Various Progress Being Made
Bit of a scrambled update, but it does reflect where I am at with this tank at the moment! One thing I can say is, Dave at Deer Park is a visionary! Has had some awesome ideas that will really make this tank that little bit special.
One of the many tricks he has suggested was an inline heater holder so that there would be one less thing in the tank (as it doesn't have a sump, but I have a chiller for the tank so will require some circulation. Without going into too much detail (if your after more info - google "DIY inline heater aquarium" and you'll find plenty of instructions) here it is:
Raw:
Cleaned up and painted:
As I bought the chiller second hand, it was worth testing it out before committing to use it. That was when I discovered this chiller has a heater built in too.... LOL, anyway, will still use the inline heater as well as not sure if this will be enough to keep the tank warm. I set the chiller up in the sink with a spare feed pump. Chilled water that was 40c down to 16c in no time flat (not a lot of water and the room temp was 20). Then heated back up to 26 again without any issues. Looks to be a good buy. Was a little noisy, but wont matter in the study :P
Next up, wired up the ballast/igniter/capacitor for the halide and tested it out with a fish street globe. Gotta say, I think I like the colour from these "purple" fish street globes more than the radiums, but will continue on with the radiums on the main tank for now as they have years of track record behind them. Some alloy extrusion I ordered arrived this morning to "hang" the reflector from, will get to work on that this week/weekend. Should really start to take shape then!
Was going to run 2xMP40's on this tank, but Dave thinks that I would probably end up pushing all of the water out of the tank... LOL. Come to think of it, he is probably right, will keep one as a spare and just use one this tank. Picked up a reduced to clear SCWD to randomise the return from the chiller/heater a bit, mainly because I've always wanted to play with one of these as they look like fun. Cleaned the spare MP40 up ready to fit when the tank arrives:
Lastly, did some more work on my RODI reservoir which I'm thinking will be a 200lt bin out the side of the house. I don't actually have the reservoir yet, but have been working on some electronics to ensure that there is always plenty of RODI on hand without starting/stopping the RODI filter everytime a 100ml has been taken out by the top off unit. More to come on that soon.
Now just trying to work out what pump I want to use to feed the chiller/heater/SWCD. I have a brand new Iwaki MD40 sitting here which is looking pretty good, but may swap to something a little smaller and less power hungry.
Thanks for reading ramblings #2!
Sam
One of the many tricks he has suggested was an inline heater holder so that there would be one less thing in the tank (as it doesn't have a sump, but I have a chiller for the tank so will require some circulation. Without going into too much detail (if your after more info - google "DIY inline heater aquarium" and you'll find plenty of instructions) here it is:
Raw:
Cleaned up and painted:
As I bought the chiller second hand, it was worth testing it out before committing to use it. That was when I discovered this chiller has a heater built in too.... LOL, anyway, will still use the inline heater as well as not sure if this will be enough to keep the tank warm. I set the chiller up in the sink with a spare feed pump. Chilled water that was 40c down to 16c in no time flat (not a lot of water and the room temp was 20). Then heated back up to 26 again without any issues. Looks to be a good buy. Was a little noisy, but wont matter in the study :P
Next up, wired up the ballast/igniter/capacitor for the halide and tested it out with a fish street globe. Gotta say, I think I like the colour from these "purple" fish street globes more than the radiums, but will continue on with the radiums on the main tank for now as they have years of track record behind them. Some alloy extrusion I ordered arrived this morning to "hang" the reflector from, will get to work on that this week/weekend. Should really start to take shape then!
Was going to run 2xMP40's on this tank, but Dave thinks that I would probably end up pushing all of the water out of the tank... LOL. Come to think of it, he is probably right, will keep one as a spare and just use one this tank. Picked up a reduced to clear SCWD to randomise the return from the chiller/heater a bit, mainly because I've always wanted to play with one of these as they look like fun. Cleaned the spare MP40 up ready to fit when the tank arrives:
Lastly, did some more work on my RODI reservoir which I'm thinking will be a 200lt bin out the side of the house. I don't actually have the reservoir yet, but have been working on some electronics to ensure that there is always plenty of RODI on hand without starting/stopping the RODI filter everytime a 100ml has been taken out by the top off unit. More to come on that soon.
Now just trying to work out what pump I want to use to feed the chiller/heater/SWCD. I have a brand new Iwaki MD40 sitting here which is looking pretty good, but may swap to something a little smaller and less power hungry.
Thanks for reading ramblings #2!
Sam
