My Screw-Up and Near Disaster (TMC AquaRay LEDs)

[George Monnat Jr]

Wow, yesterday evening was crazy for me and could've ended badly. This post isn't a question about a brand-name piece of equipment, but it is about me abusing one and how it held up.

I use Tropical Marine Centre (TMC) AquaRay LEDs that I purchased from American Aquarium Products. I did that before I found Reef Central or ARC and didn't know much. Well, I know LEDs pretty well, since I'm an Optoelectronic Engineer by profession, just not PAR/PUR/etc. The guy at AAP has some informative articles that seemed knowledgeable and reasonable, so I went with the more expensive, proven products that he is selling. Now that I know better and realize all the money (ALL the money) I would need to spend after the lights, I could have gone cheaper or DIY. That said, I have no complaints with either AAP or TMC, especially after yesterday’s events.

Some background information, here is TMC's recommended LED layout for a 6' full reef (including SPS) tank:

I have a wide center brace in the middle of the aquarium, so having the fifth, middle LED square would be a big waste (I wish the brace wasn't there, maybe the Prof can rig something up for me?). Anyway, here's what I actually have.

You may notice the oddball 1000 HD Ultra Marine White square right of center. I screwed up and ordered the wrong one. I figured I could upgrade to 5 in the future, so I've left and place my livestock accordingly. TMC's recommended layout for up to softies has no 1500 XG Ultima LEDs, so it's been great for me so far. It also happens to be the one I tried to blow up yesterday.

My lights are in a custom wooden shroud, but I haven't mounted or hung it from the wall, yet. It's still sitting on 2x4s. So I need to just push it back to feed or stick my hand in and then pull it back into position. It works well enough (and doesn't look as bad as it reads) to allow me to procrastinate the mounting.

So yesterday evening I thawed the last of my PE Mysis and Cyclop-eeze to feed my new shrimp and anemones. I (stupidly) set the cup of thawed food in saltwater on top of the shroud to push it back. When I pushed the shroud back, guess what happened. Yup. Recently frozen mysis and cyclops and saltwater all over the top of my roughly $300 LED array. Gah!

I could see the little red cyclops oozing off the heat sink, around the electronics, into the array housing and filling the "optical blisters" under the LEDs. I unplugged it (love TMC's plug/connector system), got a screwdriver and removed the LED array. That was, thankfully, pretty easy to do.

I rushed it to the kitchen sink, disassembled it and rinsed it off thoroughly with tap water. I then set it all aside to dry out overnight. What really bugged me was that it sits right over my yellow BTA and first MMCA. Both of them look great and have stayed (roughly) where I want them, so I was worried the loss of light would prompt them to move. I can't afford to replace it now, but I'll definitely be buying a spare when I can (or replace it with the 1500 XG I was supposed to get and use the old one as a spare).

When I ran home for lunch today it was dry (but still reeked of shrimp), so I reassembled it. I used one of the individual power supplies that comes with each unit, and it worked. I reinstalled it over the aquarium and powered up the whites about an hour earlier than normal to make sure it worked. It did! Kudos to TMC for a design that not only works and survives but is easy to uninstall, disassemble, clean, reassemble and reinstall.

Now I'm really hoping that I go home to a house and DT that hasn't burned down.

Man, I really need that Apex controller...

[+brian.srock]

I really don't think an Apex controller will tell you if your house is own fire. I'm actually really more worried about flooding. I think I finally got it down on when to turn my return pump on after I've turned it off or from a power failure.

[George Monnat Jr]

I really don't think an Apex controller will tell you if your house is own fire. I'm actually really more worried about flooding. I think I finally got it down on when to turn my return pump on after I've turned it off or from a power failure.

It won't tell me the house is on fire, but when the temperature spikes then goes dark along with everything else it's a good indication.

Doesn't Apex have a "water on floor" detector?

[victoly]

You can wire one in pretty easily if you have the expansion switch box.

[DerrickH]

You can build an I/O box, or buy the one that neptune makes then wire in a waterbug brand sensor. You can hook up 6 switches with the breakout box. If you add more expansion modules like pm1/2/3 then I believe you can get more switches. Im still tinkering with mine. I made my own box, I heard the one from neptune is built cheap.