# Starting Over: Cube Wall Build



## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

After a couple years of trial and error building tanks I've decided to do it right and make a wooden rack of 24 new cube tanks, 15 gallons each for imitator pairs. I admit, I'm no carpenter, but I don't really enjoy the look of wire racks. So after some searching I picked the Ikea IVAR rack for my purposes, which fits the 12 foot length of my wall pretty damn close. Here is my rendering of what the design will eventually look like:










Last week I got the shelves and put them on the wall in place of the old shelving. Which also means I have to place the old tanks on the rack for right now:










Yes, in the far future I'll be sitting in that chair and looking at all the tanks. For now I'm still doing that, except bummed the tanks don't fit perfectly. Anyway I just started cutting glass:










Since I'm going to be cutting about 120 15.5"x15.5" pieces of 1/8" glass, I though I'd make a frame to hold the glass and measuring tool in place so I could more easily cut all my squares. I also got a hand glass seamer to more quickly sand the edges down. Works for me better and faster than sand paper. 










This here is my first cube tank I did over the weekend. I haven't created the front yet, or drilled my holes. 

I'm looking to get some suggestions for those DYI builders out there. Currently I'm using three G4 16-SMD-5050 LED White Light Bulbs to light some of my tanks. But as a 12 foot rack, I thought someone here might have better options for me that's just one long system. I'm also looking at different options for the back and sides of the tank. Like Epiweb or something. I'm buying in bulk!

Anyway suggestions are appreciated. This will be a slow build.

Jae


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## nonliteral (Mar 26, 2012)

konton said:


> I'm looking to get some suggestions for those DYI builders out there. Currently I'm using three G4 16-SMD-5050 LED White Light Bulbs to light some of my tanks. But as a 12 foot rack, I thought someone here might have better options for me that's just one long system. I'm also looking at different options for the back and sides of the tank. Like Epiweb or something. I'm buying in bulk!
> 
> Anyway suggestions are appreciated. This will be a slow build.
> 
> Jae


The wall system looks great!

I'm not familiar with the LED bulbs you're using, but I can tell you that I've got 84 SMD-5050 emitters (3:1 cool white to warm white) over an 18" viv, and it's just on the bare edge of enough; it's growing plants and moss, but they're awfully leggy -- I probably need about 50% more light.

As far as longer systems, if you're willing to do a bit of soldering, you might try doing a reef-tank style DIY build, using 3 watt emitters. It could be done on the cheaper side using Bridgelux emitters and possibly aluminum u-channel instead of heat sinks, but you'd probably have to try a few tests over a couple of tanks to get a mix of various warm white / neutral white / cool white emitters that gives you a color you like and grows plants well.


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## J Teezy (Jan 25, 2012)

i suggest drilling your glass holes before you assembly tanks that way if you crack a pane its easier replaced


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## Dizzle21 (Aug 11, 2009)

Very cool! going to be like those european style frogrooms!


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## froggies3 (Feb 1, 2011)

Man, I'm getting very excited for this.-Good Luck


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## gluedl (Oct 8, 2008)

Hi,

congrats on the nice rack! May I suggest you treat the wood with some kind of sealant as this swedish wood would will inflate and bend at the slightest touch with water.

Otherwise it looks realy great.


have a nice day

gluedl


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

nonliteral said:


> I'm not familiar with the LED bulbs you're using, but I can tell you that I've got 84 SMD-5050 emitters (3:1 cool white to warm white) over an 18" viv, and it's just on the bare edge of enough


Is that an 18" cube? One of the reasons I decided to go 15.5" was just to get the plants a little closer to the light. Most of those tanks have only 48 SMD-5050's and it's fine for the top plants, but not nearly enough for the plants at the bottom. Right now I'm considering side lighting.



J Teezy said:


> i suggest drilling your glass holes before you assembly tanks that way if you crack a pane its easier replaced


Yeah, but I find I am less careful and end up cracking more panes when I do it that way.



gluedl said:


> May I suggest you treat the wood with some kind of sealant as this swedish wood would will inflate and bend at the slightest touch with water.


Agreed. I like the pine look right now, but I know I need to waterproof the whole system! Or at least what they sit on. Actually each level will have foam underneath. My work has about a thousand mousepads they don't know what to do with.






I've been busy the last few weeks, but I shot this on the 4th so you can see the tank drilled with vents, drains, and misting, plus foam on the back (In the future I'm thinking coco fiber mats). I'll be finishing the internals, than adding the front next. Still not sure if I need to add details on the sides. Any suggestions?


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## nonliteral (Mar 26, 2012)

konton said:


> Is that an 18" cube? One of the reasons I decided to go 15.5" was just to get the plants a little closer to the light. Most of those tanks have only 48 SMD-5050's and it's fine for the top plants, but not nearly enough for the plants at the bottom. Right now I'm considering side lighting.


Yes -- the 18" cube; the light's about 12" over the top of the substrate.


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

nonliteral said:


> Yes -- the 18" cube; the light's about 12" over the top of the substrate.


Thanks. We'll I finished the glass and hinge for the front of 4 of the 24 tanks. Added substrate, a little coco fiber on the back to soak up water, and dropped in some drift wood lying around the house. I wanted to keep these tanks simple as I'm not the best when it comes to design. Before I start on planting, I need to get the lighting right. So here's two tanks with different lights. Which looks better? The 2 9w CFLs or the 96 LED 5050 SMDs? I believe both give off enough light for my needs, but the light kelvin is a bit different and CFLs which make more heat than I really want.






Thought appreciated.

Jae


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## Dizzle21 (Aug 11, 2009)

I like the one on the right personally. Leds ftw


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## jejton (Sep 3, 2006)

LEDS look better than the CF but are too cool ( as in kelvin ). Maybe add some more white LED or red?


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## nonliteral (Mar 26, 2012)

konton said:


> Which looks better? The 2 9w CFLs or the 96 LED 5050 SMDs? I believe both give off enough light for my needs, but the light kelvin is a bit different and CFLs which make more heat than I really want.
> 
> Thought appreciated.


My personal taste is about halfway in between -- in LEDs, the cool whites tend to grow plants better, but I don't like the color rendition; I tend to mix them with either warm white (about 1:4 or 2:3 ww to cw) or neutral white (about 1:1 nw to cw) to expand the spectrum a bit. 

If it comes down to either/or, I'd go with the one on the right, as long as you're getting good plant growth. If you have the entire rack with the same color, after about a week it'll tend to look proper to you regardless of the color rendition. 

(You see this all the time in reef tanks -- change lighting to something that's a different color temp. than the previous lighting and it looks weird for a day or two and then it suddenly looks right, and the old lighting looks funny)


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

Thanks for the responses. 

Oddly, the tank on the right has quite a bit of red and blue. 48 of the LEDs were a little more blue, and 48 were a little more red. So I put them together with the you see what I got. What's missing is green. However since green isn't actually required for photosynthesis, I don't think it's necessary.

The 9w CFLs state they are 5000k on the side. The total light from two are slightly brighter than the LED strips. With the total space I have my concern is heat build up in the tank if I use these. I agree these light looks better for lighting that appears to be direct sunlight. But the LEDs are a bit more like shade.

So far the best lights I've every gotten have been these G4 3W LEDs:
G4 3W 6000-6500K 5050SMD 15-LED White 240LM LED Light (DC12V) - DinoDirect.com

Back on Black Friday I got 24 of these for $1.25 each. I'm just waiting around for that sale again. I'll probably end up adding 1 or two of these after I deconstruct the old tanks to even up the LED color.

Thanks! More updates once I get all the lighting setup.


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

Well I finally completed 5 of 24 tanks. I ended up going with the cool strips because they were thin and easy to work with the space I had. I may add a strip of warm white in the future, but honestly the cool white is more like shade lighting, so I'm going to stick with it for now and see how the plants do. 






My tanks are using a handi-foam background with some coco fiber siliconed into middle area. This is mainly to help with moisture and something for plants to grab into. I don't want to hide all the foam, since I like the rock look. The bottom is made of growstones since they are 1/3 the weight of hydroton and also helps with my rock look. ABG mix with sand live oak leaves sits above it.

The big change to these tanks from all the ones I've made before is the lip that overhangs at the top by 1/8". I know most here prefer sliding doors surrounded by a black frame. I never liked the frame or the line made by the two panes obstructing my view. Instead I use an aquarium hinge to open and close the glass front of the tank. The glass is held in place by magnets. And now the glass front is 1/8" larger than the front of the tank, so I can use the edge as a easier way to open the tank.

The next 10 tanks will take a little more time since I'm waiting for a number of item to arrive such as the handi-foam. This time I got the ones sold under the name Atlantic Water Gardens. I really like this stuff because it doesn't expand too much, and doesn't shrink. I tried total pond foam last time and it expanded so much it cracked the glass.


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## nonliteral (Mar 26, 2012)

Nice! Your round vents with the no-see-um mesh -- are you making those yourself, or do you have a source for those pre-made?

Thanks!


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

I got some mesh and 2" snap-in grommets (sometimes found under snap-in bushing). Then I drilled them like I did in the video, except 2" holes take a bit longer.


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## nonliteral (Mar 26, 2012)

Slick idea -- thanks!


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

Finished the the other 7 cubes, with now a total of 12 cubes that are 15.5" in size. I'll post the results this weekend. 

Rather than doing 12 more for a 24 total, I'm considering doing 8 verts that would be about 20 gallons. I'll call these verts elongated cubes, since they are 15.5" in width and depth, but 20.25 in height (mainly because I only have 20"x20" pieces of glass to work with).

This is how I envision the new cube wall looking:









This also makes misting easier for me since I can use just one standard mistking misting pump and will have more space at the bottom for the system.

Oh, I also happened to find strip lights rated at 5000k-5500k on Ebay. I'm hoping they will be better than my 6000k-6500k lights.

Jae


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

So the wall goes pretty slow. As you can see, the main 12 15-gallon tanks are complete, but the 8 20-gallon tanks to replace my 12.5-gallon tanks from the photo will take a while to build. Also I need to get some plants and build more fronts for all the tanks. My lights are coming in from China and most of the work will not be complete until they arrive. 

The two T8's at the top are old lights from around the house. I'm thinking of tossing them and replacing them with some T5HO's in terms of wattage, I don't think them being better than my LEDs, and they do produce more lumens. 
eHydroponics

My big questions is how much space do I need below the T5 to ensure they don't heat up my tanks? My guess is more than I'd like. So maybe they would be best for just lights at the top.

Internally I'm started using growstones for the bottom of the tank. I didn't realize how much water they soak up! Makes me wonder if I even need drainage! Super light and seem to work well, but I'm not sure if the smaller stones are better than the larger stones.








The larger stones were suggested to replace hydroton, but I'll be testing the smaller stones on the last 8 20-gallon tanks.

I'm using screen mesh as a separator between the growstones, and my substrate. For the substrate I've decided to go with BLACK GOLD - WATERHOLD COCOBLEND since it's mainly cocofiber, and peat moss, with a little pumice and stuff. The pumice pieces are larger enough that I'm not too concerned about a thumbnail eating it. But just to be safe, I added a layer of coco fiber and leaves above it.

Okay, now I'm totally thinking about 3 T5HO lights at the top, with LED's lighting everything below. Any advice on that?


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

A quick video on how things are going. So far so good, with 12 standard cubes done and 1 elongated cube complete. Not sure how I like the square opening for it. It will need a handle. Anyway 7 more to go!

Jae


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

I know I have not posted much on this build. In fact this is an old photo from a few weeks ago, but it's still moving forward, although it's become a 19 tank build with a shelf on the left side.










Just recently I got my lighting in (except for all the wires!), and am just now trying to determine how to properly provide power without burning down my house. After determining how many LEDs I wanted for each cube, and how many amps were required, I made this diagram.


4th row 96 LEDs per plants = 1.92 amps
3rd row 87 LEDs per tank = 1.74 amps
2nd row 63 LEDs per tank = 1.26 amps
1st row 63 LEDs per tank = 1.26 amps










I'm not going to worry about the LEDs at the top until I have some plants to put there. But the plan is to use a 6amp and 4amp power adapter on the large tank, and then one 6amp power adapter for each column of tanks (4.26amps running through it). This way is there is a short, it will only effect one column. 

I'll have more photos and video once I get my power adapters and solderless clips in.

Jae


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

So I'm pretty much done and I have to say it's such a pain doing trial and error on a cube wall like this. It would be much easier to just pay the extra and use something someone else already built. But then again perhaps there would be a problem with that system as well.










The bummer of all this was mainly about lighting. Trying to find the right Kelvin lights, learning what happened when you take lights that don't care about polarity and connecting them with ones that do (the adapter blew). Seeing what the burn out rate is with strip LEDs when light directly next to each other (lights get much dimmer). Yeah, heat is the enemy of an LED. You can see on the far right tank where the LED strip is stuck right on the glass, the glass is a great conductor and actually really cools down the strip, while burning up condensation at the same time! Actually works out nice.










Also, the sticky tape on these lights do not like being moved around on wood. You can see how it's starting to peel. I'm still adjusting, so I'm not concerned at the moment. I've also learned that 3 of these LED strip in a row have a running temp of 105 degrees. 1 on it's own sits around 85 degrees. So distancing is important. And best not to place them right above any vents or blocking airflow! Yeah, I'll be repositioning again. Maybe on a metal movable backing next time for a little help cooling down. 










Amazingly, the Mist King limits are very accurate. 20 nozzles. That's it. With these 19 tanks I have 20 nozzles total and they do those well, but not as well as 10. I hit the limit. I tested with 26, which is a total fail. So 20 works. I'm actually considering getting the highest level pump they have, so I can stick 6 more misters at the top of the rack for helping grow plants or rotate water for tadpoles.

Speaking of the rack, each holds 66 pounds. This is not only because you have 4 metal pins on corners to keep them in place, but also because the Ikea Ivar work is made of separate strips pressed together. Do not punch the wood in the middle with your first to test the strength. It's not really much of a test, and you won't be happy with the results to your fist and to the wood.










As the tanks themselves go, 15 gallons is nice for a trio of adult imitators or 4 juvies. I feel the space is way better than only 10 gallons. Keeping the LEDs two inches above the tank helps prevent heat build-up, and it does, but I'm still concerned as the 15 gallon tanks sits at about 79-80 degrees. Or so say my internal monitor. My temp gun tells me it's 75. I'm not sure which to believe. Maybe I need a herpkeeper.

Oh, all 18 tanks sit on 4 mouse pads each. It makes it easy to slide the tanks in and out of the rack space, prevents water leaking from hitting the wood (no leaking problems currently, but I'm trying to play it safe), and insulates the tank from heat coming from the lights below it. My company had 1600 mouse pads they don't know what to do with. It's amazing what a mess you can make with that many mouse pads.

Having a lip at the top of the tank makes it easy to open and close on the hinge. Quick for dropping fruit flies in. The magnets also ensure I can do it all with one hand on the cup of flies, the other opening the front. Very easy. Unfortunately it also means my son can walk up to the lower tanks and just open them accidentally. But I've found I can take the extra magnets I have around the house and add them to the current ones holding the glass in place. More magnets mean more foot pounds of pressure, means harder to open if you don't have the strength.

I was kinda bummed tanking the old tanks to the trash over the weekend. Oh well. Out with the old, in with the new.

Jae


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## mllaursen (Jan 31, 2011)

Very Nice, Do you find the 1/8" glass to be sufficiently strong, years ago I made slanted front vivs from 1/8" and they seemed overly fragile

Michael


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## Giga (Mar 31, 2011)

What did you use to glue the magnets to the glass


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## isoletes (Jan 4, 2012)

It looks very nice, like modern sculpture!


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

isoletes said:


> It looks very nice, like modern sculpture!


Thanks. Considering it's a rack from IKEA, I guess it is a bit modern art. 

But now that you mention it, all the wood and LEDs makes me think of plant-in city.

I'd love to build one of these:












Giga said:


> What did you use to glue the magnets to the glass


I just used silicone. It sticks fine.



mllaursen said:


> Very Nice, Do you find the 1/8" glass to be sufficiently strong, years ago I made slanted front vivs from 1/8" and they seemed overly fragile


I get 20"x20" panes of 1/8" glass free down the street. I tried a 20" cube, but that felt very fragile to me. Cutting 2" off a side was too difficult, but 4" is easy enough. I would have made these 16" cubes if they would have fit the rack. 

Jae


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## miko12 (Mar 25, 2011)

Jae,

How is the plant growth with these LED's? Have the broms kept the colors?

Thanks,

Mike


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## singhm29 (Jun 28, 2009)

> I'd love to build one of these:


That kickstarter is pretty cool, that setup in particular is great (would make a neat tortoise table!)

So what was your conclusion Konton? Did you decide to stick with your LEDs or migrate back to CFLs?


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

Funny you should ask. Just last week I decided to try some SunBlaster T5 HO Fluorescent Strip Lights. Three reasons. 











I had to make room for some cabinets and a futon. Which meant three tanks had to go. But the new arrangement left me with 3 tanks in a row, perfect for a 4 foot strip light.
I move my tanks around every two or three weeks and strips are easier to adjust to a new positon than mounted LED's.
My LEDs keep overheating. As they do, they get dimmer. So until I can find a solution to overheating, fluorescents make more sense. As long as they don't overheat the tanks.










So far placement is difficult. These lights are pretty damn thin. A little under an inch. But the ballast gives off a ton of heat. On the side the heat can dissipate behind the tanks, but then I have less of the total light they give off on the plants. And I still need to find a way to keep the air next to the air vents cool. If I drilled the vents at the back of the tank it would have been less of a problem.

If anyone of you try using fluorescent tubes in a small space, my advice is to mount the ballast under the rack. Then have wires going to the clips where the light tubes fit into place. I'd do this, except I just move things around too damn much.


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## rigel10 (Jun 1, 2012)

Thank you. Your experiments and notes are greatly appreciated.


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## singhm29 (Jun 28, 2009)

> My LEDs keep overheating. As they do, they get dimmer. So until I can find a solution to overheating, fluorescent make more sense. As long as they don't overheat the tanks.


I wonder what would be causing that...mismatched power supply maybe? The T5s look like they give off some nice light for viewing the tanks too so thats not too bad. Did you decide togo with fluorescent over CFLs because it was going to be easier to move around?


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

I'm still testing out some new LEDs. I like 5050 SMDs. But the strips keeps overheating and I've heard others say the same. I don't feel the same is true when they are in small groups as spots like. Like 15 or 16 together. So I'm trying next these T10 BA9S 16 LED 5050 SMD from Ebay. 










I'm hopeful. However for now with all my moving, florescent tubes are just easier to deal with for now.


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## JPccusa (Mar 10, 2009)

Have you thought about mounting your LED's on a heatsink (aluminum U channels work well) with thermal paste AND cooling them off with computer fans?


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## konton (Nov 17, 2010)

Yes. But remember the strips come with stuff on the back to adhere them into place. You'd need to remove it first. Plus the groups of LEDs seem to put more focused light into a tank. So my next plan is to try 6 of the 16 LED squares for a total of 96 LEDs per tank. That's about $12.54 a tank which is just a little more than what strip lights with the same LEDs would cost.


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## singhm29 (Jun 28, 2009)

booo the seller of those new type of LEDs doesnt ship to Canada. They look pretty nice for the cost your getting them at.


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