My 240g tank journal
- Thread starter loaches r cool
- Start date
Thanks RB
To finish up the plumbing pics:
The two 2.5g jugs I will be using as a fertilizer reservoir for automated dosing.
First gen drain silencer. Water comes down the drain from the overflows above, slows down going through the larger diameter adapter, goes into the tee, air bubbles rise to the top of the tee were there is a small vent hole, and the water exits below. This whole assembly is rather heavy so the bottom part is cut to the right length that it rests on the sump bottom and the waterline is near the top of were the water enters the tee. There is only 1 problem with this design, I wanted a filter sock to catch large debris. So I redesigned it below...
I simply added another tee instead, happened to be the perfect hieght, and would allow me to attach a sock to the opening. I plugged the base to direct all the flow out the center by using a pvc pressure cap seated all the way and held in place by a 1" piece of pipe inserted right up to it.
I am going to try to use a large media bag, 250 micron, to trap large debris that might make it down, or fish, etc. The stainless steel hose clamp should hold it in place and provide fairly easy removal for cleaning if need be. The whole assembly can be pulled out so I wont have to reach under water with a screwdriver to access the filter bag.
Another shot of the fert reservoirs, you can see the Tom Aqualifter pump mounted beside them I am going to be using (one tank for micros, the other for macros).
I used clear union swinging check valves to prevent backflow due to reverse siphon upon power failure. There are also holes drilled in the return pipes slightly below the water surface just incase the check valves were to fail. These style check valves literally take no force to open (you can tip them and they open with gravity even).
Float valves for automated water change. These are used in conjunction with a solenoid to prevent accidental overfilling.
I might yet change my co2 injection method but first I am going to try a simple approach, bubbling it into the intake of the return pump. Those are Rena Microbubblers, so I am already starting out with small bubbles, hopefully the pump impellor and the several foot long journey to the tank will mostly dissolve the co2, but a few micro-bubbles would be welcome also. This is the double-wye fitting that goes between the filter boxes on the intake side of the return pump.
The two 2.5g jugs I will be using as a fertilizer reservoir for automated dosing.
First gen drain silencer. Water comes down the drain from the overflows above, slows down going through the larger diameter adapter, goes into the tee, air bubbles rise to the top of the tee were there is a small vent hole, and the water exits below. This whole assembly is rather heavy so the bottom part is cut to the right length that it rests on the sump bottom and the waterline is near the top of were the water enters the tee. There is only 1 problem with this design, I wanted a filter sock to catch large debris. So I redesigned it below...
I simply added another tee instead, happened to be the perfect hieght, and would allow me to attach a sock to the opening. I plugged the base to direct all the flow out the center by using a pvc pressure cap seated all the way and held in place by a 1" piece of pipe inserted right up to it.
I am going to try to use a large media bag, 250 micron, to trap large debris that might make it down, or fish, etc. The stainless steel hose clamp should hold it in place and provide fairly easy removal for cleaning if need be. The whole assembly can be pulled out so I wont have to reach under water with a screwdriver to access the filter bag.
Another shot of the fert reservoirs, you can see the Tom Aqualifter pump mounted beside them I am going to be using (one tank for micros, the other for macros).
I used clear union swinging check valves to prevent backflow due to reverse siphon upon power failure. There are also holes drilled in the return pipes slightly below the water surface just incase the check valves were to fail. These style check valves literally take no force to open (you can tip them and they open with gravity even).
Float valves for automated water change. These are used in conjunction with a solenoid to prevent accidental overfilling.
I might yet change my co2 injection method but first I am going to try a simple approach, bubbling it into the intake of the return pump. Those are Rena Microbubblers, so I am already starting out with small bubbles, hopefully the pump impellor and the several foot long journey to the tank will mostly dissolve the co2, but a few micro-bubbles would be welcome also. This is the double-wye fitting that goes between the filter boxes on the intake side of the return pump.
Lupin
Registered Member
- Sep 21, 2006
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- Paul
Thanks guys! Here is another update:
Lighting
Time to start the lighting, this will just be Part I since I am not finished with the lighting yet, just figured I'd post some pics and give some details.
I considered a few different things, AHSupply, MH, and T5HO. I definitely wanted to get a good setup. I wanted an efficient ballast and the best reflectors, minimizing wasted electricity. I didn't mind retro kits, since I will be building a canopy anyway. So I ultimately decided on a kit half way between the cheaper and most expensive I was looking at. It is the IceCap T5 retro kit, and I got two of them for a total of 8 54W bulbs. It utilizes IceCap 660VHO ballasts, which they claim when used on 54W T5 bulbs it will overdrive them to around 80-85W per bulb. For the folks who go buy WPG this gives me about 2.8wpg all on or 1.4wpg with half on. I'm also using IceCap SLR's (single lens reflectors) which seem to do the trick well.
For bulbs I received a variety, including GE Starcoat 6500K, Giesemann 6000K Midday, Giesemann 11000K Aquablue Plus, and UVL 10,000K Aquasuns. Now that I have seen them all I think its a great combination and don't know if I would just choose one or two out of them.
Trying to figure out how I want to position them. This arrangement doesn't waste any light over the overflows. But also doesn't allow the fixtures to be made into separable left and right halves.
This is the basic 4 x 4 arrangement. I ended up going with this for simplicity and so the left and right could be independent*.
This is about how the lights appear to the eye. I just temporarily riged everything up just to verify the bulbs and ballasts work.
Speeding up the shutter and dimming the lights down really show color that isnt quite so apparent to the naked eye.
Here you can see what each bulb is.
Starting to build a frame to hold the lights. I just riveted some aluminum angle together.
Here is the basic frame assembled.
Starting to mount all the hardware on the frame. The waterproof endcaps came with the kit to.
*A minor oversight when deciding on the lighting arrangement. I decided on two groups of four sitting side by side on there own brackets, thinking if I needed extra room to get into one end I could pull one side off. But I forgot I wired the lights to the ballasts such that two lights from each side are on the same ballast. So unless I install some kind of quick disconnect, the two sides are wired together and must stay together. If I were to do it over I'd go for the first pic were there are 3 on each side then 2 in the middle.
Time to start the lighting, this will just be Part I since I am not finished with the lighting yet, just figured I'd post some pics and give some details.
I considered a few different things, AHSupply, MH, and T5HO. I definitely wanted to get a good setup. I wanted an efficient ballast and the best reflectors, minimizing wasted electricity. I didn't mind retro kits, since I will be building a canopy anyway. So I ultimately decided on a kit half way between the cheaper and most expensive I was looking at. It is the IceCap T5 retro kit, and I got two of them for a total of 8 54W bulbs. It utilizes IceCap 660VHO ballasts, which they claim when used on 54W T5 bulbs it will overdrive them to around 80-85W per bulb. For the folks who go buy WPG this gives me about 2.8wpg all on or 1.4wpg with half on. I'm also using IceCap SLR's (single lens reflectors) which seem to do the trick well.
For bulbs I received a variety, including GE Starcoat 6500K, Giesemann 6000K Midday, Giesemann 11000K Aquablue Plus, and UVL 10,000K Aquasuns. Now that I have seen them all I think its a great combination and don't know if I would just choose one or two out of them.
Trying to figure out how I want to position them. This arrangement doesn't waste any light over the overflows. But also doesn't allow the fixtures to be made into separable left and right halves.
This is the basic 4 x 4 arrangement. I ended up going with this for simplicity and so the left and right could be independent*.
This is about how the lights appear to the eye. I just temporarily riged everything up just to verify the bulbs and ballasts work.
Speeding up the shutter and dimming the lights down really show color that isnt quite so apparent to the naked eye.
Here you can see what each bulb is.
Starting to build a frame to hold the lights. I just riveted some aluminum angle together.
Here is the basic frame assembled.
Starting to mount all the hardware on the frame. The waterproof endcaps came with the kit to.
*A minor oversight when deciding on the lighting arrangement. I decided on two groups of four sitting side by side on there own brackets, thinking if I needed extra room to get into one end I could pull one side off. But I forgot I wired the lights to the ballasts such that two lights from each side are on the same ballast. So unless I install some kind of quick disconnect, the two sides are wired together and must stay together. If I were to do it over I'd go for the first pic were there are 3 on each side then 2 in the middle.
Ok, well looks like I wont be finishing the canopy anytime soon so I'll have to put off finishing the lighting and canopy for later on. In the meantime I'll get started on some electrical and control stuff...
Control & Misc Electrical
This is going to be the brains of the whole operation... the Neptune Systems Aquacontroller III. I compared many systems, and for the money and what I wanted this is the one I finally decided on.
Initially I was just going to use timers for everything. But With like a dozen different timers, and the good ones with battery backup, would be cost effective to buy a cheap controller like the AC Jr. Not to mention the added benefits... but the more I thought about it and looked into them I wanted the webserver and all that good stuff so I went with the AC3 instead of the Jr.
I put in a few outlets in the stand. I temporarily put a plug-in GFCI (the yellow thing). I actually had bought a GFCI outlet but couldn’t find it. I'll probably switch it now I have found it again.
A couple more outlets on switches. The shoplight is plugged into one until I rig up some door switches. You can see the Neptune socket expansion box which will be for the heaters and run from a power line on a different circuit to reduce load on the main circuit in that room (currently using 800W of heaters, debating on 1200W).
Sorry its not organized yet... but here is the Neptune DC8 that will control the main pump and powerheads, two banks of lights, moonlights, fert dosers, water change pump, and heaters.
A lot of what I wanted to do (automation, centralized co2, etc.) required me running a bunch of lines between the tank and utility room. Easy since the rooms were side by side... well not so much. Had I put the tank on the common wall it would have been a piece of cake. But no, it wouldn’t look very aesthetic so it went on the wall on the opposite side (exterior wall). Besides running all the stuff across the floor, the only 'hidden' way to do it is run everything overhead through the soffit that the furnace ducts run through across that room. So I cut a hole and put in what I call a mud ring (not sure if the plastic ones go by a different name though) which is what’s used for low voltage jacks like cable tv or phone. If I ever move out and rip out the tank the hole can either be patched or a cable tv and phone/ethernet jack installed there. The pic shows a 'fish line' fed through from the utility room side and out over top the tank.
This is all the crap I had to fish through the soffit. It took a little bit of work.
View from the utility room ceiling. What you cant see is the part of the ducting about 10 feet in that was mostly blocking the passage. There was some choice words exchanged between me and the ducting.
Success! Now I have an H2O line, drain line, co2 lines, cat3, and cat5 lines run from the tank into utility room.
I didn’t have to cut a hole in the back of my cabinet to run the lines (so far), everything was able to squeeze through the gap around the overflow bulkhead cutout.
The other side.
Putting fittings on the cat3 and cat5 lines. I had to run cat3 for the Neptune DC8 I have in the utility room which will control co2 solenoids and water change solenoids for now and perhaps some other tank equipment in the future. The cat5 will be an ethernet connection to the Aquacontroller so it can be accessed over the web and so I can record all the data to my computer.
Arghhh! Split pair! lol. Poor lighting and me being a little rusty at putting fittings on meant I had to redo a few fittings.
I don’t have it pictured yet since I am not done but I also spent two days running a cable and cat5 line to every room in the house (all homerun to the utility room and all wall-fished down from attic with dual jacks installed). So don’t complain when it takes the cable guy more than an hour to wire up all your tv's
it took this has-been cable guy almost two whole days to wire my house.
Control & Misc Electrical
This is going to be the brains of the whole operation... the Neptune Systems Aquacontroller III. I compared many systems, and for the money and what I wanted this is the one I finally decided on.
Initially I was just going to use timers for everything. But With like a dozen different timers, and the good ones with battery backup, would be cost effective to buy a cheap controller like the AC Jr. Not to mention the added benefits... but the more I thought about it and looked into them I wanted the webserver and all that good stuff so I went with the AC3 instead of the Jr.
I put in a few outlets in the stand. I temporarily put a plug-in GFCI (the yellow thing). I actually had bought a GFCI outlet but couldn’t find it. I'll probably switch it now I have found it again.
A couple more outlets on switches. The shoplight is plugged into one until I rig up some door switches. You can see the Neptune socket expansion box which will be for the heaters and run from a power line on a different circuit to reduce load on the main circuit in that room (currently using 800W of heaters, debating on 1200W).
Sorry its not organized yet... but here is the Neptune DC8 that will control the main pump and powerheads, two banks of lights, moonlights, fert dosers, water change pump, and heaters.
A lot of what I wanted to do (automation, centralized co2, etc.) required me running a bunch of lines between the tank and utility room. Easy since the rooms were side by side... well not so much. Had I put the tank on the common wall it would have been a piece of cake. But no, it wouldn’t look very aesthetic so it went on the wall on the opposite side (exterior wall). Besides running all the stuff across the floor, the only 'hidden' way to do it is run everything overhead through the soffit that the furnace ducts run through across that room. So I cut a hole and put in what I call a mud ring (not sure if the plastic ones go by a different name though) which is what’s used for low voltage jacks like cable tv or phone. If I ever move out and rip out the tank the hole can either be patched or a cable tv and phone/ethernet jack installed there. The pic shows a 'fish line' fed through from the utility room side and out over top the tank.
This is all the crap I had to fish through the soffit. It took a little bit of work.
View from the utility room ceiling. What you cant see is the part of the ducting about 10 feet in that was mostly blocking the passage. There was some choice words exchanged between me and the ducting.
Success! Now I have an H2O line, drain line, co2 lines, cat3, and cat5 lines run from the tank into utility room.
I didn’t have to cut a hole in the back of my cabinet to run the lines (so far), everything was able to squeeze through the gap around the overflow bulkhead cutout.
The other side.
Putting fittings on the cat3 and cat5 lines. I had to run cat3 for the Neptune DC8 I have in the utility room which will control co2 solenoids and water change solenoids for now and perhaps some other tank equipment in the future. The cat5 will be an ethernet connection to the Aquacontroller so it can be accessed over the web and so I can record all the data to my computer.
Arghhh! Split pair! lol. Poor lighting and me being a little rusty at putting fittings on meant I had to redo a few fittings.
I don’t have it pictured yet since I am not done but I also spent two days running a cable and cat5 line to every room in the house (all homerun to the utility room and all wall-fished down from attic with dual jacks installed). So don’t complain when it takes the cable guy more than an hour to wire up all your tv's
it took this has-been cable guy almost two whole days to wire my house.
To continue with electrical & control, I'll focus on some of the parts that comprise the automation...
My order from McMaster-Carr, solenoids and float switches for my auto water change setup and water level alarm.
A close up of the solenoids (the quick connect fittings are a separate item). I got the 120VAC version so I can plug em right into the AC3's DC8 power brick.
Can anyone guess what that is? OMG I didn’t realize you could even make a plug that used so many parts! These are minidin8 connectors (I ordered 3 so I had a couple extra). The AC3 uses a minidin8 plug for the switch inputs. They also charge like $40 for the I/O breakout box that allows you to hook up external switches to the AC3. But all it is is 1 ground pin and a pin for each of the two switches, so most just make their own cable. The minidin connectors are like a buck, and well I have all the rest of everything I need already.
Close up of the float switches.
The housings and bracket I made for the switches. I used a scrap piece of polycarbonate plastic I had and a small butane torch to bend the top, never bent plastic before, but good enough. I also notched the bracket for every 5G for the water level in the sump. I made housings for the float switches out of pvc endcaps.
Completed switches wired into phone jacks. I have boxes of phone jacks laying around and it seemed like an easy way to do it. Also pictures is the minidin8 cable that I made to connect to the AC3. Its also hooked to a phone jack. So now all I need is a regular phone style cord to go between the jack connected to the minidin8 and the other two jacks. I could have used single phone jacks for the switches but didn’t feel like digging around through my boxes to find the singles since I had the duals out.
Completed bracket that will be attached to the sump tank. The upper float switch is mounted to stop my drain pump at a certain level for my daily water change (about 10%). The lower switch triggers the AC3 alarm for low water level and will shut off the return pump and email me. The third level switch will go in the main tank and indicate the main tank is two high, wired together with the last switch so will also set off the alarm function, shut down the return pump, and email me. Basically the last two switches are in parallel.
My order from McMaster-Carr, solenoids and float switches for my auto water change setup and water level alarm.
A close up of the solenoids (the quick connect fittings are a separate item). I got the 120VAC version so I can plug em right into the AC3's DC8 power brick.
Can anyone guess what that is? OMG I didn’t realize you could even make a plug that used so many parts! These are minidin8 connectors (I ordered 3 so I had a couple extra). The AC3 uses a minidin8 plug for the switch inputs. They also charge like $40 for the I/O breakout box that allows you to hook up external switches to the AC3. But all it is is 1 ground pin and a pin for each of the two switches, so most just make their own cable. The minidin connectors are like a buck, and well I have all the rest of everything I need already.
Close up of the float switches.
The housings and bracket I made for the switches. I used a scrap piece of polycarbonate plastic I had and a small butane torch to bend the top, never bent plastic before, but good enough. I also notched the bracket for every 5G for the water level in the sump. I made housings for the float switches out of pvc endcaps.
Completed switches wired into phone jacks. I have boxes of phone jacks laying around and it seemed like an easy way to do it. Also pictures is the minidin8 cable that I made to connect to the AC3. Its also hooked to a phone jack. So now all I need is a regular phone style cord to go between the jack connected to the minidin8 and the other two jacks. I could have used single phone jacks for the switches but didn’t feel like digging around through my boxes to find the singles since I had the duals out.
Completed bracket that will be attached to the sump tank. The upper float switch is mounted to stop my drain pump at a certain level for my daily water change (about 10%). The lower switch triggers the AC3 alarm for low water level and will shut off the return pump and email me. The third level switch will go in the main tank and indicate the main tank is two high, wired together with the last switch so will also set off the alarm function, shut down the return pump, and email me. Basically the last two switches are in parallel.
