OP
OP
StickyThwomp
Community Member
+ ~1 Month update:
Things aren't looking all that different, aside from mounting the corals in probably questionable locations, and moved the MP40s to the side of the tank (blasting up too much sand from the front corners in their other placement), and filling out the clean-up crew a bit more. I was curious how much (or little) the clean-up crew would turn over the sand, so I haven't siphoned it once so far. They aren't doing a terrible job, but it sure aint pretty.
Tank Chemistry is fine except for Nitrates/Phosphates, these have absolutely bottomed and am working on raising them to "regularly detectable" at a bare minimum. I'm still dosing phosphates as mentioned above, but now I've also started feeding way more, and dosing Nitrates (DIY via Ammonium Bicarbonate). The Phosphate dosing has a measurable effect (though its still soaking up a lot), Nitrates I have yet to see much. I don't think I'm dosing enough for any drastic change (.1 ppm ammonia once a day), but I'm checking every other day for any change in the Nitrate readings, probably want to get this on a steady/automated drip, as I think I need more to see anything detectable. Been going for only a week or so, so not rushing to ramp up anything just yet.
On the automation front, My ATO is functional, but far from complete. A recent weekend out of town was the kick in the pants I needed to make something workable. Looks like trash, but it works!
The firmware is running Zephyr RTOS, using MQTT to receive the current water level from the Neptune's liquid level sensor located in my sumps return chamber. The overall setup uses a Home Assistant plugin to get the data into HA, then a HA automation to publish it to an MQTT broker. The HW is a raspberry pi Pico W, a little 300mA pump from amazon (Just fine for pumping across the house and up a story), and a ULN2003A IC for switching the pump on and off (all I had on-hand). The power is a little silly, as it uses both a USB supply for the Pico and a 12V supply for the pump, but did I mention it was assembled on short notice :-P Obviously not a permanent fixture (Remind me one year from now to see how true that statement is :-D), but it'll let me hobble along with one less thing to manually deal with.
Its funny, you always read the threads about preparing for vacation, outages, etc... and see "never change automation before leaving". No-brainer right? Well I have no brain :-)
The ATO had been running fine for a few days, and I thought, oh, lets add a safeguard to ensure that if the pump gets stuck on for some reason, I don't flood anything! I put an MQTT smart switch infront of the ATO, and created a configuration in Home Assistant to turn of the smart switch if the water level was ever significantly above the sump maintenance level for 15 minutes (My feed cycle turns off the returns, which backflows into the sump for 10 minutes, so 15 minutes is a reasonable minimum right?). Did a feed cycle before heading out the door, and enjoyed my vacation.
Turns out, the feed cycle tripped the failsafe... Haven't worked out exactly why, but I have a feeling the update rate for the water level was too slow (5 or 10 min increments?), so the 15 minute threshold tripped, the automation ran, and my ATO turned off before I even left the house. Luckily my paranoia led me to overfill RO before leaving, so when I got home the sump water level was just above the point where I have it set to turn off the return pumps so they don't run while dry. My failsafe is now set for 30 minutes and has been running stable ever since.
I still have plans (hopes) to get directly connected to the aquabus rather than relying on home assistant, but for now, this'll do!
Things aren't looking all that different, aside from mounting the corals in probably questionable locations, and moved the MP40s to the side of the tank (blasting up too much sand from the front corners in their other placement), and filling out the clean-up crew a bit more. I was curious how much (or little) the clean-up crew would turn over the sand, so I haven't siphoned it once so far. They aren't doing a terrible job, but it sure aint pretty.
Tank Chemistry is fine except for Nitrates/Phosphates, these have absolutely bottomed and am working on raising them to "regularly detectable" at a bare minimum. I'm still dosing phosphates as mentioned above, but now I've also started feeding way more, and dosing Nitrates (DIY via Ammonium Bicarbonate). The Phosphate dosing has a measurable effect (though its still soaking up a lot), Nitrates I have yet to see much. I don't think I'm dosing enough for any drastic change (.1 ppm ammonia once a day), but I'm checking every other day for any change in the Nitrate readings, probably want to get this on a steady/automated drip, as I think I need more to see anything detectable. Been going for only a week or so, so not rushing to ramp up anything just yet.
On the automation front, My ATO is functional, but far from complete. A recent weekend out of town was the kick in the pants I needed to make something workable. Looks like trash, but it works!
The firmware is running Zephyr RTOS, using MQTT to receive the current water level from the Neptune's liquid level sensor located in my sumps return chamber. The overall setup uses a Home Assistant plugin to get the data into HA, then a HA automation to publish it to an MQTT broker. The HW is a raspberry pi Pico W, a little 300mA pump from amazon (Just fine for pumping across the house and up a story), and a ULN2003A IC for switching the pump on and off (all I had on-hand). The power is a little silly, as it uses both a USB supply for the Pico and a 12V supply for the pump, but did I mention it was assembled on short notice :-P Obviously not a permanent fixture (Remind me one year from now to see how true that statement is :-D), but it'll let me hobble along with one less thing to manually deal with.
Its funny, you always read the threads about preparing for vacation, outages, etc... and see "never change automation before leaving". No-brainer right? Well I have no brain :-)
The ATO had been running fine for a few days, and I thought, oh, lets add a safeguard to ensure that if the pump gets stuck on for some reason, I don't flood anything! I put an MQTT smart switch infront of the ATO, and created a configuration in Home Assistant to turn of the smart switch if the water level was ever significantly above the sump maintenance level for 15 minutes (My feed cycle turns off the returns, which backflows into the sump for 10 minutes, so 15 minutes is a reasonable minimum right?). Did a feed cycle before heading out the door, and enjoyed my vacation.
Turns out, the feed cycle tripped the failsafe... Haven't worked out exactly why, but I have a feeling the update rate for the water level was too slow (5 or 10 min increments?), so the 15 minute threshold tripped, the automation ran, and my ATO turned off before I even left the house. Luckily my paranoia led me to overfill RO before leaving, so when I got home the sump water level was just above the point where I have it set to turn off the return pumps so they don't run while dry. My failsafe is now set for 30 minutes and has been running stable ever since.
I still have plans (hopes) to get directly connected to the aquabus rather than relying on home assistant, but for now, this'll do!
