Jump to content
SaltCritters.com

RollaJase's Trip Off the Deep End - Custom Rimless 55G


RollaJase

Recommended Posts

I did indeed. No losses at all after the power outage. Most of the are hiding in the FTS as I cleaned the glass about 10mins before taking that picture (hence some of the floaties in the water). Pretty much as soon as I go near the tank outside of feeding time the fish freak out lol. The melanurus wrasse freaks out and dives into the sand as soon as I do anything major in or near the tank. I even have to be careful at feeding time otherwise he dives into the sand and misses out, he can stay that way for a few hours at a time outside of when he is sleeping.

 

 

Hey Jack, thanks man, thanks for stopping by. How are things on your end?

Always like your builds.......very well thought out.

Going good over here.....getting ready to change the cube up a bit. Adding sand and real rock......tired of the fake rock and missing the natural look of sand....trying to decide between 1" or 4 - 5" of sand.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Always like your builds.......very well thought out.

Going good over here.....getting ready to change the cube up a bit. Adding sand and real rock......tired of the fake rock and missing the natural look of sand....trying to decide between 1" or 4 - 5" of sand.

Cheers dude, I always try to make things easier for myself in the long run. Don't have a whole lot of time to work on the tank so the time I spend with it I want to be pretty simple. For sand, my one piece of advice would be choose the grain size very carefully. I made the mistake of putting in powder sand and while I love the look it gets blown around easily and is near impossible to siphon clean. When I inevitably have to move the tank when I move out I'm going to toss the current sand and put in a heavier grain to allow me to run more water flow in the DT while also being able to siphon the sand easier. I'd go for 2-3" of sand personally. Deep enough to house most wrasses, will be good filtration without looking weird and will maximise open water in the DT.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Cheers dude, I always try to make things easier for myself in the long run. Don't have a whole lot of time to work on the tank so the time I spend with it I want to be pretty simple. For sand, my one piece of advice would be choose the grain size very carefully. I made the mistake of putting in powder sand and while I love the look it gets blown around easily and is near impossible to siphon clean. When I inevitably have to move the tank when I move out I'm going to toss the current sand and put in a heavier grain to allow me to run more water flow in the DT while also being able to siphon the sand easier. I'd go for 2-3" of sand personally. Deep enough to house most wrasses, will be good filtration without looking weird and will maximise open water in the DT.

All good points......I'm down for simplicity. Work / kids take most of my time.

 

Thinking of some jawfish....hence the sand. But, also a little hesitant on such a deep bed. I do like the cleanliness of the bare bottom.

Decisions decisions......

  • Like 1
Link to comment

All good points......I'm down for simplicity. Work / kids take most of my time.

 

Thinking of some jawfish....hence the sand. But, also a little hesitant on such a deep bed. I do like the cleanliness of the bare bottom.

Decisions decisions......

Ah I see. Bare bottoms are nice ;) but I like the natural look of sand, even if it can be a pain sometimes haha.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

So my replacement rectifiers arrived today but I went to the gym for an hour and a half tonight instead of soldering them in, looks like that will have to wait until tomorrow night.

Link to comment

Ah I see. Bare bottoms are nice ;) but I like the natural look of sand, even if it can be a pain sometimes haha.

 

Sand gets everywhere ... oh, sorry, wrong topic.

 

I had cleaned up a bunch of sand when I was having cyano issues in my 40 so that the front is mostly sand free while the back varies depending on the mood of my Basslet. Zoas have started to attach to the bottom and spread, which looks super cool, so I'm starting to like BB more and more. Cyano doesn't like glass ...well, mostly.

  • Like 4
Link to comment

 

Sand gets everywhere ... oh, sorry, wrong topic.

 

I had cleaned up a bunch of sand when I was having cyano issues in my 40 so that the front is mostly sand free while the back varies depending on the mood of my Basslet. Zoas have started to attach to the bottom and spread, which looks super cool, so I'm starting to like BB more and more. Cyano doesn't like glass ...well, mostly.

;)

 

I've removed sand from a live system before, not fun at all haha. Something I would really like to avoid if I could at this point in time. I think I'll see how the Red Slim Rx goes in removing the bulk of it. Hopefully then a combination of GFO and Phosphate Rx will help remove the rest of the phosphate in the water. My SPS is slowly colouring up as the nutrients reduce, my birdsnest in particular is getting a nice green glow over the pink flesh.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

;)

 

I've removed sand from a live system before, not fun at all haha. Something I would really like to avoid if I could at this point in time. I think I'll see how the Red Slim Rx goes in removing the bulk of it. Hopefully then a combination of GFO and Phosphate Rx will help remove the rest of the phosphate in the water. My SPS is slowly colouring up as the nutrients reduce, my birdsnest in particular is getting a nice green glow over the pink flesh.

 

Be very very careful with PhosphateRx, it's very strong and 3 little drops in a tank already low in PO4 could do a lot of harm. I would do a single drop, then wait it out and see what happens.

  • Like 2
Link to comment

 

Be very very careful with PhosphateRx, it's very string and 3 little drops in a tank already low in PO4 could do a lot of harm. I would do a single drop, then wait it out and see what happens.

That's the plan, possibly even do a partial drop. I want to test the water first to see where things are at after the first treatment of Red Slime Rx.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

On the 4th month of troubleshooting Jason said 'Let there be light!' and the warm glow of Nano Box radiance filled the room.

 

Light is back in commission! Well, everything but the fan control, I forgot to load the program onto the arduino I replaced. Still better than nothing!

  • Like 3
Link to comment

One final hurdle, the fan control for the light isn't working. I had to replace the arduino that I fried as part of the driver board rebuild. This was simple enough to do but now that I have replaced it and loaded the software the fans wont power on at all. When the jumper is in the position for 3pin fans (I am using 3pin fans) I get nothing, when I flip the jumper over to 4pin fans though the fans power on but spin very slowly. I don't have a copy of the original arduino program to try out, only the updated program (from January 2016). I've emailed the developer to try and get some input, I hope its just something simple that I'm not doing right.

Link to comment

Turns out there is a chip to control fan speed when using 3 pin fans, I've probably fried that as well :(. After weighing up the cost of the replacement chip with freight (and a few spares) I started looking at simply buying some replacement fans with 4 pin cables. I found a pair on eBay and just impulse bought them at about 8am this morning. Little did I realise that the seller was local and based a short drive from work. They contacted me and offered to hand deliver the fans for me. Same day hand delivery from eBay is not something you get every day, it is something I could get used to though ;).

  • Like 4
Link to comment

So I've had the light on the tank for the last few days and have to say, I'm thoroughly impressed. I'm still having some niggling issue with the fan control, might need to modify some of the code in the program to get the exact behaviour I want. It's like i'm seeing the tank in HD for the first time because now every inch is bathed in light, not just a cone in the centre. I've dialled in the colour exactly as I want it but I may have to drop down the intensity a bit. At this stage, the SPS seem to be fine but I want to make sure I don't bleach them out at all.

  • Like 7
Link to comment

finally! congrats on getting the light up and running!

Wow! We've been watching the progress on your light for so long, what a great milestone to finally have it over the tank!

Thanks guys, it's definitely been along time coming but I'm really glad to finally see all that hard work come to fruition. My last niggling issue is the fans. They are supposed to be controlled by the PWM signal coming from a designated channel and should turn off when the channel is running at 0 intensity. At the moment, the fans stay on even when all lights are out (this is with 4-pin, PWM controlled fans mind you). I never tried 4-pin fans prior to me breaking the light the first time but when using a 3-pin fan option it worked with no issues. If I can't fix the issue with a software tweak I guess I'll cave and buy the replacement chip to fix the 3-pin fan control and switch the fans back to what they were originally. At this stage, I have a timer set to turn on just before dawn and to turn off just after dusk to negate excessive fan noise.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

The light is over the tank?!

 

Woah.

 

 

Good work! Let's see!

Yes it is! I plan on putting an update up in due time. I want to take some semi decent photos and put the design and implementation thoughts into words. I want to post up a semi detailed rundown of things for those interested.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

I had a lot of nice stuff arrive today. My two Jebao pumps arrived for me to have as spares (yet to be tested). I picked up a DCT-4000 to replace my DC-3000 if it fails as well as a DCS-2000 as a replacement pump for my skimmer. I also picked up a spare pinwheel impeller and air silencer kit for my skimmer (came as a kit). My Nyos Phosphate test kit, Phosphate Rx & Red Slime Rx twin pack, Salifert aminos and some Ocean Nutrition red seaweed arrived. I was planning on only getting the test kit and the Phosphate and Red Slime Rx but they were having a sale so I figured I'd pick up a few extra things.

 

My phosphate test ended up being somewhere between 0.025 and 0.050 mg/l. Not horrible but could be better, this is after doing a water change yesterday also.

 

Figured I'd leave these here also ;).

xnICip.jpg
L1lREx.jpg

  • Like 7
Link to comment

 

My phosphate test ended up being somewhere between 0.025 and 0.050 mg/l. Not horrible but could be better, this is after doing a water change yesterday also.

 

 

Why do you think it could be better? Good news on the light, try not to fry anything else. :) I really like running the cyan channel full blast, royal blue a little less, and during daylight hours Lime at the same level or a little under RB with whites at 15 to 20% max. In my 40, which is all LED, this looks incredible, you can't even tell it's LED, which for me is the measure of success.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

 

Why do you think it could be better? Good news on the light, try not to fry anything else. :) I really like running the cyan channel full blast, royal blue a little less, and during daylight hours Lime at the same level or a little under RB with whites at 15 to 20% max. In my 40, which is all LED, this looks incredible, you can't even tell it's LED, which for me is the measure of success.

Well, not necessarily bad if it stays that way. I plan on testing again Friday to see what the difference is. If it is a drastic change I know something is off, if it is a slight change I guess I know I need to feed less.

 

Thanks Mark, I'll try not to blow it up again ;). At this stage my RB and Cyan channel are running at about 85%, UV around 70% and White at 35%, this is in the middle of the day. I'm running the whites a little higher because my whites and lime LED's are on the same channel, running this channel a bit brighter gets more some more of the effects of the lime. I was running the UV higher and RB lower but I'm not a fan of the purple hue I get. I really like this colour combo though, very crisp and white but with the actinic pop, I'm seeing a lot more of the coral features than I was with just Blue/White. The colour mixing is great and I agree, it's difficult to tell the light source is LED, the output is superb. I have no coverage issues either, in fact, this light would probably suit a full sized 3-4ft tank. Frosting the splash guards was a good idea though I think, I get less glare and the light seems to mix better.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...