210 Upgrade Build with LED Build

[nuclearheli]

As for the basement status I think I also have that under control. I have removed most of the cleanup stuff I was using to control the ammonia and nitrites. None of those left.

Skimming very nicely. This is two and a half days of dry skimming. I just ordered a 6" extension to the protein skimmer to increase the length to 36". Nice feature of his stuff.

Almost time to change the soda lime, that is about three or so weeks of running.

Now running three cartridges.

1. (left) Katalyst NP pearls
2. (middle) Phosban
3. (right) Charcoal

 

[1Snapple]

the survivors look great, that lobo is awesome and so is that welso. Best of luck on your next arrival.

 

[nuclearheli]

Skimmer Upgrade

Skimmer Upgrade

Jeff from Life Reef wrote me an Email asking if the sump he built for me was working out. Of course I told him that I was extremely happy with his product. But I also told him that I made a mistake in not listening to him when ordering the skimmer. I ordered the 30" skimmer even though he strongly recommended the 36" as it is much more efficient. Now I wished I had. His solution was sweet, he simply shipped me an extension to my 30 to make it a 36". His stuff is well though out. Well that is installed and here is the modification.

Old picture of 30"

New picture of the 36"

Close up of the extension piece:

Nice stuff!

 

[bvoss]

I love big skimmers! Now you need one of those AVAST skimmate lockers that fit on a 5 gallon bucket.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Wow, very functional. that turned out to be an easy fix.

 

[nuclearheli]

I love big skimmers! Now you need one of those AVAST skimmate lockers that fit on a 5 gallon bucket.

Thanks for the tip/advice, I just placed the order!! I will finally be able to do a little bit of wet and dry skimming instead of dry only.

 

[Rick6840]

New Skimmer Extension

New Skimmer Extension

Hey Nuke,

Glad to see you've got everything turned around. Been tagging along but have been too busy to post. Tank looks great!

Jeff's stuff is absolutely the best. Nobody does a better job of custom building reef equipment.....period. I bought an CLF1 & an LCR1 from him years ago for an Oceanic 58 I got locally. Never got around to using any of it but you could tell that the quality of his work is just superb. I gotta get that stuff posted up on here sometime. Still don't have room for the Oceanic....

Keep up the good work!!

Rick

 

[stewartms]

Very nice build. I appreciate your attention to detail. I have been in the hobby for quite a while, but was able to learn a lot from this thread. I just picked up a used 210 this past weekend and have been inspired by several aspects of your build. I will be using it for reference often and will more than likely be asking several questions in the future. Sorry for your setback, but looks like things are getting back on track.

 

[nuclearheli]

I love big skimmers! Now you need one of those AVAST skimmate lockers that fit on a 5 gallon bucket.

Now that's going to be one big bucket of crud.

 

[nuclearheli]

It's been almost a month with picture perfect water parameters and healthy fish. My LFS had a Blonde Naso in quarantine for me since last week. He came home this weekend. Nice fish, a few blotches from the ride but that will go away very soon.

Tank is doing amazing considering a month ago the tank was a disaster.

 

[nuclearheli]

New Tank Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C769ueb8Dxk

 

[fickle1]

Awesome thread. I have bookmarked it for setting up my 180 in the future. I am currently setting up a 24 led DIY on my nano and will be controlling it from my Apex. After reading this build, I hooked up my VDM and checked the outputs. 10.93v on V1 and 10.95v on V2. I will be using Inventronics drivers, do you think this will be an issue or should I build the voltage limiter that you have diagrammed?

Also I am using a stripped network cable for the interface. Everything I have read seems to indicate that Pin 1 & 2 are V1 and 5 & 6 are V2. Testing mine, it appears to be backwards. How is yours setup? Thanks again.

 

[nuclearheli]

Awesome thread. I have bookmarked it for setting up my 180 in the future.

Thank you, I am very pleased with my system and how it turned out. I have also received a ton of complements from people that have seen it in person.

I am currently setting up a 24 led DIY on my nano and will be controlling it from my Apex. After reading this build, I hooked up my VDM and checked the outputs. 10.93v on V1 and 10.95v on V2. I will be using Inventronics drivers, do you think this will be an issue or should I build the voltage limiter that you have diagrammed?

I highly recommend you build the voltage limiting circuit between your apex and your dimmer control on your HV drivers. I have reported some very strange behavior with the voltages on this unit and that has been confirmed by others. I just read another thread where people have seen up to 14 or more volts on the 10 volt line. These devices are very sensitive and that is coming from someone that really likes the apex. Besides, for just a few cents you can build the diode circuit. It's a small amount of money to pay for some added protection.

Also I am using a stripped network cable for the interface. Everything I have read seems to indicate that Pin 1 & 2 are V1 and 5 & 6 are V2. Testing mine, it appears to be backwards. How is yours setup? Thanks again.

That's interesting and no I don't think we saw that although the Apex manual supplied by Neptune is far from complete when it comes to configuring and programming their devices. Have you checked out the vendor sponsored forum areas? The neptune one has a poster (sticky) that publishes a new manual for the Apex. It has matured into an excellent document with tons of diagrams and examples.

 

[fickle1]

I highly recommend you build the voltage limiting circuit between your apex and your dimmer control on your HV drivers. I have reported some very strange behavior with the voltages on this unit and that has been confirmed by others. I just read another thread where people have seen up to 14 or more volts on the 10 volt line. These devices are very sensitive and that is coming from someone that really likes the apex. Besides, for just a few cents you can build the diode circuit. It's a small amount of money to pay for some added protection.



That's interesting and no I don't think we saw that although the Apex manual supplied by Neptune is far from complete when it comes to configuring and programming their devices. Have you checked out the vendor sponsored forum areas? The neptune one has a poster (sticky) that publishes a new manual for the Apex. It has matured into an excellent document with tons of diagrams and examples.

Yeah I guess it isn't that much to pay for piece of mind. I just hate ordering small amounts of parts like that online and paying for the extra "handling" charge because it doesn't meet the min order amount. You end up spending $15 for a $1 part with shipping.

From what I have read on the unofficial users guide p 65 V1 is pin 1,2 and V2 is pin 5,6 which is also shown at http://reefledlights.com/neptun-apex-setup-programing/ What I was questioning is what you had stated earlier:

The plug is a standard Ethernet cable. According to Neptune the pin assignments are

Pin 3 ground v1
pin 4 0 to 10 volt v1

Pin 7 ground v2
pin 8 0 to 10 volt v2

Pins read left to right as you look at the apex plug

Looking at your pictures it appears that you used a network cable with the blue-white/blue and green-white/green combination. Either you used a non-standard cable or I am completely lost lol.

 

[nuclearheli]

Looking at your pictures it appears that you used a network cable with the blue-white/blue and green-white/green combination. Either you used a non-standard cable or I am completely lost lol.

Give me a chance to get a clarification on this. My son and I rang them out one evening and he wrote down notes. Sitting here at work I am again confused with the pin-outs. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the published pin assignments, they were not working for me. So we simply sat on the floor 1/2 of an ethernet cable and turned things on one at a time until we found the right combinations. An ethernet cable worked just fine in the end.

 

[1Snapple]

Great tank heli, glad it turned around for you, best of luck, and great thread.

 

[streak]

Give me a chance to get a clarification on this. My son and I rang them out one evening and he wrote down notes. Sitting here at work I am again confused with the pin-outs. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the published pin assignments, they were not working for me. So we simply sat on the floor 1/2 of an ethernet cable and turned things on one at a time until we found the right combinations. An ethernet cable worked just fine in the end.

Most cat-5 cat-6 cables are wired Merlin or Merlins cousin or Crossover.. God i should have never took that job(fingers and wrists still cringe). Anyhow, We used testers that accepted the RJ-45's depending on which way the cable had to be wired. I found a website that shows the 3 that I am talking about. I hope its ok to post. http://www.incentre.net/content/view/75/2/

I figured if you knew the pinout you could trace the wire on net cable. Might make it a little easier for someone.
Btw I read your entire thread 2 full days loved the good... was there with for the downs..

 

[DFWBill]

Nice build. I'm working on my RapidLED DIY light build this weekend. Would you be willing to share your Apex lighting code? I'd noticed on another thread in the DIY forum that you had your whites and blues ramping at differnent values and times throughout the day. I'd be interested in seeing your code.

Thanks
Bill

 

[nuclearheli]

Most cat-5 cat-6 cables are wired Merlin or Merlins cousin or Crossover.. God i should have never took that job(fingers and wrists still cringe). Anyhow, We used testers that accepted the RJ-45's depending on which way the cable had to be wired. I found a website that shows the 3 that I am talking about. I hope its ok to post. http://www.incentre.net/content/view/75/2/

I figured if you knew the pinout you could trace the wire on net cable. Might make it a little easier for someone.
Btw I read your entire thread 2 full days loved the good... was there with for the downs..

I keep telling myself it could have been worse, many of my fish actually made it including some very special tangs, my purple for example. Tank is really kicking some butt now :beer:

 

[nuclearheli]

Nice build. I'm working on my RapidLED DIY light build this weekend. Would you be willing to share your Apex lighting code? I'd noticed on another thread in the DIY forum that you had your whites and blues ramping at differnent values and times throughout the day. I'd be interested in seeing your code.

Thanks
Bill

No problem, in a nut shell here is how it goes. Remember, or in case you were not aware, when using the RAMP function on the Apex the program will not take a value greater than 254 minutes. You can enter more, but when you look again it will be some value less than what you put in. That is because the programmer uses a single BYTE for the stored value which cannot exceed 254. That equates to 4.23 hours maximum ramp up time.

So I make use of the Apex sunrise/sunset and moonlight time table.

At sunrise - Blues on 20%
At sunrise + 1 hour - Whites on RAMP mode starting at 20% ramping up to 75% over 4.23 hours. (This takes the whites to approximately high noon or so).
At sunrise + 3 hours - Start RAMP of blues from 20% to 65%
At High Noon on Whites (End of Ramp), Ramp down from 75% to 20% over 4.23 hours.
At End Of Ramp Up for blues - Start Ramp down from 65% to 20% over 4.3 Hours.

On sunset turn off whites.
On sunset ramp blues from 20% to 10% over 3 hours
On sunset + 3 hours blues go off.

Moonlights - I purchased the Apex moonlight module and 4 LED's. That system works automatically according to the lunar table on any given day of the month. Sometimes they are on at night, sometimes they are even on in the morning or at daytime, just like you might see the moon out during the day sometimes.

The different ramp times and intensities give me the strongest white's leading up to high noon or so, but the blues begin to kick in later and give me a higher intensity later in the afternoon when the whites are ramping down.

I have spent time watching these cycles on days off and think the effect is really beautiful and very natural. Oh yes, the fish and corals don't seem to mind either.