You mean with all your skills, you couldn't make your own water change system? I love the shed idea, I wish i could pull that off in canada. It would freeze all my water. I also love the intuition of the garage door button to send a bit to the apex then turning on your pump for an hour.
You see you have already done that much. to re-create the genesis principals is just another pump and plumbing. I know because I built my own water change reactor using the same principals and utilizing my neptune AC3 as the back bone.
lol.. Funny you mentioned that. A couple weeks ago I designed a couple wall mounted 1 gallon acrylic metering bins and had it it my mind to have my acrylic shop build them with the plan of using them with my Apex. It's really a two pump/two bin solution as you need to take in/out exactly the same amounts.
I also laid out a 2 gallon bin for larger water changes. They both incorperated a PVC stand pipe that could be shortened which is essentially a loopback/oveflow line sending the water back to its source once it reached a specified level of 1 gallon or 2 gallons.. This insures that the bins are perfectly full with 1 gallon of water. In the case of the 1 gallon version, it could be setup for half gallon exchanges by using a shorter standpipe. The cost was such that it would be a marketable solution which is not off the table.
That said, while I've become pretty good at my Apex programming, the automatic water change code is a bit daunting and complex as there were things that needed to be timed such as the solenoid that opens when the bin is full. There are float switches also included in the design to shut the pumps off when the bins were full but also need the pumps to run on a timer so that if the float fails, the pump will still shut off at a preset duration and not run continuously. Then my ATO coding would need to be changed which could simply be a defer statement to delay it long enough for the exchange to complete and allowing my ATO float to go back to closed position. Last there was the frequency of the water changes which could have been handled by OSC commands telling it to turn on 1, 2, 3 times a day for 1-3 gallons. Then there are the failsafes such as sump levels, salinity etc. All of which together entail some pretty lengthy lines of code.
I actually posted a thread on it at the Neptune Systems hosted forum explaining what I was looking to do and seeking help but suprisingly did not get a response on that. While I still will likely presue a Apex driven solution, using the Genesis as a stand alone device and using my Apex for the failsafe seemed like a more prudent and easy to impement solution. I will plug the Genesis into an Apex controlled outlet that will have failsafe programming for sump levels and salinity so that if my water levels are too high or too low, the Genesis shuts off. Same goes with Salinity, too high or too low and Genesis shuts off. These would be the same lines of code I use for my Litermeter water exchange outlet which would make implementing the Genesis the path of least resistance and very simple.
My metering bins would have saved me money but I do have the Litermeter along with 3 or 4 spare pumps to essentially make it close to an even trade. The added benifit is having an all in one device that is not dependant on my Apex along with having the failsafes that the Apex will provide.
As I said, I still may have those acrylic bins made and may switch down the line but sometimes simplicity wins over cost and in this case, the Renew keeps things simple and saves me hours of programming while making it very easy to changes the amount of water I change and the frequency at which they are done, be it daily, weekly or even a large concurrent water change.
