Biocube 29g first saltwater tank

[cdrewferd]

gmod, not sure but I'll keep an eye on them. I also plan to feed well. Hopefully that's enough for them.

 

Talked to the local guy I bought the angels from and he confirmed that with them being in a QT for about 3 weeks, they would have shown signs of any infection by now. With that, I added them to the tank last night.

 

 

 

 

They are still getting along great. For the first little bit they were hanging out rght by each other, kinda like twins who were just thrown into a daycare class. They even slept almost right by eachother. Everyone is getting along great. I'll keep my eye on them but don't think it'll be an issue. Hoping to pick up some corals tomorrow.

[cdrewferd]

I have posted a link to my thread. I just set up a 10 g quarantine tank and plan to get an eel tomorrow and 2 clowns on Fri. I'm looking into LEDs too. I'm thinking of the Marineland reef led 18-24" light kit. It's real thin, only 18" long and is ready to go over a tank. They are made to sit on top of a tank, but with its size I think I can fit it where the stock lights are under the clear plastic cover. I will mod it a little so I can fit it and be able to use the stock switch for it. My Lfs uses them over their coral tanks. Theyre affordable and wont require too much work, thats why i like them. I have posted a link to that site too.

 

http://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/389893/m...be-29g-upgrades

http://www.marineland.com/sites/marineland...il.aspx?id=3430

 

Thanks for the link to your build thread. Not sure if I'll join over there as I already have 3-4 sites for this tank. For the submersible light question you posted over there, I have one. If you look where I posted pics of the media and fuge rack it's still in the box. I got it from http://shop.mediabaskets.com/Underwater-10...Light-WTL10.htm. It's $20, but order the value pack of filter floxx at the same time. It's 3 big sheets. Should be enough for several months even changing it out every couple days.

[Mhayes462]

How is the tank going?

[cdrewferd]

Tank is going good. Ended up having to pull the 2 angels out. They were getting along with eachother and the other fish, but they decided that they liked the taste of my acans and zoas. Sucked having to pull them out. I really liked their coloring. I'm now shifting gears a little and am really considering a Golden Dwarf Moray Eel. Also have lots of corals that I've added. Need to get some decent pics and post those up. Getting more tomorrow as well.

[RedStang]

Tank is going good. Ended up having to pull the 2 angels out. They were getting along with eachother and the other fish, but they decided that they liked the taste of my acans and zoas. Sucked having to pull them out. I really liked their coloring. I'm now shifting gears a little and am really considering a Golden Dwarf Moray Eel. Also have lots of corals that I've added. Need to get some decent pics and post those up. Getting more tomorrow as well.

 

Sucks about the angels! They're pretty fish but I've heard that they're hit or miss.

[Mhayes462]

That sux about the angels, I really like those. Guess I can't get any now. The dwarf eel is a great way to go. I'd like to get one, just too much cost for me right now. I was going to get a snowflake but decided against it because of the size. I got an engineer goby instead. Super cheap, look like an eel, and reef safe and won't eat the other fish or shrimp.

[Mhayes462]

Anything new? Did you get the eel?

[cdrewferd]

Nothing new. Got some new zoas coming. Decided to wait on the eel. I'm going to spend the money on an LED upgrade for the tank instead. Hopefully I can order everything in February and be done by the end of Feb. as well.

[cdrewferd]

I finally did my LED build. Here's a copy and paste from another forum.

 

I first got my Biocube about a week before Thanksgiving 2011. The tank was only up for about 2 weeks when I started looking at lighting upgrades. I knew that I really wanted a clam, and possibly some SPS. The big debate I was having with myself is the fact that my tank has almost always run hot. This meant that I couldn't go with a MH conversion, or the conversions that add 1-2 more of the stock PC bulbs as both of these would almost necesitate a chiller. So I started looking at LEDs. Holy cow, there are a lot of options when you start digging into things. I read almost every DIY LED build over on nano-reef.com as a lot of those guys were putting them into the Biocubes the same way I wanted to.

 

Then I went over to Kris's house, kalgra, and saw his AI SOL Nano on his JBJ. Man that looked nice so I started looking into those. I thought this was the way I was going to go. Got Kris to send me a few pictures, showed them to the wife and she said, "That's ugly. You can't do that." DANGIT. Would have been so much easier, but she likes the way the BC looks with the hood on it. This left me with no choice but to do a DIY.

 

Now to choose to do a kit, of make my own. There are a lot of really good kits out there, a few off the top of my head:

 

www.rapidled.com

www.stevesleds.com

www.aquastyleonline.com

 

I was really leaning towards the AquaStyle kit as I didn't really want to spend over 2x the price for CREEs. There is a great thread on Nano-Reef of people ordering these kits and the end results. I tried emailing the guy several times and couldn't get a response. This left me with a CREE kit of piecing my own together.

 

It was then that I found www.ledgroupbuy.com. I mainly found them from Milad who frequents Nano-Reef. I started looking at all the options that he had and the different products. It was then that I decided I wanted to build my own from scratch. I started talking to Milad a lot through PM. I couldn’t have been happier with his communication. Even though I was just asking questions his was quick to respond and thurough in his explinations. Never once did he complain about all the questions I was asking. Through reading of another thread I saw that he recommended the following numbers and colors for a 29g BioCube:

 

18 Royal Blue

12 Neutral White

6 True Violet

4 Deep Red

4 Turquoise

 

I wanted to make sure that this wouldn’t be too much, and he assured me that if they could all be dimmed then it wouldn’t be a problem and that the color would be amazing.

So with that decided I started ordering parts. My first order from www.ledgroupbuy.com was for all my LEDs. Took a bit longer, which I knew it would, since they had to get the Royal Blue and White with 120 degree optics. I also ordered a 7.29”x14” heatsink from www.heatsinkusa.com. This was shipped fast and looked great. Also ordered was a Noctua 120mm variable speed fan. I saw this used on another build and liked it. This will be my fan for bringing air into the hood and onto the heatsink. I also ordered a silentX fan from newegg to be my exhaust fan. Both fans are extremely quiet and should be a nice improvement from the stock fans.

 

Now I had to figure out how I wanted to control these lights. I really wanted to go with a full system controller, but they are all just a bit too expensive to do on top of this build. This left the BoostLED Typhoon and the LEDGroupBuy DIM4 as my options. I really thought that I was going to go with the Typhoon. Everything looked good, but when I went to order they were almost 3 weeks out. Well that sucks. So I went back to the DIM4 and again, asked Milad a lot of questions. The biggest advantage to the DIM4 is the 2 relay spots. You can plug your fans into these spots and your fan will let your LEDs go completely dark, but it will also run your fan as long as the channel has power. This helps to ease my worry about the fans running either too much or not enough. If the LED’s are on, the fans are on.

 

With the controller decision made I could order my drivers. The DIM4 requires the “D” series of Meanwell drivers. I found a sit online, who I’m not going to name, that had amazing prices. Actually KhensuRa may have pointed them out. Online it didn’t show that they had the drivers I needed, 3 ELN-60-48D and 2 ELN-60-27D. I emailed them and they said they would have them in on 3/7 and would ship same day. Awesome, put in my order. On 3/15 I asked if they had shipped and got a response that they were still 2 weeks out. DANG IT AGAIN. Well, cancel that order. I then went back to Milad and order 3 40w Inventronics drivers and 2 20w. These are really nice as they don’t require an external power source. Basically the one power plug for the DIM4 will power all my lights. These should be here on 3/22.

 

Anyway, enough talking. Here are some of the pics I've taken so far.

 

First order of LEDs and heatsink.

 

 

Layout proposal, dimes are moonlights.

 

 

Then I had to figure out how to arrange the colors.

 

 

Local guy from another site was then kind enough to put my chicken scratch into CAD and come up with the measurements for me.

 

 

I then transfered those onto the heatsink.

 

 

Before any LEDs could go on I had to do the cutouts for the fans. You can see in the bottom corners on the picture that I took just a little from each corner. This will give me the clearance needed for the 60mm silentX fan. I went ahead and did the other side too so I could add another fan if needed.

 

 

Here are the RB and NW layed out.

 

 

Here are all the colors layed out and put down with the thermal adhesive.

 

 

Before I attached them to the heatsink I tried to plan out how I would wire them so everything would lay out nice. A few rotated, but overall it turned out real nice. Here are the 2 strings of RB wired.

 

 

Whites wired.

 

 

Deep Red and Turquiose wired. These are going to be on the same controller.

 

 

True Violet wired.

 

 

Now I have to get my moonlights added. Need to decide if I want to just stick with the original 3 moonlights, or add 1-2 more.

 

This is where I'm at. Hope to tackle the moonlights tonight. If the drivers show up tomorrow I'll start wiring them in the stand along with the DIM4. I bought a 24 slot molex connector to connect everything. This will allow me to remove the hood and do other work if necessary. Also will allow movement of the tank without having to leave the hood in the stand. My fan wires will also be run through this connector.

 

 

 

Once I had all the LEDs soldered on the heatsink it looked like this:

 

 

It was then time to work on the hood.

 

Take the stock hood:

 

 

Make it look like this:

 

 

Then I cut off all the little mounting poles that I wasn’t going to use. I also cut off the plastic surrounding the stock exhaust fan:

 

 

Next I installed the fans:

 

 

The 60mm fan that I used is twice as thick as the stock fan. To make it fit I did this:

 

 

Basically I just used a drill bit and enlarged the bottom holes so that they would slide over the stock posts. This is the exhaust fan so it should work great.

 

To connect the hood to the stand I wanted something that I could disconnect. I wanted to be able to remove the hood and tank completely without having to remove all the drivers and everything as well. To do that I used a 24 port Molex connector:

 

 

For wire I ended up finding some 18-10 sprinkler wire at Home Depot. This gives me 20 wires total, even though I’m only using 14. I have some room to expand down the road if I decide to add moon lights or another fan if needed:

 

 

At this point I mounted the drivers on rails that fit in my stand:

 

 

I then wired them to the other end of the Molex connector:

 

 

All together it looks like this:

 

 

Now it’s time to put the heatsink in the hood and wire everything up. I was able to put the 2 18-10 cables I used through the stock holes, so it makes for a pretty clean install:

 

 

Then I put the splash shield on to make sure I had enough clearance:

 

 

Wired everything up and put the splash shield on for good:

 

 

I then mounted the drivers and DIM4 in the stand:

 

 

Plug it in and power up the DIM4:

 

 

At this point I just had the hood on the floor making sure that all the lights turned on correctly.

 

Here’s all the Royal Blues:

 

 

Add the Neutral Whites:

 

 

Add the Deep Red and Turquoise:

 

 

Then add the True Violet.

 

Opps, didn’t light up. Check and I had the feed wires crossed. 5 minutes later and here is everything lit up:

 

 

This is only at about 10% as the DIM4 wasn’t sending any signal to the drivers.

 

Then I upped it to 100% just to see:

 

 

You can see where the light is in relation to the tank. It already lit it up like this:

 

 

Ok, now we know that everything is working the way it’s supposed to. Time to put the hood back on.

 

Didn’t take a pic of that, sorry.

[cdrewferd]

Now it’s time for pics of the tank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were all taken last night when just the blues were on. I’m going to be borrowing my sisters T3i to see if I can get some better pictures of everything.

 

I'm loving the color. The blues just make the colors pop. No way I can do the tank justice in pictures. I can tell that the zoas especially are happier as when I got home last night, after the lights being on all day, they weren’t extended like they were with the PC lights.

 

Will add pics of the tank in a bit.

[louy99]

wow! wish i had the know how to build an led system like that for my 29 BC!!!

[cdrewferd]

Thanks. It really wasn't all that hard. Just a lot of planning.

 

I thought I would get more feedback on the LEDs, but guess not.

[rO.oster]

need pics with the whites on. planning my 2.0 revamp next year, and its great seeing clusters, and dim4s in the planned builds right now. can you help explain what exactly your controller does and how it does it? I was using 2 TRD as well, very nice build all around! hows the shimmer and do you plan to put in a sheet of blending material on the splash guard?

[RedStang]

Love the lights and tank is coming along nicely!

[boxofh2o]

Now I had to figure out how I wanted to control these lights. I really wanted to go with a full system controller, but they are all just a bit too expensive to do on top of this build. This left the BoostLED Typhoon and the LEDGroupBuy DIM4 as my options. I really thought that I was going to go with the Typhoon. Everything looked good, but when I went to order they were almost 3 weeks out. Well that sucks. So I went back to the DIM4 and again, asked Milad a lot of questions. The biggest advantage to the DIM4 is the 2 relay spots. You can plug your fans into these spots and your fan will let your LEDs go completely dark, but it will also run your fan as long as the channel has power. This helps to ease my worry about the fans running either too much or not enough. If the LED’s are on, the fans are on.

 

So the dim4 has 2 relay spots in addition to 4 channels? Are there any downsides or consequences of using these? Could 4 channles of leds and 2 fans be controlled simultaneously from the dim4?

 

With the controller decision made I could order my drivers. The DIM4 requires the “D” series of Meanwell drivers. I found a sit online, who I’m not going to name, that had amazing prices. Actually KhensuRa may have pointed them out. Online it didn’t show that they had the drivers I needed, 3 ELN-60-48D and 2 ELN-60-27D. I emailed them and they said they would have them in on 3/7 and would ship same day. Awesome, put in my order. On 3/15 I asked if they had shipped and got a response that they were still 2 weeks out. DANG IT AGAIN. Well, cancel that order. I then went back to Milad and order 3 40w Inventronics drivers and 2 20w. These are really nice as they don’t require an external power source. Basically the one power plug for the DIM4 will power all my lights. These should be here on 3/22.

 

A couple questions here -- you say one power plug for the dim4 will power all your lights, but then in the photos, theres power cords hanging off each of the drivers?

 

Also the dim4 has four channels, but it looks like you have five drivers? Is one just moonlights and not being run by the controller?

 

Im just trying to understand the setup as i will be doing something very similar.

 

Also is it possible to use the two existing fans to draw air across the heatsync? Or is it necessary to have the large fan inlayed? Could one fan draw air in, and the other exhaust? Maybe with replacing the stock fans with silenx ?

[cdrewferd]

When I can bring up my laptop I'll answer all questions. On my phone right now and that's too much typing. Lol

[cdrewferd]

So the dim4 has 2 relay spots in addition to 4 channels? Are there any downsides or consequences of using these? Could 4 channles of leds and 2 fans be controlled simultaneously from the dim4?

 

I currently have 4 drivers running off channels 1-4 and 1 fan running off one relay port.

A couple questions here -- you say one power plug for the dim4 will power all your lights, but then in the photos, theres power cords hanging off each of the drivers?

 

This was my mistake. The inventronics still need exterior power from the DIM4.

 

Also the dim4 has four channels, but it looks like you have five drivers? Is one just moonlights and not being run by the controller?

 

Nope, all 5 are run o the controller. 2 drivers for 9 blues each. The dimming wires are just spliced together before being plugged into the DIM4.

 

Im just trying to understand the setup as i will be doing something very similar.

 

Also is it possible to use the two existing fans to draw air across the heatsync? Or is it necessary to have the large fan inlayed? Could one fan draw air in, and the other exhaust? Maybe with replacing the stock fans with silenx ?

 

It's possilble. It all depends on how big of a heatsink you go with. The other problem is that with just the 2 small fans, they would be directly pulling air across the very back of the heatsink. A lot of people just use the stock fans or upgrade to the SilentX so it must work. My 120mm is quieter than both the stock and SilentX and move a lot more air. I actually only have that one pulling air from the room onto the heatsink and the air being forced out of the two stock fan grills feels cool to the touch. Like a light breeze on a cool day.

 

 

Answers above in RED.

[jojoe972]

Nice LED build and stand build... Can you make a stand for my 29g?!?!?!?!

[boxofh2o]

Any updates?

 

How are things growing? Any new pics with whites on?