Glad it was that simple, frustrating as all heck though!
Geeks DYI 29G tank build
- Thread starter geekengineer
- Start date
Glad it was that simple, frustrating as all heck though!
geekengineer
Member
Ok here is what you been all waiting on the edge of your seats for.. I know.. 
my finally put together overkill media reactor. lol.. It was on sale.. I feel space wise I should bought smaller one but this one was only a few dollars more at the time. Hopefully it isn't really hurting anything being bigger.
And of course my cat asking me when I going to be done with this crazy project.
my finally put together overkill media reactor. lol.. It was on sale.. I feel space wise I should bought smaller one but this one was only a few dollars more at the time. Hopefully it isn't really hurting anything being bigger.
And of course my cat asking me when I going to be done with this crazy project.
geekengineer
Member
now I am getting into the wanting to stare at tank mode.. lol but I still need to get my PH circuit working.. :hammer:
geekengineer
Member
OK.. so I got my PH power isolation circuit done and went to put it in and realized I inverted the sides and they were all wrong.. :facepalm: uggg.. I be starting over tomorrow..
geekengineer
Member
PH isolation circuit done and working now not getting bogus readings. :bounce1:
geekengineer
Member
So the wifi camera is now hooked up so were good to go for the almost 2 week trip. I just have to do one water change before I leave. I assume that's a good idea or should I wait since it's semi cycling anyways?
Then I fill my ATO I think I still need a bit more kalkwasser. I put a small amount in but it still not enough to keep things going without me adding some buffers. I didn't want to over do it too much when I was gone however so hard to say.
I have a lady who is going to come and watch my cat every day and I showed her how to some basic stuff with the tank but that is about it. So hopefully it go off with out too many hitches.
Then I fill my ATO I think I still need a bit more kalkwasser. I put a small amount in but it still not enough to keep things going without me adding some buffers. I didn't want to over do it too much when I was gone however so hard to say.
I have a lady who is going to come and watch my cat every day and I showed her how to some basic stuff with the tank but that is about it. So hopefully it go off with out too many hitches.
geekengineer
Member
Do you think I need to do a water change before I leave?
geekengineer
Member
Thanks I will then.
The diatom bloom seems to have mostly gone I think there is some in the fuge but that's about it. I got some hair algae growth I don't know if there is much I can do about that and if that is bad?
The crab is getting some of it, but its growing in the fuge.
The diatom bloom seems to have mostly gone I think there is some in the fuge but that's about it. I got some hair algae growth I don't know if there is much I can do about that and if that is bad?
The crab is getting some of it, but its growing in the fuge.geekengineer
Member
cool thanks for the information. I been traveling for the past few days.. hehe.. I just hope I see some Coraline soon.
I put some kalkwasser in the ATO and it did bump up my PH more than I sort of expected. I didn't think I put in the full strength amount, but it was still fairly potent I guess. So far its holding about 8.28 ish so hopefully it doesn't keep going up. :worried: However that probably ideally where I want the PH I always been running a bit low. I still see my hermies going on the camera lol so they haven't died yet at least.
So the remote system paid off cause some reason my skimmer decided to start overproducing. I might have adjusted it wrong before I left, which was probably bad idea I was trying to get it to produce a bit less. lol
So the lady had to dump it and luckily she figured out how to do that which I sort of showed her already but she wasn't trying hard enough to pull the can off. Then I had to turn on the skimmer for her and tell her how to adjust it down a bit. So remote human skimmer adjustment. lol we see how this goes.
I put some kalkwasser in the ATO and it did bump up my PH more than I sort of expected. I didn't think I put in the full strength amount, but it was still fairly potent I guess. So far its holding about 8.28 ish so hopefully it doesn't keep going up. :worried: However that probably ideally where I want the PH I always been running a bit low. I still see my hermies going on the camera lol so they haven't died yet at least.
So the remote system paid off cause some reason my skimmer decided to start overproducing. I might have adjusted it wrong before I left, which was probably bad idea I was trying to get it to produce a bit less. lol
So the lady had to dump it and luckily she figured out how to do that which I sort of showed her already but she wasn't trying hard enough to pull the can off. Then I had to turn on the skimmer for her and tell her how to adjust it down a bit. So remote human skimmer adjustment. lol we see how this goes.
Better than when I'm away! at least you can see and interact remotely, I tell my friends to just shut things like the skimmer down and call me before fiddling, then work thru it on the phone or just leave it off till I get back........I think one of those web cams is going to be in my stocking this year. (fingers crossed, at least then they can show me what the problem is by moving the camera before they do something, I so need to build/buy a proper controller, just don't have the time or $ these days...)
geekengineer
Member
yeah.. she mainly just took pictures and texted me. My camera is on the outside, but yeah makes me think I will put this cheap camera on the inside and get a better one for the outside.
As for DYI controller I like it so far but if you don't know much about electronics I probably try to get a used commercial controller. It is not totally trivial to build one, but it was fun and I felt I knew "mostly" what I was doing.
I plan to upgrade it when dohboy gets his new design out. I hoping it will have a bit more horse power to do a better web server and be able to change the password without recompiling the code. So far I think it doesn't like laggy internet too well. lol I can get it to work most of the time. Just my internet where I am is a bit sluggish and it doesn't load right sometimes and seems to get it all confused because of that.
So far Ph is not creeping up to much it seems to be more stable with the Kalkwasser. I see how it goes over the long haul here.
As for DYI controller I like it so far but if you don't know much about electronics I probably try to get a used commercial controller. It is not totally trivial to build one, but it was fun and I felt I knew "mostly" what I was doing.
I plan to upgrade it when dohboy gets his new design out. I hoping it will have a bit more horse power to do a better web server and be able to change the password without recompiling the code. So far I think it doesn't like laggy internet too well. lol I can get it to work most of the time. Just my internet where I am is a bit sluggish and it doesn't load right sometimes and seems to get it all confused because of that.
So far Ph is not creeping up to much it seems to be more stable with the Kalkwasser. I see how it goes over the long haul here.
Gorgok
New member
Haven't really followed much except to look at some pictures of your deathbox and was tempted to post pics of mine but chickened out. My deathbox's brains are of the beaglebone black variety so horsepower got plenty... i originally tried to use a fez panda 2, but that was seriously lacking in the power and i would have had to build the server stuff too (instead of just installing LAMP...).
No fancy custom board, all separate solutions from the net except for a couple of things tacked onto a protoshield of the BBB. All boards communicate via i2c though so lots of room to expand, externally at least... the box is pretty much packed.
My deathbox has 8 relays on a board with 10 outlets (2 being pairs), 16 channel pwm board (leds), a small motor drive (dosers), and 1w sensor hookups; 5V & 12V wallwart, 24V and 120VAC pass throughs just to keep things interesting and somehow a tiny 10 buck usb wifi dongle still can talk its way out of the box and give me my stats.
Though about adding a ph probe/board (atlas one can talk via i2c as i understand...) but my 'face' of the box is pretty much out of room. Might need a new box, or break the thing down into separate boxes some day. Would be nice to stop calling it a deathbox (most accurate name) some day if mains was actually separated into its own thing. Not sure how i2c would like being broken apart like that though...
Interface end is worked on when the mood strikes and i find something lacking. Recently i decided to add my heaters as a controlled relay, which took my temps to this:
From this (don't mind the last bit, thats the same as above zoomed out):
The heating/cooling control of the relays isn't that fancy (and thinking about it some its missing some important fail safes, like if it didn't get a temp reading...) and i don't really know what code for that usually entails but mine is a simple latch, if its too cold turn on, stay on till too hot, and the reverse, or in cooling cases the reverse of both. No cooked fish yet!
geekengineer
Member
very cool did you write the code yourself? Sort of like the term "deathbox" lol. I did sort of think of a raspberry pi but felt like it was a bit overkill and I thought the simpler solution might have less to go wrong. As far as stability of actual operation so far the aurdino solution been very good.
Gorgok
New member
Yeah, most of the code is mine. There is a library for mysql access that is in use i believe that i just had to cross compile to work on the BBB, and of course apache2 / mysql / ubuntu etc... All the device side code is in c++, then some php and lots of javascript for the interface. Using jquery +ui and jqplot libraries to ease that along. All data is stored in mysql because it seemed like a good thing to learn to do at the time.
With an arduino or such running a loop you have the risk of shutting everything down if you add something that causes it to do odd stuff, i think. They way i have mine is each little thing my BBB does is a separate program and each one just runs to do the thing it does then ends, repeating forever... Multiple things can be run at the 'same' time and they don't need to worry about bothering each other. I can even replace the programs with newer versions on the fly and next time it runs its the new thing.
If i were to do it again i'd be tempted to make a board to house a rpi zero and hookups to all the things i currently use and except to add. But when things work i don't really mess with them too much, and 'work' is a loose definition...
As to overkill, i don't see that as a problem. A rpi zero will compete with the cheapest arduino once they are available again and beats the snot out of it in power. There are probably similar options other than in the rpi name but i don't really follow any of that stuff (again because what i have works).
With an arduino or such running a loop you have the risk of shutting everything down if you add something that causes it to do odd stuff, i think. They way i have mine is each little thing my BBB does is a separate program and each one just runs to do the thing it does then ends, repeating forever... Multiple things can be run at the 'same' time and they don't need to worry about bothering each other. I can even replace the programs with newer versions on the fly and next time it runs its the new thing.
If i were to do it again i'd be tempted to make a board to house a rpi zero and hookups to all the things i currently use and except to add. But when things work i don't really mess with them too much, and 'work' is a loose definition...
As to overkill, i don't see that as a problem. A rpi zero will compete with the cheapest arduino once they are available again and beats the snot out of it in power. There are probably similar options other than in the rpi name but i don't really follow any of that stuff (again because what i have works).
geekengineer
Member
wow I praise you man. lol I wish I had more time to code but I noticing I getting a bit rusty. Do you let your code be public by the way? just curious.
So he R pi zero looks pretty cool sounds like it must be very new? Doesn't look like adafruit has any in stock etc.
So he R pi zero looks pretty cool sounds like it must be very new? Doesn't look like adafruit has any in stock etc.
geekengineer
Member
ok so one of my float switches for the ATO in the sump went wonky for some reason. Turning the return on and off did the trick to get it unstuck. The lady I have taking care of the tank didn't see anything obviously wrong lol.
I was messing with the ATO tho and laggy internet problems cause it to be on longer than I wanted it to and caused a bit of a pH spike tho. So I hope that doesn't kill too much. :uhoh3:
So I got another one of these IR sensors on order cause I just like how this is working so far for my emergency tank overflow sensor. Every time I tested it it's worked and never once so far have I gotten a false alarm on it yet.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/231727990883?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
I was messing with the ATO tho and laggy internet problems cause it to be on longer than I wanted it to and caused a bit of a pH spike tho.
So I hope that doesn't kill too much. :uhoh3:So I got another one of these IR sensors on order cause I just like how this is working so far for my emergency tank overflow sensor. Every time I tested it it's worked and never once so far have I gotten a false alarm on it yet.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/231727990883?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
