DBurr's betterlatethannever build thread

[Dburr1014]

I've been working on my T5 lighting the past few nights. I don't think my reef breeder light is going to cut it for 60 in by 24 in with all my coral and the tank. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up with a lot of shading. So I'm going to supplement with T5.
I'm going to flank The Reef breeder fixture with two t5s each side. I have bought two Coral Plus and two blue plus from ATI.
I plopped then in a ceiling fixture just to see how it looks, it looks pretty good I like the color. I measured it with my ITC parwise and got about 200 par at 12 in.



So I work in a machine shop for rather large company and they were getting rid of their T5 fixtures in the shop and putting up LED lighting. They were giving them away for free and I said why not. I hung a couple in my basement and they have the motion sensors on them so they're pretty nice. Anyway I have three extra, so I disassembled a couple of them to see what was in them. And look what I found!
That seems like a nice ballast for two lights and it even is for outdoor use.

And they tell you how to wire them right on the top of the ballast. So if anybody wants to build their own fixture for cheap, this is the way to go.( don't worry I've done this before).
The reflectors are in pretty good shape too.

So I cut them in half and deburred them up.

 

[Dburr1014]

I went to FFM Saturday. For those that don't know what FFM is, it is the frag Farmers Market here in Stores, Connecticut at EO Smith High School. It's in the smack middle UConn Campus. Every year there's a coral Frag Show and it's claimed to be the largest single day Coral show in the country. This year there was over 100 vendors and 1856 attendees. My Local Coral Club ctars had a booth there. The store I bought my tank from was also there so I went over and talked to him about my delivery Friday. It turns out they're waiting for another tank to be built so delivery will be delayed a week until next Friday. BOO!

 

[Dburr1014]

Time to get going on plumbing.
Started to rough it in. I knew this was going to be a little complicated but not this much. I'm going thru the floor, follow the main beam, around the chimney, and thru the wall of the sump. Initially I was going to use spa hose to go through the floor to the main beam and then hard plump the rest but decided against it for cost. I'm regretting my decision. It would have been so much easier. This is what I got so far.

Down thru the floor.



Across the beam.

Around the chimney.

Backside pic of the chimney.

Definatly have to insulate those pipes from the wood stove. These cold New England winters get that stove hot.

 

[Dburr1014]

Checking out the tank today and noticed that all the BCP are gone! There were a bunch on the front tank corner and crawling up the front pane. Not a trace. I guess there was trace amounts on the acan rock? Not enough to kill the gargonian but enough to kill the polyps.

 

[Dburr1014]

Well, i did a thing. I had a small dsb under my cheato and i removed it a couple weeks ago. I wanted to clean it up and use it in the new display. I really didn't think it was doing much as it was so small. I think I set off a chain reaction. I noticed I was growing cyano in the display and burnt tips on my valida. I did a full test round and I have no3! First time in almost a year. No3 11.5 po4 0.21
I dropped down ammonium dosage in half and lowered the lights 10%. Today I retested po4 its 0.18. Did a coral snow with a sock to try and bring it down some more.

 

[JGT]

I've been working on my T5 lighting the past few nights. I don't think my reef breeder light is going to cut it for 60 in by 24 in with all my coral and the tank. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up with a lot of shading. So I'm going to supplement with T5.
I'm going to flank The Reef breeder fixture with two t5s each side. I have bought two Coral Plus and two blue plus from ATI.
I plopped then in a ceiling fixture just to see how it looks, it looks pretty good I like the color. I measured it with my ITC parwise and got about 200 par at 12 in.



So I work in a machine shop for rather large company and they were getting rid of their T5 fixtures in the shop and putting up LED lighting. They were giving them away for free and I said why not. I hung a couple in my basement and they have the motion sensors on them so they're pretty nice. Anyway I have three extra, so I disassembled a couple of them to see what was in them. And look what I found!
That seems like a nice ballast for two lights and it even is for outdoor use.

And they tell you how to wire them right on the top of the ballast. So if anybody wants to build their own fixture for cheap, this is the way to go.( don't worry I've done this before).
The reflectors are in pretty good shape too.

So I cut them in half and deburred them up.

That’s definitely a score!

 

[JGT]

Time to get going on plumbing.
Started to rough it in. I knew this was going to be a little complicated but not this much. I'm going thru the floor, follow the main beam, around the chimney, and thru the wall of the sump. Initially I was going to use spa hose to go through the floor to the main beam and then hard plump the rest but decided against it for cost. I'm regretting my decision. It would have been so much easier. This is what I got so far.

Down thru the floor.



Across the beam.

Around the chimney.

Backside pic of the chimney.

Definatly have to insulate those pipes from the wood stove. These cold New England winters get that stove hot.

I used flexible pvc for my runs and glad I did. Especially good on softening those hard turns.

 

[Dburr1014]

I used flexible pvc for my runs and glad I did. Especially good on softening those hard turns.

I was planning to use the flex pvc to run thru the floor. But then I heard that mice will chew them. I'm out in the country and get mice from time to time and the run being on top of duct work and the center beam I got a little worried. I might still use it from the tank to the floor. All those bends might not line up. I was sure the tank would be here by now....

 

[ScottD]

I was planning to use the flex pvc to run thru the floor. But then I heard that mice will chew them. I'm out in the country and get mice from time to time and the run being on top of duct work and the center beam I got a little worried. I might still use it from the tank to the floor. All those bends might not line up. I was sure the tank would be here by now....

Another option would be to look into expansion pex or pex-a. I’m contemplating using that for some of my plumbing.

 

[Dburr1014]

I have confirmation my planet will be delivered to my house Monday!

 

[ScottD]

I have confirmation my planet will be delivered to my house Monday!

That’s some exciting news.

 

[Dburr1014]

Bit the bullet, ordered flex pvc from home depot. $63 for a 25' roll, ain't bad at all considering most places charge $5 per foot. It's like getting it 1/2 price.



I finished gluing most of the pvc runs. The only parts not finished are the pump connection and the thru floor on the 4 runs. I have to wait until the flex pipe comes Friday and the tank gets here Monday to determine how to run the pipe and what connections I will need. I will probably need a couple more unions also.

Washed and dried 35# of sand I had laying around. I'm going to soak that in rodi when I get back from Bogota the end of next month and start filling the tank.

The fun part(not) will be soaking the rock in ivermectin. If you have seen the thread on spionid worms, you know what I'm talking about. Thread 'Safe Interceptor Dose | Coral Boring Spionid Worms.' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/safe-interceptor-dose-coral-boring-spionid-worms.1016413/

They seem to be getting worse. I have some new rock in the sump and some Australian rock in a seperate tank I will be glueing together. This will seed a bunch of bac if it goes south in the ivermectin. I will most likely have to remount a few pieces of coral to change up some things I currently don't like.
Fun times, fun times.

This should make my life a bit easier.

 

[Dburr1014]

I feel so overwhelmed and excited all at the same time! The tank arrived this morning.


Love the color. My house has a lot of wood in the house, it's going to match perfect.


I was hoping they wouldn't drop it, the guy stumbled on the sidewalk to flip his glasses off. My heart sunk for a second, OMG!

 

[Dburr1014]

Hmmm, these must have been built with the bulkheads in place. They're never coming out and the inside has no Rubber seal. Interesting. These are the tide line series external that come with planet aquariums.



Looks like 2.5" holes and 5.3/8" spread.

 

[Dburr1014]

I was really thinking about painting the inside of this canopy because my 75 gallon really deteriorated. This seems to be a better quality wood and it's got a really nice finish on the inside.
I realize by painting it white it'll reflect a lot more light but I'm not sure how this would look with the flip top if I painted it white. It hangs over the rim of the tank 2 in and I'm worried I might see some of that white if I paint it all the way to the bottom. If I decided to paint the upper half white and then when I opened the top it's going to look funny that way too.

 

[nuxx]

Looking like a blast, building for me was the most fun part.

 

[JGT]

I was really thinking about painting the inside of this canopy because my 75 gallon really deteriorated. This seems to be a better quality wood and it's got a really nice finish on the inside.
I realize by painting it white it'll reflect a lot more light but I'm not sure how this would look with the flip top if I painted it white. It hangs over the rim of the tank 2 in and I'm worried I might see some of that white if I paint it all the way to the bottom. If I decided to paint the upper half white and then when I opened the top it's going to look funny that way too.

FWIW, back in the day I had a 135 and I created a diy canopy for it and painted the inside white. Definitely protected the wood and reflected a lot of light into the tank. Here’s pics of it open and closed. Not exactly the same as yours but you’ll get the gist. I thought it looked fine.

 

[Dburr1014]

Well, the lights and balists work!



Yes, I'm going to think more about painting the canopy. I need all the light I can get in there!

 

[Lavey29]

Wow, great story, one step forward two steps back, talk about pursurverance. You are a true reefer....nice job

 

[ScottD]

I’d go ahead and paint it white. It’ll help with light reflection and long term protection. I’m not sure I personally would worry about the white being visible while open. Like JGT showed it’s probably not going to be that noticeable. But then again I’m an engineer and I’d always choose function over looks on something like that anyways.