Building Glass Tank from Scratch

[shao-lin nano]

I like the design of your tank but the silicone job looked a little messy in the picture and the purple Great Stuff wall looks like alien intestine.

 

The overflow notch you have might not be about to keep your cleaning crew and fish out of the rear without teeth or grate or mesh of some sort.

 

While working with Great Stuff was it difficult to form and shape after it is applied? It looks too smooth, maybe you could have lodged "dead LR" as it was curing to give it more of a rock like look which I assume was what you were going for. I'm sure after coraline covers the wall it'll look good.

[Scissorhand]

Heh heh, I hope you stock this bad ass mofo with some cool corals.

[zachtos]

As for the spray paint and the silicone I chose, I'm relying on luck at this point to determine if they are "reef safe".

 

The great stuff is hard to form after it is sprayed, it expands to 2 times its size in an hour and gets pretty "tacky" w/in 60 seconds. I know it looks like crap right now (literally), but it's better then bright yellow backing at the moment.

 

I'm having a VERY hard time finding eggrate to protect the overflow compartment. I may have to cobble something up myself. No hurry though. I got a month or so till i get fish.

 

My plan is to cover the back wall w/ coraline algae, GSP and/or xenia. I will have a few pieces of LR in the display w/ some small softies. Planning on astreas, scarlet crab, cleaner shrimp and one clown goby. Playsand substrate from quickcrete (have used this in the past). I will have a fuge in the back w/ its own 7W 7200K PC light while the main display is lit w/ high powered LEDs (still on route).

 

So far my project is on hold until my LEDs arrive. I will buy LR/LS next week and start the cycle after my tropic marin salt arrives w/ my 25W heater and 150gph power head. I will be using walmart great value distilled water and topping off w/ distilled limewater (Ball's pickling lime, 2tsp/gal). No skimmer, No dosing (other than limewater and bakingsoda if needed), just weekly 10% WCs and macroalgae trimming.

[ProFlatlander15]

props to you for drilling all those holes...how long did that take? looks real good though... i like how this is going.

[zachtos]

thanks, It only took maybe 2 hours to drill those 130 some holes using a drill press. I would not reccomend doing it by hand. you have to set the drill at a VERY low speed if you dont want to crack/shatter your piece. Which i did crack it MANY times testing by hand drilling. One day I would like to scale this up to maybe a 30G or even a 90G if it works out well w/ my nano LED test tank.

[c.ganger]

Why aren't you finishing the inside of your hood? I did that with the first hod I made for my 55g and it bowed like mad. In at leadt one of your pics you can already see where humidity is affecting the wood. Once the tank gets up and is running I bet the increased evap from the current coupled with the heat from lights will tork the heck out of that pine you are using. I would finish the inside. In adddition to it preventing moisture damage it can be done in a reflective color like white which would reflect more light into your tank.

 

chris

[zachtos]

I have finished the inside of a 4' long OAK hood for my freshwater tank a year ago w/ gloss white enamel. It bowed like crazy... I'm not sure what to do to keep it from bowing. Do you have any suggestions?

 

I was intending just to use flat purple enamel, it needs no additional reflective qualities due to the fact that I'm using LED lighting. (wont matter).

 

tank wont be filled or start to cycle for another week. waiting on my salt/pump/heater.

 

LEDs are shipped and my second shipment of electronics to rework some ideas are on route (hopefully the last 2 wks of december I can show you my LED design)

[Mark S]

Paint the inside of the hood with a slow drying epoxy glue. Works on boats to waterproof them.

[zachtos]

I have filled my tank w/ tropic marin salt and washed playsand today. 7W PC 7200K fuge light installed. minijet 160gph as a return pump and 25W submersible stealth heater. I have not hooked up the autotopoff system yet and have yet to recieve my LEDs from hongkong yet. All of my electronic components are ready. As soon as they arrive I will begin wiring and documenting.

 

I plan to pick up liverock tomorrow nite and livesand to start the tank cycle.

 

 

[zachtos]

My LEDs will be here this week. they left hongkong dec.14.

 

Started my tank cycle 2 days ago.

 

 

 

[ycrazyy]

zachtos, this tank looks great! I am following it closely, if you check out my thread that I just started I am planning on building a 7.5g cube (12 x 12 x 12). Would you have any better plans on the fuge you have there? I want to build something on the back of mine, but don't really know what to do. Also, any plans on the hood and base? I'd love to build something like that because it looks so much better! Keep up the great work!!!

[zachtos]

The hood and base are nothing special. Just a box basically w/ stain/varnish on it. I wish I had made the fuge a bit smaller since I have only 4.5" of display width. But I do have plenty of room in the fuge for equipment and rubble rock which is nice. All of my water changes can be done in there since the fuge is 2 gallons and the display is maybe 1.75 gallons after displacement. My baffles dont really seem to serve the purpose I intended and my overflow cant handle much over 250gph. If a snail crawls onto my overflow the tank will overflow right now. Need to figure out a solution.

[travisurfer]

that background is pretty cool...great diy

[zachtos]

LEDs are still not here.

 

Ammonia Nitrate/ite are all 0ppm w/ only 7 days?!

 

I used cured live rock but didn't add any life/food. Are these readings true, is it really cycled?

[zachtos]

I added 2 tsp of human urine and 24 hours later I'm at 2ppm ammonia... so the cycle has begun. Still no LEDs, project on hold.

[paul21]

:\ kinda small display space

[zachtos]

Haven't started LED wiring due to holiday shipping delays.

ammonia/nitrate/nitrite 0ppm, calc 500ppm, 12dKH, pH 8.3, temp 80F - tropic marin salt (I bumped up the calc/alk a bit) - cycle has been done for a week.

 

last week I added:

1 astrea, 2 nassareius, 1 trocheus snail

1 skunkback pseudochromis fish

clump of chaetomorpha

various spelling erorsfish

 

the astrea died the next day (probably PH shock?)

all else is fine and dandy

 

I need to create a snail guard for my auto top switch

 

pix when I have something more interesting to show.

[Lingwendil]

do you have an item number for that paint you used?

[zachtos]

do you have an item number for that paint you used?

 

no, I dont think the paint is toxic, nothing has died, aside from the astrea snail after probable acclimatition shock.

[Lingwendil]

i mean like an item number if i wanted to order it, the purple looks just right.

[zachtos]

LEDs have arrived. I had enough time to do a test today.

110,000mcd 10mm LEDs x100qty, 9000K color, also have low intesity 410nm 5mm LEDs x50 all from besthongkong.com's ebay store. cost about $40total.

• 24volt regulated wall adapter
  
• capacitor for delayed off and volt regulation/insurance against spikes takes 3seconds for LEDs to turn off
  
• 6 LEDs 3.4V each
  
• 150 ohm resistor @ 3.6V
  
• V=IR, 3.6/150=0.024Ax1000= 24mA <-- goal was 25mA (pretty close)
  

There is a yellow corona around the LEDs cone of light. But it appears to be around 9000K in the center and 2700K in the outer ring. They provide about a 1.5" Ring at 12" away. There is a 0.75" White ring w/ the outer rim in yellow. I think that should be enough coverage to avoid a checkerboard appearence. We shall see in the coming days.

 

Full tank w/ 1-13WPC bulb

 

protoboard 6LEDs

 

protoboard 6LEDs ON

 

* please PM me how to resize pics w/o losing quality - I use windows powertool plugin to resize

 

Let the project begin!

[zachtos]

my 2nd smaller 600mA 24VDC psupply give 29V when connected to the LEDs. Likely due to the load being too small and it was a cheap non-regulated supply.

[p.o.t.u.s]

I added 2 tsp of human urine and 24 hours later I'm at 2ppm ammonia... so the cycle has begun. Still no LEDs, project on hold.

 

Well, it is natural...

[zachtos]

tonite i wired up the first 50 10mm so called 80,000mcd LEDs. They look like crap. checkerboard pattern and washed out white w/ heavy yellow ring. I think they require MUCH MUCH more current than the "data sheet" says. If you can call it that. I need a lux meter. I also need to know what the true voltage/current needs of these lights are. I keep adding more and more current to my test protoboard trying to pop the lights. the data sheets says 30mA max but I'm running at 50mA now (they brightend up a bit and resemble 10,000K more now)

 

tempted to call project off and resign due to lying besthongkong bastards.

[neanderthalman]

That sucks zachtos, now I'm glad I didn't buy from them. I was kicking myself for a while 'cause I could have saved a few bucks, but now I see it wouldn't really have been worth it.

 

I'm wondering if they substituted different LEDs for the ones you ordered. It might explain the extremely long wait - longer than I'd expect from holiday shipping delays.

 

I've alwasy doubted the specs on the besthongkong LEDs, I've mentioned it a few times in my LED thread. At 20mA and 3.5V, I'm supposed to get 12,000 mcd @ 15 degrees. I've always questioned how, with the same voltage and current specs, they can get an LED to pump out eight times as much light at similar beam widths.

 

If the LEDs I purchased ran hot, and there was significant room for improvement on the efficiency of them, I could see where the extra light energy would come from. The LEDs I purchased run quite cool, so they're very efficient. There simply isn't enough room for improvement to account for an 8x light increase. It just violates energy conservation laws. Either 80,000mcd LEDs require a higher voltage and current, or they're not 80,000mcd.

 

For now, I'd set up a test board to try to pop one of them, like you've been doing. Monitor and record the voltage and current as you go, so you can plot it. You'll get accurate data as to the IV characteristics of the LEDs, and you can figure out what the max current is, and what the voltage of the LED is at the max current. From there, you should be able to redesign the electrical side of your array.

 

To take care of the checkerboard pattern, mount 5mm white LEDs in the spaces between your 10mm LEDs. That should help even out the lighting. As always, I recommend professorled. I ordered from him/her three separate times. Shipping was prompt, and I was more than satisfied with what I ordered, every time.

 

This is an awesome project zachtos, I wouldn't abandon it now.