NateDawg

13 hours ago, talkalot82 said:

Depending on how hot it is a couple hours I normally put in a litter bottle.  I just keep a couple of them around in the freezer and I rotate them. If it was my big tank I'd probably in myself put in 2 two liters. But depending on how warm it is things can change. So just keep an eye on it. I really only needed when it gets really hot outside. Other than that The fan holds it okay.

Hmmm, I'm out of the house multiple days sometimes so I think I'd need something that would last a bit longer, but that does seem to be the cheapest option so far.

1 hour ago, Saltfishlover said:

High lights? Flow?  That's a good idea tho, I will do thaat

Mine is in random medium flow, enough to push the polyps all around. And I have mine at about the same level as some of my sps, so probably around 300ish par

I've got similar water chemistry but my nitrates are actually lower than yours (about .1 - .15) and my Duncan fluffs up just fine during the day. When I initially bought the duncan, it would do the same thing, open at night and mostly close during the day. I found out that it would get fed during the night before i got it and started adding coral foods, that center on polyp extension, during the day and basically switched its feeding hours. And now it just opens during the day time period without the addition of food.

Oh dang, I'm glad it wasn't more serious, anything I can help with? Shoot me a message if there's anything I can help with.

56 minutes ago, Gumby said:

If you decide to go with chiller. I have a 1/2 hp PacificCoast that I will trade for some descent frags. You will need to get some kind of controller for it.

Thanks, I'll definitely keep that in mind when I make a decision.

8 hours ago, talkalot82 said:

My tanks are in garage. Big tank it have a chiller on a controller. Two grow out 10 gallon baby tanks I use ice bottles. And fans.  My long finned 20bgallon I just use a fan. 

How long does the bottle of ice last? And do you have a correct amount of ice to where you dont have to have the heaters keep it from too cold?

1 hour ago, Oasisreefling said:

I use older 10k and 6kbtu window AC units and they barely touch my electric bill compared to heat in the winter. We only need them about 4 hours a day cause we're in the hills.

Use 1/2" PEX for the refrigerator DIY. I wanna say it'll transfer 33 BTU per linear foot at 50 degrees difference. You really don't need a whole lot of flow. Our floor runs at 90gph and drops from 128 to 124 in about 150lf to give you an idea.

One thing I hate about chillers though is that they heat up the space they are in. They are really no fun in a small room with a lot of water, they just fight themselves constantly. I think if the room is dominated by water you need to use an AC or the surface area of the tanks overall will transfer too much heat in a 90*+ room. I think using external return pumps as well also helps a lot. Those buggers really can put a ton of heat into a system.

Good info here, thanks, I'll be doing a bunch more research for sure.

Looks pretty close to cyno to me

8 minutes ago, Blue Z Reef said:

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason a stand alone AC unit won’t work? Like a window or freestanding unit? I always ask people that, if you are going to chill your tank, why not get some of the AC benefits for yourself at the same time? Units are selling cheap now since it’s winter.

That was the other thing we were looking at, I've got a centralized system with tanks in multiple rooms, so we'd essentially have to have at least 2 units running, and were trying to keep electricity cost down. Still an option over a chiller specifically for the aquarium but might be quite a bit more expensive to run over the unit I was debating on building.

16 minutes ago, Nicknjo said:

I read a write up on a diy chiller using an old dorm size fridge and some 1/4 inch tubing and a pump. This is my plan if temps get out of control. I dont know exactly the answer to your question but it dosent cost much to run a mini fridge and a chiller is basically the same thing.

I will probably be doing kind of the same thing using thermoelectric cooling plates but I'm trying to figure out what tubing to use for the part that's in contact with the cooling unit. For max efficiency, I'd say it needs to be some sort of metal but I'm not sure what to use. Obviously not copper due to toxicity, stainless steel could be an option but I've read and seen that there really isn't a truly saltwater safe stainless. Maybe titanium tubing but I'm not sure if you can buy 1/4 inch titanium tubing. And it would probably be a nightmare to work with.

With summer coming up, I will be needing to figure out a way to cool the tanks. The house doesn't have air conditioning so i will need to find a way to cool the tanks. I've tried using fans but with fans, this means over twice the amount of evaporation and twice the amount of filling a reservoir by hand so I've looked into two different options, first being an A.C. chiller and second being a thermoelectric cooler (not very common) but I would be building it if I went this rout. Biggest question is on average, for those of you who have chillers and monitored the power consumption, how much energy in kWatts does an A.C. chiller cost per month? 

Looks like some sort of macro algae

Had a buddy who started a tank and ended up with a cloudy system like that. It stayed for a long time and wouldn't go away even after doing heavy water changes. He put a small UV sterilizer in his sump, and the cloudiness went away and hasn't been back since.

31 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said:

I'll take one when they're available.

There's definitely a market for this.  I don't know if you follow the Neptune Community Forums or the Neptune Facebook group but people frequently ask how to use a 24v port to control a 120v relay, and the solutions presented are usually pretty ugly (both in complexity and aesthetics) or challenging for non-skilled DIY'ers.  You could easily sell these.

For sure! I'll be getting prices and stuff figured out and I will be just selling these for the cost of parts since it's a hobby for me and I enjoy building this kind of thing. 

And thanks for the links, I didn't know about them till you mentioned them and I will for sure take a look.

Update: got 15 of the circuit boards milled today and am getting some quotes on bulk component orders.

37 minutes ago, R-3 said:

Nice work Nate!! I'll have to swing by one of these days and check this thing out in action

30 minutes ago, MorseReef said:

I would be interested in having one of these guys.  let me know when it could be available. 

For sure! Tomorrow I will be getting about 20 of the circuit boards etched and will be putting an order  in for more components so these will hopefully be available soon.

23 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said:

Would a single outlet work if there’s only one 24v port available?  For example, I have a FMM module in my garage for my mixing station, and it has one 24v port that’s open.

 

(Edit:  Never mind, I just re-read your post about a single port.)

Yep, it will work with a single port. I'm deciding if I want to design a single outlet style of this design just for things like mixing stations that are generally in a different area than the main Apex unit.

12 minutes ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

Looks super cool. Would be really nice to have additional apex plugs

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 

Agreed, makes it nice to not have to spend alot of money on another energy bar.

4 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said:

The "LINKA_x_x" outputs are the 2-pin 24V DC accessory ports.  1Link ports don't actually have any output name, and you wouldn't be able to tap into the 24V pins of the 1Link because there's no actual way to turn 1Link On or Off.  Only after you plug an Apex module into a 1Link does the module dictate what outputs are presented.  For example, if you plug in a WAV, there will be one new output presented to you.  A DOS will produce two new outputs, one for each pump head.

I just wanted to make that clarification.

But your design is pretty cool, and I bet you could sell a ton of them on the Facebook Neptune group.

Aw, thanks for that info, I tried researching about the outputs but turned up with almost no information whatsoever as to whether or not the 1link and 24V pins were connected.

So this unit runs on the two pin 24V DC terminals that are on the energy bar and other Apex modules but can also be run using the DC voltage portion of the four pin 1Link ports. I could be wrong but I think the default "LINKA_2_9" tile controls both the 1link and the 24v dc output. But maybe the default name is just confusing me and the 1link is actually a separate tile than the default "LINKA_2_9" tile.

Greetings everyone, I wanted to share a prototype device that uses the Apex DC24 2 pin ports to control more outlets without having to buy another energy bar. This one has two outlets that can either be connected together to have two outlets controlled by one 24V port or two outlets that are controlled separately by two 24V ports. The outlet box also has a display that will show the voltage, current, wattage, and kilowatt hours being used from the devices. These units are great for if you need just one or two more outlets or want to control one or two outlets in a different area from where the main Apex controller is.

I finally was able to build and test this one out and will be doing tests on it to see how well it does through a calcium reactor setup. Outlet A will control the CO2 regulator solenoid and outlet B will control the pump that supplies the the calcium reactor.

The photo above shows the unit turned on with both outlets turned off.

The photo above shows the unit with outlet A on and outlet B off.

And this photo shows both a solenoid and a pump plugged in and running.

The photo above shows the connectors that this unit plugs into.

I've still got a few things to work out with the circuitry inside and the design of the unit but so far, it seems to be working really well.

If anyone is interested, I will probably start selling these units for basically just parts cost. And if anyone has any questions or input on the device, feel free to post them or message me them as I always enjoy feedback.

Thank for reading!!

Trade/ for sale: hallucination paly, a few monti setosa frags.

Open to pretty much anything trade wise that's the same or close to the value. Shoot me a pm with what you've got!

The hallucination paly: $80 1polyp + baby.

Monti setosa frags 1" plus: $15

Older photo, currently larger in size and has a baby.

PM sent

Bumping this up

Hey all, looking for a few parts here before buying new. I'm searching for:

- CO2 tank

- CO2 regulator (Milwaukee specifically but another could work)

- neptune systems PM1 module

- ph probe

- calcium reactor media

- needle valve

Let me know what you got, thanks for looking!