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Fallen Tree Branch 60cm (jungle mode)

245K views 542 replies 151 participants last post by  BettaBettas 
#1 · (Edited)
Current Tank Shot, 11/5/14"



Previous Tank Shot, 10/21/14:





Previous Tank Shots, 7/30/14:




_________

This tank is the new Mr Aqua 720LI, which is low iron glass and the exact same dimensions as the 60P, except it was only $122 shipped via special order from Marine Depot. I'm really happy with the clarity and quality of this tank. It's put together better than my other normal Mr. Aqua tank.

I've rescaped my old tank 3 times, and the number one thing I've learned is that substrate settles and everything moves. This time around, everything is zip-tied in place and I'm using egg crates to prevent erosion. I hope it goes well. I just completed my hardscape this morning (minus some rock that'll get added). I'm going with a fallen tree branch look, and rather than try and find a perfect single branch, I bought a box of assorted manzanita sticks from Tom Barr for $45. This is roughly 1/2 of it in the picture below. It was a lot of work, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of clipping zip-ties and moving stuff over and over. I'm really happy with how it's turned out.

I can't add in substrate yet because my one bag of Aquasoil is not enough (I already tried). I just placed an order for another bag, so I expect I'll see that in a week or so. As far as plants go, I'm thinking of doing a UG carpet off to the right. Then I have a pretty good assortment of plants in my other tank, a bunch of which will make it in here: s. repens, Alternanthera Reineckii Mini, downoi, anubias nana petite, ludwigia sp. red, blyxa japonica, and some rotola. I also need to get some good moss to go on the branches.

As far as light, this RAY2 will put out a little over 90 par at the substrate at this height, and I have good CO2. I'm not sure if I'm going to run this at high light as is, or if I'll raise it up. I'll probably start off that way and see if it's too much work or if I get algae issues.





 
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#311 ·
Ho-ly SMOKE that's allot of wires! Is there any way to run that thing on a serial bus to free up some data lines? Maybe it's not important with the Mega, but it might make for a smaller wire to allow you to position the screen remotely from the rest of the controller. That's what I did with my screen,.. granted for mine I only had to cut it down from 12 wires to 4.

Impressive work!
Whiskey
 
#313 ·
Made some good progress tonight. I successfully got the home/overview screen laid out with mock data (drawing lines, text, and icons). I am also successfully registering touch events, so I can tell exactly what buttons I'm pushing. Still lots of work to do, but this is coming along quite well!

Next big step will be to get the SD card slot working, because I'll need that to store all of the icons.

 
#314 ·
Very cool project. I would burn down the house if I attempted anything like that.
 
#322 ·
Thanks! :)

Stellar work on that controller! Way beyond some of us layman. I think Current should hire you to create a controller like that for mass production! :)

Anyways, I absolutely love running dual CSP's on my 60p. Colors just look great and it's quite evident in your red plants too -- compared to the pics of when you first started using them.
Ha! No mass production here. I'm just doing this because it's super fun. I'll post the code and info when I'm done, but that'll be the extent. :)

Your tank was the inspiration to run 2 CSP's, and I absolutely love them. Thank you! The reds are looking much better than before, but some of that is the lighting mix on the CSP's that I'm using in that picture. There is a little algae on the a. reineckii mini, but that's because my wife didn't fertilize at all when I was out of town for 5 days, and my dosing pumps are offline for this new project.

What is the carpet plant? Beautiful tank!
The carpet plant is dwarf hairgrass 'belem'.

I remember seeing it someplace in these 22 pages, but unable to find itlol
what lights excatly are you using? I know you also added SMD RGB LEDs strip and built a controller, vut Im more intrested what NM values of colors you are using... example 6500k, 445nm ect.
I've swapped out lights. I'm running two Current Satellite Plus's, and nothing else.
 
#319 ·
Stellar work on that controller! Way beyond some of us layman. I think Current should hire you to create a controller like that for mass production! :)

Anyways, I absolutely love running dual CSP's on my 60p. Colors just look great and it's quite evident in your red plants too -- compared to the pics of when you first started using them.
 
#321 ·
I remember seeing it someplace in these 22 pages, but unable to find itlol
what lights excatly are you using? I know you also added SMD RGB LEDs strip and built a controller, vut Im more intrested what NM values of colors you are using... example 6500k, 445nm ect.

Thanks :)
 
#325 ·
I am not a lighting expert. Do you have access to a PAR meter to see where you are at?

Went back to look at your arduino codes and projects with the automatic dosing and the light controllers. I have to say, it was fun to read, and I've been thinking about doing something like that myself in the future once I have funds for it. Question! How difficult is it to be able to put something like that together? I'm sure it requires a lot of work to get all the wires together. As a total noob to arduinos, I know I have a lot of research to look through before I can fully use one to my advantage.
How hard? It's tough for me to judge. I'm an IT nerd by trade, do occasional programming, and have a pretty firm grasp of electricity and electronics. For me it was not hard, but I think how hard it is shouldn't matter. If it looks like something you'd like to do, you could totally figure it out, and learn all sorts of new things at the same time. If you didn't take on challenges, life would be boring. That's why I decided to dig into this. I'm learning tons of stuff and it's super fun for me.

Same thing goes for planted tanks. I didn't get into them because I thought it'd be easy. :)
 
#324 ·
Went back to look at your arduino codes and projects with the automatic dosing and the light controllers. I have to say, it was fun to read, and I've been thinking about doing something like that myself in the future once I have funds for it. Question! How difficult is it to be able to put something like that together? I'm sure it requires a lot of work to get all the wires together. As a total noob to arduinos, I know I have a lot of research to look through before I can fully use one to my advantage.
 
#326 ·
Originally Posted by Chondrobob
Awesome work!
I have a 30" deep 150gal 1/2 cylinder already have a 48"CPS AND 36 "CPS should I add another 48 CPS ?



The PAR value for 1 SAT+ 12" deep is 36 micromols and at 24" is at 21 micromols.. No info on 30" PAR, what would be optimal PAR at that depth? Also i need to consider it's 30inches wide at the center convex..
 

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#327 ·
The PAR value for 1 SAT+ 12" deep is 36 micromols and at 24" is at 21 micromols.. No info on 30" PAR, what would be optimal PAR at that depth? Also i need to consider it's 30inches wide at the center convex..
I think I'd open a new thread to get input from people that know better than I. Maybe somebody local has a PAR meter they can loan you. I have no idea how much your PAR would drop off at 30" vs 24" deep, and how much PAR you want is going to be dependent on plant mass, plant selection, and if you are dosing ferts and have CO2.

Really cool wood in your tank by the way!
 
#328 · (Edited)
Here is a video of my own interface and my own touch screen code all working together to control 125v relays, so that I can control the power on all of the aquarium accessories.

This is the feeding routing concept test, where I hit the feeding button, and it flips 3 relays (pumps, CO2, heat). Then I press stop and it flips the relays back.

In the video I double tapped the icons because I was touching the screen too soft trying to not bump it out of the clamps holding it in place. The code does not require double tapping.

This was a pretty exciting moment for me. :)

 
#330 ·
Such a wonderful read :)
Looks like you are making good progress - I was going to ask how you got the CSPs to communicate with the Arduino, but in looking up CSPs & Arduino I stumbled upon another thread here that describes exactly how to do it.... After reading your thread I realised I have to try this out.. first step: automatic dosing pumps.

Any ideas on where you'll place the touchscreen display when you're done - out and about for everyone to see or hidden away?

Keep us updated!
 
#331 ·
Thanks! That's the thread where I got all of my info. There are threads on controlling lights, temps, dosing pumps, power, and other things, but none all together. I hope I can pull it off. :)

As for the touch screen, I haven't decided where it'll go yet. My current idea is in a custom made acrylic housing on top of the box with all of the electronics in it. I haven't really made up my mind on that yet. It's a little bit of putting the cart before the horse. I want to make sure I can pull it all off.
 
#335 ·
Very nice tank!
Thanks! :)

So I've completed 100% proof of concept with my touchscreen controller. I haven't achieved 100% satisfaction, but I can do 100% of what I wanted.

  • Successfully implemented the GUI I designed
  • Touch responds nicely and is easy to program
  • Temperature sensor works flawlessly
  • Clock module keeps time
  • SD card stores graphics, log files, and preferences
  • 125v Power relays are easily controlled and scheduled
  • Dosing pumps are easily controlled and scheduled
  • Both Current Satellite Plus's are controlled easily/independently via IR
  • All electronics, relays, CO2, and both lights can be run from a single high quality 12v Power supply

** note: these have all been accomplished independently, and some together, but I haven't put it all into one big arduino project together yet.

The only disappointment is that since the arduino can't hold all of the icons/graphics in memory, it must read the icons from an SD card, and this is slow. I haven't decided if the cool looking GUI is worth the speed hit. I can draw the screen almost instantly with simple looking buttons that aren't images. It's only for me, so I don't know how much I care. It's mostly the power screen and lights screens that draw slow.

Here is a demo of it booting to the home screen, and then loading the power screen (the icon color is the actual status of the relay), and then toggling some relays. The screen doesn't photograph/record well, but looks great in person. It you watch it on youtube you can toggle 1080p and see it much better.

 
#338 ·
Worth trying the super fast font icons - they still look good!

Also, the text that is displayed on screen as far as I can see isn't anti-aliased, maybe the font icons with no gradient will blend in naturally with the rest of the text, and you won't miss the gradients so much.

Or a settings menu to switch between the two types of button: high and low-res? That way depending on your mood you can switch between them.

Another question: I saw some other Arduino solution that included a menu to control scheduling, not something you want to include in yours?

Kasper
 
#339 ·
Worth trying the super fast font icons - they still look good!
It was definitely worth it. The interface is now nice and responsive!

Also, the text that is displayed on screen as far as I can see isn't anti-aliased, maybe the font icons with no gradient will blend in naturally with the rest of the text, and you won't miss the gradients so much.

Or a settings menu to switch between the two types of button: high and low-res? That way depending on your mood you can switch between them.
Now that I've tested my flat icons, it's just way too fast to change moods. As much as I like the gradient icons, they are too slow, and as you said, they actually don't really match the fonts that aren't anti-aliased anyway.

Another question: I saw some other Arduino solution that included a menu to control scheduling, not something you want to include in yours?
At this time, I'm not planning on it, but I might do it for fun. This project is just for me, and I never change schedules. If I did, it's just a few lines of code to adjust, vs building a whole GUI for scheduling that I'll almost never use. I'm not ruling it out though.

Here is how far I got tonight. Home screen is unchanged other than the new fast icons and better fonts. The feeding routine now keeps track of itself, so I can do other stuff and come back to it. When I do that, it lets me stop feeding, restart the timer on the feeding, or resume the timer. The power screen is all done and fully functional. The only thing left in the GUI right now is the lights screen, which will probably be done tomorrow. After that, I just have to tie in the rest of my code (lighting schedule, dosing pump schedule, CO2 schedule) and then do the massive task of actually building and doing final wiring.

Here is a demo of everything but the lighting screen (1080p if you watch on youtube):

 
#340 ·
Ok, when do these go into production? :help:

I would buy one in a heartbeat. Very cool!

I'm both amazed at your talent to build something like this and your photography skills. I have to admit I'm a little envious.
 
#342 ·
Thanks! And they won't be going into production. HA! I will share all of my code and what I did though. It's not really that hard if you are a technical person.

It looks really good, what an improvement in speed. You actually see the difference on the feeding? screen where the fish bowl image is loaded. That and the boot screen. Regarding the settings menu for scheduling, I thought maybe someday if you got another tank you'd appreciate the ability to change this on the screen, instead of having to adjust the code.
The speed is infinitely faster! It actually feels nice and quick now (except for drawing the feeding fish bowl, but I don't care with that).

I wouldn't be surprised if I end up putting scheduling in there later. I tend to tinker and not leave things alone (in case you haven't noticed).
 
#341 ·
It looks really good, what an improvement in speed. You actually see the difference on the feeding? screen where the fish bowl image is loaded. That and the boot screen. Regarding the settings menu for scheduling, I thought maybe someday if you got another tank you'd appreciate the ability to change this on the screen, instead of having to adjust the code.

Keep the posts coming :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#343 ·
Rethinking my Dosing Pump Situation

So I haven't used my dosing pumps since about 3 weeks after I built them. The problem was that lifting the liquid 42" up to the tank created pressure in the lines, and the liquid would slowly creep back down as it slowly forced it's way through the pump (maybe 1" per day). I tried a couple of check valves, but it didn't work. I stopped using it until I could come up with something better.

After thinking about it long enough, I figured that if I could have the ferts up at the water level, then there wouldn't be any/much pressure on the pumps since the in/out are at the same height. I just needed to figure out how to do that attractively and simply. Here is what I've been working on.

I bought two 50mL glass syringes that have a large enough opening on the bottom and a lip at the top. They will easily hold 60mL worth of liquid ferts no problem. This is one weeks worth of ferts if I mix it for a 10mL dose, or 2 weeks if I do a 5mL dose. So I just fill them back up when I change the water. I'm going to use 2 big corks to loosely plug the top. I also bought 2 long glass J hooks that hang on the tanks and are meant for CO2. These will feed the ferts back into the tank.

The trick was mounting the syringes to the tank attractively and securely. I ended up making a bracket out of aluminum flashing that simply hangs on the glass. I cut two holes it in to slide the syringes through. The tubing is pressure fit into the inside of the syringes nozzle (a little KY and stubbornness).

You cannot really see this side of the tank in the room, but I still wanted it to look nice. You cannot even see the syringes from where I sit, or from really anywhere in the room due to the reflection off the inside of the glass.

Glass Syringes: $26.78 total for both, shipped from China
Glass J Hooks: $9.98 total for both, shipped from China
Aluminum flashing and tubing: $0 had on hand





 
#347 ·
just realize your tank wasn't put on top of a Styrofoam, is it easily subject to break ?
furthermore it is a custom made stand, you must be a really good carpenter ;)
No, it won't easily break. Lots of tanks aren't on styrofoam. It's sitting on a 1" thick table top I made out of 1x3's, on top of 2x4's and 4x4's. I'm not worried in the least, and it's already been sitting there almost exactly a year. :proud:

This is unbelievable. You sir, are a very smart man! You will need to create a how-to guide for idiots like me to even make use of your code you're gonna make available. And charge people a little bit for it man! You deserve something for this lol.
Ha! Thanks. Well I do this for fun, so no need to make any money. This tank wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for all of the free advice, information, and learning that this site provides.

I'm pretty sure a design feature/advantage of a peristaltic pump is no back flow. I'm guessing they hadn't considered the height difference you have, or the quality of peristaltic pumps can be had better. Watch out that your corks don't actually plug the top of the syringes or else the pressure will be back - you could place a hole in the side of the cork to ensure no pressure build up, but still keeping debris/dirt out of the syringes (I'm assuming that's what they are for).


Please do post a video of the whole setup in action when you get so far!
Yeah they do block back flow, but like you said, I don't think these are meant to hold 42" of liquid. They were only $14 pumps, and aren't exactly medical grade. I don't think they are meant for precision. That said, you can get more than enough precision for fert dosing with programming and a little ingenuity.

I'll post a video of it working when it's done.
 
#345 ·
This is unbelievable. You sir, are a very smart man! You will need to create a how-to guide for idiots like me to even make use of your code you're gonna make available. And charge people a little bit for it man! You deserve something for this lol.

Beautiful tank btw!
 
#346 ·
Looking nice.

I'm pretty sure a design feature/advantage of a peristaltic pump is no back flow. I'm guessing they hadn't considered the height difference you have, or the quality of peristaltic pumps can be had better. Watch out that your corks don't actually plug the top of the syringes or else the pressure will be back - you could place a hole in the side of the cork to ensure no pressure build up, but still keeping debris/dirt out of the syringes (I'm assuming that's what they are for).


Please do post a video of the whole setup in action when you get so far!



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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