A Living Room Reef: 90 Gallon Mixed Reef Build

[troubadour11]

Photo project bomb!!!

It's mostly good stuff... I guess one bad thing... and something that is kind of making me scratch my head.

- I started off wiring together all the power cords to all the AC-in cords on the dimmable drivers -

- Stripped the wires and wrapped them, then used some heatshrink to protect the wire connections -

- Then put a larger piece of heatshrink over the whole splice in the wires. -

- And a final strip of electrical tape over the ends of the larger heatshrink. -

-

So I accomplished rigging all 4 of the power cords to the drivers and got up to stretch my legs for a moment. I noticed the skimmer could use an emptying. Here is what I collected over the last week or week and a half with my skimmer turned all the way up.
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If I keep it turned all the way up, it looks like this. If I don't have it up all the way, I don't really get any skim at all.

Back to working on the lights... I popped open all the drivers to check the SVR2 screw was set to it's lowest position.
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Which by the way. No one ever really tells you anywhere that I saw. But after removing the 4 corner screws, pinch the unit in the dead center sides to pop the cover off a couple of little internal slideover hook pieces. You don't hear or feel anything, but a nice squeeze will get one of them off and make for easier cover removal, at least in my experience.

- In this picture you would squeeze on each side of the driver where you see the black cord pointing into the center. Basically on the sides even with the 6-4 just above the cover crack.

- I don't have a picture of the hook pieces I'm referring to right now. But if someone wants to see it in detail, let me know and I'll grab a close up shot of them.

- Then I tinned and soldered the 4 lead wires for each light fixture and attached them to their +/- pads. -

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Photo post break. A few more pictures to come! :celeb3:

 

[troubadour11]

- What is this!!! Is that a Reef Angel plugged in on a table and running in a pre-setup mode!?!? -

- Why yes, yes it is! -

- Oh my! All wired up with test jumpers, the Reef Angel is set to lights off with 0% power -

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- Only one thing to do now . . . -

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:bounce3: YAY!!! That is some cause for celebration! Both fixtures lit up. I have a feeling I should go through and test for grounding on all the connections still. But everything lit up on each fixture.

And here are my couple issues I came across in setting this up and testing it today.

1.) I'm a little annoyed that one of the SVR2 screws is broken and the driver is stuck running at full power. So I'm going to have to deal with calling Rapid LED and seeing if I can get a replacement. I know I did not turn it to hard to break it. I read and followed all directions, and it was the last of the 4 drivers I opened to set up and test. It just always spun and never stopped with hardly any pressure on it looking for the end point.

I managed to turn the first 3 drivers down correctly. I did notice that the wires inside the driver were wedged up against the SVR2 screw very tightly when I opened the case. Almost like they cut the wires to long and just forced a curve in the wire to make it fit. When they did, the wires bent and put pressure right on the SVR2 screw. I wonder if the wires broke the screw when they assembled it.?.

And I really hope they are willing to swap out and replace it. It's been a little frustrating that I've come up short on pieces during build that were supposed to be included in the order. (screws, nylon washers, and wire nuts) And now a broken driver.

2.) Here's my 2nd issue that is confusing me. I wired in the multimeter as instructed and set it all up to test the driver and get it dialed in at the right level.

For the most part, the first driver test goes fine. However, I can not run my Reef Angel at 100% output though. Even with the SVR2 screw turned down all the way. It's running to much mA through. So I think "Ok. I have the SVR2 turned down all the way, and I'll just have to set my max output to X% in the controller which will keep the mA below my 700mA max on each string." It's not ideal. I'd like to have a safety measure to keep it from getting over powered. That's what the SVR2 and dimmer are supposed to accomplish. I can deal with that and it kind of makes sense. No big deal. It's turned down to low, and I can just run them at 65% which runs about 660mA.

So onto string 2. I test it on my blue/uv string (instead of whites like the 1st driver test). Same thing. I can't run it at 100% out of the Reef Angel controller. Even with the SVR2 turned down. But I can run it at a slightly higher % then the white/color string I first tested. So thinking "for some reason, it must be because I have fewer blue/uv on the string then the white/color. I guess I could see how the % can be a little different possibly because of something like that.

So the bottom line is, I tested 3 drivers and with all the SVR2 screws turned down. And each driver needs a different % driven through the controller. That seems really weird to me. I would have expected at least the same color strings to need the same %. So the SVR2 screw directions that were sent, really don't seem to have been that accurate. And it's causing some confusion now and delaying the build a bit more.

Anyway... dinner is ready and I'm a bit fried after all this. I'm turning in for the weekend. Let me know any thoughts or recommendations you might have. That is, ff you could understand and figure out my ramblings. I didn't go back and proof read this post.

Either way, I'm super excited that the lights are mostly working :beer:

 

[biggles]

I have no idea what you've been up to Troub.............. i don't think using the word 'bomb' alongside all those wiring pics will go down well once the NSA net crawling bots come across them - the skimmer cup liquid looks sus too btw.............. :blown:
Anyhow, on the off chance you don't end up with a black sack over your head i think that driver difference isn't right but hopefully some experienced LED guys will pipe up to help you sort things out. :thumbsup:

 

[Bello]

And finally....YOU HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!! :lol:

Good going Troub :thumbsup:

As far the percentage differences go, I'll speculate it's due to varying forward voltage among the types of led's, and number of led's. Either way, it looks like you've got 'em working well :thumbsup:

I'd also consider keeping one driver as a spare, just in case. Hopefully they replace the damaged one too. Very neat wiring though, you should see my spaghetti...umm, I mean wiring

Now, we need to see 'em over the tank :thumbsup:....and ummmm 20 more corals, and 5 more fish in there

 

[Grayhead]

Nice looking so far. Ramp the LEDs up slowly for your corals sake. I know you dont have many, but that light is much more intense than what you think.

 

[troubadour11]

I have no idea what you've been up to Troub.............. i don't think using the word 'bomb' alongside all those wiring pics will go down well once the NSA net crawling bots come across them - the skimmer cup liquid looks sus too btw.............. :blown:
Anyhow, on the off chance you don't end up with a black sack over your head i think that driver difference isn't right but hopefully some experienced LED guys will pipe up to help you sort things out.

- LOL ^^^ Now that is hilarious. Biggles, you have to worry about customs steeling your advanced radioactive isotopes, and I have to worry about the NSA making me "disappear" for building aquarium lights! :worried: Don't be surprised if some guy in a suit shows up to interview you about me. Just don't tell them about Project Anemisis... we don't talk about that...

And what!?! My skimmer juice isn't good enough for you? :uzi: LOL That's all I've ever gotten out of my skimmer. I think it's because there isn't much to make a mess in the tank. I either get tea or nothing. Maybe I just can't hit the sweet spot on the dial though, who knows. If I have it way up, I fill the cup up like that in a couple days. I keep lowering it down and eventually it just stops pulling all together. So I try to dial it in where it takes about 1-2 weeks to fill the cup 3/4's full. I'm guessing it will get more gunky and I can get a dryer skimmate once I get a few fish and such in there. Is there something I'm missing on my skimmer operation?

And finally....YOU HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!! :lol:

As far the percentage differences go, I'll speculate it's due to varying forward voltage among the types of led's, and number of led's. Either way, it looks like you've got 'em working well :thumbsup:

I'd also consider keeping one driver as a spare, just in case. Hopefully they replace the damaged one too. Very neat wiring though, you should see my spaghetti...umm, I mean wiring

Now, we need to see 'em over the tank :thumbsup:....and ummmm 20 more corals, and 5 more fish in there

- Actually, your guess about the forwarding voltage, # of LEDs, and types all on one string was kind of my hunch. I don't know tons about that side of the electronics stuff. But something along those lines is what I was suspecting. I might test a white string, then hook up the driver to the other light white string and see if I get the same max % at the lowest SVR2 setting. Then do the same with the blue/uv. And I'll use the same 1 driver for the test. Hopefully, I find the same max % for each color string on both fixtures and that will kind of confirm that it must be something like that.

I guess it's just opposite what I would expect. And that is what is throwing me off. I would have expected the Blue/UV string to need LESS power% since it has fewer diodes on the string... and the white/color string to take more power to run 14 LEDS. But then again, I don't really know it enough to understand/predict those things.

I still need to all about that driver. Fingers crossed... I'm really worried I'm going to have to learn how to replace the SVR2 screw. I really hope they will just swap me one and refurbish it.

And it is SO awesome that I finally got them wired and fired up!!! I was super excited that it all seemed to work correctly for the most part. So I am definitely "seeing the light" and want to get this project finished. I so want to see these things over the tank!

Good thought on keeping the spare driver around. If they don't replace it. Maybe I'll just order a new one and fix the broken SVR2 over time to have as a back up.

Nice looking so far. Ramp the LEDs up slowly for your corals sake. I know you dont have many, but that light is much more intense than what you think.

- Hi there Grayhead, thanks for checking it out and chipping in! It's been a long and slow build. But one day it'll be up and running with lots more corals and fish, I promise :eek2: I will definitely ramp the lights on VERY slowly once I get them in place of the tank. I don't have a PAR meter to measure them. And with only the couple Zoas and Ricordeas, I don't want to melt them with the new LEDs and no reef above to shadow them.

It looks like (from my first test) that I can run the white/color string around 65% (that puts the string at about 670 or so MA). And the blue/uv strings around 70% (puts it around 680 ma). So I'm thinking once I get them in place, I'll start off with a 0%-15% cycle for a week. Then bump it up 5% each week slowly. I doubt I'll be running either at a full 65-70% for a very long time, if ever. I'll definitely need/want to test the PAR at some point and map it out before getting anywhere close to max power.

 

[troubadour11]

:angryfire::uzi::strooper::angryfire:
On a separate note... I have some bad news :-( One of the orange fire fish died on us in QT. :angryfire: I don't think it was anything we did. All levels test in the appropriate range. We did treat with Prazi Pro and it was the afternoon of the 5th day of treatment when I found it dead. I was about to do a water change. The other fish is doing fine still. When I took the body out, it made me suspect it was killed by the other fish. There was a large (what looked like a black & blue bruise) on one side of it's body. So it was either beaten, or something exploded inside the fish. My guess is neighbor nastiness. We new it was a small risk trying 2 orange firefish. I've seen many successes with 2 in a tank together. But there is no way to sex them (that I've found). So I'm guessing the successful stories get lucky and end up with a male/female. And the unsuccessful accounts probably ended up with 2 of the same sex? :angryfire:

So far... I hate QT! LOL. I haven't been able to get a fish all the way through yet. I really hope, for all fishies sake, that we get better at this process :facepalm: I guess I just gotta keep my chin up and stick with it. There is still hope for one of these firefish though :bounce1:

Ok. Now I'm off to dabble with things. Time to open up this shipment of carbon/gfo goodies and see what's what!

 

[martinphillip03]

Troub, I read on Biggles page about you reasearching about dipping frags with Bayer. I do believe thats only for SPS only. Not LPS or softies. I don't know about Zoa polyps.

Marty

 

[Bello]

Well, +1 to what Marty said, and........

Looks like you'll be able to setup the LED's well enough. I messed up with dimming and pretty much gave up...doesn't seem to make a significant difference to the corals as such. Figure it out if it bothers you, but as long as it works well, doesn't really matter . I'd like to help but I'm suffering from multiple brain farts at the moment :lol:

Forgot to ask you, did Santa get you your Hanna Checker and GFO? Or have you been a naughty little Troub?....Oh wait just read that you got 'em

Sad about the Firefish, but they be touchy . It's possible about the same sex aggression, but I dunno much about them. Anyways, now that the other one is still looking fine, isn't it time to toss him in? So he can meet Neil and Buzz :lol:

So what goodies you got? Lights on the tank yet?

 

[troubadour11]

Troub, I read on Biggles page about you reasearching about dipping frags with Bayer. I do believe thats only for SPS only. Not LPS or softies. I don't know about Zoa polyps.

Marty

- Thanks for the heads up Marty, I'll definitely add that into my notes! I've just started reading up on it recently. I'm kind of dragging my feet a bit on getting new pieces until I get these lights finished. I'm waiting to hear on my broken driver right now. But hopefully I can get this finished up soon so I can start to collect a few more corals.

So all the :reading: right now is so I can try to figure out a good treatment program for when I start bringing new pieces. I have some Revive that I used when I brought the shrooms and zoas home. But getting flatworms and red bugs has me a bit more spooked and I thought I might need a more powerful dipping procedure for when I get to adding some SPS.

From everything I've read. It seems much easier to work your hardest to prevent introducing an unwanted pest into the system then it is to remove a pest once it gets in. So just keep :reading::reading::reading:

:thumbsup:

 

[troubadour11]

Well, +1 to what Marty said, and........

Looks like you'll be able to setup the LED's well enough. I messed up with dimming and pretty much gave up...doesn't seem to make a significant difference to the corals as such. Figure it out if it bothers you, but as long as it works well, doesn't really matter . I'd like to help but I'm suffering from multiple brain farts at the moment :lol:

Forgot to ask you, did Santa get you your Hanna Checker and GFO? Or have you been a naughty little Troub?....Oh wait just read that you got 'em

Sad about the Firefish, but they be touchy . It's possible about the same sex aggression, but I dunno much about them. Anyways, now that the other one is still looking fine, isn't it time to toss him in? So he can meet Neil and Buzz :lol:

So what goodies you got? Lights on the tank yet?

At this point I think I'm almost there with the LEDs. I can start to get them further set up and installed. I'm hoping I get a bit of time to put in a little more work today. I'm waiting on a response about the driver. Hopefully I can swap that out and get these things above the tank!

The dimming isn't a HUGE deal. And I agree, I don't think it really does anything for the corals. But dimming lights just makes everything sexier LOL, and that's the set up I planned, so I'm going to make it work For the most part, it's all working. I'm a bit thrown off by that % and milli-amp stuff. But it makes sense in some way. So as long as I program the Reef Angel to use a max % to keep the milli-amps low enough it's all good. And it will be fun and oh so cool to watch sunrise/sunset over the reef on the weekends.

Well, I must have just been ok this year. The GFO and carbon arrived. But no Ultra Low Phosphorus Checker. So I'll have to get one of those ordered sometime soonish. I followed Biggles advice and put a 1/2 cup of GFO in a bag yesterday. Hopefully that will start to take a toll on they cyano. My sand bed and some rock is a red slime covered mess right now.

I'm going to install a DI cartridge today and start to use full RO/DI for my ATO. I had just been using RO since starting the tank. But now I"m thinking the system is established enough that the little bit of TDS in the RO water might be fueling the cyano? I did test my top off barrel. It registered 14 tds down from about 290 out of my tap. So using the DI to get rid of that last 14 might start to help with the nuisance issue too I think.

And it's definitely time to get the surviving orange firefish up in the DT. We've start to slowly raise the SP up from hypo-salinity at 1.009. I've got some fresh 1.025 water in a barrel and a handy equation I found here on RC to calculate how much water to change out to bring the SG up a certain amount. So we are starting to slowly raise the SG up to our tank level. As soon as we get it level, he can jump to the big tank!

 

[Bello]

Yeah the dimming would be cool, and easy to adjust intensity as per the corals needs, as well as for pure aethetics :thumbsup:

Troub, you HAVE to get the HM Digital inline TDS meter, else I'm gonna keep irritating you about it. What if I told you, that if I used it earlier, I would have saved $2000 bucks in coral and a million in heartache?

Point is this....you've got 14ppm TDS. Sounds well and good, but what's in that 14ppm? Without a lab test we don't know. Could be reef awesomeness or reef misery. Therefore, 0ppm is what we need. Your source water and mine will obviously be different, hence we haven't a clue to whats in that tds reading. Ergo.....

And the Hanna checker...........sigh, shoulda been a good boy Troub

Anyways, the GFO should help a bit. But siphon out whatever cyano you can, else the cyano will die off and resupply your tank with PO4.

 

[troubadour11]

Yeah the dimming would be cool, and easy to adjust intensity as per the corals needs, as well as for pure aethetics :thumbsup:

Troub, you HAVE to get the HM Digital inline TDS meter, else I'm gonna keep irritating you about it. What if I told you, that if I used it earlier, I would have saved $2000 bucks in coral and a million in heartache?

Point is this....you've got 14ppm TDS. Sounds well and good, but what's in that 14ppm? Without a lab test we don't know. Could be reef awesomeness or reef misery. Therefore, 0ppm is what we need. Your source water and mine will obviously be different, hence we haven't a clue to whats in that tds reading. Ergo.....

And the Hanna checker...........sigh, shoulda been a good boy Troub

Anyways, the GFO should help a bit. But siphon out whatever cyano you can, else the cyano will die off and resupply your tank with PO4.

I've got a good quality digital TDS meter that came with my 5 stage system. It's just handheld. That's how I was testing the ATO barrel. My water is treated with Chloromines here. So I run a sediment filter, a granular carbon, a carbon block matrix, the RO membrane, then a DI cartridge. I had just completely forgotten about it not being installed yet to be honest. I was standing there running water and realized the DI cartridge was still empty. So I'm going to get that in there and I'm guessing that will help out. I bet you're right that Po4 is more of an issue right now then TDS. But when I noticed it, I thought I'd call out the error in my ways. Because it could be a bit of both I suppose.

What does cyano look like as it dies off? I'm pretty sure I know now what it looks like when it's healthy and thriving :facepalm: LOL. I will of course try to siphon some out as you recommend. I'm running the GFO hanging in a mesh filter sock on the drain line right now.

I'm going to keep bringing the QT up to 1.025 SG and just before I swap that little guy into the DT, I'll do another water change. I think that's the plan anyway. So my ATO will go to RO/DI, and that water change will be RO/DI. So I'll try to siphon some extra cyano out of the system then.

Just in time for an algae explosion I bet when I add a fish and new lights. But that's ok, I'll welcome the change as the system will develop a bit more :spin1:

 

[Bello]

The handheld will work IF, you test EVERY SINGLE time you make fresh water. The inline is a button that shuts off after a few seconds, hence the ease.

The second reason is this, the RO membrane will eventually wear out, and water exiting it will start flowing with increasingly higher TDS. This is turn will deplete your DI incredibly fast. If you use the 2 probe inline meter, you will immediately know when the RO membrane is exhausted and starts producing higher than normal TDS. Hence...

The rest of the RO rig sounds fine :thumbsup:. Do you have a pressure gauge on your unit for the RO membrane?

Cyano just disappears gradually when it dies off. I was able to completely starve it once, happy to see it bloody die

Right so firefish in soon , named him/her yet? BTW, I don't usually name my fish, if I do, it must be a fish over 6 months in my care, and have an incredibly silly name...that's the law

 

[martinphillip03]

Was the salinity low in the hospital tank?

Marty

:angryfire::uzi::strooper::angryfire:
On a separate note... I have some bad news :-( One of the orange fire fish died on us in QT. :angryfire: I don't think it was anything we did. All levels test in the appropriate range. We did treat with Prazi Pro and it was the afternoon of the 5th day of treatment when I found it dead. I was about to do a water change. The other fish is doing fine still. When I took the body out, it made me suspect it was killed by the other fish. There was a large (what looked like a black & blue bruise) on one side of it's body. So it was either beaten, or something exploded inside the fish. My guess is neighbor nastiness. We new it was a small risk trying 2 orange firefish. I've seen many successes with 2 in a tank together. But there is no way to sex them (that I've found). So I'm guessing the successful stories get lucky and end up with a male/female. And the unsuccessful accounts probably ended up with 2 of the same sex? :angryfire:

So far... I hate QT! LOL. I haven't been able to get a fish all the way through yet. I really hope, for all fishies sake, that we get better at this process :facepalm: I guess I just gotta keep my chin up and stick with it. There is still hope for one of these firefish though :bounce1:

Ok. Now I'm off to dabble with things. Time to open up this shipment of carbon/gfo goodies and see what's what!

 

[Craigdillman]

Coral rx is a good all around dip I use it for my sps as well

 

[troubadour11]

The handheld will work IF, you test EVERY SINGLE time you make fresh water. The inline is a button that shuts off after a few seconds, hence the ease.

The second reason is this, the RO membrane will eventually wear out, and water exiting it will start flowing with increasingly higher TDS. This is turn will deplete your DI incredibly fast. If you use the 2 probe inline meter, you will immediately know when the RO membrane is exhausted and starts producing higher than normal TDS. Hence...

The rest of the RO rig sounds fine :thumbsup:. Do you have a pressure gauge on your unit for the RO membrane?

Cyano just disappears gradually when it dies off. I was able to completely starve it once, happy to see it bloody die

Right so firefish in soon , named him/her yet? BTW, I don't usually name my fish, if I do, it must be a fish over 6 months in my care, and have an incredibly silly name...that's the law

- Agreed. I get what you're saying on the in-line TDS reader. It would be nice... maybe an eventual upgrade to my filter system. For now I'll have to deal with checking by hand. I think a P04 tester and a few other things are tops on the list for my tank money.

I do have an RO Flush Valve built into the unit. Plus I added a DI by-pass valve as well. That way I can check Post-DI, Post-RO/Pre-DI, and the feed water. I also have an in-line pressure guage just before the RO membrane.

The firefish has no name yet... I don't typically name my shrimp/snails/fish. But other people like to. So they usually get a name at some point. We are in line with your thinking though. Probably once it makes it through QT and is in the tank for a bit. Then we can name them. We made that mistake with the first purple firefish. So probably no names until the fish hits a first name basis with Neil and Buzz. LOL

Was the salinity low in the hospital tank?

Marty

- Yup. We have been implementing Hypo-salinity during our QT process. So our SG has been set at 1.009 in the QT. We will now attempt to slowly raise that up to our DT levels over the next week here. We also have treated with Prazi-Pro during the QT process.

Coral rx is a good all around dip I use it for my sps as well

I'll keep that in mind and compare it to the Bayer method a bit as I'm researching. I know Coral RX was recommended to me at a LFS as well. They said it's good, but can be quite a bit harsher then Revive in their opinion. So better for SPS then zoas/shrooms. Was their recommendation.

---

On the LED build side of things. I heard back that I can ship my driver back and they will fix it. So I packaged that up and it should be on it's way today. Here's hoping it doesn't take months to get it back!

Just keep the build moving forward. . . I can't wait to get past the technical building side of everything! I'm sure it will never end. But at least have it mostly set up where I can just focus on maintaining and building a reef for a bit rather then building and installing technical equipment. :blown:

 

[Grayhead]

Been meaning to ask, what kind of grill do you cook on? I use a Traeger pellet cooker

 

[martinphillip03]

Do you think the hypo salinity may be giving you problems? Hopefully others will chime in. I would still use the Prazi-Pro. But observe the fish. If you see any parasites, you can lower the salinity or treat with the proper medication.
Also when lowering the salinity are you keeping the PH high enough?

Marty

Originally Posted by martinphillip03 View Post
Was the salinity low in the hospital tank?

Marty
- Yup. We have been implementing Hypo-salinity during our QT process. So our SG has been set at 1.009 in the QT. We will now attempt to slowly raise that up to our DT levels over the next week here. We also have treated with Prazi-Pro during the QT process.

 

[troubadour11]

Been meaning to ask, what kind of grill do you cook on? I use a Traeger pellet cooker

That's awesome! Right now I cook on a Brinkman stick burner. It's one of the dual units with a 2 tiered (3 burner) LP on one side. Then the large scale offset charcoal/wood barrel smoker on the other side.

When this grill wears out, I'm going to look for a much more specific smoker to upgrade to. This was my "entry level" smoker. But I'm a big fan of the offset stick burner style so far.

Do you think the hypo salinity may be giving you problems? Hopefully others will chime in. I would still use the Prazi-Pro. But observe the fish. If you see any parasites, you can lower the salinity or treat with the proper medication.
Also when lowering the salinity are you keeping the PH high enough?

Marty

- It is a possibility that Hypo could be causing some problems. I'm fairly certain the previous purple firefish died as a result of us coming out of Hypo. That would be my guess anyway. If I continue to be unsuccessful, we might revert to what you mention. Keeping QT at DT levels, treating Prazi-Pro and observing. We were just trying to treat on arrival to shorten the QT time to closer to 4-5 weeks per addition rather then closer to 8 weeks.

I have monitored PH fairly often as I had heard that can be an issue with Hypo. In my experience it has typically been rock solid right at 7.8 anytime I test it. I tend to see mini ammonia/nitrite cycles more often then PH swings or drops. (I've checked PH at multiple times of day to makes sure there aren't big swings between day/night) We always have a barrel pre-mixed at hypo levels in case we require a water change.