Johnseye's 260g Reef

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
120g just wasn't enough for the fish I love watching. The new 260g, built by Derek at Miracles, is 84"L x 24"D x 30"W with 3/4" starphire on front and sides and eurobraced top and bottom. 48" rear external overflow with three 1.5" bulkheads for a beananimal drain. Only two return holes in the back corners of the DT. I decided against closed loop after talking with Sanjay. He convinced me it was too much risk of leaking for what could be done with poweheads. I did have 2 holes drilled into the back top eurobracing for a pair of Seaswirls. Miracles also built the steel framed stand with maple skirting, stained in walnut. The 260 was initially planned for my office, but after bringing in a structural engineer and having a rational discussion with my wife, we decided to put it in the basement. Our basement is finished with an existing theater room, bathroom, kids play area and most importantly space for a fish room. My concern was that the aquarium would get much less viewing being in the basement, which it does, but the pros outweighed the cons.

The sump was custom built to my design by John at Advanced Acrylics. It holds about 80g and is 48"L x20"D x20"W, 1/2" rimless with 3/8" black baffles back and bottom. I sized it to go in the stand under the DT if necessary. Flush Lids on all 4 sections. Notches on the return and the skimmer section for cords, Four 4" filtersock holders, skimmer section is 12.75"x 20", Center fuge section is 12"x 20", Return section is 8"x 20". There's a 5 hole dosing line , 3 hole probe holder, and three 1.5" bulkhead holes for the drain. I drilled the return bulkhead hole in order to line it up properly with a 230w Red Dragon 3 return pump.

Lighting is Geismann Spectra 72" MH/T5 combo. Possible future plans to build in Kessil LED pucks between each MH reflector.

Powerheads are a pair of MP60s at front sides, a pair of MP40s at back sides and a single MP40 at middle back.

Skimmer for the moment is a LifeReef 24 with extra large collection cup and Vectra M1. I will either extend the skimmer height or replace it entirely based on how it performs, but so far so good. According to Jeff's site, the 24 in. is slightly undersized for the 260g but the nice thing about his skimmers is they are essentially the same except for the height. I originally bought this with the flange for my 120g to expand if necessary.

Dry sand is CaribSea special grade. Live rock from TBS. Both Pukani and Walt Smith, majority being the Pukani.

I added a 20 amp quad outlet to my fishroom for extra power. That turned out to be a real pita as the basement ceiling is drywalled. Conduit was tight to the breaker box, but the electrician got it through.

I picked up a new 55g black Roto-mold for salt water storage along with a Genesis Renew for AWC. I have a couple clear/frosted Roto-mold containers and while the FW tank with kalk doesn't have any growth, the SW tank gets a little which I need to periodically clean with vinegar.

Here's the 260g Miracles tank before the eurobracing was installed.

tank1.jpeg


tank2.jpeg


And here it is when it arrived back in February. The aquarium and stand arrived safely. Coordination of the freight company with Miracles and the movers was challenging. In the end the tank arrived on time. The freight company, ABF, was great. We removed the stand from the crate first and they helped me get that into the house. Then we put the tank on the driveway.

crate.jpg


tankcrate.jpg


tankcrate2.jpg


I prepped the stand the night before for the tank. I used 3/4" plywood and foam on top of the steel frame. I originally put a PVC liner under and behind to protect the carpet, but later pulled it out. The PVC liner would prohibit the carpet from "breathing". With condensation build up from the basement floor the moisture needs to be able to pass through the carpet.

stand1.jpg


stand2.jpg


There is a maple skin that covers the steel frame. Two removable panels on the sides and four hinged doors on the front. I designed the stand to be able to house the sump if necessary. This required 2x4 steel beams in order to open up the front and use only one center column.

skin1.jpg


skin.jpg


Three guys used an appliance dolly. I was surprised at only three as some movers quoted me four to six guys. Three was all it took. There were challenges moving it on the stair landing as it makes a turn but these guys were pros and made it look easy.

The maple skirt was loose against the stand in this picture. Derek at Miracles did not, or forgot, to provide the method to attach the skirt to the steel frame. He later explained I would need to use L brackets and tap the steel. One other minor gripe is that he built the skirt 4" higher than the frame. He explained this was to allow for the plywood, foam, bottom of tank and sand, but even with all that considered it's too high. Considering what I paid for the stand, I'm not happy about this. I ended up tapping the steel frame and installed L brackets to attach the skirt, and I trimmed a little over an inch from the bottom of the skirt. Now I'm very happy with the outcome.

Regarding the tank itself. I had asked for, in writing and in conversation, that the silicone be clear. When I saw the first pictures of the tank before eurobracing was installed I saw it was black. I also noticed the return holes were 3/4". My option was to have the tank disassembled, re-drilled and re-siliconed. This would have added at least two weeks. Instead I asked that clear silicone be used for the eurobrace. Luckily you can't tell where the black silicone was used at the corners and the clear silicone on the eurobrace looks great. I'm stuck with 3/4" return holes but I can work with that since I would have been stepping down to that measurement for loc-line anyway. I would have preferred larger and should have been more clear about that. I thought I had asked for all holes to be for 1 1/2" bulkheads like they are in my overflow. Apparently I wasn't clear enough.

I am going to leave my opinions of dealing with custom manufacturers to this, whether it's for your tank, stand, sump or anything else. Make sure you tell them exactly what you want. Do not trust them to make the right decisions for you. If you think that because they do this professionally that they will make the right decisions, you're wrong. They are likely understaffed, overworked and do not want to hear from you other than to make the sale. They want to get the work done in their time-frame with minimal interference. This makes things very challenging, so think every little detail through yourselves, communicate this to them up front, and get it in writing. Even then it may not be enough. I don't mean to sound harsh, this is just the reality of the situation.

The plumbing was the hardest part. I had to figure out what pieces were required to fit in the space, allow for easy assembly and disconnect while reducing head. The sump is 20" high and I wanted the PVC runs to come through the wall below 36" which is the top of the steel stand. That left me 16" of play. I also only have about 6" between the back of the tank and the wall so my return plumbing needs to be snug.

I wanted as much hard plumbed as possible. I do have some spaflex but kept that to a minimum, only when angles needed to be other than 45 or 90. I made sure the return plumbing was equal distant. Stepping down from 1.5" return pipe to a 3/4" bulkhead was challenging. It would have been nice if there was a premade 1.5" female slip to 3/4" thread male adapter, but there isn't. I used a 3/4" sch80 pipe with thread on the end, cementing it into a female 3/4" slip to 1.5" slip adapter. That went to sweeping 90s down to a 120 wye in the middle, then to another sweeping 90 into the fish/sump room. I only have one actual 90 in the return run. Each drain also only has one 90 with the rest of the angles being 45s.

I wanted the drain lines to be at a continuous downward slope, even if that slope was slight. That proved challenging and hopefully there isn't too much pressure at the overflow bulkheads because of that angle. Keeping a downward slope for that length with that little vertical allowed for a very slight slope along the three drain runs.

These shots were from back in April. Not much on the board at that time, and I was still using the Reeflo HH. That's now my backup as it was significantly louder than the dead quiet RD3.

sump1.jpg


sump2.jpg


You can see the sediment buildup from the sand accumulating in the sump. I was running the sump water level low as no rocks were added yet. I had the LifeReef skimmer with Vectra M1 in place. It wasn't skimming yet.

sump3.jpg



The two vertical pipes on the right are house plumbing.

sump4.jpg


This shot is of the plumbing coming in from the living area into the sump room. You can see I staggered the unions to keep the drain lines as close together as possible. I didn't have much vertical space to work with while maintaining a downward angle. You can see there's a little sag with the return spaflex. Not sure how to support that yet. Again, the two vertical pipes are house plumbing.

sump5.jpg


Here's the DT back in April. I primed and painted all the white plumbing behind the tank to match the wall. The stand skirt isn't on now, but when it is you'll still be able to see some of the pipes to the left of the tank going into the wall, and when sitting on the couch you can see behind the tank. I didn't want the plumbing to stand out when looking at the tank.

tank1.jpg


Top shot of the Sea Swirls. The Tunzes went away. I didn't want cables hanging over the eurobraced top.

tank2.jpg


A shot of the return plumbing. I have 3/4" returns at both the bulkhead and Sea Swirls. I split the return loc-line with a Y and put an eductor on one output. I didn't like how that worked out as it takes more pressure for the water to get out the eductor. The result was more water coming out the other exit. I now have a Y with two slim loc-line exits. I used spaflex from the T to the Sea Swirl.

tank3.jpg


tank4.jpg


This is a shot from below the DT looking up at the return plumbing and external overflow.
tank5.jpg


Plumbing lines along the wall. You can see the drain lines have a downward angle while the return line is nearly horizontal.

tank6.jpg


Here are some shots of the TBS rock when it came in and the Geisemann Spectra

rocks3.jpg


rocks4.jpg


light1.jpg


light2.jpg


light3.jpg


p2rocks1.jpg


p2rocks2.jpg


p2rocks5.jpg


p2rocks6.jpg
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
And now for a more current update. This one's only about a month behind.

The ecosystem is still young despite the TBS rock and its going through its various cycles. I had a small amount of hair algae only on about 3 rocks, which were the Walt Smith 2.1 rocks. Once I added the fish from my 120g the algae was gone in literally one day. Then came the dino phase. I think that phase is ending now (God I hope so). I battled dinos and cyano in my 120g so knew a little about how to control it. I have no cyano at this time. Fingers crossed. Last time I had to use Chemiclean which worked well.

I had started dosing KZ ZEObak from day one with this system in order to get a good microfauna foundation. However I was also dosing Spongepower because I wanted to keep the sponges on the TBS rock alive, and once I added the coral from the 120g I started dosing KZ Aminos as well as 2 part. I think the Spongepower and/or Aminos gave the dinos enough of what it needed. I've since stopped the Spongepower and Aminos.

I cut the light back to 5 hours for MH and 7 for T5. I had 1 MP60 on the front left, 1 MP40 on the front right, and two MP40s in the back. I don't think the MP40s provide enough flow even at 100% so I added another MP60 for the front right. The added flow is helping a lot. I plan on putting the MP40 in the back middle. I believe flow is critical in controlling dinos and cyano. I'll share what I'm doing with the ZEObak a little later.

I trimmed down the skirt a little over an inch bringing it 1.5" above the bottom of the tank. There is internal eurobracing on the bottom that's about 1/2" high so the sand around the walls of the tank comes about even or just over the skirt. I secured the skirt to the steel frame by tapping holes in the steel beams and using L brackets. The skirt is now flush to the steel frame.

I finished off the stand with some themed knobs.

handles.jpg

righthandles.jpg


16-07-20-tank.jpg


This board is under the tank. It's changed already as I've moved all the Vortech controllers to the left and plan on sawing off about a foot of the right side in order to put some shelving to the right.

16-07-20-dtboard.jpg


I made some progress on the manifold. I recently added a ZEOvit reactor, which means I pulled the GFO out of my BRS reactor that I never mounted. You can see it sitting next to the sump. According to the ZEOvit system the ROX carbon I'm running in the reactor is too much and too fast so I'll be pulling the BRS reactor offline and putting in some passive carbon. You can't see the ZEOvit reactor in this picture. It's an Avast Vibe. I'm also in the process of adding a used Tunze AT-5000 chiller I just picked up this Friday. Hopefully it still works well. I've got some of the plumbing done. Because it has decent threaded in/ouputs I decided to hard plumb as much as possible.

16-07-20-manifold.jpg


16-07-20-plumbing.jpg


16-07-20-return.jpg

16-07-20-sump.jpg


Here's a shot of the Genesis Renew AWC and Avast ATO. The Avast has been working fine. Even though I've freed up my Spectrapure UPLC I think I'm going to keep the Avast in line for now.

16-07-20-genesis.jpg




 

revhtree

Owner Administrator
View Badges
Joined
May 8, 2006
Messages
47,602
Reaction score
85,990
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
This is a killer build!
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Epic so far!

looks good, following along!

This is a killer build!

Thank you all for the kind words. I'm relatively new to R2R and just getting my feet wet in the community here and learning my way around.

Now that I've shared most of my preparation steps which started with placing orders for the aquarium and sump in November 2015 to receiving and setting up the equipment between late Feb through April, it's time to start sharing the reason why we put all this time, money and effort into this hobby! The livestock!

I'm still learning my way around photographing inside an aquarium with the blue leaning spectrum. I used a flash for these photos. I'm sure we'll see my photo skills improve along with the growth of this aquarium.

My fine finned friends are not camera shy. I'm sure they think there's food coming. I haven't begun to name our livestock yet, because the first couple my kids named years ago died. They've come to accept the challenges of introducing new fish to the tank and the occasional mystery disappearance. All these fish were moved over from my 120g. The Clown pair, Yellow Tang and Melanurus pair were the first from the summer of 2014. The Flame and Multicolored Angels were added last summer. I also have a Bangaii Cardinal and McCosker's wrasse. Sadly the Cleaner Shrimp you see under the rocks was found the other day as a shell. I have a Mantis Shrimp who hitchhiked in on the TBS rock. I caught a glimpse of him once so I know he's there. I also have some unwanted crabs (not the friendly Porcelains) and several Pistol Shrimp. That's a story for another day as I have big plans for them. There's only one piece of live rock I moved over from my 120g and that's pictured in the bottom right. I wanted to start fresh with this tank, but there was too much life on this piece of rock to let go. There's a rock anemone, zoas and superman mushrooms as well as years of coralline growth living there.

This photo was from June 14th with pumps stopped if you note the lower water level.

16-06-140.jpg


These photos were from July 30th. I've been taking pictures of the Acropora monthly as I want to have a visual record of transitioning from my 120g with Radions to this tank with MH/T5. I'll share some comparison or progression photos later.

16-07-30e.jpg


16-07-30f.jpg


16-07-30h.jpg
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I took some pictures last night of the corals, and a few fish, although some of the fish were a little shy this time. I did not use a flash. All 3 Radiums and 4 T5s on. Some shots were top down using a portal and some were through the glass from front and side.

Several of my acros are about 10 months old, although I do have an Acropora Walindii (Red Dragon), a couple stags, some plating monti, a Green Slimer that are about 2 years old. In the move I wasn't able to take everything without taking the rock so some of these are just frags of the original colonies. The Green Slimer was huge encompassing an entire rock. I only kept part of it however as I don't like its spreading growth pattern. The Frogspawn, Hammer and other LPS is about 2 years old as well. My coral struggled under LED by comparison and I tried many things. I ran two Radions over my 120g and later supplemented with two T5s. I tried a few different schedules, which was one nice thing about the Radion fixture. I think my biggest problem was that I had them in a canopy which limited the height and spread. Within two weeks I noticed a significant improvement in color and growth from my acros under MH/T5. Since the coral went from an established tank to a new, not fully cycled tank and showed such significant improvement so quickly, I can only attribute it to the lighting. I will show side by side shots for comparison another time.

I haven't glued anything down yet as I wanted to be certain of the placement and any other possible issues. Good thing as I may be doing some freshwater dips on the live rock to flush out the mantis and a few bad crabs.

Here's a Scolymia, Superman mushrooms and baby mini carpet anemone.
16-08-16a.jpg


Red Cap Monti with purple/green Frogspawn under it
16-08-16b.jpg


This Millepora's polyps retracted under LEDs and only came out to a limited extent at night. Now they are fully extended during full light.
16-08-16c.jpg


These are a few Acros I got from Adam at Battlecorals back in Sept. They were under the Radions until this June. Still little frags but growing and coloring well now.
This one's a Red Planet.
16-08-16d.jpg


To the right is Sanjay's Beard, left is either Copps Blue or Blue Matrix and I've forgotten what's the top right. There are some orange and green Ricordia mushrooms to the left.
16-08-16e.jpg


Pink Lemonade and either the Blue Matrix or Copps Blue
16-08-16f.jpg


Yellow Tang and a Clown
16-08-16g.jpg


Left side shot of tank.
16-08-16h.jpg


Bangaii Cardinal
16-08-16i.jpg


Right front of the tank
16-08-16j.jpg


Some Zoas and a Rock Anemone. The Zoas are fast disappearing. I had them in several spots and this rock was nicely covered as it was the one I moved from the old tank. I can only attribute the disappearance of the Zoas to crabs.

16-08-16k.jpg


Right side of tank

16-08-16m.jpg

16-08-16l.jpg


This is either a BC Secale or Garf Bonsai
16-08-16n.jpg
 

revhtree

Owner Administrator
View Badges
Joined
May 8, 2006
Messages
47,602
Reaction score
85,990
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Dang this is going to be epic!
 

mrtian97

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Messages
797
Reaction score
154
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
nice, how is the Melanurus doing? do you have top for the tank?
Thinking of getting Melanurus but I don't have screen top
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
nice, how is the Melanurus doing? do you have top for the tank?
Thinking of getting Melanurus but I don't have screen top

Melanurus is doing great. I have a male/female pair. Male is larger and more colorful. I have a screen top and have picked them up off the floor a few times when the top is taken off. You'll definitely want a screen top with Wrasses in general. My McCosker's has jumped as well.
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Two months without an update and a lot has been going on!

The biggest thing I've been doing is adding new fish. This has been tied with learning more about fish diseases and medications. My typical process is to do the TTM and use Prazipro. Here's how things progressed. I bought a larger sized Regal Angel which was eating but mysteriously died within 3-4 days. In the QT with it were 3 Bartlett Anthias. One died but the other two made it to the DT and are doing great. I then got another Regal Angel, this time it was a tiny baby, maybe 1-2". Sadly it died within a day. I still don't know why these fish died as there were no signs of any disease.

Because of what happened with the Regals I decided to try using CP (from Ebay) instead of TTM. In this attempt I chose a Mertensii and Saddleback Butterfly and 3 Dispar Anthias. Knowing the challenges with Butterflies from eating issues to the potential for eating coral I picked two lower risk, but still what I considered to be attractive. These fish would not eat anything. Nothing frozen, soaked in Selcon or garlic (which may be just a myth) or dry. I even tried fresh shelled clam, live tiny ghost shrimp and live black worms. The Mertensii would nibble for a moment but never really eat. I thought maybe there was an issue with flukes so I did a FW dip on the Butterflies and one Anthias. After the FW dip they went into a new QT without any CP. About a day later two of the Anthias died, the ones I didn't FW dip. Apparently there was something on these fish I couldn't see and the FW dip helped. I then added API General Cure to treat for what I thought may be flukes. After that round of treatment I moved them to a new QT with only CP. Things looked good for a couple days then I noticed some fin rot on a Dispar. The rot moved fast, eating away at his tail within a day. I added Kanaplex as soon as I noticed the rot. All fish were dead within two days. QT was heavily aerated with multiple air stones and circulation pumps.

My next attempt was with a Powder Blue Tang (PBT) and 3 Dispar Anthias. Given what I had read about PBTs, ich and flukes I decided to prophylacticly treat with CP right away, this time NLS Ich Shield, and API General Cure. All fish were eating like pigs and doing great for days. After the General Cure cycle I did a water change and added the CP back based on volume of water removed. The next day the PBT was dead along with a Dispar. In the end the other two Dispars survived and made it to the DT. The smaller of those two died as the Bartletts in the DT challenged the Dispars.

I got another PBT and this time went back to the TTM. At the end of the TTM cycle I treated with 2 rounds of Prazipro over a few weeks. The PBT did great, made it to the DT and has been integrating well, even with the Yellow Tang. She was eating frozen brine with spirulina in the QT, but now seems to just eat nori with only occasionally nibbling at the brine, Rods, or whatever other frozen food I use.

I currently have a Blue Star Leapord Wrasse and Ruby Head Wrasse in QT. They've nearly made it through TTM and are in their first round of Prazipro. They're both eating and doing well. I'll next be giving a Regal Angel a go with only the TTM and Prazi approach. Fingers crossed.

Here are some pictures of the PBT.

pbt1.jpg


pbt2.jpg


pbt3.jpg
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
So that's where things are with my fish additions. Some progress, but it can be delicate and challenging depending on how the fish respond in captivity.

Lots of hardware changes to update on so...

ZEOvit! After several months of measuring higher than desirable nitrates and phosphates I decided to go the KZ ZEO route. I had used their products in the past, and although they are somewhat mysterious, I've found some benefit. As you read earlier in my thread I seeded the tank with ZEObak and was using KZ Aminos and Sponge Power. Unfortunately I had a dinoflagellates issue, but this appears to have been part of the tank cycle and was short lived. I did begin using KZ Coral Snow which I had luck with in the past for cyano. I'm still using it as more of a preventative but will stop when the bottle runs out.

So now I've gone to full ZEOvit. I first added the stones in a bag, and used up what carbon I had with my carbon reactor. I pulled out the GFO. Then I bought an Avast Vibe. What I love about this ZEO reactor is that I never have to shake the stones. Granted, I'm adding KZ something or other every day so shaking the stones wouldn't be a big deal, but it's nice to be able to put it on a timer with the Apex and forget about it. The carbon is now in a bag in the sump. I'm dosing ZEOstart daily along with Sponge Power and Coral Vitalizer every few days, but I have stopped Aminos for now.

And the result...Nitrates at 5 or less and Phosphates at .01. I have been battling phosphates for years and the fight is finally over. Thank you ZEOvit.

Here's a shot of the Avast Vibe reactor in the back. I'll take some better photos of it once I bring it out to change the stones. I built this one myself as opposed to Avast building it for me and saved about $100. It wasn't difficult. Also in the shot is my Tunze chiller and CO2 scubber (more on that later). Because the Tunze chiller is against a wall in the corner of this room I opened up the wall next to it to let the chiller's heat escape. There's nothing but my furnace and water heaters in the next room.

chillzeo.jpg
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The next piece of equipment I put in was a co2 scrubber. Now that the tank is in the basement it doesn't get the same oxygen exchange as my old tank did. I noticed this with a slight reduction in PH from what I've been used to. PH would drop below 8 at night, then climb to just over 8 during the day. I wanted to get to that magic 8.3 and hold it there as much as possible. I do have a window well near the DT and during the summer I'll open up the top and slide the window open to let fresh air in. This in combination with the co2 scrubber got my PH to a fairly steady 8.3. Now that it's getting too cold to keep the window open I'll see how the scrubber does on its own, or if it was having any effect at all. It may have all been the open window.

So the scrubber is essentially a Two Little Fishies Phosban reactor filled with soda lime I got from Shopmedvet attached to my skimmer's venturi intake.

In the pictures you can see the soda lime is purple, it needs to be changed and I'm gauging when to actually change it based on PH levels. You can also see another shot of the Avast Vibe in the background. In the bottom picture of the skimmer is another improvement. I added a float valve to the top of the Lifereef skimmer. This is connected to an Apex breakout box. If the skimmate ever gets too high it will shut the skimmer off and alert me. I should never have a skimmate overflow. I just plugged the other end of the LR venturi tube going into the skimmer cup with paper towel. An inelegant solution but not sure what else to do with it for now. I suppose I could put a pvc cap in that hole.

co2.jpg


co2skim.jpg
 
OP
OP
Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
View Badges
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
161
Reaction score
126
Location
The Third Coast
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Next up on the update list is the installation of a pair of Kessil A160 WE Tuna Blues into my Geissman Spectra. This was no easy task. It took the majority of a day to complete. I started the night before as I needed to minimize the amount of time the light was not on above the tank. That night I disassembled the Kessil lights. To do this I needed a very small hex key,or allen wrench. Home Depot didn't have one this small but I found one in a Kobalt micro electronics kit at Lowes. This kit also had some other tools which were helpful. Once I got the external can off I needed to separate the light and fan portion from the controller portion. These were held together by long screws. The electronics and wiring inside the Kessil are coated with clear rubber which is a great idea. This obviously helps with any moisture and it made working with the internals of the fixture much easier.

I did not remove the fan because of I would have had to disconnect the cable which was rubber coated. It would have been simple to do, but the fan didn't get in the way and I thought as long as it provides some cooling and doesn't cause problems I'll leave it. Now that it is all in place, there is a slight vibration from the fan to the glass and screen plates. As long as those plates are tight there's no noise. Depending on how they're positioned there can be noise. Easy to fix whether securing the plates, or going back in to remove the fans. I have the plates tight, so no noise.

With Kessils disassembled the night before, I was ready to pull down the Spectra. The next morning I did this and began figuring out how to run the cabling. I had an idea based on another person's experience with an Infiniti fixture posted in the RC Geissman "club" post. I had cut the Kessil power cords and attached them both to a terminal block, also from Lowes, the night before so I was ready to power both lights through a single power cord. This is the end power cord, not the power supply portion. I tried to run the power cabling through the T5 portion of the fixture, but the hole between MH and T5 was too small. I could have bored it but didn't want to mess with that, so I just ran the thin cabling of the power supplies behind the MH reflectors. I used cable clips to keep them from touching the reflectors or anything that could get very hot. I found these cables to be long enough so that I could run them all the way out the Spectra fixture itself and the power supplies themselves could be outside of the fixture. This helped a lot with the space constraints inside the Spectra and eliminated any heat concerns. I was also able to use new independent power cables instead of the ones I cut and connected to the terminal block.

The biggest problem was gluing the Kessil lights into the screens. With the 72" fixture there are two blank spaces between the halides in the middle, and two at the end. I wanted the Kessils in the middle spaces for spacing reasons. I tried to remove the halide reflectors so I could glue the Kessils to the screens outside of the fixture first. This was not easily done, they are very tightly pressure secured. I also tried sliding out the screen on the top to glue the Kessils in that way, but it was also pressure secured. The only way I saw to do this was to glue the Kessils in with the screens in place, but slid over. I cut the holes in the center of the screens outside of the fixture with a Milwaukee hole cutter. I think it was about an 1" or a little more in diameter. Larger than the glass lens for the LEDs so the Kessil reflector sat properly against the body, and no glue got on anything. I then inserted the screen back in, positioned the Kessil within the Spectra and applied 2 part, fast drying, Gorilla epoxy to the Kessil body. With the Spectra lights facing down, I then positioned the Kessil under the screen and had to hold it there for at least 5 minutes before the epoxy was cured enough to keep it without my pressure. Because the lights were facing down I had some flexibility, and it wasn't as hard to hold the Kessil in place. I secured the first Kessil with the lights facing up and it was much harder. Once the Kessil body was secured I epoxy'd the Kessil reflector to the outside of the screen.

Something I learned along the way was that the middle glass over the halide will be difficult to remove when time comes to change the bulb. I had the glass out when I glued in the Kessils. In order to put the glass back in I had to stretch the body of the Spectra a small amount so the glass would drop into place. I will need to do the same to change the middle bulb. This shouldn't be an issue, but will require two people and be a PITA. There was no way around this considering I wanted the Kessils in the middle blank spaces of the fixture.

kessil1.jpg


kessil2.jpg


kessil3.jpg


kessil4.jpg


kessil5.jpg


kessil6.jpg
 

Daniel@R2R

Living the Reef Life
View Badges
Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Messages
37,364
Reaction score
63,255
Location
Fontana, California
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Man! That's a beautiful tank! Following along. :)
 
Back
Top