Tank lights going mental and killing fish

[gloveny]

Hi everyone. My fish tank was bought second hand and the light controller seemed to work as expected. The lights slowly come on in the morning and then at night slowly dim to nothing.

I had a power cut while I was away (someone was looking after the tank).
When I got back the lights were going mental. They flicker on and off very fast and dim from bearly on to fully on in the space of 10 seconds. I'm guessing the person looking after the tank panicked and screwed the controller up but I have no way to reset the values / parameters in the controller because it's so complicated and unclear. I have an Orca tank with an LED controller stuck on the lid. I don;t know if the controller came with the tank or was later added. The tank has 5 different power cables coming out. I don;t even know what they do.
Anyhow please see the images of the controller and the 2 dial knobs at the back of the tank.
Can anyone please tell me how to either disable the controller so I can just turn the lights on and off myself or better yet reprogram this thing.
I've lost 4 fish since I got home and there are only 2 fish left hiding in the rocks. I'm really sad but I don't want to give up.
Can anyone help?
Images here....

Tank1

• gloveny
• May 8, 2018

Tank LED controlls

Tank3

• gloveny
• May 8, 2018

Tank lid

Tank2

• gloveny
• May 8, 2018

Full tank

Thanks a lot
Graham

 

[reef lover]

Did u try the reset button?

 

[gloveny]

Yes I press the reset button. It asks for date and time which I do but then the behaviour of the lights remains the same.
There are buttons to re-program the lights but it's not clear what to press. It's an awful piece of kit

 

[Thomashtom]

unplug the lights

 

[reef lover]

I' sorry idk ...and can' find a manual for it online...

 

[JoshH]

#Reefsquad any thoughts aside from pulling the plug??

 

[ihavecrabs]

Looks like a DIY jobby. I would just start playing with it and see if you can't figure out how to set on/off times. I'll be honest thought, flickering isn't the greatest of signs.. I would have expected either ON or OFF, but flickering may mean that your power supply or main board is on the way out.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Never seen any DIY light like this. That's one of the unfortunate parts about DIY lights, they can come in quite literally any configuration imaginable. Personally I would just unplug it for now.

I'm a bit skeptical that the light is killing your fish. Flickering lights might stress them out, but I don't know if I believe it would kill them.

 

[redfishbluefish]

First off, welcome to R2R.

Without question that's a DIY light addition. It might help if you take a picture of the LED side. I'm scratching my head on this one.....why it would flicker. Someone with knowledge needs to use a multimeter on that thing to figure out what's wrong.

I also don't believe your fish death is from the flickering or no light situation, unless voltage got into the tank.

Are you located in the States....the reason I ask is that Boyu Ocra tanks aren't common here?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I haven’t seen that controller before.

I suspect it’s not the lights but powerout.

IMO , one of the downfalls to a bio cube is lack of oxygen. So in a power failure the lack o2 in general and now flow can be a fast killer.

I’d pull the lid , get an air stone or powehead hitting the surface.

It’s also quite likely an ammoina spike. So bacteria and prime , and water change.

Once you get the fish stable , you’d can deal with the lights.
In general , just double check the connections and look for salt creep.

We also have a few folks in the diy and controllers that might be able to help guide you. Depending on what you have , there maybbe an easy cheap replacement.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-controller-fluval-2-0-lights.388482/

A possible replacement.

 

[Justin....#JAMAS]

I see a random button on the controller there....maybe the people looking after the tank, hit it by accident and flipped out and didn't fix it obviously lol.....I'm sure those fish are super stressed out, but if I was going to start anywhere I'd def start with that random button to maybe turn back to normal mode

 

[gloveny]

Thanks for all the rwplies guys.
The lights have changed since turning it off and on. Also played with the buttons, it's odd. They pules now instead of flicker, 2 pulses every second. Fish are having a disco. Not fully off just dimming pulse. Will get some new lihts installed. Not sure how yet. The fish seem ok. The invertabrates are looking healthy and the fish left seem relaxed.