Redeclipse's LED Fluval Edge

[redeclipse6049]

Hey everyone,

I haven't posted on here in a while, and mostly have been on my local reef club's website (TCMAS) in minnesota, but I thought I'd share my new build with everyone and try to start being more active on this forum.

 

This was started about a month ago and I had a build thread on tcmas , so most of this will just be copied and pasted in.

 

Alright, so I forgot what I wrote originally here before the thread was lost in the cyber-attack or whatever happened, so i'll try to recap.

 

Just got a Fluval Edge on friday at DA (Thanks Clint!)

 

The plan so far is to copy the LED mod seen HERE

 

The tank I bought was in the pewter color version (that was the only color I could get discounted) So you'll see in the photos that I took that the color will magically change.

 

Since I'd like to make this thread as informational, detailed, and useful as possible, I'll be listing what I've bought, along with the sources I bought everything from.

 

The list so far:

 

- heat sink 7.28"x4" - heatsinkusa.com

-(2) buckpucks 3023-d-e-700p 700 ma (This is a wired buckpuck with potentiometer) -LEDSupply.com

-power supply 24v 1.7a -LEDSupply.com

-4 CREE XRE Neutral white -LEDSupply.com

-4 CREE XRE Royal Blue -LEDSupply.com

-Fluval Edge -Discovery Aquatics

-Rust-Oleum flat black Universal All-Surface spray paint - Home Depot

-(3) 5 lb. Bags dry sand - World of fish (duluth)

- Koralia Nano (buying this from my brother, originally from SWE)

-1 bottle Seachem Stability -World of Fish (duluth)

(Soon to be added)

2-3 pieces of live rock

reef stuff

 

And now, for some photos.

this photo and the one above are both with the stock lights in

 

 

 

a couple days later-

still stock lights

 

here's the heat sync I used, and legs I made from sheet metal. They're not pretty, but they work and you don't see them. with the hood on

 

 

below is the wiring pattern I planned to use drawn out with a marker... the LEDs are attached with sticky thermal pad things.

 

 

First test

 

 

 

lights over the tank-

 

another photo-

 

 

 

here's my Two-spot signal goby in his new (larger) home....

 

[redeclipse6049]

I forgot to mention earlier, I also wired up a 12v DC computer fan, which I attached to the top of the heat sink.

 

So at this point, I bought a semi-picasso clownfish , and had it in the tank for about a week before it mysteriously stopped eating and died a few days later. (still not quite sure why, my water parameters were fine when i tested them)

 

I also got an onyx clown at a frag swap in the area, which is still doing fine, other than some problems it had when trying to live in a frogspawn and stinging its mouth, causing it to swell up. the swelling went down after i took the frogspawn out, and returned , but less severely when I put the frogspawn back in the other day.

 

 

I also decided that The lighting wasn't quite good enough, because the LED fixture had to sit too far toward the back of the tank, and was kind of spotlighting too much.

 

The solution me and my brother came up with was to move the light fixture forward a few inches so that it'd be more over the center of the tank.

 

doing that required building a new hood that was pretty much the same height and width but was several inches longer.

[thegambler26]

i love the look of those tanks. Is the lighting sufficient to grow corals?

[redeclipse6049]

cut the pieces out on a CNC mill that my dad and brother built in our garage

 

glued together---

 

 

 

and all painted- Still waiting on a screen that my dad has at work right now.

 

 

FTS taken tonight. a S'more clown (black ice) was added yesterday to replace the one that died-

 

[redeclipse6049]

i love the look of those tanks. Is the lighting sufficient to grow corals?

 

 

yeah, it should be. its 8 high powered LEDs (4 white, 4 royal blue)

 

 

my zoas are doing well, and so are the ricordeas, star polyps, frogspawn.. acans, pretty much everything I guess... Lol. Time will tell on the couple SPS

[thegambler26]

yeah, it should be. its 8 high powered LEDs (4 white, 4 royal blue)

 

 

my zoas are doing well, and so are the ricordeas, star polyps, frogspawn.. acans, pretty much everything I guess... Lol. Time will tell on the couple SPS

i hadnt read all of your post and didn't see you made your own light. were the LED lights expensive? how'd you decide on how many to use? sorry for all the questions but i would love to build something similar! looks really awesome

[redeclipse6049]

i hadnt read all of your post and didn't see you made your own light. were the LED lights expensive? how'd you decide on how many to use? sorry for all the questions but i would love to build something similar! looks really awesome

The LED supplies ended up costing probably around 200 dollars, which was a bit more than i was hoping, maybe i could have gotten them cheaper somewhere else... I just ordered most of the stuff on LEDsupply so the shipping would be combined.

 

as for number of LEDs , i actually just did this build mostly based on someone else's build here

 

so i just used the same amount as they did.

[redeclipse6049]

I should also note, The lighting in the shot above was turned down a bit, I'm acclimating a sunset monti and had one die on me before so I just wanted to make sure the light wasn't too much for it to start

[ReggieF]

The LED supplies ended up costing probably around 200 dollars, which was a bit more than i was hoping, maybe i could have gotten them cheaper somewhere else... I just ordered most of the stuff on LEDsupply so the shipping would be combined.

Yea, I did the same and my cost came out to $120, but I know it would've been about $60 if I wanted to use a site like dealextreme... however, dx takes FOREVER to ship, so I'm kinda glad I didn't get stuck waiting for my light cause it would've never arrived!

 

That's a very cool build man, 8 LEDs at 700 mA is going to be pumping out some serious light. I have 6 on my 5.5 gallon and it's doing great.

[ScubaJ]

Just curious, are you putting the twin spot goby and two clowns in that tank?

 

Looks good. Once I finish my tanks equipment wise I will probably finish mine, or toss it out of a moving vehicle out of frustration.

[redeclipse6049]

Just curious, are you putting the twin spot goby and two clowns in that tank?

 

Looks good. Once I finish my tanks equipment wise I will probably finish mine, or toss it out of a moving vehicle out of frustration.

 

 

Yeah, That's what I have in there for fish right now. We'll see how it works out, I've gotta keep testing my parameters and keep up with water changes though to make it work

[evilc66]

Two suggestions:

 

1. Add a splash guard over the LEDs, if you haven't already. It will greatly reduce the risk of corrosion, and damage to the LEDs.

 

2. Have you tried moving the heatsink closer to the water some? In the pictures, the ends of the tank are looking a little dark. If that's the look you are going for, then it seems to be working well . If you want a little more light over there, the lower position of the LEDs will let more light get out into the corners. Other than you use rivets to fasten the legs to the heatsink, it shouldn't be too hard to experiment with the height to see what works.

 

Other than that, it starting to look like a sharp little tank.

[redeclipse6049]

Two suggestions:

 

1. Add a splash guard over the LEDs, if you haven't already. It will greatly reduce the risk of corrosion, and damage to the LEDs.

 

2. Have you tried moving the heatsink closer to the water some? In the pictures, the ends of the tank are looking a little dark. If that's the look you are going for, then it seems to be working well . If you want a little more light over there, the lower position of the LEDs will let more light get out into the corners. Other than you use rivets to fasten the legs to the heatsink, it shouldn't be too hard to experiment with the height to see what works.

 

Other than that, it starting to look like a sharp little tank.

 

Thanks!

 

As for the splash guard, I forgot to mention that I have one on there, although it might need a little work to make it better. Right now its made of just a piece of acrylic siliconed between the metal legs (and yeah, drilling the rivets out to change its height wouldn't be too big of a deal, but more on that in a second) And there's also a thin piece of plastic, just something from a piece of packaging, siliconed on the side facing the water. Its not perfect, but i haven't noticed much in the way of salt spray getting inside the fixture or on the LEDs.

 

As for height, The LED fixture can only be lowered by about a half inch max, becuase as it sits right now, the acrylic splash guard is about that distance from the bulbs, and it rests on top of the rim of the tank (so in order to lower it, i'd have to move the splash guard closer to the lights or the whole thing would rest on the tank rim sitting on the splash guard if that makes sense. I suppose one option would be to cut the heat sink in half and lower the half that's on the outside of the tank rim now (since i moved it forward), but that might be a bit more work than its worth.

 

I think i'm alright with the amount of light falloff at the edges now though (it was a lot worse before I moved the fixture forward) becuase then I can hopefully grow a bit more variety of corals as far as light requirements go.

 

what's your opinion on lenses for LEDs on a tank like this? That was one addition I was thinking of doing since they're just the bare LEDs right now...

[evilc66]

No need for them. All it will do is reduce coverage, and increase intensity. It's best to leave it as is.

[redeclipse6049]

No need for them. All it will do is reduce coverage, and increase intensity. It's best to leave it as is.

 

 

Alright, thanks.

 

One thing i've been considering was trying to cover the bottom side of the heat sink in something like mylar foil or aluminum foil to reflect a bit more light into the tank that way, (basically just turn it into a reflector) but I'm not sure how much effect that'd have considering the bulbs aren't like other types of lighting where they're suspended BELOW the reflector, so all light this would be receiving would be reflected light coming from the water (or in the case of the part of the lights that's not over the water, the glass surface of the tank)

[jae4571]

I love your scape! especially the island to he right.

[redeclipse6049]

I love your scape! especially the island to he right.

 

Thanks. I was at the fish store looking for some rock, and all they seemed to have were bigger (and very heavy) stuff, becuase someone had just come in and bought like 100 lbs of rock so they were running low. The guy there showed me some of the more expensive rock in a different tank, but there were a few very light ones in there (the top of the thing on the right, for example was under a pound) so I bought that one, and found a smaller piece and they fit together alright in roughly the same shape as it is in the tank now, so I bought them, brought it all home, threw a ton of super glue (and i think some epoxy putty as well, but Now i don't quite remember if i took it out or not... it wasn't sticking to the wet rock very well) on there, squashed them together and held them under water for a bit. Hopefully they'll stay stuck together so I don't have to mess with it again.

[evilc66]

Alright, thanks.

 

One thing i've been considering was trying to cover the bottom side of the heat sink in something like mylar foil or aluminum foil to reflect a bit more light into the tank that way, (basically just turn it into a reflector) but I'm not sure how much effect that'd have considering the bulbs aren't like other types of lighting where they're suspended BELOW the reflector, so all light this would be receiving would be reflected light coming from the water (or in the case of the part of the lights that's not over the water, the glass surface of the tank)

You probably won't gain much from it, but you can try it. I wouldn't use mylar though. It corrodes/tarnishes pretty fast in salty environments. You would be better buffing the surface of the aluminum heatsink, or just painting it flat white, leaving the areas to mount the LEDs clear.

[redeclipse6049]

You probably won't gain much from it, but you can try it. I wouldn't use mylar though. It corrodes/tarnishes pretty fast in salty environments. You would be better buffing the surface of the aluminum heatsink, or just painting it flat white, leaving the areas to mount the LEDs clear.

 

 

yeah, WE'll see... I don't know if it'd be worth the effort (either having to take all the LEDs off the heat sink to polish it, or paiting around wires and stuff...

 

I think the plan is (for now) to just see how stuff does and maybe start trying to tweak it if I notice problems, but having the falloff at the edges seems to work well for acans and the frogspawn I have, because both don't seem to like a lot of light.

[mmcguffi]

hows the tank coming along ? any pics?

[senoufo]

very nice build!

[redeclipse6049]

hows the tank coming along ? any pics?

 

 

Its coming along... I've been battling this bryopsis since the start though... It had actually all completely disappeared about 2 weeks ago, then about a week ago I noticed it had started growing all over everything again (and I didn't even stop dosing magnesium)

 

I've also had some problems with hair algae growing on things (seemingly only frags that already have coral growing on them so its a huge pain and picking it off doesn't help) I may need to look into other options...

 

I'll try to post a new tank shot tonight though!

[jonny5er]

Its coming along... I've been battling this bryopsis since the start though... It had actually all completely disappeared about 2 weeks ago, then about a week ago I noticed it had started growing all over everything again (and I didn't even stop dosing magnesium)

 

I've also had some problems with hair algae growing on things (seemingly only frags that already have coral growing on them so its a huge pain and picking it off doesn't help) I may need to look into other options...

 

I'll try to post a new tank shot tonight though!

 

 

 

 

that edge tank looks awesome!nice job on the light mod.

[redeclipse6049]

Still struggling to keep the bryopsis from growing back. got an emerald crab and transferred one of my turbo snails into the fluval to see if one, or both, would help.. One thing I have noticed, which i'd think migh be contributing to the algae growth is that it seems that sediment settles on the live rock and then just sits there. i have a reasonable amount of flow in the tank, so I'm not sure if its just that my cleanup crew isn't doing its job, or maybe the tiny bugs (amphipods?) that would do some of that work just haven't populated the tank enough to be effective yet...

 

I'll be on here more regularly from now on so hopefully I'll remember to keep updating this in the future .

 

 

Happy reefing!

[Stephensx04]

Looks real nie. I actually like the way the light shadows the back corners. You cant even see the powerheads. Keep it updated.