95 Wide tank build

[cubiclewarrior]

Well after looking at some of your projects I dont think mine can come close but I decided to put up a thread anyways.

About 3 years ago I had a 110 gallon tall tank and did it old school with a very large dense figi liverock wall "1.5 lbs per gallon" and for some reason the rocks slid and the bottom of the tank cracked. I was disappointed and decided to leave the hobby for a bit.

This time around I am going to be reefing on a tighter budget.

Instead of buying everything new like I usually do. I saw an add on Craigslist recently for a 95 wide tank 36" x24" 25" I liked the small foot print/decent tank size and decide to get it. The stand was ugly and and everything needed cleaning. My wife is into rustic looking furniture so I am letting her handle that part..

I am going to drill my rockwork and make a pvc frame so It doesn't come toppling down again.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

finished my rock stand

 

[cubiclewarrior]

I decided to make my rockstand to be able to contribute to flow in the tank so I used a Y from the return to split the return flow to the tank into the stand and drilled a few holes in the stand pipes. Sorry for the fuzzy pics.

I used my Air-Chisel "left over from back when I was a auto-tech" and punched a few holes in some base rock. "not the best method but it was fast" Hopefully they will not slide around now.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

Received my lights today from an ebay auction. I thought they were built here locally in Oklahoma but it looks like they were dropped shipped from Shatin Hong Kong. I reread the ebay add and it says the service tech that can work on them is in Oklahoma .. I guess I shouldn't of assumed they would be made here locally.

First thing I noticed was one fixture was wired wrong. The the dimmer was dimming the wrong grouping of lights. This was a fix that required some soldering but wasn't to big of a deal.


The next thing I noticed was lots of stripped screws which makes it a pain to take things apart but luckily they were not to tight and I was able to remove them and replace them with fresh screws. below is an example of the stripped screw heads I had to replace. I imagine this was assembled in a sweatshop by a single mom nursing her child in one arm and using a 18 volt screw gun in the other.

The next thing that bothered me was the overall lack of a heat sync. They are just using some scrap grade aluminum as the heat sync. To add a heat sync isn't to big of a deal and luckily the housings have enough extra space to add one.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

The LED's are soldered to a circuit board and the circuit board is mounted to the aluminum "heat sync" the optics are glued with what appears to be silicone on the board . There is 2 fans that are sucking fresh air in causing the air to blow out each end of the housing. The air flow from the fans is actually pretty good and they are nice and quiet. The cooling setup seems to work quite well and has good air flow when in use.

The next is the driver and dimmer modules they include. I really like these and they are made well in my opinion.

Even inside the module the circuit board was layed out well and the soldering looks professional.

I pealed back the flame retardant/ insulator cardboard and the soldering looks nice and neat

 

[cubiclewarrior]

My tank is 25" deep and I tried several different mounting heights and I feel that 8" above the water looks the best. I know that might be too close but I am going to try it for now. Plus it fits within my hood. I cut 2 holes in the tope of my hood to allow air flow to the fans of the fixtures

The optics on the colored "green red and violet" leds are very pinpointed and I do not care for them . No matter how high I would put the light fixture I still wound-up with spots of color pin pointed. I tried 24" above the tank and wound up with around the same look as 8" above the tank.

example

so I decided to remove those optics only.

Here is a red led

To the right "smaller" in this pic is the led they claim to be the Cree brand

And here we have all lights on full blast and its bright the picture isnt even close to how bright these are . the spotting of the red and green now is still slightly present but much better now with no optics on those leds. I left the optics on the white and blue cree leds on .

Here is full blast on the cree blue channel only

Here is full blast on the cree white channel only

Here is full blast the 3rd channel or the deep blue, red, green and violet leds only. It looks almost like a bright blueish white "like a 14000k halide color" although some light spotting does remain it is very hard to detect when the other 2 channels are on. Removing the optics helped quite a bit with light spread on this channel.

And here is all channels on 8" above the water line and its very bright! I wish my cellphone camera wouldn't cancel out the light because it looks alot better in person. After adjusting my power head and return and getting my water surface a little less wavy the shimmer looks just like a halide setup .

Overall I am happy with my purchase. I paid 215 delivered for a 90 watt led fixture and they pretty much worked right out of the box. The seller did allow me to purchase 2 of these at the same price I won the auction for instead of his much higher buy it now price on these leds fixtures. I definitely do not feel they are on the same quality level as the DIY kits from our sponsors or even close to AI led lighting but still I do not feel I was ripped off. I plan on integrating a controller with these and I feel that in the future I will be able to upgrade the drivers and the leds . The dimmers / drivers that come with this setup do get warm but not hot and I really like the housings on both the fixtures and the dimmer / drivers. I feel the fixtures have good air flow through them but maybe a heat sync in the future will be needed.. luckily the fixtures are deep enough to allow for that mod. The quality isn't bad for Chinese sweat shop stuff and I do feel I "got what I paid for" but I do not think I would pay the higher buy it now price.

Next I will be looking for some live rock to seed my base rock

 

[Jedidad]

how would you go about adding a controller to these lights. i have been considering the ai vega colors but these would save me alot of money. i would want to be able to have a dawn to dusk setup with different intensities at different times of day.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

how would you go about adding a controller to these lights. i have been considering the ai vega colors but these would save me alot of money. i would want to be able to have a dawn to dusk setup with different intensities at different times of day.

I haven't gone over the circuit well enough yet to figure out if this will work or not but right now I am looking at:

" RC will not let me link to their site" but its a "dim4 - 4 port led sunrise/sunset controller v1.0" you can do a search for on google

https://www.google.com/search?q=4+p...e,mod=16&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active


I will probably be getting out my meter in the next month or so and checking it out for compatibility.

 

[ghellin]

With all the troubleshooting and repairs you have done on your fixtures you would have done well with a full DIY setup. I do love how the tank is looking keep the pics coming.

 

[Doomed]

Custom Reef Creations

Custom Reef Creations

Looks good! I don't know why that says Custom Reef Creations lol

 

[Tank Girl]

I like the way you did your rockwork. Very nice!

 

[cubiclewarrior]

With all the troubleshooting and repairs you have done on your fixtures you would have done well with a full DIY setup. I do love how the tank is looking keep the pics coming.

Agreed! If I had to do it over again I would of definitely gone that way.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

So next I made and setup my sump using a 29 gallon aquarium

I made it pretty standard . The only thing different I did this time was place the glass on the left at an angle so I could have a place to mount my heater ,fit my over-sized skimmer in and still have a few inches left for a refugium/media bag area .

My calcium was still low trying to use esv 2 part to get it up. So I went back to my old standby pickling lime.. I went with to visit my wife's aunt in the nursing home and luckily they have all kinds of nice medical supplies laying around. I found a new sitz bath "normally used to wash where the sun doesn't shine" and with a little finesse you can get these bags to drip pretty slow. I made a section 8 bag holder out of and old wire coat hanger.

I was finally able to get my calcium up to 460 and not cloud-up my water using this method

 

[cubiclewarrior]

Next I set out to find some "ACTUAL" live rock after going to a few places I found lots of base rock and even some Cyano infested base rock in which the guy proceeded to tell me it was coralline algae LOL. I figured its been a few years since I have been to Wet Pets in Norman. I went ahead and made the trip to their old location lol. Ounce I found the new location I also found REAL LIVE ROCK with REAL HITCH HIKERS! I was really happy someone in this area had live rock that was actually alive.

Its full of corraline,pods,tiny stars and a bunch of red shelled Stomatella Varia. This is the perfect rock to use to seed my base rock.

I was so happy with the rock I went ahead and made the 2 hour drive back there to purchase some more.

 

[Tank Girl]

Nice, nice, nice. Did you make your fish list?

 

[cubiclewarrior]

Nice, nice, nice. Did you make your fish list?

I usually just go with what ever our local shops have in-stock and looks healthy. If I don't see anything locally then I order from reeftopia online. I try to stick with more hardy livestock but I would like to have a good sized clam right in the middle though. There was a oriental restaurant off NW 23rd in OKC that had a huge white clam I allways wanted SO with this tank I think I am seeing one out!

 

[OKCchief]

Wow. That's a great idea for a drip. I never thought about using a sitz bag for a drip. That's going to be my next project.

My calcium was still low trying to use esv 2 part to get it up. So I went back to my old standby pickling lime.. I went with to visit my wife's aunt in the nursing home and luckily they have all kinds of nice medical supplies laying around. I found a new sitz bath "normally used to wash where the sun doesn't shine" and with a little finesse you can get these bags to drip pretty slow. I made a section 8 bag holder out of and old wire coat hanger.

I was finally able to get my calcium up to 460 and not cloud-up my water using this method

 

[cubiclewarrior]

So after looking at my led's I figured out I did not need to solder anything to swap the blue and white channel so the controller was dimming the correct channel, I could of just swapped a plug lol .. Thats what I get for working on things when I am tired.

After messing with these led's I am very happy with them. There is lots of room to mod them and Its hard to beat the price. You can have the Blue led's come on separate from the White and Colored led's as they come no modding needed . There is also 3 channels of adjustment White, Blue and Colored as easy as turning a knob. I haven't put any sps corals to the test but I have some soft corals,lps doing quite well! I have then on 2 timers and at noon the tank gets blasted with light . I also like the timers I purchased at wally world as they each have 6 different time settings and I can mixup the times they come on randomly... plus they have battery backup.

It might be nice to control red separate from green but certainly achievable by looking at this circuit.

For now I am going to leave the led's alone as they work and I am happy with them.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

Well I think thanks to the great live rock I purchased at Wet Pets in Norman the tanks Nitrite and Ammonia are now at zero and I added some more stuff. I went to Aquariums, Wet Pets and The Reef Shop and I placed an online order to Reeftopia and My tanks is under-way.. Its very hard to take pics with all this crazy light these leds emit! Im probably rushing things a bit but so far so good.

 

[cubiclewarrior]

Update!

Update!

Im hitting around the 4th month period now... I was surprised to find out that my water was as bad as it was. Bill at custom reef creations checked it and my salinity was 1.030 PH at 8.1, Magnesium was 1500, Calcium was 320 and my KH was at 14 . The test kits I was using were WAY off and my swing arm hydrometer is now in the trash. I had a friend take care of my tank for a week while I was gone and I found out he was adding baking soda in my drip/top off system instead of pickling lime/ vinegar like I asked him to but luckily nothings dead. Even still my salt was far enough off that I am lucky everything's doing as well as it is. My ebay leds / Chinese Leds are still doing great and I have since started dripping Kalkwasser and Vinegar every-other night in a solution of 1 heaping teaspoon of pickling lime and 15ml of vinegar.

In the mean time we found and interesting hitchhiker in our tank and I believe its a Medusa Worm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Yln-2Ek4VCI

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We were able to catch it and i put it on a piece of paper to better see what it is its now sitting in acclimation container in my sump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMC1Be2PjxU

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About a week has gone by now that we visited Custom reef creations and following bills advise and now my tank is measuring ph 8.2 salinty 1.026 Magnesium 1270 , Calcium 400 and KH 10. I purchased some liquid calcium by a manufacturer I am not familiar with "Brightwell" Calcion P from Bill and it worked like a charm just by following the back of the bottle and bills advise not to raise it too quickly

I have been using Tropic Marin Bio Actif salt since I started and even though my salinity was way off this tank cycled like a dream with no issues and no loss of life.

I have been using Tropic Marin products since I started this hobby 20 some years ago and have allways had good luck. One of bills suggestions was to use a salt that is not so rich since my tank isnt stocked full yet and I agree with him but I'm still not willing to change brands yet. The salt he advised me to use made by Brightwell Neo Marine looks like a good product and I am really impressed with the Calcion P I purchased from him made by Brightwell "it actually worked unlike some other products on the market". I have around a 150 gallon mix of instant ocean salt and a 150 gallon mix of bio actif sitting at my house right now so I have been making a 50/50 mix of bio-actif and instant ocean salt and will try that until I get more in my tank.

I have made a few trips to Highdef Corals and to Custom Reef Creations and have added some more live stock. I picked up a fuzzy mushroom from Custom Reef Creations that is just so damn cool its BRIGHT BLUE on the tips of the tentacles and BRIGHT green on the base. Its one of the loudest corals in my tank. I also picked up some burgandy and bright green mushrooms along with a strawberry coral and some of the best looking blueish purple xenia i have seen in a while. All are doing exceptionally well.
While at Highdef Corals I picked up a zoanthid rock about the size of a softball that has so many nice BRIGHT multicolored zoas "i think there is around 40 orange bam-bams on just one side of it!" and just all different colors on the other sides. I also purchased 5 headed hammer coral thats color is just perfect! Everything has come out and is doing awesome.

But the pride and joy of my tank so far is the HUGE clam I purchased from Aquariums in Edmond and the HUGE BRIGHT green torch coral I purchased from Custom Reef Creations . This torch corals tentacles sometimes get close to 5 inches long from each head and the color under leds is just killer!

I am mainly into normal run of the mill LPS corals but I have a few sps corals in my tank I received from a member on here that are doing great also. I do not plan on buying anything too exotic at this time for my tank as it really sucks to lose $300 on a single coral when something goes wrong. I have had a few tanks in the past where I had nothing but the coolest of the cool and when something went wrong I usually woundup leaving the hobby. This time around I am going to stick with Normal/ Hardy / Beginner corals and enjoy my tank and when something does go wrong I wont feel the pinch of " DAMN I HAD $4,000 GO DOWN THE DRAIN JUST NOW"

Here is a link to a video of my tank done on my wifes Iphone so the quality isnt the best. Seems like the blue leds saturate the cameras image sensor especially on that Blue Fuzzy Mushroom! Everything Isnt fully extended / opened up yet in this video as the lights just came on around 15 minutes before I shot this video . Ounce we figure out how to use our dslr camera with these leds well get some better pics up here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIhYNs3NNT8

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