Aquaforest SPS Pico Work Tank (12 litres)

[chrismelb]

Was shocked to find that two tank walls have come apart.


This appears not due to force of the water but suspect to acrylic warping as panels no longer can be aligned back together without excessive force. I believe the panels may have warped due to differing temps on either side of panels (outside air temp vs. tank water) which caused one side to contract and the other to expand causing the warp.

It may be similar to having an acrylic top cover on a tank that sags (ie. warps)

[naqua]

Damn, that sucks. I know acrylic is used in tank builds, but maybe a specific type that does not warp?

Did you have a nice few litres of water to clean up?

[chrismelb]

Damn, that sucks. I know acrylic is used in tank builds, but maybe a specific type that does not warp?

Did you have a nice few liters of water to clean up?

Yes that was not a pleasant job especially as it was at work and leaked after business hours. Luckily the heater remained submerged in the partition and wavemaker seems to be working fine with no detectable damage or wear to the impellor or impellor housing.

After this mishap, I did wonder whether a specific type of acrylic is typically used for tank builds. Acrylic doesn't seem to be that common here in AU probably due to the cost of acrylic here. The reason i've been playing with acrylic tanks is that they are easy to work with (e.g., drilling holes, no messy silicone) and love the transparency. However, now I am going back to low-iron glass (Starfire) tanks.

Luckily I found a suitable replacement tank from Coburg Aquarium. Its a Yi-ding tank that measures the same length and width (250x250) as my previous tank, so its fits directly on top of my DIY desk stand, which is great. However, it is 250 high compared to my previous 200 high tank. This new tank is made out of low-iron glass (termed "crystal blue") that has polished edges and the joins looks very nice and clean.





I was able to build the same partition at the back to hide the heater as previous build. However, i'm not too keen on drilling this tank and fitting a suitable bulkhead for draining tank water due to the size needed to fit glass tank bulkheads. So I will leave this out and do manual siphons for water changes. However, I wont be doing the typical siphon, I will use rigid tubing with a clamp and airline hose so that a siphon can be easily started with a syringe and left unattended until drained.

I noticed a nice feature of the back heater compartment, in that detritus often ends up here and can be easily siphoned out. It appears that the amount of water flow (900lph in a 12 liter tank, 75x) combined with the sugar sized doesn't allow detritus to settle in the sand bed, which could pose a long term problem in pico tanks as nicely discussed in a nano-reef post by "tibsy07" http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/347187-es-and-ts-pico-sand-bed-thread/.

Now back to progress, more exciting news to come on the DIY LED light

[naqua]

My 2ft tank is a Yi Ding. Nice tanks!

[sparker]

sorry to hear about the split

Replacement looks like it will do the job though

[chrismelb]

A big light update here.

Finished putting together my DIY Light.

The biggest problem I had choosing a suitable Light is finding one that I liked. Based on my months of research into what Corals require and viewing pleasure, I went with the following:


12 led Array (upto 41 watts), 7 Channels (although controller is a 6 channel configuration as seen below)

Ch 1 - 2 x Luxeon T Cool White 5700K (1200ma)
Ch 2 - 2 x Luxeon T Royal Blue 445-450nm (1200ma)
Ch 3- 1 x Luxeon Rebel ES Blue 470-475nm (1000ma)
Ch 3 - 1 x Luxeon Rebel ES Turquoise 505-510nm (1000ma)
Ch 4 - 1 x Luxeon Rebel Red 650-645nm (700ma)
Ch 5 - 1 x Luxeon Rebel Pc Amber ~590nm (700ma)
Ch 6 - 1 x Violet Semileds 400-410nm (1000ma)
Ch 6 - 2 x Violet Semileds 410-420nm (1000ma)
Ch 6 - 1 x Violet Semileds 420-430nm (1000ma)

Unit is passively cooled. Controller can be controlled by PC software, includes sunrise and sunset .1 increments (although this is currently in a Russian beta version) or Android App (English)

LED components and array were purchased from http://www.reefll.com. One thing I really liked about this array is that Led Bins are specified, uses a good board to transfer heat (SinkPADtm II), and Pc Amber to control Kelvin

PICS:
DIY Controller Box


Light


Light on tank



50% Cool White


50% Royal Blue


50% Violet


50% Blue and Turquoise


50% Pc Amber


50% Red


All Channels except PC Amber at 50% gives a 20k look


All Channel including PC Amber at 50% gives closer to a 10k look (note. white balance was adjusted to give true picture)

[Jordan99]

This is awesome!

I'm doing some research into making my own lighting system too that is programable!
How hard /cost effective compared to purchasing one?

[chrismelb]

This is awesome!

I'm doing some research into making my own lighting system too that is programable!
How hard /cost effective compared to purchasing one?

Wasn’t too difficult, I guess it depends on your DIY skills and what materials you have had experience working with. Cost is a little cheaper and another positive is that you can get more for your $, (e.g., 6 independent colour channels, dimming resolution of 1000 steps). However, it is probably not cheaper if you account for your time, and I did spend a lot of time planning my design- perhaps more time was spent designing than building it. Luckily for me I enjoy doing projects like this.

I went DIY over premade simply because I couldn’t find a unit that met what I was looking for in terms of LED array/efficiency and controllability. I spent quite some time researching coral light requirements and wanted a specific combination of LEDs that I think are highly suited to keeping corals. I also wanted passive cooling as this is a desk tank light and adding fans adds another thing that can go wrong (e.g., they can get affected by dust, can possibly rust and fail causing LEDS to overheat).

[chrismelb]

PAR readings

I attempted to carry out the measurement of PAR as i've often seen on NR (particularly the ones i've seen from Jedimasterben as I have found these very useful). Readings were taken in air as water surface agitation can influence measurement by +/-25% (as mentioned by Jedimasterben on NR). PAR was measured using an Apogee quantum meter (QMSWWS) and calibrated for Sun. Each channel was set to 100% and measured separately. Where necessary, measurements were corrected in accordance with Apogee's response graph ([url/]http://www.apogeeinstruments.co.uk/comparisons-in-quantum-sensor-output-for-different-light-sources[/url)]. A total PAR reading for all channels was calculated by summing the readings of the 6 channels. LED array on built stand measured ~70mm above the tank, no optics, no diffuser, just a 3mm clear acrylic cover. Measurements were taken at the bottom center (200mm from the top thanks to an approx. 40-50mm sandbed), roughly midway up (100mm from the top), and all four sides and corners (readings are displayed only once for sides and corners and represent the average of all four measurements taken).

Cool White



Violet



Royal Blue



Blue/Cyan



PC Amber



Red



All Channels



As expected the Violet channel emits a significant amount of PAR which is a spectrum highly suited to corals. Results suggest that this light is a bit of an overkill for such a small tank and therefore, channels will unlikely ever be run at 100%. You can see that for nano/pico tanks, optics are not warranted and positioning LEDS (w/o optics) closer to the water's surface allows for great intensity, spread with little light spill over. Looking forward to populating this tank with lots of corals now

[naqua]

Almost 500 PAR at the sandbed is insane! Nice work on the readings though, interesting to see the differences by channel.