Okay, so we're getting pretty close to completion on the automatic water change system and in today's video
I want to talk about where we're at with it how I did it and some associated
Costs as well as how it's all going to work. Let's start out by doing the basic run-through
So you guys know I've tapped into my water heater here. Of course, there's a mess
I need to clean up then it's gonna run the water a cold water is gonna run through this RV water filter
Which is just filled with carbon. This is gonna filter out any impurities and if you're on
Municipal water I'm on a well so I don't have to deal with chlorine, but if you were on and have to deal with
Chlorine definitely use one of these then it's fed through a 5/8 inner diameter
RV water drinking hose which then of course goes underneath the sink
behind the 375 gallon aquarium and feeds into
The tankless water heater system here
The hose is attached to a simple barbed adapter
Which goes into the cold water supply and then of course the water is going to be heated and pumped back up through
More of this hose into this T this T. Then feeds all of these valves
I've connected this valve system to the wall with some simple metal strapping just to keep it secure
All of this is kind of temporary. I'll make it more pretty of course
I kind of clean up these wires and whatnot
which I'm gonna show you how I did in a moment and then of course each one of these valves is fed to
Where the water needs to go? We've got four going to the main portion of the gallery and then these two here
I'm not sure what I'm doing with these I think one's gonna feed the 375 and the other will do the 2000 gallon tank
water is then pumped up over through the ceiling and
Through this hole was very crude hole in the wall
All of this is just held there with strapping as well temporary solution just for me to get this done
Make sure it's all working
I'll make it prettier in the days to come and of course the water comes through the other side
It might be difficult to see and see here, but water is above all the tanks
each
Aquarium system. Each racking system is fed. One hose each all the way down to last that's lit up
So for these racks are done now the hose doesn't enter the actual aquariums just yet
But that's as far as I've got and now I want to talk about how I did all this, okay?
So first and foremost, I was having trouble finding some affordable
Pretty tough hose that is water safe. And then I come across some RV or camping water hose
It's basically drinking water hose and costs about 40 cents a foot
I've seen other prices bearing it upwards of 60 cents 70 cents a foot
But I got it for about 40 cents a foot on Amazon
I needed a hundred feet of it at least so there's only 40 bucks for all that hose
I'm also gonna go over all the costs. I also got the water filter simply because it was being recommended. I thought heck
Yeah, why not? It's pretty cheap as well. 20 bucks supposed to last me three months. I think based on the amount of water
I'm gonna change I'll be changing it once a month
I bought three of them to hook all of this up looks kind of confusing but believe me
It was actually relatively simple. Let me explain first and foremost all of these valves have to get
power somehow
Each of them have two wires and they're actually indiscriminate both wires will do the same thing
But you got to make sure that they all match up so I need to supply power first and foremost to all six of these
So I actually daisy chain them and connected them through one wire which is called the common wire. And of course
Connected it. And of course connected it right in here
Right into this common wire section very simple use 20 gauge wire
Now you'll see it's also numbered one through six
This is like how it's going to communicate with each valve
Each valve needs to be individually wired so we can individually control them
Now that we have power we of course need to control them
So this was pretty easy just extended the wires to come in and under here again
All of this needs to be cleaned up
of course a couple of adaptors up top here just to make sure that these barbed adapters can fit in and some hose clamps very
simple this this was kind of tedious but very straightforward and simple I
Didn't like and I still don't like how it looks going along the ceiling here
but of course once I clean it up
I'll make it look a little better
cut the hole holes through the wall there and then on to the other side like I've already shown you now I'm getting asked a
Tremendous amount. How much is this going to cost? I believe I'm going to be able to
Automatically change all of the water in the entire gallery and the entire system is gonna cost about seven hundred bucks
So it's not that bad. I was actually expecting way more, but I'm pretty pleased with the pricing
I am missing a few things. For example, I need a pressure regulator. I can only have about eighty psi going through this pipe
Through this hose and hitting those valves. So I've need to put a regulator here. So I can't I'm not gonna have one till about
Late in the week, maybe early next week, so I can't even run this until that happens
But as if I turn this valve on water's gonna start to shoot through it's gonna be filtered through this filter here
of course and feed through all the hose behind the tank and
enter the hot water heater, which isn't on right now, but if I run the water
Slowing up through this this will be able to maintain the temperature as it's filling each individual aquarium
Actually, let me just show you how this worked
I did do a test from last night just to see if the valves were working just take a look. Okay, so it works
sort of
The water pressure coming out from my tap is simply too high. It exceeds 80 psi
If I do that I could blow the valves when I turn the water on
I started playing the things I had water shoot up to the ceiling. We got the floor wet. I did purge the system
I turned down the valve. So it's just kind of sort of pushing the water out, but I need it to be done properly
I'm gonna have to get a proper pressure regulator valve with that said
Let me show you how this works
Okay, so that hose we got here is running out right here
There's clearly no water coming out of it right now, but let's go turn it on
I can individually turn these on and I could do it by minutes. That's so far all I know about it. Clearly I need to
Learn how all of this works a little bit better
But I'm sure what time we'll figure it out. Let me see here
Yeah, so I want to put on station six and we'll turn it on for just a few minutes
Here that so that valve just opened water should start flowing out and
It is
And it's starting to warm up although I just turned the water tank on moments ago, so let's go shut it off now
So that should I shut it off
Again, I don't know much about it. I just turned it on it's just starting to get it to work
But I know if I hit the rain delay that shuts off all water because it's raining out
Which I guess can be used as sort of a safety feature if you kind of think about it
So if that goes wrong it just run in hit that rain delay
Okay, so we know it works
Clearly we need to clean up the wires get that pressure regulator valve and
Continue to connect all of the hosing run it up along the ceiling through the wall
to each aquarium drill each sump
Put in the drain line and run that through the wall a lot of work. This could be worth it
So, of course, I still need to connect this to my Wi-Fi download the app so I can control all of this through my phone
But essentially I'm going to be able to turn this on whenever I want feed water for a set amount of time
I could do it through my phone or I could just program everything but I'm nowheres near being able to program it because the water
Right now has nowhere to go. You see I'm gonna have to drain the tanks manually through some valves at the bottom
You guys have seen these in the past
I just got to open this valve and it will drain 50% of the water in each aquarium because each one is
Drilled with a bulkhead halfway down. This was intentionally done
When I first did these aquariums so I can eventually install a water change system
I need to run a two inch pipe through every tank and out the wall
We've already talked about that before and for the time being I'm going to be draining water
manually into the pipe
Then of course once both tanks are halfway drained I can go ahead and turn the water returns on
Basically, that's gonna be a push of a button here
I'll push a button the valve that I want to open will open and water
At the same temperature of the aquariums will start to fill the top aquarium as this one gets to the top
It'll overflow through the overflow up here down to this aquarium filling this one up and then to the bottom, of course
I'll be able to
Shut the water supply off at that time, which means I still need to install all that piping
But eventually what I'd like to have done and I still need to do is drill each
individual sump at about the time right around here and that will allow me to fill the tanks a
Little bit more meaning I could put the water supply on a timer and if I add too much is gonna be able to overflow
Out of the sump and down into the Train no problem. I'd also like to put those automatic valves on these drains as well
So they can open and close on timers. The downside is it all has to be done by time. It's not being metered
None of this is metered water, which means I want to change ten gallons. So ten gallons is going to shoot through
This is based on time meaning this will turn on for ten minutes
And water will go to it for ten minutes or whatever the case might be
so I'm thinking what I'm going to do is
Set up a controller that shuts the pump off which I already have the ability to do when the pump shuts off
I'm gonna have the valves open and probably leave them open for thirty minutes and then closed that should be enough time
I'm gonna have to run several tests to make sure they're opening and closing on time
And then of course, once we do get that tuned in we'll give it a you know
an extra five minutes to continue to drain or whatever the case might be and
Then these valves the water return will turn on once these turns on
Let's say we set it for maybe an hour maybe because we're running the water through it
So slowly that this needs to be turned on for an hour force a valve four
So I would just set the controller somehow
I haven't really messed around with anything yet to turn on for an hour and then turn back off
What I want to do is make sure that too much water is being added to the aquarium. Meaning that
I'm not adding the exact amount if I add the exact amount
Maybe the water pressure isn't as high as it was the day before
I want to make sure that I have like at least 20 percent more water going into this
All that extra water will overflow to the bulkheads were to drill
This will complete the entire cycle making this fully
Automated and I can control it from here whenever I need to do a water change
I can do a 50% water change or I could do it at will from my phone anywhere in the world now
I also don't have to do a full water change
I could just do a flow through system where I turn the water on and it kind of just dilutes it
But it doesn't actually change the water like a drip system like we explained before I don't know seems complicated right now
But I'm sure once it's up and running it's gonna seem pretty easy
Imma, go four to six hours of like hands-on work into this and most of us
Just trying to feed it through the wall and above the tanks etc. Wiring. It. It's it's it's very easy stuff
Just monotonous and very tedious
How about costs so I needed a hundred feet of this hose and it came to 46 dollars total
That filter we saw this is about 20 bucks 25 dollars
I'm also going to include the cost of the bulkheads which aren't installed just yet before the four
Bulkheads and some miscellaneous things like some clamps of the hose clamps wires extra wired
PVC cement the 2-inch pipe that I needed like 20 feet up and of course
Elbows and unions has about a hundred and fifty bucks still not that bad the controller itself
This is only a hundred dollars
The valves this is actually a system of two you buy one set. You can connect them. There are a hundred dollars each
so one hundred two hundred three hundred
The heater was one hundred and seventy dollars
So we're at four hundred and seventy dollars for the main components that everything else is kind of not that expensive
so I think we're at about
Six hundred and seventy bucks something like that
Not bad
I still of course need to work out how I'm going to set this up for the 375 clean up the mess out here
I got to build the new 2000 gallon filter
I need to finish the background or at least the external background or really just start it. This is all cured now
I've been getting asked if I've started yet or not
Simple answer is no
I actually did a little bit of work with it with just a knife to start carving it and it's just too messy
So I'm waiting on a a hot knife. I got on Amazon for 20 bucks. I tried to find one locally no luck
But a hot life allow me to melt through it as opposed to creating all of this foam
Dust which is absolutely messy
Anyways plenty to do I hope you guys are looking forward to these upcoming projects
Sorry that these can't be completed all in one day. They do take a tremendous amount of time
Usually about a week I can get a each individual thing done
But I'm bringing you guys along for every step of the way
So if you enjoy these videos and you're excited to see these projects completed make sure that you subscribe to this channel if you're not
already