New from Lyttleton!

Discussion in 'New members' started by Jaco de Jongh, Jan 14, 2025.

  1. Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    Hi All,

    I am Jaco from Lyttleton Manor, Centurion.

    Been keeping fish for almost 5 years i would say, took a liking in natural tanks and like scaping with my limited knowledge and experience.

    Have 3 tanks for myself, a 420l with Malawi's, 400l that needs fish and a 300l again with Malawis.

    Then my daughter has 15 tanks for breeding and a 75l for display in her room. I scaped her 75 one Sunday morning just for fun.

    Joined so many Aquarium groups but they are mainly focused on selling products, no one wants to just chat and share knowledge, so I landed up here.

    Below is a few pics of the tanks in the house, they look a bit different now as these pictures were taken more than a month ago.

    420L Malawi.
    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-14 at 15.24.17.jpeg

    400l (Not Sure what it will be, but for now its an attempt on a dirted tank. Still need some more plants and a lot of fish)
    DirtedOne.jpeg

    And lastly the 300L Malawi tank. They are there, just hiding. By this time they are use to the tank and out a lot. Will post a better pick soon.

    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-14 at 15.25.00.jpeg

    And then, when I want to over ride the lights at night, this is what i watch while the family is watching TV on the other side of the house.

    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-14 at 15.25.45.jpeg

    And lastly the little 75l in the Daughters room.

    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-14 at 15.48.08.jpeg
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2025
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  3. LukeJHB

    LukeJHB

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    Wow, awesome set ups there!

    One day I'd love to have a fish room like that.
    Welcome!
     
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  4. LukeJHB

    LukeJHB

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    What are you planning on stocking the 400 with?
     
  5. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    Luke, I cant make up my mind.

    Sad story around this tank. Had a wide variety of Tetras, some neons and 120mm Rainbow Barbs in there. Woke up one morning to find 95% of them dead. Thermostat on the heater got stuck and did not switch off at 28deg. By the time i saw it, the water was already over 32deg.

    I am thinking of Veiltail Angles maybe, but have not decided yet.

    This thing with the heater almost had me pack up my other tanks. Spend years growing the fish out and lost them in one night. Tank stood empty for almost 7 months before i decided to recommission it. Also forced me to think out of the box as two other heaters did the same recently, but i picked it up before it could hurt the fish.

    I then decided to build a little control system that monitors and control the heat in each tank separately. Been testing the system on 10 tanks and its been working perfectly. Use Home Automation to monitor and inform me by sending notifications to my phone should any tank go below 25 or above 29. Now i am not reliant on the thermostat in the heaters as everything gets controlled externally. I travel a lot, and my daughter is pretty busy with school, once I receive a notification, i can inform her and she can check on it. The system also controls the lights on the breeding tanks and the pump we use to fill the tanks from the reserve tank. I still need to add auto filling of the tanks as well, but that is a project for later.

    Dashboard on Home Assistant looks like this:
    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-14 at 16.56.04.jpeg

    Daughters little Fish room with monitoring top right.

    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-13 at 15.32.19 (1).jpeg
     
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  6. Jaco Du plooy

    Jaco Du plooy

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    Thanks for home assistant idea. I want to add a water level senser to my sump and do a feeding light to indicate if the fish have been fed to my HA.
     
  7. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    That should be pretty easy, and an idea I can implement on my ESP for the three display tanks. One have a sump, but sealed so well that topping up only happens about once every two months.

    Not sure I understand this part, I guess you are using an auto feeder of some kind and you want to indicate that it did in fact activate.
     
  8. LukeJHB

    LukeJHB

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    Shame man, always devastating when something like that happens.

    I'm glad you've got it going again, it'll be worth it! :thumbup:

    The angels are always stunning. Maybe a big school of rummy nose too? They'd look amazing zooming up and down that tank
     
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  9. Jaco Du plooy

    Jaco Du plooy

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    I want to add a button next to the tank that I press every morning when I feed the fish. The status will reset every morning and HA will send me a notification if I forget to feed the fish by a certain time.
     
  10. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    Thanks, that makes sense. Do you really feed everyday?
     
  11. Jaco Du plooy

    Jaco Du plooy

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    I feed a pinch every morning. Oh and I also want to add a leak sensor on the floor underneath the tank that stops the sump pump if a leak is detected.
     
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  12. Jaco Du plooy

    Jaco Du plooy

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    How often do you feed?
     
  13. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    Two to Three times per week. Roughly every 2 to 3 days. Some weeks less.
     
  14. Whoknows

    Whoknows Moderator

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    Welcome. Angelfish would look good in there. My favourites are platinum ones.

    Also home assistant looks good. You can do lots of things with that but first time I've seen someone using it like this.

    ASTC 1000 is my go to way of preventing heaters from cooking my fish.
     
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  15. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    I have used them as an interim solution on my three main tanks, but at roughly R500 each, it becomes pretty expensive when you are looking at protecting 20 tanks that would soon be closer to 30.

    I had everything i needed leftover from other home automation projects and did not spend a cent to do a 10 tank setup capable of handling about 30 tanks with the addition of a few temperature sensors and another 2 x 8way relay bords. (Roughly R1200) to get to 30 tanks. Just a lot of time to sort out the programming.

    Used an existing HA instance, added an ESP32 Dev Board, 3 relay boards and 10 x DS18B20 1 wire temp sensors. Scratched my head a bit with the programming as the ESPHome integration with HA uses .yaml files and not the normal C and C++ style of programming that i am use to. Also wanted to run all automations locally on the ESP to ensure its not relying on the WifI to execute the commands to switch On/Off and only use the HA platform to monitor what is happening on the ESP.
     
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  16. Reedfish

    Reedfish Moderator

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    Welcome to the Forum

    Your setup is fantastic :thumbup:
     
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  17. Whoknows

    Whoknows Moderator

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    500 seems expensive. I only paid 280 for mine. Where did you buy it from?
     
  18. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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  19. LilMissMurder

    LilMissMurder

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    You need addressable thermistors on a 485 bus - that's what I'd do.
     
  20. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    I use a similar method but only on a 1Wire bus. Each temperature sensor has a unique I'd and as I add a new tank and sensor I just connect the sensor to the bus and the ESP32 automatically "discovers" it and print the sensor I'd in the logs. Just a 2 minute setup of the sensor in the.yaml file and I am good to go.
     
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  21. OP
    Jaco de Jongh

    Jaco de Jongh

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    My 20 juvenile Veil Tails arrived from Indonesia on Thursday and were ready for collection today. They look great in the tank. I most probably won't keep all 20, will grow them out and see who will make good breeders. Need to get rid of the Featherfin Catfish at some time, he just love eating anything even remotely looking like an egg. I did not see my angles laying eggs before, only see it while misters is cleaning up the glass by removing the eggs. Over 150mm long so not a big market for him, tried selling and even giving away on other groups and there were no takers.

    WhatsApp Image 2025-01-19 at AAA.jpeg
     

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