Suffolk Mini-Reef

[suffolk.reef]

Fellow Reef Geeks. Well here goes yet another BC29 build thread. Due to personal circumstances I am having to down grade drastically from my 150DD Cube to something smaller. I have always liked the BC's being all in one and having a built in hood so I have decided to go back to my original tank from several years ago but with multiple upgrades / improvements. So here goes. I am currently building the tank now as I type so there will be multiple updates as I go along.

Tank- Basic BC29 that I pick up used from a LFS

I have always liked the rock wall look and wanted to add some valuable realistate to the tank.

I cut a piece of egg crate to the size of the back wall then zip tied some dry rubble rock to it then filled it in with waterfall foam sealant then covered the foam with wth 15min 2 part epoxy from hobby town and coverd in sand. Let dry and now I have a rock wall.

 

[suffolk.reef]

Here is a picture of the supplies that I used. I picked up the foam at Home Depot for about 12 bucks a can. I only had to use one can and still had left overs. The biggest lesson learned was that only apply about 30% foam between the rocks. IT EXPANDS. LOL:headwallblue:

 

[suffolk.reef]

I realized this evening that I was blocking most of my water overflow so I cut out with the dremil the part that was blocking the overflow.

 

[kwong1998]

Great Job, any update?

 

[NativeTrout]

Sweet wall. Is it also blocking the inflow at the bottom of the first chamber?

 

[suffolk.reef]

No updates to realy post as of now. I am in the process of gutting the stock lighting and adding in 28 leds from rapidled.com I am going to run the whites in a single series strand and the run the Royal Blues/UV/Red on a parallel string using Meanwell drivers.

Nativetrout- yes the bottom inflow is blocked and going to push more water in through the top overflow.

I am going to go with a closed loop system as well. I am going to add a maxi900 in the second overflow chamber to pull and put water back into the main display.

In the third chamber I am going to drill the tank and run a sump/fuge under the custom stand I am going to build as well.

 

[suffolk.reef]

Update

Update

Thought I would do an update. Been working a lot here lately both on the tank and on the ship. I havew finished up the Rapid Led lights, got sand in the tank and have water cycling through it. I have used water from 150 when I did my water change today and some fresh salt water to start the cycle. hoping that there will not be to much a cycle.

Here is the final drawing of the LED set up. I am running two Meanwell ELN 60-48D's. One is running a parallel string mixture of (16) royal blues and (4)UV's the other driver is running a series mixture of (5) XML cool whites and (4) neutral whites. On the bues I also added a 5 Watt / 1 Ohm resistor and 1 Amp fuse to the positive end of each string of leds. I have wired everything into a main junction box that houses the 10 Ohm Pots for dimming purposes. Also running in the box is junction and xfrm for the mood leds. I am running two royal blues for them as well. I also modified the heat sink to add 4 more leds to the tank. you will see in the pictures attached. All in all I am running 29 Leds over the tank. Well 31 if you want to include the Mood Leds.

 

[suffolk.reef]

Here are some more pics of the LED build.

 

[suffolk.reef]

 

[suffolk.reef]

Double Post Sorry

 

[saltycoastie]

I like the bc too, but expensive! Well thats what i tell my wife, the 10 is about as much after sump and stuff