Neven's Reef

[neven]

Figured i'd stop lurking and start keeping my journal here
Display tank size: 33 Gallons
Sump size: 33 Gallons
approx total water volume: 55-58 G

Lighting:
DiY Homemade fixture, GU10 bulbs custom manufactured
21 bulbs 3x2W LEDs each (blend of Blue/Pure White/Cool LEDs)

Equipment:
Maxijet pro 400 (circulation sump)
Coralife CP 750 (circulation display tank)
Rio 1400+ (return pump)
Prizm Pro 300G HoB Skimmer (on sump)
150W heater (in sump)

Plumping:
1x 3/4" full siphon w/ valve
2x 3/4" Open channel
1x 1/2" lockline return

Fish:
Neon Blue Goby
clown goby
purple firefish
tailspot blenny
six line wrasse
lyretail anthias

Corals:
Neon Green Leather
Orange Rhodactis Mushroom
Orange Ricordia
Green Stripe Mushroom
Green and Blue Caribbean Bullseye Mushroom
Green Marble Mushrooms
green star polyps
white button polyps
Brown button polyps
Starburst Zoanthids
Green Goblin Zoanthids
a couple unknown Zoanthids
Candy Cane
torch coral
Anthelia
Soft Finger Leather (making a comeback)
neon green leather (making a comeback)
favia
frogspawn
Tyree Seasons Greetings


macro algae:
Halimeda
Red Gracilaria

Inverts:
Hawaiian Feather Duster
Blue Legged Hermits
Red Legged Hermits
Cerinth Snails
stomatella Snails

[neven]

This system has been through some ups and downs. It started as my first venture into the reef tanks with a DIY foam rock wall build in a 10 gallons with a 20 gallon sump. It ended up being a bryopsis breeding ground thanks to me using too powerful lights too close to the tank.

The next generation of the tank was from me buying 3x33 Gallon tanks from a local here, 2 of them were planned for my salt water venture, the other one to replace my 29 gallon fresh. After going through a lot of work, installing my own bean animal overflow box that i had made at a glass shop, i messed up and didn't go right to the edges with the outside box. This put a lot of stress on the back pane and while i was sleeping in the next day after transferring everything over my wife runs in yellin there's water on the floor. So that tank was gone and i downgraded to the 20 gallon i was using for the old sump.

i was happy with the 20 until my son decided to dump a whole container of NLS flake into the tank, i didn't catch it in time, so even with switching out 25% water a day for a week, the fishies all perished and i had to do something drastic. I tore down my freshwater, drilled it, tore down the 20 gallon, threw out the fouled sand, used the 20 gallon for the fresh fishies and now i was back at the 33G reef display tank. Well the transfer took 2 days, and lots of buckets and rubbermaids, and angry spouse moments.

The last hurdle i had was the nitrates started creeping up because of that food incident and me running a DSB, so i ripped out the DSB and went with a refugium, not a difficult change atleast.

I restocked the tank slowly to current levels, tripled my corals and tripled the amount the wife was angry at me too :P My latest purchase was a fragbox group buy, so here are the pics since then.

Left side of tank

left side of tank angle 2, better view of the tyree's seasons greetings and green marble mushrooms i got from fragbox

right side of tank

FTS

My Tuxedo urchin hiding


Two of the 4 things i got from fragbox:
green goblin zoas

fruitloop zoas

[Ram3500]

looking good ! I have always wanted black gravel in a reef tank nice work.

[monkE]

looks good Neven!!

[gregzz4]

Looks really good neven
'bout time you started a jounal here

[neven]

update!
some fishies perished a while back, i thought it was something wrong, but fingers pointed to my feeding regime being very inadequate with such a heavy feeder in the tank. So one by one a few fishies got lethargic and passed on without a body to be found thanks to the CuC.

So i increased my feedings, had a bad incident with a very angry diedem pseudochromis that i had to get out and now is in a time out nano tank all to itself, More stock (clown goby, clown fish and royal gramma), and a proper phosphate media reactor (which wasn't needed but nice to have).

Im all fish stocked up again, i know i have around 50 G of water in my system, but i dont want to push it territory wise, Currently the six line wrasse hates the clown fish, but not chasing him anymore so they might get better, but if not i changed the sump a bit to allow me to time out the wrasse without it getting into my refugium side and killin all the good critters.

unrelated to the above, i gave away some macro algae and a member here commented on the colours popping from my lighting, so i will post my incredibly easy GU10 Build

[neven]

so my initial plan was to go full out diy, with dimmers and all, but the cost is still quite high despite being much cheaper than most configs. The issue is the heatsink cost to me, its like 1/3 the cost. I was going to bite the bullet and pay up, then i stumbled upon a thread on a reefer site. Its called GU10 LEDs. Most people buy them from ebay and the result has been great growth of even clams for dirt cheap. Many reefers are on their third or second build of them already.

My build:

The plan is this, a fixture for my 20 G, but built to stand length mounted to the wall. This will allow me to simply add more bulbs if i need more light or change the tank size (which i did!). the sockets will be mounted in two rows, but just slightly alternated apart, giving me more bulbs in a tigher space and make it easier to blend colours the way i want. I can fill all sockets above the tank, or leave a single space here and there without worrying about spot lighting.

3x2W bulbs of Two configs
2 blue, 1 cool white
1 blue, 1 cool white, 1 pure white

I was tempted to get a bulb config with red, but in reality i need maybe 3 or 4 at most with red and they risk overpowering, i still plan on making this bulb down the road.

Here we go, a photo journal of the guts of my fixture.

a bin containing half the bulbs i got, the only way to tell them apart is the colour of the led emitter, whites are yellow, blues are clear. looking directly at the pure whites and cool whites, i notice the pure white is actually lighter yellow emitter, so there is a difference i guess.



The layout, the guide i followed said one tightly fit row is good enough for a 12"depth tank, but i wanted a bit better colour blending, but not too intense, so i grabbed a bulb and traced out a row of 3 bulbs right together, my goal was 2 rows, but as tight as possible with 4 bulbs in that pace of 3, going 5 bulbs would have spread the rows further apart. heres the plank with the layout


the sockets have the two rivet holes which are used to mount the socket, and the othe way has a groove in the ceramic, so its really easy to center the sockets. i figured out the distance between the mounting holes and measured out all the others. for the holes to push the wire through, i resorted to tracing where the wires come out since i couldn't find my circle stencil from high school. by the way #5 screws work great. #6 are too big.



heres all the plank drilled,


a few sockets mounted to test out spacing before i finish all of it off, theres a bit of play so you are slightly off, it will shift the other bulbs to make room, the joys of a spring lock socket.



how the wires look out the other side


All sockets filled to see how it looks, only using enough sockets for my 20G foot print though for now. My wife even jumped in to help screw them all in, didn't use the drill for two reasons. one, lost the chuck key, and two, ceramic breaks. Some of it chipped at the top a little bit from rushing driving the screws in without paying attention, the driver did the chipping, not the screws. have to look for it to notice though.


all the wires out the other side and my wires for splicing, #18 wire should suffice. Some people yell about how its "illegal" but they are referencing a building code for permanent wiring (in wall), not the requirements for manufacturing. Generally speaking you will see cords rated for 7 amps (840 watts) 'light duty' being #18 AWG wire, these bulbs are far below that threshhold total, when LEDs, or if incandescent, bang on the limit for 14 bulbs on a string. But if someone is picky, then someone can write in sharpee, DO NOT EXCEED 60 Watt BULBS and feel happy that they are safe. Just remember that all DIY electrical fixtures are 'illegal' since they lack CSA approval. Im doing 2 strings, one of 13 bulbs, the other 14.


Everything spliced


the finished product

[neven]

for a preliminary test i decided to mount it temporary (since its only the guts) and compare to my beamswork 1300. This fixture was about 1.5" higher than the beamswork. Ignore the crappy mounting method, i don't have the basic fixture framed enough allow it to rest nicely on the wall so i used a couple angle brackets i had out, plus with it being like 5am, i didn't want to wake the house rummaging around for something better.


beamswork 1300

gu10


both pics taken at same zoom, same distance and all the same settings on the camera. THe water was cloudy thanks to me forgetting to clean the glass before pics, so i gave it a quick clean.

A bit later i made the outside frame, i added a plank down the length of the wall on the right behind the tank to give me a firm support on that side. I used a light hanging kit i had laying around from when i was working at a sports venue hanging massive light fixtures, so these things are way overkill and adjustible. you'll notice the final height, im not even using all the bulbs and have a screen over the tank that cuts out a lot of light. I had some bleaching without the screen.