Wayofthereef

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Hey Guys so I work in the utility industry and as you can imagine during the winter months everything falls apart quick and Im at work for 1 to 2 months straight. So I have to call my wife to deal with everything. So Im on a mission to automate pretty much everything and Im using Hydros to do it. Now Im not gonna pretend my system is top notch, what works for me wont necessarily work for everyone. So I attached a picture of my sump area and as you can see its packed. I put the reef roller mat that I can monitor from my cell. I drilled 2, 2inch holes through the wall to my garage where I have a chiller, a algea scrubber and an ATO all on wifi plugs so again I can power off from the phone. High and low sensors on the ATO thats tied in with a 1/4 solenoid valve to my RODI system so I can add water as necessary. Mind you this is just to handle business while I'm gone, I normally add kalk to my auto top and add water manually so i can mix the kalk. I also have a 2.5 gallon waste water jug out there and I'll explain why. So despite have all this automation there was still one pain in the butt I cant do and thats empty the protein skimmer. I have a sensor on it to shut it off when its full but then it just sits there waiting for me to call and ask the wife to deal with it who almost instantly gets mad because as she's told me a hundred times its not her hobby lol. So 2 weeks ago I cleaned my sump and I was staring at my hydros controller and those drive connections were buggin me.. so i got online and looked for a DC operated ball valve. And there it was, a 3/4 normally closed with auto return to closed with 2 wire ball valve.. so i emailed hydros to ask hey would this work and they said no.. but I was like dude it should. So I ordered the valve cuz it was only 40$. I order 2-3/4 threaded to 3/8 barb pvc fittings and i ordered the 9ft drive cord for the hydros. I ran the skimmer drain hose through the wall, cut it to length and pushed it onto the barb connection on the valve then added a 12in piece to the other side and ran it into a container. I cut and stripped the hydros cable and connected the wires red to red and black to black with a little heat shrink on there to seal everything up and look clean. Mounted it inside the cabinet, then set up the app to run it. I set up using outputs and choosing the constant. The important part on there was the running watts. The pump said 5w max so I set it to 4.5. Finished running through the rest of the settings and the moment of truth. I hit on as I sat outside and then the valve started running and here came the water!.. I did it! I automated to skimmer dump. Everything is completely capable of running for at least 30 days without my needing to be there including feeding. Hope you guys find this useful and the images inspire you to give it a shot. It literally cost less than 100$ to do.

20230328_122541.jpg 20230328_081112.jpg 20230330_234623.jpg 20230330_234636.jpg 20230330_234643.jpg 20230330_234459.jpg
 
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gbroadbridge

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Hey Guys so I work in the utility industry and as you can imagine during the winter months everything falls apart quick and Im at work for 1 to 2 months straight. So I have to call my wife to deal with everything. So Im on a mission to automate pretty much everything and Im using Hydros to do it. Now Im not gonna pretend my system is top notch, what works for me wont necessarily work for everyone. So I attached a picture of my sump area and as you can see its packed. I put the reef roller mat that I can monitor from my cell. I drilled 2, 2inch holes through the wall to my garage where I have a chiller, a algea scrubber and an ATO all on wifi plugs so again I can power off from the phone. High and low sensors on the ATO thats tied in with a 1/4 solenoid valve to my RODI system so I can add water as necessary. Mind you this is just to handle business while I'm gone, I normally add kalk to my auto top and add water manually so i can mix the kalk. I also have a 2.5 gallon waste water jug out there and I'll explain why. So despite have all this automation there was still one pain in the butt I cant do and thats empty the protein skimmer. I have a sensor on it to shut it off when its full but then it just sits there waiting for me to call and ask the wife to deal with it who almost instantly gets mad because as she's told me a hundred times its not her hobby lol. So 2 weeks ago I cleaned my sump and I was staring at my hydros controller and those drive connections were buggin me.. so i got online and looked for a DC operated ball valve. And there it was, a 3/4 normally closed with auto return to closed with 2 wire ball valve.. so i emailed hydros to ask hey would this work and they said no.. but I was like dude it should. So I ordered the valve cuz it was only 40$. I order 2-3/4 threaded to 3/8 barb pvc fittings and i ordered the 9ft drive cord for the hydros. I ran the skimmer drain hose through the wall, cut it to length and pushed it onto the barb connection on the valve then added a 12in piece to the other side and ran it into a container. I cut and stripped the hydros cable and connected the wires red to red and black to black with a little heat shrink on there to seal everything up and look clean. Mounted it inside the cabinet, then set up the app to run it. I set up using outputs and choosing the constant. The important part on there was the running watts. The pump said 5w max so I set it to 4.5. Finished running through the rest of the settings and the moment of truth. I hit on as I sat outside and then the valve started running and here came the water!.. I did it! I automated to skimmer dump. Everything is completely capable of running for at least 30 days without my needing to be there including feeding. Hope you guys find this useful and the images inspire you to give it a shot. It literally cost less than 100$ to do.

20230328_122541.jpg 20230328_081112.jpg 20230330_234623.jpg 20230330_234636.jpg 20230330_234643.jpg 20230330_234459.jpg

I use a spare dosing pump head to empty the skimmer cup

That way I can set a fixed maximum amount per day so that a runaway skimmer does not create a freshwater tank.
I have it set at 50ml as normally my skimmer collects around 25ml per day.

This amount also mitigates rising salinity due to 3 part dosing.
 
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Wayofthereef

Wayofthereef

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I use a spare dosing pump head to empty the skimmer cup

That way I can set a fixed maximum amount per day so that a runaway skimmer does not create a freshwater tank.
I have it set at 50ml as normally my skimmer collects around 25ml per day.

This amount also mitigates rising salinity due to 3 part dosing.
Now thats slick, and your right if the skimmer goes bannans then how do I watch for that? So ya it does help and create a problem
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

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    Votes: 68 52.3%
  • Gate valves.

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  • None.

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  • Other.

    Votes: 9 6.9%
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