280g Inwall

[kien]

Wow this is really coming along! very nice!

As Journey would say, Don't Stop, Believing! :-)

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

good.


Unfortunately the bearings are shot. That pump turns, but it howls like a banshee. The whole house resonated with the sound. Completely unacceptable.

He Tony, I know where there is a Mak4 with good bearings and a bad impeller for pretty cheep

Steve

[Delphinus]

Hey Steve, thanks, I might take you up on that. Seems a shame to throw out two pumps when we can merge parts and maybe salvage one of them. Anyhow we can talk offline on that at some point perhaps.

...

Here's a quick update on things.

After spinning my wheels around about the skimmer the last little while, it looks I found a replacement skimmer. It should be arriving sometime this week and I'll save the detailed story for after when I have it in my hands. One sucky thing is it means I have to redo the overflow plumbing to gain full benefit from it but I think it will be worthwhile in the end. At any rate, stay tuned for developments on that particular story as it plays out.

So after deciding to not worry about the skimmer for now I tried getting my T5's going. The original plan here was to use 24" T5's mounted perpendicular to the tank so that they can fit between the Lumenarcs. There is room for long T5's on the outside edge of the halides for lengthwise but there are two reasons I opted for perpendicular: cheap and easily available, and also the way that long T5's would sit would have them directly over the Eurobracing, which seems like a waste of light. However that said, it's just for dusk and dawn, so who cares if one is not squeezing out every last shred of PAR out of the T5's.

But, a snag. I had bought 16 T5 sockets and 8 24" reflectors with the intent that I would drive them, at least temporarily, using a Workhorse 7 ballast I've had sitting around since the days of old. Two problems played out here: 1) WH7 isn't rated to drive 24" T5's at all, and 2) Even if it could, it's not to drive 8 lamps (I just thought I could "get away with it" if I ran the lights in series. I riveted in two 2" straps of aluminum into the light rack so that it could hold 24" t5's and starting wiring up the sockets. Well, unfortunately, ... it didn't work. Either my lamps are defunct or my ballast is defunct .. but after finding out I was trying to squeeze lemonade out of a handful of dirt anyhow, I thought .. why not look into just buying a proper retrofit kit. Why not go with 80w and be done with it.

Well, wow, 80w kits are both expensive and hard to find. Ok. So decided to shelf T5's altogether for now and just get on with things.

But, a stroke of dumb luck, or for once, being a packrat paid off. When I went my pile of equipment to find the one last ballast I had for the halides (it was a bare ballast that I had to wire up and put into a case), I found a forgotten-about 2x24w CurrentUSA Nova unit I had purchased for the sake of adding actinic to my cube tank, which I never got around to doing. The brilliant part is it fits perfectly between two reflectors and the amount of light it throws off, even if it is a little askew to one side, is perfect for a dusk/dawn effect. If I can find a second one of these somewhere, to put on the other side, I'm going to call it done.

So, yesterday was a beautiful day outside and had 2 invitations to go mountain biking, which I probably should have taken... but instead I said "this shalt be a tank project day." The family went off doing shopping and chores and I stayed home and starting to work on finishing my halide reflectors. Took a bit of fiddling with washers to act as spacers for the socket-to-reflector mount to get the lamps to sit nicely centred in the reflectors, but I got the light rack finally wired, lamps installed, and the whole dang thing back up in the ceiling.

I've been waiting a LONG time to see this:



So what we have here is 3 Radiums. The outside two are lit by HQI ballasts, so overdriven at 430w or so, and the middle is a DIY M135 ballast (pulse-start, and slightly underdriven at 380w or so, IIRC). To be honest at this point I can't see a difference, all 3 are insanely bright to my eyes and the colour a nice shade of cool-glacier-ice-sort-of blue. But there's only been 5 minutes of run time so it will be neat to see once it's past the burn-in period.

The tank with all 3 halides on:


Of course without context, you can't really see how insanely bright this tank is. When I took this picture I looked over to my right and looked at the cube tank. The cube tank with its single 250w just absolutely pales in comparison.

For the next two photos, of course I let the camera auto-adjust so it's hard to see the step-downs in intensity but at the same time, I'm actually really impressed with things, they are still brighter than I thought they would be.

Here's just the middle halide on:


It's a pretty decent amount of light still.

And this was just the mind-blowing moment of the day for me yesterday. Here's a 280g tank light by only 2x24w t5:


There's my dusk and dawn. I'm happy with it. Like I mentioned earlier if I can find a second 24" Nova unit I might throw that up there but that will be it. Any other t5's after that will be simply be icing.

And ... and ... and:


The fill has begun. The RO/DI is a 75gpd unit so it's going to take a few days, but ... the tank is now officially wet. Happy days are here!

[Rbacchiega]

75 gallons per day....ha ha normally that'd be fairly quick...I vote pics at the end of each day.

[Lance]

On the first day God said: "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good.



Very good Tony, although it took you 384 days to make light your light is good!

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by Lance

On the first day God said: "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good.



Very good Tony, although it took you 384 days to make light your light is good!

agreed

[lastlight]

MOAR

We wants moar! Congrats man I'd have called in sick for a few days to watch it fill up.

[Skimmerking]

well its about time glad that i see that i never put any money on this bet.................................



however 75 gal per day i will talk to you next year at that rate......


Adda BOY Tony

[muck]

[reefcanada]

Way to go Tony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!