AlanM

I called the company that did my heavy up and installed a new panel and they wanted a grand for a transfer switch to handle my little 3500W portable generator. I've seen interlocks online which is basically a metal plate that screws to the front of the panel and keeps you from turning the main breaker and the generator feed breaker on at the same time. They claim it satisfies code, but since that differs depending on the place I don't see how that could be true.

Did he swallow any? Wonder if he will have trouble passing it.

Supposedly the arc detection method gives false positives when some motors/pumps first start. Think that's the only reason.

Actually, that's dumb. Neutral is bound to ground at the panel. Seems like switching off the main breaker if it was interlocked in some way so that the breaker that you're running the generator in on could not be on at the same time would work.

OK. Will follow the advice here and run 2 circuits to the sump and run a leg upstairs from 1 of them and put GFCI outlets on them. Somehow when the electricians did the heavy-up on my panel a couple of years ago they managed to use up the entire neutral bus on one side and very few on the other side, but the breakers are full on the other side. Not sure how that worked out. It violates my sense of order to put the breaker and hot on one side and run the white neutral over to the other side of the box, but I suppose it's all the same thing. Does anyone know if Melev's power panel linked earlier where he used outlet boxes with GFCI outlets wired with Romex and a plug on the end to individually switched American DJ strip is a violation of good judgement? The biggest weirdness to me would be using solid conductor on the plug or stranded conductor on the outlet... Also, Bill, if you run a generator for your fish in a power outage do you switch off the breaker and then just inject power into one of your fish outlets that you know is not isolated from the meter and the pole? Seems like that might work, but you'd still have the neutral continuous at the panel, so it seems like you should really have a disconnect for both neutral and hot.

Do you do the bayer dip on corals? Hard and soft?

Maxspect razor 160w would look awful nice over a 40 breeder. It's so pretty.

It's not that far from panel to tank. About 30 feet. Yes AWG14 wire. Also have some 12, but probably would have to buy some more to get from the panel to the sump area. Could use what I have now to get from the sump to the tank. I know an arc-fault circuit breaker is no good for an aquarium. I think NEC has it called for mainly in bedrooms with lamps and clocks and things. I guess I was curious if I was leaving out big power consumers and was also curious what some had installed to run their tanks.

http://www.advanceda...paign=clickthru Very comprehensive article about lighting for corals that explains what the different types of bulbs bring to the table including a discussion of the light absorption of zooxanthellae. One interesting fact that I got from the article is that while "white" LEDs are actually a blue LED with a yellow phosphor coating, which we perceive as white, it's also possible to get something we would perceive as white from red and cyan or from green and magenta. The article also talks about CCT, CRI, and lots of other light related terms. Also, see this post, first one in the thread, by Milad from LEDGroupBuy which has lots of interesting graphics about the different proteins and types of chlorophyll and what wavelenghts they absorb: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/294733-full-spectrum-led-tank-pictures/#entry3740354

Hey, I forgot about those switch/outlet combos. I have one in my bathroom for the fan and the hair dryer, but my switch doesn't switch the outlet on and off. It can be wired to the load or line side of the outlet, though (mine is currently on the load side, so the fan is protected), so maybe I could put it upstream of the load side of the GFCI and make it switch the hot leg of the outlet on and off. Hmm. So Melev puts a GFCI outlet plugged into each channel of his DJ strips and mounts them all in a panel. Guess that would work. Another decent idea.

Right. I could get like a 6 gang box and put a bunch of GFCI outlets in there, but I'd also like the convenience of being able to power things off with an American DJ power strip which plugs into one outlet. If they had one of those with individual GFCI resets, that would be great, but probably cost a ton.

I'm beginning the install of a new tank very soon. I'm thinking I'll need an additional circuit, maybe 2. Are there some DO's and DO-NOT's with installing new power to a sump location in a fish room and to a display tank? Also, how much power is enough? Is there a good reason for having different things on two or more different circuits in case one blows so as to help save the tank? I'm going to have: 2 250W heaters in sump 1 150W heater in new saltwater vessel 1 250W LED install 1 Reeflo Blowhole 1450 (160W max) 2 Tunze 6095 powerheads (42W total) 1 CS1 skimmer with Sicce recirc pump (60W) 1 Feed pump for said skimmer plus a couple reactors (Eheim Compact + 2000) (35W) 1 Avast ATO (around 3W) 1 Swabbie (3W) 1 Apex (guessing 20-30W?) 3 small utility pumps for moving/mixing saltwater and RO/DI water around (60W total) So that's about 1300W total if everything was running all at once. That's well within the capacity of a 15A circuit, and since I have a bunch of 15A Romex, that's what I'm inclined to install with one outlet near the sump for the utility stuff and one outlet under the tank for powerheads and lights. Also, I know for safety it's good to have GFCI circuits. I'm not inclined to put that in the circuit box, but I'm hesitant to use it for the outlets either because I don't want to lose the entire power for the tank if something trips it. I could use a separate GFCI per device, but that seems kind of crazy too. I could always have two different outlets and put the critical stuff like the return pump and one of the heaters on a non-GFCI outlet and put the others on a GFCI outlet, I guess. What do most people do?

Those paly's on the bottom right are getting ready to take over. They really spread in that time. The little yellow acro frag just above your orange fish is way more colorful in the second pic even though it doesn't look too much bigter, and it's neat to see 3 spikes instead of 2 on the orange one just above and to the left of the clownfish in the second pic. The purple one up top is way bigger too.

Here ya go: http://premiumaquatics.com/aquatic-supplies/GM-40_281_833.html

BTW, the new black-tip reef looks like it will be awesome. All of the escalators take you over the water, so it will be pretty cool. I'm going to send them some feedback about our first time experience. First thing: It must be a great place to work because every single person, without exception, that was working there could not be nicer or more helpful or more knowledgeable. They even had a pile of super friendly people at the coat/stroller check and lots pointing out where to go when you arrive, even outside in the cold. Second: About the strollers. I get why they don't want you to have them. The elevators are kind of limited and if everyone had them, it would be a mob scene. Also, it's probably pretty crowded at times in there. But if you're going to force people to give up the strollers I think you should put in huge letters on the front page of the web site that strollers are not allowed. We looked it over fairly carefully and never saw anything about that. What if someone came from out of town with 2 little kids? They gave you these Kelty toddler backpacks for free, which about killed my shoulders after 15 minutes, but it was still a nice attempt for them. Maybe if I spent more time adjusting it or something... Until lunch I was prepared to say that I was disappointed that they didn't have more tanks because we rode the elevator up to the top of the huge Atlantic reef tank and walked down those ramps. We totally missed the individual tanks that lead up to the top of the reef. It was an accident that we decided to head to the top of the ramps and do it the long way, and I was able to see all of the nice exhibits. The octopus was great and now I know why a longhorn cow fish needs such a big tank. They start teeny, but the one there was huge.

Here are a few videos from the trip today. 1. Jellyfish exhibit: http://youtu.be/1DrMAof8n0g 2. Eel feeding in the atlantic reef tank: http://youtu.be/nVC09_oQnIo 3. More eel feeding in the atlantic reef tank: http://youtu.be/a5aVLe4qZwY

Do you notice the eductors on the locline doing much to the flow or is it hard to tell?

Stick your tongue in the bucket or something else sensitive and see if it tingles. 8)

Tanks for the tips. Just joined. Looking forward to jumping the line in the morning. They open at 9 tomorrow instead of 10 so I guess they expect a crowd.

Wait, this says up to 52v out, so a 48v power supply should work? http://www.meanwell.com/search/LDD-H/LDD-H-spec.pdf

Been looking at power supplies for those drivers online and it looks like Steve's are so cheap he must get them off the back of a truck. A 100w 36v looks like about 55 dollars compared to Steve's 400w 24v for 50. Not sure the cost savings for the drivers running at 24v so 6-7 per driver would make up for it with wires going all over. Your 8 channel 24v driver for $50 is comparable. A 400w 36v power supply for around $50 would change the deal, though.

Good grief. What kind of heater? Can you put it in a bucket and check for voltage?

By the way, have you seen these? The pwm LED nerds on reef central are a flutter over them. So cheap, and such a large voltage range. Apparently really tiny too. http://store.bravoelectro.com/ledpowersupplydriverconstantcurrent-ldd700hbrleddriver956vdcin252vdcout700maconstantcurrent-p-1824.html

Right. I should just give in and do the full dynamical scattering calculations on the bare LEDs, and then I'll tell you what the par meter will measure. 8) Actually if I got a ray tracing algorithm up I bet people would find it useful. Will ask the math guys at work how hard that would be to simulate.

Right. Spec sheets for the Luxeon and the Cree lenses as shipped show what looks like a FWHM (Full Width Half Maximum, not modulation. You're a PWM electronics guy, but I do particle scattering and diffraction) in a 120 degree spread with the 50% intensity point at +60 and -60. If a 60 degree lens was similar with a gaussian 60 degree and the 50% intensity point at +30 degrees and -30 then I was calculating it right and I'd end up with 50 percent of the center intensity at a radius of 17 inches from center on the sandbed if they were 12 inches above my water (30 inches above the sand). That seems pretty large, I'm just not sure what most people use as the intensity boundary of the spread, if you know what I mean. Do they calculate where the light drops by 75% and call that the useful spread? Guess you also have to account for the fact that the interior surface of the glass will reflect some back into the aquarium if it's coming in at a shallow enough angle, so you probably get less spill than the first order geometry would indicate.