Sammy's 20G LED Cube

[wesley6610]

It looks good, yeah, my levels have taken off, just last night I needed to adjust my Litermeter III to increase both Ca and Alk a bit higher, which is good, but I have to replenish my reservoir more often. I try to keep my Ca near 440, Alk 3.54 meq and Mg around 1400 (Salifert)...I use Reef Crystals and I do have to adjust slightly after I mix a fresh amount every two weeks when I do water changes. IMO, what you are doing seems to be working, so better slow growth than no growth!

[Machupicchu]

i have that same angel but my gf thinks its ugly. hahah. What does she know, She likes brown fish.

[Machupicchu]

Hey sammy im building another LED fixture and i want to mount it like you did with the metal tube. Where could i find or order something like that.

[ltljoker]

that's a sweet setup

[sammy113]

Thats a simple EMT tube used for electrical plumbing. Paid less than $5 for it. Its easily bent with a tube bender found at Home depot, Lowes or any store and you could ask someone to browse it or bend it for you

Thanks joker

[Machupicchu]

sweet thanks i thought it might have been some ridiculous price. Now i know what im going to do.

Is it mounted onto the back of your stand or do you have it on the floor on some type of base?

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by Machupicchu

sweet thanks i thought it might have been some ridiculous price. Now i know what im going to do.

Is it mounted onto the back of your stand or do you have it on the floor on some type of base?

It is mounted to the back of the stand with the same mounts used in electrical applications for this EMT tube. Very inexpensive as well. You can make a few holes to the tube to make it adjustable

[sammy113]

today I made a top down photo box. Here some pics taken a few minutes ago



Garf Bonsai

Ora Green Birdsnest

Same acro back in Sept 29/10

Today (Nov 7/10)

Joe The Coral when I bought it (Sept 29/10)

Today (Nov 7/10)

Acan heaven :P

[sammy113]

zoa paradise

Ora Birds of Paradise (Jun 16/10)

Today (Nov 7/10)




Today is the last day for the effing Red Bugs. Tomorrow I'm taking out my hermits and shrimps to do Interceptor medication. Will keep them in a picotope for a month at least until I do the three medications (one per week)

[reef-luva]

SWEET!!!!...now THAT people...is a D.I.Y.!!!...( I am still clappin'...!!!)

[sammy113]

Thanks I guess I definitely love to DIY

[wesley6610]

Looking good, you still running your array with a red LED?

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by wesley6610

Looking good, you still running your array with a red LED?

yup, still running Red. No plans in changing it at least for now. Seems like its doing its job. I'm very happy with the colors.

Just ordered 4 True Violets 420nm LEDs to swap 4 RB's well see how they perform.

[Mmckibben]

could you give me a list of materials for the led system, I would like to copy it, but with xpg. I know the power supply, and other things will be different, but I would like to get a general feel for the wiring, and controller. i especially like the little box you put the buck pucks in.

[Mmckibben]

Is it just me, or do you have dragon eye zoas in one of those pics?

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by Mmckibben

could you give me a list of materials for the led system, I would like to copy it, but with xpg. I know the power supply, and other things will be different, but I would like to get a general feel for the wiring, and controller. i especially like the little box you put the buck pucks in.

Well, for XPG, you can still use this same drivers. The LPC35-1050 which are the one that puts more power for the XP-G's are not dimmable. The wiring back then when I used buckpucks was very simple. I used a project box from Radio Shack and tossed in the buckpucks and used power connectors to make a "stand alone" unit in case I had to remove it or something.

There was one plug for the wires coming from the Potrans power supply, then it powered both buckpucks. Each buckpuck had another connector for each color. The lamp also had some connectors so I ended up with 3 main pieces:
Lamp
Control box
Power supply

Now I have another setup with another drivers and a bigger lamp. Wiring here is directly from Meanwell drivers DC out to the lamp which have some connectors as well

Then from the meanwell Dim ports connect to the Typhon controller who takes care of the timing and dimming

Originally Posted by Mmckibben

Is it just me, or do you have dragon eye zoas in one of those pics?

I actually had to look in zoaid to see which ones are you talking about. I think they are. There are quite a few variations but most of them looked very close to what I have. Got them as a freebie from a LFS that had a lot of zoas in the gravels they use as substrate. The guy was nice enough to take a bag and gave it to me to take all those single zoas for my garden nice score

[wesley6610]

Originally Posted by sammy113

yup, still running Red. No plans in changing it at least for now. Seems like its doing its job. I'm very happy with the colors.

Just ordered 4 True Violets 420nm LEDs to swap 4 RB's well see how they perform.

What vendor did you find the Violet LEDs from? I was thinking of getting stunner strips from Ecoxotic for the that nm range.

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by wesley6610

What vendor did you find the Violet LEDs from? I was thinking of getting stunner strips from Ecoxotic for the that nm range.

you got PM

[TheFishMan65]

But I wanted that information too. I am gonna go cry

[sammy113]

haha! alright just wanted to be sure RC doesn't get mad. Anyways True Violets are from nanotuners. Will accept regular XR-E optics BUT limited to 500mA maximum They're supposed to be here at the end of the week so I'll keep you guys updated

[Taqpol]

Good luck on getting the shrimp out! I dipped my affected corals in Interceptor and I think the pests might already be making a comeback. I should treat the whole system, but I have no idea how to get my three shrimp and four emerald crabs out and then keep them in a separate system for three weeks...

I forgot if you had photoshop or not, but did you try and play with the tint on any of those coral shots? If those are true colors, then dang! I'm not as happy with some of my corals right now, but I have so many variables in my system I am having trouble pinpointing if the problem is LED lighting or otherwise.

[TheFishMan65]

The way I understand it is as long as you don't post for personal gain you are good. If you worked for nanotuners you might be in trouble, but since you don't you are fine. At least the way I understand all this.

[wesley6610]

The violets can only be pushed at 500mA, shucks, I wanted to put them on the same string as my RB. I might order some still...do we need a shield for them or are they fine with just optics on them?

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by Taqpol

Good luck on getting the shrimp out! I dipped my affected corals in Interceptor and I think the pests might already be making a comeback. I should treat the whole system, but I have no idea how to get my three shrimp and four emerald crabs out and then keep them in a separate system for three weeks...

I forgot if you had photoshop or not, but did you try and play with the tint on any of those coral shots? If those are true colors, then dang! I'm not as happy with some of my corals right now, but I have so many variables in my system I am having trouble pinpointing if the problem is LED lighting or otherwise.

Well I managed to get out my cleaner shrimp very easy cause he's always so hungry. The fire shrimp was very shy after his last molt and it was a pain. Having such a small tank and lots of SPS frags the net could easily break a lot. I ended up tanking out the main rock structure since its one piece with all the corals attached to it and get the sucker out. They're now in my JBJ Picotope with all the hermits for a month at least.

I do have photoshop and I always do some post processing but totally forgot about what you said. I actually took some shots in RAW but I didn't really felt the need to adjust colors at all. Just some Brightness, a little contrast and remove some micro bubbles with the patch tool Ohh wait, now I remember! for some odd reason PS CS3 doesn't open my RAW pictures. They're NEF file. I had to download lightroom but never got to play with it.

Originally Posted by wesley6610

The violets can only be pushed at 500mA, shucks, I wanted to put them on the same string as my RB. I might order some still...do we need a shield for them or are they fine with just optics on them?

Yeah boomer... I'm still swapping 4 blues and putting them in the same string. After all, I run my blues at 500mA or under. Will make sure of this, otherwise will buy another driver and hook it to the third channel in my controller and have them to turn first, then blues and finally whites with red.

Depending where you mount them, they may need protection like the other LEDs. I've seen a lot of people having exposed LEDs far away from the water level but don't know how this could affect them in the long road. My LEDs are semi exposed. I do have a guard that covers the electronics and all the internals but it has a hole so the lenses peek out a bit

[Taqpol]

I forgot that you run your LEDs at "low" amperages. Is there any chance you could get a hold of a PAR meter for your tank? I'm wondering if your corals look so good because you have less light, or maybe even less intense light with the pendant being higher. Some (and not all, which is weird) of my corals are are fading to a really pale color and getting streaks of what looks like bleaching. The Montiporas seem most affected, which is making me wonder if I have too much light or too concentrated light.