AdamS - 75g build and DIY LED Build

[AdamS]

I have been around here a while, but have never posted anything about my setup, I guess it is only fair.

Background
My wife and I have had a few freshwater tanks over the years, but always wanted saltwater.  I'm not really sure why we decided to pull the trigger, but last February we did. We ordered the following from IA:

75G drilled tank with corner overflow,
Marine Sources RDP-900 Protein Skimmer (I am pretty sure it's this model),
Return pump (Mag Drive 500 or 700, not sure which)
23G long glass sump
Koralia 1400GPH Powerhead

Everything is still working great.

We originally put 2 x 2 lamp (4 lamps total) T5HO fixtures above the tank, these were just vapourtite (ip66) fixtures that would typically be installed in a garage or similar, but they were brand new and free!

Since then we have added:
Tunze wavebox from Spyd
Komoer doser from Blob
LED lights from Rapid LED

Aquarium Stand

Because the aquarium is setup in the living room, we wanted it to look very presentable. We decided to build our own stand to save a few bucks. We didn't take enough pictures of the stand in the building phase to make this a 'build' thread, but here is what we got

The stand is build with 2x4's and has a 3/4" maple veneer plywood skin. The 3/4" ply is way overkill but it was given to us for free.

This is the stand with 1 coat of stain




This is the stand in the living room before water


This is the rock work.
We used dry rock that we obtained from a friend of a friend for next to nothing. We used Hydraulic cement to put it together. Hydraulic cement works like play dough, except it dries out in about 2 mins if you don't keep it wet.


And this is everything together, with the lights


Everything to this point was completed by about mid April 2012.

 

[TORX]

Awesome

 

[Poseidon]

Looks sweet!
Nice wrk on the stand !

 

[xxmurrxx]

Looks great

 

[AdamS]

Thanks guys.

 

[phi delt reefer]

Looks good man. I like the ledge around the base of the tank. Wish I had done something similar.

 

[AdamS]

Thanks, I had seen a stand on the net and kinda copied it. All the trim work is installed to cover up the fact that everything was cut with a circular saw, even the doors.

 

[Reef Hero]

I really liked your rock sculpture Adam!! It's the foundation for your corals and fish and I can see you know what you are doing and are off to a great start!!!! I can't wait to see the LEDs in action.


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[Darryl_V]

wow...impressive wood working.  I dont have a table saw either...

The one thing I personally would change is the amount of rock.....its seems like too much, at least for my tastes.  I think a common thing to do when you get a new tank is to fill it up with rock till it looks good with the rock but really the rock is just there to hold the corals that should build the reef in time.

Just for instance one of your rocks almost reaches the top....it looks good when its just rocks but when we are talking corals a rock to the near waters surface means you really can never mount a coral there.

Im talking in terms of stony reef building corals.  Too much rock can also be a hindrance on flow as well though ....to keep in mind.

 

[AdamS]

Reef Hero,

The LEDs are up and working.  I even have the arduino set up to control the light levels based on a schedule. So far I have 3 settings, grow, glow and off (thanks to Rick for the terminology). I will post more on this shortly. Give me a call if you want to stop by sometime.

Darryl,

Thanks, my woodworking skills are better than my reefkeeping skills. I appreciate your advice on the rock work, when we set the aquarium up, the plan was to get a coral or two, one day... well that didn't last long.  At this point, monkeying with the rockwork would be a big PITA as it is all cemented together. So we will live with it the way it is until the next major upgrade.

 

[Reef Hero]

I have a lot of LR in my display as well......I noticed the one piece that is very close to the top when I was there Adam. I wouldn't worry that much about it.....only thing I have found is that flow may become an issue.....for this reason I use a couple low flow tunze and a couple high flows as well......oh and a wavebox too. If you don't want to remove that one piece higher up then maybe try a high light monti on there......some montis love light and will encrust around it nice. Even some zoas/Pallys will do nice in higher light.....


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[ricklalonde]

Wow great job Adam! Really nice stand.

 

[jroovers]

Very nice!  Do you have an updated FTS?

 

[sunnykita]

very nice tank, A fabulous job on the stand !

wow...impressive wood working.  I dont have a table saw either...

The one thing I personally would change is the amount of rock.....its seems like too much, at least for my tastes.  I think a common thing to do when you get a new tank is to fill it up with rock till it looks good with the rock but really the rock is just there to hold the corals that should build the reef in time.

Just for instance one of your rocks almost reaches the top....it looks good when its just rocks but when we are talking corals a rock to the near waters surface means you really can never mount a coral there.

Im talking in terms of stony reef building corals.  Too much rock can also be a hindrance on flow as well though ....to keep in mind.

 

[AdamS]

So it's been a while, lots to update, this is gonna be a LONG post…

First, I replaced my T8 lighting with LED lighting

Back in January in the RapidLED group buy I purchased a fully dimmable LED setup, it consists of the following
2 @ 6" x 20" black anodized aluminum heat sinks (drilled and tapped)
Each heat sink was populated as follows
9 @ Cree XT-E Royal Blue LEDS (solderless with 80degree lens)
3 @ Cree XP-E Blue LEDs (solderless with 80degree lens)
12 @ SemiLED 420nm Violet/UV LEDs (solderless with 80degree lens)
4 @ Cree XP-G Warm White LEDs (not solderless with 80degree lens)

I have 5 Meanwell 0-10V dimmable drivers, controlled by an Arduino Mega1280. Dimming is via PWM through a voltage doubling opamp, then a low pass filler. A DS1302 keeps time and turns the lights on and off according to a schedule, as well as dimming them in the evening. The 5 drivers are arranged as follows 2 Royal Blue Channels, 2 UV channels and 1 Warm White Channel (the warm white is split over the 2 heat sinks.

So here is everything from RapidLED as I received it. I believe this was the entire order including everyones stuff, so really mine is just part of it

It took me 2-3 days to get everything up an running, and I am not good at documenting so pictures are limited…

The heat sink as it gets populated…

A few comments
1. The solderless connectors are not for me. The cables are never the correct length and the wiring looks kinda crappy, I would prefer to solder.
2. The lenses are a real pain in the ass to install, I never did come up with a real good solution for this, but I had to do roughly half of them twice.

Here is a picture of all the drivers, controllers etc., mounted to the temporary board so I could get the lights up and configured.

This is the lights temporarily hanging from the a 2x4 stand that I put together to get by until I could build a canopy

Everything in this setup was working perfect, the lights came on in the morning, dimmed down low at dinner, and went off at midnight. So on to the next step.


Second, I built a canopy for the top of my tank

I wanted a canopy over my tank to hide all the lights wires etc. I have had one planned in concept for a long time, but had never got around to building it. My concept was to match the stand and make it easy to open and feed the fish, vacuum sand, etc. So basically it is a skirt on the top of the tank, that folds in half, here is what I ended up with

The basic frame went together in a few hours, but the trim work took 5 or 6 evenings to complete (I work slow…especially when my 3 year old is 'helping')

Third, my wife gave birth to our third

Finally, I installed the LED lighting in the Canopy

I feel it pertinent to repeat, up until now everything worked absolutely perfect, all I had to do was move the electronics from the temp setup, to the canopy, 3-4 hours TOPS… unless everything goes wrong, then it takes 2 full days and 3 full evenings… Long Story, but I finally got it all working.

Since installing the LEDS about a month and a half ago, I notice some corals, starting to fluoresce where they were once brown, where a few others are bleaching…I blame all of this on my inexperience. But now that I have decent lighting, I plan to work on my water quality, etc.

Also I have been taking some pictures of the corals/frags to document changes. I will post something when I have some sort of results.

Thanks for looking.

 

[vdubz]

what was the rough cost of your DIY LED setup?  canopy not included

 

[AdamS]

I think $600 + arduino and op amps, capacitors, etc ($100).

Yeah, i prolly have roughly $700 into it.

 

[Reef Hero]

Looking very good Adam!!!!
I am looking forward to seeing your tank progress.



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