Rick Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 These apply to the Pacific Coast 15.5 Gallon Model DMS-700 however depending upon the Nano tank they may apply to others as well. These upgrades do require a little electrical knowledge and the ability to solder a few wires together. If you decide to do these upgrades you are doing so at your own risk as well. Keep in mind that the fluorescent ballast voltages are much higher than the line voltage which could be a real shocking experience if your not careful. 1: Extra cooling: The hood for this tank only has one 2" 12v. fan yet there is an extra spot for a second fan. Go to your local electronics or computer store and pick up a second 2" fan and add it in. I turned the second fan upside down so it was pulling air in while the original fan pushes air out. This doesn't add much for airflow across the water as it is enclosed but it will help to keep heat from the lights out of the tank. Especially useful if you upgrade the lights. This will require a soldering iron but is pretty simple. Just solder the wires to the existing ones going out to the original fan. I'm not sure of the cost on this one offhand as I already had a second fan however the 2" pc fans are relatively inexpensive. (Probably less than $5) 2: Upgrade the lighting. The hood has 2 18 watt bulbs that are 9" long yet there is space to put 24 watt bulbs in that are a bit over 12" long. You might be able to simply plug in the 24 watt bulbs and have them work however when I tried to do so they would just flicker without starting. After giving it a little thought I went down to the store and picked up a package of 26 watt fluorescent spiral bulbs. These bulbs have the ballast contained in the base and cost me a whopping $5.99 for 2 of them. I popped the base apart and clipped the 2 wires coming from the socket side. The other 4 wires were just wrapped around the posts on the ballast. To wire them in I removed the ballast from the hood and then wired one end of the socket side to the wire coming in and the other to the switch. It's relatively easy to determine which 2 these are by following the wires from the ballast and the bulb in the hood (one of the 4 wires from the bulb is attached directly to the power coming in from the wall). Be sure to remove the wires leading to the bulb base. (leave the wire connected to the base but remove the opposite end) Now clip the remaining 2 wires from the base leading to the white sockets. leave a few inches connected to the base. Now you should have 4 wires from the bulb base that are not attached to anything. Looking at the spiral ballast you should see markings indicating post 1 through 4 (mine were marked A1-A4) where the spiral bulb was attached. Simply start at one side of the bulb base in the hood and attach the 4 wires to the ballast in order. (1st position to A1, second to A2, etc.) To isolate the ballast from touching the metal I cut the screw in portion off the spiral bulb base using a hacksaw. Then I put the spiral ballast down into the base and wrapped some electrical tape around it to keep it from falling out. I just set this into the area where the original hood ballast was removed and then reassembled the hood and tested it. Cost of this upgrade was $5.99 plus the cost of the 26 watt bulbs. The above may leave a few things to figure out on your own. For instance tracing out the wires to the ballast and the line in. If your unable to spot the ballast or figure out where the line in is then you probably should not be doing these upgrades anyway. They are meant more as ideas that I know can be done than as a comprehensive set of instructions. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reef165 Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 that is cool with the 24 watt light ballast, ya didnt happen to take any pic's did ya? do the 12 inch 24 watt bulbs come in blue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted June 27, 2009 Author Share Posted June 27, 2009 that is cool with the 24 watt light ballast' date=' ya didnt happen to take any pic's did ya? do the 12 inch 24 watt bulbs come in blue?[/quote'] No I didn't. If/When I do the second bulb I'll try to get a couple of pics. (For now I just did one) I've seen the 12" 24w bulbs in Actinic online. I don't recall seeing one at SWF though which is where I got the one I put in. Initially I was going to rob the ballast from a $10 shop light which could drive both with the dual 40w ballast however this ends up cleaner since the small spiral bulb ballast tucks back into the hood and is a little cheaper as well. Plus I can save the bulb itself and swap the ballast onto it after 10 months or so from my sump light. (Which happens to be the same bulb as well) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 Here's a link to our 14g Biocube mods on nanoreef.com. We did a ton of things, all of which were really cheap (except the sunpod) http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=185863 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted June 27, 2009 Author Share Posted June 27, 2009 Nice, Where did you get the submersible light? With a couple of those I could add some LR and make a small fuge back there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 We got it from a cheap pond supply store online.. it was about $18 with shipping. You can also find them on ebay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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