Wow, where to start?

[JCase]

Looking for more information on the Robo-Tank...

I had a reef setup about 15 years ago, I broke it down when I moved sold off the corals etc and still have most of the equipment and the tank. I sold off the lights.
I'm thinking about getting back into reef keeping. The 125 gallon tank has been built into the wall in my new house, with a dedicated room behind it and a sink. So from the front it looks like a picture frame fish tank. Its planted right now with my wife's succulents.

I'm looking to setup a reef tank again. Alot has changed in 15 years... 

The Robo-Tank looks very interesting and well thought out. I've watched the video's and looked over the website.

I have the following questions:
LED lighting is amazing but I can't find any information regarding what lights to use or how to DIY them?
I'm confused about what hardware to purchase to get started?
What is your installed base for Robo-Tank, how many have you sold? (I don't want to buy into a product that is going to loose support or go end of life sooner rather then later)

I think a getting started section on the website might help? or maybe it's just me not finding the information.

Thanks in advance,
JCase

[Benny314]

Welcome back to the hobby J.

First, how are you with DIY electronics etc? You need some skills with a soldering iron.

If your considering DIY LEDs check nano-reef.com, that's where I read up on and got ideas for my DIY arrays. There are plenty of other builds on other forums and websites too. Also pretty much any dimmable light will be controllable by Robo-Tank. Rob's made a converter board that allows you to convert the 5V PWM dimming signal to 10V PWM or 5 or 10V analog signal.

As for the Robo-Tank stuff. It's arduino based, Rob has put masses of time into getting it to where it is now. I'd like to think he's not going anywhere.

[JCase]

Welcome back to the hobby J.

First, how are you with DIY electronics etc? You need some skills with a soldering iron.

If your considering DIY LEDs check nano-reef.com, that's where I read up on and got ideas for my DIY arrays. There are plenty of other builds on other forums and websites too. Also pretty much any dimmable light will be controllable by Robo-Tank. Rob's made a converter board that allows you to convert the 5V PWM dimming signal to 10V PWM or 5 or 10V analog signal.

As for the Robo-Tank stuff. It's arduino based, Rob has put masses of time into getting it to where it is now. I'd like to think he's not going anywhere.

First thanks for the reply!!!

I'm very good doing DIY Electronics, read schematics, resistor color code memorized, etc. Built my own smoker controller, lol

I know nothing about LED lighting for aquariums. My experience with LED's has been limited to indicator lights, and infrared LED's for home theater controller I built like 20 years ago. OMG how time flies.

I would really like some information on the LED's and what ones to use and how they are controller.

I see they have RGBW LED's but from what I've read you use white and blue?

Been reading up some, Steve's LED's seems interesting as a source to assemble yourself from his supplied parts so save some money. I'm wondering how much it would cost for the same setup buying elsewhere vs his kit price

Most of the info I'm finding is quite old, some from 2010/2012

JCase

[Benny314]

Steve's is a great way to get ready to go kits. To save even more money look at ordering parts direct from china. You need to know what you want though.
This is what I based my arrays on http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/311998-fu...d-layouts/
The picture links are missing now though.
Don't use those RGB LEDs, you want fairly specific wavelenghts of light.
Might want to check out NanoBox lights, as well as complete units Dave offers his V3 boards for $50. They're pre assembled pucks of the right LEDs that you can either wire to have 2 channels for basic white and blue control or 4 channel for more adjustment of the colour look of the tank.

[JCase]

It looks like the NanoBox is just combinations of the NanoBox v3 array? or am I not seeing it correctly.

In my research so far I've only found units that have white and blue LED's I see he uses multiple colors (see below) with all LED's lite what color light does it produce?

2 - SEMILED Violet CH1
2 - REBEL ES Lime CH2
1 - Rebel Cyan CH3
1 - Rebel Blue CH3
4 - Luxeon T Royal Blue CH4
3 - Luxeon T Neutral White & Warm White CH2

Again, thanks for all the help

[rott]

JCase welcome to the site another good site for ordering for big tanks is http://www.rapidled.com/ has a many kits or buy what ever you want to make your own kits just remember you burn down the house its your fault (just have to toss that out there now and again to cover my but) on a 125g tank your going to have to figure out are you going to have a big saltwater fish tank with a few soft coral?? real easy to take care of ... or do you want o spend a crape load of money go all in and do a reef tank if you start now you can have it cycled and running by summer and as for lighting 3 watts a gallon min

[fietsenrex]

JCase,

I agree with you that the information on the website/webshop is somewhat confusing.
in my opinion the best way to go is to have a kind of check list where you can tick boxes with options that you want and at the end the required product rolls out.

[Rob F]

Hi JCase, thanks for stopping in and checking out the controller, its about 70% complete. Everything on it works but I'm still adding more features. In 3 months I would like to think everything is finished and I can polish up other things. I've been running the same controller on my tank for the last 5-6 months with no issues. I launched on Sept 15, 2005 and have sold 45 controller kits to date, I'm honored by everyone who has supported me. I'm not planning on going anywhere and I'm very strong on having great support. Even if I wasn't to sell another kit I would still be around to support anyone who has one.

As far as the hardware, if you want all the features you'll want the full kit which is $399.95, that includes almost everything to build the controller.
https://www.robo-tank.ca/en/DIY-Kits/Rob...40c59.html

You would still need to provide an ethernet patch cable to connect the display, a USB printer cable to connect the expansion hub, project boxes to house the controller. AC power cord and up to 16 AC outlets. An on/off switch and fuse holder would also be good to add. That's where all the DIY comes in, the boards will come fully assembled and tested and only need to be connected to each other using the respected cables. I can send the arduinos programmed and mounted so its a plug and play experience, when updates are released you do need to program each of the 3 arduinos.

Then its a matter of adding the equipment you want to control. If you want to monitor PH, ORP, DO or Conductivity you would get the circuit and probe and add it to the controller, I recommend the Atlas-Scientific equipment for this. Hope this helps some...

I can't help much on the DIY lights, I used 6700k and 2700k for mine and my plants are loving it, that's as much as I know. :) I recommend the LDD drivers, they connect directly to the controller, small, cheap and dim very low. I've been running mine for over a year with no issues.

[Benny314]

It looks like the NanoBox is just combinations of the NanoBox v3 array? or am I not seeing it correctly.

In my research so far I've only found units that have white and blue LED's I see he uses multiple colors (see below) with all LED's lite what color light does it produce?

2 - SEMILED Violet CH1
2 - REBEL ES Lime CH2
1 - Rebel Cyan CH3
1 - Rebel Blue CH3
4 - Luxeon T Royal Blue CH4
3 - Luxeon T Neutral White & Warm White CH2

Again, thanks for all the help

Yes NanBox all use the V3, but if your wanting to use your own heatsinks or convert another unit buying just the board is a great way to get high end LEDs in the right ratio for most peoples prefered tank look.

This is one of the 3 arrays I built.


I went with the standard thinking of 2 Royal blue to 1 Neutral white and supplemented with 420nm violet and OCW clusters which are 470nm blue, 495nm cyan and 660nm red. Thinking has changed on this setup and it's abit out dated, but I like the colour I get. Like I said there's loads of reading on nano-reef. RapidLED is another good source of ready to go kits.

I'm in the UK so these companies were no use for me. I was much better off ordering exactly what I wanted from China.

[JCase]

What hardware in an LED will I need to make sure I have to be compatible with Robo-Tank. I believe PWM control is best from what I've found.

I have other questions, I think it will be best for me to start another thread.

Thanks
JCase

[Benny314]

Yes PWM is easy and lots of other things use it and it makes it cross compatable. As Rob recommended MeanWell LDD drivers are great to run your chosen LEDs with as they dim to zero if you have a pull down resistor in place between the PWM pin and the ground.

With regard to another thread with DIY LED build questions, don't see why you can't start one in this forum, but you'd get a wider range of response/knowlage if you posted in nano-reef or another forum. I keep defaulting to nano-reef as it has one of the largest communities of LED specialists and a lot of great ideas and support for people looking to DIY. Also feel free to shoot me a message if your wanting specifics about LED builds. I learnt a hell of a lot over 6 months or so getting ready to build my arrays the other year and I have kept up with most of the new thinking all though I'm not using it myself.

As Rott asked, what are you wanting to keep with your lights? If your going fish only they can be very basic, if you want mixed reef you need to have more PAR output and certain wavelengths to ensure a healthy reef and if you favour SPS and other high light demanding corals you need much more powerful lighting and a way to ensure good spread/coverage of the tank to premote even growth.

[rott]

first thing you have to know is what are you going to keep in this tank and what type of real world budget you have. That means money and time my first LED light took me over 3 months and I spent most of that time waiting on stuff in the mail be cause I for got a small some thing or a big some thing..

my next tank will have a heat sink from makers over top or http://www.rapidled.com/ just because they are made to have the splash shield slide in to them and grooved on the top for flat head screw for fans and the flat surface where it would take a day to drill and tap with a #40 is all grooved track now slide in a plastic screw and tighten down your led to it and you can move them or rearrange them with no more drilling and taping and they are the same price as the ones I bought that where not grooved and I had to do all the work and I broken several #40 taps in the holes and to this day still in the heat sinks

[JCase]

Yes PWM is easy and lots of other things use it and it makes it cross compatable. As Rob recommended MeanWell LDD drivers are great to run your chosen LEDs with as they dim to zero if you have a pull down resistor in place between the PWM pin and the ground.

With regard to another thread with DIY LED build questions, don't see why you can't start one in this forum, but you'd get a wider range of response/knowlage if you posted in nano-reef or another forum. I keep defaulting to nano-reef as it has one of the largest communities of LED specialists and a lot of great ideas and support for people looking to DIY. Also feel free to shoot me a message if your wanting specifics about LED builds. I learnt a hell of a lot over 6 months or so getting ready to build my arrays the other year and I have kept up with most of the new thinking all though I'm not using it myself.

As Rott asked, what are you wanting to keep with your lights? If your going fish only they can be very basic, if you want mixed reef you need to have more PAR output and certain wavelengths to ensure a healthy reef and if you favour SPS and other high light demanding corals you need much more powerful lighting and a way to ensure good spread/coverage of the tank to premote even growth.

When I had the tank setup it was a full reef with 3x250W MH, and actinic (sp?) lights that I made myself. The lights were sold years ago. Not sure how exotic I'll go this time. Don't have as much extra cash now as I had then  Since then I built a house and built the tank in the wall with a room behind it for everything including a sink. It was setup as freshwater for awhile. Now my wife is using it for succulents plants   

I started another thread on this forum in the Comments &Suggestions section with a lot of comments & suggestions

John