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Building Glass Tank from Scratch


zachtos

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well some bad news. 6 of my LEDs died already which caused 6 arrays of 10 to go out. after investigating the cause, it has been determined that heat caused the LED array to reduce the internal resistance of the LEDs causing too much current to go into them. some strings were getting as high as 32mA when fully hot. they start at 25mA cool and then climb. the LEDs are rated for 30mA so who knows how much damage has been done. I changed out the resistor in the array to a much larger one nearly twice its size (150ohm instead of 91.5ohm). this gives a current between 22mA and 24mA when hot. much better on the LEDs, but I'm betting more will die.

 

I also changed out several UV bulbs and their resistors also, due to the same problem. The UVs are very confusing though, but I dont care, I'm just happy they work since you cant tell if they get more or less intense visually anyways.

 

I also picked up some frags:

2-kenya tree

1-ricordia

1-green mushroom

1-"hydro" neon green SPS

 

I wont bother light acclimation since the LUX is now severly reduced by lowering the current. It has dropped to nearly 10,000-12,000 LUX at the surface as opposed to the 20,000-18,000 LUX acheived before... a 60% decrease in light output apparently. I will get you more detailed numbers when I'm not so tired this weekend. I still think the LEDs are plenty powerful enough for this small tank, but am very discouraged for their use in larger tanks now. I do have an insane amount of corraline growth over the last week though. I cant really believe it can grow that fast! nearly my entire top portion of the foam wall is covered in speckles. My macro has grown grown nearly 30% more this week. This may all be slowing down though due to the lowered LUX numbers to help protect my lights. I'm just hoping more LEDs dont burn out. :angry:

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sounds too expensive for me to gamble $50 in LEDs on. One more strand of LEDs has burn out. I'm hoping it was already close to death and that more will not follow... otherwise this is going to turn into a short project.

 

On a better note, all of my new corals are open and erect, the ricordia, mushroom, GSP, Kenya and hyrdra SPS all look good.

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feb10_06.JPG

 

side_led.JPG

 

tank update feb_06

 

2 strands burnt out... waiting 7 days to rewire anymore premature burnout bulbs that may have been damaged from the too low resistors from a week ago.

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all soft corals doing well still. I modified the hood by placing the 12Vdc fan so it sucks air up and out of the hood through a hole on the top of the hood, I placed a chrome grill over it so it would look nice. I repaired 2 more LEDs, the current measured through the array is an average of 21mA.

 

kh=10ppm, salinity = 1.025, temp = 81F, nitrate=0ppm, ph=8.6 aprox.

hydro SPS is dying, flesh is peeling from skeleton.

I harvested over 2" ball of chateomorpha macroalgae, so the refugium LEDs are working well

 

currently treating tank w/ 0.4G PWC once weekly, tropic marin salt, mixed and stored in advance. 10% of volume of tank, adding 1tsp baking soda and 1/2tsp kent turbo calcium to each 4 gallons of distilled water. I am treating w/ kent de-nitrate and seachem carbon 1 tbs/ ea changed weekly and ran in a nylon stocking inbetween one of the overflows. tank is evaporating 3-4L of water/ week. No fish in tank, only snails, no crabs.

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oh man!! your fuge light is awesome!! are you planning to sell leds custom because i might be interested!

To replicate the display I have which would light a 12"x6" area I would likely charge $500 (200parts/300labor) and the fuge light would light a 5"x5" area for about $95 (45parts/50labor). The labor charge is fairly substantial due to the many hours of solder/drilling/bending/shapping required. I suggest this as a good DIY project but I could try and construct some arrays if you really want. It would take atleast a month (2wk shipping on LEDs then 2wk construction) and I would require financing for parts up front.

 

I think the fuge light is too costly for what it's used for, but I like the way it looks and it works very well so far. I've harvested a 2" ball in 1wk in my 6gallon tank. Ironically, my fuge light seems to put out the same LUX as my main array now despite the spectrum it uses is hardly registered by my light meter. MUST be very high PAR.

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My SPS coral has died and my 2 Kenya leather corals are shriveled and dying. I do not believe this is caused by lighting (it would not occur so rapidly). More then likely this is from PH instability or chemical warfare among the softies in only 4 gallons.

 

Ricordia/green mushroom/green star polyps/coraline algae are still doing good

 

no skimmer, running 1.5tbs of carbon/1tbs denitrate, harvesting macro algae, water is auto-topped off, macro light is on 16hr/day, weekly 0.4G distilled water changes w/ tropic marin mixed and stored in gallon jugs.

 

temperature is usually between 79-81deg F.

nitrate/nitrite/ammonia 0ppm

kh 8dkh

calc: last known to be 425ppm

ph - 8.3-8.8? hard to say w/ my kit in that range aquapharm.?

salin 1.025

 

I have never had luck w/ anything other then polyps/shrooms/clams/GSP (xenia off and on). I've had bad past luck w/ toadstool, kenya. I'm guessing chemical warfare is the issue, but I'm not experience enough to really know for sure.

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That sucks zachtos, are you running carbon to try to negate some of the chemical warfare?

 

I usually always run carbon, I change this out weekly since a tablespoon is basically free. It should help make up for some of the features a skimmer would help out with, such as removing toxins. The macro/dentirate seems to handle the ammonia/nitrates.

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my kenya trees seem fine now, must be water quality fluctuation issues. The carbon must be cleaning it up now. I have LED spectrographs for all you lighting experts to analyze now. You can see that I still am lacking in the 420nm zone, but have good coverage otherwise. My coral growth right now seems slow, but the tank is only 2.75 months old. I will try and keep posting a photo every 1.5 months or so to document growth. I still plan to add a green clown goby once my LFS gets one in stock. I also do not plan to place any more SPS in the tank due to softie chemical warfare. I may try a xenia again later, some frogspawn, and some more zoos/shrooms.

 

zachLEDspectra.JPG

Lab results compliments of Hromm at nano-reef.com

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the array cost me $200 out of pocket and about 20hours of work to date.

I am still not sure if my array was damaged from the overdrive period or if they just die early period. I seem to get one burnout every 10 days on average. It’s getting ridiculous and I am already getting sick of the project. If the array continues to die like this I may just convert to 70W MH... although that will probably be the same intensity, it will be less hassle. I'm definitely going to rebuild the array someday when more powerful 5mm's are available that are higher quality. I would just be happy if they stopped burning out though. By the way, the whites are the only ones that burn out, not the blues/reds/uvs. I did re-measure my array, the output is depressing but still very good for a nanocube. I don’t have the numbers at work but they were roughly

3" 8500lux

6" 7500lux

12" 6000lux

18" 5500lux

24" 5000lux

36" 4500lux

 

one side of the array is more intense then the other side for no apparent reason, I'm guessing one side was damaged by heat more then the other. I NEED MEASUREMENTS TO COMPARE THIS TOO still... I really wanted LUX readings off a 70w MH and 150w MH but I guess I will just have to assume its in that range and more powerful then 18W PCs. I'm still unsure of if doubling the powercompact bulbs actually increases LUX. that cant be possible can it? It can only give better coverage correct? So this still should give great coverage and intensity for a small tank. although I'm reaching the conclusion that a MH would be easier and about the same cost, although an ICE PROBE would be needed, it's not a big deal. LEDs are great for moonlighting and refugium lights but the jury is still out as a display so far. More follow-up research to come.

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neanderthalman

doubling of lights will increase the luminus flux (lux) in the area. Lux is not a relative measure, it's a measurement (indirectly) of the number of photons, or light "particles" passing through a given space. If you increase the number of photon emissions in the area, such as by adding a second light, you increase the number of photons passing through the same given space. This passage of photons is called "luminous flux", and the measurement of it is called "lux" for short.

 

Really sucks about your LEDs zachtos. A couple of people have had terrible luck with theirs, yet I've had no problems. Who did you get your LEDs from?

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Props to you for peeing in your tank.

 

Mad props.

 

If it works it works. fishless cycle. all coral is still alive and well, growth seems slow but the tank is young yet. nitrates still at 0ppm, kh around 10dkh. not really paying attention to other parameters. no calcium test available, but I only have softies so I'm not worried. Another LED burn out. Very sick of this. The white LEDs from hongkong suck. I may try changing them all out w/ white ones from another company.

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Yesterday when I got home I noticed my custom glass tank had been leaking all day slowly after only 3 months. I could not find a leak on any seem, so I proceeded to apply silicone to every corner and seem along the outside of the glass tank. It really isnt that noticable because I have a base around the bottom. The tank seems to have stopped leaking as of this morning. If any more problems like this come up, I will scrap the entire project. It's not worth the daily stress anymore, this is not relaxing in the least, especially since I will be losing more and more money. I lose 2-3 white LEDs per week, I can replace every white LED but that will take me about 8hours of work and cost around $70. screw this. very very close to getting MH and declaring LEDs are feasible IF you can get a good manufacturer.

 

All corals are still alive and growing slowly, corraline is spreading along the foam at a slow but steady rate. I have not purchased more corals or own any fish still due to the LEDs constant failures, I've been hesitant to add anything. I miss when the output was twice as high 2 months ago. I'm afraid to replace all the LEDs and waste more money.

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neanderthalman

It really sucks that you've had so much bad luck with LEDs. Oddly, I've been having a terrible run of luck with MH B)

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tankmar06.JPG

full tank shot after nearly 2 months of LED light only

 

fan.JPG

the fan I installed to help remove heat

 

corr.JPG

small corraline growth can be seen on the yellow parts of the greatstuff foam easily

 

macro.JPG

I double this hanful of macro each week with the pink LED glow you see in the background (reds/blues/UVs)

 

I'm still thinking of rewiring all my whites to repair all the damaged overdriven ones. I may order them this weekend.

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  • 1 month later...

I finally forced myself to renew my entire array. It is the same as before but I renewed all of the whites and UVs. The reds/blues are all still strong/undamaged apparently. It took nearly 7 hours to remove/rewire/resolder the array. But I am hopeful that I have a stronger design now. The white LEDs are from besthongkong.com again and cost nearly $90 for 300. they are 40,000mcd and tend to operate at 3.3V at 20mA.

 

*overview of design improvements*

-each strand has 75% more resistance then original design, which means each strand will pull less current, and should generate less heat, which means it will damage the LED less while putting out reduced lighting. But this is a good thing considering my light intensity declined by a factor of 5 in 5 months.

 

*detailed design improvements*

I bumped up my resistors to 160ohm - 0.25watt. I have strings of 8white:2blue w/ 160ohm resistor w/ 36VDC across each. The LEDs are rated for 30mA. I measured around 3.4 to 3.8V as the temperature increased across each resistor which means 22mA on startup then 24mA at operating temperature. I dont anticipate the LEDs dropping to less then 3.15 to 3.1V each MIN which would mean 28-31mA which is the max of the LED. I'm hoping they will stay at 3.2V each MIN so it will pull 25mA each. The UVs now operate around 19mA each or less now so they wont wear out so fast this time.

 

--------------------

Results

--------------------

The lighting at the surface is now 21,000 to 26,000 LUX as opposed to 2000-5000 LUX after only 5 months of operation. This is a tremendous visual improvement as at the end of the lifespan, the tank looked very shadowy/blue. The tank is now very very white. Nearly 25 white LEDs failed after the initial over current damage of the first 2 weeks of operation. The LEDs continued to fail even after I added more resistance, likely due to initial damages and incredibly reduced lifespan.

 

No photos, I do not have access to a nice camera anymore, but will try and get some kind of photo despite poor quality up soon.

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Good job, Z. I will be very interested to see how this goes for you. I posted yesterday that when I went to replace a few burned out bulbs I found that the new ones (from the identical batch as the original) were at least 2x brighter than the one that had been running for two months. I only ended up replacing 8 bulbs but you can completely see the bright spot in my tank. Since mine have been running at 20ma the entire time (as far as I can tell) I don't think they were over-driven. I think the bulbs were either of crappy quality or else they just tend to fade quite a lot. Now that you've re-wired yours, I'm really interested to see what you find. I may not be up for another 7 hours of re-wiring, myself.

 

I wish you lots of luck!

 

C

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I'm hoping that my array will dissapate heat better then yours... or atleast that my current limmiting resistors, capacitors and fuses will protect against potentially damaging surges and thermal runaway that you may not have been able to measure.

 

I'm guessing that the same crap will happen all over again though.

 

Did I mention a rep. from PFO checked out my site at RC to talk about LEDs and their alpha stage LED hoods?

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Charlie97L

first of all i'm not criticizing, you've obviously put a lot of thought and work into this, i'm actually very interested about the LED idea, i just have a few comments, questions... i'm really impressed, actually.

 

i'm no light physicist, but i do know that the effective measurement of light and it's usability for aquariums is the PAR reading, not lux/lumens. lux/lumens is the spread and intensity of light. par is the photosynthetic active radiation (important for our light eating corals), which is crucial... you can have a heck of a lot of light, and if it doesn't put out the correct PAR, you won't get anything doing well that is totally dependent on light, anyway... filter feeders would do fine in your tank though.

 

now those UV LEDs (if i'm reading correctly) come in starting at 410nm. the usable PAR spectrum for reef life is 400-700 nm. from what i can see from your thread, you just barely are getting some PAR in there, and just from the UV, which i think you were actively using as supplemental lighting.

 

i saw you mentioned the coral couldn't have died from lack of light? why not? after the trauma of shipping and acclimation, if suddenly there's all this light but none that tastes good, i could see that being a factor, if not the overriding cause.

 

so basically, yes LEDs provide as good or better lux/lumens that MH/T5/PC, which essentially means they will penetrate the water better... but PAR, which is really the effective measurement in our case, i have no idea how they compare. look at it this way. MH bulbs have a useful life of about a year. after that, they are still as bright as ever, but the PAR starts declining to the point where it's below 300 nm. the lux is still the same, though, but the PAR is down, so they need to be replaced.

 

show me a PAR reading that is any good at all, and i'll be surprised... i would bet you're getting hardly any. maybe enough from the UV LEDs for a low light coral to survive, like the gsp, but i think that might be the problem. i'd actually be really curious to see what kind of PAR that array is putting out. you should be able to borrow a PAR meter from your local reef club, they are quite expensive, but the bigger ones usually have one you can borrow.

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