Once upon a time, I used to be an active aquarist. 55 gallon, 30 gallon, 15 gallon with the latter two tanks used for breeding (Bred some CPD's early on among other things!). This could be saltwater or freshwater, I'm not even sure. Right now I have most of my sketches/etc. setup for freshwater, but doing it for saltwater would be fine too.
The significant other has recently agreed to let me get back into the hobby, and I am thinking I'd like to go big, but at the same time don't have the time I had a long time ago. This means...automation. So, I have some questions.
I'd like to set up a system where I effectively have one water supply, and have it all linked to a refugium. The refugium will have automated water changing. I'll have it setup so that water is automatically refilled by one sensor to a set level, and another removes water from the system on scheduled times. This means none of my tanks fish are impacted by the water change and gives no stress water changes while making it really easy to water change for me. The refugium will be hooked up to the water mains with a RO system. This also gives the benefit of adding and removing tanks very easily. By default, any new tank is automatically cycled (May have to add a bit of bacteria to the refugium, but I'll easily be able to set up filtering for 1k gallons or more in the refugium due to how much raw biological filtration media I'll be able to add).
UV filtering will be done on both the input and the output to the refugium. This should eliminate my worries about disease/bacteria/etc. being shared between tanks. In theory, I should only need to pump water into the tanks, with a overflow then sending water to the refugium.
What am I missing? Has anyone done this and has tips to share with me? Please be aware I am a software engineer by trade and will have no problem writing the software for this. I mean, would diseases be able to escape the double UV setup and spread across many tanks? Is there a better solution then a double UV filitration setup? Is there a better way to do this, e.g. a series of canister filters maybe?
Also, in the spring/summer/fall, the aquarium water that has been removed from the system will be used to water the significant other's garden (Winter will just be routed to the sewer). Anything I need to be cognizant of here? Never done that before, I don't know if there's something in aquarium water that can harm plants.
Thank you!
The significant other has recently agreed to let me get back into the hobby, and I am thinking I'd like to go big, but at the same time don't have the time I had a long time ago. This means...automation. So, I have some questions.
I'd like to set up a system where I effectively have one water supply, and have it all linked to a refugium. The refugium will have automated water changing. I'll have it setup so that water is automatically refilled by one sensor to a set level, and another removes water from the system on scheduled times. This means none of my tanks fish are impacted by the water change and gives no stress water changes while making it really easy to water change for me. The refugium will be hooked up to the water mains with a RO system. This also gives the benefit of adding and removing tanks very easily. By default, any new tank is automatically cycled (May have to add a bit of bacteria to the refugium, but I'll easily be able to set up filtering for 1k gallons or more in the refugium due to how much raw biological filtration media I'll be able to add).
UV filtering will be done on both the input and the output to the refugium. This should eliminate my worries about disease/bacteria/etc. being shared between tanks. In theory, I should only need to pump water into the tanks, with a overflow then sending water to the refugium.
What am I missing? Has anyone done this and has tips to share with me? Please be aware I am a software engineer by trade and will have no problem writing the software for this. I mean, would diseases be able to escape the double UV setup and spread across many tanks? Is there a better solution then a double UV filitration setup? Is there a better way to do this, e.g. a series of canister filters maybe?
Also, in the spring/summer/fall, the aquarium water that has been removed from the system will be used to water the significant other's garden (Winter will just be routed to the sewer). Anything I need to be cognizant of here? Never done that before, I don't know if there's something in aquarium water that can harm plants.
Thank you!
[emoji38]
