Marineland Portrait 5G- 365 day challenge

[Lingwendil]

 

Here we go again :)

 

I was considering taking this tank down for a while, and recently started thinking of transferring the old school pico contest tank into it. Seeing another contest sealed the deal :)

 

This was a very nice, very high maintenance low tech planted tank for the last couple years, but has been sitting with just substrate and manzanita wood in it for a while, with a single male Heterandria formosa, and a colony of red ramshorn snails in it. I never quite got a good groove going with it the last year, and would basically trim it almost bare every month or so. So, out the heterandria and snails went (into the 2.5g shrimp tank) and I drained the tank as soon as I got home from work.

 

The plan is pretty simple, and uses parts already on hand- a koralia or similar powerhead, the stock return pump, and a Hagen heater. The light fixture is a MakersLED that I will be stripping and building out for reef use. I hate to do it, because I got the spectrum exactly how I like it, but I'll make sure and write down the current settings and loadout for later. 

[This guy is extra salty]

6 minutes ago, Lingwendil said:

 

Here we go again 🙂

 

I was considering taking this tank down for a while, and recently started thinking of transferring the old school pico contest tank into it. Seeing another contest sealed the deal 🙂

 

This was a very nice, very high maintenance low tech planted tank for the last couple years, but has been sitting with just substrate and manzanita wood in it for a while, with a single male Heterandria formosa, and a colony of red ramshorn snails in it. I never quite got a good groove going with it the last year, and would basically trim it almost bare every month or so. So, out the heterandria and snails went (into the 2.5g shrimp tank) and I drained the tank as soon as I got home from work.

 

The plan is pretty simple, and uses parts already on hand- a koralia or similar powerhead, the stock return pump, and a Hagen heater. The light fixture is a MakersLED that I will be stripping and building out for reef use. I hate to do it, because I got the spectrum exactly how I like it, but I'll make sure and write down the current settings and loadout for later. 

I wanna see the custom lights!!!

couple acropowers?

[Lingwendil]

Current state of the fixture- something sticky got spilled on it apparently :)

 

 

Current layout of freshwater LEDs, very messy but I'll be replacing most of it with a custom PCB I designed.-

 

 

Current panel layout- four channels of control :)

 

 

 

[Tamberav]

Following along so I can steal all your ideas!

 

[ef4life]

I’ll be following this, your little custom led is pretty neat looking.

[Lingwendil]

11 hours ago, ef4life said:

I’ll be following this, your little custom led is pretty neat looking.

It'll look much cleaner this time around. That was a temporary wiring job that became permanent, as DIY solutions often do 🙂

[Smurf]

Following along! Jealous of everyone’s DIY capabilities. Best of luck in the year to come. I hope to get some inspiration from everyone’s builds. 

 

Time is never on my side.. unless I have to wait. Which is good I got my tank wet already. Waiting, waiting. Nothing good happens fast!

[Lingwendil]

Tank is wet and lit. Moved some live rock over from the 40 breeder just to get it started. I need to go to my storage unit to get some dry to start building the main structure, as the 2.5 pico won't have enough on its own.

 

A rather large amphipod that was on the LR immediately started freaking out and running all around the perimeter of the sand, but eventually settled down. Dude looks huge in this tank.

 

 

The only other stock for the cycle is some red ochtodes macroalgae and an asterina star. 

 

[Lingwendil]

Now for the lighting situation. I still have the heatsink setup from the planted tank, so I stripped it, built up a custom 4up LDD-L PCB (the "4up LDD-L EZ PCB") of my own design. I really like this PCB design for this, perfect for small builds. It has onboard PWM input headphone jacks, an onboard DC input jack, and miniature screw terminals for output to the LEDs. It'll take 4 channels of 5 volt PWM control from Arduino types of lighting dimmers, and can be jumpered for two channel control if desired. The pull down resistors can be enabled or disabled via jumpers as well. Each PCB can be built up for about $25 total. CAT5/6 makes nice hookup wire here.

 

 

I used a custom BlueAcro "halfmega" 20k array for the majority of the setup, but added a StevesLEDs 3up of lime, cool blue, and hyper violet. I'll be adding a cyan soon as well. I lightly sanded the splash shield for a light diffusion effect.

 

 

Next I drilled the holes for the connectors through the back/side plate. Easy peasy.

 

 

 

 

[Lingwendil]

Moved some rock from the 40 breeder, some dry that has some cement frag plug mounts, added some limpets, a couple asterina stars, and a small hermit. Need to dig some more cleanup crew from the 2.5 once the tank has gone a bit longer. I'm getting a little dusting of green algae, but everything seems to be going well. I need to break up some dry rock to build the structure up more but I'm liking it so far. I even have some red ochtodes macro on a few pieces. I have pretty minimal rock in the 2.5 but plan to move over most of it, so I need to leave a bit of room. 

 

 

 

I added a koralia nano 240 (with more red octhodes on it 🙂 ) which looks absolutely massive in this tank, thankfully it's working well shoved way up in the corner. I'm considering upgrading the return pump as well as the stock one is maybe 50~75GPH? I can't find a straight answer on it. I think something in the 125-150 range would be about right.

 

 

 

A package from Steve's LEDs is waiting at the post office for me, so I'll be messing with the fixture  in the next few days to add an additional 3-up of cyan, cool blue, and violet, and maybe another couple royal blues. I'll probably throttle down the blues overall and use the additional ones for better spread- they're also SemiLEDs 440nm so shuld be a deeper blue than the existing ones to make for a nice mix.

[Lingwendil]

also- relevant meme-

 

[Tamberav]

I think it looks great! I like the scape.

 

I ended up splurging on a used KPS because it's smaller than even my small jaebo.

[Lingwendil]

We are really trying to limit spending, we are trying to move by the end of next month. Other than a few bucks here and there I can't sink much into this build. Besides, if I had that kind of money I'd probably buy a gyre for my 40 breeder 🙂 

[Tamberav]

1 minute ago, Lingwendil said:

We are really trying to limit spending, we are trying to move by the end of next month. Other than a few bucks here and there I can't sink much into this build. Besides, if I had that kind of money I'd probably buy a gyre for my 40 breeder 🙂 

oh it was a total splurge on my end. I didn't want to spend more than the tank itself lol but then I saw it posted and well...  

[Lingwendil]

There. I transferred everything over from the 2.5 sooner than expected, as my friend that was taking the 2.5 was in town. I kind of just shoved everything in however it would fit- I need to buy some epoxy and super glue to mount frags and build shelves. Several of the pieces in the 2.5 are those awkward cement pancakes and are impossible to use in here without some creativity. I might even move some stuff to the 40, but need to do some water tests in there first :) 

 

[Lingwendil]

Alright, made a couple quick changes last night. I had a few extra LEDs come in- a 3up of cyan, cool blue, and violet, and a pair of semiLEDs royal blue. Swapped out the current 3up of lime, violet, cool blue and swapped in the new one, as I wasn't using the lime. Hooked the royals and the violet all together on one channel, and the cyan and cool blue on one channel. The BlueAcro puck still has it's own two separate channels, one for the string of 3x royal blue, 1x violet, and one for a string of 1x mint, 1x cool blue, 1x royal blue, 1x high CRI cool white. As soon as I dig out a higher voltage PSU I'll likely combine the royal blues and violet to the blue channel on the puck, and run the cyan on it's own channel. I may add in the additional 3up I already have on hand to get another violet on there, or use one of the two additional 3ups I have of cool blue, PC amber, and violet to get some warmth from the amber- experimenting is needed to see if I might like this. Theatrus from blueAcro likes PC amber for bringing out the reds and oranges in certain corals so it may be worth a try.

 

layout before changes-

 

 

New LEDs-

 

 

New layout-

 

 

Lightly sanded  splash shield to act as a diffuser (this works very well, but doesn't completely kill the effect, she who reads next to the tank is very happy as it's less fatiguing to be near for extended periods)

 

 

Some terrible pics of stuff in the tank with pretty accurate color representation- check out that huge vermetus snail-

 

 

I love this red monti. Traded some red ochtodes for it and a handful of other monti frags, the euphyllia, the GSP, and the pocillopora frags in here.

 

 

This euphyllia is pretty interesting, it has a split color scheme, half green tips half bluish-violet tips. The parent colony was apparently the same way. Love that Pavona too 🙂 

 

 

Meteor shower is still my favorite.

 

 

 

I really want a smaller alternative to that koralia, but can't think of any. 

 

 

 

I'll try to get better pics soon. The tank is looking pretty nice in person. I need to grab glue and mount things soon, and rearrange the rubble pile into something nicer. That cyan really helps to brighten and freshen up the overall color tone of the tank.

[Ratvan]

All the additions are nice but that Euphylllia! Wow

[Lingwendil]

To think I traded a gallon ziplock bag full of red ochtodes macro that I pruned and got all the frags- and the guy tossed that in. A kingly gift 🙂 

[Ratvan]

34 minutes ago, Lingwendil said:

To think I traded a gallon ziplock bag full of red ochtodes macro that I pruned and got all the frags- and the guy tossed that in. A kingly gift 🙂 

Honestly inter reefer trading is the only way I can do this hobby 

[Lingwendil]

Right? I'm broke as shit these days, I don't think I've spent over ~$10USD on a frag in a couple years at this point. Honestly I prefer to get stuff from hobbyists that have established tanks anyways, less turnover of stock from sometimes questionable sources.

[debbeach13]

Any updates?

[Lingwendil]

Lost a few monti pieces, and have a bit of an algae problem. I need to do a water change and some maintenance before I put up a new full tank shot. Been really busy.

[Lingwendil]

Been incredibly busy. Tank had some die off, and I sort of just left it alone to do its own thing for now. Really messy pic after taking some algae down, and a pic of a vermetus snail chowing down. I need to clear out some macro but I've got oil on my hands from car stuff so I will in a day or so.

 

Lost my cyphastrea almost completely 😞

[debbeach13]

Hope you are well. Is the tank still up and running?

[Lingwendil]

Sorry!!! Life has been hectic. Tank started having issues, I was too swamped at work to pay attention to it, and was dismantled and the stock added to my 40 breeder. 😥

 

Had some die off over the summer and lost most of my corals due to heat that we couldn't control in our living space. We have now moved into our own house and I will slowly begin stocking the 40.