Wife approved a fish tank! 120L+70L sump+lots of DIY=my planted tank :)

[RandomFactoid]

Hello UKAPS!

(Bloody) immigrant here! Last time I had a fish tank was back home in Europe..sometime around 2015

And finally the time has come...I've gathered my strength, some money, flowers, etc etc...and convinced my wife that WE (not me...WE) need a fish tank. Because...reasons.
Since water/gas/all other bills are through the roof atm, I decided to go second hand and got myself a 120L Aqua One tank with a 70L sump and a broken light. Some random extras (mostly marine related) also came with it as the person wanted to get rid of it all. Bargain.

There it is:

Managed to fill it up today to test for any leaks, start the pump and see how the sump functions. Conclusion is
1) Tank/sump don't leak!
2) The Durso overflow is noisy. We don't like noisy. Already ordered some bulkheads/pipes/valve for conversion to Herbie overflow. Successfully drilled another hole in the tank (first time success!) .

3) Fixed the light (found some burn out 1W LED chips) - it's still crap even after fixing. Feels weak. Looking at options to replace leds with either some high power led modules or just a higher power LED strip. I like the heatsink though. Plenty of DIY potential here. And..I promise...once I'm done with it, it will be SMART. Haven't yet decided how to boost it's intellect yet, but it'll most likely be something ESPHome or WLED...or perhaps Home Assistant based. We'll get to that.

That's it for now. Work in progress, but I thought I'd start documenting things step by step. Everything - trial and error, successes and failures

 

[Andy Taylor]

Welcome to the forum! A wife that said yes? aren't you the lucky one

 

[Lauris]

Welcome to the forum! A wife that said yes? aren't you the lucky one

from my own experience, this is a critical blocker. I got planning permission only recently for my 90cm scape. and with a condition that she will have a partial saying in what fish will go in ( I suspect she is planning to interview those few angelfish individually)

love DIY projects, following!

 

[Myrtle]

Welcome to the forum! A wife that said yes? aren't you the lucky one

The joys of living alone are unbounded!

 

[RandomFactoid]

The joys of living alone are unbounded!

Well that escalated quickly 😄

 

[Myrtle]

Sorry! That's one of the best things about living alone though, I don't have to ask permission for anything! Though admittedly, having someone to hold back my multiple tank syndrome might be a good thing!

 

[RandomFactoid]

I promised to put some intelligence into my currently dumb light. Figured that the easiest way will be to rip the current PCB with crappy leds out of the lighting fixture and stick a few runs of higher quality, high CRI RGBW led strips and control them with an ESP32 and WLED.
WLED is awesome. Can control pretty much any led strip, does presets, timers, playlist, sunrise/sunset based on actual GMT time if required. Cool stuff. It runs on an el'cheapo ESP32 board (a few £). Very suitable for those with a keen 'inner geek' .
URL here - Welcome to WLED - WLED Project
Currently only have a short piece of WS2812 addressable leds (mainly for disco effects), will need to find something more fancy.
Work in progress

 

[rdk1402]

I always wait for the wife to go to work...

 

[Myrtle]

I promised to put some intelligence into my currently dumb light. Figured that the easiest way will be to rip the current PCB with crappy leds out of the lighting fixture and stick a few runs of higher quality, high CRI RGBW led strips and control them with an ESP32 and WLED.
WLED is awesome. Can control pretty much any led strip, does presets, timers, playlist, sunrise/sunset based on actual GMT time if required. Cool stuff. It runs on an el'cheapo ESP32 board (a few £). Very suitable for those with a keen 'inner geek' .
URL here - Welcome to WLED - WLED Project
Currently only have a short piece of WS2812 addressable leds (mainly for disco effects), will need to find something more fancy.
Work in progress

That sound way too complicated for me to understand! I doubt the picture would be enough for me to grasp the concept, but I can't see one.

 

[RandomFactoid]

That sound way too complicated for me to understand! I doubt the picture would be enough for me to grasp the concept, but I can't see one.

The idea is:
1) Buy any RGB led strip (higher power, higher CRI preferably). Connect to that little board in the picture.
2) Stick the LEDs on the light fixture of your choice
3) Control colour/dim/set timers as if it's a fancy Chihiros light for several hunder £

 

[Myrtle]

Sounds great! Do you need to solder anything or is it plug and play? I still can't see the picture though.

 

[RandomFactoid]

Sounds great! Do you need to solder anything or is it plug and play? I still can't see the picture though.

Trying to find options without soldering. I think I'm almost there

 

[AlecF]

Sorry! That's one of the best things about living alone though, I don't have to ask permission for anything! Though admittedly, having someone to hold back my multiple tank syndrome might be a good thing!

But there is that problem, Myrtle, with living alone when we start talking to our fish ...

 

[Myrtle]

But there is that problem, Myrtle, with living alone when we start talking to our fish ...

Well, I already talk to my dogs so it's not too big a leap!

 

[hypnogogia]

But there is that problem, Myrtle, with living alone when we start talking to our fish ...

I don't live alone and speak too all of our animals, cat, dog and fish.

 

[Lauris]

My wife speaks to all of her orchids. 😁 So pets are not the limit

 

[RandomFactoid]

I'm glad this turned into our little support group🥹

On a more serious note - ordered some 24v RGBW led strip and a Shelly WRGB2 to make the leds smart(er). Will post once they arrive and get installed

 

[ian_m]

There are a couple of problems with LED strips, some of which I have personal experience. I tried adding LED strips to increase light from my 2 T5 fluorescent tubes.

1. They are not particularly bright, mainly because they have a very wide beam angle and spread a lot of light out sideways, rather than project light into the tank. Handy for lighting your room but not so useful for a fish tank.
2. Some higher power LED strips require being stuck to aluminium to act as a heatsink. Suddenly simple "stick it on" becomes a bit more difficult. Aluminium and impure water (especially slightly alkaline) and heat and stainless attachment screws do not get on well together and corrode. Changed to nylon screws and they went brittle.
3. Despite claiming 3M adhesive backing, so "will stick for ever"... mine slowly came unstuck due to a combination of heat and water. I was never able to get any LED strips I tried to stay stuck in the long term. These strips were supposedly "outdoor rated".
4. I was completely unable to seal, despite using the correct non corrosive silicone, any electrical joints. Water eventually seeped in along the wires, along the silicone, even along the strip in places, came into contact with copper PCB & wires, corroded them and light strip stopped working.
5. After a year or two the clear plastic in the strip around the LED's, as well as the white PCB carrier, started yellowing, clearly being affected by the LED light. Then started cracking and water got in and corrosion started.
6. My LED driver had a dimmer control, never used as the strips were not particularly bright so on full all the time.

So I am not a fan of LED strips unless you can get them stuck to an aluminium heatsink correctly and completely clear of any water.

I now have a 4 tube iQuatics T5 light with reflectors, since 2016, and works fine. Masses of light, no issues.

 

[zozo]

There are a couple of problems with LED strips, some of which I have personal experience.

I experienced the opposite, I guess it depends on which strip is used... I did build this light fixture in 2015

This pic is still from its experimental days shortly after the build regarding a mixture of light colours.

with Ridgid ALU SMD strips that can be slid snuggly into aluminium profile holders, it doesn't require any glue.
Back then I chose the DC 12-volt SMD 8520 dual chip @ 60 lumens per chip, 32x2 led chips and 9 Watts per 50cm strip, at that time I couldn't get any better.

They don't require a heatsink, and don't really get hot, never used the acrylic covers and left it open above an open-top tank. Used it for several years, but it never corroded or discoloured... If the provided acrylic covers are used they can be waterproofed easily. The sum of lumens total was over 6000 and it ran only 100% for 2 hours a day the rest of the time it was dimmed. Back then we only had the TC420 to control it. I never measured any PAR data etc. not equipped for that, but it ran a high-tech tank for several years pretty sufficiently.

After several years of use, I stopped with this tank and did put new (5 total) but the same strips in, 3 x 6700K and 2x 10.000K. And give it away to a friend that is still using it today without any issues.

And that was 7 years ago, can't imagine the LED industry didn't improve by now. Never looked it up actually, I will if I ever plan to build some again. But at a glance, I see the same Ridgid ALU SMD 8520 double row and the SMD 7020 double row, 120 LEDs p/m, yet didn't see a seller providing any full specs.

But I have to agree, steer away from anything M3 adhesive and waterproofed with a silicone coating, that will indeed be a not very long-lasting waste of money.

 

[RandomFactoid]

Tbh I agree with both - led strips can be a hit and miss. I used 3w 'star' led modules before and they were great, however quite a lot of work and didn't look pretty. Loads of light though.
I figured a higher power led strip with some waterproofing would just be more simple.

We'll see.