Ludnix's tropical 120!

ludnix said:
Thanks footbagger311!

I've a new little project for the aquarium. I'm working on building my own controller for the tank using the arduino board. I only have a small amount of experience with electronics and none with controllers so it's a definitely a new experience. So far I have been able to control a power outlet using a solid state relay. Unfortunately I haven't hooked a clock or temperature probe up to the arduino yet, so I can't do anything useful with my controlled outlet.


My project goals:

  • LCD display for controller as well as keypad for input.
  • Control at least 8 outlets
  • monitor temperature
  • Use reed relay to turn on work light in stand when door is open
  • Use clock to time outlets

The cost is going to be a little over the price of a reef keeper lite, but I'm mostly interested in the learning experience. Also RK power outlets are like $80 for every 4 additional outlets, so it would probably quickly out-cost my project if I choose to expand the number of outlets.
Click to expand...

welp just went through all your pages. love the set up. graduating college here soon and a 120g is what im moving my three tanks into. well tech 2 tanks.

the site champion lighting supply, you said 20$ you got a surprise box? i checked the site and didn't see it? where was it when you did it? if you could PM me it that would be awesome.
 
They only sell it on occasion, you'll see a huge thread in reef discussion when they do have it for sale though. I imagine they do it when they are overstocked with old stuff.
 
I got a video of my clownfish spawning that I thought I'd share:

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I'm not sure why it looks like I'm having a sand storm in the video, it looked much clearer in reality.
 
Last week we had an unfortunate tank accident. I left the return pump unplugged from a night feeding of the corals. I had the pump plugged back in when I woke up in the morning, but we lost the flamehawk, royal gramma and coral beauty. The rest of the fish seemed a little disorientated, but seemed to fully recover after an hour or two of having the flow back on. Other than losing those fish the tank mostly seems unaffected. The clownfish are still spawning on que the corals look good. The clownfish fry are all fine as well.
 
Everything is doing well, I didn't realize I left the thread off with an accident. All the fish recovered but unfortunately I lost the yellow tang a month later. He managed to get stuck in my overflow and died which I was very sad about. I don't have any intention to replace him though, I think I'll leave the yellow tangs to the ocean for now. I did get some overflow covers off ebay though to hopefully prevent any other fish from jumping down them.

I'll try to get a FTS later today when the lights are on, I've been just letting the tank do it's thing for the most part. I saw a return of an SPS issue that affects my monitporas but it seems to go away on it's own and not cause any permanent damage so I'm not very concerned about it.

I was lucky enough to get a job at the LFS which has been a lot of fun. I have a lot of great co-workers and it's a nice local business with good ethics. Through work I was able to get two of ORA's new captive bred mandarins. They are very small but seem to be doing well in my tank. I haven't seen them eating my frozen food but it might take some time for them to adjust.

Here's a photo of the new mandarins while I was acclimating them:


My clownfish jouveniles are still doing good, they really take a long time to get their stripes, but being true perculas that is expected.
 
Here's the full tank shot:



I'll have to get some closeups soon when the corals are looking better. I did a test today and some my parameters were lower than they should be, I'll have to see if that was the issue bothering the montiporas.
 
Great news about that job - should be a lot of fun! Your tank looks great, as usual. Sorry to hear about the tang, though.

The mandarins should be fun! I'm assuming that as they are captive-raised, they should eat the food you offer?
 
The mandarins are ORA's new captive raised mandarins which are supposed to be trained on prepared foods before they leave ORA. I'm not sure what ORA was feeding them though so it may take a while to get them to switch over to frozen brine.

Here's a close up of what I think is the new male mandarin. You can determine their sex by the length of their dorsal fin, but with mandarins this young even the male has a pretty short dorsal fin.
 
Please keep us updated on their progress. I'm sure others will be curious too to see how long it takes them to accept food.

Maybe you can find out somehow what ORA fed them?
 
A co-worker tells me that ORA trains the mandarins on pellets so I'll have to try some more of that. Ocean Nutrition's pellets seem to be the right size since they are tiny, I imagine that's what ORA must be feeding them.

We got a new LPS in at work I'm thinking about taking home, does anyone have an ID?
 
They ate some fish roe at the LFS but we don't sell any as a product that I can take home, so I'm ordering some prawn roe from dr. foster and smith. Otherwise they still haven't gone for any of the stuff I have on hand.
 
ludnix said:
Here's the full tank shot:



I'll have to get some closeups soon when the corals are looking better. I did a test today and some my parameters were lower than they should be, I'll have to see if that was the issue bothering the montiporas.
Click to expand...



Not seeing that FTS. What gives?
 
I had ordered a 24 led kit from Rapidled.com, I ended up only using 12 of the leds for my frag tank though. The kit was easy to assemble and the pre-drilled heat sink made attaching the LEDs a breeze. I just wired them in series with a constant current driver and plugged it into the old MH light timer.

It's currently attached my wood MH light stand using zip-ties until I come up with a more attractive and permanent solution. It's high enough off the water that I am not concerned about salt spray, though I might end up making an acrylic cover some time.





This LED fixture is replacing my 150w fishneedit MH fixture. I haven't done the math but the LEDs should only be using around 36w of electricity. I'll have to plug in a kill-a-watt and make sure that's true though. After giving these a trial on the frag tank I may end up replacing my main tank lighting with LED to help out on the electrical bill, I've been emailing back and forth with Mike at RapidLED to learn what will be the best setup for my tank. Currently I'm leaning towards doing 2x dimmable 36x LED light kits that can be controlled via my DIY controller. I'll have to see how far along my controller is though before proceeding with that.

Here's a FTS of the frag tank, the LED light seems a little more purple than I'd like but i'll have to explore what other LED options there are for the main tank. I like the coloration of my current MH, so I'd like to replicate that with LEDs. Atleast with the dimmable LEDs I will be able to adjust the blue/white ratio to get it exactly where I want.
 
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