Aquarium control system with DAEnetIP4

Our friend Billy created aquarium control system based on our popular DAEnetIP4 12 Relay Module and Linux server. The module especially controls several pumps and monitors different values within the system. See what Billy (thank you) says bellow...

Web site: www.marinelandgreenisland.com

Used device in this project: Internet/Ethernet Relay Board 12 Channel with DAEnetIP4 - I/O, SNMP, Web

Project developer: Billy Craig

"I live and work on a small tropical island on Cairns, Australia called Green Island, we actually run a small family owned shop & zoo/aquarium where day visitors to the island can visit.
We have a large 16 tank saltwater aquarium, plus 2 large saltwater pools, being on the island we are lucky in that we can pump water directly and constantly from the ocean witch is much better for the success of the sea life in the aquariums.

To do that we have 3 pumps (2 x 2.2kw 3phase and 1 x 1.1kw 3phase) , 2 of them suck water from the ocean (two back each other up in case one is being serviced) and the 3rd pump allows us to recirculate water around the aquariums from the main saltwater tank.
Pictured below are the two main intake pumps.

The distant from the pumps to the intake opening at the end of the pipe is about 200 meters, on very low tides the head on the pumps is too high and the pump will lose its prime or not pump properly and so we have to turn off the intakes and run the 3rd pump (recirculating) witch recycles the internal water we have already pumped. For many decades we have had to check the tides daily and switch the pumps over whenever a low tide is coming manually, even if that means waking up multiple times throughout the early hours of the morning.
Too check the status of the pumps and check for problems, we have to physically enter the pump room to check check, there is an audible alarm, see below.

I have added the DAEnetIP4 to an enclosure above the main switching and indicator panel you can see above.
Originally I intended only to use the DAE to monitor the pump conditions/water level, etc and didnt plan to use it to control the pumps themselves. But after using the DAE I realized its true potential and decided to use its output functionality.

The DAEnetIP4 together with a small NAS unit I converted into a dedicated linux server connected via cat5 in another room, to automate the pumps using php scripts/software I wrote for the purpose, it automatically gathers the tide data from the internet, stores this in a database many months in advanced so the system is not dependent on the internet, it then calculates the tide from that data whenever requested, then if the tide gets under a predefined threshold, the script decides it is time to change pumps and requests DAE to change relay states via the URL API, this then switches the pump over for the low tide and vice versa.
Using the relays on the DAEnetIP4 to control larger 3 phase motor starter contractors to start the pumps.

Using the inputs on the DAE the pump program and anyone via the web can also see what is happening with the pumps at any time and check everything is running as expected, sending email alerts about various conditions.

 The inputs from the pumps are all 240AC, so using the relays (blue) you can see in the photos, converts this to an open/closed 12VDC digital input the DAE can read via the 8 input terminals.

I have developed my own controlling software backend from PHP (with a seperate front end web interface), together with a MYSQL as a database. The backend software runs as a CRON job on the linux server every ten minutes, running the various checks and calculations, this controls the pumps and gathers and logs all the information about what pump is running, how many times it has run, if it is primed ok, any many other problem conditions.
The whole script itself is many thousands of lines of code in its entirety (below is a small snippet)

It also monitors for various conditions like, no pumps running for a long time, pump running for two long, more than one pump on, etc etc.
I have developed a front end status page also in php that shows what is happening with the pumps at any time visible on the world wide web from browser or my smartphone at any time via a web url.

I am very proud of what I have achieved, and have the cheap DAEnetIP4 to thank for making it possible. as using industrial equipment designed for the same purpose would no doubt cost many thousands of dollars and even more money in costs of software and skills to set it up and therefore would not be viable for us as a small family business. But I was able to achieve all this at the cost of only a couple hundred dollars.

I am still working on the software and the future possibilities are endless, I very much enjoyed this project so I just wanted to write to you and thank you for making such a great product and share my story with you.

Kind Regards,
Billy"