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Built a custom stand out of stainless steel. I’ll be painting it black this week. I had a shelf put in, in addition too welding in mounting plates for my Kessil AP arms. I left space for a 12” space to the left of the tank, directly below that I plan to place my ATO reservoir. Anyways, more pics when I make the move!
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Made the big move yesterday. Luckily no issues, it only took about 4 hours vs. the 8 I was expecting. I removed all the rock, 95% of the water and all the livestock. I was afraid I mixed up the sand a bit, my test today confirmed I went from 0-10 ppm nitrates. Oh well.
Bellow are some photos. I took a few shots of my custom mounts for the Kessil arms. I’m also extremely happy with my custom mounts for the controllers and power, the finished product is very clean.
I’ve done all but the last step. My custom hybrid light fixture arrives this week. When that goes in I’ll clean up the wiring and that will wrap up this upgrade
Bellow are some photos. I took a few shots of my custom mounts for the Kessil arms. I’m also extremely happy with my custom mounts for the controllers and power, the finished product is very clean.
I’ve done all but the last step. My custom hybrid light fixture arrives this week. When that goes in I’ll clean up the wiring and that will wrap up this upgrade
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Nice! You’ll love it, I know I love mine. The convenience of AIO but can still fit a lot of the big boy equipment!
Thanks! Man you’re lucky! Aquatic Collections is in my top 3 Bay Area stores.
I just started the cycle on mine, question for ya, have you had issues with the MP10s, it says the glass is too thick by like .02 or .002, cant remember off the top of my head.
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A couple big updates. I added it my Nanobox Hybrid finally and got an APEX EL.
I had previously built this stand around this light. I made custom mounts for the Kessil Arms and custom extensions to push the light out to the center of the tank. Happy to say it all worked out swimmingly.
Next up, the APEX! Lets start with the fact that I am a nerd. I work at an theme park running our maintenance and construction division, so I deal heavily in mechanical and controls related items on a daily basis. That being said, I was never too interested in a tank controller, I really wanted to keep it simple. However, my girlfriend the enabler, surprised me with an APEX EL as my anniversary gift. I wasn't too excited until I set it up and saw all it had to offer.
I started researching different ways people mounted their controllers and decided I wanted to bit more unique but still be budget friendly. I was inspired by my old computer builds. I found a thermaltake tower, this one specifically is a J23TG RGB Edition. It came with RGB fans and a tempered glass window. This baby ran 50$ on a black friday special. (There are similar towers for similar prices year round) It took a little DIY, I had to drill 4 holes to mount the Power Bar and the Brain. I used Double Sided tape to mount the other controllers.
These newer towers have a "False Bottom" that can hide all the cables and power supplies. (This area is generally reserved for the CPU Power supply and Hard Drives) I have 4 bricks down there, there is room for probably 2 more.
Here is everything mounted up and cables routed.
Finally, the devil is in the details. I got this case in particular because it has 3 RGB cooling fans. Thermaltake provides its own proprietary control board and adapters. I had my soldering iron at home so I went to work. I got this module, controller and power supply from amazon, they run about 10 bucks. The amazon controller (most common LED controllers) are wired RGB+ I believe, the thermaltake was wired BRG+. I cut the connectors off the fans and made a new harness, you can see the controller sitting on the floor just behind the tower.
Here's pretty much the final project. Including the wiring, the mounting, the soldering and the programming in only took about 4 hours. I'm pretty happy for now, I believe its clean and super budget friendly for those of you looking for options. The lights can fade and strobe etc, the fans are on a 12v powersupply if I want to run them and everything is tucked away and organized inside, behind the glass. There are a ton more cool little features about this tower, but if your're interested in doing something similar, Ill let you find out on your own
Let me know what you think!
I had previously built this stand around this light. I made custom mounts for the Kessil Arms and custom extensions to push the light out to the center of the tank. Happy to say it all worked out swimmingly.
I started researching different ways people mounted their controllers and decided I wanted to bit more unique but still be budget friendly. I was inspired by my old computer builds. I found a thermaltake tower, this one specifically is a J23TG RGB Edition. It came with RGB fans and a tempered glass window. This baby ran 50$ on a black friday special. (There are similar towers for similar prices year round) It took a little DIY, I had to drill 4 holes to mount the Power Bar and the Brain. I used Double Sided tape to mount the other controllers.
These newer towers have a "False Bottom" that can hide all the cables and power supplies. (This area is generally reserved for the CPU Power supply and Hard Drives) I have 4 bricks down there, there is room for probably 2 more.
Here is everything mounted up and cables routed.
Finally, the devil is in the details. I got this case in particular because it has 3 RGB cooling fans. Thermaltake provides its own proprietary control board and adapters. I had my soldering iron at home so I went to work. I got this module, controller and power supply from amazon, they run about 10 bucks. The amazon controller (most common LED controllers) are wired RGB+ I believe, the thermaltake was wired BRG+. I cut the connectors off the fans and made a new harness, you can see the controller sitting on the floor just behind the tower.
Here's pretty much the final project. Including the wiring, the mounting, the soldering and the programming in only took about 4 hours. I'm pretty happy for now, I believe its clean and super budget friendly for those of you looking for options. The lights can fade and strobe etc, the fans are on a 12v powersupply if I want to run them and everything is tucked away and organized inside, behind the glass. There are a ton more cool little features about this tower, but if your're interested in doing something similar, Ill let you find out on your own
Let me know what you think!
That’s really cool and unique. I have the same tank. I also like what you did with the scape. I had those same rocks and I struggled mightily trying to make a scape I liked. Ended up scraping those rocks and going in a different direction. Yours looks really good.
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Happy New Year! My tank is doing well thankfully. I started dosing 2-Part about a month ago via Neptune DOS. Its been dialed in and working great. I added a few SPS to see how the system would handle and Im already seeing impressive coloration ad growth. Along with that I did a slight rescape now featuring 3 islands and much more open space. I got ride of about 10lbs of rock. I made an order with Budman's over this holiday weekend (Cabin Fever), great customer service. Cant wait to get them in later this week. I also picked up a Reeflens, which is why I can take pictures of stuff other than equipment now haha.
@Ikikimo I really like what you've been able to put together, drawing on your different inspirations from aquatics, welding, PC building, etc. I'm also pretty jealous of your custom mounts for your light. I have the Innovative Marine 60g and need an extra 4-6" to get my lights centered in my tank but I think custom may be the only way to get what I'm looking for. Watching how yours progresses!
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