Nano Reef in the Office

[jostafew]

Hey everyone, after a year of planning my nano reef project is finally taking shape. Lots of indecision on design and complexity, but I finally settled on a simple AIO design with dims 16x16x10 and a display area of 16x12x10. Aside from having the glass panels cut at the glass shop, the tank is entirely DIY. I'm planning to use a couple 4x10 pcs of window tint on the outside of the side panels to hide the rear chamber during the day. At night time the light over that area will shine through the tint and I'll be able to see in there to check up on things. I thought I would use tint instead of paint as it'll be easier to apply, and secondly it'll allow me to see in at night time to check up on the pods and such in the fuge area! The tank has a glass lid cut about an inch short at the rear to allow for power cables and hoses etc. to leave the tank. I usually run my tanks rimless and topless but since this one will live in the office I added the lid so the cleaners or random ppl don't accidentally drop stuff in there while I'm out of the office.

Water circulation is provided by an Eheim Compact 600 return pump and a Koralia Nano. I plan to keep LPS and some easy SPS, a few inverts, and 2-3 very small fish (Clown Gobie style).

The system will eventually be run on a DA RKL but for now the heater is autonomous and the lighting is on a simple day/night powerbar. I'm hoping to get away without cooling, but if necessary I did leave enough space to top-mount an Ice-Probe chiller in the back chamber.

Lighting is provided by a DIY LED fixture featuring the following emitters:
4x Cree XP-E Royal Blue
2x Cree XP-E Blue
3x Cree Xp-G Neutral White
2x Luxeon Cyan
2x Deep Red
2x Violet
The White and Blue (incl. Cyan) channels are on on their own circuits with dimmers, and the Red & Violet are on another ciruit. When set up on the RKL the Blues will come on first, then the White and supplementals will come up for mid-day, then drop back to just Blue in the evening. After much experimentation I settled on the above mixture of emitters which I felt provided a very good color balance as compared to the MH lamps that I'm used to. Only issue had to do with the "disco ball effect", but that can be dealt with by keeping the water surface calm. At night time the main LED fixture will be out and a smaller LED light source over the main rear chamber will grow Chaeto etc. (most likely 2x Cree XP-G NW). The main light fixture is 50% finished, with all LEDs and electronics assembled and tested. I'll soon be building the stainless steel housing and will post pics of that when completed.

Water top off will be handled by a gravity fed, vacuum operated resevoir in the cabinet above the tank. I really liked the simplicity of that concept, but I've yet to find a resevoir container that will seal up air-tight and has walls rigid enough to withstand the vacuum which will be generated. Still looking for that.

In the meantime have a look at these photos of the tank. I will continue to update as the tank gets placed on the desk at work, gets its sand bed and LR, and gets its lighting installed. I was dissapointed that I didn't catch the nano reef contest, but I'm still really looking forward to my little slice of reef while I'm at my daily grind!

Thanks for looking!


Tank modeled on the desk


Front View with Lid


Front View, No Lid


Rear View



Return Pump Area


Checking sea-worthiness


Another shot on the patio


Happy Reefing!

[jostafew]

Had a productive day at the dollar store; found a 2L hermetically sealed canning jar that should work nicely as my gravity fed FW resevoir (we'll see how long 2L lasts). Jar was $4.00 and the 1/4" glass hole saw was $20 hahaha. Oh well, never a bad excuse to buy tools!

Here's the jar



With two 1/4" holes drilled to supply the tank



Now it's just a matter of measuring and installing the hoses (will simply use silicone as a bulkhead in the jar).

.

[Royal Aquariums]

Great job on the DIY tank!

[jostafew]

Thanks for the compliment! This was my first build using clear silicone, which I've discovered is a lot less forgiving than black in terms of creating a tidy looking seam. Being transparent it reveals any included bubbles and changes in silicone thickness. I have a newfound respect for tank builders doing much larger tanks in clear silicone and producing nearly flawless seams. That being said I'm happy with the result on this one. I was lazy with a couple seams at the back and the bottom and didn't bother to mask them off when assembling, but I won't see those once the tank is installed ;-)

[jostafew]

Quick update: picked up a used RKL so that will be in place from day one , finished the FW resevoir plumbing, and tinted the side panels. Everything is packed up and ready to go to the office for installation. Hopefully one night this week I'll be able to stay late and blast a couple holes in the desk to run cords and plumbing. Pretty stoked!

[subman]

Very nice and clean setup!
Can't wait to see more

[ScubaSteve]

Very cool build. I love the clean look.

I'm actually building a tank for my desk at work right now too, though mine's just an old biocube my friend had kicking around I'll be converting it to LEDs though, which brings up a point you mentioned above...

The disco ball effect. You can minimize the disco ball effect by keeping the surface calm OR you can pack the LEDs closer together to minimize the separation of the light sources. I've been tossing around the idea of using Steve's LEDs 3-up stars (link) to get 3 LEDs tightly packed onto a single star, and then packing the stars tight together. Basically, this is the tightest configuration possible without doing a custom PCB (Which I am considering...). My thinking is to get the sources tight enough together that they basically behave (more or less) like a single large point source of light like a metal halide and you won't see as much disco-ing. In theory this shouldn't be a whole lot different than a HQI upgrade for the biocube, especially if I run the LEDs without optics. This is the direction a lot of the high end systems are going with, however, those are pendant systems and with the extra height you can get decent spread from a tight packing. I'm unsure how it would work out inside a biocube where the LEDs are close to the water surface.

Have you thought about this at all for your LEDs? And how do you think this would work in the biocube? I'm basically using the same color mix as you and have been debating using the 3-ups to create 1 or 2 tightly packed arrays of LEDs.

[arash53]

Good job, really nice and neat DIY setup. I cant wait to see it up and running.

I have a nano FW tank in the office, I was thinking about setting up a SW ,but I thought it will be too much hassle preparing water in the office. I really like to see how you do it.

[jostafew]

Hey ScubaSteve, I've got the standard Emitter on Star type LED modules all grouped as tightly together as possible, but you're right the multiple emitter in a single module would be better. That being said I think I may have proper solution should it come to that, and frankly I'm amazed we don't see this from the high end vendors yet. I can't find the source right now (have an e-mail at home) but it's a thin film that's matte on one side to gather and disperse light from multiple LED emitters, then on the other side the surface is made up of tiny lenses which then redirect all that diffused light at your choice of angles (anywhere from say 45-120deg optics). So what you end up with is essentially one large light source of uniform color temperature. You'll lose the nice glitter lines, but then the disco ball effect is also gone. Ultimately I beleive the multiple emitter on chip containing many colors will be the best long term solution, but until that is readily available (for cheap) I think this film is the answer in the DIY LED world. I was going to give it a shot on this project but the $50 sample fee put that on hold until my plan to maintain a calm water surface fails hahah. Will post when I find the source again.

[jostafew]

It lives! The tank is installed on the desk and is up and running (aside from the lighting). Pulled live sand and rock out of the bigger system at home, along with a 50/50 mix of new water and mature, so it's all ready to go!

Now I just need to concentrate on finishing the housing for the main LED light fixture so I can start to populate the tank. Speaking of lighting, I also ordered the LED's, heatsink, power supply for the smaller light over the chaeto grow area in the back. It's all coming together!

I'll post some pics of the tank once I get the lighting installed. Not very exciting to look at for the moment!