Mountains of sawdust (360g plywood, LED, Arduino build)

Crap. I had another big long reply typed out but then I accidentally closed my browser window. :mad: Here goes again. . .

The tank is more full today and I've finished up a few more projects (temporary lighting and some of the doors) so here are some more photos. First, the tank itself. But first, an explanation of the doors since I don't think I've described them in detail yet.

I wanted something clean and simple to go with the clean and simple lines of the tank itself (no molding!). I really like the gentle light diffusion of deeply frosted glass or acrylic, but that would look a little TOO modern - plus, it would be expensive to do correctly. I was sitting in my living room pondering the doors a few months ago while I stared at a painting we have on the wall. It's a large oil painting, bare - unframed. Just the canvas hanging on the wall. Then it struck me - I could use the same approach for the doors.

So I got some heavy duty weatherproof duck cloth and some 3/4" x 1.5" lumber and built frames, then stretched the cloth on the frames. It worked perfectly! I get light transmission through the fabric, a clean simple look, and it's not TOO modern for the rest of the house. The color of the fabric is pretty much the exact same color we're painting the tank/hall/living room/dining room, just a shade lighter - so it'll coordinate well. I'm very happy with how it turned out. the pictures don't really show it well though, of course, but here you go:

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Also some more photos of the rock, now that they're more or less under water. The glass is very dirty though. Here is the main "reef" from straight on in the main viewing panel. It's a longish island, oriented front to back. Most of the "interesting" features are on the sides (on purpose) so from dead on it's a touch boring:

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There is a very large cave in the right face which you can kind of see in this photo, taken from the kitchen (right side of the main viewing panel):

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There are some smaller caves and features on the left side which you can see in this photo, taken from the left side of the main panel (these features are more visible through the smaller viewing panels, but hard to photograph since the water level isn't high enough yet):

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And finally, the smaller "spire" on the right end of the tank. This has two smallish "bridges" forming a cave, then the spire itself:

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All in all, I'm pretty happy with the rock. I took a very laissez-faire approach to the rockwork. I had a general structure in mind but did NOT try to place every single rock perfectly - instead, I just stacked them as fast as I could and tried to let most of the interesting (and ugly) features happen by chance.

Also very happy with the white background so far. Granted I have no livestock, but it "disappears" just like a black background, without being so dark and gloomy or cave-like. Instead, the whole tank just has a neutral brightness, which is what I wanted.
 
How are the doors held in place? I am doing a similar thing with panels. I am leaning towards magnets, but wondered if you have/had a better plan.
 
How are the doors held in place? I am doing a similar thing with panels. I am leaning towards magnets, but wondered if you have/had a better plan.
Im interested in this as well, as well as seeing how you will mount the LEDs over your rockwork.
 
Right now the doors are just tacked on with trim nails to keep the lights from blinding my kids. :D

Long term, I found some "easy on" hidden hinges that I will use. They're similar to a European-style cabinet hinge but do not require routing a pocket in the door (and they're cheaper). I bought some locally a few years ago for another project and liked them - this time I've mailordered them from wood worker's hardware. It's the top item on this page:

http://wwhardware.com/catalog.cfm?G...Hinges, Speciality&SubCatID=Easy Mount Hinges

One advantage of this approach is that the doors are extremely light. One disadvantage is that it's a little challenging to get the door totally flat - it wants to warp a bit when you staple the cloth on. To solve this, I plan on using small magnets in each corner on the non-hinged side to hold it flat against the face of the structure when it's shut, if the "auto close" feature on the hinges isn't strong enough to press the doors flat on it's own.
 
as well as seeing how you will mount the LEDs over your rockwork.

I'm using small heatsinks with a few LEDs on each. The LED heatsinks will be organized into small "banks" via screwing the heatsinks to aluminum channel. There are several 2x4's across the top of the canopy, I'll hang the banks of LEDs from those - either with short chains to allow adjustability, or just bolt them to an "arm" made from more channel stock.
 
How is the cloth going to hold up over time with the water? Would it get mildew from the damp air? I love the rock work, wish mine came out as nice.
 
I always kick my doors when they are open and scare the fish. Maybe that is why the clown always tries to bite me. That is why I am going to try removable panels. I guess you won't be kicking ghem , but watch your head when you walk by.

Did you make your rocks or buy. Another of my in the works is rocks.
 
Are you going to go with active cooling?

Yes, definitely. There will be some general airflow through the hood area - in at the "back" end and out at the "front" end. Electronics will be located in a shelf at the back end right next to the inlet, so they will always see fresh air. This general movement should keep the air in the hood from getting too hot or stale. Each LED bank will also have a (small, quiet) fan on or very near it to keep air moving over the heatsinks and LEDs themselves.

How is the cloth going to hold up over time with the water? Would it get mildew from the damp air?

We'll find out. :lol: It IS heavy duty outdoor duck cloth so it should be OK, considering there will be air moving through the hood. If it starts to show signs of damage from the humidity, I'll clean the doors up and spray them with some sort of fabric guard product (i.e. Scotchguard). If all else fails, I can always put a sheet of plastic on the back of each door so that the effect remains the same but there is zero contact with the door and the air in the hood area.

Did you make your rocks or buy. Another of my in the works is rocks.

Made. I meant to take lots of photos of the process but it happened in my deep dank dark dungeon of a basement which isn't very photogenic. I've made 90% of the rock I've used in the last three aquariums and I've been pretty happy. I basically follow the standard formulas, but honestly I don't do any math. I just mix things until it looks right. I usually use coarse sand and crushed coral, plus cement and water of course.

I did not weigh it but it's vastly less rock than most people would probably put in a tank, if you go by "pounds per gallon" rules.
 
Since you made all of your rocks, are you planning on putting a bit of LR in there to seed the rock you made?
 
Yep. Trying to find a local reefer to pawn some rubble from. :) I don't want to buy at an LFS and risk pests.

I've been surprised in the past how quickly the fake stuff colors up. I've had tanks with 70 lbs of fake rock and 3 lbs of "real" rock - after 6 or 7 months, you couldn't tell the difference. Good Ca and alkalinity, good flow, good lighting, and enough food seems to help.
 
Sorry I am not closer. I made mine with crushed oyster shell (2) , perlite (2), white portland cement (1), and water (1). If you make more you might consider this. With the height of your tank a lighter rock might be easier to handle.

They turn out a little coarser than yours look, if I can tell from the pictures anyway.
 
A big motivator for me is the ability to put child safety latches on the aquarium. That's a challenge if it's just a panel held on by magnets, but really easy for plain old hinged doors.

Have you seen the magnetic child safety locks? I've had them on the inside of cabinet doors before. They're essentially locks that attach on the inside of the cabinet, which will release their hold when you hold a magnet up to the outside of the door where they're located. I'm confident you could make those work easily if you did want to go the direction of removable panels.
 
Long term, I found some "easy on" hidden hinges that I will use. They're similar to a European-style cabinet hinge but do not require routing a pocket in the door (and they're cheaper). I bought some locally a few years ago for another project and liked them - this time I've mailordered them from wood worker's hardware.

I just found those exact same hinges for my cabinet doors. I was not looking forward to messing with barrel hinges and trying to get them exactly right. How do you like them so far?

Love the new system.
 
Crap. I had another big long reply typed out but then I accidentally closed my browser window. :mad: Here goes again. . .
For those of you that use Firefox or Chrome/Chromium web browsers, there is an extension called "Lazarus" that basically saves drafts of input boxes so if you goof up and close the tab/window, or navigate away, you can go back and pull up the draft again. (You can also specify some sites as exempt for security purposes, if you wish.)

Anyway, looking forward to this thing coming to life. Back to lurking. :)
 
widmer, I have seen those child locks. However, the day I misplace the opening magent will be the day that the pump hose breaks. So I think quick entry is also important. I found some 1 mm neodymium magnet. I plan on using 4 per door.
 
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