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Cultivated Reef

47G Rimless T5/LED Hybrid SPS Tank


Sahin

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My new tank arrived today. The tank stats are as follows:

 

Tank is 47G "Rimless" with12mm Optiwhite glass and double base. This is my first ever sumped tank; all 3 of my previous reef tanks were sumpless.

 

I opted for a single durso and return. The tank is in the living room and I am not too bothered about noise etc from the overflow. The sump is fairly large and will accomodate about 25G of water, but is designed to run with about half of that.

 

Here are the first photos of the tank:

DSC_5747.jpg

 

Side shot:

DSC_5740.jpg

 

A closeup shot of the "Rimless" glass and the smoothed edges:

DSC_5743.jpg

 

A shot of the sump area:

DSC_5758.jpg

 

The cabinet has lots of height. I can easily lift the skimmer out of the cabinet whilst it is still in one piece. Plus there is space to build a shelf above the sump to place my Doser and other equipment. I have also fitted a strip light inside the cabinet to assist when working inside the sump.

 

Skimmer: from the photo above you can see a Bubble Magus NAC6 Skimmer. I went with this skimmer due to its value for money and performance.

 

Lights: ATI Sunpower: 5xT5 + 24xCree 3W LED

IMG_0449-1.jpg

 

I bought a practically new ATI Sunpower 6x24watt T5 unit (with non working fans) and have modified this to include high power LED's. The LED's consist of 20 Cree Royal Blue LED's and 4 Cree Blue LED's. I am going to run them at 700mA. In total the unit now runs 178watts of T5 and LED. From my past experiance with T5's/250w+150wMetal halide/LED's, I estimate PAR to be well above that given by a 250w halide. There is a combination of 40, 60 and 80 degree lens on the LED's.

 

My reasoning for going with such a light unit is due to the good experiance with LED's in my previous build, and because T5's are known for thier ability to colour SPS corals really well.

 

Dosing: Fauna Marine triple doser.

 

Water flow: 2 x Vortech MP10 ECOSMART

 

Topoff: Tunze Osmolator: This unit has so far proven to be 100% reliable and accurate.

Controller/Cooling: TC10 Temperature Controller. This unit has also proven to be extremely reliable and trouble free. This unit will control the switching of fans to achieve cooling via evaporative cooling.

 

I will keep the thread updated and add more info when appropriate.

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Love it. even the sump is rimless!!!

 

LOL, yeah the tank was all custom specified. I really like how it turned out. The price was only £500 (which is a very good price in the UK for a custom spec tank which has 12mm thick glass, double base with optiwhite front and sides as well! Sump and cabinet too! :D

 

What are the dimensions of the tank? What brand is it? I'm in the market for something similar in size but shallower.

 

The tank is actually quite shallow. The length is 30", height is only 18" and the depth is 20". So the area of the tank is 30" by 20" which means there is a massive amount of scope for aquascaping. I've never had 20 inches of front to back space in my previous tanks and I really appreciate the depth I have with this tank. Water height will only be about 16.5inches, so it will be fairly shallow.

 

Tank was built by ND Aquatics in the UK. They are not retail; thier main source of trade is with retailers, but do sell directly to the public if you contact them; which means no one else can match thier prices. I actually went to thier warehouse and saw the whole setup. They are in the middle of nowhere with a few barns, one for the workshop, one to store the cabinets and wood and another to hold the glass and the finished tanks. They have everthing they need to build thier own tanks, sump and cabinets.

 

I changed specs so many times and the owner was very patient etc.

 

Nice setup. I love Bubble Magus skimmers too. Its amazing how much gunk they can pull out.

Glad to know that. Thanks.

 

Looks really clean man. I like it a lot. Would love to know the answer to urabaneks questions.

Answered above. Hopefully this tank will turn out really nice. With my current JBJ 28G tank, I have learnt a lot.

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Have now finished the plumbing on the tank. I have also tested the sump today for leakage etc and its fine. Started to fill the tank with water and its a slow process-especially as its so cold outside.

 

Here is a shot of the skimmer in place and the plumbing done. Not much to show in the sump yet though:

DSC_5796.jpg

 

I have also fitted a cabinet lock on the cabinet. With a 2 babies around the place I am not taking any chances:

DSC_5793.jpg

 

Not much else done. All my SPS are dead now because of the Acro eating flatworms. I discovered the problem too late. I have less than 5 frags (had over 25+) now and they dont look too good. With only 5 frags left in a very sorry state, I just feel its not worth the risk putting them in the new tank. Plus, I am taking up my childrens tiny library area having setup a quarantine tank for the AEFW affected corals...and I just feel that I might as well bin the remaining frags and start again.

 

I will have to think about long term plans in terms of quarantine of any new SPS frags I buy in the future.

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Have got a few more things done now. I have setup the Fan Cooling system. I used a double fan unit from a broken Xbox unit, bits from an Azoo cooling unit and rigged up a pretty high performance fan cooling system

 

Once I take my nanocube down, I will install the TC-10 temperature controller to activate the fan cooling system at preset values.

 

My living room is always hot; normally 26-27 degrees, and my nano cube needs to be cooled throughout the day or else it will heat up beyond 27'C. Fortunately, I have found that the 47G Rimless runs at 26'C with the large return pump and the large protein skimmer pump. So with the fan cooling system I made, it will be easy to maintain a reasonable tank temperature.

 

I have also added sand into the tank. It is Caribsea Aragonite sand, the grain size is very fine to 1.5mm, and a handful of larger 5mm bits. I also mixed in a few large cups of larger grain sand, so that I am able to have lots of flow in the tank without the sand being blown around.

 

I have also started to dose the tank with bacteria (Zeovit + MB7) and a carbon food source to kick start the biological process. This is my 4th reef tank; on my last reef tank I dosed bacteria and a carbon source and found that algae problems are pretty much non existant when utilising this method.

 

I will start to dose Vodka and a few drops of MB7 or Zeobac on a weekly basis thereafter.

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what are the sump deminsions?

+1, where did you get it & how much? It looks perfect for what I need.

 

Your build is stunning, very well put together.

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Wow this is awesome.

 

Following along here.

Thanks AJ. I have always admired your tanks. I really love what you did with your 47G shallow Rimless. In fact I was inspired by your tank after seeing it on youtube.

 

good stuff

Thanks.

 

what are the sump deminsions?
+1, where did you get it & how much? It looks perfect for what I need.

Your build is stunning, very well put together.

 

Many thanks. I put a year of research and planning into this tank. I pondered over the tank, cabinet and sump for more than 3 months before putting in the order (even though I had the deisgn and drawn out etc). I wanted everything to be as perfect as possible. Even after placing the order I made changes to the design.

 

The sump is 21" long x 17" high x 15" wide. There is more than enough space for the skimmer. I wont be having a refugium, but if I wanted one just to boost the pod population, then there is space for that too.

 

I was out for a few hours and thought I'd test how low the water temp can be pulled down by the Custom Fan Cooling System I built. Well after 4 hours the temp is from 82'F to 71'F. That is a whopping 11'F temp drop using only fans. The room temp during this time was 77'F. So the cooling system is so efficient it can drop the temp upto 6'F below the room temp. I will be running the tanks temp at around 79'Fn in any event. I am sure that with the two small fans and the lighting system I have, the tank will never over heat.

 

Because my living room is ALWAYS warmer than 75'F, I am NOT using a heater in this tank. My heater was never used on my nano tank and I see no point in having one in this tank.

 

Really pleased with this build. I just hope I get to buy some really nice SPS corals and they colour up nicely.

 

I have placed an order for a Fauna Marine Triple Doser. With the doser, temp controller+fans and the Tunze Osmolator the water chemistry should be rock steady; hence I am hoping the SPS colours ought to be very good.

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Here is a cool photo I just took to show off the T5/LED Hybrid reflection off the water:

DSC_5825.jpg

 

Man, I wish the parts from China would get here quicker! I can only run the LED's for a couple of minutes at the moment as I havent heatsinked and installed sufficient fans yet.

 

Once finished, I think my corals ought to love this light. :D :D :D

Here is the final bulb configuration:

 

From Front:

ATI Blue+

Arcdia 14K

24 Cree Royal Blue LED's

KZ Fiji Purple

ATI AquaBlue Special

ATI Blue+

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Quick update:

 

The tank had a shallow sand bed put in about 5 days ago. I seeded the sand with Zeobac and MB7 as well as placing a few rocks from my nano tank. Today I put in a few hermits and a couple of snails to see how they do. I dont expect this tank to have any Ammonia spike or anything like that at all, because I used live sand in addition to seeding with the Zeobac and MB7 and live rock. All the rocks are coming from my nano tank.

 

The tank is progressing well. I expect to have all the rocks transfered and aquascaped within two weeks. Still waiting for parts to arrive from China to complete my LED mod to my ATI Sunpower :angry: Wish it got here by now...

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Had several PM's asking about the LED mod:

 

Basically I mounted the LED's onto an Aluminium plate. You cannot mount them directly onto the Sunpowers metal chassis as the heat conductivity through that material is only about 3/20 of Aluminium.

 

I had to cut a rectangle out from the Sunpower using a Dremmel with slim cutting wheels.

 

Once this was done, I screwed and thermal glued the Aluminium plate onto the chassis of the Sunpower.

 

The plate and chassis on their own wont disperse the heat. I tested and within 5 minutes the plate was getting very very warm to the touch.

 

So I ordered 4 VGA graphics card fans and found a few other bits of low profile heatsinks lying around. All I had to do then was glue them down with thermal paste.

 

I had to upgrade the AC to DC adaptor that runs the two ATI Sunpower fans as I wanted to run the VGA fans off the same power supply. I could have gone with a seperate powersupply but that meant another couple of wires going into the unit somehow...couldnt be arsed with that.

 

I then wired everything up and here are a few shots:

 

1. This shows the LED's mounted onto a secondary surface, ie the Aluminium plate:

DSC_5844.jpg

 

2. Here I was playing around with the placement of the fans and heatsinks. Not very pretty, but it will do the job.DSC_5845.jpg

 

3. Final shot showing all the lights on at the same time:

DSC_5849.jpg

 

The White balance is screwed up and I didnt bother to take custom white balance readings with my DSLR, but from front the configuration is as follows:

 

Front:

ATI Blue+

ATI AquaBlue Special

24 LED's (20 Royal Blue + 4 Blue)

KZ Fiji Purple

Arcadia 14K

ATI Blue+

 

The 4 Moonlights are on as well, but you cant see them properly with the main lights on.

 

I am running the LED's off 2 x Meanwell LPC-35/700 model LED Drivers. These drivers allow 12 x 3watt LED's to be run at 700mA each. The 24 LED's are running at almost 60watts.

 

So combined with the T5's + LED's, I have about 180watts. Due to this fixture having: Active Cooling + Individual Mirror reflectors for the T5's and a combo of 40,60,80 degree lens for the LED's, without even having measured the PAR, I am confident that PAR will rival or most likely beat most 250w halide setups. I believe I have very good PAR and with the assortment of T5 tubes and LED; a very good spectrum of light for corals.

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Very impressive! How high do you plan on keeping the light fixture? That's a lot of wattage over a 16.5" tall tank!

Thanks for the compliment.

 

You have a good question and I dont know the answer... :lol: The water height after putting in the sand and adjusting for the overflow level etc is now at 15.5" tall. And the light is 6" above the water line...is that too low?

 

This is a 6 bulb Sunpower unit and I have 20" front to back so lot of room to raise the lights before I get light spill. I ask in the lighting forum? But if anyone has a good idea based on experiance of using 6 bulb T5's then please let me know.

 

Thanks.

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Another bit of update:

 

1. Lights: Having tested the ATI Sunpower LED/T5 Hybrid over the course of today, I checked regularly to see how effective the cooling was, and was not happy with the cooling setup of the LED's. From previous experiance with using LED's in extremely small spaces etc, I knew that the airflow into the unit had to be improved.

 

One thing I tried to do was power the 2 main Ati Sunpower fans and the 4 LED cooling fans from the same power adaptor...well, it just didnt have enough juice to run all 6 fans and run the main fans at a sufficient speed. So I had to supply a seperate power adaptors, one to power the main ATI fans and another to power the 4 LED cooling fans. Once this was done, I checked things and the unit was running as cool as I need it.

 

I will test thoroughly tomorrow. But I think it will be ok this time.

 

2. I put sand in about 5 or 6 days ago and the tank is still slightly cloudy. I am running the BM NAC6 skimmer which has just today started to foam properly. There isnt much to skim though as there is no fishes in the tank, and only a couple of kg's of fully cured liverock transfered from my nano tank.

 

3. I tested water parameters last night and everything is in order.

 

4. This tank is so stable temperature wise. My living room about 78'F most of the time and the new tank stays at that temp even with the large return pump and large skimmer pump, and the T5 lighting too.

 

This means I wont have to use evaporative cooling as much as was needed on my nano tank, which even without the lights would rise into the low 80's.

 

5. Tomorrow I plan to transfer most of my liverock into this tank. But I will be inspecting each rock and removing pesky things such as vermitid worms, bubble algae and I know there is two small Aiptasias. So I will swish and scrub the rocks well before transferring them into the new tank.

 

Other than the cloudyness problem, its all going well.

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Update:

 

1. Bubble Magus NAC6 Skimmer: WOW!!! The skimmer started to produce foam this morning. It took a week to start foaming and produce froth. The reason I am say wow is that I turned the flow up to produce a wetter skimmate as I wanted the tank to be cleared of the bacterial boom and sand storm cloudyness. Well, after a few hours the skimmer cup was half full. So I thought I would pour it out and check out the consistancy.

 

I expected a watery liquid to be present inside...but NO. The liquid was THICK and rather like syrup. I am so impressed with this skimmer. I put the cup back and it is already produced more of this skimmate. I have been bacteria dosing and so I am sure the skimmer is taking out bacteria. I have high hopes for this tank.

 

2. Rocks. I move all of my liverock into the 47G today. I spent almost 4 hours with the help of my wife removing every single Vermited worm/snails and bubble algae. I also removed a few sponges that looked like they were doing too well and I felt they may pose a problem to my SPS corals later on and didnt want to take a risk.

 

We also removed 100's more asterina stars as well.

 

I would have posted a couple of photos, but I cannot get the white balance right and it doesnt help that the tank is still quite cloudy.

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Sounds like this tank is coming along nicely. I really think your lights are going to be awesome with some SPS. I bet you'll get incredible color.

 

Glad to hear you like the bubble magnus skimmer...I am going to get one for my next tank as well.

 

Looking forward to pictures once your sandstorm subsides.

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Well I did promise a few photos. Sorry about the quality of the white balance: The white tubes had already gone off and only the Royal Blue LED's and Blue+ T5's were on so the white balance is pretty screwed. But it does look sooo nice in person.

 

No corals in there at the moment. Just the rocks and two clams that are attached to a single rock. Those clams have been with me over a year and and growing well.

 

Closeup of the display:

DSC_5902.jpg

 

Distant shot:

DSC_5895.jpg

 

The JBJ Nanocube will be dismantled in the next two weeks.

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