AlanM

Hope so. I'd thought about 2 MP40's, but I really liked the idea of controlling everything with the Apex and didn't want to buy an additional box to do it. Also, I don't trust my kids to not constantly be messing with the cords on the dry sides of them since they'd be basically out there in the middle of the ends of the tank. I'm worried that these will be kind of eye sores in my desired rimless and minimal-hardware-showing build, but hopefully not.

Vince from Quantum Reefs came by last Saturday to drop off most of my order to get me started after planning and changing my mind multiple times between July and now. So far I've got a tank (Deep Blue Edge 75 non reef ready): and a box of parts: which consists of Apex, extra VDM, couple Eheim Jager 250W heaters, Reeflo Blowhole 1450 return pump, 2 Tunze 6095 controllables, and some other small bits. They're bringing two boxes of reeflakes too. Also have a CS1 to build (or trade for a built and modified one to Zygote2k when I have him out for a consultation), Swabbie, Davy Jones' Locker, Avast MR5, Avast Deluxe ATO. It's going to go on this wall: where the green taped rectangle is on the floor. At the moment I'm planning to drill the top rear of the tank and silicone in some glass panes to make an internal Bean overflow. I'm going to put the drain pipes in the wall behind the tank. The drains and returns will emerge from the wall rather than being visible behind the tank. The other side of that wall is the fridge, so I'll put a panel on the wall that I can remove to get to the plumbing for cleanouts by rolling the fridge out of the way. I'm going to try to run the overflows down to the basement which will involve a 10 foot horizontal run that is less slope than ideal for the full siphon part of the BeanAnimal overflow, so I'll just see if it works and move it up under the tank if it doesn't. Also going to do DIY LEDs, probably Phillips Rebel ES from Stevesleds with Meanwell LDD-1000H drivers and a Makersled heatsink (www.makersled.com) and 6 colors of dimming because I'll have a lot of fun playing with the colors.

I'm confused at why the RO/DI would be putting out phosphates. Was your TDS meter still showing 0 while it was testing positive for phosphates?

So was the diagnosis that it was the biopellets, or phosphate in the rocks or in the rodi output?

Avast CS2, which is what I think he has, is supposed to be a strong skimmer, and they market the CS1 specifically with a biopellet reactor suggested in front of it. In his case, the cloudiness seems like it effectively converting nutrient to bacteria, but it just wasn't being removed from the system like it was supposed to be, so you must be right on the cause, it must just take a much bigger skimmer needed to get that bacteria out. Maybe the recommended tank sizes should be adjusted way down if someone is carbon dosing with vodka or biopellet or whatever.

Why wasn't the skimmer removing all of that bacteria or whatever it was making all of the cloudiness? I thought the point of running the bio pellet reactor as the feeder to the skimmer was that the skimmer would then pull out the bacteria and be a form of nitrate removal.

Not Cat5. Cat6. They'd both handle the voltage just fine. We run power over IP from our Cisco routers at 48V and it works just fine. It's the current that you have to worry about. Cat6 uses 23 ga wire which is apparently good to 700ma at least, but it seems like it would do 1000ma if you weren't running it over a long distance. I'd put the drivers and power supply and stuff under the tank, not in the basement. maybe fishman65 can weigh in on this one. I think I'm going to do 3-ups from Steves where you can solder individually and put Cyan/Blue/Red on one chip with no optics. I assumed that you were doing the premade OCW stars from LEDGroupBuy which are all soldered in series. The Red ones are 2V, and the other Rebels are all around 3V, the violet ones seem to be all a bit over 3v, the Cree are all a bit over 3v, but the voltage actually changes a bit depending on the current you're driving them at. The spec sheets are all available online. I hadn't settled on a power supply yet, but it's hard to beat Steve's price for that 400W one. I may give up the opportunity to mount them all on a DIN rail with the wiring to not spend about 3x the price.

Would the mirror confuse the fish and upset the ones that don't like similar species sharing the tank?

By the way, where's the surface tube? Is it removable?

How can I get notified any time paul b posts anything? Is there a way to do that? I read this and then went back and read some of his older stuff, and it's great. I'd like to stalk his posts.

Your setup sounds almost exactly like what I'm trying to build for over my upcoming 75g. Be warned that the UV seem to be a big higher in voltage than the Rebel's, so from what I can see I can only get 6 of them per string if I'm using a 24v power supply, not 7. Also, the OCW chips from LEDGroupbuy are in the mid 8's per star, so you could only get 2 of those, not 3 on one of Steve's 24v channels. You might want to go with only 6 or 8 of those if using Steves, not 7. I was going to use a DIN rail terminal blocks for wiring between power supplies and drivers and maybe end up buying some Meanwell DIN mounted power supplies from store.bravoelectro.com which are more expensive than Steves, but not a ton more, and sure would make it look cleaner. Then from the drivers to the heatsink I'd use Cat6 ethernet patch cables which have 23g conductors and 8 conductors in each cable, so 4 series of 6 or 7 LEDs in each cable. I'd punch them down onto the back of a RJ45 modular jack on a little punch panel attached to the DIN rail and then run patch cables between that and the heatsink. On the heatsink I'd put another small punch panel and wire up the strings onto the back of it with regular 22 or 23G hookup wire. From your config it looks like you'd end up with 10-11 series of LEDs, so that would be 3 Cat6 jacks with a couple of conductors left over to wire up a fan or two on top of the heatsink. I think it would look nice. Also, thefishman65 here has a bunch of experience with this stuff, but I don't. He has lots of really good ideas on his wiki page linked elsewhere. One of them was to put a 5 watt, 1 ohm resistor in each series. Then you can just measure the voltage drop across this resistor while the string is running to know exactly how much current you're running through the string. I'm going to do that for sure. I'll put a two terminal blocks between the drivers and my Cat6 punch panel and put resistors between them so that I can go down the line checking currents.

I think those clips are basically made of unobtanium at this point, but since I want to do that with my tank which is arriving, I am going to try to make some in our machine shop out of stainless stock. If I succeed, I'll put up a post offering to make them for folks like Muddy357 and trockafella here who have rimless tanks.

On the rimless one you're getting from Amuze, you might want to think about clips like the "ADA Cube Garden Hooks" and a screen just under the top edge: http://www.thegreenmachineonline.com/products/aquatics/aquariums-stands/cube-garden-hooks/ada-cube-garden-hooks-8mm I'm getting a rimless Deep Blue, and I think I'm going to ask Adam to make me a clear acrylic frame that I'll install some clear mesh on and put it just under the rim.

Yasha haze goby and candy stripe pistol shrimp would be fun instead of the yellow watchman goby. That's what the Quantum Reefs guys suggested to me for my incoming tank and I think they have them at the moment.

Aquarium One in Rockville apparently have 3 over their huge tank if you want to see them, according to their Facebook. Also, I think I remember Steve at Quantum reefs saying they had gotten one over their frag tank if you're in VA.

Great job, Ryan. Just think about all the research you can do in the next 10 years to get ready to do the ultimate tank once you're settled down more. Hate to rain on your newly responsible parade, but you said you're going to have kids... don't look into how much daycare costs if you don't want to start crying again. It's more than college, but you don't have 18 years to save for it.

Rob, I can't picture what two one piece granite surrounds stacked means. You mean they cut two pieces of granite into a U shape and put them one on top of the other around the base of he tank? I hadn't seen Chris Tran's tank before, but that's a good example. I figured out the one I was picturing. I dimly remembered a mermaid in it, so I searched on that and came up with epleeds big Miracles tank with his kids in it. It doesn't have granite around it, I misremembered that part, but it is what I was thinking of.

ridetheducati, you quarantine corals. Do you bayer dip, then quarantine to observe, then bayer again? Or any other dips? Do you have lights over your quarantine sufficient to keep the corals happy until display and such? I've been enjoying reading about your fish quarantine routine. Do you have some routine for soft and hard corals?

Someone had a build here in the last 6 months with a new acrylic tank, I think, that they put on a stand in their living room and put kind of a rim of granite around the top of the stand to hide the trim on the bottom of the tank. I'm pitching that idea to my wife, but she's dubious that it would look right. Does anyone remember who's build that was?

Rob, do you put two of the 1500's into the same 265, so four total installed?

Is this a "feature" of in-sump single pass skimmers or recirc ones too?

I know what you mean, but mine doesn't seem to be like that. It's a SquareD panel, don't remember the model, but the kind where you put the breakers in with a round clip and then pop the other side in. It seems like they put most of the big breakers on the left, which is 1 neutral each for a bunch of large breakers. So the neutral bar on that side is fairly empty, but the strain relief clamps leading in to that side are pretty full with 1 large cable each, so I think that's the deal. Then they put the individual breakers on the right with 1 neutral each, so like 15 of them on that side and 6-7 on the left side. Also, the neutral is a 2 level bar and they used up the front screw terminals rather than the back ones, so it's heck to try to sneak another neutral behind them and route the cables nicely along the side of the box. You're right, I'd have to move stuff around to put the generator backveed breaker up at the top if I wanted to put in an interlock plate.

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.