reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[b4tn]

Question:
I'm planning my ATO and was wondering if I can use an optical sensor for the sump water level and a mechanical sensor for the low level sensor in my ato supply? If so how would that work creating the circuit for the mechanical sensor.

@Diamond1 I used this circuit and it works as expected.

 

[Diamond1]

REEF-Pi treats both sensors the same It does not know the Difference..

Thank you just what i needed to know.

 

[b4tn]

Yes. IIRC, I removed the spaces in the names of the items.

Thanks, that did it.

 

[Erica-Renee]

My belief has always been to have the chamber with the return pump in as small as possible. I've even had it in a plastic container. The reason behind this is that the smaller the volume you have there, the smaller a change you need to trigger a top-up -> more frequent smaller top-ups -> more stable. In this example with a low level trigger (of sorts), the sooner you could know that something is wrong.

Just re-reading you post, I have realised something - I have always installed float switch pump protection by simply having a float switch in series with the pump and if the water level drops past critical point, it simply switches the pump off. BUT, with Reef-Pi, you could also set any pump up with a level sensor at the low level and run the pump as an ATO (in reverse). That way you could set up an alert to let you know if the pump or system fails. Am I correct here? I think I am. This changes the way I look at this completely.

Yes My Return pump is set up controlled by ATO Sensor... Two of them actually.. One is in the sump (LOW WATER LEVEL) The other will be Above the top of the Actual Aquarium (HIGH LEVEL) So if the tank over flow clogs it will trigger pump off . If the water level goes to low in the sump it will trigger pump off..

I CAN NOT have low or small Return Chamber .My tank is in the living room , my sump is in the basement under the Kitchen. so the Drain flows down 9 feet over 14 feet . the return goes up 6 feet over about 7 feet then up 8 to 9 feet to get over the top of the tank. The hammerhead would Litterer SUCK THE SUMP Chamber so low it would pull in air... Also the Amount of water in the pipes is Amazing . So during a POWER OUTAGE test i drain back at least 20 gallons. This would over run a SMALL Return chamber and cause the Skimmer to over flow because of water over flow into that area of the sump..

My new Sump is designed around my Trial and Error with the Above situations in mind. I have been working thru this for Years to make the tank as hands off as much as possible.
But for smaller tanks I kinda agree with your thanking.. Even 30 gallons of fresh water dumped into my System at ones Barely touches the Salinity or anything else as far as that matters.. I do 60 gallon water changes when the whole system is running.. My Refugium is a 55 gallon drum split from top to bottom using each half plumbed together. I am not sure exactly how many gallons of water But its a lot. I have found the more water the less testing.

 

[b4tn]

Yes My Return pump is set up controlled by ATO Sensor... Two of them actually.. One is in the sump (LOW WATER LEVEL) The other will be Above the top of the Actual Aquarium (HIGH LEVEL) So if the tank over flow clogs it will trigger pump off . If the water level goes to low in the sump it will trigger pump off..

I CAN NOT have low or small Return Chamber .My tank is in the living room , my sump is in the basement under the Kitchen. so the Drain flows down 9 feet over 14 feet . the return goes up 6 feet over about 7 feet then up 8 to 9 feet to get over the top of the tank. The hammerhead would Litterer SUCK THE SUMP Chamber so low it would pull in air... Also the Amount of water in the pipes is Amazing . So during a POWER OUTAGE test i drain back at least 20 gallons. This would over run a SMALL Return chamber and cause the Skimmer to over flow because of water over flow into that area of the sump..

My new Sump is designed around my Trial and Error with the Above situations in mind. I have been working thru this for Years to make the tank as hands off as much as possible.
But for smaller tanks I kinda agree with your thanking.. Even 30 gallons of fresh water dumped into my System at ones Barely touches the Salinity or anything else as far as that matters.. I do 60 gallon water changes when the whole system is running.. My Refugium is a 55 gallon drum split from top to bottom using each half plumbed together. I am not sure exactly how many gallons of water But its a lot. I have found the more water the less testing.

I always wanted to do this, putting my sump in the basement. It would not be hard to do for me but the cost of a pump that can pump up 15 feet vertical made me change my mind lol

 

[Erica-Renee]

I always wanted to do this, putting my sump in the basement. It would not be hard to do for me but the cost of a pump that can pump up 15 feet vertical made me change my mind lol

If you do it. Do like i have done Break the Vertical climb into stages and use Flex for any curves or elbows , Sweeping them as much as possible helps.. Before i went with reeflo pump I used two mag 24 pumps (super noisy) Tweaking the plumbing allowed me to use just one for a long time. My Return is 1-1/2 inch and Drains are 2-1/2

Sorry for Venturing off REEF-PI TOPICS .

Everything is always a work in progress for me.Even my actually Work Projects I am NEVER HAPPY With the Results and Always expect more from myself. My wife Calls me a Perfectionist and Says LEAVE IT ALONE NOW ..

 

[Des Westcott]

I'm at my wit's end with my ATO.

For a while now I've had a problem with it. It used to work 100% and then all of a sudden, it would keep failing to the "on" status. I used the same settings that always worked for me and the ATO would just turn the pump on after a few seconds. If I manually turn the ATO Pump off, it would turn itself back on after a few seconds, despite the sensor being under water. I did try "reverse" and all the same. I thought it was the sensor, so I bought a new one and same story. I eventually stopped using it because I'm planning a whole re-build of the Reef-Pi in the next few weeks. Going bigger and better with future upgrades in mind.

I made it through the last build updates and it still did not work. I had a bit of time on my hands today, so I did a full clean re-install. Raspbian from scratch and the latest Reef-Pi RC2.

Guess what?

Same thing.

Could it be something wrong with the Pi3? I have a spare one and that is the only thing I can think to change.

Any suggestions?

 

[Erica-Renee]

I'm at my wit's end with my ATO.

For a while now I've had a problem with it. It used to work 100% and then all of a sudden, it would keep failing to the "on" status. I used the same settings that always worked for me and the ATO would just turn the pump on after a few seconds. If I manually turn the ATO Pump off, it would turn itself back on after a few seconds, despite the sensor being under water. I did try "reverse" and all the same. I thought it was the sensor, so I bought a new one and same story. I eventually stopped using it because I'm planning a whole re-build of the Reef-Pi in the next few weeks. Going bigger and better with future upgrades in mind.

I made it through the last build updates and it still did not work. I had a bit of time on my hands today, so I did a full clean re-install. Raspbian from scratch and the latest Reef-Pi RC2.

Guess what?

Same thing.

Could it be something wrong with the Pi3? I have a spare one and that is the only thing I can think to change.

Any suggestions?

Trouble shoot your electrical connections . Use volt meter inline or a break out board with a inline led and two jumpers.. Test from pi to resisters. between resisters From resisters to any connections. Check to see if any connections or connectors are close or loosing Causing them to touch or touch something else to trigger the pump. Also check the relay circuit .. If your running thru uln I also suggest running it thru a Different pin Maybe the transistor has failed .It does sound Like a Short someplace to me.. Something that its hard to give advice on..

I had a issue with a relay and found it was a tiny single wire strand that did not get crimped properly and was touching the next pin over.. VERY FRUSTRATING ...

Good Luck

 

[LionHeart2017]

You don't need to delete database or stop/uninstall the existing reef-pi, if you are running 2.x beta/rc series, it''s just

sudo dpkg -i reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi3.deb

database resetting or removing older reef-pi is only required if you are upgrading from 1.x series or something bad has happened (like something is not working)

this doesn't work for me, im using a zero pi so need the 0 build, best way to update, whats the procedure for manually updating?

 

[b4tn]

You would first run this to get the new pi 0 package

wget -c https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/releases/download/2.0.0-rc2/reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi0.deb

Then run this to install it.

sudo dpkg -i reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi0.deb

 

[LionHeart2017]

You would first run this to get the new pi 0 package

wget -c https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/releases/download/2.0.0-rc2/reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi0.deb

Then run this to install it.

sudo dpkg -i reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi0.deb

perfect, thankyou, im a complete noob with raspberry

 

[Des Westcott]

You would first run this to get the new pi 0 package

wget -c https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/releases/download/2.0.0-rc2/reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi0.deb

Then run this to install it.

sudo dpkg -i reef-pi-2.0.0-rc2-pi0.deb

I must say that I struggled with this process when I first got into this. The web-page wasn't very clear.

Now I'm struggling with other things ;Bookworm

 

[b4tn]

I finally got around to dipping my temp probes in actual aquarium water. I’m still in bench test mode but I went ahead and coated the sensors with silicone (which made 0 difference in the readings) for an extra layer of protection and put them in the water. So the question I have is for those that have been using reef pi what’s your experience like with the DS18B20 temperature sensors on accuracy?

Just laying out around in the house they match my house thermostat exactly and go up and down when I turn the heat on. They have been sitting at 69 degrees in the morning and get up to 71 through the day and back down to 69 at night just like my home thermostat.

I dialed in my tank with an old fashioned glass thermometer and maintain it at 79.5 with the reefkeeper controller and it stays pretty solid. So my glass thermometer reads 79.5 (it dipped .5 degrees for the pic) and my DS18B20 sensors read 77.9-78. I assume the glass thermometer is most accurate but may be wrong. What has been your experience across different temp reading devices?

 

[Erica-Renee]

There are those Jagged Lines in the Graph on the 77 deg probe. I would let it run for a while and see if it corrects that all of my probes are withing a deg of each other .

 

[b4tn]

That’s because the check time is set to 5 seconds from testing. I need to go back and change that.

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib That didn't take long... 2 hours after turning it on, I broke my reef-pi :D. Where are the config files for column width, height, etc? I changed to a single column from 2 column and changed the width from 500 to 800 (assumed that was the width of each column). I now just get a blank white screen. When I refresh the page I see the green header momentarily but then goes back to blank.

You were able to fix this ?

 

[Ranjib]

Thanks, that did it.

I’ll add it in the docs (spaces will impact telemetry)

 

[Ranjib]

Thanks, that did it.

I’ll add it in the docs (spaces will impact telemetry)

 

[Ranjib]

I must say that I struggled with this process when I first got into this. The web-page wasn't very clear.

Now I'm struggling with other things ;Bookworm

So , we should update the upgrade documentation . I’m thinking what needs to be added, may be examples ?

 

[Ranjib]

I finally got around to dipping my temp probes in actual aquarium water. I’m still in bench test mode but I went ahead and coated the sensors with silicone (which made 0 difference in the readings) for an extra layer of protection and put them in the water. So the question I have is for those that have been using reef pi what’s your experience like with the DS18B20 temperature sensors on accuracy?

Just laying out around in the house they match my house thermostat exactly and go up and down when I turn the heat on. They have been sitting at 69 degrees in the morning and get up to 71 through the day and back down to 69 at night just like my home thermostat.

I dialed in my tank with an old fashioned glass thermometer and maintain it at 79.5 with the reefkeeper controller and it stays pretty solid. So my glass thermometer reads 79.5 (it dipped .5 degrees for the pic) and my DS18B20 sensors read 77.9-78. I assume the glass thermometer is most accurate but may be wrong. What has been your experience across different temp reading devices?

Ds18b20 sensors have 0.5 degree Celsius accuracy, so the readings are not totally out of line. Check if it’s consistently off by the same margin, if it is, then it’s all good , else we have precision issues .
I have not encountered much of reading issue when it’s in operation. I am using 4 of these probes in tank, and three in different rooms. I have not throroghly tested it with a bromine or mercury based thermometer