adam87
New member
Seven Seas?I couldn't even wait a week to add new pieces... Oh well. Indo gold torch and Aussie acro are in the tank.
Funlad3's 24G JBJ Nano
- Thread starter Funlad3
- Start date
Funlad3
Well-known member
You know it!
adam87
New member
Funlad3
Well-known member
My project this week has been to finally get my lights working. I still have to mount the hardware, but here's where I'm at:
Here are the circuit boards with the drivers and light switches; with the switches, I can isolate the channels without messing with my color ratios that I set with the manual dimmers.
The LEDs mounted in the hood on the heatsinks:
A temporary FTS... I've already moved some of the rocks around, and I'm planning a rescape to maximize the illuminated rock space.
Here are the circuit boards with the drivers and light switches; with the switches, I can isolate the channels without messing with my color ratios that I set with the manual dimmers.
The LEDs mounted in the hood on the heatsinks:
A temporary FTS... I've already moved some of the rocks around, and I'm planning a rescape to maximize the illuminated rock space.
Funlad3
Well-known member
I still have to mount my hardware from my lighting project, but that'll come later. I decided that the tank is running too hot with these upgraded lights (the cheap glass thermometer is telling me 86, which is definitely higher than the actual temperature, but still...), so I'm going to see if I can hook up a DIY fridge chiller to bring the system down a few degrees. I can also start dosing refrigerated foods for my coral, which will be a plus. My corals still look fine and have great color, but growth has definitely slowed down over the past week or so, so hopefully getting the temperature in line helps bring the growth back up to par.
I think I'm just about done messing around with the rockwork, so I have some full tank shots below. I'm still going to move around some of the corals and clams and probably remove and add a few things, so we'll see how long I can leave the tank be this time. Probably not very long.
- Ben
I think I'm just about done messing around with the rockwork, so I have some full tank shots below. I'm still going to move around some of the corals and clams and probably remove and add a few things, so we'll see how long I can leave the tank be this time. Probably not very long.
- Ben
Funlad3
Well-known member
I butchered the LEDs from my original Chinese lights that I custom ordered way back in 2011 before you could get black boxes. I just hooked up some new drivers from Rapid LED and wired in some dimmers, and they came right back to life. [MENTION=473]jayjigga[/MENTION] was super helpful in the planning and with soldiering, too. Super happy with the color and spread so far. I'm about to start acclimating another dozen pieces.
Funlad3
Well-known member
That's the plan! Hopefully by the time that these are all minicolonies (hopefully a few months?), most of the rock will be covered. In a year or two, the tank should be nothing but well concealed caves.
Funlad3
Well-known member
Today I managed to pick up a used Apex (thanks, Ed!), and now I have a real temperature reading on my tank. After multiple calibrations of the temp probe, the tank is a whopping 85.4º at the end of the day. After cycling various equipment on and off, I was able to figure out that my Mag 9.5 return pump is pulling about 2 amps itself, which equates to roughly 240 watts. Considering it's supposed to be running at 93 watts, I think I found my source of excess heat. Time to change return pumps.
Interestingly, my LEDs are only pulling .1-.2 amps, so I may be able to avoid running a chiller/refrigerator after all. We'll have to wait and see.
Interestingly, my LEDs are only pulling .1-.2 amps, so I may be able to avoid running a chiller/refrigerator after all. We'll have to wait and see.
Funlad3
Well-known member
I got my return pump switched out to a Vectra M1, and the overall electricity consumption of the tank is down to about 1.5 amps instead of 3. Sure enough, my temperature is already going down. I'm going to set my heater to keep the tank at 82 for a few days so that I don't cold shock any of the pieces I've accidentally been abusing for the past few weeks, but I'm going to aim to have the temperature down around 77-78 by the weekend. Now that I have all of my hardware running, I can finally mount it all to the cabinet and tidy everything up.
Funlad3
Well-known member
I've been tinkering and acquiring electronics for the past two weeks, but I think I'm finally done playing around with everything. I'm going to mount it in the cabinet tomorrow and then I'll do a much overdue overview of how I have the tank running. I'm really just excited to have my bedroom floor back...
Funlad3
Well-known member
I finally got things cleaned up and sorted. Here's what's going on with the tank...
With the Vectra running instead of the Mag 9.5, the tank is much cooler. My skimmer pump is next on my list of hardware to replace, as it's running about 80 watts instead of its prescribed 18:
I've been using a Jebao DP4 for dosing, and I love the thing. My largest complaint is that the indicator LEDs are incredibly bright and act as an unwanted night light. I've created an excel spreadsheet that calculates the amount of Calcium Chloride and Sodium Carbonate that I have to add each week. It accounts for restoring depleted values as well as weekly coral consumption, so my water stays at constant values of 450ppm of Ca and 10dkh week round. This stability helps to keep growth chugging forward.
Here's my reorganized sump and stand. I have both the return and drain open 100%, so the total system water flow is equal to a Vectra M1 on full minus three feet of head pressure. I'm guessing there's around 50 times tank turnover per hour. Water drains through a filter sock to catch snails and microbubbles and enters the skimmer chamber before going through my bubble trap/weirs and into the return chamber. It's easy to clean/remove things, and I have plenty of room for my hugely oversized filtration and return pumps.
My EB8 is slightly broken, so I have a backup power supply plugged into an outlet that's permanently on. Everything else is on a controlled outlet. The lights are on timers, the white channel turns off if the tank gets too warm, and the return, skimmer, and heater are all remotely and independently controllable. I still have to calibrate the pH probe (which shouldn't be far off) and hook up a wireless bridge so that I can ditch the 50' ethernet cable that's sprawled across my floor, but I'm loving the Apex so far.
I have all of my drivers and power supplies on the other side of the stand, and they definitely put off enough heat to keep the cabinet a little warm. Fan installation is definitely on my project list for the near future.
And finally some coral pictures. My yellow hammer has regained just about all of its color:
My rainbow acan has almost entirely turned red/orange, but you can still make out a few corners of color. I need to get these stashed in the shade and see what happens before I bring home any more.
Some SPS:
And finally, an FTS and a top down shot. Here's my usual disclaimer about how frustrating it is to shoot through curved acrylic and a new disclaimer about how hard it is to shoot from the top of a tank when the lights are built into a hood. Now that that's out of the way...
With the Vectra running instead of the Mag 9.5, the tank is much cooler. My skimmer pump is next on my list of hardware to replace, as it's running about 80 watts instead of its prescribed 18:
I've been using a Jebao DP4 for dosing, and I love the thing. My largest complaint is that the indicator LEDs are incredibly bright and act as an unwanted night light. I've created an excel spreadsheet that calculates the amount of Calcium Chloride and Sodium Carbonate that I have to add each week. It accounts for restoring depleted values as well as weekly coral consumption, so my water stays at constant values of 450ppm of Ca and 10dkh week round. This stability helps to keep growth chugging forward.
Here's my reorganized sump and stand. I have both the return and drain open 100%, so the total system water flow is equal to a Vectra M1 on full minus three feet of head pressure. I'm guessing there's around 50 times tank turnover per hour. Water drains through a filter sock to catch snails and microbubbles and enters the skimmer chamber before going through my bubble trap/weirs and into the return chamber. It's easy to clean/remove things, and I have plenty of room for my hugely oversized filtration and return pumps.
My EB8 is slightly broken, so I have a backup power supply plugged into an outlet that's permanently on. Everything else is on a controlled outlet. The lights are on timers, the white channel turns off if the tank gets too warm, and the return, skimmer, and heater are all remotely and independently controllable. I still have to calibrate the pH probe (which shouldn't be far off) and hook up a wireless bridge so that I can ditch the 50' ethernet cable that's sprawled across my floor, but I'm loving the Apex so far.
I have all of my drivers and power supplies on the other side of the stand, and they definitely put off enough heat to keep the cabinet a little warm. Fan installation is definitely on my project list for the near future.
And finally some coral pictures. My yellow hammer has regained just about all of its color:
My rainbow acan has almost entirely turned red/orange, but you can still make out a few corners of color. I need to get these stashed in the shade and see what happens before I bring home any more.
Some SPS:
And finally, an FTS and a top down shot. Here's my usual disclaimer about how frustrating it is to shoot through curved acrylic and a new disclaimer about how hard it is to shoot from the top of a tank when the lights are built into a hood. Now that that's out of the way...
oceanfreak09
Active member
Those are some nice colors!! Hope you can keep them the same!!The advantage of knowing/being friends with people in the industry is that you always have access to the best coral, like these... I just have to find a good spot in my tank with low enough light that they don't turn orange/red before I bring them home...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Funlad3
Well-known member
Weekly update time!
Three of my acros have been looking unhappy for the past week, and I wanted to dip them to make sure a pest hadn't somehow made it into my tank. You can see that there are dead tips or that the color is just completely off, despite decent growth. I tossed them some Bayer for 15 minutes and shook the hell out of them to dislodge anything on them. Besides some vermetid snails, these frags were clean.
I followed up my dipping with a water test and found out that my calcium was at 550 and the Alk was 9.1. I'm completely lost as to how the calcium got so high. I dose to match consumption, which was 50 last week. That means that even if growth completely stopped, the calcium should have reached 500, not 550. Somehow, calcium increased on its own. Weird. I did a 30% water change, so that should be taken care of.
These three troublemakers aside, the tank has been chugging along for the past week. My alkalinity consumption has increase by 50% for the past three weeks, so now it's up to 3dkh/week. Maybe a half dozen pieces are starting to grow nubs where they've been encrusting, so I'm expecting growth to explode in the next few weeks. I'm still not thrilled with my overall color, but I suspect it might improve in the next week or two; my first water change in the past two or three months should have replaced any missing trace elements, and the temperature is finally staying between 77-81º. I'm still trying to track down some fish for the tank, but the basslets, angels, and wrasses I want have been impossible to come by.
I guess I'll have to suffer and watch my tank grow.
Three of my acros have been looking unhappy for the past week, and I wanted to dip them to make sure a pest hadn't somehow made it into my tank. You can see that there are dead tips or that the color is just completely off, despite decent growth. I tossed them some Bayer for 15 minutes and shook the hell out of them to dislodge anything on them. Besides some vermetid snails, these frags were clean.
I followed up my dipping with a water test and found out that my calcium was at 550 and the Alk was 9.1. I'm completely lost as to how the calcium got so high. I dose to match consumption, which was 50 last week. That means that even if growth completely stopped, the calcium should have reached 500, not 550. Somehow, calcium increased on its own. Weird. I did a 30% water change, so that should be taken care of.
These three troublemakers aside, the tank has been chugging along for the past week. My alkalinity consumption has increase by 50% for the past three weeks, so now it's up to 3dkh/week. Maybe a half dozen pieces are starting to grow nubs where they've been encrusting, so I'm expecting growth to explode in the next few weeks. I'm still not thrilled with my overall color, but I suspect it might improve in the next week or two; my first water change in the past two or three months should have replaced any missing trace elements, and the temperature is finally staying between 77-81º. I'm still trying to track down some fish for the tank, but the basslets, angels, and wrasses I want have been impossible to come by.
I guess I'll have to suffer and watch my tank grow.
