# But is it made of... wood? A Mr Aqua 45cm cube



## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

So the stand is mostly built, got the materials on Monday and got the frame of it assembled and squared.

The stand is made of 1x poplar boards. The top and inner shelf is made from 1/2" sandeply. The frame is 18"x18" outer and is with the plywood on top is 30" tall.



















































I have finished the first layer of wood filler in any gaps, let it dry last night, and whenever I am able I will move on to sanding, sealing the inside, priming, and painting. I will also be making the doors, those will come soon.


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## Mike00726 (May 23, 2011)

Pretty awesome so far


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Mike00726 said:


> Pretty awesome so far


Thanks!


Yesterday evening I started sanding the wood filler, made the joints look a whole lot better, though can still see that there is a change in height on some of them, but not noticeable unless you are really looking for it. Damned poplar boards were, on average, 1/16" difference in width and height. I then flipped the stand upside down and used a tape measure to measure exactly 29.5" from the plywood top (which was now on the ground) and used a belt sander to get each of the legs exactly straight, now she sits perfectly level with no wobble  I also sealed the bottom shelf and inner seams with paintable caulking. Plan for this evening is to get the crown molding cut and installed and start priming the entire thing with Kilz.

Oh, and look what arrived from BRS yesterday 










​










I also received the glass holesaw a couple of days ago, so I will be figuring out where I want my holes to be and get them drilled. I am using 3/4" bulkheads to connect to the SunSun canister filter using all 3/4" piping. This way I will not have anything coming over the top of the tank. I will be cutting the cord on my Neotherm heater and sticking it into the Cerges reactor, so long as it has room for it, anyway. If not, I'll have to figure something else out to be able to keep it out of the display.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Was able to get the stand primed on Friday, second coat on Saturday morning, then a coat of appliance epoxy paint on Saturday evening. My dad finally brought my grandpa his router table back, so I was able to get the door frames cut and routed out to hold acrylic panels that I will very lightly sand to give it a 'frosted' look. I managed to mess up the frames a bit, though, as I didn't think to not route out the ends of the wood. Whoops!










































Not too much left to do! Putty/sand/prime/paint the doors, sand the acrylic, silicone/epoxy the acrylic into the door frames, prime/paint the crown molding, attach the door magnet hardware, and I think we're all set! My canister filter arrived, I have all the parts for the Cerges reactor (at least, I'm pretty sure I do, anyway), and the last parts to finish out my CO2 regulator.

I have been trying to get ahold of Praxair, the only place I can get CO2 locally, and have called several times a day for a few days last week and no one ever answered the phone. I guess I will have to actually go there just to find out their prices. I screwed up when I made the stand and didn't think about the size of the equipment going into it, my canister filter is about 11"x11", a 5lb CO2 tank is like 6.5" diameter, my Cerges reactor will be like 4"... and the inside of the stand is 16.5"x16.5".

I've also decided to swap out some of the LEDs in my light, changing the 5000K 90CRI and 3000K 97CRI Bridgelux Vero to 5600K 90CRI and 2700K 97CRI Vero. Only problem is the heatsink i am using has channels between where the LEDs go and I would have to either cut into them or cut the Bridgelux Vero 18 PCB to fit. I don't think it would be too much of a problem, but I'd rather not ruin the LEDs or the heatsink lol.


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## Calestus (Oct 1, 2015)

How do you like that Kreg jig?


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Calestus said:


> How do you like that Kreg jig?


Oh man does it make life easy lol


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Wasn't able to do a whole lot on the stand yesterday. I went to Home Depot and got the silicone to attach the acrylic panels to the doors, the magnets for holding the doors to the stand, a new paintbrush since I ruined my other one lol. I then sanded the edges of all of the doors, applied wood putty to the joints (and let that sit overnight), and then got to work on getting the acrylic panels frosted and ready to use. 120 grit on a corner cat sander did some real quick work! Don't worry, the spots on them are moisture - when the acrylic gets wet, it becomes transparent again!











Today I will be sanding the doors, priming them and the crown molding, I should have enough time to get two coats of it on. Will let it dry overnight, then tomorrow I will paint them with the appliance epoxy paint, and I may need to do another coat of that on Thursday. then I'll be able to attach the acrylic panels on Friday and get the magnet hardware attached on Saturday, and she will be complete! I'll take her home and then will start getting the tank ready.

I think tonight I will do some measuring on the tank itself and figure out where I want my bulkheads to be and get the holes drilled. I should be getting the rest of the pieces of my CO2 regulator in today or tomorrow, so I can also go ahead and get that put together. Still haven't been able to get ahold of anyone at Praxair nor had the time to swing by there. May ask my grandpa if he can go by there and get some info.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Was able to get the doors primed, two coats of Kilz. paint tomorrow


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

After tons and tons of rain, I was finally able to get working again on the stand. So close I can almost taste it!

Look at that gloss 










Got the acrylic siliconed in place.










Doorknobs.










Figured I'd paint the rope the same color as the walls in the room 










Got some driftwood for this tank and a new 5g PicO at work. Also a bit of magnesium sulfate 










Driftwood soup, anyone?











As long as the silicone on the doors has cured, I will drill the holes for the knobs and get the mounting hardware attached and then she will be DONE! Then I just need to drill the tank, get it plumbed up, and get a damned CO2 canister and finish the regulator.


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

How you gonna deal with the white residue coral snow can leave? More water to calcium carbonate powder ratio?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

gus6464 said:


> How you gonna deal with the white residue coral snow can leave? More water to calcium carbonate powder ratio?
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


I've never had it leave a residue before. Do you have enough flow to get it filtered out?


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

jedimasterben said:


> I've never had it leave a residue before. Do you have enough flow to get it filtered out?


Yeah gyre 150 and dct6000. Run the dct at full power. Although I might be dosing way too much. I don't really measure I just pour it in. The 100% pure stuff clears up in the tank a lot faster than kz so I just go to town. My 500ml stock solution lasted me a month.

On a side note all those planted tanks at nano-reef got me missing it. Ordered 2x of the leftover unibody 36/heatsinks from Chris at cnc. Doing a 6ch cluster in each sink with my old vero 18's. Using my 60p so gonna have to run at super low power.

My reef tank is in autopilot now so I'm bored 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

gus6464 said:


> Yeah gyre 150 and dct6000. Run the dct at full power. Although I might be dosing way too much. I don't really measure I just pour it in. The 100% pure stuff clears up in the tank a lot faster than kz so I just go to town. My 500ml stock solution lasted me a month.
> 
> On a side note all those planted tanks at nano-reef got me missing it. Ordered 2x of the leftover unibody 36/heatsinks from Chris at cnc. Doing a 6ch cluster in each sink with my old vero 18's. Using my 60p so gonna have to run at super low power.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I would say that's probably enough flow lol. The bryopsis in my reef seems to cling to the caco3 and looks a bit lighter after each dosing of it, but it goes away after about a day.

What size is the 60p? I am still trying to figure out what to do for this tank. I want to use the 5600k Vero 18 but it doesn't fit in the channels on the heatsink. That is the only LED I want to swap, but I'd have to buy the $75 heatsink from Chris to have a fully open LED area. I can cut the PCB of the Vero to fit, but I'm not sure if I should do that lol


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

jedimasterben said:


> Yeah, I would say that's probably enough flow lol. The bryopsis in my reef seems to cling to the caco3 and looks a bit lighter after each dosing of it, but it goes away after about a day.
> 
> What size is the 60p? I am still trying to figure out what to do for this tank. I want to use the 5600k Vero 18 but it doesn't fit in the channels on the heatsink. That is the only LED I want to swap, but I'd have to buy the $75 heatsink from Chris to have a fully open LED area. I can cut the PCB of the Vero to fit, but I'm not sure if I should do that lol


The 60p is the cad one so its a bit bigger than ada at 24x14x16.

I am going two heatsinks as I am going to have one big rock in the center sticking out of the tank. The 36 small version from him doesn't have the railway so you could maybe do two?

Each sink will have 2 vero 18 and 4 Luxeon Rebel and 1 Semiled.

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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

gus6464 said:


> The 60p is the cad one so its a bit bigger than ada at 24x14x16.
> 
> I am going two heatsinks as I am going to have one big rock in the center sticking out of the tank. The 36 small version from him doesn't have the railway so you could maybe do two?
> 
> ...


My tank is a cube, so I'd rather not use two fixtures over it. I still think I'd be ok with cutting the PCB of the Vero, if not, it was a $13 mistake, I've made worse 

Brought the tank to my grandparents' house today to get a test fit and to get it drilled.










Drilling went without a hitch, thankfully! Would have been a $130 mistake otherwise 










Doorknobs remind me a of a clown's nose!










The finished product!











This week I will start getting her all plumbed together and get the regulator assembled. The big piece of Mopani in the tank is a bit unstable, so I used a few dabs of silicone and will let that dry before adding the sand, which I cleaned up today, and calculated that it would give me roughly 2" depth.


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

Nice. How are you going to do the bulkhead setup? Low profile strainer for the drain? Are you worried of the tall foreground plants being blown by the return flow?

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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

gus6464 said:


> Nice. How are you going to do the bulkhead setup? Low profile strainer for the drain? Are you worried of the tall foreground plants being blown by the return flow?
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


Not sure, honestly. Was thinking of running PVC down and having the intake near the bottom. The low profile strainer that I have for my reef overflow has fairly large openings, so I'm pretty guppies would be able to make it through if the betta decides to stay a vegetarian lol

Not worried about the plants, if flow is too much I can split it or use a fan fitting


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## DurocShark (Feb 6, 2006)

Following. Hard to follow a planted tank on a reef board. hehehe

I lost my clown to velvet in my 17. It's getting torn down, and I'm thinking of going planted as well. The planer overflow really lends itself to a planted tank I think. Can't have any duckweed though...


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

DurocShark said:


> Following. Hard to follow a planted tank on a reef board. hehehe
> 
> I lost my clown to velvet in my 17. It's getting torn down, and I'm thinking of going planted as well. The planer overflow really lends itself to a planted tank I think. Can't have any duckweed though...


Duckweed is a terrible, awful plant, why would you want it to begin with? :icon_mrgr


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

You don't want a fugly PVC inside your tank. I would think doing the low profile strainer and reducing flow would be just fine.


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## DurocShark (Feb 6, 2006)

jedimasterben said:


> Duckweed is a terrible, awful plant, why would you want it to begin with? :icon_mrgr


It's a heck of a nutrient sink, but you can't have any surface skimming with it. Scoop it out with a net when it gets to be too much. Feed your goldies or rosy barbs with it. I bet herbivore reef fish would eat it too, but it wouldn't be very nutritious.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

gus6464 said:


> You don't want a fugly PVC inside your tank. I would think doing the low profile strainer and reducing flow would be just fine.


I definitely won't be reducing the flow, I hope not to, anyways. My 13g with the Sunsun HW-302 (rated at like 260gph or something) run almost empty was not enough flow at all and I had to add a Koralia Nano 420 to bring it up where it needed to be (and even then it was still more gentle than I like). This tank will have another Sunsun canister, but with double the rated flow and no plans on more filter media (just a bit of filter floss and a 100mL bag of Purigen, nothing else), and hopefully that will be enough to keep flow higher without having to add a powerhead. :/



DurocShark said:


> It's a heck of a nutrient sink, but you can't have any surface skimming with it. Scoop it out with a net when it gets to be too much. Feed your goldies or rosy barbs with it. I bet herbivore reef fish would eat it too, but it wouldn't be very nutritious.


I don't have any goldfish or barbs lol. And I'd rather my nicer plants use the nutrients 

I used to have some floating plants on here that are local to the area, but they eventually stopped growing for me (though a buddy of mine I gave some to constantly throws some out!).


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

V2 for my new 45cm cube.

2x Bridgelux Decor Ultra Vero 10 2700K 97CRI (BXRC-27H1000-B-23)
2x Bridgelux Decor Specialty Vero 18 5600K 90CRI (BXRC-56G4000-F-24)
2x SemiLEDs 420nm violet
2x Rebel ES royal blue
2x Rebel blue
2x Rebel cyan
4x Rebel ES lime

Run on 1A, 700mA, and 350mA LDD with 5w SCW for the fan on a Nano Box Reef driver board and enclosure. Heatsink is a Nanocustoms Unibody 108, powdercoated to Pearl White. The Vero 18 will be run on a 1A LDD in parallel for an effective 500mA, the Vero 10 at 700mA in parallel for an effective 350mA, the violet/royal blue/blue at 700mA, and lime/cyan at 350mA. All controlled by Bluefish Mini.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

So the past couple of nights I made some progress. I got the stand and tank home and siliconed the wood into place. Let that dry and last night got the bulkheads attached properly with the street elbows and did a quick dry fit of some of the plumbing.











Then I remembered that I did not apply the frosted background. DOH!











Tossed the sand in and put in a few gallons of water to let it settle because it is pretty 




















Then I started getting the filtration and Cerges reactor going. Put some silicone onto the tube inside the reactor and left it to dry today. Unfortunately I realized that the filter housing is not large enough to also house my Neotherm Heater, which is sad. I will have to find another way to do it.










This canister is a MONSTER. It has a UV lamp installed, though I'm not sure if I'd ever need it, I am thinking of drilling where the socket is and running my heater cord through it (and siliconing up the hole). I also may just drill directly into the housing of the canister and just set the heater inside one of the baskets, it should be small enough to do so. The marketing says not to lay the heater on its side or upside down, but that looks to be because they never want the hot end exposed to air, so I should be safe.










And check out the tannins still coming from the wood! My bag of Purigen is gonna get a workout


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Annnnnd great. Last night I was assembling my regulator and managed to pull the wires right out of my Clippard solenoid. :angryfire


I did at least manage to find three types of aquatic plants yesterday in the ditch in front of my house 











This I know is a species of Ludwigia, maybe a red repens.










Another ludwigia? I will get some better photos once it is planted and grows in a bit.










This is what one species looks like when submerged.










And the same species in a spot where the water has dried up.


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

You can build a heater slot with PVC in your cerges. Put it on the output.


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## bereninga (Mar 18, 2006)

I wish that I could find tropical aquatic plants in a ditch in front of my place.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

gus6464 said:


> You can build a heater slot with PVC in your cerges. Put it on the output.


It would have to be massive to do - 3" PVC over a foot long since the Neotherms are 2.25" and a 100w model is over 9" long. I did just realize that I only have a 50w and need a 75w at the minimum. Grrrr. Then again, the tank room rarely gets below 75, and I want it to run at around 78. Hmm.


I also have, on hand, a 200w Hydor in-line heater, but the barbs for it are only 5/8" and I wanted to keep it at 3/4" the whole run. These Sunsuns don't like a ton of restriction, so I don't want to bog it down too much. Oy.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Went ahead and finished what I have got now, will figure out the heater situation later, it's 76 in the room right now, and it's not like Florida has a real winter anyway 

Will be painting the visible stuff so it won't be as noticeable from inside the tank. The tank is light enough to slide out a bit to work on the back 






























Moment of truth!








































But then sadface, the silicone didn't adhere to the wood at all


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Well, my plans are all pretty much ruined. The Cerges reactor reduces flow by such an amount that the output is literally giving less than 120GPH, which is nowhere near enough flow for this tank without adding powerheads. The canister is also so tall that it is almost impossible to remove from the stand now that the plumbing is all installed.


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## fietsenrex (Oct 8, 2014)

that's too bad, can't you fit a boosterpump behind the cerges?


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

fietsenrex said:


> that's too bad, can't you fit a boosterpump behind the cerges?


Not currently, I would need to replumb the entire setup, which isn't too big a deal, but I'd need to secure another pump. At that point, though, I would just prefer to skip the Sunsun altogether and just run a strong DC pump (thinking a Reef Octopus DC-3500) into a 10" filter housing with filter floss and then into the 10" with the Cerges, then back into the tank. The filter housings are pretty cheap.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Ok, so I have ordered a Pentek 'Big Blue' 10" canister and a Pentek 2.5"x10" clear canister, both of which are 'high flow' and 3/4" fittings. I will be using a Reef Octopus RODC 2500 pump, which is capable of a max of 792GPH and is rated for 10.8' of head. By my calculations, The plumbing will give me about 3.3' of head loss, putting me at around 740GPH, then the two canisters (one will be for filter floss, the other is the Cerges reactor) should hopefully not knock off too much of that, but even if each of them adds 2' of head loss, that is still like 400GPH or so, which would be stellar compared to the garbage flow I'm getting now.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

So after doing a bit of testing and such, I don't think using the big blue filter as a mechanical filter will really work out well, as it will be difficult to route the water flow through the floss and not get sucked into the rest of the filtration. I am now planning on using the Reef Octopus pump pulling from the drain, pushing into my Hydor inline heater, into my current SunSun 302 canister, into the Pentek 10" canister as the Cerges reactor, then back into the tank, with the CO2 and fertilizer tubing plumbed in before the reactor.

I went to order the APT DC peristaltic pump yesterday and realized that after all is said and done, total cost was around $150 for the pump, enclosure, Meanwell SCW for power, and control converter for the Bluefish Mini. Icecap makes a digital dosing pump that has its own controller built-in for $85, so I am just going to use one of those, instead. Will be here probably late next week along with the pump and my new light for my reef from Coralvue.

I finished up my CO2 regulator the other day, and then realized that I only ordered two 1/8" x 1/4" quick connect tube converters instead of the three I needed (one on the regulator, two in the plumbing for the CO2 and ferts to get into the water column). Whoops. That should arrive in the next couple of days.

I finally got my new LEDs and thermal epoxy so I can get started on the updated light.

I also have a plan for getting the driftwood to stay down, it STILL isn't waterlogged. I will drill a couple of tiny holes in the bottom and run fishing line through, then I will silicone the fishing line itself to the bottom of the tank, this way the line would be completely unable to release since it would be covered from all sides. Hopefully I can stop being lazy and get the tank drained and get that going


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## toybox22 (Sep 29, 2014)

This looks great. I almost bought the same tank the other day, but saw the Mr. Aqua 33.6 gallon tank instead. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Really makes me want to get mine setup. 

Seeing your struggle with the filter has me worried. I have a sunsun 302 that I was gonna reuse, but I wasn't gonna straight pipe it like yours. I was planning on building a c02 reactor and get rid of my inline atomic, but not sure I'll have enough flow after now. Guess I'll have to try and see.

Subscribed!


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

toybox22 said:


> This looks great. I almost bought the same tank the other day, but saw the Mr. Aqua 33.6 gallon tank instead. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Really makes me want to get mine setup.
> 
> Seeing your struggle with the filter has me worried. I have a sunsun 302 that I was gonna reuse, but I wasn't gonna straight pipe it like yours. I was planning on building a c02 reactor and get rid of my inline atomic, but not sure I'll have enough flow after now. Guess I'll have to try and see.
> 
> Subscribed!


Yeah, the 302 won't cut it for that size tank, even without a reactor. You'll need a pair of the 304 if you want to stick with canisters in series, or a second pump pushing through the 302 or 304 like I'll have. :/


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## Fissure (Jun 29, 2014)

Nice one, but I must ask, why do you consider 120GPH to little for a <30G tank? Having the same flow, even a little less for my 30G and its whirling around the tank around its limit?


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Fissure said:


> Nice one, but I must ask, why do you consider 120GPH to little for a <30G tank? Having the same flow, even a little less for my 30G and its whirling around the tank around its limit?


That is with the canister devoid of any pads, floss, or media. I put a little bit of calcium carbonate powder into the tank to see how quickly it spread (turn off your CO2 for a while to get the pH back up and then toss some in and it's fantastic for getting any tannins and gelbstoff out of the water, and is great for seeing flow patterns) and it was gently spreading. I'm in the 'more flow is more better' camp, and this definitely doesn't even live up to that.

I have a Sunsun 302 on my 13g tank, and with one layer of loose filter floss, it is nowhere near enough flow, so I had to add a Koralia Nano 425GPH powerhead on the other side to get it where it needs to be. With it being as overgrown as it is right now, the flow actually isn't enough.


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## Fissure (Jun 29, 2014)

Ah I thought you measured it to 120GPH. I did so with my eheim and got it to 80GPH (with media and reactor etc) and that is enough for my 30G.
But the pump is rated to 200GPH. Same with my Eheim 1200XL, that one pissed my of a little though, measured the output to 160GPH and it is rated to 450. Thats BS if you ask me


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Forgot, this past weekend I got the LEDs on the heatsink and soldered them all up. Still don't have the clamp that will attach the gooseneck to the tank, so I can't get them attached to the driver board yet.

Basically each cluster of LEDs is in parallel. The big Bridgelux arrays will be run on 1A drivers, which will give 500mA to each, and the rest will be run on 700mA drivers, giving 350mA to each. The lime/cyan I may even give less than that, as they are super easy to overpower the look.




















I'm also not sure if I should paint the gooseneck, still trying to get that figured out.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

So after quite a long pause, I'm finally doing something about this tank - I'm taking it and making it low tech lol. I removed the Cerges reactor so that I could use the canister with the bulkhead like I'd planned without needing a separate pump to bring flow up where it needs to be (IMHO). So I removed all of that, so just the big SunSun 304B pulling from one 3/4" bulkhead and pushing back into the other, two of the four baskets filled with filter floss, and when i went to rinse my bag of Purigen before regenerating it, the bag opened up, so I ordered another from Amazon, will be here on Wednesday.


After that, I completely drained the tank and removed the sand, scraped the old silicone off the bottom that was supposed to hold the driftwood log down, then drilled some holes in the wood and put some zip ties through it. I siliconed all over, under, and around the zip ties to the bottom of the tank - I'll be a monkey's uncle if that bastard floats back up!! 

Then, while riding my 'high' of getting everything else ready, I was finishing up the light, got the driver board mounted in the enclosure, got the BF mini attached, and powered it all on to test it, and realized I wired something wrong. No biggie, two minutes with a soldering iron and it was all fixed. So I walked over, set the gooseneck mount on the tank, tightened the screws... and watched the heatsink sink quickly under its own weight. The gooseneck is simply not strong enough to hold the light up. FML. The mount point on the tank is also physically too small IMHO, it will break the glass if I bump the light too hard, so I will have to figure something else out, unfortunately.


For the time being, I can just move the old light onto the new tank. It won't reach to the center of the tank, and the gooseneck threading is borked so it is a little wobbly, but it will at least do for now. Ugh. If it's not one thing, it's another!!


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Ok, so after taking both lights apart, I was able to get the old light's gooseneck and mount attached to the new light, and the threads did mate up and it is snug enough where I feel comfortable spending roughly 50% of my time away from the tank lol.

The light is incredibly strong. The drivers I'm using are LDD-700H for the white and 350H for the cyan/lime and royal blue/blue/violet. Full power on everything doesn't look great (have to tweak the driver amperage to get a better color ratio) but is strong - over 250 PAR on the bottom of the tank, roughly 24" away from the light, and over 450 at the water's surface. I tweaked the color ratio to find one I like (though the tank water is already getting browner from tannins from the wood, damnit) and then tuned that ratio down to around 50 PAR on the sandbed, which will peak for four hours, and spend the other 8 hours ramping up/down.











Shortly after this photo I pulled all the plants and wood and stuff from the old tank and put it in this one. Just tossed it in since it's already late here, so I'm beat as it is, will worry about getting it aquascaped over the next few days or so. The guppies that are left just don't know what to do with all the extra space lol.


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## fietsenrex (Oct 8, 2014)

to bad the high-tech route was such a PITA hopefully this will work better


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Nice build. I would suggest a shorter photo period. Especially in the beginning. Somewhere between 6 and 8 hours.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

fietsenrex said:


> to bad the high-tech route was such a PITA hopefully this will work better


Yeah, I'm too lazy to begin with, and adding in a 7 month old on top of that is a bit much for me to handle all at once 



mot said:


> Nice build. I would suggest a shorter photo period. Especially in the beginning. Somewhere between 6 and 8 hours.


Uh, why? My controller adjusts intensity throughout the day.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Sorry for the poor photos, but it's still a mess in here, so no sense in breaking out the DSLR just yet!


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Got my bag of Purigen in yesterday, gonna nip the tannins from the wood in the bud!

Also probably going to go this weekend and get more guppies. There are like seven or eight left (along with one neon tetra and my clown pleco) and are mostly male, so they'll likely kill the females by trying to bone too much if I don't go and get more.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

So turns out Purigen isn't the greatest at removing tannins lol. I have a small bag of ROX 0.8 carbon hanging in the tank right now and it has helped tremendously. It doesn't look the greatest, of course, but it works 

I have gone to six different stores, two LFS and four big box ones, and not a single one has had female guppies. blech.

Got a shipment of plants in yesterday from a user here on TPT. Told him I wanted some of the different Rotala that he was selling and to just 'fill in' the rest of the box with whatever he wanted. Holy crap. He sent me nine or ten different species and at least five stems each! There were so many that I just ended up sticking some wherever I could! Went through a crash course in plant scaping


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

This was a couple of days ago, getting some decent growth already. Not bad for no CO2, no ferts, and no water changes


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## fietsenrex (Oct 8, 2014)

it's become a nice tank despite all the set-backs


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

fietsenrex said:


> it's become a nice tank despite all the set-backs


Thanks! Really enjoying it so far, once I got over the initial hurdles and got it filled, it's been so far easier than my 13g tank was, which is great, having an 8 month old to watch after lol.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Tank is cruising, plants are growing like fire. Having a big problem with flow and I don't like it, was hoping to get away with no powerheads, but that isn't an option unfortunately, detritus is collecting in the tank and even on the plants


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## toybox22 (Sep 29, 2014)

If you're trying to avoid a powerhead in the tank, could you get a canister with more flow? Another option is an MP10QD power head. They are awesome and used a lot in saltwater. But a single one would probably be all you would need and would be the most minimalistic power head that'd be in the tank.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

toybox22 said:


> If you're trying to avoid a powerhead in the tank, could you get a canister with more flow? Another option is an MP10QD power head. They are awesome and used a lot in saltwater. But a single one would probably be all you would need and would be the most minimalistic power head that'd be in the tank.


Actually, there are powerheads that are smaller than the MP10 lol. A Tunze 6020 would be able to hide even better than an MP10, except for the power going to it, which has never really bothered me that much.

A canister with more flow than the one I've got now would cost more than the entire setup has so far lol, so I'm trying to avoid that. Plus, I don't know if a new one would actually have more flow even if it were rated for more - this one is rated for 525GPH, even though when empty it still flows quite a bit less than that, by around half. So if I were to spend another $200ish on getting an Eheim or Rena canister that are rated for 200 or 450GPH, will I be in the same (or a worse) boat?


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## Chibils (Nov 18, 2007)

jedimasterben said:


> Tank is cruising, plants are growing like fire. Having a big problem with flow and I don't like it, was hoping to get away with no powerheads[/img]


You and your eductor fetish. 😂
Great photography, and love the tank. I think a 6020 is the way to go if you're looking to add more flow unless you want to sump this (bleh) and add a pressure rated 800GPH pump or something. 

sent from my LG 3G using the crappy new version of Tapatalk


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

Chibils said:


> You and your eductor fetish. 😂
> Great photography, and love the tank. I think a 6020 is the way to go if you're looking to add more flow unless you want to sump this (bleh) and add a pressure rated 800GPH pump or something.
> 
> sent from my LG 3G using the crappy new version of Tapatalk


Hey, I had one laying around, so figured why not throw it on and see, it actually did help get the display moving a little more 

I think that is what I will end up doing, as well. I put in a Koralia 425, but still nowhere near enough total flow. Blech.

My other option is to plumb a pump in line with my old canister filter. The canister is rated for half the flow as this big one, but honestly output almost as much, so who knows. I have lots of options, but all of them suck


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## toybox22 (Sep 29, 2014)

jedimasterben said:


> Actually, there are powerheads that are smaller than the MP10 lol. A Tunze 6020 would be able to hide even better than an MP10, except for the power going to it, which has never really bothered me that much.
> 
> A canister with more flow than the one I've got now would cost more than the entire setup has so far lol, so I'm trying to avoid that. Plus, I don't know if a new one would actually have more flow even if it were rated for more - this one is rated for 525GPH, even though when empty it still flows quite a bit less than that, by around half. So if I were to spend another $200ish on getting an Eheim or Rena canister that are rated for 200 or 450GPH, will I be in the same (or a worse) boat?


That's true. I wasn't sure if the power cable would bother you. haha

And ya. That's the problem with all these canister. You never know the true GPH before you buy.


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## jedimasterben (Aug 21, 2011)

toybox22 said:


> That's true. I wasn't sure if the power cable would bother you. haha
> 
> And ya. That's the problem with all these canister. You never know the true GPH before you buy.


Nah, me and power cords are friends 

I wish that there was a standard measurement for canister filter flow, that would be awesome. Too bad that could never happen


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