29 gallon reboot

[Diamond1]

Well here we go again! This tanks occupants have been around since 2013 when it started out as a 10 gallon nano. The tank was upgraded to a 29 and then after a move it was downsized to a 14 gallon cube. The cube has been running for almost 3 years and is a softie only tank. Mushrooms, Xenia, Zoas and a very large Toadstool leather. I still had the tank and all the equipment to set up the 29 but just never got around to it.
I was looking at the 14 cube and saw that there was no room for anything else, the corals needed fraging and the acrylic was looking pretty sad. Lots of scratches and a slight bowing to the front and sides convinced me that it was time to get the 29 out and get it up and going. I cured about 25 lbs of base rock and got a bag of Caribsea Special grade reef for a very shallow sand bed set the tank up and let it cycle.

For equipment I have an old Lifereef VS24 skimmer and sump and a 700 gph Lifereef HOB overflow. A 4bulb T5HO fixture with a built in timer, a Jebao wp 10 wavemaker, 300 watt heater and a hang on refugium/skimmer. I will be running the fuge without the skimmer since the Lifereef is a beast of a skimmer by itself. The return pump is a 600 gph Ebay special that I will be upgrading to a Jebao dc 3000. I also have an Ocean Revive t247 LED fixture but for now I think I'm going to go old school and stick with the T5s. This is as always subject to change and I may put the LEDs back.
At some point I would like to add some type of controller to the tank either a Neptune classic or a DIY Reef Pi system using a Raspberry Pi as a brain. But since the tank will be mostly softies with maybe a few LPS I figure I can get by with just dripping kalk and doing water changes

So enough rambling and on to some pics.
Here's the first set up of the 10 gallon

Here's the first incarnation of the 29

And finally the 14 gallon cube.

The 29 set up with some frags and rocks from the cube.

 

[Diamond1]

The sump and equipment

 

[Diamond1]

Here are some shots of the 14 gallon cube and the occupants that are making the move.

 

[Diamond1]

After a bit of fragging some of the corals I pulled out of the 14 with more to come.

 

[Diamond1]

And still more frags
\

 

[Diamond1]

Got the fish cleanup crew and some more corals moved this morning. My leather is not very happy about things.

 

[Diamond1]

Still have a couple of good sized rocks to frag and move over. Hopefully I will get that done today and get the Fuge cleaned up and moved as well.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Looking very good!

 

[maevepotter]

Your leathers are beautiful!! Love that pic with the clown and leather

 

[Diamond1]

Thank you very much! The clown is very fond of the leather and defends it with much gusto.

 

[Diamond1]

I had forgotten how much more I like taking pictures of my tank under T5s vs LEDs, so I broke out the DSLR and macro lens.

 

[Diamond1]

Quick update.
Tanks doing great
Temp running at 78
Cal is 460
Mag is 1350
PH is at 8
Nitrate is .20
Phosphate is .10
Everything looks open and happy.
I did DIY a quick canopy/light holder. I was going to do a hanging kit for the t5 fixture but I'm still not sure if I want the t5s or the LEDs.
I will be working on a skin for the stand this week just trying to figure out what kind of wood I want to use for it. I'm thinking Red Oak or Mahogany.

End shot with a big happy leather. The tank is 12.5 inches wide and this coral is close to 9 or 10 inches across when it's fully expanded.

 

[Diamond1]

Well I was going to work on this later in the week but I decided to get it done today.
I was looking at my tank and decided I needed to get the stand finished. So I headed off to Menards to get some wood to skin the stand. I decided on Red Oak. The stand itself is made from pressure treated yellow pine and the skin is made from 1/4" Red Oak plywood. I bought a 4x8 sheet and got to it.

This is what the stand looked like before I started, just a basic frame.

So after lots of thinking about it I got started cutting.

After all the cutting was done I started on the side and front skins. Since the stand was put together and the tank was up and running I had to get creative with putting the skin on. I used Red Mahogany stain and wipe on satin poly finish. Then after it was dry enough to work with I used glue and brads to put the parts on the stand.

 

[Diamond1]

I was tempted to leave the stand like this but decided I needed to hide my high tech Kalk dripper..

So back out to the garage to make some more sawdust. Here's the doors getting glued up.

Ready for stain and poly.

Adding some color.

Ready to hang

The finished product. Well almost still need to get some handles and magnets for the doors.
I might add a piece of trim around the top to hide the black plastic rim of the tank.

Still have some cord managment to do.

 

[Katrina71]

That looks good!

 

[Diamond1]

Thank you I think it turned out OK.

 

[Diamond1]

Next up I'm going to DIY a controller using a raspberry pi and the Reef Pi software that Ranjib is working on.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...tank-controller-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/

I will probably just do the PH, power supply, temp probe, dosing and ATO. Not sure about light control yet. I will be putting the controller in a box on the side of the stand and making a cabinet to match outside the stand for the ATO and dosing containers.

 

[Diamond1]

Today I got a good bit of the parts I need to start work on my DIY reef pi controller. I'm still waiting for my 8 channel relay and the circuit board. The heart of the system is a raspberry pi 3. The software is an opensource software developed by @Ranjib right here on reef2reef. I will probably start a thread on the build in the DIY forum that goes into greater detail of the build and my experiences with it.

With this controller I will be able to:

Monitor and control temperature

ATO system

8 programable relays for 8 electrical sockets

In the future I plan on adding a ph monitor, dosing pumps and programable LED control.
Since I'm still not 100% sold on LEDs, my tank lighting is done with a programable t5 quad fixture. I want to check into possibly building a T5 system with dimmable ballasts that the reef pi can control (maybe even add some LEDs to the mix for coral pop).

The cool thing about this system is that it is totaly scalable to just about anything an Apex off the shelf controller can do and I can build it for a fraction of the cost of an apex and customize the circuitry.

Since this is my first time doing something like this it will be interesting to say the least.

Here's some the parts so far.

 

[Diamond1]

I started a build thread for the reef pi in the diy section.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reef-pi-build.482170/

 

[Diamond1]

Quick update.

I got a couple things done with the reef pi I'm building. Started soldering and got the reef pi software installed and running remotely on my PC.

I'm going to be working on the enclosure and wiring up the power outlets this weekend.
Still waiting on parts.

Reef pi UI on my desktop.