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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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#2 ·
Sounds like this is going to be a TOP END Aquarium!!!

Can't wait to see it all come together!
Keep us updated with your progress!
Drew
 
#5 ·
Here are the LED fixtures I am going to be robbing for parts to make this new build. These pics are a couple years old now, but you get the idea.

This first pic is of a Current USA Outer Orbit fixture that I modified. I replaced the 2 x 250w metal halide bulbs with a pair of LED arrays housing 12 x Cree XPG (Cool White) and 12 Cree XPE (Royal Blue) on each heatsink (48 LED's total). I plan on robbing all 24 Cree XPG's from this fixture.



These next few images are of a another set of fixtures I made for another reef tank, I plan on using all of the XPG's and 24 of the Royal Blue LED's from these. I will also be reusing the fans on these fixtures as they push a lot of air, and run very quietly.



 
#6 ·
Well, today I began the process of tearing down my reef, and salvaging the equipment that will be used on this tank. Came across a few pieces of equipment that will come in handy!

First off, the doser. This is a GHL 4 Pump Slave doser that will be controlled by my Profilux. It has served me well in the past, and I am looking forward to having it dose my fertilizers automatically for me.



Secondly, the Dosing chambers. I have two 5 Litre containers and two 2.5 litre containers. These will house whatever ferts I decide to come up with. Typically I used to dose KNo3, Potassium, Iron, and Tropica Master grow (I think its Plant nutrition liquid these days) for micros.



And I totally forgot I had this... I used to have a collection of Ecotech pumps but sold most of them off after I got rid of my 265 gallon aquarium. This is an older Mp10, but I have the Mp10ES upgrade kit, and the wireless module to upgrade it. Once it is wireless, my profilux will be able to control it (via the GHL Vortech control module). This will be mounted on the tank opposite to the canister filter return, and will be used to produce random currents. I can program this pump with the profilux to produce different wave patterns whenever I want at any time during the day (such as 10% at night, then random waves throughout the day, or running full tilt during a thunderstorm)



More parts are coming home with me tomorrow once the reef is torn down.

Also as a plus my tank has been built and I will be picking it up next week. Once my stand arrives this build is about to kick off!
 
#11 ·
I used to own one and I loved it, and they only cost about $100-120. I just sold a grand worth of equipment off my reef and another $500 in corals so my budget for this tank is pretty much covered. I've actually broke even so far with setting up this tank with the sales off my old one.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of building my own, but time is something I have precious little of. I don't mind spending some money to have an off the shelf solution.
 
#10 ·
Holy crap today was a busy day. Recovered all of the equipment I want to re-use and sold off a ton of older stuff. Picked up my first 4 bags of flourite dark (I'm going to need several more).

Here is most of the major equipment I plan on re-using.

On the right you can see the LED array as I plan on laying it out in the new light hood. Two 30" strips in the middle (12 Cree XPGs Cool White, and 12 Cree XPE Royal Blue), with a 12 LED pendant dead center (6 XPG and 6 XPE) to brighten it up. Then 2 pendants on the ends with 12 XPG and 12 XPE each (where most of the planting will be, negative space in the middle).

The left is most of the profilux equipment. The Profilux 3eX, Expansion box and doser. There are 3 x 6 outlet power bars, but I suspect I will really only be using two of them.

Its starting to come together... Should be grabbing the tank on thursday

 
#12 ·
Forgot to mention there is also a 25 watt UV sterilizer in there that I pulled off the reef. This will come in handy in case I totally screw up my ferts and cause a green water outbreak (which I have done in the past, was horrible).

There is also a nice heater in there that I had completely forgotten I owned so I wont be purchasing an external heater after all. This is a 300w titanium heater that originally came with an external thermostat, but I dont require as my profilux will control it directly.

Not shown is the 1/10th HP chiller. I am still not sure if I will permanently attach it, or if I will simply store it until I need it for summer (the apartment gets pretty hot)
 
#14 ·
This incredible mess was the back of my old canopy. In the process of dismantling today most of the wiring had to be cut free and needs to be totally redone. Most of these drivers are Meanwel ELN-60-48D (0-10V Dimming) while two of them are ELN-60-48P connected to 2 x Profilux LEDControl4-Passive's. I built a custom 10V pullup resistor circuit to drive these two, as I can use the Profilux modules to generate Lightning flashes on these drivers during a simulated thunderstorm. I hope to use this feature again in this build.



I know its a mess, I almost didnt want to show this, but I am kind of looking forward to doing a "before and after" shot of the wiring
 
#15 ·
My Profilux 3eX is pretty much stock, but I have added the ADIN module which allows for analog and digital input. My hope is to integrate this with an external logic box to do some fun stuff and trigger events. More on this later.

I've pretty much fully loaded my Profilux Expansion box (the bottom unit). I have added 12 extra L Ports (the 0-10V ports that are used for controlling things like dimmable lighting, speed controlled pumps, etc). I usually use my expansion box as the interface for the lights and have it remotely mounted in a canopy. I won't be able to do that with this build, but I still plan on using many, many L ports to control all of the LED's. The goal is to be able to control every string of 12 LED's seperately to really dial in some nice visual effects.



While most of the features of the "EX" model are salt water oriented, I will still be uing the sensors for Ph, Temperature, and Level control
 
#16 ·
Reef Fanatic CO2 regulator. Its well loved and a little corroded from being close to salt water for so long, but still runs like a champ.



These are my bubble magus tubing holders. These mount on the back of the aquarium and hold my dosing tubes in place discretely. I will only need one of these, so I have to see which one I can clean up better.

 
#57 ·
Since you have gone hog wild with equipment, might as well go wild with high grade dual regulator CO2. A good solenoid, check valve and metering needle valve.
If you really want to automate and go nuts, get a mass flow controller for the CO2 gas volume rate of delivery.
 
#17 ·
I have not quite decided what I am going to do with my Mangroves yet. These were growing in my refugium for a couple of years and are pretty tall now. Two of them have even grown new branches.

I have toyed with the idea of acclimating these to fresh water and including them in my aquascape somehow, or possibly just potting them and growing them next to the tank (there will lots of light around it)

 
#19 ·
These will be my Moonlight/Sunrise/Sunset LED effects. These are the GHL Simu Spots. They stopped making these, but mine all still work so I have hung on to them. The lens covers have cracked (this was a problem with the first gen versions of these) but electrically they are still sound. I will be hiding these in the suspended hood.

Each one of these has White/Blue/Red LED's. You can set the amount of white/Blue but they dim together (so you can make them deep blue, light blue or white blue). The red LED's operate separately so you can fill in some visual reds that are typically lacking when using a blue heavy mix of LED's like I will be using. These are cosmetic only and don't offer any practical usage for growth.



A side note, you can program these to respond to lightning flashes as well. I will have one spot on the left as "Lightning 1" two in the middle as "Lightning 1+2" and one on the right as "Lightning 2". The generated effect is that you will see lightning flashes that appear to be coming from the left or the right of the tank, with some overlap in the middle. The two ELN-60-48P modules will also be set up as: Left = Lightning 1, Right = Lightning 2 causing the pendants on the sides to flash as well (will be quite bright)
 
#21 ·
This is a marineland double bright LED strip. I won this off a table at Macna a few years ago and was previously using it to grow my mangroves (works like a charm). I am planning on running this light over the 14 gallon quarantine tank that will reside in the stand.

I am hoping to aquire a zebra pleco (or two) for this tank, so I fully intend on having a fully operational QT tank beforehand. This light will be complete overkill, but I have it already, and it fits the 14 gallon perfectly. Might as well use it.

 
#24 ·
Phew, another hard day behind me. The reef is totally shut down, sold off and all parts have been picked up. I found a couple more useful things in the process too!

First of all, I found a bucket of natural river gravel from a former tank. This will become the substrate in the QT tank, and may become part of the negative space in the main display.



And then there is this lovely piece of sexiness. This is a battery backup for Ecotech pumps! This will provide many many hours of runtime on the Ecotech MP10wES so in the event of a power failure my tank will at least have water circulation. I bought this off of a reef store before it closed down (clearance sale). It was missing a power supply (I have TONS of extras) so I picked it up for about 75% off.

 
#26 ·
Most likely not. I have attempted that in the past and ran into problems where a venturi effect would draw extra fluid through to doser or the pressure in the line would push water into the dosing lines.

Im going to bracket the lines to the rear of the aquarium. Im debating making an acrylic housing that would hide the bracket and lines. Thats some finishing detail work that I wont be looking at for a few weeks
 
#29 ·
Ok so maybe its a finishing detail that I will think about in less then an hour. I realized I still have to find a way to mount/hide my probes. I think I'll be able to manufacture a small acrylic box that slides over the tubing bracket, and contains brackets to mount the probes. If I make it out of black acrylic it will blend in to the background of the tank (which will also be painted black).

I'll whip something up in google sketch up in the next couple of days and see if one of the local acrylic shops can cut me the pieces.
 
#28 ·
MP10 Upgrade time!

Had some free time tonight so I decided to upgrade the MP10 to an MP10wES. Here is the process:

Original pump controller:



Opened:



The parts required for conversion:



Wireless daughterboard installed and motor cable connected:



Installed in new housing:



Presto! One fully operational MP10wES. Pump works perfectly but the wet side assembly is really gunked up with a lot of coraline growth from the reef tank. I will pick up a new assembly this week.

 
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