Apex Question

mcleodm · 10-11-2011, 03:48 PM

Hey guys,

Got a quick question for you apex experts. I have been trying to setup my auto-water-change program inside my apex and i am stuck.

The way I am doing it right now is i made a v-outlet called 30G-WC. It contains when the water should be changed as well as on if feed d.

My auto-water change system contains 3 steps. Drain the sump, refill the sump, refill the new sw container. So 3 pumps. I have set my return pumps and protein skimmer to be off when 30G-WC is on.

I have got the turning on the physical outlets working, the problem is turning them off. I can time their turning on with defer statements, but there is no way i know of to turn them off after there job is done.

Any ideas or if you have a better way of doing this, then that would be great. Hopefully i didnt write this too confusingly. I am trying to get my tank to near automation by next sunday when i leave for boot camp and my mom takes it over.

THANKS

jimsflies · 10-11-2011, 04:32 PM

Do you have float switches controlling this or just trying to time it?

mcleodm · 10-11-2011, 04:47 PM

Going to run it using timers. My sump has 3 sections. There is a float in the middle which prevents the return pumps and skimmer from running if the water level is too low. Only point of error I can think of is if the float switch fails.

jimsflies · 10-11-2011, 05:03 PM

To me it seems real risky running water changes on timers with no other fail safes. If for some reason one pump fails to turn on or if the flow rates change over time, what happens?

mcleodm · 10-11-2011, 05:17 PM

Good point. I could use a conductivity probe to ensure that saltwater is being replaced and if anything goes wrong, it will just alert the user. A lot less work then installing floats.

XSiVE · 10-11-2011, 05:17 PM

I'd just use float switches on the breakout/IO box in conjunction with the timers

jimsflies · 10-11-2011, 05:23 PM

Is this operation going to be totally unmanned or is your mom going to be there when it is doing its thing?

mcleodm · 10-11-2011, 05:37 PM

Unmanned. Lets say it changes the water on a monday. She would put the salt in on tuesday and then 13 days later, it would do its thing again.

Seems more logical to use conductivity. You get to monitor it and if something goes wrong with the awc, it will tell you. If you do it with floats, it just tells you something is wrong, no monitoring.

Guess with floats you can pinpoint an individual problem in the system vs with conductivity it just tells you the whole system is offline.

jimsflies · 10-11-2011, 06:28 PM

I guess maybe another question is what's our budget on this project?

My feeling is, that she should be there to watch it happen and verify that it doesn't overflow the tank or the bucket (or is this going directly in the drain?).

mcleodm · 10-11-2011, 06:33 PM

The drained sw goes into a 30 gal trash can with a bulkhead near the top. This then goes into a drain.

I am torn between salinity probe or float switches.

In the mean time, do you know of any command that can turn off the pumps when there job is done? This would be using the timer only method.