70gal rimless w/beananimal overflow, +LED build

[clownin about]

I used a bunch of scrap wiring to wire the LED's & some excellent cheap heat sink plaster made by “stars 922” & purchased via ebay to mount the LED's. Some spare PC molex connecters were used to connect the main wiring harnesses from the 250W power supply to the wiring at the heat sink. It's not super pretty but it'll do until I perhaps switch to pendants or whatever new fangled reef lighting system becomes in vogue in the next ten years.

[clownin about]

My rental apartment is all concrete, so drilling the walls is frowned upon by management. I was trying to figure out what I could use to keep the LED heat sink above the tank without resting anything on the tank edges. I also didn't want to start drilling my stand which would have been a PITA because it was still being used for my 120. My zany mind came up with a dental lamp idea, I found a vintage Pelton & Crane dental lamp on Craigslist. Originally I wanted to utilize the upper articulating arm but it proved to be very heavy due to the internal spring & shock components. So I disemboweled it & used the stainless steel pipe stand section along with the horizontal portion of the articulating arm. The LED heat sink would be hung off the end of the arm with four bicycle brake cables. Perhaps not the most elegant idea, but it works so far. The dental lamp stand (or pole) is attached to the rear right corner of my stand with four 3” C clamps. Using the dental stand allows me swing the heatsink out of the way when needed, which is a bonus. The heatsink being open at the top (in between the 1” strips) allows shimmering light to hit the ceiling which I don't mind, although it may drive some people crazy.

[clownin about]

Question is, is any of this stuff actually going to work? Plugged it in & voila! Nothing. Nada. Nope. After testing the LED's & the wiring with my multimeter I came to the conclusion that my brand new power supply was a dud. At least I hoped it was the power supply & not my crazy wiring job. O.K exchanged the power supply for another one & voila! We have light!!!

[clownin about]

I was going to use a timer while I came up with some sort of DIY arduino to control the LED's with but I broke down & got a Coralux Storm X LED controller instead. See, I'm not always cheap. Well, O.K., after pricing the cost of all the arduino parts & the time involved it seemed like a no brainer to me.

[clownin about]

Stuffing all the live rock + corals from my 120gal into the 70gal made things a bit cramped but I can live with it. At least the pair of clowns I've had for 17 years still seem to be happy, but I'm sure they miss all that extra room they had before.

[clownin about]

I still had to set up my old 50gal sump. Once I emptied it, the clear fiberglass resin I used to seal some pinhole leaks began to separate from the plexiglas. When I built it 15 years ago I used a hand scribe to cut some of the plexiglas panels. Cutting acrylic with a table saw will give you nice straight edges, cutting it with a hand scribe, um, not so much. One needs to have perfectly square edges to properly glue acrylic otherwise you can end up with leaks. So back then I fixed a few small leaks with fiberglass resin. After scraping all the old flaking resin I then reapplied clear fiberglass resin on the inside edges & this time I also incorporated some fiberglass mesh. I accidentally folded over one of the resin soaked mesh pieces onto an area of the plexiglas that I wasn't planning to cover with resin & it etched the plexiglas so it doesn't look very pretty...of course it just had to be the front panel. The main thing is that it doesn't leak. After water testing it for a few weeks I finally set it up, placing my old skimmer inside along with the return pump & live rock (plus 20 years of coral skeletons from those specimens that didn't survive over the years, RIP). Now I can finally get the overflow working & get rid of all that scum floating on the surface of my new tank. In the photo you can see my old 120 & a table/cabinet thingy I built from an IKEA LACK table top, scrap aluminum & an old night stand. This holds a kalkwasser bucket and other aquarium related items. My LED controller & power supply are attached to the side of it.

[clownin about]

I also mounted 12 LED's on a small heat sink above the sump so I can place extra corals/caulerpa frags down there when needed.