Geeks never finishing reef build 40 gal Breeder

geekengineer · Oct 20, 2020

Welp I went into that black hole in the end. Lol Gosh starting a new job and moving put a major damper on doing anything with the reef setup. I stil have the tank and stand in the Garage. Yikes!! I got a auto message today made me remember I wanted to check back and at least say hi to everyone.

jk_s124 · Oct 20, 2020

Welcome back! Glad to see you posting again. How’s the new job treating you? Was it a far move?

MERKEY · Oct 20, 2020

Welcome back and hope the new job is treating you well!

geekengineer · Oct 20, 2020

I like this company a lot better, but it is pretty intence sometimes. I really love that I am getting to do more things that I use to. This new company is smaller and reminds me what my first company was like before it got bought out. In hindsight I should have left my previous employer sooner. I was living in Longmont CO now I'm in south Aurora which is about an hour away. So if anyone is in that area let me know.

geekengineer · Oct 28, 2020

So I was debating on where to put my tank eventually in the new house. I was going to put it up in the living room upstairs, but now I am thinking of maybe putting it in the basement in the part I am going to make a small rec room. I'm thinking it would be closer to where I am going to have my mix tanks. I have a place I can use in the furnace room for the tanks and I would have a drain there as well. Also I wonder if it would be easier to keep the tank cool in the summer downstairs since I was using MH lighting.

geekengineer · Oct 29, 2020

NY_Caveman said:
I got laid off about 6 years ago and it was one of the best thing that ever happened to me. Look into all options. I was able to collect unemployment while getting a severance. Create opportunities for yourself and you will recover.

I was just going over the old posts and I have to say that you were right Caveman. Unfortunately, I ended up moving (still in the same state) in the end, but I like the new job I have a lot better and I am getting paid a lot more.

geekengineer · Sep 12, 2022

Well I meant to come back sooner than this lol. I think just after this I found out my dad had got COVID in the nursing home and he later died from it. I think it just got me distracted altogether, but not surprising I guess. Then my mom's memory started faltering and I was really nervous and was trying to keep her going back in Wyoming which I thought would be a safer place for her at the time being in a small town. (in theory). Anyways that next summer in we were all able to get vaccinated and I was able to bring my mom to stay with me in Colorado. My mom ended up getting really sick at the end of 2021.. Then my basement flooded from a sewer backup in the spring. I got it cleaned up and the insurance paid for it, but I wanted to the repair myself. I wanted to improve a few things anyhow. So I spend the last 6 months repairing the walls and flooring they had to remove. I finally had that done about a few months ago now. Then we caught COVID, but the anti-virals I think got me and my mom through it just fine. Gosh so well as you can see this project wasn't getting anywhere soon. LOL

So after I got the basement done I got looking at some of my fish tank stuff again. I started working on the light holder I had started. I also put the ballast I had half apart back together. I just not sure if I have the money to start up all the way yet. I was thinking of just working with what I have for the time being.

Here is the tank now with my light hanging. Not sure which way I should put it with the glass so I can slide it out the front or turn it around so it has the PFO lighting tag on it.

geekengineer · Sep 16, 2022

I found my raspberry pi B+, but supposedly amazon says I bought 5 of them total over the years, but I only found one of them. That sort of a bummer I could probably sell them now for more than I paid for them lol. However the cool thing is I knew I had a R-pi Zero W V1.1, but I found another one. Yippee. I sort of had plans for the one zero I had but now I got two. So that might change my plans a bit. I forgot I bought a atlas scientific (commercial grade) PH probe early this year and I can't find that either so far. Having to swap out my basement really hurt. lol

Just here waiting for my heat sinks to come in...

geekengineer · Sep 16, 2022

This is my MH light fixture I am working on at the moment going to put long heat sinks on the sides there with those standoffs. I am taking out the VHO bulbs and replacing with 10W string of deep blue COBs.

geekengineer · Sep 17, 2022

Here is it with the heatsinks installed. The middle one is a spare for later if I want to go all LED.

geekengineer · Sep 19, 2022

well I been putting some of this in my lighting thread, but here a picture to show progress on the light so far. UPS might have lost my driver I bought and that would suck if they did.

geekengineer · Sep 19, 2022

I also found a board I designed that I forgot all about. lol I think it was for my hydroponics (which is a whole other project lol). It was to mount a pi zero on it, audio connectors for TTL sensors / 1 wire temp sensors, has the atlas scientific module breakouts on it, and a outlet box interface. I could expand it with I2C devices with the connectors on the board in theory for whatever I wanted.

N1tew0lf1212 · Sep 19, 2022

In northern colorado myself and awesome build....the light is awesome by the way.....in the process of doing a diy sump and tank got distracted by a 55g frag tank build and stand reconditioning.....might have to get together at some point talk tanks....might have something you could possibly be into as well just as a heads up.....

Here is my recent build im in the process of now.....

Build Thread - Night Howler Frag Tank Build

Well its finally happening i have waited and watched for a long time on marketplaces from here to craigslist to facebook. But the time has come for my newest adventure. I will be bringing home my new baby today a 65 gal with stand. I will be taking a page out of @NowGlazeIT and @Projects with...

www.reef2reef.com

geekengineer · Sep 19, 2022

lol OK I think i was looking at your build a bit eariler. I didn't catch you were in loveland. Unfortunaly I had to move down to south Aurora a few years back. I must have forgot to fix my location I used to be in Longmont.

N1tew0lf1212 · Sep 19, 2022

No i read in your thread you were moved from longmont but really not that bad of a drive lol. Been a long process for my build but hey i completely dig it....didnt plan on a 55g tank and stand for free so put my dt project on hold for the time being to get the frag tank up and rolling.....just siliconed up my custom sump today for the frag tank and must say that was the best way to go.....

geekengineer · Sep 20, 2022

Ok I got the Driver and got it working I put it in my light DIY thread but I put it here too just in case.

geekengineer · Oct 11, 2022

Need to maybe try to head back to my build thread if I can. Here are some more pictures I took a few days ago. Still tweaking on things while I am waiting for the LED race between Steve's LEDs and China. A am a little disappointed I can't get a hold of anyone at Steve's or at least get any idea of status at least. I guess either operate out of a black hole over there and they are just super overloaded or not there anymore.

Of course i was just looking at something and didn't realize the company that ships China stuff out of USA had what I wanted as well. Uhgg. I thought they didn't have Cyan LEDs and ones on star boards, but they had in a different sale.

geekengineer · Oct 11, 2022

Ok well good news the race is on. Steve's finally sent out the LEDs today so hopefully I get them for this weekend.

Should have the Fan Monitor Fixture PCB board in by this weekend hopefully too.

geekengineer · Oct 12, 2022

Here is the schematic for the my fan controller/monitor for my light fixture. I didn't realize the fans I had don't PWM down to 0 so I wanted to add the option to be able to turn them off. Then it can monitor the temperature at three different points on the light bar and adjust each of the three fans accordingly. Unfortunately it might make more sense to dump the fixture I have all together and just keep the heat sinks in the open air, but maybe I can look at that later. Right now the temperature is going to be higher at the end vs. at the beginning. However I have the glass protecting everything which is a bit of a plus as far as not having to worry about it getting wet etc.

Layout. EDIT: FYI this has an issue that needed rework or it might damage your pico.

geekengineer · Oct 17, 2022

OK feels like I didn't get very far but I think I did. So I did run into a problem with my fan control/monitor board. I didn't realize that when I shut off the fan with the FET it ends up driving about 10V down the PWM pin. Needless to say my pico W got a bit hot. lol. I had to order another one although mine seems to be working OK for now. I reworked my board by adding another FET as a buffer so that it can't dump current down the PWM pin when the fan is powered down.

So I don't have all the code I would like in the Pico, but I have it set to run the fans at a medium level and it scans the three temperature sensors I have on the center heat sink near each fan that is on the other side. This below is about where it hangs out if I have just the center lights on. It increases to around 50C on the hot area 3 when I all the royal blues running.