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Its the DIY challenge!


CA2OR

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I'll bite, lemme get some pics as i go and it will take some more time as i am in the process of working on it. I will go through the setup of our water system setup at my shop. 250 gal of fresh and 250 gal of salt with circulation system and feed lines for customers out the front and the shop out the back. Also my DIY large volume DI resin system to filter it down to 0tds.

 

this is a system that could be adapted for anyone who does their water system at home.

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From the minds of kids. My kids and classroom are very budget minded so this is what they came up with. Very simple. We don't get silversides for the anemones so we usually use fillets of white fish or whatever is available. Since we have different sizes of anemones that eat different amounts the cut the fillet into anemone size pieces the freeze them in a flattened zip lock bag. That way when it is time to feed the anemones they can pick just the right size for the occasion and not have to go through the process of thawing out a big chunk and either overfeeding or refreezing the leftovers. My kids get quite creative with cutting down on time involved events. I am sure they will come up with more.

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Thought I would make a Build thread for the led light I made. My tank is 20x20x15". To figure out how many Leds you need, figure enough to have rows 2" apart front to back and 3" side to side. If you have a deep tank you might need to use optics and space the Leds a little closer to precent spotlighting. Such as a 80 or 60 degree lens. For my tank I went with 39 Cree q4s Leds. Most people do 1:1 white to blue, but I think the 2:1 turned out nice. I went with 13 royal blue and 26 white. The drivers I use are the Meanwell 48-60Ds. Each can run up to 13 leds in series. You will also need heatsinks (some people use a fan also). You can get almost everything from http://www.nanotuners.com/index.php?cPath=71 but if you look around you can find some of the parts cheaper.

 

I got my Heatsinks from http://www.heatsinkusa.com/ I went with two 8.5" by 17". These are pretty nice heatsinks

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Here is the Driver.

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They come from the factory set to 1.3A, but the max the leds can handle is 1000ma. Just take the top of the case off. Its held on with 4 screws. And turn the knob all the way counter clockwise. It should be just under 1000ma then. The other knob is to adjust the voltage. You have to figure out how much you need depending on how many Leds you have. Figure about 3.7 Volts per led.

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These drivers run off mains power. I just used some old PC power cords to wire them up. The drivers have 3 wires, so do the pc power cords (White Black Green). I soldered the White to Blue, Green to Green, Brown to Black.

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These can also be dimmed from a 10v power source. I just used a old 12vDC wall wart with a cheap LM317 off ebay. Just wire the wall wart to the LM317 and turn the dial down to 10V. You can use 1 wall wart and 1 LM317 for all the Drivers. So I went from this to two (one for blue and one for white) 5k pots then to the drivers dimming wires.

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I drilled and tapped the heatsinks for the LEDs. Used 4-40 drill and tap. Also used stainless machine screws and nylon washers to prevent grounding. Also use thermal grease before screwing them down. You only need about a rice size amount on each led. So a small $2 tube goes a long way. I also connected the two heatsinks with a piece of aluminum angle.

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Excuse the messy wiring. But to wire them all you wire them in series. So pos of one to the neg of the next and so on.

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Here it is all together

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We have power now.... Here is all the leds at half power

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All at full power

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Full Blue

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Full white

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Here it is all finished. I have all the lights just under half power. Looks bright enough, but havent been able to borrow a PAR meter yet. Still debating if I need to build a canopy to cover the lights. Hope this helps someone if they are thinking about building one.

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I guess this would qualify as a DIY. It's my water setup. I mounted my RO/DI on my shop wall then I got a food grade barrel from Trailer city on Columbia Blvd. (just a couple blks from Seahorse) and put a 3/4" bulkhead fitting & faucet in the bottom,on the left of the bbl is a 3/4" pvc 90 degree elbow with a garden hose hooked to that runs out the shop door.It's the same principle as a car radiator overflow,that way if the float fails the water will go out the overflow, run through garden hose to the outside instead of all over my shop floor. I have a garden hose adapter to hook the water supply line to, then the wastewater line will go to the swimming pool(should we ever get warm enough weather to take the winter cover off) The little white barrel is a 25 gal carboy that I got at Bader wine making supply in Vancouver($25.00 if I remember right) & put a bulkhead & faucet in it. I teed the fresh water line to go the either the blue barrel that is saltwater, and put a shut off valve in it so it does not pump fresh water into my mixed saltwater(I have a pump in it for circulating when I mix the salt water) or the white barrel that's fresh water for top off's(I don't have ato's) Then I used scrap lumber & built the stands the correct height for a 5 gal jug (salt) or a 1 gal jug(fresh) so I don't have to constantly monitor them when I fill them. I'm going to guess the total cost for everything including RO/DI unit,2 barrels,misc. fittings,extra water line about $200.00. P.S. there's also a squeegee in case of those oops moments!

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I made a swivel mount with magnets to mount a maxijet mod. So this is a mod to hold a mod!!!

 

I used a cheap plastic shower head.

 

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Took it apart and hacked some pieces off

 

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Since i was in the hacking mood i decided to figure out how to attach it to the MJ

 

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1/2" male PVC adapter

 

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Just need the threads!

 

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Presto

 

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Now for the magnet mount

 

This is just casting resin from a craft store

 

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Dixi cup

 

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Sticks out a little more than the standard Seio mount, but more versatile.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

DIY Kalk Reactor

 

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In the never ending quest to free the shackles of daily tank maintinance (no more dosing two part) and after some research, I decided on a kalk reactor. But, man those things are expensive who knew a piece of tube and a little pump could cost $200+

 

Enter the diy part. I did some talking to some people in the know, read other diy's, and looked at the ones at the lfs. Soon I had a pile of parts in my garage.

 

-4x24 acrilic tube

-1/4 clear acrilic

-mj400

-misc fittings

-1 1/4 union

 

The assembly went pretty smooth, one thing I remember from 7th grade plastics class is "the better the fit, the better the joint". The hardest part was figuring how to connect the pump to the the tube. (and I have a better idea for next time) Some of the pics are for visualization only (saw not running)

Feel free to ask any questions, give any critiques. This was fun, and I may build another just to get it a little better.

I just installed it tonight, so I will be adding updates.

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  • 2 weeks later...

diy project

 

here is my diy project... it is my sump/refugium for my 55gal tank...i made it out of a 10gal tank that i got from petco and bought a sheet of acrylic from home depot...divided it into three chambers. the first has my filter pad, bio balls and carbon pads in it with egg creat dividing them all... in the bottom of that chamber it has my pump for my skimmer...then to divide that one from the next i have a piece of acrylic... the tank is 12 1/2" tall so i made the top piece 8" then left a gap of about 2" then placed the bottom piece... the next chamber is the refugium made up of sand, live rock, sea weed and my heater...to divide it i placed a piece of acrylic from the bottom up about 8"...in the last chamber is my return pump...

 

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