Red Sea Aquavase
 

So I went down to the states yesterday, as my sister has some bridal shopping to do. I figured I'd join the trip and keep her fiance entertained, rather than sitting in a car.

We ended up going to Petco to check out the place. I now know why they call that place Death-co. Nice big tangs, in 5g tanks, full of ick. Made my heart almost stop.

Anyhoo, on the way out, we noticed the clearance table.

We found a Red Sea Aquavase. Reg $29.99, on sale for $10 bucks. Reason, no lamp. Still a steal at $10 bucks for the small 3/4g tank, and also the HOB filter. (The one we got was all clear)

http://www.petco.com/assets/product_...077388223B.jpg

He's always wanted a small tank for his apartment, and almost always wanted a red scarlet hermit crab. He can't keep his eyes of the one in my tank, seeing that was the first livestock I had.

Questions: His apartment is fairly warm year round. Do you think he'll need a heater?

Lighting? What to use? If anything he'll some sand, a peice of LR, and the hermit, one snail, and maybe some xenia from my tank. Thought about DIY LED, but he's not the DIY type of guy. Thought about the similar lighting that comes with the tank, its $24.99 and is 7w. Is that enough?

You know, when a store has poor animal keeping practices, I boycott them. :neutral:

Its nice to have an opinion and all but I dont think that was what he was asking.....


Anyway if I was setting up the tank I would hook up a little LED light, use the little filter that came with it and forget about the heater, I would keep the tank temperate, have a orange footed/margarita snail, some sand, some live rock, some worms, a little goby(I cant for the life of me remember the name of the temperate goby Im thinking of, its bright neon red with nean blue vertical stripes....) and alot of nice readily available hermit crabs do well in temperate conditions alot of pretty critters do well in temperate conditions.....

A Catalina Goby?

So you think room temp should be good enough? We're gonna leave it with some sand/LR for about 1-2 weeks in his apartment, and see what the temp runs at. He's got a highrise in downtown, and I know it bakes in the summertime, however he is getting a A/C this summer.

I don't think that we even thought about having any salt water fish, as I figured it would be way to small for one. You think a goby would be okay? I'll see what he thinks, if he's happy with a crab or two, we'll leave it like that.

He called me up and asked about one of those small $10 dollar ikea lamps, but I figured those would just grow algea in the tank. Maybe I'll see if I can rig up some LED for him.

lol, yeah thats the one....
Thanks

If he has a heat regulated place no heater would be fine in my mind if you kept it kinda temperate, using temperate species such as the catilina goby which is a very small fish,(think freshwater neon goby size but not as large when adults) margarita /orangefoot snail, and various others, alot of readily available corals thrive in temperate conditions as well...

Very cool. Thanks for the info! Much appreciated.

http://animal-world.com/encyclo/mari...1P660X_med.jpg

Btw, thats a cool lookin' fish. Some info: A cold water marine aquarium is ideal as these are not a "tropical" fish. They are "coldwater" fish, which means they will thrive best in temperatures in the 50°s and 60°s F (with the highest temperatures being 74° F).

So went to his apartment last night to setup the little beast. Looks great. We ended up just using a small ikea lamp he has for now.

I end up spending tons of time in my room, and since my 38g is downstairs, I figure I may start one of my own aquavase. I'll probably give him the light from mine, and make my own LED lighting. We'll see how things go. We'll probably keep the same things in our tank, to see the difference in growth from the regular 7w (or possibly 13w) compared to my LED's.

Well I ended up getting my own Aquavase for my room. After helping my sisters fiance set his up last night, I just had to get my own.

all pictures located here

Well, this is what we started with:

http://www.ditchmond.com/gallery/alb...l_DSCF1344.JPG

I ended up giving Paul my light, as I wanted to do some LED testing.

I decided to use the same LED's as in my moonlighting thread.

So I made my own bracket to hold the fixtures:

http://www.ditchmond.com/gallery/alb...l_DSCF1350.JPG

I made it on the CNC. I milled a slot down the center to hide the wiring. I ended up using 3 of the fixtures, 2 white 8LED and 1 blue 8LED. Once I finish the wiring, I may wire it so I can turn off just the white, and leave the blue on at night.

http://www.ditchmond.com/gallery/alb...l_DSCF1355.JPG

The bracket isin't finished yet, as I didn't know what height I wanted it above the surface. I may just end up making it adjustable.

I threw in some rock just to give you a idea of the lighting (so don't flame my aquascaping :D )

Here's the first test. I just sat the fixture on the top, its about 1" from the surface of the water. You'll notice that its quite blue in the middle from the blue LED.

http://www.ditchmond.com/gallery/alb...l_DSCF1361.JPG

And here is the LED fixture kept about 2" above the surface. You'll notice the blue is a little more washed out along with the white LED's, which looks a little better IMO.

http://www.ditchmond.com/gallery/alb...l_DSCF1362.JPG

Here's one more picture with the fixture above 2":

http://www.ditchmond.com/gallery/alb...l_DSCF1359.JPG

So far, i'm "somewhat" happy with the LED's. It doesn't seem as bright as the 7w as I thought it would be. Still its pretty good. I "may" make another fixture with 2 more WHITE led fixtures on it. We'll see what happens. I think with some sand in there, it may brighten things up a little more.

Stay tuned... comments, ideas are welcome ...

I think its looking great! Do you know what the output on the LED's is? Are they each a group of 8x .08watt LED's?

I think the sand will brighten it up alot!

Thanks! I think the sand will help out. I'm also planning on putting a small piece of black vinyl as a background, so the filter will be unnoticed.

All I know is the 8 led's total use 80ma and produce 90,000 mcd. I've just fired off a email regarding the actual wattage of each LED. I'll post up the details when I get a answer.

Im getting another batch of 5 watt LED's for our mini reef each one produces 120 lumens, runs at 700mA steady or up to 1000mA pulsed, and puts out over 1,000,000mcd
Ill be running 3x White 5watt LED's and 3x Blue 5watt LED's
should be bright! Right now Im designing a CNC'd housing for them...
are you running you parts on a CNC table or mill?

Wowzer, those are nuts. Where are you getting those from? What are you using to power them?

I didn't quite follow your last question (table or mill?), but we've got 2 vertical mills. One has a 84x32" bed, and the other is 30x16".

Our big one looks similar to this, except our tool holder is mounted hortizonally, not vertically.

http://haascnc.com/prod/pi/25823.jpg

i guess I should have asked if you were using a cnc mill, or a cnc table router....

I am still designing a lighting system with the LED's that Im using... I use specality LED drivers to power them and they need to be heatsinked and fan cooled

heating
 

it hink the lights might keep the water warm for ur critters :biggrin:

the ikea lights with 7W in a littl tank like tat can be warm

Ahhh, no router. However with the size of our bed on our VF-7, you can consider it a router, with a 20hp head ;)

We don't have a vacuum table on it yet, but we're hopefully gonna get a pump within the next month or two, then just make our own vacuum table that we can just mount on.

I've seen those drivers (mini ballasts I call them). Its insane that they put off so much heat as well. I thought about using the luxeon on this pico, but i figure it may be a little too bright. We'll see how these ones work.

yeah they are very bright, the LED's runs very hot and must be cooled but if you put your hand an inch away from the light it is cool so no heat in your tank really... just trying to figure out how to best mount the LED's so they look nice, function well, and are protected from moisture

THem catalina (is that how u spell it) i heard they do good in a tropical reef tank? is this true

no this is not true.... they can survive for awhile but usually die in a couple months at the latest and thats if your tank is at the lower end around 76degrees or less