500 Gallon Build

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Yesterday I went to town as soon as I got the lights out of the boxes. Removed one manual dimmer to run the wires through and just left the second dimmer in place but wires are cut. Soldered in my own wiring and good to go. The lights then connect to ethernet cable I made up which connects into the Apex VDM.





This morning I was up early working on the lights. Raised the light hangers now that I know how far the lights hang. They will be 12 inches above the top of the tank. I have one light wired wrong so I will have to redo, it's the first one I did.





Power ran to one of them with it as dim as it gets. The fans do not run either when dimmed down. Have 16 power cords to manage with all of these.



No problem with sagging from the wieght. I bent each one up about an inch, and then after the added weight it comes back down pretty close to the correct level.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Mr. FedEx just came by the shop a little bit ago with more goodies for me! Him and MR. UPS are my heroes this week! All this Jebao stuff seems to be decent stuff, especially with the low price tags. This system has costed a few pennies already, so if I can save some money I am all for it. As long as they don't operate like the junk AC poweheads I got off of eBay last time around. Never again with the reverse startups and tons of racket and falling off of the glass.



The only thing I dont like about the dosing pump is its too smart and controls itself. I would rather have it be stupid and have the Apex control it like everything else. But $97 for 4 dosing heads is hard to pass up. If it doesn't work out, but I think it will be just fine, I will go back to the BRS dosers.



Two RW-20s are probobly not enough but a good starting point. I could have done a DIY apex controllable mod on these as well but I opted for the already made adapter to connect them. I need a VDM module however to hook them up as my lights have all mine used up.

[worm5406]

Your lights are crooked.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Originally Posted by worm5406

Your lights are crooked.

No way

[rfgonzo]

Instead of running electrical tape around the pipe to hide your wire, you could drill holes in the pipe above your lights and run the wire inside of the pipe.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Got the lights all finished between last night and this morning. Three pronged extension cord heaven it was. And our dog Chloe even helped!









Now I need an EB8 module to put up there for the lights to take up. All 8 outlets will be used up for the lights alone.

I also noticed a crack in the stock tank when I went downstairs to recalibrate the conductivity probe. It was a little wet underneath on the stand supporting the tank. Sure enough a crack originating from the bulkhead and traveling upwards an inch or two. So that is todays first project when I get home from the shop. I needed one for my turtle to go in, so I will patch this one up for him. A new, fresh one for the fishies.



Got a couple of bins as well to go in the stock tank. One small container to rig up for the floats to chill inside of to keep air bubbles out of the conductivity probe, and the one with all the holes will be used for aeration again like I did on the previous setup. I put bioballs in there which are submerged (key word there, submerged), so its not like a wet/dry. Filter sockas as well and the water all drains out of there and creates excellent aeration, not that the skimmer doesnt already.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Originally Posted by rfgonzo

Instead of running electrical tape around the pipe to hide your wire, you could drill holes in the pipe above your lights and run the wire inside of the pipe.

I had thought of that but already had all my terminals crimped on to the wires and didnt want to cut them all off and redo. Would have been a nightmare fishing all the wires through I think.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Here is the high tech box for the four probes to hang out inside of and avoid air bubbles. It seems to work well, conductivity probe has settled down. Drilled a few small holes in the bottom. Ya I forgot to take the damn label off of it.



Swapped out the hammerhead impeller for the barracuda as its still more then enough and cuts electricity down ~100 watts (1 third).



Completed the lights and it sure is bright in the house when I turn them up with the Apex. The GF is already complaining its too much. However they whould never be at 100% like I tested them at.





Got started on the quarantine tanks, well just one right now. Later on the currently running 29 will be going on the bottom. Or I may put another 20 from out in the shed on the bottom. I think I would rather have just 2 tanks to deal with though in here.



The 29 has an XP3 canister filter on it, a little big lol.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Also got the plumbing finished minus some support. You will notice a cardboard wrapping paper role under the return line lol.



One of the drains T's off into the other room to feed that, however I don't know how much water will make the turn into there. Figured it was worth a shot to feed the 65 stock tank for a refugium in there.



Working out pretty good this time. There is more in this room then before and i can reach everything from the center walkway.



The new stock tank has the bulkhead drilled up higher. The lower section is angled a lot and I never like it much. I think it had something to do with it cracking as well. Now I am just above the first ridge and its much straighter.



Hung a piece of 2X10 to mount the dosing pump. The 4 containers containing the dosing ingredients will be under the blue water barrels.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Originally Posted by worm5406

Nice skim. If you go look at my 180 thread you will see a video about break-in of my 300. It does a good job at pulling skim!

I actually already watched that before I even purchased this

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Testing out the RW-20s in a 20 gallon haha

[worm5406]

Originally Posted by foxvalleypcgeek

Also got the plumbing finished minus some support. You will notice a cardboard wrapping paper role under the return line lol.

Took me a minute to find that. It is on the far right, right on the bottom of the elbow. Yeah I have had to do stuff like that too. then forget to go back and correct it later. LOL

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Originally Posted by worm5406

Took me a minute to find that. It is on the far right, right on the bottom of the elbow. Yeah I have had to do stuff like that too. then forget to go back and correct it later. LOL

Sometimes you just have to improvise. It was the perfect height! The pipe actually stays up on its own somehow but put that there anyways.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

A morning phone video of the progress...

[dave.m]

For your four jack posts, usually you would pour a pad under each one, 2" thick and double the surface area to spread the weight over a larger area. You don't want to find out your basement floor is only a few inches thick in spots and eventually have the jack posts punch through.

Dave.M

[lhemphill]

Love the 48" wide, I think your going to love it. After having a wide tank, I would never go under 30" wide.

I am planning a similar size (96x36x24) for next year so I'm taking notes!

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Thanks, it should be interesting to work on. Pretty much have to climb in to reach the back.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Just ordered an EB8 and a VDM module so I will have 8 outlets and 8 channels total for the lights to consume. Each row will then be seperately controlled so I can have a sunset and sunrise moving accross the tank. That should be here tomorrow.

[Newbie Aquarist]

Great behind the scene video.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Originally Posted by Newbie Aquarist

Great behind the scene video.

Thanks!

I can now finish the lights with all 8 outlets and the extra 4 channels. Still need one more VDM for the jebao pumps to run off of yet.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

A Jebao RW-20 in the stock tank this morning.

[BILLYO382]

Originally Posted by foxvalleypcgeek

Thanks!

I can now finish the lights with all 8 outlets and the extra 4 channels. Still need one more VDM for the jebao pumps to run off of yet.

fantastic, ive been following along and just a little bit more interested in how you spliced in the cat5 Ethernet cable to the lights and how the wiring works more closely in the light fixtures themselves. Basically did you splice into the wires coming out of the dimmer or the harness connected directly to the leds board itself. thanks in adavance

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Originally Posted by BILLYO382

fantastic, ive been following along and just a little bit more interested in how you spliced in the cat5 Ethernet cable to the lights and how the wiring works more closely in the light fixtures themselves. Basically did you splice into the wires coming out of the dimmer or the harness connected directly to the leds board itself. thanks in adavance

I got 4 separate colors of wire to keep track of which wire is wich as there are 4 wires total used for dimming. Two per driver.



I cut the 4 wires going into each dimmer switch and soldered in my own. The leads go into the drivers.

I make my own Ethernet cable here at the shop so I just cut to length and crimp on the RJ-45 connectors on one end. The other end I put ring terminals on to easily connect with the wires coming from the lights. All wires have ring terminals on the ends and they meet together on a 10/24 machine screw with washers and nuts to tighten them all together.



Only pins 1,2,5,6 are used, the other 4 are not needed.

[foxvalleypcgeek]

Looks like a few wires make up the lighting. 8 dimming channels however the 8th one is loose in the rj45 plug so i have to cut it off and crimp another. Other then that all ready to tidy up.