Svaillan
New Member
Hey everyone, I'm Stephen and I am brand new to the hobby. I figure this is a good way to introduce myself.
Like the title says, I'm building my system for a University capstone project focused on computer science and programming. I am working in a group of 3 and am handling the actual system build, programming any custom electronics, and ensuring that every piece of the system works together. one of my team members will handle a user interface when we come to that stage, and the final team member is building a database for system logs.
Before I begin explaining the build, let's talk about the hardware in my system:
Tank: Used 90G standard sized tank of unknown origin
Stand: Used Aqueon pine stand
Sump: Used 25G (approx) acrylic sump of unknown origin
Chiller: Used commercial titanium core chiller of unknown origin (quite old)
Return pump: Current USA eFlux DC 1900GPH pump
Power Heads: Current USA eFlux Accessory Wave Pump 1050GPH x2
Protein Skimmer: ReadSea RSK 300
UV Sterilizer: Coralife Turbo Twist 3x
Heater(s): 2 300w titanium heaters + Inkbird controller
Main Lights: DIY Custom built lights
Probe Controller: DIY Atlas Scientific probes / custom controller
Refugium light: cheap grow bars that will be replaced eventually
Powering everything is a Digital Loggers Ethernet relay controller.
For the build, I picked up this tank from a local place and was told that I was getting a "great deal" for what it was:
I hope you notice that the center brace is missing (because I sure did not). so I kept moving forward.
Here you can see the I have the Sump and chiller in the stand and plumbed the return lines. I was actually given the chiller for free and tested it a whole lot for leaks and functionality and never had an issue. However, I still went with a 3 valve configuration on it so I can take it out of the system if it ever does start to leak. There's not much room, so the stuff is in there for the long haul. This is not ideal, but I have the feeling that I will upgrade the tank when I'm not working on a budget the way I am now.
After this I got the tank on the stand and started working on the intake side of things:
Here you can see the general layout of everything, it looks pretty much the same now, except the UV has been moved down slightly so it's not on an incline to the return pipes.
Then I got to the fun part, or at least it was supposed to be. The first fill of the tank. I got a shopvac and all the towels I had ready just in case there was a catastrophic failure, thankfully there wasn't. But the tank that I got a "great deal" on had the first of it's 3 major problems. It sprung a leak somewhere at the bottom under the plastic frame. I drained it, and after some debating on what to do I decided to bite the bullet and spend a weekend scraping silicone and resealing the entire thing. Unfortunately, the second major problem was while trying to take it off, I broke the crappy hand-made acrylic overflow and had to get a new one of those as well. I picked one up from ebay and the seller cut it to size for me. I then sent a picture of the new silicone job to someone else in the hobby who informed me that the top brace was missing (and important), so sunken cost fallacy got to me and I ordered a new top frame from glasscages.
After I had basically rebuilt a used tank I finally got to my first (second?) fill:
you can see the first of the custom lights that I build on the top, They are now ran by this controller:
I then 3D printed the remaining light brackets and got the lights fully installed:
That picture shows the lights on at about 28% output on all color temperatures available.
Other than some programming and general setup that's about where I'm at now. The tank has the beginnings of livestock in it and I'm interested to see where it goes.
Thanks for taking a look!
Bonus Pictures of my Probe Controller:
Like the title says, I'm building my system for a University capstone project focused on computer science and programming. I am working in a group of 3 and am handling the actual system build, programming any custom electronics, and ensuring that every piece of the system works together. one of my team members will handle a user interface when we come to that stage, and the final team member is building a database for system logs.
Before I begin explaining the build, let's talk about the hardware in my system:
Tank: Used 90G standard sized tank of unknown origin
Stand: Used Aqueon pine stand
Sump: Used 25G (approx) acrylic sump of unknown origin
Chiller: Used commercial titanium core chiller of unknown origin (quite old)
Return pump: Current USA eFlux DC 1900GPH pump
Power Heads: Current USA eFlux Accessory Wave Pump 1050GPH x2
Protein Skimmer: ReadSea RSK 300
UV Sterilizer: Coralife Turbo Twist 3x
Heater(s): 2 300w titanium heaters + Inkbird controller
Main Lights: DIY Custom built lights
Probe Controller: DIY Atlas Scientific probes / custom controller
Refugium light: cheap grow bars that will be replaced eventually
Powering everything is a Digital Loggers Ethernet relay controller.
For the build, I picked up this tank from a local place and was told that I was getting a "great deal" for what it was:
I hope you notice that the center brace is missing (because I sure did not). so I kept moving forward.
Here you can see the I have the Sump and chiller in the stand and plumbed the return lines. I was actually given the chiller for free and tested it a whole lot for leaks and functionality and never had an issue. However, I still went with a 3 valve configuration on it so I can take it out of the system if it ever does start to leak. There's not much room, so the stuff is in there for the long haul. This is not ideal, but I have the feeling that I will upgrade the tank when I'm not working on a budget the way I am now.
After this I got the tank on the stand and started working on the intake side of things:
Here you can see the general layout of everything, it looks pretty much the same now, except the UV has been moved down slightly so it's not on an incline to the return pipes.
Then I got to the fun part, or at least it was supposed to be. The first fill of the tank. I got a shopvac and all the towels I had ready just in case there was a catastrophic failure, thankfully there wasn't. But the tank that I got a "great deal" on had the first of it's 3 major problems. It sprung a leak somewhere at the bottom under the plastic frame. I drained it, and after some debating on what to do I decided to bite the bullet and spend a weekend scraping silicone and resealing the entire thing. Unfortunately, the second major problem was while trying to take it off, I broke the crappy hand-made acrylic overflow and had to get a new one of those as well. I picked one up from ebay and the seller cut it to size for me. I then sent a picture of the new silicone job to someone else in the hobby who informed me that the top brace was missing (and important), so sunken cost fallacy got to me and I ordered a new top frame from glasscages.
After I had basically rebuilt a used tank I finally got to my first (second?) fill:
you can see the first of the custom lights that I build on the top, They are now ran by this controller:
I then 3D printed the remaining light brackets and got the lights fully installed:
That picture shows the lights on at about 28% output on all color temperatures available.
Other than some programming and general setup that's about where I'm at now. The tank has the beginnings of livestock in it and I'm interested to see where it goes.
Thanks for taking a look!
Bonus Pictures of my Probe Controller:
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