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Nanoty's Nanocube DX (Updated, MH retro)


nanoty

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I'm bummed you can't get your temps down. Have you tried the fan config I was talking about yesterday??? 2 in, one across and 1 out? Give that a shot. It's a quick set up.. I actually just taped taped the fan to the hood (the one that blows across), just so I didn't have to make it permanent yet. I plan to epoxy it in now.

 

My only thought on the blower.. many are mounting them at the back and pushing air across the body of water. That seems to prove quite effient. I belive the blower is designed to push air further, but not necessarily all that much air (you'll have to check the CFM on that). My thought is, if you are going to put something in your feeding lid, just go with a 40mm or 60mm fan or two up there... far more air moving capacity than a blower... and it will blow air straight down at the water.

 

I may be doing both of these soon, so I'm going to start with the blower mounted in the back per the Artamon thread, then if that does not do it, then I'll add a fan or two in the feeding lid. But I know in the end, I may need a Chiller :o

 

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

BSimm

 

I am pretty dead set against a chiller. Mainly because of the cost but also due to the fact that I have no where to hide it in my living room. I would probably buy a new tank with a MH already in it if I was going to spend $300+ on a chiller. The other option being the Nanocustoms ICA chiller that mounts in place of one of the rear fans. My worries about that are, the ICA chiller seems to take a while to cool things down relying on constand flow throught the chiller to slowly bring temps down little by little. I am not sure that it can keep up with the heat put off by the MH. We will see. I have some extra fans and I think I might try to put one in he feeding door if the "fan blowing on the bulb" thing doesn't work. One concern that Qwank brought up was, will the bulb work as efficiently if cool air is being blown across it? Anyone know?

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Ok. I figured out two things. One I'm retarted and two the reflector is totally blocking any airflow past the bulb. I really don't think turning one of the fans around is going to do any good. Also, the idea about putting a fan in the feeding door looks like a bad one as well do to th fact that I just noticed my tank is condensating like mad on the splash guard and feeding door. I don't think a fan would last a day like that. I am going to lock myself in a closet and think this over until I come up with a solution.

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I have nanotuners 96 W PC upgrade on my NC12 along with the ICA chiller. I am able to keep the tank temps around 5 degrees below ambient with this but I do get temp increase throughout the day with the lights on. I dont think the ICA chiller is going to give you enough temp pull down with the heat load from the MH.

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I have nanotuners 96 W PC upgrade on my NC12 along with the ICA chiller. I am able to keep the tank temps around 5 degrees below ambient with this but I do get temp increase throughout the day with the lights on. I dont think the ICA chiller is going to give you enough temp pull down with the heat load from the MH.

 

 

Thanks for the input, that is what I was worried about. I'm on my 3rd fan configuration. It's only been 1.5 hours and temps have already increased 2 degrees from 78.5-80.5, not good. I think I am going to run a duct through my livingroom ceiling into the top of my Nanocube. Do you think my wife will notice? :huh:

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i think your problem is that you have the reflector flush with the splash shield. so all the heat is actualty coming from the glass part right to the water, where as everyone who has sucessfully done this mod has a gap between the glass and the splash shield. so that lets the fans move heat thats coming from the light and whatever gets by the splashshield gets moved by the scroll fans. make sense? so your setup is:

 

reflector

glass splashshied

airspace

water

 

and it probbaly needs to be:

reflector

glass

airspace

splashshield

airspace

water

 

i think that lack of the space between the glass and the spalshshield is hurting you.

 

oh, whats the new fan configuration?

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i think your problem is that you have the reflector flush with the splash shield. so all the heat is actualty coming from the glass part right to the water, where as everyone who has sucessfully done this mod has a gap between the glass and the splash shield. so that lets the fans move heat thats coming from the light and whatever gets by the splashshield gets moved by the scroll fans. make sense? so your setup is:

 

reflector

glass splashshied

airspace

water

 

and it probbaly needs to be:

reflector

glass

airspace

splashshield

airspace

water

 

i think that lack of the space between the glass and the spalshshield is hurting you.

 

oh, whats the new fan configuration?

 

 

I agree but it seemed that with leaving the plastic in front of the light it was prone to warping or even melting. It is too late to do anything about it now so I will have to do the best I can. I tried both back fans sucking air in, one fan in front blowing air out and one scroll fan blowing air on the reflector. Unfortunately it didn't seem to help as temps once again were bumping 85 degrees after aproximately 6 hours from an original temp of 78.5. I even tried opening the feeding door and had no sucess as temps continued to climb just as steadily. I am running out of ideas. I am starting to doubt that even adding a fan to the back of the tank will have any effect. I am going to Lowes tomorrow to look for a hinge the right size so that I can mount a scroll fan to the back of the tank. Wish me luck, I'm running out of patience.

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I agree but it seemed that with leaving the plastic in front of the light it was prone to warping or even melting. It is too late to do anything about it now so I will have to do the best I can. I tried both back fans sucking air in, one fan in front blowing air out and one scroll fan blowing air on the reflector. Unfortunately it didn't seem to help as temps once again were bumping 85 degrees after aproximately 6 hours from an original temp of 78.5. I even tried opening the feeding door and had no sucess as temps continued to climb just as steadily. I am running out of ideas. I am starting to doubt that even adding a fan to the back of the tank will have any effect. I am going to Lowes tomorrow to look for a hinge the right size so that I can mount a scroll fan to the back of the tank. Wish me luck, I'm running out of patience.

 

Don't give up yet... we are rooting for you!!!

 

I think Qwank's point has some merit. Can you actually break open your reflector a bit??? like remove the ends but leave the sides in tact? Is that possible? This way you could get some serious air movement going and expel the heat from the hood. I think you are not getting the advantage of enough air movement becuase your MH reflector housing is so tight... almost too tight???

 

See how open this is??? http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...&hl=finally

 

And he has his fans angled to push air across the bulb... this is something Nick from Nanocustoms recommend to me as well.

 

Anyway... keep it up... you may get the breakthroug you are looking for.

 

BSimm

 

Also check out what others have done in their feeding lids... some very creative stuff with good success...

 

BSimm

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Don't give up yet... we are rooting for you!!!

 

I think Qwank's point has some merit. Can you actually break open your reflector a bit??? like remove the ends but leave the sides in tact? Is that possible? This way you could get some serious air movement going and expel the heat from the hood. I think you are not getting the advantage of enough air movement becuase your MH reflector housing is so tight... almost too tight???

 

See how open this is??? http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...&hl=finally

 

And he has his fans angled to push air across the bulb... this is something Nick from Nanocustoms recommend to me as well.

 

Anyway... keep it up... you may get the breakthroug you are looking for.

 

BSimm

 

Also check out what others have done in their feeding lids... some very creative stuff with good success...

 

BSimm

 

Too far to give up :P . Is your entire splash shield UV glass? Or do you have any? I will try and open the reflector up, I really liked the way it was because it didn't allow any UV leakage but I guess it's just not going to work. I keep waiting to have a light go off and have a simple solution to fix everyones problem but so far I've just drawn a blank :huh:

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i think i'm going to try making the reflector smaller by bending the edges out. that way i'll be able to mount the glass to it also. i think i'll also get a cheap picture frame at walmart and use the glass from it as my splash shield. the way you did it nanoty. an 8x10 cut down to 6x10 should work fine. 5x7 might be a little small.

 

hhmmm i'm all out of ideas for you at the moment besides getting the airflow across the water. i think this is more important then you might think

 

on that link posted above hes using a UV sheilded bulb. if they had these in 70w this would solve a lot of porblems i think. i found one but it was a 10k and cost $120!

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Too far to give up :P . Is your entire splash shield UV glass? Or do you have any? I will try and open the reflector up, I really liked the way it was because it didn't allow any UV leakage but I guess it's just not going to work. I keep waiting to have a light go off and have a simple solution to fix everyones problem but so far I've just drawn a blank :huh:

 

About 1/3 is glass glued to the splashguard, similar to yours. In my case, I actually started with the notion of a peice of glass mounted directetly to the reflector, without cutting the splashguard... well, i melted the splashguard...so that obviously did not work. So, I cut the splashguard, just like you, and put a peice of glass in there. I also kept the original smaller peice on teh reflector. So, I have two peices actually. Not sure if that is good, bad or whatever, but I dont' think the UV spillover is much of a factor...

 

In my opinion, even if you cut the ends of your reflector out, your bulb is close enough to the glass that you wont have any problems with UV. Look at Chris's set up at NanoCusotoms.. his 1.70 MH set ups... they have an aluminum housing, with glass, but the reflectors are not on the ends.. I think they get quite a bit of air movement this way.

 

I took pictures tonight, I'll post tomorrow.

 

BSimm

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i think i'm going to try making the reflector smaller by bending the edges out. that way i'll be able to mount the glass to it also. i think i'll also get a cheap picture frame at walmart and use the glass from it as my splash shield. the way you did it nanoty. an 8x10 cut down to 6x10 should work fine. 5x7 might be a little small.

 

hhmmm i'm all out of ideas for you at the moment besides getting the airflow across the water. i think this is more important then you might think

 

I'm glad a couple of people are participating here. I wish some more would jump in. Anyways, I was going to cut some vents in the back anyways so I will probably try a fan on the back blowing across the water tomorrow.

 

I'm really worried that the direct heat from the light/glass to the water is just going to be too much to cool without a chiller. What sucks is I can only try one thing per day because it takes too long to find out if it's going to work. To be honest, with the stock 48w lights the temps bumped 84 in the summer to which I think the crappy fans and reflector were to blame.

 

I would be happy to see the heat stabilize, even high like 85 but it hasn't stopped yet. I might pull my snails and hermits out and just see how high it goes before it stabilizes..........if it does at all.

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nanoty what bulb did you buy? i think i read somewhere the astralux bulbs are uv shielded and i'm pretty sure of of the LFS over here uses them without UV glass. i can go down there tomorrow and double check. let me do sme more research. i think i'm getting an astralux anyways. this might change my whole layout if its true.

 

is there a link to bsimms setup?

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nanoty what bulb did you buy? i think i read somewhere the astralux bulbs are uv shielded and i'm pretty sure of of the LFS over here uses them without UV glass. i can go down there tomorrow and double check. let me do sme more research. i think i'm getting an astralux anyways. this might change my whole layout if its true.

 

is there a link to bsimms setup?

 

I was fixing to order the Astralux bulb until I ran into a deal on the ballast with a Current bulb. I like the color and look but don't know anything about it being UV shielded. Hell I don't even know if it's a big deal, only what I've heard.

 

PM TerReefic, he is selling them in the classifieds and may know about the AL bulb.

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I was fixing to order the Astralux bulb until I ran into a deal on the ballast with a Current bulb. I like the color and look but don't know anything about it being UV shielded. Hell I don't even know if it's a big deal, only what I've heard.

 

PM TerReefic, he is selling them in the classifieds and may know about the AL bulb.

 

 

 

yeah i was planning on getting one from him.

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Decided to try something different. Don't have a lot of time because I have class in the morning but temps are still at 81.6 from earlier to we'll see if it does any good for a few hours. If it works I will test it more extensively tomorrow.

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I'm not getting excited but I taped a scroll fan under the feeding door to simulate having one blowing into the rear of the tank across the water and over the last 30 minutes the temp has actually gone down, from 81.6-81.2 again I'm not getting my hopes up so soon but maybe this will help.

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Hey...that's a start!!! show us a a pic when you get a chance.

 

Here is my current set up. Now, keep in mind, I'm a novice and this is my first tank, but I'm getting decent results with this fan configuration. You'll notice how open the reflector housing is...I think that is why i get decent air flow. Also note the the fan on the picture's right side is mounted perpendicular to the splashguard... and only taped in there for testing purposes. I'll epoxy soon.

 

IMG_3315.jpg

 

 

Here is another shot from a different angle.

IMG_3318.jpg

 

Finally, here it is with the spashgaurd on.

IMG_3319.jpg

 

Let me know what you think...

 

BSimm

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Hey...that's a start!!! show us a a pic when you get a chance.

 

Here is my current set up. Now, keep in mind, I'm a novice and this is my first tank, but I'm getting decent results with this fan configuration. You'll notice how open the reflector housing is...I think that is why i get decent air flow. Also note the the fan on the picture's right side is mounted perpendicular to the splashguard... and only taped in there for testing purposes. I'll epoxy soon.

 

IMG_3315.jpg

Here is another shot from a different angle.

IMG_3318.jpg

 

Finally, here it is with the spashgaurd on.

IMG_3319.jpg

 

Let me know what you think...

 

BSimm

 

 

Hell, who cares what it looks like if it works. Did you double glass over the bulb? I think that would help since the first glass would absorb most of the heat and then the fans could move air in between to keep the second glass from getting as hot. Temps did rise yesterday but I'm trying another set up right now. Give me a few hours and we'll see how it does.

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Did you double glass over the bulb?

 

 

Yes, I did. You can see the first glass on the reflector... just bent the metal to hold the glass. The second layer of glass is glued to the splash guard. Both pieces came from outdoor halogen fixtures many talk about here and on Reef central.

 

Ideally, and one day I may do it, I will replace the whole face of that splash guard with a larger piece of glass. But that's just not a priority right now.

 

Good luck with your testing.

 

BSimm

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Yes, I did. You can see the first glass on the reflector... just bent the metal to hold the glass. The second layer of glass is glued to the splash guard. Both pieces came from outdoor halogen fixtures many talk about here and on Reef central.

 

Ideally, and one day I may do it, I will replace the whole face of that splash guard with a larger piece of glass. But that's just not a priority right now.

 

Good luck with your testing.

 

BSimm

 

 

I have an extra piece of glass from the same type of light right now. I might try and bend the reflector out and clamp the glass on temporarily and see doubling the glass helps. One problem I see is that the bulb socket I have holds the bulb pretty far down towards the water. I don't know how much room I can make between the two. I cut a hole in the splash guard to mount the glass like it is. I wonder if that will have an effect on heat transfer. I was just worried about melting the plastic.

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I wonder if that will have an effect on heat transfer. I was just worried about melting the plastic.

 

 

In my very novice opinion, it can't hurt to try that. But I think I'm getting more benefit from the whole reflector/bulb housing being OPEN and Driving air through it, than the fact that there is double glass. The glass on my splash guard gets really hot, but the edges, where the glass meets the plastic is OK to touch with my bare hand. I think the bigger the glass pane, the better off you are.

 

With your fan config like you had it in the first pic, without any angle, I'm just not sure you are getting movement across the bulb area.

 

The tweaking is kind of fun, but frustrating... Im still not out of the woods yet, especially as the temps get higher outside.

 

BSimm

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In my very novice opinion, it can't hurt to try that. But I think I'm getting more benefit from the whole reflector/bulb housing being OPEN and Driving air through it, than the fact that there is double glass. The glass on my splash guard gets really hot, but the edges, where the glass meets the plastic is OK to touch with my bare hand. I think the bigger the glass pane, the better off you are.

 

With your fan config like you had it in the first pic, without any angle, I'm just not sure you are getting movement across the bulb area.

 

The tweaking is kind of fun, but frustrating... Im still not out of the woods yet, especially as the temps get higher outside.

 

BSimm

 

 

Right now I have the two rear fans sucking air in. One blower fan on the side blowing air out and another fan on the other side blowing air out. Nothing moving air across the bulb since the reflector, the way it is, would deflect any air flow. I have the feeding door proped open and a blower fan blowing air across the water to simulate if I mounted one on the hood to see if evaporative cooling can keep up with the heat put off by the light. Approximately 3 hours into testing and temps have somewhat stabilized at 78.5 up from 77.9. The normal temp when I begin testing is 78.5. Not sure what to attribute to the lower initial temps, the house may be a bit cooler than normal. I am going to run it like this for as long as I can (8-10 hours) today and see if temps stabilize and stay. If they do then that means evap cooling will do well enough that I don't have to modify the reflector since I am really digging the amount of light in the tank and the lack of light leakage.

 

If it works fingerscrossed I will be mounting fans either on the back as done before or inside the feeding door with vents cut into the door itself. I was already planning on adding an ATO so water evap will not bother me.

 

If it does not work I will modify the reflector and fans to blow across the bulb.

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Or I will take the bulb out stand in my tank and lick the socket :haha:

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i would still blow air across the reflector. the reflector is acting like a heat sink right now and will still benifit from air moving across it.

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