Aunt Minnie Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Wow that stand is sweet! Very modern, exactly what I'm trying to do. I had a couple questions I was hoping you could answer, as I have minimal DIY skills. 1.) Are those 2x4s supporting the tank? I am planning a ~20G semi-cube with a 20" x 18" footprint and was looking to use 1x3s to decrease weight and allow more room in the stand. Do you think this will be enough? 2.) What did you use to prime/paint the wood and is there any reason why you didn't do this after assembly? 3.) Do you need to countersink screw holes? Did you use wood glue in addition to screws? 4.) LOVE your choice of wood to skin the stand. Is that maple/birch plywood? I am looking to use the same, but am concerned as to how to finish the wood. I have read that closed-grained woods like maple and birch are VERY difficult to stain, as stain tends to "blotch." Do you plan on staining the wood or are you going to stick with the "natural" look? In any case, what product did you use to finish your outer plywood? 5.) How did you end up attaching your outer panels to your inner frame? I know you mentioned using magnets (awesome idea btw). However, I won't need to access the innards of the stand very often as I'll be running an AIO. Additionally, I thought securing the panels to the frame using nails or screws would add rigidity and help strengthen the stand. I'm concerned, however, that these nails/screws will mar the appearance of my panels and am not sure how to deal with this. Just curious if you went through any of the same concerns when building your stand. I appreciate any advice you can give! Link to comment
scott26 Posted April 8, 2012 Author Share Posted April 8, 2012 Wow that stand is sweet! Very modern, exactly what I'm trying to do. I had a couple questions I was hoping you could answer, as I have minimal DIY skills. 1.) Are those 2x4s supporting the tank? I am planning a ~20G semi-cube with a 20" x 18" footprint and was looking to use 1x3s to decrease weight and allow more room in the stand. Do you think this will be enough? I was going to use the 1x3's but ended up using 1x4's. 2.) What did you use to prime/paint the wood and is there any reason why you didn't do this after assembly? I used Kilz to prime the wood and just basic white paint from Lowe's for the finish (semi-gloss). The reason I painted before I assembled was because I didn't want to have to use a brush to get in all the corners after assembly. Thinking back though if I left it unfinished I could have used glue to hold it together even stronger. 3.) Do you need to countersink screw holes? Did you use wood glue in addition to screws? I did countersink and then I will fill them with white wood filler and touch them up with some paint for final assembly. I didn't use wood glue just the hardware. 4.) LOVE your choice of wood to skin the stand. Is that maple/birch plywood? I am looking to use the same, but am concerned as to how to finish the wood. I have read that closed-grained woods like maple and birch are VERY difficult to stain, as stain tends to "blotch." Do you plan on staining the wood or are you going to stick with the "natural" look? In any case, what product did you use to finish your outer plywood? It is Birch 3/4" plywood. If you plan to stain it, it can be a challenge since I did that on my 90 gallon wave stand I built. It may come out blotchy but mine did not it is kind of luck of the draw I found with wood selection. I ended up painting the stand white to keep it modern and sleek looking. 5.) How did you end up attaching your outer panels to your inner frame? I know you mentioned using magnets (awesome idea btw). However, I won't need to access the innards of the stand very often as I'll be running an AIO. Additionally, I thought securing the panels to the frame using nails or screws would add rigidity and help strengthen the stand. I'm concerned, however, that these nails/screws will mar the appearance of my panels and am not sure how to deal with this. The right side of the stand is attached to the frame with screws since the large door has to have something to anchor to. Since the left side of the tank wouldn't have anything mounted to it I just used some L bracket to keep it in place and some magnet to keep it from falling off. Screwing the sides on will add some stregth to the stand and you can do it and cover the holes left over two ways. The way I did it on my 90 gallon tank was I got a "Hole Cutter Set" from Harbor Fright and used it to cut out plugs that would fill the coutersunk holes from the screws. I have also seen little buttons at hardware stores that can serve the same kind of function. Just curious if you went through any of the same concerns when building your stand. I appreciate any advice you can give! Link to comment
scott26 Posted April 14, 2012 Author Share Posted April 14, 2012 Well I got my LED from Aquastyle and they are pretty great I have to say especially for the price. Another great thing to mention was it only took 5 days for me to get them from Hong Kong. So here is the package I got from Fedex with all the goodies. It came with everything I needed basically besides some addtional wire I wanted and a soldering gun. All for $136 after shipping and all. So I started out by tinning my LEDs first before placing them on the heatsink since I had heard that if you try to tin them on the heatsink it is harder for the pad to heat up and take the solder. First two tinned 24 to go. So then I decided to start my placement of the LEDs I wanted to go with a cluster style since I have heard of people having issues with a sort of disco effect if it is not set up just right with the row spacing. Here they are all on the heatsink and the two in the middle are two moonlights for night time. Then I attached the whites in one string going in a + to - order until I reached the other end of the driver wire, and same with the blues. Here is the semi finished product with some extra lead wire to funnel it through my light hanging rod. I also wanted to keep my drivers and controls in a nice neat box so I got a project box from a local electronics store. Here it is above the tank I still needed to finish up the project box and wire everything but I couldn't resist just getting it set up to see how it looked. I used some wire loom to make the power cords look neater. Here is the underside. So I had to get my project box all together to make it look good and run. One knob for white control and one for blue, I also have the moonlight driver in here. Here are some various light pictures it is hard to get the real effect of the blues since they are so bright using my camera phone. Max white: Min white: Min Blue: Max Blue: Full power both: Lowest setting both. I am really happy with this build and for the cost I don't think it can be beat. I had priced out my other options for this same build using CREE's and it would have been almost $200 more. Link to comment
Deleted User 4 Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 Wow, that's very nice!!!! Good stuff Link to comment
scott26 Posted April 19, 2012 Author Share Posted April 19, 2012 Well I took the fixture off to get the fan attached that I forgot about and to enclose all of the loose wires in split loom to keep it clean looking and to protect the wires. So I painted the conduit all black and it looks much better. I started by threading an extra piece of wire through the conduit and attached it to the split loom with the wires to pull it through. Got it all wired up neatly. Final Link to comment
Jessy-Ray Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 this is AWESOME, you are doing an amazing job at everything so far, what material is your light stand made out of?? Link to comment
scott26 Posted April 21, 2012 Author Share Posted April 21, 2012 this is AWESOME, you are doing an amazing job at everything so far, what material is your light stand made out of?? It is 1/2 metal conduit. Link to comment
scott26 Posted May 2, 2012 Author Share Posted May 2, 2012 Slid the light out of the way and got working on the SCWD. Used Spa-Flex to set it up. Got to make it black. Here is the rock work in a few of the pictures you can see the current is different thanks to the SCWD. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted May 2, 2012 Share Posted May 2, 2012 Watch out with those 10,000K whites. They will wash out colors like nobody's business. What are you using to drive the two moonlights? Link to comment
scott26 Posted May 2, 2012 Author Share Posted May 2, 2012 Watch out with those 10,000K whites. They will wash out colors like nobody's business. What are you using to drive the two moonlights? Ya I have them all on dimmers I am going to wait for it to cycle before doing full photoperiods anyway. The moonlights are from Rapid LED the 2 Moonlight kit but I have to say that these are way powerful for the 350Ma they say that they run at. I dont know what to do about it maybe put some optics on them since they seem to shoot out everywhere as well. Link to comment
WoodRiverTroutBum Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 How did you end up making out with the moonlights? Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Ya I have them all on dimmers I am going to wait for it to cycle before doing full photoperiods anyway. The moonlights are from Rapid LED the 2 Moonlight kit but I have to say that these are way powerful for the 350Ma they say that they run at. I dont know what to do about it maybe put some optics on them since they seem to shoot out everywhere as well. Dimmers don't do anything for color temperature. A 10000K LED ran at 5% is the same as a 10000K LED at 100%. Link to comment
scott26 Posted May 18, 2012 Author Share Posted May 18, 2012 Screen top added almost looks like it was meant to be there. Link to comment
iDerek Posted May 18, 2012 Share Posted May 18, 2012 Sweeeeeeeeeet! I wish I was talented enough to put a DIY fixture and stand together like that. I've been eyeing a deep blue 30 frag tank and this build is perfect to borrow from for it. Link to comment
JR! Posted May 18, 2012 Share Posted May 18, 2012 thats sick man. my next build is gonna be alot like this one Link to comment
NanoOrBust Posted May 18, 2012 Share Posted May 18, 2012 Wow!!! This is going to be one awesome tank... Amazing!!! Link to comment
scott26 Posted May 27, 2012 Author Share Posted May 27, 2012 I have just been letting it cycle. I got a blue damsel and he is doing well. I also got a Mag 9.5 to change out and add some water power. I will have to get some pictures up later. Link to comment
scott26 Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 Well I am going to make a scrubber for my 30 cube but wanted to make it a little better than my last attempt by enclosing it in an acrylic box. Here are some sketch ups of how it is going to look. And individual sizing of the each pane I will go to my local shop and have it fabbed up I hope it isn't to much we'll see. Bottom Front & Back Side W/O Emergency Overflow Side W Emergency Overflow Top Lip Top Top Top Bottom Link to comment
JR! Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 thats cool man. looks like its gonna work well. Link to comment
scott26 Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 thats cool man. looks like its gonna work well. Let's hope and this should reduce salt creep and make it easier to maintain. Link to comment
scott26 Posted June 2, 2012 Author Share Posted June 2, 2012 Got to add some more fish to the tank today. I removed the blue damsel before adding the other fish so he didn't stress them out since they tend to be aggressive. Link to comment
Rollermonkey Posted June 2, 2012 Share Posted June 2, 2012 I'm just gonna go with wow. Link to comment
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