Tnt's 154 G SPS reef build

[Scej12]

Ouch!! That kind of disappointment especially stinks considering how much thought and patience you've been sooo diligent with in approaching your build. I really hope your vendor does the right thing. Your drawings clearly say 12mm.

As for the spacers, I'm not sure at which size/thickness of aquarium that they become necessarily structural more than aesthetic; but I'm sure that info can be found quite easily on the internet.

I really hope you get a favourable resolution to this bump in the road...

Regards,

Sheldon

 

[JasonBJones]

That is frustrating. I have been following this thread since the beginning, excellent. I hope your tank builder does the right thing and corrects the errors.

Keep us updated

 

[tntneon]

thx for the support guys ,

-The vendor assured me that he had used opti white glass.
He told me that even opti white also has a faint greenisch look , less than normal glass ?
It does seem that the glass is not so green than the glass (normal) that i used for my sump, but for the rest i don't know if the vendor is lying now or telling the thruth ?
As for the difference in thickness he is willing to pay me back the difference in price.
He has giving me an 5 year warranty on the seems .
I think i 'm gonna hold on to the tank , can't wait another 3 month either :bounce3:

-yesterday after i had the call with the vendor , i deciced to put the tank on top of the stand .
One thing i already had to do in front , due to the thichness of the stone tablet i had to mount the overflow drainpipes before the tank was on the stand.
Else i couldn't turn on the "union record" off the bulkheads from overflow to sump .
The holes thru the tablet where only a little bit larger then the "records".

here a first shot of the tank resting on the stand....

greetingzz tntneon

 

[sahin]

This is coming along so well. I really like the dimensions/proportions of your tank.

As for optiwhite, I have Optiwhite on my front and two side, the rear panel is regular glass. I just had a look at the glass and if you look at the edges, the optiwhite is still greenish, but it is a greenish gray sort of colour whilst the regular glass is a veyr dark green that you normally see.

You can easily find out if your vendor supplied you with Optiwhite or not; simply arrive at the vendors shop and request a sample of regular and optiwhite glass. Even if you cant take samples away you will be able to remember what the two glass looks like when looking through the edges.

Keep the updates coming.

 

[tntneon]

hi sahin ,

-The tank builder is like 200 miles from here so i didn't met him personaly , but it's a company that's already 25 years active.
maybe i'm gonna visit a glascutting factory (nearby) to see the difference myself , as a reference.

Will keep updating , sometimes a little bit slower then i would like to , but we have a 8 month old baby that also needs my atention :love2: and have to work alot ...

greetingzz tntneon

 

[tntneon]

hi reefers ,

-Last week i had to work alot , so when ever i had like 10 minutes spare time
i spend on removing hard silicone residu on the glass , with an algea scraper...
It was a hard and tedious job !

-This weekend i finished the return and drain pipes from and to sump.
I was hard to figure out the return , because it has to be disconnected after the prefabrication stage of the build and then build back up inside of the house , with the tank as close as can be against the wall.
I ended up using two pieces of silicone hose to connect the sump pipes with the tank piupes.
If i had to go forward with PVC here the i had to use union record couplings wich are to big to use in the small space behind the tank.

here a picture of the drains and returns connected to sump :

and here a close up of the return in tank:

note that the elbows are not gleued , then i can them adjust them for flow on demand , hopefully they hold , and not got shooten away by the return pump , but my hopes are positif as they clamp resonably w/o gleu .

greetingzz tntneon

 

[tntneon]

Hi reefers ,
I finaly have the time to up date this thread ....:facepalm:
After a late but hard winterperiod it been busy time for me with the baby and family.
When i had some spare time i did some work on the canopy and lightrack.
The plan is to have a 48 X 3W (50 : 50 xp-g cool hite and xp-e roy bl.) eshine led unit with sunrise controller + the led fixture currently hanging over my nano (60w eshine) , hanging in the middle of the lightrack and in the front and the back of the lightrack a 2 X 39 W T5 fixture .
Why T5 , because i had it laying around and it would make it able to mix the leds with an fiji purple and a giesmann ultra chrome (true actinic).
I had the 4 X 24 W fixture that i converted into an 2 units of 2 X 39 W each.

this is the plan .....

-Here you see the inner canopy with the construced aluminium lightrack , note that the inner woodpanels are gonna be painted and that on the out side there comes a grey oak finish pannel the top will be open to have suffiecient cooling for the led - and T5 units.

Here i'm constructing bigger T5 units with the existing pieces i had from a 4 X 24 W unit , drivers (electronic) of that unit can drive 39 w to that was a nice surprise ..

2-component epoxy gleued the square holes of the previous unit onto the bigger aluminium and cooling finned beam i found on my work in the metal trashbin

Here one t5 unit ready and tested ...

The 48 X 3 W led unit is on its way , i think it will be here on wednesday , can't wait to fix the units onto the lightrack and test it with all units on :bounce3: , excepted the unit over my nano that will be mounted when i transfer my corals.

greetingzz tntneon

 

[sahin]

Tntneon; look forward to the complete light build. I'm glad you are going with a T5/LED hybrid. I have a T5/LED unit myself, and I love it!

 

[nanoreef13]

Is the tank going to be outside?

 

[mrFly]

Nice build thread I will be watching this one!!!

 

[tntneon]

Tntneon; look forward to the complete light build. I'm glad you are going with a T5/LED hybrid. I have a T5/LED unit myself, and I love it!

THx sahin ,

-I'm very curiuos what your hybrid t5 / led set-up is , do you have the leds or t5 in the middle ?

Is the tank going to be outside?

hihi , no i'm only fabricating it outside where i have more space (and to keep the wife happy ) , once finished I'm gonna (with some help from friends & family) move the stand with sump / stonetablet /tank / canopy inside (in that order)

Nice build thread I will be watching this one!!!

Thx mrFly ,
-I'm a slow poster but i will try to do my best to keeps things updated !

greetingzz tntneon

 

[tntneon]

-Here you see a picture of the 60w LED fixture when i just bought last year for my nano that i'm gonna mount on the left side of the lightrack.
The left side gonna be more open and it's gonna be for sps/lps with an lower need of light , the right side gonna be acro -land

The colors of the tank here are way of due to the fact that my camera was on automatic .
Look at the royal bleu's and you see that they give an violet color , in reality it's real royal bleu (ink bleu) colored .
You can also see the 4X24 w fixture i'm currently rebuilding .

greetingzz tntneon

 

[tntneon]

And this is the fixture that is comming in next week ...:bounce1:

 

[sahin]

THx sahin, -I'm very curiuos what your hybrid t5 / led set-up is , do you have the leds or t5 in the middle ?

Here is a shot of the configuration. I modified my ATI Sunpower to have one line of Cree LED's:

This is how it appears over the water:

Here is a shot of the tank with PAR values:

I have seen the AquaIllumination in person at the LFS and I didnt like the illuminated tank or the look of the corals. I would not go 100% LED. Maybe I will like the Radion, but I havent seen that yet.

I like my custom modified ATI Sunpower.

 

[tntneon]

whow :eek1: that looks very good , nice tank !!
And thx for willing to share those great PAR numbers with us !
Which t5 bulbs and leds did you use ?
Now i'm completly eager to get the led fixture and finish everything

greetingzz tntneon

 

[sahin]

whow :eek1: that looks very good , nice tank !!
And thx for willing to share those great PAR numbers with us !
Which t5 bulbs and leds did you use ?
Now i'm completly eager to get the led fixture and finish everything

greetingzz tntneon

Thanks.

I am currently using:
Front:
ATI BluePlus
ATI AquaBlueSpecial
Cree LEDS: 20x Royal Blue + 4x blue
ATI PurplePlus
ATI BluePlus
ATI BluePlus

The ATI Purpleplus is a very strong coloured tube. If I didnt have the Cree LED's I wouldnt use that tube. On an ordinary ATI unit I wouldnt use the Purpleplus unless I had an eight tube unit. So, together with the ATI Purpleplus and the ATI AquablueSpecial, and the rest of the bits, the appearance is a 20K look. The closest look if you want an idea is the Phoenix 14K metal halide bulb. This is a very blue bulb and my tank appears almost identicle to that, but perhaps with a stronger highlighting of the pinks and reds due to the ATI PurplePlus tube that I am able to use here.

So overall I am very happy.

I highly reccomend having your LED's sandwiched by at least 2 T5 tubes on each side. So run something like this:

T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5-Blue PLus
T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5-Actinic
LED-LED-LED-LED-LED-LED-Royal Blue + White LEDs
T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5-Blue PLus
T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5 T5-Actinic

Let us know how your light build goes.

 

[tntneon]

-Thx to share with us your lighting combo , very usefull for a future hybrid owner !
I was planing to have from front to back :

t5--------------------------- bleu plus
t5---------------------------15°k bulb
xxxxxxxx leds xp-e /xp-g xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
t5---------------------------fiji purple
t5-----------------giesmann ultra chrome (actinic)

-So the set up looks beside one actinic pretty much the same as yours
The hybrid set up makes it due to the t5's more adjustable (colorwise), because you have so many colors to choose from.
And they are much easyer to swap then the leds.

-But one thing still questions me , will i still have shimmer on the bottom of my tank with an hybrid set up ?

-This week it will be an busy week again , so probably when i receive the other led pannel :celeb1: ,i start working on the lightrack again.
I first wanna know all the dimensions (for sure , measuring it myself) of that pannel to continu making holding - and cable supports for the lightrack.

will be continued ........

greetingzz tntneon

 

[sahin]

You will get some shimmer, but nothing like MH or when using the LED's by themselves. The T5's are a multidirectional light source hence no shadows etc and they will lessen the shimmer effect.

 

[tntneon]

-If i get a little bit of shimmer it's already good .
Sometimes (when i'm tired from hard working ) i do find the shimmering of the led-only setup over my nano a little bit too fast and too bright , those LED's are hanging only 8 " above water level with 90 ° optics on them.
And i will have more watts of LED then T5 , so i think there will be enough shimmering going on .

It seems that i will have to wait a bit longer for my ordered 48X 3W fixture as DHL came at my door this afternoon , only with the programmable driver (sunrise controller) :uzi:.
Called customer service and the earliest it can be delivered for me and DHL will be next monday :angryfire:
So i've got to wait some more..............

greetingzz tntneon

 

[tntneon]

Hi reefers ,

This week i fitted the two self made 2 X 39w t5 fixtures onto the lightrack.
It seems that i have to adjust the brackets a bit of the back fixture , because it is pointing a bit more to the back.

This is how it looks when open , monday i'll begin to fit the LED fixtures in between the t5 ones.

Can't wait till monday !!!!!

greetingzz tntneon