Spud's Fluvial Spec V office tank

[spudwrench]

Hey guys I figured since I got things up and going yesterday I would post a build thread

 

 

 

 

I actually picked this tank up about a year ago and it sat in the bedroom empty for the longest time.

Last time I got as far as adding sand, water, heater to the tank was going to be used as just a budget fowler setup to look at night. The heater I got for it was horrible and wouldn't even heat up enough to sustain life so it just sat.

 

Last week me and my girl started talking and she gave me the green light to setup a mini reef in the office for her and I was really stoked to get it going.

 

Current setup

 

Carib Sea Florida Crushed Coral

 

7-10 lbs Brs reef savers rock

 

Fluvial Light

 

Fluvial Pump

 

Fluvial Filtration

 

Cobalt Neotherm 50w heater

 

 

I setup the rock but since it was technically my girls tank she decided she didn't like my island setup so she redid it and it came out better than mine so it was a win/win

 

My other tank has so many pest problems ive been fighting for months so we opted for dry rock. I currently sacrificed one of my hermits to help seed the tank with some bacteria. Added in some fish food and now just waiting for things to happen.

 

Day1 6-10-14

[Cameron6796]

If you want corals like you said, that light will not suffice. You may want to consider so ething like a par 38 bulb

[spudwrench]

I am torn on lighting good thing I have to wait out the cycle until then

[Wattman]

If you have any soldering/DIY skills and you like the look of the stock light, it can be retrofitted. Check out what I did with mine using a RapidLED dimmable nano driver.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/345359-so-i-upgraded-me-spec-v-light-yesterday/

[lecroj]

Following. Looks good.

I plan on starting a Spec V office tank in the next few weeks.

[pgrVII]

Yea this is nice I'll follow,setting one up for a g.smithii mantis soon

[spudwrench]

Thanks guys. Yes I can solder I may go rapid led. My largest concern is I would like to be able to dial in the color and I want full spectrum however it doesn't seem like there is a affordable way to have 2 channel dimming. If there was only a 2 channel dimmable driver thst could run about 5 led per channel would be perfect.

[spudwrench]

Not much to really update at this point thus is the boring waiting part lol.

 

Trying to figure out what to do about a auto top off. I'm really thinking about the hydor smart level top off over conventional float switches. The only thing I'm concerned with is the chord on the sensor comes off the side and doesn't seem like it curves to good without some space. Can anyone confirm if this can be fit in the rear? If it was me and I was designing something like this I think I would make a way for the sensor cable to come off at a up angle or even a 90 elbow off the side to take up less space. This would make sense to me. So far it's the only thing I don't like about the design.

[Kijho]

Dang.. you're using a hermit in there as a sacrifice to start the cycle? I've heard of that but never seen anyone do it as I thought it's pretty frowned up To each their own though.

 

Setup looks good so far, the Spec V is an awesome nano-tank. It's become super popular since earlier this year.

 

You are probably already fairly knowledgeable in regards to SW reefs but you will need a powerhead to get enough water movement in there for corals especially with only the stock Fluval pump. (Same setup as me.)

 

The light isn't for corals at all. It won't grow anything (except maybe green algae... which you don't want lol.)

 

I'd recommend the Par 38 like me if you can get one, or a Marine Orbit USA like Cswan uses.

 

Good luck! Will follow along!

[Eclipse]

Dang.. you're using a hermit in there as a sacrifice to start the cycle? I've heard of that but never seen anyone do it as I thought it's pretty frowned up To each their own though.

 

Setup looks good so far, the Spec V is an awesome nano-tank. It's become super popular since earlier this year.

 

You are probably already fairly knowledgeable in regards to SW reefs but you will need a powerhead to get enough water movement in there for corals especially with only the stock Fluval pump. (Same setup as me.)

 

The light isn't for corals at all. It won't grow anything (except maybe green algae... which you don't want lol.)

 

I'd recommend the Par 38 like me if you can get one, or a Marine Orbit USA like Cswan uses.

 

Good luck! Will follow along!

How did you attach the PAR38 to the tank? I might be getting one of these tanks as well, and I already have a PAR38 myself, so I'm curious to know.

[spudwrench]

I'm not sacrificing him. I've had several tanks cycle and belive it or not the hermit survives the cycle. I've even used domino damsels and clowns to get things going prime helps a lot.

 

Obviously the light is going before a coral goes in. My only concern at all is getting a reliable top off and I'm replacing the pump very soon been hoarding over all the spec v threads to learn what everyone else has done and had success.

[spudwrench]

Pump Showed up today got it installed and the flow is a lot better now.

[Cameron6796]

Could you not just use fish food or a chunk of shrimp

[spudwrench]

I dropped a full cube of Mysis shrimp in there the other day everything is going great on the tank. Along with the crab who was feeding on some of the shrimp.

 

as I said before im using prime which detoxifies the the ammonia but still allows the cycle to happen without harming the little guy.

 

Could I just throw some rotting piece of table shrimp in and let the decomposition ensue? sure why not its how a lot of people do it and that's great but I wanted the crab in the tank don't see what the big issue is.

[spudwrench]

I was unable to find my test kit so I picked up a API and got my girlfriend involved to help me with the test. First time using these instructions was pretty simple so no issue there.

 

Test as of 6/19

indicates Ammonia somewhere between 0 and 0.25

Nitrite 0

Nitrate closer to 5.0

 

I was really anticipating to have some ammonia and maybe just a little bit of nitrite present but to have 0 nitrite just seems kind of odd tank has only been up for 10 days or so at this point. The ammonia level was very small but to have a sign of nitrates showing usually a indicator that the tank is reaching the end of the cycle process seems kind of sudden.

 

I don't feel like the tank has went through a cycle yet because I am yet to get diatoms growing on the rock that I can see.

 

I added some more frozen shrimp into the tank today and I will test again tomorrow and see if I have any changes.

[spudwrench]

Update 6-24 got the tunze smart level ato hooked up and I cannot say enough good things about this unit. I finally have had a chance to see it in operation about twice works as it should. using the aqual lifter and a lowes bucket for ro water worked out great..

I was concerned about it taking up too much space in the over flow but it actually fits perfect I did have to remove the foam filter in the back of the tank so I will be cutting it back some so I can still use it. We will see how that goes and might just put a media basket in with some filter pads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[spudwrench]

Added in a door to hide my auto top off under the stand so that makes me feel better when I got this stand years ago it never had a door but since I got some equipment under there figured I might as well put one on there.

Did another test today just to see where things are at looks like I have a little more ammonia building up, still nothing on the nitrite and looking like slightly more nitrate than I had before. Rock has slowly started to change from white to brown but not very much looks like it may still be a couple more weeks. I added another scoop of seeded sand from my other tank to see if that would help get some things going.

[spudwrench]

Still waiting on my heatsink to show up but finally decided on lighting. A lot of you are going to feel this light is going to be overkill for this tank and your right. I have decided on 13 Led configuration hooked up to a coralux storm controller with 3 Dimmable LDD drivers

 

Channel 1 will consist of 1WW 2NW channel 2 will have 2Lime Greens channel 3 will have 2UV 4RB 1BLUE 1CYAN

 

not sure how I should arrange them yet but this is the configuration I am going to run.

[cswan19]

Another spec! Damn, these things are taking over the forums! haha great tanks.

As far as getting the tank cycled, most people just throw a piece of table shrimp in the tank to avoid putting a fish (or any other life for that matter) through a basically toxic environment. Table shrimp worked awesome for me and many others.

Anyway, I really really like your scape, looks amazing.

I'll be following along, seems like an interesting build.

[spudwrench]

Thanks my girlfriend actually did the scape I have decided she will be doing mine from now on. mine always ends up looking like a boring pile of rubble. I have been adding in cubes of Mysis shrimp for the cycle. If I don't start seeing any differences in the next week or so I will go add some table shrimp to see if it will help speed things up a bit.

 

 

[spudwrench]

Got some work done on my lights today got them mounted and wired up and so far everything looks good on it.

 

http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/superclown13/media/20140626_111257_zps6uhrv5aq.jpg.html'>

mounted to the board

 

http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/superclown13/media/20140626_160849_zpsd6onsawg.jpg.html'>

Wired up

 

http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/superclown13/media/20140626_161814_zpsqqwvjiea.jpg.html'>

dim lit

http://s1099.photobucket.com/user/superclown13/media/20140626_161857_zpsnb3vsfar.jpg.html'>

full power

 

 

[krisko]

Lighting looks good! How are you going to mount it? I have a spec V as well but I went with ecoxotic panorama pro's LEDS. I'm just trying to figure out how to mount them.

[lecroj]

You could mount aluminum or wood rods to the corners and stand it on the lid.

[Reefkid88]

I really like these spec's. More an more are popping up,which is awesome.

 

Did you go with rapid ? Those look like Luxeons,could be wrong. I have a couple of questions:

 

 

-what size heatsink ?

 

-what size LDD's are you using ?

 

Everything looks awesome though,I'm loving the scape man.

[spudwrench]

Hey guys the lights are way over kill from what I've been experimenting with i probably won't power these beyond 30 40% per channel, but they are amazing and are a mix of Cree and luxon rebel

 

If I had to do it over again I think I would drop down to 1ww 1nw 1lg 1 cyan 3rb 2 uv or maybe even less. I did get the leds from rapidled.com although if your keeping up with what's going on with lighting nanobox just announced they are selling the led boards at a great price if your looking for a diy project. In fact I might switch over to one of these later so I can have a smaller form factor.

 

the heatsink is 5x5 got it from heatsinkusa.com and I ordered a 80mm silent fan from newegg.com

 

I also am using a coralux storm controller with 2 700 and 1 1000 driver attached to one of the ldd circuit boards. All of this came from coralux.net

 

It's hard to understand what the lime leds do for the tank until your controlling the channels independently and seeing how they mix together.

 

As far as enclosure for the leds I was going to get an acrylic box until yesterday I found a wood wall mount shadow box that is 5x5x4 that the heatsink will fit into perfectly.

 

I am using a Kodak power supply I found on ebay for cheap that puts out 36v 3 amps. I have kids in the house so I needed something that didn't have exposed wiring for power and actually came out cheaper than the typical open frame dc power supply so it was a win/win

 

I picked up a large aluminum bar from lowes. I had planned initially on hanging the fixture but have now decided to try to replicate the spec v original mounting