PC running tank parameters

[pomme]

PC running tank parameters

Hi all, i hope yu all had a good christmas and new years.

I have been thinking of getting and iks to run some of my tank conditions like kalk top-up, and dosing additives.

But then i was wondering if there was a way of useing my pc do do this so not having by pay the expense of the iks?

I was thinking of having it connected to the usb port and it would need to monitor the water level and if it goes too low it turns on the peri pump, and also have a pogram on my computer which would turn on a peri pump for a small amount of time each hour.

Is this at all possible to do or is it a dream?

As it would be quite good as you could also expand it to monitor lots of tank parameters, like ph, orp and salinity, and then log this every hour or however much you want, and then keepng a good record of your tank.

All help appreciated,
Andrew

[wanareef]

Hi there,

What is iks?

For my top off, I have a float switch in the fuge, connected to a PH in my ro/di tank. When the float switch is activated, turns on the PH which sends water to the DIY kalk reactor and into the sump. There is a timer on the kalk reactor for the PH which recirculates it and keeps the water saturated.

What you are looking for is an Aquarium Controller, aside from a "real" controller I don't know of any software for this purpose. Here is a link that I have been following and once it's finished will be making one. Sure beats the $600 to 900 for one of those Octopus'. http://www.compudoc97.com/SWNDIY3.html scroll down to controller.

Maybe someone else will know.

[Geoff]

over here we use X10 based devices for controlling our systems. they can either be controlled by a PC or by a device like wanareef mentioned. i have an aquacontroller II on my system it handles monitoring and timing for my system. this can all be done by PC alone. i have not looked into doing that way but i know it can be done. look at www.X10.com, or www.smarthome.com. both of these sites specialize on doing stuff like this. the reason most people do the smaller devices is that the monitoring pieces have wires, so the PC will need to be close the aquarium.

hth,

G~