59 litres of poor financial decisions...

[Cheese-Lover]

So, hi, long time no see.

This thread is probably not going to be anywhere near as well structured as my last one... 'cause i'm on a mobile and have a beer in hand right now...

 

Some of you may remember my last tank that had some endlers and pandaka lidwilli in a little 30cm cube with a bunch of 3d printed bits... expect to see more of the same tbh... just on a tighter budget and larger scale.

 

So, as you can see in this picture:

 

I've got myself a pair of 59 litre, 900mm long tanks. (15.4gal, 3ft for... well i assume most of you are american.)

 

The stand is one i found op shopping and had to modify, reinforce and lengthen... but it's come up pretty good in my humble opinion.

 

 

I picked up the tanks that i had special ordered in by my mate at Nicks Pets Needs in Bundamba, QLD Australia, highly recommend him if anybody is local... he doesn't carry anything marine YET.

 

As i said, had to reinforce the cabinet to take more weight.

 

I am REALLY not a woodworker and, well, it shows.

 

 

 

But hey, at the end of the day everything is now super sturdy, square and nobody is ever going to see the underside of things ever anyway...

 

 

Annnnyyyyywwwaaaayyyyyyy I bought the cabinet and, according to my google search history, was originally going to put 2x 2.5ft tanks on it. But, apparently at some point i forgot the stand was 1500mm long and not 1800mm long and decided to buy 1800mm worth of tank and deal with the details later.

 

Plans:

One tank is going to be freshwater with... plants, endlers, shrimp, co2 (for plants that don't need it), enough light to blind cyclops and plants growing out the top of the tank.

 

The other tank is going to be saltwater with... plants, possibly endlers, possibly shrimp, plants and macros if i can find any, enough light to notice it on my power bills and mangroves growing out the top... if i can get mangroves...

 

There is going to be rockwork that joins the two tanks together, going up and over the middle glass. Sereyu(spelling?) stone on the freshwater side and transitioning to granite with oyster shells on it on the saltwater side - it's what they use to shore up a lot of the mud banks around mangroves around here and i want to kind of replicate a fresh to marine transition across the whole thing.... time will tell if i accomplish it or completely change direction 'cause it looks dumb.

 

That's, uh, all i've got for now.

[Crawford_T]

Interested to see this!

[Cheese-Lover]

Managed to get to the beach today!

 

 

This sort of rock work with oyster shells all over it is really what I think of when I think of fresh water meeting salt... so...

 

 

I got some rocks with oyster shells and some mangroves that were in the skip bin at a development that had approval to remove the mangroves. - these were baking in the sun for who knows how long, so I don't have too much faith any of them will come good... but i've got everything crossed for them and they are getting a good (freshwater) soak for 24 hours.

 

I'm moving the tank into its proper location tomorrow and will silicone the rock bridge thing between the tanks together to get that started.

 

For lighting i'm thinking about a DIY fixture using 15x10w cob LED's stuck to a 1900mm long piece of 2080 aluminium T-Slot... but i'm also thinking about a super minimal looking couple of lights with 50w LED's stuck to waterblocks and using a watercooling radiator to keep the LEDs cool. Haven't decided on what I want to do yet. - might just use a couple of bunnings LED floodlights temporarily.

[Cheese-Lover]

I made a little progress today, i mounted most of my DIY chiller i made a couple of years ago... but broke the pump... so... new pump is ordered.

 

It's a bit of a mess.

 

 

The thing is peltier based and can heat or cool depending on what i need from it.

 

The bit that goes in the tank is titanium and doesn't react badly with the tank itself. It's poorly bent by hand, but it gets the job done and hasn't had a single issue.

 

It has the cold sides of two peltier modules on an aluminium water block that the distilled water is pumped through. The hot sides are cooled by the 2x$14 coolermaster pc coolers i picked up on special on amazon... this is almost silent and keeps the peltiers a little closer to their efficiency band... which is great 'cause they are already super inefficient.

 

 

I still need to mount the reservoir (might retire the pickle jar and find something nicer) and i also need to mount the inkbird temp controller.

 

 

With the whole front of the cabinet being open, the fans blow the hot air out pretty effectively (when i tested it with a drill battery at least).

 

 

I don't know that i ever posted about it when i made it. - and i made it after spending about 2.7 seconds looking at what the iceprobe things sell for... this is more eficient, more powerful and more DIY. It was supposed to be temporary but it worked so well that i never bothered to build the version 2 i was planning.

 

If anybody has any questions about it, feel free to ask and i'll try to help out.

 

(Yes, that sump that you spy is my old display tank. The sump from that tank is probably going to be my ATO res)

[KevMax]

Nice work on the chiller. I have never seen a DIY chiller before this. Look forward to seeing how it works as this setup develops.

[Cheese-Lover]

43 minutes ago, KevMax said:

Nice work on the chiller. I have never seen a DIY chiller before this. Look forward to seeing how it works as this setup develops.

It was on the old setup for almost 2 years and never missed a beat. - i was using it for both heating and cooling.

[Sturgi_0225]

3 hours ago, Cheese-Lover said:

I made a little progress today, i mounted most of my DIY chiller i made a couple of years ago... but broke the pump... so... new pump is ordered.

 

It's a bit of a mess.

 

 

The thing is peltier based and can heat or cool depending on what i need from it.

 

The bit that goes in the tank is titanium and doesn't react badly with the tank itself. It's poorly bent by hand, but it gets the job done and hasn't had a single issue.

 

It has the cold sides of two peltier modules on an aluminium water block that the distilled water is pumped through. The hot sides are cooled by the 2x$14 coolermaster pc coolers i picked up on special on amazon... this is almost silent and keeps the peltiers a little closer to their efficiency band... which is great 'cause they are already super inefficient.

 

 

I still need to mount the reservoir (might retire the pickle jar and find something nicer) and i also need to mount the inkbird temp controller.

 

 

With the whole front of the cabinet being open, the fans blow the hot air out pretty effectively (when i tested it with a drill battery at least).

 

 

I don't know that i ever posted about it when i made it. - and i made it after spending about 2.7 seconds looking at what the iceprobe things sell for... this is more eficient, more powerful and more DIY. It was supposed to be temporary but it worked so well that i never bothered to build the version 2 i was planning.

 

If anybody has any questions about it, feel free to ask and i'll try to help out.

 

(Yes, that sump that you spy is my old display tank. The sump from that tank is probably going to be my ATO res)

If you had time you soils make a step by step for this… I love it

[mitten_reef]

3 hours ago, Cheese-Lover said:

Should the opened-case AC-DC adapter be inside the cabinet where presumably the sump will be?  Just wondering if you have any concern on the effect of the "salty air" or any microbubbles might come off from the sump.  Overall, the cooler DIY looks awesome, and def share what you did in case some other DIY-wannabe might give it a try (I'm not one of those handy folks, lol) 

[Cheese-Lover]

6 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

Should the opened-case AC-DC adapter be inside the cabinet where presumably the sump will be?  Just wondering if you have any concern on the effect of the "salty air" or any microbubbles might come off from the sump.

 

It's going to get a 3d printed shield over the terminals and stuff, but i'm not overly worried about anything coming from the sump 'cause it'll have a very tight fitting lid. And if the PSU dies, i'll replace it and rethink things at that point in time.

 

I don't have any fears for any of the other equipment going in the cabinet either. - and if salt creep becomes an issue I can add a thin wall in the middle of the cabinet anyway.

 

 

 

 

I will 100% do a guide on exactly what i've done this weekend. There really isn't much to it though.

The cold sides of the two peltier modules cool the waterblock and the heatsinks cool the hot sides.

A pump pushes water through the cold waterblock and through a titanium coil/heat exchanger and into a small reservoir. Rinse and repeat.

There is an inkbird temperature controller turning the power supply on and off and giving me updates on temp over the internet. - I could do the same thing with an ESP32, arduino or even a cheap STC1000 from ebay but I was lazy and had the inkbird laying around.

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

you like your endlers then 😅 presuming you're talking wingei x reticulata hybrids not pure wingei?