NeveSSL's 180g Mixed Reef

NeveSSL · Jan 25, 2014

Almost done! Should have water flowing tomorrow.

Brandon

Bueller · Jan 25, 2014

Awesome! So close man! My pillow stuffing from wal mart makes my skimmer go crazy for a few minutes but it works great so i love it.

NeveSSL · Jan 25, 2014

Its about time you show up.

Brandon

pickupman66 · Jan 26, 2014

Brandon I'm quite happy and proud of you for getting this thing up and rolling. Sometime soon you need to do a full ride up on your PVC pillow stuffing holders. I'm quite interested in reading that. By the way I want to stop by and get that cable. I'll give you a call later today.

teamx151 · Jan 26, 2014

I would be interested in seeing your PVC setup using pillow stuffing. I'm in the process of building a new system, and would like to see your setup. I currently use filter socks, but it does get to be a pain in cleaning them.

Thanks,
Jeff

solar · Jan 26, 2014

You are so close! It is all coming together nicely.

NeveSSL · Jan 26, 2014

Thanks, Lindsey! I'm doing my best to make this system as easy to maintain as possible.

Just let me know on the cable.

I will try to get a writeup together on the pillow stuffing thing soon, Jeff. Its something that's common in nano tanks... I'm not sure why more people don't do it in larger tanks.

Thanks, Phil! If it wasn't for this cold snap about to hit, I'd be grabbing some fish today.

Brandon

NeveSSL · Jan 26, 2014

Almost forgot... here's a pic as of this morning:

I am probably going to tweak the island on the left, but not 100% sure just yet.

Brandon

rcmike · Jan 26, 2014

Yikes!!! You have a ghost in the left side of the tank!

NeveSSL · Jan 26, 2014

Haha! No worries... Its a friendly ghost.

NeveSSL · Jan 27, 2014

Sweet! My cable ends to make my cables for my Jebao control cables came in today. May have to make those tonight and test them out.

Brandon

schooleyosis · Jan 27, 2014

Make sure to check that you have the same resistance on each pin between the connectors before making your connections. I got one RA cable that I am pretty sure they soldered backwards...

NeveSSL · Jan 27, 2014

Can you expound on that one a bit?

Thanks,

Brandon

schooleyosis · Jan 27, 2014

Call me!

rcmike · Jan 27, 2014

What all did you get to make the cords exactly? I may make one for the pump I got from you and might get a couple of the WP40s at some point for another tank.

schooleyosis · Jan 28, 2014

I'll give a try here to describe what I meant by checking the resistance of the 3 inputs on the RA cable but I'll explain more in person if this doesn't make sense...

On the end of the RA cable that plugs into the Jabeo cable there are 3 pins. Two of these are the red and black lead that you cut/modify to run from the Apex The third pin is for the power from the power supply. Basically, you just need to check resistance from the black lead to whichever pin it is hooked to, and the same for the red lead. You'll easily be able to figure out which pin is for which color wire after a few continuity checks. The issue I had, was that they crossed the red and black wires so my continuity/resistance checks were different from cable to cable. When I got a replacement cable, I compared it to the other 2 cables I had, and the one that had matching values were the two good cables.

I have yet to peel back the heat shrink and see where the malfunction is on the RA cable side, but I'm assuming they soldered the cables backwards. Luckily it didn't hurt my pumps or my apex, just didn't allow them to work because the signal line and the ground line were not correct.

Hope that makes sense.

NeveSSL · Jan 28, 2014

rcmike said:
What all did you get to make the cords exactly? I may make one for the pump I got from you and might get a couple of the WP40s at some point for another tank.

Hi Mike,

I ordered the waterproof connectors for mine. I may have to order some of the power cable connectors, also, if I can't dig some up around the house. I have the RJ45s and resistors I need.

schooleyosis said:
I'll give a try here to describe what I meant by checking the resistance of the 3 inputs on the RA cable but I'll explain more in person if this doesn't make sense...

On the end of the RA cable that plugs into the Jabeo cable there are 3 pins. Two of these are the red and black lead that you cut/modify to run from the Apex The third pin is for the power from the power supply. Basically, you just need to check resistance from the black lead to whichever pin it is hooked to, and the same for the red lead. You'll easily be able to figure out which pin is for which color wire after a few continuity checks. The issue I had, was that they crossed the red and black wires so my continuity/resistance checks were different from cable to cable. When I got a replacement cable, I compared it to the other 2 cables I had, and the one that had matching values were the two good cables.

I have yet to peel back the heat shrink and see where the malfunction is on the RA cable side, but I'm assuming they soldered the cables backwards. Luckily it didn't hurt my pumps or my apex, just didn't allow them to work because the signal line and the ground line were not correct.

Hope that makes sense.

Yep, makes perfect sense. Thanks, Ryan!

Brandon

NeveSSL · Feb 1, 2014

I've now had the tank up and running for a full day with no issues. I was nervous about this, so I'm really happy to have it over with and I feel like I can trust my tank on its own now. Haha!

We added our first fish yesterday... a purple pseudochromis. This was one of my wife's requests a few months ago.

I will have pics later... its still in hiding mode.

Last night and this morning I worked on and finished my skimmer stand. Really happy with the way it turned out.

Cleaned the cup and started it up!

I built it for the lowest water setting recommended for the stock pumps... and it still may need to be lowered with this BB5000 on it... haha! I may just drop the water level in the sump, though, instead as that would be easier since the legs of the skimmer stand are already as small as they'll go without a redesign.

Coming along! Really stoked to finally be at this point. My Apex was delivered yesterday to Neptune, so I hope to hear back from them sometime next week, I would guess on Tuesday or Wednesday if all goes well. I'm hoping the repair isn't too expensive.

Brandon