Ziggy's Corner Planter

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Can't be too common, I started a thread about it, got a total of about two responses, then it kind of died out - of course mine was a little more purpose specific. Getting some great ideas by following along with your build however, especially since I won't have to worry about CO2 loss in my trout tank, but filtration will be a big issue.


Glad to be of help. FYI the trickle filter I put together cost me right at $20.00 for all the parts. The little drawer stacks from walmart were 7.97 and 4 something. The filter floss was under $3 the sponge was $4 at my LFS. Pretty simple and took about 20 minutes to put together. Each drawer has 36 holes drilled in the bottom. I'll take some pics of them and post them for you. You can use any of the drawer stacks that walmart sells. Larger for lager systems. The thing that caught my attention here is that I can change out the media in each drawer easily, I can see how the water is flowing through the filter and I can adjust my filtration needs based on what's going on in the tank.

I believe that most places that have 9-12 tank systems (petco petsmart walmart ect) use sump and trickle style filters though they may incorporate a biowheel of some kind. Just a little info there..
 
Sorry about the posts. Thank you for answering so quickly and concisly.

How is LED different from incadescant and florescent? Does it use more electricity? Does it give off a lot of heat?

LED uses very little electricity but requires attention to detail when building the light. I'm doing this from scratch. They are more expensive than other types of lighting so it's not something to go into lightly. I have about $200 in parts for mine.

LED is nothing like incandescent or florescent, #1 they will last anywhere from 50,000-100,000 hours (according to manufacture specs). Unlike other bulbs LEDs do not shift light spectrum so they remain true to their color temp. Mine are 6500K and that means they are exactly and only 6500K no red or blue light in them. I am supplementing my lights with blue LEDs that peak at 450nm keep in mind that this was going to light a reef so that's the reason for the blue, also the blue will make the fish look amazing.

I'm using (right now) 20 1watt LED diodes. I will be powering them with 2 24V power supplies. I will have to get a meter to see exactly how much power I'm going to be consuming but it shouldn't be very much.
 
Is it just me, or are the last two pictures not showing up in that last post?

Refresh, they are showing up for me.

Here is a pic of the drawer after I had the holes marked off.
006knr.jpg
 
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This is what I've learned so far about lighting. Florescent is a glass tube with a coating on the inside and oxygen and a small amount of mercury. It is more efficient than incandesant.
LED is more efficeint than florescent and doesn't have mercury. It also uses more of a "stream" of light rather than the light spreading out.

Do the strips have to sit above the water instead of sitting on the glass top?
 
Glad to be of help. FYI the trickle filter I put together cost me right at $20.00 for all the parts. The little drawer stacks from walmart were 7.97 and 4 something. The filter floss was under $3 the sponge was $4 at my LFS. Pretty simple and took about 20 minutes to put together. Each drawer has 36 holes drilled in the bottom. I'll take some pics of them and post them for you. You can use any of the drawer stacks that walmart sells. Larger for lager systems. The thing that caught my attention here is that I can change out the media in each drawer easily, I can see how the water is flowing through the filter and I can adjust my filtration needs based on what's going on in the tank.

I believe that most places that have 9-12 tank systems (petco petsmart walmart ect) use sump and trickle style filters though they may incorporate a biowheel of some kind. Just a little info there..

Excellent info - thank you! I recognized the drawer stacks, I have some that are currently storing drill bits and other odds and ends - just never considered them for something like this. Love the idea of the seperate drawers rather than a canister filter!

Refresh, they are showing up for me.

And yet not for me for some reason - how odd, I'm seeing all the rest, but not those two even after refreshing and restarting the page. Oh well, pictures are great, keep em coming!
 
This is what I've learned so far about lighting. Florescent is a glass tube with a coating on the inside and oxygen and a small amount of mercury. It is more efficient than incandesant.
LED is more efficeint than florescent and doesn't have mercury. It also uses more of a "stream" of light rather than the light spreading out.

Do the strips have to sit above the water instead of sitting on the glass top?


My LED light will be custom built by me. It will be suspended over the tank. I don't have glass tops for this tank so it will be open top.

Go to Ledsupply.com and click on the link on the left for DIY LED Projects. There is a link for a reef tank that uses LEDs to light it. That is the design I'm following.
 
I cannot afford LED. I will just have to go with good florescents even if in the long run LED is better.
Next will be my CO2.
A trickle filter is when the outflow is slower than like a hob? You're using this method b/c your tank is already RR?
 
I cannot afford LED. I will just have to go with good florescents even if in the long run LED is better.
Next will be my CO2.
A trickle filter is when the outflow is slower than like a hob? You're using this method b/c your tank is already RR?

Correct.

My tank is reef ready and I had the extra 10g tank already to use as a sump. I'm also going this route because the tank is a corner style tank and it is actually in a corner as you see in the pics. I can't really have anything hanging off the back of it, so sump filtration is what I have to do.
 
So now I remember why I hate soldering things. Ugh!

The blues are wired up and are bright as crap. WOW!

I have to take a break before finishing the whites. I took pics of the LEDs on the heatsink and will post them in a bit. the pics I took of the blues running didn't turn out very well. I'll post but they don't do justice to how bright they really are.
 
Im glad to see the new avatar ;)

I must say, seeing your 10g makes me very excited to see how this tank turns out. Looking forward to the pics for sure!
 
Im glad to see the new avatar ;)

I must say, seeing your 10g makes me very excited to see how this tank turns out. Looking forward to the pics for sure!

Thanks!

I'm excited too. Been working on the LEDs today. The tank is cycling right now so we'll see how that goes. You fresh guys/gals love Prime, so I got some, stuff smells like a...well it just smells. Water is in good shape just gotta let it cycle. Shouldn't take long. I pulled the filter media out of the 10g and tossed it in the sump of the new tank. That should help things along.
 
Here are the pics of the LED build thus far. I'm still paused right now.

20 1 watt LEDs laid out and glued down to the heat sink. 10 blue and 10 white. The white are 100 lumens and are 6500K color temp, the blues peak at 450nm, also 100 lumens.
014oc.jpg


All the goodies I picked up to do the wire job.
019rs.jpg



The blues (can't get a good pic of them, the cam sux)
020ib.jpg


Here is a pic using the flash to cancel out some of the brightness. These things are amazing.
022ul.jpg



I should have the whites wired up and done tonight. Tomorrow will be the "figure out how to mount this day".

BTW...I know someone is going to ask why there is so much space at the end of the heatsink in the last pic. Well the answer is I'm waiting for 4 more LEDs to arrive in the mail. I have 4 buckpucks that can handle 6 LEDs each. Right now they each will be running 5. When the other 4 get here I'll slap them down and wire them up and be running 24 on this heat sink. eventually I will have 2 more heatsinks with 12 LEDs each. More on that later.
 
Well one of the white diodes is bad and not lighting. It comes on and then goes out and doesn't come back on. I guess I can't complain considering I've had these for almost 2 years now and they've been jostled about.

The LEDs look amazing over the tank. You'll just have to take my word for it since I can't hold it and take pics at the same time.

I've got to work on the mounting and cleaning up the wires...lawd there are a lot of wires.
 
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