Nano Reef in the Office

[jostafew]

Quick update: picked up a used RKL so that will be in place from day one , finished the FW resevoir plumbing, and tinted the side panels. Everything is packed up and ready to go to the office for installation. Hopefully one night this week I'll be able to stay late and blast a couple holes in the desk to run cords and plumbing. Pretty stoked!

[subman]

Very nice and clean setup!
Can't wait to see more

[ScubaSteve]

Very cool build. I love the clean look.

I'm actually building a tank for my desk at work right now too, though mine's just an old biocube my friend had kicking around I'll be converting it to LEDs though, which brings up a point you mentioned above...

The disco ball effect. You can minimize the disco ball effect by keeping the surface calm OR you can pack the LEDs closer together to minimize the separation of the light sources. I've been tossing around the idea of using Steve's LEDs 3-up stars (link) to get 3 LEDs tightly packed onto a single star, and then packing the stars tight together. Basically, this is the tightest configuration possible without doing a custom PCB (Which I am considering...). My thinking is to get the sources tight enough together that they basically behave (more or less) like a single large point source of light like a metal halide and you won't see as much disco-ing. In theory this shouldn't be a whole lot different than a HQI upgrade for the biocube, especially if I run the LEDs without optics. This is the direction a lot of the high end systems are going with, however, those are pendant systems and with the extra height you can get decent spread from a tight packing. I'm unsure how it would work out inside a biocube where the LEDs are close to the water surface.

Have you thought about this at all for your LEDs? And how do you think this would work in the biocube? I'm basically using the same color mix as you and have been debating using the 3-ups to create 1 or 2 tightly packed arrays of LEDs.

[arash53]

Good job, really nice and neat DIY setup. I cant wait to see it up and running.

I have a nano FW tank in the office, I was thinking about setting up a SW ,but I thought it will be too much hassle preparing water in the office. I really like to see how you do it.

[jostafew]

Hey ScubaSteve, I've got the standard Emitter on Star type LED modules all grouped as tightly together as possible, but you're right the multiple emitter in a single module would be better. That being said I think I may have proper solution should it come to that, and frankly I'm amazed we don't see this from the high end vendors yet. I can't find the source right now (have an e-mail at home) but it's a thin film that's matte on one side to gather and disperse light from multiple LED emitters, then on the other side the surface is made up of tiny lenses which then redirect all that diffused light at your choice of angles (anywhere from say 45-120deg optics). So what you end up with is essentially one large light source of uniform color temperature. You'll lose the nice glitter lines, but then the disco ball effect is also gone. Ultimately I beleive the multiple emitter on chip containing many colors will be the best long term solution, but until that is readily available (for cheap) I think this film is the answer in the DIY LED world. I was going to give it a shot on this project but the $50 sample fee put that on hold until my plan to maintain a calm water surface fails hahah. Will post when I find the source again.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by jostafew

Hey ScubaSteve, I've got the standard Emitter on Star type LED modules all grouped as tightly together as possible, but you're right the multiple emitter in a single module would be better. That being said I think I may have proper solution should it come to that, and frankly I'm amazed we don't see this from the high end vendors yet. I can't find the source right now (have an e-mail at home) but it's a thin film that's matte on one side to gather and disperse light from multiple LED emitters, then on the other side the surface is made up of tiny lenses which then redirect all that diffused light at your choice of angles (anywhere from say 45-120deg optics). So what you end up with is essentially one large light source of uniform color temperature. You'll lose the nice glitter lines, but then the disco ball effect is also gone. Ultimately I beleive the multiple emitter on chip containing many colors will be the best long term solution, but until that is readily available (for cheap) I think this film is the answer in the DIY LED world. I was going to give it a shot on this project but the $50 sample fee put that on hold until my plan to maintain a calm water surface fails hahah. Will post when I find the source again.

Very cool! Let me know when you find that source again. I'll see if I can pull some strings using my university discount to get a sample for free/cheap.

Glad to hear you're grouping them tight together. Certainly validates my thinking. The evenly spaced LEDs never made a whole lot of sense to me.