Ross B Reef'n 170 Gallon & Fishroom Megabuild

[Blutspitze]

Wow! Definitely getting some great growth on it. Have you seen a noticeable difference in the DT?

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Wow! Definitely getting some great growth on it. Have you seen a noticeable difference in the DT?

I vac'd the sand this last Friday. That will be the last time during this experiment/test. After a little more growth, I'm going to ramp the DT lights up again and see what happens.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not going to be large enough for my feeding wants. Then again, it's only been a week and I can be proven wrong.

My automatic feeder feeds 15ml of mysis, brine, & calanus five times a day. And the tangs get a 3/4 sheet of Nori daily.

The ATS screen size is 12"x18" and supplied with a 250gph pump.

 

[Blutspitze]

I vac'd the sand this last Friday. That will be the last time during this experiment/test. After a little more growth, I'm going to ramp the DT lights up again and see what happens.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not going to be large enough for my feeding wants. Then again, it's only been a week and I can be proven wrong.

My automatic feeder feeds 15ml of mysis, brine, & calanus five times a day. And the tangs get a 3/4 sheet of Nori daily.

The ATS screen size is 12"x18" and supplied with a 250gph pump.

I imagine the shelved system would improve things, giving far more area for the things to grow and draw out the nasties. It is a LOT of feeding to be sure.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

I imagine the shelved system would improve things, giving far more area for the things to grow and draw out the nasties. It is a LOT of feeding to be sure.

I'm feeling like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. This is primarily because our first child is due mid feb and I have to have this figured out before then.

I think the slant design could have a significant advantage over the rainfall/waterfall design due to the ability to light the underside and keep the roots strong. But this begs the question, is the die-off under the growth really an issue?

First, the drawer style will take significantly more time to build.

The second option is replace the slant style with 2 waterfall style screens above the sump fuge compartment. In ATS theory, this would quadruple the surface area and would only require 2 more lights, and just hang the H380 over the top.

The third option is build a 4ft long slant or waterfall style and mount it above the QT tanks. This would be a much faster way to build it, but would require more lights... decisions, decisions

 

[Blutspitze]

I personally wouldn't worry too much about root system die-off; one of the reasons for building this is to periodically scrape the screens clean, so theoretically all the more reason to not bother. That said, I have no idea what option would be best. I'd argue the drawer, since you'll have the most utility from it. But with such a tight timeline, option 2 might be the best as far as compromising between available surface and time/lights required.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Just ordering 4 to 6 more H380's would be my ideal choice, but my wife would never allow that. So to make things work, I've decided to build my own lights.

The lights will be 75w each.
Fan - $6.99
Thermal Paste - $5.99
Heatsink - $6.99
LED Driver - $13.94
3w LED x30 - $25.50
TOTAL: $65.29

Now I don't have to worry about cost so much and think more about what I'm trying to achieve. I want to drive my nitrates and phosphates to 0. If I had that power over my tank, I could then allow my N03 and P04 to be where I want them to be by adjustment. Thats including my feeding regime and any future coral supplements. I think I have to go big. But how big???? 4 18x12 screens? 6? 8?? Hmmmmm

 

[Millimylilly]

Ross your my hero. R u gonna get some anthias from Elliot??

 

[Blutspitze]

definitely sounds like a good solution for getting the lighting you'll need. Obviously saving on the cost is great. My thought on size would be as big as possible. You don't want to go through the building only to end up with NO3 and PO4 > 0 with no real way to bring it down.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Ross your my hero. R u gonna get some anthias from Elliot??

I can only hope to live up to a hero's standards! We will see in due time, but anything added moving forward will be from Elliot, or any vendor of a higher standard. I say that with particular emphasis on the health of the fish.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

definitely sounds like a good solution for getting the lighting you'll need. Obviously saving on the cost is great. My thought on size would be as big as possible. You don't want to go through the building only to end up with NO3 and PO4 > 0 with no real way to bring it down.

I'm trying to work in liquid cooling the LED's as well. Because, ya know, I have to be Ross B Reef'n

 

[Blutspitze]

Liquid cooling always scares me, but it is just about the coolest thing you can do

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

So my first round of making an LED algae light was a huge fail. I tried to use cheap LED's from amazon and it was a waste of time. 2 of the 3 LED drivers I ordered did not read the stated volts or amps on the multimeter. Seriously, don't bother. I'm going to try one more time with supplies from Rapid LED. They sell Cree LED's already mounted to a PCB and the appropriate drivers. This route has almost doubled the cost of the diy light, so frugality is once again in play.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Liquid cooling always scares me, but it is just about the coolest thing you can do

This is my EVGA SR-2 dual E5620 custom rig overclocked to 4.6ghz I built over 10 years ago. All liquid cooled with EK full copper blocks. Old girl, but she can still compete with the best of them.

Unfortunately since cost is once again at play, I'm not sure if I'll be able to work in the liquid cooling for the lights

 

[Blutspitze]

Bummer about the DIY LEDs... hope that round 2 works well on them. Awesome rig, as well. I know lots of liquid cooling is commonplace now, with easy to buy/install kits (I did a couple for new work builds), but I guess I'm still just too paranoid personally.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Success!

I'm on vacation for the rest of the year, so I'll give an update on the tank when I work up the energy

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Bummer about the DIY LEDs... hope that round 2 works well on them. Awesome rig, as well. I know lots of liquid cooling is commonplace now, with easy to buy/install kits (I did a couple for new work builds), but I guess I'm still just too paranoid personally.

It seems super sketch, but as long as you're doing it right, water never actually makes contact with the electrical components. I've liquid cooled 2000w boat amps, was the best thing I could have ever done for the sound quality. Things just seem to run better when thier not run to their thermal limit.

The new thing i recently saw was PETG tubing which is a mix of acrylic and other plastics. Very interesting.

 

[Blutspitze]

Haha, of course, the operative phrase being "if you're doing it right". A handful of my co-workers have liquid cooling horror stories of blown out MBs and processors because they nicked a line with a razor or just didn't assemble the rig properly. So sad.

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Okay Ladies and Gentlemen. I'm just too busy to see through the patent of my refrigerated fish food feeder idea. So here it is. Hope you enjoy, and if you like, are able to make one for yourself.

To do this, you're going to need:
1) a mini-mini fridge
2) 120mm computer fan
3) magnetic stir pill
4) 2 pump doser

You'll also need a container. I made mine out of acrylic so it could be as large as possible. it holds about 600ml.

The whole concept of this feeder is that it first keeps the food refrigerated, and then doses food consistently on a schedule. One of the dosing heads is set to 1 minute before feeding, and with a large enough dose setting to continue through feeding. This 1st doser is also the one connected to the computer fan which stirs the food before feeding begins.

If possible, you'll want the outlet near the center of the tank, or else your fish will learn to congregate on one side of the tank.

The 2nd doser is remounted inside the refrigerator to keep the food in-line cold. Note: the wires for the cheap doser i linked are reverse to the computer fan wires (Red to black / black to red). You can get the polarity wrong here without hurting anything. Just try the opposite if it doesn't work.

A larger hole is cut in the plate so the magnets attached to the fan motor can spin freely.

Add your food for the week. Stay away from larger foods like krill as they will clog the doser. Calanus, mysis, and brine pictured.

Fill the container with saltwater and mix the food well. Note: the bottom of the container must be flat for the stir pill to spin correctly.

Add the stir pill!

Put your fish food soup in the fridge, close the door, and you're good for a week!

Remember to set the computer fan doser 1 minutes before feeding for like 200ml so it continues to stir up to and through feeding.


What I would have done differently:
This mini fridge can actually freeze its contents. In order to prevent this, I drilled a hole in the front door and made an adjustable acrylic window to vent. This works.... but a better solution would be to either use a thermistor circuit or something like an inkbird to prevent freezing.

Merry Christmas

 

[cmaxwell39]

Very well thought out. Do you have any problems with tubing getting clogged up? Also, how often are you dosing?

 

[Ross B Reef'n]

Very well thought out. Do you have any problems with tubing getting clogged up? Also, how often are you dosing?

Thank you. I'm using mysis, brine, and calanus and never had a clog. I feed 15ml, 5 times a day (7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm).