Bad day at the office

Dman

Dman

New member
Remembered why we had air pumps at each end of the larval system today; redundancy.
Sometime overnight I lost air to that system and completely lost two of the best hatches we've had to date.
One WSM hatch with 5-600 at meta with 80-90% showing headbands (hatch date 01/01-02) and due to go "on" the sytem today, the other a perc hatch with a little more clowns at the same stage also due "on" the system today.
Needless to say, it wasn't a very friendly atmosphere around here for a couple of hours this afternoon. (not to mention a little smelly)

Just thought I would share this tidbit, build in redundancy where ever you can 'cause you never know when something little like a loose plug will bite ya on the arse.


Thanks for letting me vent
 
Dman, sorry to hear about your losses. At times like that, it is like a swift kick in the gut. As much as it hurts at the time, I feel times like those are meant to keep us humble. Thanks for the reminder, that these little lives are still fragile, and we need to build our systems in such a way to avoid these "life lessons".
 
Dman,

Sorry to hear about this. I can only imagine what a severe loss like yours feels like. We should take your warning seriously. This can happen to anyone. I think I will get that generator I've talked about getting for the past 2 years.

Larry
 
So now that yesterday is behind us, we're revisiting all of our systems and processes to re-evaluate when and where redundancy can be built in, yesterday's losses represented a considerable amount of lost possible revenue
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9008538#post9008538 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MimicTang
Where is it good to build redundancy?
Click to expand...

In anything critical that could fail when you least expect it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9008538#post9008538 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MimicTang
Where is it good to build redundancy?
Click to expand...

Well, so far for sure is air.
Our larval system consists of 10 thirty gallon tanks divided in two with an extra 20 (cause there was space). The largest airpump that Hagen makes can run about 40-50 airstones which is more than enough as larval tanks running on the "system" and awaiting transfer to our growout system don't need that much air, if any at all. We had/did add another one of these pumps to the end of the line, therefore if one fo them cuts out the other can handle the load.

The next is water circulation,
Making sure we have doubles of or their equivalent of water pumps to reduce downtime in case of failure. The good thing is that even in the event of water motion failure, most if not all tanks are good for about 48hrs as there's no biofiltration located in any of the tanks. The critical factor with water motion is DO (disolved Oxygen) so what's not covered with the aforementioned paragraph, there's enough water capacity to keep everybody happy.

Temperature is a little more tricky, those of us that aren't David M can relate to real winter temperatures, but we have that covered with an ambient basement temperature of 74F and a gas generator big enough to run a good portion of the shop/basement and house. If we're down for days without access to gas, could be a problem, 6-8 hrs after reaching critical lower temperatures (mid to low 60's) might have me bustin up the furniture. :D:D

If there's anything I might have missed, there should be as we didn't get to everything today, please feel free to chime in.
 
Dman,

sorry to read about the set back!

IMO you also need to consider back up power source in case of general power error. I learned that the hard way loosing my self wild catched group of 7 Centropyge resplendens. Additionally I keep spare parts of all frequently failing components but have to admit that I don't have the membranes for the Hagen pumps ...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9017140#post9017140 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by aomont
Dman will you put to water pumps in one water feeding line ?How do you do this ?
Anderson.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure this can be done, if one pump is more efficient than the other (even with the same model) there could be backpressure or cavitation issues if their plumbed in sequence. I suppose they could be plumbed in series feeding the same line, but that could present it's own problems that I'm not aware of. Two holes in the sump, two bulkheads and two identical pumps feeding a TEE might work. I'm have to look into that.

Either way water circulation in broodstock or growout systems is nowhere near as critical as air supply in stand alone tanks with hundreds of larvae.

So far we've covered air, water circulation and temperature. What's left? Lighting, not even remotely critical. Foam fractionation again, not critical. Same goes for UV and RDSB's
'm not running any other equipment as of yet, such as Ozone or large DE filters.
 
Certainly air is critical, everything else you can deal with IF you know it's down. On my (very long) list of Iwantits is one of those auto dialers that will call my cell phone if there is a failure.

As for two pumps I see no reason why a simple manifold wouldn't work just fine. Placing a check valve on each one would prevent water from simply being pumped by the good one through the bad one ( simply recirculating in the sump) if there is a failure.
 
I also liked the 2 pump idea. What are you thoughts on UV usage. I hear yes I hear no but what happens if you dont use one cuz many of you seem not to?

As for lifeguard is it making any nasty by products in the water Ed?
 
In my opinion and work experience you should give priority to your brood stock. Larvae can be "replaced". This is especially important if you only have one pair of brood stock, whatever species it may be.

David,

Have you looked into Sensaphone alert systems? We use these on our systems and they do work pretty well. Not super complicated, like a computer linked system we had at the white seabass hatchery, but it does what it needs to do. It actually saved me this last weekend. The seahorse system had dropped to 68 F (from 73) over a couple of days, due to a heater controller failure, plus this winter weather we've been having. The sensaphone called my cell and I went in and replaced it with a backup controller and the seahorses were fine. If I were you I would definitely look into something like this with all that you got going at your "farm".

Christine
 
Take a look at this..
http://www.automatedoutlet.com/product.php?productid=230&cat=0&page=1

Especially you guys with the bigger facilities.

It's the heart of a modular automation system. You can get all kinds of different Input/Outpot goodies for it, including different sensors for PH and Temp. Another option is a module that senses current draw, like if you wanted to monitor whether a particular piece of equipment was running or not.

It does go up in cost as you expand the system, but it's kind of cool that it's scalable up to monitoring/controlling over 1000 devices.

It's very programmable, you can make it do some crazy stuff if you really get into it.

It also has a module to call or page you depending on how you program it.. you can even have it turn on an audible alarm.

And no.. I don't work for them. I was looking into a way to fully automate water changes on my tank a while back, and someone suggested that device as the ticket. It would work, but I haven't gotten it done yet, because the holidays got in the way.
 
That seems very reasonable..What additional cost are there? probes, connectors, etc..All hooked up on a laptop? Looks cool.
 
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