My long awaited 270L

Hi Everyone,

I finally got round to completing my new setup, the water has been cycling for quite a while, and its had a few "dam" guppies in for a few days with no problems.

And tonight my Fire Eel finally moved into his new home :bigsmile: and he seems to be a happy chappie. Hope fully I'll be getting him some new tank mates as soon as he is 100% settled in.

I also built and LED lighting system to have a moonlight effect when the main lights are off. Its very non-intrusive to the fish but generates an awesome effect thus the tank can be enjoyed after hours, haha. it didn't quite create the rays i was planning on expecting, but it looks good enough.

Anywhoo, I know how it goes... pictures are whats needed here...

Unfortunately someone was kind enough to help themselves to my other camera that had some of the earlier photos, (welcome to jhb, i guess...)

More pics...

Didn't know I could only do 5 at a time, but i was trigger happy.

Alucard, the Fire Eel

 

Sorry the Eel's name is Alucard... It was meant to be a caption for the last photo, but I guess i did something wrong in the upload

 

Very very nice setup .like the scaping .what are you planning on adding with your eel?

 

Thnx 101. I'm not sure what to add yet, I was thinking a black ghost knife fish, or thats on the list anyway. I have a feather fin catfish in my other tank that will be moving over soon, he has out grown his home.

Any suggestions are welcome.

I'm not in a rush, I'm gonna take my time with the tank mate selection though. I'm looking for a few oddballs...

 

Looking good.

 

thnx darryn

 

looks great, perhaps you can share some details on your led setup?

 

Hi, you have a lovely setup! Are you also an anime fan or is the name alucard coincidental?

 

I'll take some pics of the led system and explain what I did and the design considerations before I put it together, its really simple. I must say though the pictures aren't fully representative of the lights, its not quite as bright. I'm try to take some better pics of it at night as well.

But I still have to add to the main light of the tank, Its really not enough, I want to add a more blue spectrum light to brighten things up. Overall there isn't enough light in the system.

Thnx 10i. I'm afraid I'm busted, I am indeed an anime fan. I've never named my fish before, but i couldn't resist this time, haha

 

Lovely Eel Aidan... I just got myself a Spotted Spiny Eel and he's a real character.

One Q: do you feed yours live food and where did you source this if you do?

 

Tank looks AWESOME and that Eelis to, Wish I had one like that

 

Thanks guys

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I feed him earthworms, I have a little earthworm "farm" spread over a few bucket-like things. He eats out of my hand which is very entertaining. I'm hoping to get him to eat frozen blood worms as well, but he hasn't yet taken to the idea, won't even eat fresh shrimp strangely. Fussy bugger...!

But I'm about to rebuild the wormary to ensure a better supply cause its all he eats at the moment.

 

Hey AidanEel

I love the tank ....
Cant wait to see it :bigsmile:

 

Looks Awesome :top: :top:

 

Fantastic setup. Looking good

 

LED lights

Okay... For the LED system

:idea: The one idea i had was to use these osram dot-it lights and they did create a pretty cool effect slightly better than what i have now, but they aren't very practical due to the batteries.

:idea: Seeing as that didn't work very well, I created a little low wattage system from these LED down lights, each light only has a 1.5Watt rating. I got the light fittings, the 240V ceramic fittings (I decided on the 240V as it was easier to hook up and i'm not sure if there are standard 12V LED globes.

:idea: I connected the fittings using chocolate blocks (or connector blocks) which were then sealed into short pieces of 25mm pvc pipes, using a hobby glue gun or silicone or what every you want to us as a sealant (well for obvious reasons :noworry

At this point I realized i'm not as smart as i thought i was as the lights didn't fit under the mirror sliders. frustration...

:idea: After a bit of head scratching i modified some 55mm 90degree pvc elbows but cutting as much off from the one end, the idea was to mount the lights parallel to the water instead of perpendicular. The bends would then basically adjust the focus of the light to point downwards again into the water. I then sealed the globes into the other side of the elbows (the uncut side). This created a globe-bend that just plugged into the fittings i created.

:idea: After the glue set I mounted the fittings with the globes into the tank using the hobby gun again, just make sure your surface is 100% dry. the plug the fittings in and off you go.. Cable management inside the tank was done cable ties to to neaten things up a bit.

PS. The open fitting in the one pic is sealed, i just installed it so that i can upgrade to 3 lights at a later stage if i want to, but 2 lights seems to be enough.

 

Dude... that DIY is fantastic, and at a reasonable price too... Zoom is going to Builder's Warehouse tomorrow!!!!

 

thnx man.

The globes are kinda pricey, but none of the other components are more than like R12-R15 a piece and its really quick to put together. I would recommend getting a chrome spray paint and spraying the insides of the PVC bends to add more reflection downwards although there is quite a lot of light going down already. The chrome spray might just direct it slightly better, i'm considering taking it apart this weekend for that modification cause i wanted more of a beam effect.

The nice thing with the 240V globes though is that you don't need any transformers or anything and the power requirement is like next to nothing.

 

Yeah I know... I actually thing the chrome effect might take away the light. The chrome spray doesn't act like a mirror... to get that effect I think you would need to actually have that piece chromed... which would be costly. I think the white of the pipe is the best option here.

Going off to Builder's a little later to go source some material....

 

I added some more to the main lighting of the tank and also got some more plants.

The Fire Eel seems to be happy, he started eating out of my hand again. Although, he didn't like the scaping quite as much as some of you guys did, he has been digging some of the plants up & planting himself instead, haha. I think that might be due to a lack of a proper cave, the hiding places that i made don't hide him fully.