When building their dream home, our client wanted a property where they could combine the outdoor and indoor experiences into one. Not only did they want to always feel the ocean breeze, they wanted to literally be immersed in ocean life throughout the home by having three large, and distinct aquariums in the main rooms. Having been an accomplished entrepreneur in the technology industry, there was no doubt that the home had to be fully stocked with the latest in automation. Ironically enough, when it came to the most maintenance intensive aspect, the aquariums, there was no existing automation technology available. To have maintenance teams coming on the property nearly every day to top off the tanks and do intensive long-term service seemed to be a massive fault considering the sophistication of the rest of the full home automated system. This is why our customer opted for a fully custom, built from scratch automated aquarium system. Relying on our programming and engineering expertise and the vast flexibility with the various programming environments provided by Crestron, we were confident in building a reliable and effective solution. Crestron is the only provider of dependable provider of automation equipment, then enables us to create the various custom functions, linking different systems to one. None of the competitors allow this type of flexibility, making our decision to use Crestron, obvious.

Project Details

The complete aquarium integration can be divided into two levels, the salt-water preparation systems and the aquarium maintenance system. The water preparation system is fed by the home Reverse Osmosis (RO) system. The RO pump is tied to two water tanks, a 500 gallon RO storage tank and a 350 gallon salt/water mix tank. Both of these tanks have an individual heater loop tied to the Crestron system that maintains the water temperature between the given values. In the salt/mix tank, there is an additional circulation loop that is activated by a “mix salt” function in the interface. When this is activated, water fills to the max level, and mixing turns on to create water with a salinity at the desired range. Once this tank has successfully heated and mixed the salt to the appropriate values, the RO/salt mix is sent to another 500 gallon ‘Salt Mix Storage’ where the temperature of the mix is maintained at levels ready for the aquariums. in summation, the water preparation room consists of 1 reverse osmosis filtration system, 2 500 gallon water tanks, 1 350 gallon water tank, 3 independent heating loops, a mixing loop, CRESTRON. RS232 Modules, Relay Banks, Versi Port Input Modules, and Button Press Input Module.

Looking at the Aquarium Maintenance automation side there are three aquariums throughout the home, a 346 gallon tank in the family room, a 267 gallon jellyfish tank, and a 314 gallon tank in the second floor office. When designing the system, we worked closely with the architect and builder to ensure the plumbing, electrical, cooling, and mechanical requirements would be to spec. Each of these independent systems was an engineering feat of its own, for example running 6 3" lines a distance of 150 feet through a 25 foot deep concrete foundation having to ensure plumbing requirements from storage tanks to aquariums, drainage, and closed loop systems were appropriate. The three independent tanks are all equipped with similar automation sensors: a salinity, temperature, and oxidation reduction potential (ORP) sensor, as well as a 3 stage water level sensor measuring full, 5% drain, and 25% drain values. These sensors are then all tied to the CRESTRON C2N-IO and the values are used to control the automation processes.

Now, how does it all tie in together? Salt is maintained at the appropriate temperature and salinity, in massive volumes, eliminating the need for a service person to manually mix and prepare water. When a specific level sensor measures a drop below the 5% level, the that aquariums will automatically enter “top off mode” disabling the closed loop filtration system, opening the appropriate valve to pump water from the RO storage, closing this valve once the level sensor measures a ‘full’ value, and then restarting the closed loop system. The maintenance team can then schedule bi-weekly or monthly either 5% or 25% water changes where at the scheduled time, the closed loops will stop, the drain valve in each tank will automatically open until the level sensor reads the appropriate drainage has been achieved, the drain valve will close, the appropriate valve from the ‘Salt Mix Storage’ leading to each aquarium will open until a ‘full’ value signals the valve to close, the closed loops open and the maintenance cycle has been completed without any physical interference.

User Benefits

The core purpose of building an automation system is to create an increased level of convenience and peace of mind for our client. Beyond having a system that a client can monitor and trust, even if away for months at a time, we have identified several quantifiable benefits the system provides, the main three being: savings on water top-off costs, savings on weekly and monthly service, and the benefits realized by increased overall aquarium health.
As previously mentioned in the entry, our system has an automatic top-off function that fills the tanks with fresh RO water once the level sensors sense a 5% loss in water due to evaporation. On average, each tank tops off four times a week. For our calculations we contacted our trusted aquarium maintenance team to give us the following average costs. To top-off, a service company would charge $0.60 / gallon for RO water with a $50/hr service charge. At a total of 927 gallon in total aquarium water volume, each top off visit would fill 46 gallon of RO water and require one hour in service, equating to:

(46 gallons X $0.60 / gallon) + $50 = $77.60 / visit X 4 / week = $310.40

minus automated cost $0.01 / gallon X 46 gallon = $0.46 totaling $309.94 / week in savings.

Aquarium systems require a weekly 20% water change with salt mix. Our automation system has a preset timer that will complete a 20% salt water change at the preset time and date. To do a water change a service company would charge an average $2.10 / gallon for salt mix with a $50/hr service charge. At a total of 927 gallon in total aquarium water volume, each 20% water change would require 185 gallons in salt mix and require one hour in service, equating to:

(185 gallons X $2.10 / gallon) + $50 = $438.50 / week in savings.
With any sophisticated system, disasters can be extremely costly. This is especially true in a marine aquarium system, and the cost is only multiplied when there are three systems. Aquariums can suffer from various disasters such as sudden pH or salinity extremes, spikes in poison levels, and leaks that can kill half or all of the marine population, and/or require full water changes which cost several hours in service cost and equipment replacement. With fish ranging from $100-$300 with a single tanks livestock costing $5,000, tank water fills costing $600, and equipment ranging from $200 — $1,000 it is easy to see how expensive an error can be. Through our automation system, it makes it extremely easy to detect any failures as soon as they arise, and alert the owner and local service company to take action before there is any critical damage to the system’s health.

The design, programming, and installation was done exclusively by Tim Lubes at Quantum Integration.