It's up and working!!!!!!
Here's the spiel I've been posting on other forums:
This adventure actually started 3 years ago. I bought tanks and equipment off a former local fish club member that was getting out of the hobby. He apparently raised angelfish and sold them to the local stores in the 80's and 90's when there was an issue with the Florida fish farms and their angelfish dying. He stated that back then, he made a killing on the sales. He was getting out of the hobby and starting a motorcycle detailing shop as a new hobby. I had a plethora of tanks from this, including 4 drilled 55's and 16 drilled 20's. The stuff sat in my garage for almost two years before it was started.
Fast-forward to a year and a half ago - my brother-in-law had been out of work and I connived him into helping me set up the system.
The plan: 16 20 gallon tanks on a top rack, 4 55 gallon tanks on the bottom racks with an automated water change system. The original owner's system had a centralized wet-dry filter system that I canned based on space restraints and fears of an overflow with that much water running through a system of pipes. The 20 gallons would be used mainly for fish/fish breeding, with sponge filters for filtration. The 55's would be planted tanks for my "farming". The water change system would have storage tanks, filtered via a reverse-osmosis system. The 'waste water' would go into one tank to be used for water changes. The RO would fill up another tank with an overflow to the waste water. The reason for this setup is to have RO for later needs, with filtered water for water changes (my water supply has chloramines). Placing straight water and 'dechlorinating' it in a storage tank will eventually lead to nitrate buildup in the tank - the chloramines would be eventually broken down to chlorine and ammonia, the ammonia would be turned into nitrate by bacteria. Not something I would want for the fish or the planted tanks over time.
The local LFS uses 2x4's and cinder blocks for their rack system - seemed cheap and sturdy enough for my uses. We got the tanks cleaned, the racks put up, and the automated water system and air system mostly setup. My brother-in-law gets new job and moves out to Southern Cali. The system sits in my basement for another year.
Fast-forward again to 6 months ago. One of the local plant geeks is out of work. He used to work at local fish stores. I connived him into finishing the job. "It'll only take you a couple days, not much left to do". 10+trips later, It's finally done!
Front shot - there is another row of 20's on top of 55's in the back.
a couple of the planted 55's:
As the 20 gallon tanks were being filled, there was bowing of the 2x4's. This were placed with the 4in width 'placed flat'. This had to be placed with the 4inch witdth 'vertically' with braces placed between them:
the water distribution and air distribution systems. The "T delivers water to the the 2 sides. The single pipe is the air distribution system.
Initially I had 2 inch PVC for the air system - lost too much pressure. That had to be changed....
Each tank has a bulkhead on the back for drainage. This goes into a large PVC pipe in the bottom, which then drains into the basement drain. Initially there was 1 inch tubing from the drainage pipes to the floor drain. This caused a backup and airlock - it had to be changed to 2 inch PVC piping as well.
The planted tanks needed to be automated as well for my needs. The lights and CO2 are on timers. Each tank has 2 96w CF bulbs over them. I used a dual manifold regulator from
http://www.greenleafaquariums.com and it has worked very well. There has often been an issue with others trying to 'divide' a CO2 tank to multiple aquariums - this has worked without a hitch for me.
The fertilization system uses the small pump method. It turns on for 3 minutes a day. One issue was the amount of flow in 1 minute without some type of 'regulator'. Without some type of restriction, I'd a very large storage tank with 500+ml being distributed per minute. (the tanks are near-level with the floor, greatly reducing the 'head' pressure that usually limits the flow of this method) Tim (connived person #2) thought about using air flow regulators. Teflon tape was used at the 'knobs' to prevent leakage. After tweaking (apparently time-consuming) it has been quite consistent at providing 15ml per 3 min .
Water flow is achieved by a powerhead on top of a sponge filter. The filter helps with particulates as well and gets rinsed out once a week.
The water storage system as mentioned above. We tried the pressure valves for RO units, but they did not work (would not shut off the pressure). I finally found a switch system that would fit my needs. It worked well, however there is a regulator for the system that lets you limit the time that the system stays on - used by people with sumps to prevent an overflow, if they are using it as top-off for their sump. This was malfunctionin,g so the regulator turned off after 5 minutes of use. The vendor was quite slow on sending me the initial equipment purchased, and was quite slow on sending a replacement - took two months til this system was finally working properly.
The twenty-gallon tanks will be used for fish breeding. Filtration is via sponge filters. There are 4 shoplights above the 20's for lighting. There really is fish in there now
For the air pump, I purchased a linear air pump - not too loud considering the number of tanks it is supplying. To reduce vibration noise, it is hung on the side of the rack.
I can now have planted 'farms' and try an actual aquascape on my 75 gallon!
Some lessons learned:
1) an automated system is expensive! Despite getting some used equipment, it probably cost over $2500 for the supplies alone.
2) an automated system is time consuming to set up. It probably would have taken me another couple years to do it myself without the tons of help I got.
3) No matter how much you think it through, there will be setbacks - adding to lesson #1 and lesson #2
4) The amount of time and money saved over time should be well worth it. With the amount of tanks I had, water changes alone took over 2 hours. Now I can spend most of my time enjoying the plants and fish, and working on breeding. With my schedule being so unpredictable, this is well worth #1 and #2
I can't believe how well the plant tanks came around. They were a little scary at first. I have to get you those remaining strainers for the bulkheads. I have no idea where they ended up. Very cool! I'm jealous!!
