fjr_wertheimber

Thanks, Kevin!

Dude, that's awesome! I made the mistake of showing this to Wendy, now I can see the "Tito would love that..." gleam in her eye... Uh oh. I'm anticipating a trip to the pet store here shortly... LOL

Finally got the floor done and super pleased with how it turned out. Wendy grew up in the flooring business (her parents owned a flooring company) and even she was amazed with how it looks. Now to just find some baseboard I like and put that in, and the room portion of the build is done! Now, on a (semi) side note... Wendy and I have been talking about putting together a little pico/nano for our son Tito's room. I played around with the idea, and thought, "Hey, why not make a scale version of the big tank?" So, voila! Just need to pick up some 1"x2" for the stand and some 1/4" acrylic for the rest, and we're in business. Hopefully I can put it together this weekend, or at least start on it. I found some great little LED strips that will work perfectly for lighting it, and a great DIY for a pico skimmer, and Hydor makes some great little nano pumps and powerheads that will fit perfectly. Overall size (including stand) is 24"L x 12"W x 18"H.

Some work in progress pics: The room as it stands tonight. Got the photo print from Kodak today (20"x30" Pro-Print on metallic paper), got the materials to put together the frame and matting, and put it all together and hung it. We still need to get the smaller frames, possibly tomorrow. Pardon the mess, like I said, it's still a work in progress. Some of the vinyl planks. Don't worry about the drips on the floorboards, they're all getting torn up and replaced when we put down the new flooring. The photo lit by the LED light fixture. Looks fantastic (much better than in the photo) in person, almost 3D in appearance. Definitely glad we sprung for the metallic printing. We also FINALLY (as you can tell from the first pic) found some drapes we liked. Just need to get the steamer out and steam out the wrinkles and we'll be set as far as that goes. Slowly but surely, the room is coming together...

Welcome to the addiction!

Oh, and on a (semi-) side note, if you're ever looking for a good primer when painting a room, Kilz is it. We used Kilz2 in the fish room, but then figured we'd just use the Valspar primer for our daughter's room, since we're not worried about any moisture in there. Bad idea. Coverage with the Valspar (which is actually a very highly-rated primer) is about 1/2 that of the Kilz. From now on, whether the room will see moisture or not, we're going to use Kilz for our priming needs. Just opened up the vinyl plank flooring we special ordered from Lowe's and it's PERFECT. Looks great in the room, we can't wait to get the carpet up and put the "wood" down!

Yeah, I'd love to swing by sometime and check it out if you don't mind. I spent time with 8th MP Brigade out of Korea, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), was TAD with 4th ID, 3rd ID, WYNG, NYNG, 172nd SBCT, 3rd ACR (got my spurs from them), MNF-I, MNC-I, then off to 89th MP BDE, then to III Corps (WORST unit in the Army, IMHO), USF-I, and now Fort Living Room.

How long have you had yours, Jason? Any issues?

Okay, so one change to the overall design and specification of the tank... I've decided to go with the Reef Angel controller. Why, you ask? Well, let's see: DIY LED control... check. Vortech ES control... check (well, on the way). Dosing pump controls (and dosing pumps)... check. Open source for tinkering and really cool $#!*... check. Oh, AND it's cheaper than 99% of the other controllers out there? Yup, count me in!

ROFLMAO!!

Do you have a chiller on it? How are you keeping the temps down?

Off topic, but am I the only person that sees the topic of this thread and thinks, "Fat man in a little coat"? LOL

After getting a bunch of quotes from various electricians I finally went with Jeff Gray from Grayzer Electric LLC. Jeff and his apprentice just left here, and I've got to say I'm absolutely THRILLED with the quality of their work, their awesome price, and the speed with which it was all done. In less than an hour they had run the conduit outside, run the new circuits through the ceiling, into the wall, and installed the boxes and faceplates (I'm WAY oversimplifying all they had to do in order to get the circuits run). So, I now have all the electrical I should need for the tank (three dedicated 20amp circuits), woohoo! One step closer! (Oh, and thanks Hydro for suggesting Putnam, I called him to get a quote from him, and will definitely keep him in mind if Jeff is ever too busy or unable to do a job for me.)

Dude, this is epic! Definitely storing that PDF in my "stuff to build for my tank" file... After, well, the tank itself, that is...

Thanks, Gig'em.

Hope everyone is enjoying the planning as much as I am... Now to get back to the building! Speaking of which, the room is almost done, we're doing our paint touchups tomorrow, getting some drapes for the room, the electrician is coming on Wednesday, and the custom floor should be in sometime in the next couple of weeks! Woohoo!

A few folks have asked why I'm using so many LEDs, rather than pivoting a fixture of having it move via a stepping motor. Actually, the original plan was to either pivot the fixture, or move it using a stepping motor or hydraulic actuator throughout the day, but the issues I found in those plans was a) access to the tank without having to basically disassemble that whole assembly b) angles available without a HUGE canopy c) one more level of mechanical complication (I hate having to rely on motors unless absolutely necessary. I'm definitely a solid-state kinda guy.) and d) I like the flexibility of that many LED circuits, i.e.- if it's 2pm and the lights are on the "west" side of the tank and I choose to have a "lightning storm", I can dim the "west" side and have the lightning flashes come from either the "east", "west", or a combination of the both. And yes, trust me, the color balance will change throughout the day, with more of that afternoon "golden light" that photographers love so much showing up in the early morning and late afternoon.

Thanks, cMidd. I certainly hope so! LOL Really, the realization of the whole dream of the mega-über-tank is thanks to Wendy. She's the accountant in the family (literally, she used to do legal accounting) and she gave me the go-ahead (and $) to make it all happen. Most women barely tolerate their guy's fish tank; mine finances it! LOL Yup, you can all start hating me now...

Good idea, great execution! You'll have to let us know how this works out in the long run. I just hope some wrasse doesn't try to bury himself in the sand...

Thanks, Woods! pbnj, wait'll you see the wiring diagram I'm working on... YIKES... LOL For those of you asking what I mean by curving the LEDs, here's what I'm referring to. The LEDs will be mounted on strips (as denoted by the spreadsheet diagram above) that are on a curve over the tank, so that all the LEDs are equidistant from the center of the tank. This way, as the LEDs following their ramp up/ramp down schedule, the light will appear to come from a light source (i.e.- the sun) passing overhead throughout the course of the day, rather than from a fixed position. Or, at least that's the plan. LOL

Yeah, Jason, the spread is the same deep to shallow, but you'll notice that the degree of the optics changes with the changing depth, not only for further penetration, but to increase spread of the light and mitigate spotlighting or color banding. You'll also notice that the arrangement of LEDs ensures the same RB, B, W arrangement whether top to bottom or diagonally, this should help mitigate color banding as well by ensuring equal distribution of colors. Having said that, I may take a look at perhaps building them into 3-LED pods, kind of similar to the setup the AI and EcoTech lights are setup... We'll see. It's going to be a while before I get a chance to start soldering, so (as with all things on a design this big and involved) it's subject to change. Hell, look at the flooring; we've changed our choices on that about 5 times in the past few days... LOL

Okay, so here's the planned setup of the LED lighting for the tank. It will be built in a curve over the tank so as to mimic the natural change of lighting angles throughout the day, and allow gradual ramping up/down across the overall fixture for more gradual lighting changes. Well, that's the plan, at least. LOL The layout: The breakdown:

Good looking tank!

Thanks for the heads up, Aaarrrggg. :-) I'll definitely keep you posted if we decide to add that to the system...

Thanks, Aaarrrggg... :-) I thought about doing an auto water changer, but I'm a big fan of vacuuming up the sand bed, plus the problem is the tank isn't situated in such a place that I could really make it happen without serious feats of engineering (read: $$$$). Speaking of which, I've gotten a bunch of quotes on the electrical work, and so far I'm actually looking at about a quarter of what I projected for the cost of bringing in two fresh 20 amp circuits into the room. So, looks like I'll have three dedicated 20 amp circuits into the fish room (not counting the separate 15 amp circuit the LED room spotlights are on). Oh, and speaking of improvements in the room, looks like rather than doing the industrial laminated flooring, we'll actually be going with a pressed tile that looks like oak, that way it's impervious to water in case of a spill. The other stuff is fine, I found, if you spill on it directly, but if it gets below the floor surface to the bottom layer of the laminate then it just dissolves, which I think we can all agree is something bad to happen to your flooring. LOL