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Well my house is mine, buying it, so no worries there.. So I have the room and all the permission in the world. My housemate has a cichlid tank (60gal) up and running In the room we have designated for this project. The most affordable option I found was at Petsmart for a tank actually. a 37gallon kit for 99 dollars on sale. Or if the kit won't have anything useful to me beyond the tank Petco has their $1-Galon promotion still going on. I can pick through their stuff and find something 30gal range on the cheap. I seen a lot of good stuff on craigs, the biggest trouble I have there is I have no way to get what I find to my house. The only pickup to which I have access is a drat standard. As for building a stand, I've previously done some work in the HVAC trade so had to build stands for AC units. I'm perfectly comfortable building my own stand and full well intend to do just that. I'd like to avoid the MH lights. I've dealt with those bastards before and bumping one once in a life is enough for me to realize I hate them. So I'd like to go the alternate route for lighting. My brother is a certified electrician so He can easily fabricate a nice over-tank hood for me once pointed in the right direction, thanks to this thread that should also be no problem. I'll start browsing Reef central to see what information I can pick up there also.
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Oct 12, 2011 23:01
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Terminal Philosphy posted:I'll start browsing Reef central to see what information I can pick up there also. Yeah, if you haven't been reading there I would put any purchases off 2-3 months. You'll thank yourself later. Internet Explorer fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Oct 12, 2011 |
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Oct 12, 2011 23:18
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Reef Central really is the Mecha for all things salt water and reef related.
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Oct 12, 2011 23:38
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Terminal Philosphy posted:I'd like to avoid the MH lights. I've dealt with those bastards before and bumping one once in a life is enough for me to realize I hate them. So I'd like to go the alternate route for lighting. My brother is a certified electrician so He can easily fabricate a nice over-tank hood for me once pointed in the right direction, thanks to this thread that should also be no problem. Oh yeah, I don't like to use MH either, but MH is pretty much the easiest way to make sure you have the light. Cheapest start-up cost, but too expensive in the long run. Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to do a reefledlights.com build for my next project.
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Oct 13, 2011 00:17
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I have a Current SunPod 150w halide for sale with a phoenix 14k. $100 + shipping for goons. Also, if you're gunna get a 37 gallon for $99 just wait until Petco has the $1/gallon sale. Got my 40br for 40bux. Can't beat that.
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Oct 13, 2011 21:01
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SaNChEzZ posted:I have a Current SunPod 150w halide for sale with a phoenix 14k. $100 + shipping for goons. Thats tempting but I will probably never do another MH reef tank unless its a huge tank and I need 400w MH's. Cheap initial cost but holy gently caress, I remember doing a nor cal summer with that 250w MH over my 18" cube and God drat. Even with the AC blasting my room was a furnace - I had to adjust my photo period from 11am to 11pm (which I had set up because I liked evening viewing) to 8am to 8pm or my room would never cool down.
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Oct 13, 2011 21:07
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cheese posted:Thats tempting but I will probably never do another MH reef tank unless its a huge tank and I need 400w MH's. Cheap initial cost but holy gently caress, I remember doing a nor cal summer with that 250w MH over my 18" cube and God drat. Even with the AC blasting my room was a furnace - I had to adjust my photo period from 11am to 11pm (which I had set up because I liked evening viewing) to 8am to 8pm or my room would never cool down. Yep, I ditched it for LEDs because my tank would get up to like 84 with that drat light over it in my hot living room. Haven't seen temps above 80 yet with the new setup 
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Oct 13, 2011 21:28
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Between LED's, which are getting more efficient and cheaper with each passing year, and fantastically reliable/cheap T5's, MH are just never the answer now.
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Oct 13, 2011 21:31
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cheese posted:Between LED's, which are getting more efficient and cheaper with each passing year, and fantastically reliable/cheap T5's, MH are just never the answer now. I really like the color that 14k phoenix gives off, my LEDs don't even compare, even with a "14k" mix.
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Oct 13, 2011 21:33
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I love the 40B size for a good nano, and the local Petco is doing another $1/gal sale this month. I'd never be able to float it past the family though.
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Oct 13, 2011 21:43
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If I remember right, the PetCo $1/g sale is for Perfecto brand tanks. I've yet to have a problem with my Perfecto 29g or 40b, but I know some people prefer Aqueon tanks as they are supposed to have marginally better build quality.
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Oct 13, 2011 22:30
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I still love the 8 bulb T5 fixtures for color over a MH anyday. You may not get the shimmer you want from a MH, but definitely the PAR and a way better growth/color. Gah I cant wait to upgrade to a 300~cube. :3
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Oct 14, 2011 05:37
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SaNChEzZ posted:I really like the color that 14k phoenix gives off, my LEDs don't even compare, even with a "14k" mix. Well, theoretically you should be able to use some combination of blue and white LED's to get pretty much that exact color.
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Oct 14, 2011 06:18
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cheese posted:Well, theoretically you should be able to use some combination of blue and white LED's to get pretty much that exact color. Yeah I know, It's just the shimmer of the LEDs kinda gives off white/blue shimmers where as the 14k MH is one color. I dunno, to each his own haha.
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Oct 17, 2011 23:28
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SaNChEzZ posted:Yeah I know, It's just the shimmer of the LEDs kinda gives off white/blue shimmers where as the 14k MH is one color. I dunno, to each his own haha. Color seperation means the LEDs are too far apart or too close to the water.
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Oct 18, 2011 12:41
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ludnix posted:Color seperation means the LEDs are too far apart or too close to the water. I also have a cheap fixture that has 1row of blue and 1 row of white, no blending. This will soon change when I build my own!
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Oct 18, 2011 19:34
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I like the reefledlights offerings because they literally do the "buy absolutely everything you need to put together a lighting fixture from us here" thing. Everything from tapped/drilled heatsinks to the sealant spray (if you're not going to use their splashguard). Prices are reasonable on most/all the components, comparable to what I paid when I did the DIY on my smaller tanks.
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Oct 19, 2011 00:21
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RapidLED did just come out with some nifty solderless kits that use molex connectors and terminal blocks so you can easily piece together a light if you're capable of following simple instructions.
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Oct 19, 2011 21:28
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That's pretty cool even if they still use wires soldered on to stars. It's a bit more fool-proof than the BJB connectors (where you still have to be sure you have the right terminals in the right order).
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Oct 19, 2011 22:20
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Can anyone tell me what this could be? It's in my housemate's tank and he doesn't know what it is specifically. I figure something similar would make a good addition to my nano, as he doesn't look after his tank at all and it is still alive somehow.
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Oct 20, 2011 07:11
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Looks like an goniopora to me! Fun corals, but can be hard to take care of. Make sure you spot feed!
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Oct 20, 2011 07:38
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Exactly two months of growth:
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Nov 4, 2011 21:54
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Very nice. Is this the formerly GHA-covered tank? How did you deal with it in the end? As far as LEDs go I'm actually now thinking about jumping on board with the AI Sol units since their September price reduction ($399 a unit) which brings them to just above quality DIY pricing. The new Phoenix units they're showing off in prototypes seem to be slightly less powerful per footprint due to the realities of the thinner design, and their new wireless controller seems to be backportable to the AI Sol units. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Nov 4, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 22:20
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arioch posted:Very nice. Not so covered, but it's there. It's cut back a lot though. I started rinsing the mysis before feedings, not feeding an entire cube (which is kinda hard with the super slow eating mandarin I picked up after the first jumped) and even the flameback angel nips at it every now and then. So slowly with lots of hand cleanings and a new maintenance/feeding routine it's almost all gone. I'm gunna be picking up a kit from Aquastyleonline.com sometime within the next couple weeks for the 40br that's finally gotten under way. It's around $160 shipped for 32x3w Luxeon LEDs, drivers, heatsinks and everything needed to get them wired and working. Closeup of the slimer (it's grown even more in the three weeks since that comparison was made):  Here's another frag I picked up for $15, starting to get into SPS now that there's not GHA coming out of my powerheads haha.  It's about 1.5x taller than the slimer. Frozen Pizza Party fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Nov 4, 2011 |
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Nov 4, 2011 22:48
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My slimer looked almost exactly like that before I transferred it into my larger tank. It almost died (due to low alk and later high PH as a result of correcting the low alk), and now it is sort of purple with bright green polyps. Still looks healthy though.
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Nov 4, 2011 23:59
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Like SaNChEzZ, I've also started SPS. I collected some frags from local reefers, I picked up a variety to see how each one does in my tank. I also snagged some $1 brown frags from my LFS which have already coloured up really well. Here's a shot of my tank with the two frag racks: Right frags:  Left frags (the milli has '80s hot-pink colouration): 
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Nov 6, 2011 23:39
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I was looking over frags one day and left the magnify window open. My mom passed by, saw the images, and later asked me what sex toy website had bright blue nibbly-covered toys.
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Nov 7, 2011 20:21
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Cowslips Warren posted:I was looking over frags one day and left the magnify window open. My mom passed by, saw the images, and later asked me what sex toy website had bright blue nibbly-covered toys.  What did she think the polyps were used for?
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Nov 8, 2011 03:34
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arioch posted:As far as LEDs go I'm actually now thinking about jumping on board with the AI Sol units since their September price reduction ($399 a unit) which brings them to just above quality DIY pricing. I was looking at doing a DIY LED setup, but you got me looking at the Sol units. My interest was piqued even more when I saw they are controlled via a serial cable. I'm using a custom controller that has the ability to talk over a serial port, but unfortunately AI is being tight-lipped with what commands the lights respond to. Their support guy said they only work with Neptune Systems, GHL Profilux, and Digital Aquatics. I suppose I could buy their controller, but keeping all the control in one place and saving $80 with a few lines of code would have been neat. I don't suppose anyone here knows the AI Sol serial command set?
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Nov 9, 2011 18:47
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Just wanted to stop by and say that the AI Sol Super Blues are fantastic. I've got three units over a 150 gallon, mostly running at around 75%, and the coloration and growth I'm seeing is excellent. The fact that they only put out a negligible amount of heat is also a huge plus down here in sunny Georgia.
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Nov 10, 2011 03:50
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I bought a pair of the Super Blue units off some guy who was taking down his systems because he was moving across the country. Now I'm waiting for the hanging kit and 36" mounting rails to come from Premium Aquatics.
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Nov 10, 2011 03:57
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Man I wish I'd snapped a pic of our tank this morning. I scraped like 1.5 months worth of crap off the glass with a razor today. It had gotten to the point where we could no longer see the fish. The powerhead was so clogged that it wasn't even blowing anymore. The water was basically stagnant minus the return pump's feeble trickle. The skimmer cup was 100% full. When I added 5 gallons of water it didn't return fast enough and came up to the lid. Took me like an hour and a half to clean up it, it's lookin' pretty good now. I've basically ignored it for the past 3-4 months except to add water and food.
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Nov 10, 2011 05:22
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arioch posted:I bought a pair of the Super Blue units off some guy who was taking down his systems because he was moving across the country. Now I'm waiting for the hanging kit and 36" mounting rails to come from Premium Aquatics. Hanging kit apparently just made it to Florida, from Indiana, on its way to Illinois.
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Nov 10, 2011 18:03
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A fellow reefer in my local club just finished a fantastic DIY LED setup that was very cheap relative to other projects of similar quality. I would definitely give it a check. The guy is very handy but always open to questions. Original Post: http://www.o-r-c-a.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19316 \/ \/ \/        I believe the pics from the post are from a DIY thread in ReefCentral, but he has since replicated the unite for his own fixture. Here is that ReefCentral Thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1928659&page=2
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Nov 10, 2011 18:36
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Do LEDs really throw off enough heat that you'd need such extensive cooling setups?
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Nov 11, 2011 12:48
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SynthOrange posted:Do LEDs really throw off enough heat that you'd need such extensive cooling setups? I think they do make whatever they are attached to pretty hot. It's just different because it is not projecting the heat toward the water, or something. And they're still not as hot a MH or T5. I know the LED bulb that I have that has 5 3w LEDs and a heatsink, and screws into a normal bulb outlet, gets pretty hot when you turn it on.
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Nov 11, 2011 14:26
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It's not that put out a lot of heat comparably, but they put it out in a very small area, thus requiring cooling on that small area.
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Nov 11, 2011 20:05
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SynthOrange posted:Do LEDs really throw off enough heat that you'd need such extensive cooling setups? The AI units have cooling fans intended to disperse heat from the LEDs. However, when I put my hand against them, the output from the fans seems to be approximately room temperature (~70 degrees here). In my experience so far, the heat profile from the LEDs is just a hair shy of "negligible." The big box of 78 degree water in my office is putting out way more heat than the lighting system.
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Nov 12, 2011 04:26
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I have 2 LED fixtures that don't include fans and if they're on full blast they get pretty hot after about an hour. Not so hot that I can't keep my hand on them for an extended time but they're not to far from that. The biggest issue I'm aware of from over heating LEDs is that supposedly it can cut thier lifespan down significantly, as much as half.
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Nov 12, 2011 07:15
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Elem7 posted:I have 2 LED fixtures that don't include fans and if they're on full blast they get pretty hot after about an hour. Not so hot that I can't keep my hand on them for an extended time but they're not to far from that. Yeah, the heat problem isn't like MH where you're more or less trying to keep your water temperature down. LEDs need to be kept cool themselves or else they'll have lifespan/burnout problems.
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Nov 12, 2011 20:27
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