Hi there everyone.
I followed Sunny and a couple of other members to this forum as they dont visit RC anymore.
Anyway, my tank is 47G "Rimless" with 12mm Optiwhite glass and double base. This is my first ever sumped tank; all 3 of my previous reef tanks were sumpless.
I opted for a single durso and return. The tank is in the living room and I am not too bothered about noise etc from the overflow. The sump is fairly large and will accomodate about 25G of water, but is designed to run with about half of that.
Here are the first photos of the tank:
Side shot:
A closeup shot of the "Rimless" glass and the smoothed edges:
A shot of the sump area:
The cabinet has lots of height. I can easily lift the skimmer out of the cabinet whilst it is still in one piece. Plus there is space to build a shelf above the sump to place my Doser and other equipment. I have also fitted a strip light inside the cabinet to assist when working inside the sump.
Skimmer: from the photo above you can see a Bubble Magus NAC6 Skimmer. I went with this skimmer due to its value for money and performance.
Lights: ATI Sunpower: 5xT5 + 24xCree 3W LED
I bought a practically new ATI Sunpower 6x24watt T5 unit (with non working fans) and have modified this to include high power LED's. The LED's consist of 20 Cree Royal Blue LED's and 4 Cree Blue LED's. I am running them at 700mA. In total the unit now runs about 180watts of T5 and LED. From my past experiance with T5's/250w+150wMetal halide/LED's, I estimate PAR to be well above that given by a 250w halide. There is a combination of 60 and 80 degree lens on the LED's.
My reasoning for going with such a light unit is due to the good experiance with LED's in my previous build, and because T5's are known for thier ability to colour SPS corals really well.
Dosing: Fauna Marine triple doser.
Water flow: 2 x Vortech MP10 ECOSMART
Topoff: Tunze Osmolator: This unit has so far proven to be 100% reliable and accurate.
Here is a shot of the skimmer in place and the plumbing done.
I have also fitted a cabinet lock on the cabinet. With a 2 babies around the place I am not taking any chances:
Here is a cool photo I just took to show off the T5/LED Hybrid reflection off the water:
I mounted the LED's onto an Aluminium plate. You cannot mount them directly onto the Sunpowers metal chassis as the heat conductivity through that material is only about 3/20 of Aluminium.
I had to cut a rectangle out from the Sunpower using a Dremmel with slim cutting wheels.
Once this was done, I screwed and thermal glued the Aluminium plate onto the chassis of the Sunpower.
The plate and chassis on their own wont disperse the heat. I tested and within 5 minutes the plate was getting very very warm to the touch.
So I ordered 4 VGA graphics card fans and found a few other bits of low profile heatsinks lying around. All I had to do then was glue them down with thermal paste.
This shows the LED's mounted onto a secondary surface, ie the Aluminium plate:
Shot showing all the lights on at the same time:
The White balance is screwed up and I didnt bother to take custom white balance readings with my DSLR, but from front the configuration is as follows:
Front:
ATI Blue+
ATI AquaBlue Special
24 LED's (20 Royal Blue + 4 Blue)
KZ Fiji Purple
Arcadia 14K
ATI Blue+
The 4 Moonlights are on as well, but you cant see them properly with the main lights on.
I am running the LED's off 2 x Meanwell LPC-35/700 model LED Drivers. These drivers allow 12 x 3watt LED's to be run at 700mA each. The 24 LED's are running at almost 60watts.
Distant shot:
Fauna Marin Triple Doser: In order to provide chemical stability to my reef aquarium, I bought this doser to dose Calcium and Alkalinity. Whether I use a commercial two part or go balling lite or even a home made two part is still undecided, but here are a few photos I took of the unit:
I followed Sunny and a couple of other members to this forum as they dont visit RC anymore.
Anyway, my tank is 47G "Rimless" with 12mm Optiwhite glass and double base. This is my first ever sumped tank; all 3 of my previous reef tanks were sumpless.
I opted for a single durso and return. The tank is in the living room and I am not too bothered about noise etc from the overflow. The sump is fairly large and will accomodate about 25G of water, but is designed to run with about half of that.
Here are the first photos of the tank:
Side shot:
A closeup shot of the "Rimless" glass and the smoothed edges:
A shot of the sump area:
The cabinet has lots of height. I can easily lift the skimmer out of the cabinet whilst it is still in one piece. Plus there is space to build a shelf above the sump to place my Doser and other equipment. I have also fitted a strip light inside the cabinet to assist when working inside the sump.
Skimmer: from the photo above you can see a Bubble Magus NAC6 Skimmer. I went with this skimmer due to its value for money and performance.
Lights: ATI Sunpower: 5xT5 + 24xCree 3W LED
I bought a practically new ATI Sunpower 6x24watt T5 unit (with non working fans) and have modified this to include high power LED's. The LED's consist of 20 Cree Royal Blue LED's and 4 Cree Blue LED's. I am running them at 700mA. In total the unit now runs about 180watts of T5 and LED. From my past experiance with T5's/250w+150wMetal halide/LED's, I estimate PAR to be well above that given by a 250w halide. There is a combination of 60 and 80 degree lens on the LED's.
My reasoning for going with such a light unit is due to the good experiance with LED's in my previous build, and because T5's are known for thier ability to colour SPS corals really well.
Dosing: Fauna Marine triple doser.
Water flow: 2 x Vortech MP10 ECOSMART
Topoff: Tunze Osmolator: This unit has so far proven to be 100% reliable and accurate.
Here is a shot of the skimmer in place and the plumbing done.
I have also fitted a cabinet lock on the cabinet. With a 2 babies around the place I am not taking any chances:
Here is a cool photo I just took to show off the T5/LED Hybrid reflection off the water:
I mounted the LED's onto an Aluminium plate. You cannot mount them directly onto the Sunpowers metal chassis as the heat conductivity through that material is only about 3/20 of Aluminium.
I had to cut a rectangle out from the Sunpower using a Dremmel with slim cutting wheels.
Once this was done, I screwed and thermal glued the Aluminium plate onto the chassis of the Sunpower.
The plate and chassis on their own wont disperse the heat. I tested and within 5 minutes the plate was getting very very warm to the touch.
So I ordered 4 VGA graphics card fans and found a few other bits of low profile heatsinks lying around. All I had to do then was glue them down with thermal paste.
This shows the LED's mounted onto a secondary surface, ie the Aluminium plate:
Shot showing all the lights on at the same time:
The White balance is screwed up and I didnt bother to take custom white balance readings with my DSLR, but from front the configuration is as follows:
Front:
ATI Blue+
ATI AquaBlue Special
24 LED's (20 Royal Blue + 4 Blue)
KZ Fiji Purple
Arcadia 14K
ATI Blue+
The 4 Moonlights are on as well, but you cant see them properly with the main lights on.
I am running the LED's off 2 x Meanwell LPC-35/700 model LED Drivers. These drivers allow 12 x 3watt LED's to be run at 700mA each. The 24 LED's are running at almost 60watts.
Distant shot:
Fauna Marin Triple Doser: In order to provide chemical stability to my reef aquarium, I bought this doser to dose Calcium and Alkalinity. Whether I use a commercial two part or go balling lite or even a home made two part is still undecided, but here are a few photos I took of the unit:
