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48 x 18 x 18 High Tech Rimless Build (photo heavy)

116K views 416 replies 121 participants last post by  GDominy 
#1 · (Edited)
The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. Ive committed to tearing down and selling off my reef aquarium as I did not want to move it into my new apartment. Im not one to go without an aquarium for long, so I'm planning on salvaging a significant portion of my old old equipment to be re purposed for a planted tank (something I have dearly missed over the last few years).

I've started ordering my parts, including the rimless tank itself (it should be ready within a couple of weeks).

The build will be as follows:

Tank: 48"x18"x18"
Lighting: 48 x Cree XPG's, 24 x Cree XPE Royal Blues, 4 GHL Simu Spot moonlights (Reed, White and Blue LED's), Dimmable via Meanwell ELN-60-48-D's
CO2: 5lb Bottle, Aqua Medic CO2 Reactor 1000 (I used to own one and loved it), Reef Fanatic CO2 Regulator w/solenoid and bubble counter
Filtration: Undecided, will be a sizable canister filter, brand not yet determined (Maybe a Rena?)
Substrate: Not sure on this yet, open to suggestions (Eco complete or Flourite are easy to get and reasonably priced out here. Ive used both before)
Heating: Hydor ETH 300 Watt External Heater
Cooling: 1/10th HP Chiller (undersized, but most likely will never get used, was able to cool my 90 Gallon reef easily so should be fine for this tank)
Dosing: GHL 4 Pump Dosing Pump w/Bubble Magus Dosing chambers full of ferts
Automation: Profilux IIIex w/expansion box. Unit will control sunrise/Sunset, Cloud simulation, storm simulation, heating, cooling, fan speeds for the LED's, CO2 Injection (via Ph monitoring), possibly auto top off (havent decided on this yet).

I am fortunate enough that I already have most of the expensive equipment (including all of the LED's, drivers, Profilux equipment, chiller, CO2 Regulator). Leaving me with a relatively short shopping list:

Aquarium itself (ordered yesterday)
Stand (may build one, havent decided)
2 x 6"x20" Heatsinks
72 x 60 degree optics
Thermal Paste
Cannister filter
5lb CO2 Bottle (needed a short one to fit in the stand, I picked this up today)
Co2 Reactor (Aqua Medic Reactor 1000)
External Heater

The proceeds from selling off my reef equipment has offset about a third of this so far, and hopefully will cover another third before I am done.

I'm a couple of months away from seeing water in a tank as there will be some work in building the new light and obtaining the rest of my parts. I"ll probably start with stripping the old LED arrays and building the new one.

Progress to follow, its just the beginning.
 
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#32 ·
More goodies:

This is an Active L Splitter. The Simu Spots draw power from the L Ports on the profilux, as such you can only run a single Simu per jack on the Profilux (each simu uses 2 L Ports, each Jack contains 2 L ports). The other thing to consider is that only Ports L1L2 and L3L4 will send the signal for a lightning flash.

I want to run 4 Simu spots, so thats where this thing comes in handy. You plug this in to a single L Jack (L1L2 in this case) and it will power up to 4 Simu's through this splitter. The dimming curve will be the same for all 4 Simu's, but I can program each simu to react to Lightning independently.



This is an EVG Control board. This is an interface that allows you to connect 0-10V dimmable Ballasts or LED drivers to the L Ports on your Profilux. You supply 110V power to the terminals on the right side, then connect the power leads to your drivers. This device will turn off power to the drivers on a 0V signal via the relays on the board. The dimming signal leads are connected to teh termal block on the lower left. There are two channels. The smaller terminal block in the upper left is for the interface cable that connects to an L Jack on a Profilux or Expansion Box.



These little boxes are the Fan speed controllers. Like the previous devices pictured above, you connect these to the L ports on a Profilux. As the profilux sends a 0-10V signal, these will vary the voltage from 0-12V to the fans. You must supply the 12V via an external power supply (not shown here).



I have a few of these, and will be making use of two. These are the fan headers that will allow me to connect my LED cooling fans to the Propellor Control modules pictured above. The net result of these will be the Profilux controlling the speed of the fans based on LED intensity. This way the fans will not be very loud unless the LED's are really cranked up pretty high.

 
#42 ·
Im glad I own a dremel. I went to test fit my probes, and much to my display, this holder didn't have the right size holes.

Ten minutes with my dremel however, and they work like a charm!



(I haven't cleaned my probes yet, I have to give them a good soak and clean)
Now I am definitely feelin that! Where did you find it, how much? Also, have you verified that the magnetism will not affect readings?
 
#46 ·
Today I intentionally erased a years worth of programming from my profilux. I was trying to make changes to it all and realised it was going to take much longer then starting fresh so I factory reset the thing.

First things first, I upgraded teh firmware to 5.15 (the most current).



Next I programmed my switchable sockets. These are the outlets on my power bars and the dosing pump.



Ive made some changes to this screen since I took this picture. The fans and QT tank are now on a different illumination channel, but you get the idea.
 
#47 ·
Next I had to build the lighting schedules. This is quite extensive so bear with me.

First of all, I decided I want to run 2 different lightinbg schedules for my lights. I want the tank to be off at a reasonable hour so it doesnt shine into the bedroom at night, but on the weekend when we are typically up later, I want the lights to have an extended schedule.

Thankfully this is actually a built in feature called "Variable illumination". This lets me choose what schedule a bank of lights uses on what day of the week. It is limited to only 4 schedules though, so I am using:

Variable 1 = Left and Right Blue LED's
Variable 2 = Center Blue LED's
Variable 3 = Left and Right LED's
Variable 4 = Center White LED's

I have arranged my lights in this way as the LED density is higher on the LED arrays on the left and right, so they have to be run at a lower intensity to balance it out visually.



Next came some safety features, although not really needed with LED's it only took a couple of minutes. If the tank gets too hot, the lights dim. The chiller should take care of this, but just in case...



Now for some visual fun. I set up some aggressive cloud simulation, and enable the moonlight simulation (it mimics the cycle of the moon by varying the intensity of moonlights every day).



And now for some thunderstormss... This is mostly just a cool thing to watch, but I also use it to trigger pumps to throttle up to kick up detritus. This way once a day the tank gets a good flush.

 
#51 ·
Had some time to tinker before work so I got the ecotech configuration working.

First off I had to pair the MP10wES with the Vortech module. My first hiccup was that the pump was using an out of date firmware that wasnt compatible. Thankfully the GHL module lets me broadcast a new firmware wirelessly to the pump. A few minutes later, the fully upgraded pump paired properly:



Next I had to configure how I wanted the pump to operate. In this case I went with a random wave pattern from 8am till 8pm, then a quiet running mode from 8pm till 8am. During a thunderstorm the pump will generate waves.



I also enabled "Feed Pause". This will turn the pump off when I feed my fish. You can make it slow down, or pretty much do whatever you want, but I prefer it being off for this.
 
#53 ·
More programming.. Sensors this time:

First, Ph/Co2 Control. I have this set up to target my Ph 6.5 during the photoperiod. At night the tank will allow a Ph drift to about 6.7 when the plants arent using CO2. I can configure this, but its usually a safe swing to deal with.



Next is Temperature. This is where I set my options for heating and cooling. I have allowed for a half a degree swing in temp between the heater switching off and the chiller switching on. This will prevent both from operating at the same time or rapidly switching back and forth. I will most likely increase this threshold if I see rapid switching behavior.



Not going to be using this function for much, but I already have the probe, and redox can give you some indication as to how much organic sludge is building up so I figure I'll set it up anyway.

 
#56 ·
I'd let the pH drift all the way about 30 minutes before the lights go off and then start controlling it 1 hour before the lights come on.

Redox: this is a useful tool for sediments, not the water column.
O2 meter/probe would be much more informative for the water column.

A redox probe can be inserted into the sediment say at 1 cm, then later at 2 cm and so on. wait 3 weeks between moving it. Generally, a reference probe is used if you DIY your own redox probes. This makes a circuit and the probes can be customized/water proofed etc.

I have 30 x 24" 1/4" PVC probes from a research project.
Platinum 18 gauge wire ain't cheap though.
 
#60 ·
Had a really long day at work today so I wasn't able to get much done tonight. I was able however to get my variable voltage ports configured.

As you can see I have set up the simus and left/right white leds on the first 4 L ports. This will allow them to receive the signals for lightning. I have set the minimum voltage on the white led arrays to 2.76 volts as this is the minimum voltage required to turn on the Meanwel eln-60-48p drivers through my homemade pullup resistor circuit.

The rest of the leds are powered by meanwel eln-60-48d's so I have set the minimum voltage to 1.3 volts.

The fan controllers have their minimum voltage set to 2.5 volts. This means that the fans will never run less then 25%

 
#61 ·
I just got word that my tank has been finished! I should be able to pick it up this weekend.

I haven't much time to work on the tank build over teh last couple of days as I have been wiring this:




By comparison the tank will be easy. I've ordered a Marineland Montery stand in black for the tank that should arrive in a week. I went with this stand as it has nice removable side panels which will make access to the equipment a breeze.

I believe this stand has a flat top, which is important as the tank requires a fully supported bottom

 
#64 ·
You and me both! I have a lot of work ahead of me still, but I"m plugging away at something every day to get things figured out. I'm still trying to source some nice driftwood, and I am debating about ordering some ADA rockwork, but haven't decided quite yet what I want to do with the aquascape. Getting a few ideas, its just going to come down to what hardscape materials I can dig up
 
#67 ·
The tank has arrived!



There was a goof in the ordering and the company didn't receive notice that I wanted the edge polished, but it actually turned out really well regardless. It saved me a few hundred off the cost by not having it polished so I can't really complain for a $410 rimless tank made from 1/2" glass (its heavy as hell, but really strong)

The front left corner isn't perfect, but isn't really noticeable from the front, only the end (which I wont be able to look at easily anyway)



The rear right corner along the back panel has a couple of rough spots, but I will hide these with my tubing bracket and they won't be seen.

 
#69 ·
Polishing does increase the cost, but it looks good and it protects the edges.

All in all it looks good for the money and once everything is setup that's the last thing the masses will notice anyway.

How heavy would you say it is and how many help did you need to move it?



from my iP 5 via Tapa.
 
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