The Blue Window - 500 G in wall, never ending build

[ScottB]

Yes, I have seen the thread. In fact, if I recall right, I became aware of the Statons in one of your posts, then read the review by Reef-Engineer, and subsequently decided to make the jump to Stratons. I was surprised to find out that a new panel style LED had crept on to the market and I had been totally unaware.

Dennis

I don't recall how I happened upon that thread but very pleased that I did, when I did. My LFS ordered them for me and they arrived in 2-3 weeks which was hardly enough time for me to figure out how I was going to hang them.

With your T-slot skills, I will be curious to see how you do it.

 

[James_O]

Following! Very excited to see this come together!

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I don't recall how I happened upon that thread but very pleased that I did, when I did. My LFS ordered them for me and they arrived in 2-3 weeks which was hardly enough time for me to figure out how I was going to hang them.

With your T-slot skills, I will be curious to see how you do it.

I have had a few months to think about it, and my current thinking is that I will use some plates to make tabs on the 20 mm extrusions my light rack uses for the light hangers. Tabs above and below the Straton will sandwich the LED unit into a frame for it. I plan to apply some door bumpers to the tabs for the Straton's to contact/rest on. I will have 20 mm of vertical space and the Straton's are supposed to be 13 mm thick, so I will have 7 mm for the bumpers to fill. The side with the powercord exiting will need to be accounted for. Possibly with no frame on that side but instead a single extrusion extending perpendicular from the outside light rack frame to hold the Straton in it's cradle.

Then again, when I have them on hand I might come up with something entirely different. One of the shipments made it onto a plane yesterday. The other is still stuck in Koeln Germany.

Dennis

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I finally managed to get the 5 Stratons I ordered back in May. They were stuck in Germany for a couple of weeks waiting for cargo space to free up and then UPS managed to botch the delivery a few times while they attempted to get me to pay customs fee that I had already paid over the phone, but they finally arrived.

The boxes looked pretty beaten up. I unpacked them and found that the outside boxes contained ATI shipping boxes with an ATI box containing the light inside each shipping box. I will need to unpack each unit and test them to confirm they made it through the process unscathed.

In the meantime I am thing about the best way to mount these into my light rack.

Dennis

 

[dwair]

Ugh, those got beaten up good! Been thinking of the ATI Stratton myself! Interested to see how they work for you!

 

[FMF0331]

wow

 

[Janci]

I hope the lights have arrive in good condition.
Any update on that?

 

[helmsreef]

This is probably the most geeking out I've done in a long time. Pretty amazing build coming along

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I hope the lights have arrive in good condition.
Any update on that?

Sorry for the lack of updates on the lights. I did unpack 1 unit and put it on my network just to kick the tires. They are quite huge in person. I am now certain that these are the right lights for this tank. The 4 or 5 iterations before these lights were the wrong lights, these ones, the right lights

Just as the lights arrived, I had a deck project to do at our RV that had been on the verge of getting underway for awhile. Though the temperatures would normally be cooling off here, last week was the hottest week of the summer, with temperatures over 30C everyday and pushing 40C adjusted for humidity. I took a slightly different route than the typical deck project would take, and used a modular system. Still about 30% of the 1200 sq/ft surface of the deck to be laid, but it is turning out pretty well.

The deck still has to be completed and get weatherproofed before fall, so it will keep me tied up for a couple of more weeks before I can focus on my tank build 100% again.

Back to reefing. I have worked out in my head the way I plan to support the Stratons in my light rack. Once I am back on the tank, we will see if I have thought of everything. I was surprised to see that the cable coming out of the Straton has no detachable connector between the light and the controller. Ditto for the Meanwell connected directly to the controller with no detachment. A super long daisy chain of devices. I will need to take that into account when I decide on how to route the cabling around my light rack just in case I ever need to remove a light once the tank is running.

Dennis

 

[Ashish Patel]

Wow! Looking forward to the journey

 

[ScottB]

Yeah, you've discovered one of the few downsides about the Stratons. Thankfully, I have not had to remove one from my DIY rack. It won't be quick or easy should I need to do so.

I guess I could grumble about the UI, but I am a set & forget guy so it doesn't trouble me. Maybe updating firmware is also not as simple as it should be. Again, kind of a one-and-done thing.

 

[Sean Clark]

Wow... Just Wow.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

This looks awesome!

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Thanks guys!

Things are still slowly progressing. I sent the plans off to my cabinet maker tonight to get the facade underway, finally.

I am still debating taking the extrusions off the ceiling and replacing the drywall with plywood, covered with FRP. I still have to get the acrylic front panel of the shadowbox resized (the cabinet maker has a vehicle big enough to carry it ...).

Lastly I need to get my office emptied and get the floor tiled still so I can breakdown the frag tank and clean up the fish room for the startup.

Last summer's project, the deck, bunkie and fence needs to get stained and protected still, so I will have to break to do that in May. I am hoping to have the tank running finally this summer.

Oh ya, I also have to get Miracles out to cut the center braces out. I have decided to remove them to make lighting so much simpler.

 

[Sgchick]

Wow!! Nice build...following!!

 

[yuppie]

I'd like to hear more about the DyMiCo rig you're working on. Can you elaborate on that a little more? Awesome build!

 

[FMF0331]

Can you adopt me .... please !!!

 

[James Martz]

Any updates?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I'd like to hear more about the DyMiCo rig you're working on. Can you elaborate on that a little more? Awesome build!

So the DyMiCo system was all the rage in Europe a few years back. It's claim to fame was the ability to automate a reef tank and to supplement alk and calcium automatically as well as to keep nutrients in check. It did this by fostering the food web at the lowest level, and not employing skimming.

In practice, this worked very well for softies and LPS, not so much for SPS. The lack of skimming to remove the organics is probably why the system failed to be a good fit for SPS.

The other complication is that it worked really well for keeping nitrates in check by using a carbon source in the filter's operation. They were not well suited to removing phosphates though and would still require phosphate absorbers to keep phosphates in check.

The way that I have chosen to integrate the DyMiCo style filter into my sump, allows the water flow to be split between flowing through the filter as well as flowing through an equipment compartment, followed by the return compartment. The water returning from the filter, will skip the equipment compartment and enter the return compartment directly. The premise being that the water exiting the filter will be potentially rich in zooplankton, so by passing the equipment compartment that may hold zooplankton unfriendly technologies like skimming and UV, will allow the water to be maintained for SPS, while still exposing the tank to the food web fostered in the filter. At least that is the plan.

The DyMiCo system uses carbon dosing to enact a staged cycling of the filter using an ORP probe and timed cycling of pumps. The cycle consists of water being pumped in to the filter, being recirculated internally, and then once the ORP reaches a preset low point, the water is pumped back out to the tank. Once an hour a calculated amount of carbon is dosed in to the filter. The amount dosed is adjusted to achieve an opportune amount of filter cycles in an hour ( the more carbon, the shorter time period a single cycle takes).

The pH of the filter is also controlled in the DyMiCo system to allow the media bed in the filter to act as a rough approximation of a calcium reactor. The lower the pH, the higher supplementation to the tank. Due to the size of the media bed, the pH range used is much higher than a typical CaRx. They suggest starting at pH 7.5 and increasing or reducing from there.

Initially I plan to operate my filter without carbon dosing and ORP control. These are employed to mainly lower nitrates. Once I build up a need for nitrate control, I can then experiment with using the filter for nitrate control. I will also not be controlling the pH within my filter as I have a very capable external CaRx, and will be using that for supplementation.

As I am most interested in the potential for the filter to house and nurture zooplankton, I plan to experiment with dosing live phyto directly into the compartment that recirculates water through the coarse media bed. This should provide a food source for the pods and such without the need for macros.

So my take on a DyMiCo filter will not be initially operated like the actual DyMiCo system, and once I have the tank stabilized, I will then explore how the techniques that DyMiCo uses can be used to improve the operation of the tank.

Can you adopt me .... please !!!

... um send a resume?

Any updates?

Sadly no. I plan on constructing the facade myself this spring/summer. It will not look as professional as I had wanted if I do it, but at least it will (hopefully) get done. If that comes to pass, then I hope to have the tank wet and cycling for late summer/fall.

 

[Fishy Guy]

Just finished reading through your journal and am seriously impressed. Any more updates to share? I really want to see this thing wet!