the head pressure capability on that pump to get back to the tank. The second pump is all "ground level" water movement with much lower head pressure so I have selected the 70 for that job.
4) After talking in-depth with the folks at Penguin and Teco, I have selected a 1HP Penguin chiller which given my requirements should provide more than enough heat rejection capacity. Based on a total of around 700 gallons (210 for the tank, 50 for the sump, 300 for the water change tank (three weeks worth of water changes / makeup water) and 100 gallons of nutrient solution) and the Phoenix heat, they said I could get by with a 1/2 to 3/4 HP chiller, so I figured a 1HP would be the best solution. I would rather have it too big, then too little. Both companies claim their 1HP units can handle 1000 gallons with a 30-degree Δ-t. Teco actually says they can do a 9-degree Δ-t at close to 1600 gallons and a whopping 39-degree Δ-t ar 400 gallons. Penguin is much more conservative. Programmatically I will always give preference to the tank first then to other temperature reduction needs.
I look forward to feedback!
New Water Plumbing / Pump / Chiller Layout
In keeping with my new tank and plumbing install, I wanted to share the rest of my plumbing layout in hope of getting some feedback from those that have gone before me.
So I live in Arizona where it gets 115 degrees in the summer. As a result, I am going to need a chiller for our tank. But we also do our own gardening and we want to use all of the fish water to water our plants. We currently do that by hand, but we recently used all this extra time with the kids out of school to trench up our yards and build a dedicated garden irrigation system complete with six different zones and the ability to feed that irrigation system with either stored old fish tank water or street water depending on the availability of old fish tank water. We also just decided that we were going to convert part of our yard into a hydroponics solution. For water changes, we have a 330-gallon IBC tote where we make and store remineralized RODI water.
I am a very DIY person and drag my family along for the ride. I wrote my own open-source pool control software, my son and I are writing our garden irrigation software and I have my own tank management and monitoring software completed already with full power control of all components. I now want to extend the automation to include semi-automatic water changes and the ability to utilize a single chiller to chill my tank, my hydroponic nutrient solution and my remineralized RODI water for water changes. I also need the ability to recirculate water in my nutrient tank and my RODI tank as well and then be able to pump RODI water back into the tank after my water change. So I designed a solution that I think meets all of those needs and I was hoping some of the more savvy folks here could look it over for any flaws that I may have missed.
Few things to note:
1) From my tank, I will have gate valves on my two bean-animal siphon lines as well as my water change line. The bean animal valves will be used to tune that system and the gate valve on the water change line will be manually opened when I need to do a water change to prevent a failure of my software or pumps to create a full siphon or otherwise drain my tank. Hence the "semi-automatic" part of the water change process. Other lines may also have gate valves to help adjust flows as needed. This is not nor ever will be a "fully automated" water change system, it will always be manually run.
2) One way valves will be installed where necessary to prevent loss of siphon as well as reverse water flow in the manifolds.
3) I am using two different size pumps. The main tank pump is a 100 since I need the head pressure capability on that pump to get back to the tank. The second pump is all "ground level" water movement with much lower head pressure so I have selected the 70 for that job.
4) After talking in-depth with the folks at Penguin and Teco, I have selected a 1HP Penguin chiller which given my requirements should provide more than enough heat rejection capacity. Based on a total of around 700 gallons (210 for the tank, 50 for the sump, 300 for the water change tank (three weeks worth of water changes / makeup water) and 100 gallons of nutrient solution) and the Phoenix heat, they said I could get by with a 1/2 to 3/4 HP chiller, so I figured a 1HP would be the best solution. I would rather have it too big, then too little. Both companies claim their 1HP units can handle 1000 gallons with a 30-degree Δ-t. Teco actually says they can do a 9-degree Δ-t at close to 1600 gallons and a whopping 39-degree Δ-t ar 400 gallons. Penguin is much more conservative. Programmatically I will always give preference to the tank first then to other temperature reduction needs.
I look forward to feedback!
