A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[Craigdillman]

Hey man, yup totally possible to run the drivers together for power cords

Just make sure that you only link the power cords of the same color drivers or you won't be able to turn off certain colors

For example I have 6 drivers and made them into 2 cords
3 blue drivers runing all my blue LEDs
3 "color plus white drivers" running my whites plus red green UV

Some go further and do 3 channels having
Blues
Red green UV
Whites

All seperate but I don't mine the 2 channs I can dim the whites and colors and blue to give me lots of options and I don't have 6 power cords wasting plugs

Rapid led says you can have 1 cord for up to 6 drivers so if you didn't want to dim anything and only wanted on-off then you could do that too

 

[Bello]

Yep, see how it goes with the splash guard. The fans in the hood would definitely be a big plus :thumbsup:. Led's run cool, but not that cool. I've had 30w led chips pretty much burn through 3mm acrylic. Was poorly ventilated though.

FWIW, I hope Santa gets you the phos equipment :thumbsup:. Wonder if he helps out with AEFW too? Then again, I've probably been a bad lil' reefer :lol:

 

[troubadour11]

Well, the weekend is off and running. We gave the 2 Orange Firefish a big feeding of frozen, pellets, dried blood worms, and flakes after testing the water for NH3 and No2.

Earlier this week I had tested a slight rise starting in NH3. So I did about a 50% water change at 1.009 sg. When I tested this morning. There was maybe a hint of NH3, but it was close to 0. But we were definitely showing No2 now. So adding the 2 fish to a cycled QT at hyposalinity still definitely caused a mini cycle. We had pretty much expected that after our first try with the Purple Firefish. So we had plenty of water mixed up on hand.

So we sucked out all the uneaten food from the big morning feeding. They ate about 50% of what I threw in. I fed heavy knowing I was doing the water change. And so far they only like eating frozen plankton or any of the smallest frozen shrimp. They really like our cheap flake food. So I started adding Spectrum small sinking pellets in with either flake or the frozen they like. They have started to eat the sinking pellets now. They still don't like blood worms.

So we are changing out about 3-4 gallons of the 10 right now. The fish are looking good. (KNOCKING ON WOOD) We haven't noticed anything that we are suspicious of yet. So far so good :thumbsup: The fish seem happy too. They hid right after lights out and I close the stand door. Then in the morning I open up the door for ambient light until the lights kick on. Once the lights kick on they are out and about swimming all day long until lights out.

I will say... I don't know if it is because we tried 2 fish this time. Or if it is a difference between Orange and Purple. But these 2 Orange Firefish seem a lot less timid. The purple one we had would dart and hide for cover at any motion at all. I can walk right up and lay down in front of the QT and the oranges just watch on alert. Basically out in the open the whole time.

And biggles, I'm definitely building 2 screen tops for each side of my tank. I have a feeling these Orange Firefish won't be the only potential jumpers in there. But that's also why we planned to have the oak hood up top. To hide all that.

Also, thanks to everyones recommendations, you'll be happy to hear we placed an order for some GFO and Carbon. So within the next week or so I'll get that GFO running as recommended. The carbon I'll have on hand and try out at some point. I think the carbon may come in handy as we get more of a mixed reef going to prevent chemical warfare. Until then, I'll probably follow biggles thoughts and just try to remove some of the phosphates to get ahead of the algae bloom I'm sure we'll see when these lights go up.

I also pulled out the Reef Angel and started unpacking and planning the layout to get that set up and test the LEDs soon.

After the water change is done on the QT, we'll be starting a water change on the full system. We're going to give the rocks and blast and scrub and try to siphon out some of the cyano and skim the sand a bit. I'll give the glass a good scrub during all this. I need to work quick through because I want to try cleaning the refugium a bit too. It's got more crap then the DT, that's for sure!

We might head out to the hardware store today or tomorrow as well. I want to pick up some oak wood to start building the hood extension. We need that done for the lights too... long way to go, but it'll be great once the lights are on this thing and we have 2 fish in the DT FINALLY!!!

 

[biggles]

All sounds like you have a good plan of attack Troub. I'd run carbon too if i was trying to run a mixed reef mate so definitely use it when you think you need it. Having 2 fish is always better as they're more confident i think in regards to feeding. My sump clowns are already eating from my fingers and one sleeps against the little hammer i put down there - i need to get them an anemone ASAP and a cleaner shrimp to chase them.
How long until the fish can go in the DT mate, you know i'd come over and chuck em in while you weren't watching if i was near you lol.

 

[troubadour11]

Hey man, yup totally possible to run the drivers together for power cords

Just make sure that you only link the power cords of the same color drivers or you won't be able to turn off certain colors

For example I have 6 drivers and made them into 2 cords
3 blue drivers runing all my blue LEDs
3 "color plus white drivers" running my whites plus red green UV

Some go further and do 3 channels having
Blues
Red green UV
Whites

All seperate but I don't mine the 2 channs I can dim the whites and colors and blue to give me lots of options and I don't have 6 power cords wasting plugs

Rapid led says you can have 1 cord for up to 6 drivers so if you didn't want to dim anything and only wanted on-off then you could do that too

Ah... good to know. That's what I thought I had read. Now after pulling out the Reef Angel and thinking about the set up and reading your explanation though, it made me rethink what I was trying to accomplish. It looks like I'll be wiring all 4 drivers to their own power cord now. My wife REALLY likes the idea of being able to dim/turn off not only the white/color strings separate from the blue/uv strings, but also to be able to turn off each 1/2 of the tank individually as well. So we can get sunrise/sunset that goes across the tank too.

I was thinking I could use the controller to dim to 0 and have each fixture run on 1 power cord. All well, it wasn't a bad thought. It just takes more plugs. I can always add on a power expansion later if I need more controllable outlets. For now, I think I can put the 4 drivers, return pump, protein skimmer, uv, and the wave maker into my controllable ports. Anything else can probably go on static ports or a timer if needed in the short term.

So as I'm planning out the computer/lights wiring this afternoon, I ran into a question on the light wiring for anyone who has set up LEDs. I'd like to check before moving forward. As you've seen in the build, our sump/refugium is through the wall behind the DT in a walk in closet. It's looking like in there is the best place to install the reef angel AND 4 drivers on the wall in the closet.

- My question is... will it cause any problems to have the controller and drivers for the led fixtures mounted in the closet and then run the 8 wires through the wall to the fixtures. I'm guessing that would be about a 3-6 foot lead wire running from the drivers to the fixtures. Is there any concern over carrying the power for the lights over that length? Or any other issues with that layout design that anyone can foresee?

I want to pick up some male/female connectors that I can crimp on the LED wires. That way I can solder short leads to the +/- pads that have a plug on the end. Then have a long lead wire that runs from the light down through the wall and plugs into driver. This would give us the ability to easily disconnect the lights and remove the fixtures or entire hood if needed for maintenance only leaving the wire through the wall.

If I do it this way, I can mount a board to the wall into 2 studs. Then hang the 4 drivers, RA power unit, RA Head Unit, and any eventual expansions or other things there in one place.

If instead I put the drivers mounted out on the hood/stand, I would have to extend the power cords for all 4 drivers, plus the dimming leads back to the RA unit.

If my plan sounds good, hopefully I could organize my wires better and have shorter runs for everything with just the 4 leads for the light circuits passed through the wall.

So basically, let me know if anyone has concerns about mounting the RA unit and drivers in the fish closet. That's what I'm going with as my current plan for now. I'm really looking forward to getting these lights going!!!

 

[Craigdillman]

Ok i answer the first part of the question

As for the dimming what are you using for diming? You will need to wire in the controller to dim them, they arnt dimmed by the power cord, they are dimmed by a controller or wired to a dial, I have them to the DC controller cause I bought that before I got a reef keeper, as for wiring it to the angel and dimming, I'm not 100% on it so I won't give any advise I'm sure it's possible but I know for sure that it doesn't matter were your power cords are plugged in, they don't need to be in the controller bar just mine arnt the only thing plugged into the bar is my DC controller and I use the reef keepr as a basic light timer and the sc controller dims sunset/sunrise turns channels off

 

[Craigdillman]

And for the second part as long as the connections are good I believe it doesn't matter where they are, my drivers are wired to behind my stand and wired to the controller in the side of my stand and that probably 4-5 feet from the fixtures and I just used wire from the hardwear store that had 4 wires in it, then heat shrieked the connections and used the black spring stuff to hide all the wires and ran them down the wall from the fixtures

Ill post some pics of my set up when I'm off work tonight
Yours will be a lot easier than mine cause I had 3 heatsinks

 

[troubadour11]

And for the second part as long as the connections are good I believe it doesn't matter where they are, my drivers are wired to behind my stand and wired to the controller in the side of my stand and that probably 4-5 feet from the fixtures and I just used wire from the hardwear store that had 4 wires in it, then heat shrieked the connections and used the black spring stuff to hide all the wires and ran them down the wall from the fixtures

Ill post some pics of my set up when I'm off work tonight
Yours will be a lot easier than mine cause I had 3 heatsinks

Thanks for all the info and that would be great to see a few shots of how your drivers are wired in. :thumbsup:

I'll be using the Reef Angel controller to control the dimming. I got the P version of the Meanwell drivers to match the PWM signal the Reef Angel sends. By default, the RA unit can run 2 dimming channels. At the start, I'm going to wire my blues/uv string to one dimming channel and the white/color strings to the other. But at some point, I'm going to add on the RA dimming expansion module so I'll have a total of 8 dimming ports then. That way I can dim all 4 channels individually. Then I'll have 4 extra dimming ports, so in the long run, I'm expecting I might build 2 LED units customized to run over my 75 refugium.

And it sounds like my plan will work fine then. I'm pretty sure I know exactly how you're saying you ran your wires. That sounds exactly how I was thinking about running mine. So it'll be great to see a couple pics if you have the time. I was just wanted to make sure the length of wire for the +/- from the drivers in the closet out to the light fixtures wasn't an issue. I didn't know if there was some "rule" about how long of a wire you could use.

But it sounds like a short 3-6 foot wire from the closet to the lights won't be an issue at all. So I'm excited to try and get these lights tested on the table. Because if I can get the RA unit to dim the lights on the table, I can start hanging stuff on the wall and getting things installed!! :bounce1: It will be so nice to have the build done all the way through the lights/hood/controller!

Because then I can buy more corals!!! :celeb3:

Oh, and biggles. If all goes well with the Orange Firefish in QT. I think we will be moving them up to the DT early in the new year. I think we're going to start bringing the SG up next Sunday. Assuming we don't see any ailments between now and then. But so far, they've been looking happy and healthy. New lights, and new fish... that's what I'm really working towards to start the new year!

 

[Craigdillman]

Make sure when when wiring them together to set the drivers correct to the lowest led on that string cause blues can be run up to 1500ma where color and uv run lower 700ma for the uv and the red and green are 700ma and 1000ma
, you don't want to blow your LEDs.... That's why most run blue on separate cause they run higher

Me personally I run all my driver 650ma it's plenty bright tons of par and no risk of blowing LEDs and they last longer running them cooler

Some wire the color white and uv together in terms of dimming and then blue (that's what I would do if you only have 2 channels to dim off the bat) that's what mine is

Actually what you are thinking
Blues and uv
Color white

That will work good

 

[Craigdillman]

I was a nazi and tested it a million times everytime I connected a wire I tested it and proved it I didn't want to mess with stuff after it was mounted

 

[troubadour11]

All good tips Craigdillman, I appreciate it! And feel free to double, triple, quadruple check any of my ideas. It definitely feels good getting it all reaffirmed that I'm making all the key adjustments to getting the system running successfully.

I've got it all wired up as (6)-CW, (3)-NW, (1)-Cyan, (1)-Deep Red, and (3)-Blues (regular blue, not royal blue) on the White/Colored string.

Then on the Blue/UV string I have (7)-RB and (3)-UV (well violet, near UV technically)

I was definitely expecting to set up all 4 of the drivers at 650-700ma as you recommend. I had seen the different levels and have to do that because of the mix & match layout of my strings.

Unfortunately I didn't get the lights tested and finished this weekend. But I got a lot of tank stuff done. All steps in the right direction at least. We did the water change on the QT because we were seeing Nitrites creep up. As of bed last night, the 2 Orange Firefish were doing good.

We also did a water change on the full system. We took out just shy of 20 gallons and replaced it. I took about 15 gallons out of the DT while shooting the rocks with the turkey baster and tried to lightly siphon the sand bed in order to manually remove some of the cyano and such. The sand bed is looking horrible again this morning, but the rocks are clean again

All well, we did a good water change on the system and attempted some manual removal of the nuisance. It won't clean up over night, I know. So hopefully that just helped at least some. I'm looking forward to trying the GFO when it gets in. Especially since I've never used it before and definitely think it could be useful helping to get my levels in line.

Here's where I tested our water at PRE water change.

SG = 1.026
Temp = 77
PH = 7.9
NH3 = 0
No2 = 0
No3 = 0

Mg = 1250
Ca = 310
Alk = 6.7

I think I might test a new round again today. It was late and a long day of running around and I didn't have time to test the freshly mixed saltwater. :angryfire: I really wanted to see where that tested. Especially for Alk. I'm getting fairly confident in using the Red Sea Pro Ca and Mg tests. But the Alk always seems to test lower then I expect. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the Red Sea Alk test or not yet. I really needed to test that fresh barrel of saltwater. All well, I'm sure I'll be making another barrel again sometime.

As promised, here are some shots of the refugium. Before I took 5 gallons out and blasted the rock work some during the water change. And I apologize, they're not my best photos... but you can see the general state of things at least.

- left end rocks -

- right end rocks -

- A couple close ups -

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- Down the front of the refugium -

- Down the back of the refugium -

In a moment I'll put up a few more pics of what else I was up to this weekend.

 

[troubadour11]

So while I was at the hardware store, I picked up a few more pieces of the light/hood project.

Remember, I have that oak hood on top of the tank. But it's really short and would hardly fit my lights. So as part of the light build, I'm planning to build about a 6-8 inch extension or lift out of oak and stain it to match. So I matched the stain and picked that up. Along with some handles to attach to the hood for easier moving and some corner brackets to turn into light mounts.

My led kit came with wire hanging mounts, but there really isn't enough space to use those inside the hood. So for about 5-8 bucks a few corner brackets and screws/bolts should work well and make it really stable inside. That way we can disconnect any wires that are plugged into the hood and remove the whole hood as one. Lights and all.

- 2 corner bracket mounts bolted together to make a light mount. -

- The top corner bracket will get screwed to the top inside of the oak canopy. Then the screw head, washer, and lock washer will slip into the track on the back. I plan to use the long screws to adjust the height of the fixture to what I want once I have them attached to the canopy. Then, once I know the size, I'm going to go pick up spacers to put between the fixture and the bottom L bracket. That way I can pull the lights tight to avoid sliding or accidentally knocking 1 end off or something when in the tank or removing the canopy.

- 4 mounts set on top LED Fixture -

So I got through all of that. I also picked up some heat shrink and other small goodies for the lights. I need to get to an electronics store to get a few more light pieces. So plug terminals to make the lights easy to remove and stuff.

But on that note... I'll leave you with a couple pictures I thought were cool. After blasting the rocks and doing the water change. I was checking out the Yellow/Blue Ricordea. It was really active curling it's edges in towards it's mouth and was a really deep, rich, intense color. More so then normal. So here are a few shots of a coral being happy in my tank... I think anyway...

-

-

Off to do more things today!

 

[troubadour11]

Well, before heading to the grocery store and to do some last minute shopping, I thought I'd pop in and drop off a couple pictures.

- After the tank cleaning and water change, I found these around the tank and refugium in multiple locations. Are these Pineapple Sponges? -

-

:celeb2: Happy Holidays to all the other reef keepers out there! :celeb2:

 

[Bello]

Nice brackets on the led fixture :thumbsup:, looks solid...I like that!

The algae looks like a cyano and diatom combo....You'd better have been a good boy for the GFO, Troub!

The rics look pretty happy, so more coral please :lol:

Those sponges or whatever they are....had/have a load of them..harmless in case you're wondering.

And, Merry Christmas! :lol:

 

[troubadour11]

Merry Christmas!

 

[troubadour11]

New tank toy! :bounce3:

I got me a small pump/powerhead. I'm going to use this to mix saltwater and pump it out of the mixing barrel into the sump for water changes. Then, when I'm not using it for water changes, I can leave it in the refugium to push some water counter-current and create some extra flow in there.
-

-

-

In the gift with the new powerhead was a box of Red Sea Reef Energy A. I'm going to need to do some :reading: up on this a bit. But I'm guessing I can get some good use out of it once I get a few more corals in the system. Anyone ever try using this before or have any info on it?

Right now the new MJ-600 is stirring the barrel of extra QT water with a heater in it. I did some testing this morning and the QT needs a water change today. No NH3 showing up, but No2 spiked some. So, another water change on that tank today. Everything else was spot on for the QT.

QT:
SG = 1.009
Temp = 76
Ph = 7.9
NH3 = 0
No2 = close to 5
No3 = 15

DT:
SG = 1.0025
Temp = 77
Ph = 8.0
NH3 = 0
No2 = 0
No3 = 5
Po4 = ? :mad2: Time to order a tester for this as soon as the new year hits.
Mg = 1200
Ca = 300
Alk - 6.7

And I don't trust my testing skills for Mg, Ca, and Alk again. We did a 20 gallon water change 1 week ago... how can these test lower then before the water change? This doesn't make sense. :deadhorse1: Wishing I had time to test the barrel of water we used for the water change last week before adding it to the system :deadhorse1: All well. I'll test it up next water change hopefully if I have the time.

Water changes will be easier now and the refugium will like the flow update I'm sure! :dance: Now I'm off to grab a bite to eat and get a few more things done today. :wave:

 

[biggles]

Hey Troub, hope you and the family had a great Xmas mate. Agree with Bello on the GFO - get it ASAP and you'll clean up all that crap that's on the rocks and sand in no time :thumbsup:
I used to use those old style powerheads in my SPS tanks years ago when Tunze etc were just new and way too expensive for me. Blew the skin off quite a few acros in my time with bad positioning of those narrow jet bastards lol.
What are you using for the alk and cal testing, get Salifert as those ones are super easy to use and there is no doubt as to the levels with the obvious color changes. You can precipitate alk etc out i believe during the mixing process if you don't do it right so perhaps that's occurring. I've never used artificial salt water so maybe some others who do can venture an opinion on the weird levels after a water change. Make yourself test the alk and cal of the next batch you make up just before you do the water change mate.

Don't use that reef energy if it's any type of supposed coral nutrition, you don't need such things yet and it will only add to the nutrient excess already present - get your water clean and under control before you contemplate using any additives mate.

 

[troubadour11]

It was a great Christmas Biggles. My wife and I enjoyed a few days of relaxing, eating good food, and talking with friends and family on Skype. My parents are traveling out this way to visit for New Years. I'm taking my Mom to the Rose Parade on New Years morning over here.

Thankfully I won't be blasting SPS with the new powerhead in the refugium. It's just a little helper to kick up some turbulent flow in the fuge. And I won't complain about being able to pump water out of the mixing barrel on the next water change. I'll save my money for better powerhead updates in the DT once it starts to fill in more with corals.

Once these Red Sea tests kits run out, I'm going to be trying the Salifert. Since I've never used any of them before. I feel I should check out each brand at least once. Just so I can judge a better opinion from personal experience. I just started with the Red Sea kit.

And I definitely agree. I'm not planning on using that Red Sea Reef Energy A until I'm a lot more established with corals. I need to do some :reading: on it first and get this cyano issue under control. I want the tank to stabilize with the new lights and a couple fish in it for a bit before I worry about adding any type of supplement at all. At the most, I may consider dripping a little lime water through the top off.

Hmmm... I think tomorrow might be a good work on the tank day and get some goodies accomplished! :smokin:

 

[Craigdillman]

I would also strongly consider a hanna checker for phosphates (santa just got me mine) its very hard to get an accurate reading on P04 with any test kit as the colour indicators are so close Ive had both the ELOS and the Salfert kits, Its more money up front but it worth it cause i was getting to the point of hating/not testing P04 and just replacing my GFO cause its so hard to tell specially when your down to the 0.05-0.1 ish levels

Just my 2 cents

As for the Cal mg and alk
Both the Red sea and salfernt kits both seemed good and accurate on those for me

 

[troubadour11]

I am pretty sure we are going to end up getting a Hanna Ultra Low Range Phosphorus checker soon. I think we are willing to spend the money up front to make it easier and accurate. We are hoping to have this tank running for a long time now that we're in a house. So a little money up front to get a reliable-accurate-quality product that might save a little time is well worth the investment to me. :thumbsup:

For now, I'm getting that GFO in (when it finally gets delivered) and going to start running a light amount. Just to keep things more in line. From the look of the tank, I'm sure there is plenty of PO4/No3 available in the system. So I can definitely start trying to draw some out and try to get things to level off some.

I'm guessing the system is going to go through some type of change soon. Because if everything goes well, we will have the new lights up and 2 fish in the DT soon.

Speaking of lights... I'm off to put in a little time on some electronics. Maybe I'll try to test the lights through the Reef Angel just set up on the table or something. That sounds like a good task to mess around with while I watch the US Winter Olympic Trials and the Bears vs. Packers game while bbq'n something on the grill.

Happy last Sunday of 2013. It's been a good fishy year of tank weekends! :beer: