New pico tank...With leds!

[Bige]

Looks good. I went with R2 moonlights with the moonphase controller. I like mine. Cost 60 total. Aquacave has them with 4.95 shipping.

 

[Jimbo7]

Lookin good. I wish PAR meters weren't so darn expensive. It would be really nice to get some comparisons on all of our fixtures.

 

[Bige]

I would love to test. My local group has one but the guy that technically owns it also owns a mh cooling company. So the meter seems to be in use everytime I ask for it.

 

[mrg02d]

Not sure about PAR, but the light looks much more intense than the PC I had over the 2.5g. I have to keep it at 30% power because it hurts my eyes to look at when at 60% (using battery power for now until I build a regulator +voltage divider).

I figure if 60% is too much for me, its too much for the tank. Once my 7.5g gets here (tomorrow) I should be fine at 60% or more.

I altered the LED placement for better mixing. Now the blue and whites are staggered on each row. Much better coloring now...

Matt

 

[Jimbo7]

Any changes you do, I would do slowly. I would keep it at a % that you think is underlit to begin with, and bump it up 5-10% every week. Its much harder to unbleach coral then it is to live with a dimmer tank for a couple weeks.
LEDs put out a much more concentrated and higher intensity light wave then PCs and most aquarium lights, it more then just how bright they are that coral has to adjust to.

 

[mrg02d]

Hmmm....I wonder if the 30% power is too much? Wont corals begin spitting up their algaes when they are getting too much light? I could always drop the lights down to 15% on...

Matt

 

[mrg02d]

Yay, my tank came in today. Ive got the sand, rocks, and water in there now. I added some live rubble from my other tanks to help get it going.

Im kinda worried about the safety here though. Looking at the rimless tank, I cant help but wonder if the thing is safe? 7g of water on the floor will piss off my neighbors (again).

Its on top of my dressor right now. I dont know how level it is really, but the level application on my phone shows its level. (Not 100% though). How careful must I be with this tank? Does the fact that its only holding 6-7gallons mean I can worry less about it? When these things fail, do they just explode? 8O The glass is pretty thick, but I am worried about the seems and the fact that its not 100% level. (The "bubble" is in the circle, but not centered precisely).

Whew! Pics to come when the water clears up. (Despite 100g worth of rinsing the dry aragonite sand).

Matt

 

[Jimbo7]

Could you post some close ups of your wiring on the actual LEDs? I'm almost positive I know how to wire them up, but I don't want to blow it up. Probably easier to take pics with them off . I'm doing mine tonight, provided I don't hit any snags.

 

[mrg02d]

Hello,
I kept the wiring simple since I decided not to control both colors independently. I just made one long series string of 8. Positive to negative, positive to negative...

Here is a picture of them close up, lights off.

I changed the layout to:
B-W-B-W
W-B-W-B

I just held the light over my new 7.5g tank at 30% and WOW is it nice! The light spread is much much better! I am excited to see how well its lit up at just 30%!

Good luck!
Matt

 

[mrg02d]

pic

 

[Jimbo7]

Thats perfect. Just what I needed. What gauge wire did you end up using?

 

[mrg02d]

Thats perfect. Just what I needed. What gauge wire did you end up using?

Hmmm...I think its 18awg. Its wire from an old t5 light. I picked solid wire over stranded so that I could lay the wires straight and solder.

Make sure to use a high wattage soldering iron, as the stars heatsink the heat very well making it difficult to solder at low temperatures.

Matt

 

[mrg02d]

Now that the light is almost done (still need to fix a support for it so it either sits on the 7.5g or hangs over) I need to settle on a fish.

I am planning for just one fish. Im done with gobys as they just die. I am considering a Canary Yellow Blenny. Saltwaterfish.com has them from ORA as well as a 15 day guarantee.

Could this be a good choice for my 7.5g tank? (12in cube). Ive got the tank cycling right now and will have an awful lot of live rock. (Got about 8lbs of dry base rock right now and will be adding 8lbs of live rock really soon. 1in sand bed, aragonite. I plan to have plenty of corals and invertibrates (sexy shrimp, snails, crabs).

Sound good?

Matt

 

[Jimbo7]

Not sure on the blenny, if i recall they like to swim and dart in and out of the rock a lot. Might be too small, wait for someone with blenny experience.

What wattage iron did you use? I have people telling me you have to go high, and people saying stay low, so you don't overheat the diode.

 

[mrg02d]

Mine is a 50w weller temperature controlled iron. I believe I had the iron up to 320C (maxes at around 450C).

It is true that you can overheat the diode, but since its on an aluminum star, it is unlikely if you move quick. Too low a temperature can still be too high for the diode and lead to damage from being hot too long. (Waiting to melt the solder).

Its best to melt the solder fast, solder, then remove heat fast rather than take awhile to melt the solder and subject the diode to prolonged heat. The CREE datasheet ought to have a maximum temperature for soldering with a given exposure time.

I made sure that my diode was fixed to the heatsink via the thermal adhesive pad before soldering.

Matt