I have several tanks I want to start tank journals for. I need to start somewhere, so I decided to start with this one. My wife @Ashalye and I bought this from @gimmito back in September of 2015.
Here's one of the first pictures of it setup in October of 2015.
This was a stand alone system at that time. Since then, I've connected a display tank to it on the other side of the wall. You'll have to wait a little bit, I'm not there yet in the progression of this journal.
The light is a HouYi Aqua System, you write the program for it in a text file named hy.txt and upload the program with an SD card. It works fair, I have nothing bad to say about the light. If anyone has a similar light and is having issues with the SD card program not behaving, I could probably help you fix it.
I cut the flex pvc on the original return plumbing and installed a serviceable anti-siphon valve to prevent the return pipe from back flowing into the sump in the event of a power failure or feed cycle.
Even though the rocks were starting to color up by November, I was concerned that it might not be enough light. So I decided to add some T5s and reflectors that I had laying around. I had to construct a way to mount them which you'll see in the pics below.
A few weeks before implementing the light upgrade. ( November 20, 2015 )
The black material is called Centra. It is a foamed PVC and is light in weight but more flexible than I would like for this application. To increase rigidity I doubled the thickness by adding an extra strip to each side. From past experience, I've found the skin on the surface of Centra does not glue well, so I attached the strips with screws.
Just in case there wasn't enough light already or a broad enough spectrum of light, I add a pair of Kessil A150s and a white foam square to the back wall as a reflector. Now I need to barrow the clubs PAR meter to see what kind of levels I'm actually getting.