High Tide Aquatics

neuro's 60 gallon cube

psidriven said:
nice clean set up.

any close up pictures of how you mounted the led heat sink to the pfo pendant, does the mh heat up the leds? also, how do you like the 10 rb, 2 blue? i was thinking of doing 8 rb, 4 uv or 12 rb, 6 uv on a dimmer.

i want to do the same thing (even using rapidled actinic kit) but with a lumenbrite instead of a pfo pendant, though same bulb and pfo ballast. i have a smaller 38 gallon cube.

thx
Click to expand...

there you go, i just uploaded a pic i took with my phone. i measured the distance between the fins to find a bolt/nut combo that was short enough. I measured and then drilled holes into both the pendant and the heatsinks. If I had a drill press, I would have used that.

The MH does heat up the heatsinks unfortunately, but I've had no problems so far. It is hot to the touch, but the leds themselves can take a beating.

You're correct: I have 10 RB and 2 Blues. I wanted to add UVs, but they were sold out. When I installed these, they gave the color response I was hoping for so I stayed with it.

If I could change things, I would definitely go with a bigger reflector like you are thinking of doing. Especially since my tank is a cube and it would fit the dimensions perfectly.
 

Attachments

  • 20131111_194830.jpg
    20131111_194830.jpg
    65.5 KB · Views: 295
thx for the pix. i wanted to go up to 250 from 150 and happened on a good deal for the pendant w/ 250w fittings a steal on a dual pfo 250 ballast.

have you thought of using an insulating layer of cork/plastic between the heatsink and the pendant to reduce the heat transfer?

i actually contemplated creating a free floating ring that is held up by wires and only makes direct contact to the pendant via insulating rods.

not sure if the heat transfer from the mh to the leds is worth the extra work, but heard leds lose a great deal of efficiency and life due to elevated heat levels.
 
That's good info. I didn't think of using some kind of insulation. But now you have me worried. Ill mull it over a bit.

Your assessment using a free floating ring sounds like a good way to avoid heat transfer. If you do try that, I'd love to see how you did it.

I forgot to mention, aquatic collection has (or had) some of their pendants with a similar led/heatsink rigged up. Incase you wanted a hands on look.
 
Gorgeous tank. What kind of hose (and where did you find it) did you use to plumb your DT to sump. It looks sweet, and much easier on your return than a bunch of 90 deg elbows.
 
DeeAnnMG said:
Gorgeous tank. What kind of hose (and where did you find it) did you use to plumb your DT to sump. It looks sweet, and much easier on your return than a bunch of 90 deg elbows.
Click to expand...

thanks deeann!

Those are flex-pvc. I have extra left if you'd like some (1" and 1.5" and I believe 3/4" too...) Though I'm not sure if they are going to be long enough for any sump<->tank plumbing, but you're more than welcome to what I have left! I can check when I get home. let me know.

I looked around for the best pricing, and I found it from flexpvc.com. It costs an arm and a leg for shipping, so I picked up other things from them. They have a lot of stuff you can't find on other pvc sites so it was a win-win situation for me.
 
need updated pix :) btw, noticed you also run a reef angel. any tips on using it and eagle files? i have a reefangel plus and just use the wizard for basic functions. i'd like to get into the fancy stuff but programming is not my thing and can't seem to find "reefangels for dummies" faq.
 
psidriven said:
need updated pix :) btw, noticed you also run a reef angel. any tips on using it and eagle files? i have a reefangel plus and just use the wizard for basic functions. i'd like to get into the fancy stuff but programming is not my thing and can't seem to find "reefangels for dummies" faq.
Click to expand...

Ooohh not much has changed besides coral arrangements and additions. I was trying to cut another video together but it's such a pain in the ass. If you're looking for any more pictures of my light/RA/piping setup just let me know and I'll gladly provide it.


Oh and on the reef angel:
I'm not a software developer, but I do know programming. Even for me, there are a lot of things you just won't know how to do because you have to be really familiar with what and how the libraries work. For now, there is no major API/documentation so someone like you or me has to really dig into the code to find out what's going on. There are also descrepencies between library versions, so some ways to program/fix things don't work the same way from library version to the next.

Example #1: I wanted my RA to turn off my ATO funcationliaty for 5 minutes after doing a water change so I can inspect the water level before it starts pouring in fresh water. When I attempted to do this, it flooded my sump with fresh water because ATO functionality isn't compatible with delayed start... you have to customize this setup and I don't have the memory space (ie, RA+) to do it. Delayed start only cares about turning a plug ON or OFF. If you turn the ATO "ON", it pumps water in. What I really wanted was to turn ATO functionality on/off.

Example #2: I had issues where a spike in the temp probe would set the RA to overheat-mode, essentially turning off all heat-producing devices. Robert said the only way to get around this using my library version was to use a special function. I can't use the latest libraries which has a fix for this problem since I don't have the RA+.

tl;dr:
The best thing to do is to get familiar with your pde/nfo by reading it line by line and post onto the forums for what you're trying to do. It's also pretty helpful to look at other folk's PDEs that are trying to do what you want to do since they will have similar modules. I was able to copy & paste a lot of stuff after peeking at other PDEs.

Let me know if you need anything!
 
If anyone's curious, I've added a bunch of ip cameras, and here is one camera view.

http://X50.X131.X110.X193:X81/
user: temp
pwd: visit

(i've added "X"'s to fool any spider/crawling bots so remove those)

It allows me to monitor the tank. It's not a straight-on view since that's not the purpose of this cam.

Hope everyone gets to take a look! I'll take down the login after a week
 
grizfyrfyter said:
I want to do a similar setup. What camera are you using?
Click to expand...

I'm using the foscam FI8909W

I chose this because:
- wide viewing angle
- small design (i also have a camera setup to point at the sump)
- low cost

the cons I lived with:
- lower resolution (i don't need anything high)
- web UI could use some work
- various bugs and issues I had to work around

...and plus they had these on sale. If you sign up for their email lists, they send deals out all the time. You can end up saving a 10%-20% on their cameras. I have three of their cameras.

http://foscam.us

I also bought the universal mounting setup off ebay. I needed their lower-profile mount that they sold, and they have an official store on ebay and it was 50% cheaper for some reason.
 
neuro said:
If anyone's curious, I've added a bunch of ip cameras, and here is one camera view.

http://X50.X131.X110.X193:X81/
user: temp
pwd: visit

(i've added "X"'s to fool any spider/crawling bots so remove those)

It allows me to monitor the tank. It's not a straight-on view since that's not the purpose of this cam.

Hope everyone gets to take a look! I'll take down the login after a week
Click to expand...

Nice addition with the camera. I have one that I need to set-up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top