crvz's hole in the wall

[crvz]

Random question, as I've begun to consider how to interface a tank with the wall. My thought right now is that my stand will be built right up on the current studs in the wall, with a 3/4" sheet of plywood going across those studs. Example;



But this still leaves the thickness of the drywall on the other side of the wall. Having never done this, I'm wondering what the best way to trim this out. Anybody have suggestions?

 

[Taqpol]

Just for your consideration, I've always thought the coolest "in wall" tanks were those that were viewable from the sides. Then you could pass the whole tank (or maybe two feet in the living area, one foot in the fish room) through the hole and build and trim the viewing area just like you would a normal fish tank stand.

 

[MeuserReef]

Chris, are you looking to have the drywall run directly up to the tank or are you open to having some sort of wooden trim surrounding the tank, much like Quoc has done on his inwall setup?

 

[crvz]

there will be some trim, Josh. Alex, no option to have anything other than the front viewable in this application.

 

[melev]

As long as your platform is solid, you'll be fine. My tank is standing on the studs as well, but I added a bunch more just in case. I'd say there must be one every 12".

 

[crvz]

Below, you'll see that my tank was in need.

Lots of algae. So, for the first time in what seems like over a year, I bought livestock.

These are a variety, zebra turbo, some astrea, nerite, margarita, bumblebee. Also a tuxedo urchin. Hopefully they'll help make a dent in the clarity of my viewing. You'll also notice a new reflector; I picked up one lumen bright mini wide pendant. I'm waiting on a plug adapter (delivering today, or so I'm told), so I'll have a 250W Radium to replace my 150W 14Kk Phoenix. I put a few pieces of screening over the tank for when I fire it up.

Also, because I was bothering to get a shipment, I added a few other things.



I now have four fish (that I speak of... the springer's dottyback is a craphead who won't be making any future transitions).

 

[gpkozmp]

Everything looks great. Those frags look awesome. I can't wait to get my 100 gal setup already.

 

[Taqpol]

Blonde naso's are still my all time favorite fish. Any time line on when you'll be cutting through walls/getting the tank?

 

[crvz]

Blonde naso's are still my all time favorite fish. Any time line on when you'll be cutting through walls/getting the tank?

no, nothing hard. I finally got all my tax documents in order, and I'm due a large refund (while not necessarily for much of the stimulus stuff, we do qualify for a home tax credit and I'd be stupid not to file it). so that may get the wheels moving a little quicker.

I will need to wall everything in before it gets too late (it'll be getting hot in about another 6 weeks down here), so that's probably sooner rather than later (at least closing in the room).

 

[Hop]

Everything looks like it is heading in the right direction!!! I'm anxious to see the next few steps!

 

[crvz]

the fish are doing alright. I'm a bit concerned that the kole has some mouth injury, but it is pecking here and there. And the naso is staying mottled most of the time. Neither of them are taking food out of the water column (I've had different flakes and pellets, as well as frozen mysis), though their behavior definitely changed when I put food in the water. I did see the kole take a big dump on the first day I had it,which means it has been eating recently (and it's pretty fat, all things considered). I know it can take a number of days to a week or so for them to get settled in, so I'm not out of hope, but why don't fish always just eat on day one? My achilles didnt start eating anything until day 5 or 6 if I recall correctly, and I had it eating well for months (before my tank crapped out). I do have some nori around a rock, which they may be eating when I'm not paying attention.

 

[crvz]

A picture of the new light fired up. Also, a bit hard to notice with the light off in the above picture, but compare the side of the tank above and today (just 5 days later). Almost no algae remaining, which I attribute to the zebra turbos. Those snails are awesome. I'll need to start supplementing their diet soon. They completely cleaned the front pane, too, which was almost as bad. I did buy a new acrylic safe cleaning magnet, but I havent needed to use it.

In fish news, the naso tang is definitely eating, saw it mow down a number of mysis shrimp to day right from the water column. That's got my hopeful. But, it's terrified of me. Hides anytime I walk near the tank (the tank, if you recall, is in the garage, so sometimes I'll sneak in without turning on lights and it won't hide until I become obvious). I imagine this will change in time. The kole is picking/scraping stuff off the floor, and I'm keeping nori in the tank 24/7, but I've yet to see it eat out of the water column. The nori is usually gone within a day, but my foxface is a total pig so he could be eating it all. The kole is still acting great, looks very healthy, but I'd be a lot more confident if I saw it eat food directly after adding it to the tank (or witnessed it eat off the nori).

My typical view of the naso.

 

[veloboy]

I've got a Kole in my 90 that I've had for over two months. It has never once ate the nori I've put in the tank and won't touch anything in the water column. It just pecks the rock and glass all day long. ??? He definitely is not thin though and seems to be doing just fine.

Looking forward to the build!

 

[crvz]

I've got a Kole in my 90 that I've had for over two months. It has never once ate the nori I've put in the tank and won't touch anything in the water column. It just pecks the rock and glass all day long. ??? He definitely is not thin though and seems to be doing just fine.

Looking forward to the build!

Well that's a good piece of data... hopefully mine will thrive as well.

 

[crvz]

Alright, data gathering time. As already referenced, the new setup will have metal halide for primary lights, and it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to use a trio of lumen bright mini wide pendants. I was first planning on riveting some aluminum angle together, but after seeing a few other folks use square tube products (and after checking into the cost), I presume I'll be using the same. Stealing some dimensions of the products that http://www.estoconnectors.com/ carries, I came up with this quick sketchup.

I was planning on using T5s for supplementation, though mostly for morning/evening illumination (as opposed to color supplementation, as the Radium 20Kk has the perfect color). But I sold all my T5 stuff with my 150 gallon tank. Looking at buying a new 4 bulb retrofit, I'd be out ~$300. So for that money, I'm considering adding LEDs to the light frame. Has anyone done that? Here's the rack from the underside.

I was thinking somewhere between 8 and 12 LEDs, but I'm looking for input. Can I mount them directly to the anodized aluminum frame, or must I use a heat sink? What's the best orientation, color of LED? How many should I put on one driver? Obviously I'm brand new to the DIY LED saga, anyone have thoughts?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Hey crvz,

LEDs will do a good job of supplementation. What lamps will you be using for the MH? How much supplementation do you want? i.e. if you were to use blue T5's, how many would you use? Then we can do some math to get in the right neighborhood for LED supplementation.

At a rough guess, I'd assume you'll need a lot more than 8 - 12 LEDs total, if you're "fighting" against three 250w MH lamps, especially if the MHs are a low color temp. Rough guess, you'll probably want twice that count.

The best LED for this purpose is probably the royal blue XR-E or XP-G from Cree. You can get sources in the many LED build threads in the DIY forum. Also, you'll need drivers. Driver choice depends on options you want - dimmability, all-in-one convenience or separate power supplies, etc.

Mounting to the aluminum in your structure is probably fine, assuming it's beefy enough. We're talking pretty low LED counts and you've got a lot of mass and surface area in that structure. The anodizing will in theory reduce thermal efficiency from the LED to the aluminum, but increase it from the aluminum to the air.

 

[crvz]

Hey crvz,

LEDs will do a good job of supplementation. What lamps will you be using for the MH? How much supplementation do you want? i.e. if you were to use blue T5's, how many would you use? Then we can do some math to get in the right neighborhood for LED supplementation.

At a rough guess, I'd assume you'll need a lot more than 8 - 12 LEDs total, if you're "fighting" against three 250w MH lamps, especially if the MHs are a low color temp. Rough guess, you'll probably want twice that count.

I've got radium 20kK bulbs, so I'm mostly planning on using the supplementation for morning/evening illumination. Not really for color. I don't suspect I'll be fighting for color, but in the past I've always run my "day" bulbs for only a few hours... say 5-7 at most. I'd like to have the LEDs to illuminate the tank for viewing during the day when the MH are not on, but not really act as a supplementing for color. I don't know if ~12 LEDs would illuminate the entire tank, so that's part of what I'm asking.

If I had done the T5 bulbs, I would have probably used all ATI aquablue bulbs, as I most preferred those in the past. Another way of looking at it is that I would like the LEDs to be in the 14kK to 20kK range.

Thanks for chiming in, look forward to your response.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Ah ok, well that changes the game a bit!

I'd still suggest a higher count. If it's too bright, run a lower current. You've got a BIG tank, and even without optics, a small number of LEDs is going to struggle to get even coverage. Then again, depending on your approach to life, uneven coverage might be desirable. In my 360g, the "morning/evening" supplementation is going to be specifically placed and angled to create dramatic, uneven lighting in the tank with lots of contrast and shadow.

Royal Blue LEDs alone create a pretty actinic "glow" - not much real viewing light. Unless you like that look, you might want to mix in a small number of plan blues (which have a very "sky blue" look - almost like a 20kk MH lamp.) I'm not totally familiar with the ATI aquablue, but I just found a spectral plot online, and it has a huge hump right around 450 nm (which is pretty much right where royal blue LEDs are). The difference, though, is that a monochromatic LED is VERY monochromatic. By contrast, the ATI lamp has spikes up around 550 and 625, too. So maybe even mix in a small number of cool white LEDs, too, which have a lot of light in that region, too.

The problem with mixing different colors of LEDs in a build this "sparse" is that it's hard to get even coverage with all the colors. Again, that suggests that the best approach is to go with a high LED count and low(er) drive current.

14kk - 20kk range might be accomplished by 25% cool white, 25% blue, and 50% royal blue. To get more even coverage with low counts, you might be best off ditching the plain blues and going around 30 - 40% cool white and the rest royal blue. That'll give an overall spectrum similar to the ATI lamp you referenced. If you aimed for 36 LEDs, you could do 12 cool whites and 24 royal blues. I really think it will be hard to get really good, even coverage with a smaller number of LEDs, especially if they'll be the only thing lighting up the tank.

If you drove them at around 600mA, that would be ~60 - 70w of power consumption.

For drivers, you have two choices - Meanwell's various 48v drivers, which can run 12 LEDs each, or buckpucks, which require an external DC power supply and can run 6 LEDs each. It's highly a matter of personal choice, the end result will be the same. Since this is somewhat of a nonstandard build and you're not REALLY sure exactly what you want, I'd definitely get dimmable drivers, so you can adjust intensity without having to rebuild or buy different components.

FWIW, I set up a similar "supplemental" rig on a local 90g tank, with 16 LEDs running around 350mA. I had 4 royal blues, 6 cool whites, and 6 blues. It was more or less a 10k color. It was run just like you're describing - it was the only light on in the morning/evening while the main system lights were off. it worked great - provided enough light for viewing. It was probably enough light to sustain the low-light corals in that tank.

Edit - just re-read what I wrote and realized it's quite the ramble, and it reads like I changed my mind a few times halfway though. Hope it makes sense.

 

[crvz]

Makes great sense. My first thought in doing this was to keep it cheaper than a new 4 bulbs T5 setup, which we're pretty close to right now. With even 36 LEDs, do you still think mounting to the frame in lieu of a dedicated heat sink would suffice?

also, may be a stupid question, but I've been plowing through the various DIY threads in that forum. You recommend running around 600mA, though most of the drivers are 500mA, or 700mA. To get 600mA, that means getting a 700mA driver and dimming it, correct? Or am I missing something?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Mounting to the frame will probably still be fine - what are the dimensions of the stock the frame is made from? If it's beefy enough to rigidly support your light rig, it's probably enough. Worst case, put a fan up there. Once air starts moving, things change for the better VERY quickly.

You're right about drive current. With off the shelf stuff, you'd probably want dimmable 700's and you might find you end up running them partially dimmed. I'm stuck in the mindset of building my own drivers which means I can pick whatever drive current I want.

With cost, consider that the LED rig I'm suggesting will be a fraction of the longterm cost, since there will be no lamp replacement and it'll use less power.