I'm new on here but not new to the hobby. I haven't had a reef tank in about 8 years. I decided now was as good a time as any to start one up again. I wanted to share the progress of my reef tank with everyone here. I have learned a ton of stuff from reading all of the great threads on R2R. This is my time to sort of give back.
I did a lot of research over the past year and half and decided I wanted to give Triton a shot. So this will be my first foray into Triton. I spoke to Joe over at Unique Corals/Manhattan Aquariums and he gave some insight into it last year which was really helpful.
I started out with a custom built tank by Marek from Reefomania. He is local to me located in Brooklyn NY and builds amazing custom glass tanks. If you want a custom built glass tank on the east coast, he is your guy. The 40 gallon breeder is one of my favorite size tanks. I find it easier to maintain smaller tanks than larger tanks in my experience (I know that's not always the case for everyone).
It's 1/2" thick glass all around, starphire front panel. Drilled thank tank and installed an Elite Aquatics ghost overflow with 3 drains (1 siphon, 1 open channel and 1 emergency). Absolutely incredible craftsmanship.
I built the stand myself based on various things I saw online. It's basically just 2x4s and plywood with some molding on the edges. It came out decent but I'm not really a carpenter and had to do things multiple times to get it to look halfway decent. I bought this special epoxy paint made for boat decks to withstand the hard salt water. Its extremely durable but the finish is lacking for sure.
Since I decided to go Trition this time around, I had Jeff (Custom King) make me a custom acrylic sump with a large fuge to go under my tank. He did a great job and is very fair with his pricing.
Equipment list
bubble magnus curve 5
Jabeo DCS-7000 with 0-10V controller
(2) SW-4 powerheads
200Watt Titanium heater
Mars Aqua 300w LED fixture for the fuge.
Lighting:
I really wanted to do a T5HO LED fixture but didn't want to spend a boat load of money for one. So I decided to customize my own. I picked up a used 36" 6 bulb ATI fixtures for fairly cheap. I modified it with LEDs. I did 2 channels a 1000mA channel and a 700mA channel with 0-10V dimming drivers. Not really happy with the Green and Red LED they are too over powering. I'm going to order a few new LEDS in some more colors and play around with the design. I think I went with 60 degree optics which seem to work pretty well. I will talk about the controls in the PLC section of this.The drivers are mounted within the fixture. I used the existing wiring within the fixture to run the 0-10V dimming lines. I also ditched the power supply for the fans. I have them running off a small 12VDC power supply I installed inside the fixture.
PLC Automation
I know Apex controllers these days are all the rage. They actually work well for what they are which is a reef controller. I wanted something a little more robust and a bit more powerful since I was doing more than just controlling a reef tank. I wanted to control every aspect of the tank from water changes, to making RODI water, to heating my tank, heating my mixing vat, providing RO water for drinking use to the main kitchen and more. I also wanted to be able to customize the user interface to my liking weather on my phone, tablet or PC.
I ended up going with an Automation Direct Do-More H2 PLC with various modules (Analog and Digital). I can go into my exact setup in more detail if there is interest because its rather extensive.
Essentially here is what I can control:
I have this bad boy mounted in my garage which is adjacent to the furnace room in my house where the RODI and storage tanks are.
So when I was remolding my home, I decided i wanted to run tubing and wiring in the walls to make things much easier. I run 4 CAT6 shield wire, a 1/4" LLPDE and a 1/2" LLPDE pipe (one for ATO and one for water changes). I terminated the CAT6 wires in a standard 4 port jack and use CAT6 patch cables that I modified to connect things like 0-10V pump/light control, PH probe, Temp sensors. I want to clean up that fitting location a bit. I can hide it behind the tank better.
One cool idea I came up with is to use one of these DJ power strips with built in relays. I used a CAT6 to serial converted to allow me to control the relays with my PLC. Easy wiring and tons of control for each device plugged in.
I used a Omega engineering PH probe converter to send a 4-20MA single to my PLC. Here is pictured next to the flow sensor I used.
Float switches with a bracket out of acrylic i made.
PH probe and RTD sensors
I'm able to control everything from my computer or phone using a simple Interface. This is a work in progress for sure and I'm open to suggestions. Please be kind as I know its ugly lol.
Anyway I finally got the tank filled with sand, rock and water. I went with dry Fiji pink sink and 50 lbs of marco dry rock. I'm not currently in the process of fishless cycling. Its a long grueling wait. I also cant seem to get my water cleared up. I have the skimmer running now so hopefully that does something.
I will update this as I go. If there is any more interest in the PLC stuff let me know I can certainly provide more insight. I'm shooting for a mixed reef with this setup. I haven't kept SPS before so this will be my first go at it. I'm always open to feedback and criticism!
Thanks for looking.
I did a lot of research over the past year and half and decided I wanted to give Triton a shot. So this will be my first foray into Triton. I spoke to Joe over at Unique Corals/Manhattan Aquariums and he gave some insight into it last year which was really helpful.
I started out with a custom built tank by Marek from Reefomania. He is local to me located in Brooklyn NY and builds amazing custom glass tanks. If you want a custom built glass tank on the east coast, he is your guy. The 40 gallon breeder is one of my favorite size tanks. I find it easier to maintain smaller tanks than larger tanks in my experience (I know that's not always the case for everyone).
It's 1/2" thick glass all around, starphire front panel. Drilled thank tank and installed an Elite Aquatics ghost overflow with 3 drains (1 siphon, 1 open channel and 1 emergency). Absolutely incredible craftsmanship.
I built the stand myself based on various things I saw online. It's basically just 2x4s and plywood with some molding on the edges. It came out decent but I'm not really a carpenter and had to do things multiple times to get it to look halfway decent. I bought this special epoxy paint made for boat decks to withstand the hard salt water. Its extremely durable but the finish is lacking for sure.
Since I decided to go Trition this time around, I had Jeff (Custom King) make me a custom acrylic sump with a large fuge to go under my tank. He did a great job and is very fair with his pricing.
Equipment list
bubble magnus curve 5
Jabeo DCS-7000 with 0-10V controller
(2) SW-4 powerheads
200Watt Titanium heater
Mars Aqua 300w LED fixture for the fuge.
Lighting:
I really wanted to do a T5HO LED fixture but didn't want to spend a boat load of money for one. So I decided to customize my own. I picked up a used 36" 6 bulb ATI fixtures for fairly cheap. I modified it with LEDs. I did 2 channels a 1000mA channel and a 700mA channel with 0-10V dimming drivers. Not really happy with the Green and Red LED they are too over powering. I'm going to order a few new LEDS in some more colors and play around with the design. I think I went with 60 degree optics which seem to work pretty well. I will talk about the controls in the PLC section of this.The drivers are mounted within the fixture. I used the existing wiring within the fixture to run the 0-10V dimming lines. I also ditched the power supply for the fans. I have them running off a small 12VDC power supply I installed inside the fixture.
PLC Automation
I know Apex controllers these days are all the rage. They actually work well for what they are which is a reef controller. I wanted something a little more robust and a bit more powerful since I was doing more than just controlling a reef tank. I wanted to control every aspect of the tank from water changes, to making RODI water, to heating my tank, heating my mixing vat, providing RO water for drinking use to the main kitchen and more. I also wanted to be able to customize the user interface to my liking weather on my phone, tablet or PC.
I ended up going with an Automation Direct Do-More H2 PLC with various modules (Analog and Digital). I can go into my exact setup in more detail if there is interest because its rather extensive.
Essentially here is what I can control:
- Automatic top off directly from my RODI unit. I ran a 1/4" LLDPE line from my RODI unit in my furnace room to my tank location during remolding of my home. You can see it some of the pictures coming out of my wall (blue tubing).
- Create RODI water and store in 1 of my 10 gallon mixing tanks.
- Controls Pump in RODI 10 gallon water tank.
- Controls Heater and mixing pump in saltwater 10 gallon tank
- Reads temperature of saltwater in 10 galling mixing tank
- Automatically do water changing using a drain pump in display tank sump and fill pump in 10 gallon saltwater mixing tank.
- Create RO water and store in 5 gallon pressured tank for drinking water. I have a pressure switch in the line feeding the filter water fixture that will automatically keep the tank filled.
- Monitor sump water level using 2 float valves in the sump. These are used also for ATO and water changes.
- Monitor DT PH with PH probe.
- Monitor DT temperature using RTD sensors in sump. These are used to control the heater in the sump as well. I have 2 RTD sensors in case 1 fails my tank will not overheat.
- Monitor flow using flow meter in return line. (I had this working before it was a thing with apex).
- Control return pump and powerhead power output using 0-10v control.
- Control LED dimming with 0-10V
- Basic on/off control of all devices in the tank including lights, skimmer, pumps, heater, fuge light etc.
I have this bad boy mounted in my garage which is adjacent to the furnace room in my house where the RODI and storage tanks are.
So when I was remolding my home, I decided i wanted to run tubing and wiring in the walls to make things much easier. I run 4 CAT6 shield wire, a 1/4" LLPDE and a 1/2" LLPDE pipe (one for ATO and one for water changes). I terminated the CAT6 wires in a standard 4 port jack and use CAT6 patch cables that I modified to connect things like 0-10V pump/light control, PH probe, Temp sensors. I want to clean up that fitting location a bit. I can hide it behind the tank better.
One cool idea I came up with is to use one of these DJ power strips with built in relays. I used a CAT6 to serial converted to allow me to control the relays with my PLC. Easy wiring and tons of control for each device plugged in.
I used a Omega engineering PH probe converter to send a 4-20MA single to my PLC. Here is pictured next to the flow sensor I used.
Float switches with a bracket out of acrylic i made.
PH probe and RTD sensors
I'm able to control everything from my computer or phone using a simple Interface. This is a work in progress for sure and I'm open to suggestions. Please be kind as I know its ugly lol.
Anyway I finally got the tank filled with sand, rock and water. I went with dry Fiji pink sink and 50 lbs of marco dry rock. I'm not currently in the process of fishless cycling. Its a long grueling wait. I also cant seem to get my water cleared up. I have the skimmer running now so hopefully that does something.
I will update this as I go. If there is any more interest in the PLC stuff let me know I can certainly provide more insight. I'm shooting for a mixed reef with this setup. I haven't kept SPS before so this will be my first go at it. I'm always open to feedback and criticism!
Thanks for looking.
Last edited:
