haha im not a mad genius nor a fabricator, im a university student with too much time on his hand, Im study is in the field of design so most of the things come up as a result of figuring out ways to fix issues around my situation.

The T5 tubes are just acrylic tubes, they come in tubes so i didnt need to do anything to them. The only things that i needed to do was cut the flangs on the sides of the tubes to be able to screw the tubes onto my existing Aqua Medic lights. All the DIYs i did are made by a table saw, dremel, and a drill press, oh and my hands

Im a finishing carpenter by trade, so I know and appreciate the time and skill involved....nice work:thumb:

The tank is looking fantastic... Where did you find the acrylic tubing?

i found the acrylic tubes at industrial plastics and paint. sometimes they will have some scraps that are 3ft long if not, just ask the people over the counter for the size you want, they'll most likely have it in the back.

Heres an update on how the skimmer cup is working. I like it so far, its pulling some dark stuff out for me, i still need to tweak it to see where the optimal height placement for the cup but so far so good. This is what it looked like 48 hours after using, i had to empty the cup once with dark green tea color skimmate (cup was adjusted too low).

look at the foam head
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...p/IMGP6029.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...p/IMGP6031.jpg

foam head and skimmate
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...p/IMGP6030.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...p/IMGP6032.jpg

big ups respect bruddah man, you do some fine work with your hands!

another update,

with summer coming our way i decided that i should help out my tiny little chiller and take some load off the thing. So i decided to make a DIY fan using 120mm fans(as they are usually less noisy), i looked around for parts which pushed high CFM (how much flow it pushes) with low dBA values (noise level). I ran across the GELID Silent 12TC fan, it has a temperature probe which allows the fan to either crank up in RPM or down, depending on the heat level. 750RPM at 22C and 1500RPM at 42C, these things have a 58CFM rating with a 12-25.5dBA noise level! So away i went and bought 2 of them.

I have mine running on 9V AC-> DC power supply and i cant hear anything, and it STILL pushes alot of air, i cant imagine how much air it would push if i had it running on a 12V PS.

After i got my hands on these fans i decided to make a casing for it so that it doesnt fall into my tank and kill everything, i came up with something simple which works for me to help move some air across my tank, having the heated air move away before hitting the surface of the tank it helps in cooling but not via evaportaion although there is still some as the fan gets pretty wide angles. None the less after i attached the fan i havent hear my chiller turn on yet, and it usually turns on 2-3x within an hour or so and its held my temperture at 79.5F for 3 hours now.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6037.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6045.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6038.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6039.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6040.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6041.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6042.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6044.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...n/IMGP6047.jpg

Heres a video showing how much air im getting across the 3ft tank, as you can tell im using toilet paper as the way of showing air movement (i couldnt think of anything else:redface:) but i think you guys can see how much air is being moved by this fan driven at 3/4 of the spec voltage. The video seemed to have picked up my tunze 6055 ramping up and down in speed, but in real life you barely hear it!, weird haha
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...h_IMGP6052.jpg

total cost:
GELID Silent 12TC fan: $8.99
im using an old powersupply, but a new one would probably be $10-20
acrylic total cost would be roughly: $5
==================
cost: $24-34

Once again....Mad skills:hail:

haha fishytime, i think anyone could have made that enclosed box, this DIY really didnt contain much work other then some simple eletronics and figuring out which lead was the + and which was the -:lol:

heres an update on how the skimmer cup has been working. I adjusted it to skim somewhat wet and this is what im getting.

The cup has overflowed quite a few times on initial use as i didnt know what height to put it at
but that little overflow prevention loop on the side has prevented the floor from flooding a good 2-3x
so i know its working!

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMGP6488.jpg

heres an update that maybe more interesting to look at then my DIYs. After using the new skimmer cup for a few weeks i found it much more efficient than the deltec one so i decided to stay with it.

So my tank has been up and running for a year and roughly 5 months now majority if not all the frags i had initially has turned into miniature colonies. here are some of them that i took with a under water box with my point and shoot...i need to get a DSLR soon for school and photos :lol: enjoy guys

unknown acro (tabling from what i can tell)
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMGP6499.jpg

tenius sp.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMGP6501.jpg

ORA Borealis Acropora
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMGP6506.jpg

granulosa sp: (seems to be purple tip)
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMGP6502.jpg

bali tri color:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMGP6507.jpg

Wow.. that Bali Tricolor is GORGEOUS!!!

Really like the Tenius sp. too.. :mrgreen:

EDIT: What type of bulb are you running again?

wow fast reply! i posted the update like 5 mins ago!

im using 2x 150w phoenix driven by aquamedics M80 HQI ballast as my main light
supplimented by 2x24w T5HO (1 Gman pure actinic, 1 KZ fiji purple)

Love the Bali Tricolor too! :)

What K are the pheonix bulbs? 20K?

they are 14K bulbs driven to a white color with a tint of blue. Although ive seen phoenix bulbs driven on electric ballast to really blue colors near 20K

i think its time for an update to the tank, the tank has been doing well lately i suppose other then the fact that i cracked my DIY calcium reactor and had to buy another one, i went ahead and got a BM reactor, the build quality on BMs surpassed what i had expected from a china product. works well and it keeping my kH at 8. during the period i had my DIY off my kH was dropping at 1.5 degrees per day, 2 part couldnt keep up. and soon it dropped to 4 and stayed there without me knowing.

i also managed to remove all 5 of the domino damsels i had...omg where they hard to catch, i had to fish 3 of them out with a barbless size 2 hook and then drain the water for the last two as they got smart and wouldnt go for the PE mysis on hooks.. but now i only have 2 fish my coral colors are fading a bit, im assuming that this is because i now feed less and the corals are no longer getting enough nutrients so im getting zeo like colors which i dont particularly like, so i think im going to have to restock pretty soon, with either 3 lyre tail anthias or 3 blue eye cardinals....ive had bad luck with cardinals as they never do good in my system for some reason, what do you guys think? what fish would you add.

Heres a few update shots of the corals: you can see what i mean by faded colors like zeo.

skittles granulosa
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0522.jpg

borealis:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0529.jpg

oregon tort:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0545.jpg

rainbow milli:(bad pick *blue tips, green polyps, red base*)
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0551.jpg

pokerstar monti ( you can really see the faded zeo colors from this one)
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0555.jpg

forest fire digita:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0567.jpg

green slimer:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0573.jpg

purple tabling acro:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0576.jpg

Your SPS looks awesome... PM when they are ready to frag! :lol:

haha thanks, i saw your cube tank build on reefcentral it looks good!

im thinking to grab maybe 3-4 blue eye cardinals for this tank and restock it again, 2 fish (red lin anthias and femail fairy wrasse) and a red scooter doesnt provide enough food for the SPS to have the solid colors that i like.

what do you guys think, any fish that will do well in this tank?

after getting rid of the damsels i started looking around for more peaceful fish. and the 2 i had on the top of my list were:

lyretail anthias
blue eye cardinals

well i messaged wendell at ocean aquatics the other day and he let me know they just got some blue eye cardinals in. so today i went and picked up 4 blue eye cardinals and a spotted dragonette (spelling?) heres the picture of the blue eye..the blue eyes on the cardinals made the camera go nuts but thats actually pretty close to what they look like in person. The photo was not edited at all to show there true colors.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0652.jpg

Hmm I've seen pics of the blue eyed cardinals before, but they never looked this nice. I guess it's all in the lighting... they always look very silver in most of the photos I see. Beautiful fish! Hope they work out for you... I've heard that some of the cardinals don't seem to do well in captivity over the long term?

the blue eye cardinal is probably one of the hardest fish to photograph to due its colors. The yellow on the body tend to get washed out 90% of the time and the blue never show much, im surprised i got the photo i did as i was expecting silver colors myself.

i think blue eyes are probably one of easier to care for cardinals out there, they are from my understanding to be one of the most peaceful cardinals too. they shoal well and eat frozen food quite easy.

Ive tried some other cardinals like the 5 line and etc...never had luck with those.

a little update, trying to figure out the white balance for the camera to take pictures showing true colors..not having much luck with it but i thought id update the tank anyways, colors in the photos are a little on the pink side.

the corals are growing fast and everything is good i changed my skimmer to skim wet and im now topping off with water that has a bit of salt in it hoping to help with the water being skimmed out we'll see how that goes in the long term...hopefully it'll be ok.

here are the pictures

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0980.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0981.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0988.jpg

:hail:
Love this tank! SPS looks like it is starting to grow in nicely!

decent!

thanks guys!

im having a hard time doing custom white balance so maybe ill just put it back to neutral and do editing in lightroom once the photos are taken so i dont get this pink tone in the pictures which is from the T5 supplements that the camera seems to be very good at picking up.

this pic shows quite close to the actual colors of my lighting and coral colors

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_0996.jpg

got a few photos today just before lights out, no macro though but i think its good enough to show. ive been dosing MB7 + vodka for the last month or two now and i think its going well no more algae issues and my fish are slowly becoming pigs..literally 5 fish eats 40+ PE mysis a day...(yes i counted as i fed them haha)

hm.. i think thats all the update i got enjoy guys!:biggrin:

skittles granulosa: (this bugger is such a slow grower)
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1037.jpg

ORA borealis:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1036.jpg

purple polyp blue tip tabling acro:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1035.jpg

sunset millipora:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1034.jpg

Your tank looks fantastic. What is MB7 by the way?

MB7 is microbacter 7, a bacteria source by brightwell. i dont know if its actually got live bacterias as its inside a bottle and i was a little skeptical about it. but whatever is inside is doing its job so im not complaining!

yup, thats a pretty sick tank you got man, nice work !

thanks!

Absolutely stunning!!!

I never caught this build thread earlier. Nice clean work and I really appreciate your DIY stuff. Good colours and growth! Keep it up. I really enjoy seeing what you've done!

thanks!
thanks Dez, all the DIYs and etc is what keeps me going in this hobby along with seeing the corals growth. now im out of ideas and have no budget to build new things wat to do!:shocked!:

very inovative about adding the actinics to the lights any way and letting me in on how you did it?? wanting to add it my pendant also great idea. great colours on your corals too.

hey boomboy, if im understanding the request right the following pictures should be able to show you how i made the light addon.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1046.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1047.jpg

and after i finished taking those pictures i was playing around with my camera and i got this which i found interesting, its like i got waves clashing on my water surface.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...y/IMG_1049.jpg

thank you very cool water picture. very nice attention to detail even having the the holders molded to the same shape as the light. where did you get the tubing for the light though? also what about heat issues does the acrylic start to heat up and melt?

I got the acrylic tubes at industrial platics and paint, but you should be able to find it at any plastic store. As for heat issues I don't feel any, I've taken the t5 ballasts out many times and the ballast itself feels warm to the touch and does not melt the acrylic. I'm current testing out to see the effect of active cooling on the t5s and so far I don't see anymore light increase but I don't have a par meter to check with.

Im not positive but, I dont think "actively" cooling the bulbs increases the par....I think it decreases the drop in par from the bulbs running too hot, extending the bulb life....Ive said it before and I'll say it again.....mad DIY skills you got there man.....right up there with superfudge.....

Hi Imisky,
I like you 'light' design, did you make yourself or have plastic shop make it?
And your tank is great also by the way.
Jim