Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Halides will get you going cheaply enough (startup) and by the time you're ready for your first bulb-swap there will be a bunch of new and better fixtures not to mention better diodes (in them or for DIY). You want to get the thing running soon so I like your thinking.

yah, that's honestly what I've been thinking, especially with the kinds of bulbs Cree has been announcing the last couple of months. It would be like 5 grand to do my tank with all Radions, which is so hard to swallow when there's a good chance they'll be obsolete in a year. I fully believe LEDs are the future, but if I'm going to sink 5 Gs on anything, I want it to be a 100% fully proven technology that does every thing I want, and whose limitations and considerations are 100% known. I think Ecotech really stepped up the game in terms of what people are going to expect from now on. Full spectrum LED fixtures is the way of the future and while I think Ecotech did a great job on their first attempt, I don't think they're completely 'there' just yet1 (neither do they, clearly, or they wouldn't have built in an extra un-utilized channel to the radion). Once all the other major players work through what was already in their R&D cycles, I think we're going to start seeing a whole suite of really impressive and compelling fixtures out there. It might even be a matter of simply waiting for Ecotech to release their next round of light pucks that fully utilizes what the hardware is capable of, but if that's the case, I'm certainly not interested in paying full base price plus what I'm sure will be a hefty 'upgrade', times 6, later.

Moral of the story, if I'm going to spend 5 thousand bucks on LED light fixtures, spending it after MACNA 2012 is probably going to get me a heck of a lot more for my money.

[Nano]

might seem like a dumb question, but if you have even considered leds, and by the sounds of it, it has crossed you mind, why not DIY? some modulars would be much cheaper and offer a lot of the same color options as radions. I dont know if they are quite up to par side by side, but for the money you'd be saving, and the fact that they are modular means you could swap out the bulbs in a heartbeat if they came out with a newer more powerful modular bulb.. thats what I think anyway haha

I'm really excited to see how this whole project comes together!

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by nanomano

might seem like a dumb question, but if you have even considered leds, and by the sounds of it, it has crossed you mind, why not DIY? some modulars would be much cheaper and offer a lot of the same color options as radions. I dont know if they are quite up to par side by side, but for the money you'd be saving, and the fact that they are modular means you could swap out the bulbs in a heartbeat if they came out with a newer more powerful modular bulb.. thats what I think anyway haha

I'm really excited to see how this whole project comes together!

Thanks! I'm pretty stoked too. It's so close now I can practically taste the salt water lol. I had to start a tiny 5 gallon pico here in my temporary condo just to keep me from going batty

I had considered building my own LED fixture, but originally discounted it because I had no time, place, or tools to build one. Now that I think I'm going to start out with MH it's more of a possibility as the new house will have a workspace that I could build something like that in (though I don't have any tools, or technical know how what so ever!) so I could take my time without delaying my tank if I decided to go that route. However, one of the things that REALLY attracts me to the Radions is the software that comes with it, and I'm most definitely not going to be able to reproduce something like that on my own, so I'm still going to remain open to a fixture if one that I fully trust with my system comes along.

[mseepman]

I chose to go the LED route, but I also chose DIY instead of fixtures. $5000 or more was too big a pill to swallow. My DIY light has come together really well so far and with the BJB connectors, it has been soooooo simple. Price wise, I'm looking at less than half the cost and a little elbow grease. I don't know electrical either, but it's coming together. You should look at Modular LED as an option. I hear they are simple to put together too.

[asylumdown]

At last! There is a tank!

Kevin and some guys were at the house today installing it. Wish I could have been there to document it (it's HUGE!), but I stopped in to take some pics this afternoon.

Dining room side


Office side


Overflows



Now, there's one problem that may or may not be major, and I'm hoping someone here can give me guidance. Kevin is headed out of town for the next 10 days and I don't think I'm going to be able to reach him, and they are literally putting the panel on the office side that will seal the tank in to the wall as we speak. After that, they will be mudding, taping, and tying the drywall in to the enclosure's corners, so removing the tank if this is a problem is going to become exponentially more destructive, expensive and time consuming, so I need to know if this is a problem now.

The plywood that the tank is sitting on is 3 inches thick, they had to build it up so that the cabinet framing had something other than the steel stand to attach to. When they made the plywood, it was bowed and the centre was higher than the sides, so they installed bracing on the underside to pull the plywood flat. It appeared to have worked, but now that the tank is on, I can see that there's like a quarter inch variance in height from the centre of the stand to the left and right sides. On the right side (when looking from the office), you can see all the way under the tank to the dining room.

Here's a pic of the foam/plywood interface in the centre of the tank:


Here's a pic of the foam plywood interface at the left edge (when looking from the office):


So my question is thus - how much allowance is there in that foam for compression? Will it compress enough to compensate for the slight bow in the plywood, or am I going to be looking at a snapped tank when I fill it with water? I really could use some guidance...

[lastlight]

That's really bad man. I'd never fill that sorry. Stand needs to be level even with foam. Foam is not really for compensating for an overall unlevelness in a surface but more for imperfections in an overall level surface.

[asylumdown]

yah, I thought so too. I just got off the phone with the builder, they're halting the finishing and are going to try and fix the plywood in the morning. If they can't get it to flatten out by adding more bracing to the underside, the entire enclosure needs to be ripped out.

This would be where I wish we could swear in this forum.

[The Grizz]

Don't know what others think of it but there is an awful lot of air bubbles in the silicone holding your tank together there Adam, just my 2 cents .

[FishyFishy!]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

Don't know what others think of it but there is an awful lot of air bubbles in the silicone holding your tank together there Adam, just my 2 cents .

+1

It seems odd to have that many. I was wondering if it was just a close up shot and they were tiny, but after a second look, that's a lot of big bubbles.