Automation: What do you have automated!

[BZOFIQ]

I have automated my wife to feed the fish.

 

[Kieran McBride]

Lighting, dosing, temperature and ATO. I like to use a hands on approach.

 

[MillennialReefer]

The only thing I have automated is an ATO that actually fills in the built in reservoir behind my tanks that actually tops off the water via a float valve. I actually to have a couple of dosing pumps but I prefer having dosing my tank manually. Eventually If I leave for more than 2-3 days, I would plug in the dosing pumps.

 

[ReefJuice]

Right now with the equipment I have: ATO, Lights, and the Gyre pump are automated. Replacing my pump with a DC. I only have a 25 gallon tank, so it's not a huge effort yet. I'm curious how one would automate scraping algae off the tank walls, as well as cleaning calcification off equipment. The only other thing I'd consider automating is water change and dosing. Does anyone here automate those with their nano?

 

[Timfish]

Automaiton certainly has it's attractions. The additional layer of complexity is an issue though that from what I've experienced is usually overlooked. I've been called by house sitters and spouses because the aquarists who set something up didn't bother to provide even minamal documentation or passwords and I've had to spend a fair amount of time figuring out how stuff was wired before I could address a problem because the housesitter or spouse couldn't provide any info. Over the years I've seen temperature ports fail and kill a ssytem. I've seen temperature probes fail and kill a system. I've seen the processor unit fail and nothing could be controlled or adjusted. I've seen power to the outlets on the dedicated power strip fail leaving equipment turned on when it was supposed to be off. Worse, I've seen the dedicated power strips show power was on but the main return pump wasn't running and had to be plugged into a regular outlet (that one killed decade old fish and corals). When setting up a system what happens when EACH AND EVERY piec of equipment fails needs ot be considered and how to deal with the failure needs to be outlined and ideally published somewhere easily accesable to whoever will have to figure out the problem when the aquarist is unavailable. Because with even with easy communication by cell phone or internet around the world a system will fail when during a plane flight or critical business meeting.

 

[3429810]

I chose 25%. I have a heater controller and ato. Lights are but I feel like that’s a given on 90% of lighting now. Other than that everything is manual. Need to get my sump up and running then I will have dosing automated. Would be nice to have more but not essential.

 

[Titleist1964]

AI Prime (if that counts)
Inkbird 306A
Tunze 3152 ATO.

20 Gallon Cube.

 

[MtnDewMan]

Automatic

Temperature (APEX)
ALK/CA/MG/Reef Energy (ReefDose)
Lighting Schedule (Ration XR15 G5 - Mobius)
Feeder (internal Eheim timer)
Auto Topoff (10 gallon reservoir with XP Aqua ATO)
Testing (Trident)
Flowrate (AI Nero 3 with multiple flow changes per day)

Manual

Miscellaneous parameter testing
Filter media cleaning/replacement
Skimmer cup cleaning
Glass surface cleaning
Water changes

 

[J.D.]

In the midst of a new build, will be completely automated minus AWC (I wanted to maintain manual water changes and cleaning). Even plumbed in the ATO Res w/ a float switch to the RODI to automate reservoir fills.

 

[AXBROWN]

I have lights, dosing, returns, and powerheads automated. Working on getting testing automated! Haven't decided if I am going with the new Apex (I have the classic) so I can run the trident, or if I am going the profilux route. I would love to run the ion director so I don't have to replenish reagents with the trident.

 

[KStatefan]

Temperature
ATO
Feeding
Dosing
Backup Power supply
Lights

 

[katonge]

Apex + Trident - so testing, dosing, ATO, AWC, heat, lights, power heads, uv, leak detection, rodi, etc
Manual - feeding, testing ph & nitrates & filter socks

 

[Forty-Two]

Im at about 50% ish. I have the following automated:
ATO
Lights
All testing (Alk, PO4, NO3, Calcium, Magnesium, Iodine, Ph, Salinity, Temp)
All Dosing

what isn’t automated (yet):
Pumps (not sure I see the value here)
Filter socks
Water changes
Carbon changes
Feeding (this will probably always be manual because I only feed frozen)
Phytoplankton dosing
Heater (can’t control it from the Profilux yet)

 

[Captmcfly]

Whole reason my previous tanks came down were due to lack of time for maintenance. My current build is as automated as I can get. Not finished building yet but I have a full Neptune suit.
heaters
Rollermat
Light schedule
Power heads
Ato
Dosing
Feeding
Water changes
All automatic.
Only thing I’m doing manually is mixing salt and empty my skimmer
Cleaning the glass.
Also testing for now however I will get a trident if the reviews come up, had it in my cart and took it out due to too many negative reviews.

 

[james670]

Lighting (AI), heater (Inkbird Wifi), ATO (Tunze), wavemaker (AI), feeding (Eheim, but only in the morning, until I go away on vacation). Most of my aquarium devices are controlled via Wifi plugs or powerbars (Globe), so I can turn most devices (other than the AI lights and wavemakers) by shouting out "Hey Google!". Huh, I guess I'm more automated than I thought. Maybe I need to change from 25% to 50%.

I prefer feeding myself because I love seeing the fish eat, but I set up automated feeding in preparation for the vacation I'll be taking eventually. I use the autofeeder to feed pellets in the morning only, and feed the fish myself in the evening (pellets and/or frozen food). My automated feeding is actually a little more complicated than I originally thought it would be, beyond the simple Eheim daily feeder, not just because of scheduling the feed mode in my AI app, but also because I found something out accidentally with my clowns. I used to carefully spoon out my pellets onto a small, bright red dollar store measuring cup, and after I turn on feeding mode, I'd bring the measuring cup up to the feeding ring. The smaller clownfish would go nuts whenever he saw the red cup, jumping up excitedly multiple times like a puppy and even breaking the water surface, to follow the red cup up to the feeding ring. It was the highlight of my day.

Once my wife started planning a few vacations, I figured I needed to automate feeding, starting with the Eheim daily feeder, but I also wondered how the fish would know that the food is coming. As it turns out, we had gotten a red Chinese New Year "good luck" decoration with a red LED light that I hung over the DT during Chinese New Year, and I wondered if they would respond to the red light like they did with the red cup. I decided to give that a try a la Pavlov's dog. I'd turn on that red light, turn on feed mode, then feed the fish with the red measuring cup. After a while, the fish got excited when the red light came on, and come right up to the feeding ring, so I definitely call this a success! Now, when I use the autofeeder, the red LED light tells them that the food is coming. Even though the red LED light isn't very strong, the fish seem to see it even when the AI Prime lights are on in the evening. I started to do the same with the orchid dottyback in the QT, so I would turn on a red emergency lantern right before I fed her. After a while, I would notice her poking her head at the end of her PVC pipe cave, and she would intently look for any falling pellets.

I took her out of QT very recently, and tried to indicate feeding time with the same red lantern, since she's in the caves at the lower part of the DT, but in these first few days, I don't see her responding much. I've done the turkey baster to feed her. I'll just chalk this up to being new in the DT and trying to get her bearings in new surroundings.

 

[G Santana]

Lol I'm the brains behind this ship.

Lights
AFR doser
Heaters
ATO although I don't know if gravity fed qualifies

Everything else I manually do which include feeding, water changes, dosing etc.

 

[shakacuz]

lighting, wave pumps, temp and ato. would this be 25%?

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Automation is the only reason my tank is still going now that I lost most of my functional vision. I was a techno weenie and loved to automate everything I could. Not just in my tank, but everything in my house. Too many smart things can make us dumb though. The only things in my tank that aren’t automated are: testing (man, do I wish I had upgraded to the 2016 Apex and trident now. Testing is impossible when you can’t read anything), cleaning, maintenance, and adding salt. I have a rodi reservoir and saltwater reservoir that automatically fill and send me a message to mix in salt. Auto water changes, auto feeders, ato, roller mat, skimmer with added switches to message me to empty and a oh crap sensor to shut it off if it gets too full, high and low sensors in my return chamber to message me if the level is too high or low, plus more oh crap sensors to shut things down if something’s wrong, automated dosing with optical sensors in the jugs to message me to refill them. If I could put sensors in my feeders to let me know they were empty, I would….I just can’t see well enough to tell if there’s food in there or not. Glad I have two, I stagger filling them in hopes that I will notice one being empty before the other runs out. I just wish I had a trident, roomba detritus bot, roomba glass bot, roomba Aiptasia laser attack bot, and a roomba coral pruning bot!

 

[SaltwaterandLime]

Only my lights currently. My next big purchase is going to be an automatic doser of some sort but I keep putting it off because I can't decide what I want. Right now I'm still dosing by hand every day.

Although my children automatically know they have to carry my water buckets if that counts?

 

[NanoMan16]

I voted close to 100%. Being an engineer comes in handy. My ph all and other adjustable parameters are all linked to my dosing system. So if ph drops my interface of my design knows to add the appropriate amount of PH up solution from the auto dosering unit. And same for other water parameters. Honestly the only thing that isn’t automated is my water changes. I find that to be therapeutic same as cleaning my tank.