Acrotrdco's Zero Edge Rimless PPG Starphire 65G

[acrotrdco]

Guys,

I've met the R2R superman @ MACNA 2010 but never had the time to actually register here, so hi everyone

Now let me introduce myself a little

Background

Living in the crowded suburbs of Hong Kong, my apartment located on the 21st floor of a residential skyscaper, is relatively small and the only room I could fit an aquarium would be the over-sized window sill measuring some 2'x7', here's some images of my current living room, and my old 20g nano-reef tank.

I've always wanted to build a large SPS dominated tank like most of the experienced folks here, but due to my limited budget, all I could build is a 65g SPS dominated tank, an upgrade from my old 20g nano-reef.

Looking out from my window and this is what you'll see:

And this was my old tank, a 20g nano-reef tank:

Design Phase

Working with the limited space I've got, the only possible way to put a 65G tank is to utilize some of the space on the over-sized window sill. However, even with a 65g tank, it weights from 500 lbs and I worried if the window sill can actually sustain such a weight, therefore a special stand must be made to distribute some of the weight to the floor instead of having the sill take on the full weight.

This is what I've come up with:

The tank and stand alone would look something like this:

 

[acrotrdco]

Display Tank and Stand

Since I'll be reusing the current 28" sump (also placed on the window sill), and most of the current equipments I'm using on my 20g, I'll only need to build a new display tank with the special stand.

The DT and stand would have the following dimension:

Craftmanship and Material

The new DT will be made using PPG Starphire ultra clear (low-iron) glass. Holding a piece of the sample glass and you can see how clear it is.

The new DT will be rim-less, using the so-called "closed injection zero edge" method to make sure no silicone sealent is visible from the edges, as seen on the following photos taken on a local reefer's tank built with this technique from the same vendor:

Looking from the side of his tank, you can even see through the entire 6' glass panel!

Aquascape

Since I'll be using all the live rocks (with SPS already attached) from the current nano-reef tank in this new tank, I'll need to design some base rocks for my new tank, then attach the old live-rocks using coral epoxy underwater in the new tank.

I've been looking around for aquascape ideas, and I like the simplistic / minimalist approach so the aquascape of my new tank will be nothing more than 2-3 small columns.

Some of the base rocks I've made:

Equipment[/SIZE][/COLOR]

I'll be re-using most of my current equipments:

Filtration: NP Biopellets (1st and 2nd Generation), using a small BM reactor.
Skimmer: BM 150 Pro
Flow: 2x EcoTech Marine's Vortech MP10w ES running Anti-Sync on Reef Crest
Lighting: 2x Maxspect G2-160w LED Custom Color
Water Cooler: Teco TR10
Return Pump: NewJet 3000 (3000 L/h or ~ 790 gallon/h)
Calcium Reactor: Nil - will be using dosing pump instead.
Dosing pump + additives: BM 3+4 heads dosing pump, dosing Ca (Kent Turbo Calcium), KH (Sodium Bicarbonate), Mg (Kent Tech-M), Sr (Kent), Trace Element (Seachem), K (Brightwell) and other KZ additives (SP, Xtra, Spur2, B-Bal, KZ Stylo-Pocci Glow, etc.)
pH Meter: American Marine pH meter
Computer: Nil - will be adding one later when budget allows.

 

[acrotrdco]

Tank and Stand

The tank and its stand finally arrived at the shop after waited for 2 months! I was really impressed by the craftsmanship, they look exactly as I've thought, if not better

Here're some photos:

The DT, still wrapped in cling.

Looking through the edge of the PPG Starphire, you can the bottom of the tank. Oh and the closed injection edges, good stuff.

Bottom part of the stand, this is where I'm going to put the 2x MP10wES drivers.

And the top part.

The next step would be to move the tank in and move everything over from my old tank.

 

[acrotrdco]

Installation

After a whole weekend of hardwork, the new tank was up and running!

Some photos:

The tank finally arrived!

New tank, stand, and buckets of corals from my old tank:

Stand already in place, preparing to put the tank up.

It's done! Plumping and DT is set, all that's left is to put the stuff from the old tank back into it.

All the live sand from the old tank went back in, along with water from the old tank.

 

[acrotrdco]

Rockworks

Took me a whole day to put everything back into the tank.

Spend the next day setting up the rockworks, and setting everything else!

Dual MP10w ES in the side panel of the stand. Gotta love anti-sync mode.

Looking back at the design images, and the final product, I was pretty impressed with myself too LOL.

 

[acrotrdco]

Installing Optics

As you can see from the previous photos, the center section of my new tank has over 16" of water, so in order to get enough light to penetrate the water optics must be used, so I've ordered a set of optics.

The idea is to put lens on the center bulbs only, and leave the remaining bulbs alone, so there're still light for the sides.

This is what it looks like when you take away the reflector sheet:

This is the optics kit:

Installing lens on the center bulbs:

Completed!

This is what it looks like after installing the optics:

Compare with the previous appearance:

 

[acrotrdco]

Installing Second Fixture

After looking at the tank lit by only one fixture, I felt that it didn't have enough coverage for the entire 40", so I ordered a second fixture.

It had exactly the same configuration, using a mix of Semi LED and Cree LED to achieve the color I wanted, including full blue spectrum from 400nm all the way to 500nm, as well as a set of optics.

p.s. there's a typo in this sheet, it's 405nm violet not 503nm, 503 is cyan.

Since I want to keep both edges of my tank dimmer so I can keep ricordea's, acan's and scoly's, I didn't want to install the full set of lens, only the 5 groups in the middle for each fixture will have lens installed, the rest will be using only a flat protector (except the red bulb - color mixing isn't that great if no lens were used).

This is what it looks like after installing the optics kit and lens. Left one is the old one and right one is the new one.

First one goes in! I'm using a slower shutter speed so you can clearly see how the light penetrates through the water.

Second one goes in.

Now adjusting the right shutter speed, aperture and white balance, this is what it looks like (with the 8x 15w bulbs turned off):

And this is what it looks like with only blue. The cyan color from the Cree XP-E Blue is very obvious as you can see from the photo:

 

[acrotrdco]

Photos of my Corals and Fishes

FTS:

Some of my fishes:

Some photos of my corals:

 

[acrotrdco]

PAR Measurement

I was always wondering what kind of PAR I would be getting after installing the optics, I could only speculate until I borrowed a PAR meter.

First of all, some measurements. My tank is 20" tall, the stand covered the bottom 1", so visible height is 19". The sand bed is about 1.5" thick, water is about 1.5" from the top of the tank, so there's about 17" of water.

The following photos were taken with all lights turned on.

Water surface:

About 3" deep:

7" deep:

8" deep:

10" deep:

13" deep:

15" deep:

16" deep:

Since it was really hard to take photos while measuring PAR with the meter and my hands were wet, that's all the photos I've taken. However I've measured all around my tank, and here's an overall PAR measurements.

Keep in mind that:

1. I've only installed optics on the center 5 groups of LEDs because I want to keep the sides dimmer for softies and LPS, right now they're on the bottom with about 100-200 PAR, perfect!

2. These are rounded up numbers, and have an error margin of +/- 100-200 PAR, due to water current, position of the bulb above it (with or without optics) and any obstruction from the rocks / corals nearby.

3. These numbers are for reference only, and aren't hardly accurate enough for anything else.

 

[cmcneil]

That is an amazing setup you have there.I love how clean everything is.that tank looks like it is built superbly.you did the right thing by building the stand like you did since I doubt the window sill could handle the weight properly.those are some great PAR numbers too,LEDs are really coming along at a rapid pace and us reef keepers get great power savings with them

 

[Paul_N]

WOW! Nice setup! Well thought out. Love the clean look and also the window view you have.

Welcome to R2R!

 

[REEFCRAFT]

Nice! You have a great view with a view.

 

[JGoslee]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Awesome looking tank! I've been thinking about purchasing two of the G2-160's for my tank. How long do you keep the 15 watt LEDs on each day and do you like the way it looks with all the lights on?

 

[Viva'sReef]

Very nice tank....I am trying to downsize to something around this size

 

[acrotrdco]

That is an amazing setup you have there.I love how clean everything is.that tank looks like it is built superbly.you did the right thing by building the stand like you did since I doubt the window sill could handle the weight properly.those are some great PAR numbers too,LEDs are really coming along at a rapid pace and us reef keepers get great power savings with them

Thanks Yeah I was worried about the weight, besides without the current stand, the depth of the tank has to be reduced to just 12", that's really just too little room to work with.

I'm also quite impressed with the PAR readings from these fixtures, I'm going to post more photos on the growth of my SPS under these LED as well as improvement on their coloration.

WOW! Nice setup! Well thought out. Love the clean look and also the window view you have.

Welcome to R2R!

Thanks Paul

Nice! You have a great view with a view.

Thanks

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Awesome looking tank! I've been thinking about purchasing two of the G2-160's for my tank. How long do you keep the 15 watt LEDs on each day and do you like the way it looks with all the lights on?

Answering your question, here's my photoperiod:

Blue and Violet: 13 hours, 12:00pm noon to 1:00am
Blue + 3w white (blue:white ratio 3:2): 9 hours, 2:00pm to 11:00pm
All on, including 8x 15w white (blue:white ratio 2:3): 5 hours, 4:00pm to 9:00pm

Very nice tank....I am trying to downsize to something around this size

Cool, what's the current size of your tank?

 

[Viva'sReef]

My display is not huge, but is a 120g display, a fishroom behind the wall with also a 60g shallow frag tank, and a custom 110g sump that feeds both display and frag tank.

 

[acrotrdco]

That's a pretty nice size, why do you want to downsize it?

 

[acrotrdco]

More Photos!

Here's a shot taken just now with only blue/violet bulbs on:

And a few more other shots:

 

[acrotrdco]

My Favorite SPS

Now some micro shots on my favorite piece, tri-color purple tip teal green acro:

Top down micro shots:

 

[Jcr's Reef]

Very nice