Brad's 150G In-Wall Build

[Badbrad8500]

@nikkiisback32 wrote:

Appreciate the comment! Thanks

 

[Badbrad8500]

@MBSL55 wrote:

That should be easy enough to wire-up. If your GFCI has a separate supply and load connectors, you will need to connect to the supply connectors.

Do your usual safety checks and turn off the breaker to that outlet, test for voltage with a meter and ensure power is off, etc.

If wired correctly, black is hot, white is neutral, green or bare open wire is ground. Sometimes people think AC wiring is counter intuitive as black is hot but they do that so it still stands out if it gets some white paint or something like that on it (or at least that's what I was taught).

Once you've wired it all up and got it back in the wall, put a light load on it like a lamp or something, make sure the lamp is on, and when you re-energize the circuit, reset the GFCI and all should be good.

I like the Leviton GFCI outlets that give you an option to supply other outlets down the chain and also have a built-in LED to indicate whether there is power going to the circuit."]

That sounds easy enough. I'll see if I can find one of those Leviton outlets. Thanks again for the help, I'll refer back to this when I wire it.

 

[Badbrad8500]

@mandarin_man wrote:

Thanks man, hopefully Monday! Crossing fingers for no casualties lol.

 

[Badbrad8500]

Yesterday I had some time to work on the setup, so I figured I'd try the GFCI again. Taking Mike's advice, I went and bought a Levitron 15A GFCI and went to work. The instructions were great and about 20min later, the little green light on the outlet was on! The only real problem I had was that I cut too much electrical wire out of the wall when I cut the non-GFCI outlet out. I had very little wire to work with when installing the new outlet in its little blue electric box. Lesson learned.

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My iPhone stood in as the circuit tester.

 

[Titus]

I would recommend testing your lights in it sooner rather than later. My lights would pop the GFCI that I got that looked like that (white buttons, cheapest one HD sold). I replaced it with a different brand that had a red button and a black button and no more popping from the lights.

 

[Badbrad8500]

After the electric stuff was worked out, I turned to the mess of a sump I made. Those $4 sheets of acrylic from HD are cheap, but there's a reason. They bent and popped out after 5min of water testing (days ago). I'm not only cheap, but lazy, so I re-siliconed the semi-worthless baffles back in place and reinforced them with egg crate material from HD. Hopefully they hold.

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[Badbrad8500]

Here the rocks are simmering.

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[Badbrad8500]

@Titus wrote:

Whoa, that is something I'm definitely going to have to test. What kind of lights did you run that popped the circuit?

 

[Titus]

@Badbrad8500 wrote:

Whoa, that is something I'm definitely going to have to test. What kind of lights did you run that popped the circuit?"]
I have 2 AquaticLife 48" dual T5HO lights. It just took one to pop the GFCI on startup every time. I tested everything else I could think of but only the lights would pop it. I then tried the lights in other GFCI outlets around the house and they were all fine. I ended up taking the ones that were in my kitchen and using them for the tank, and then installing the ones bought for the tank in the kitchen. No popping in 3 months now.

 

[Badbrad8500]

Question: what kind of turnover (display > refugium > display) are you all running? I've got two Mag 9.5's in the sump right now, but I'm think maybe just one would be sufficient. Thoughts?

 

[Badbrad8500]

@Titus wrote:

Whoa, that is something I'm definitely going to have to test. What kind of lights did you run that popped the circuit?"]
I have 2 AquaticLife 48" dual T5HO lights. It just took one to pop the GFCI on startup every time. I tested everything else I could think of but only the lights would pop it. I then tried the lights in other GFCI outlets around the house and they were all fine. I ended up taking the ones that were in my kitchen and using them for the tank, and then installing the ones bought for the tank in the kitchen. No popping in 3 months now."]

Hmm, well I guess that's what I'll be doing if mine pop the outlet. Thanks for that info! I'll test them tomorrow.

 

[Titus]

@Badbrad8500 wrote:

I have a mag 12 in the sump with 5 feet of head... about 1/4 of its flow dumps into the fuge (which drains back to the sump) and the other 3/4 of flow goes in to the display.

 

[Mikii]

How's the set up now? Did you get anything new done?

 

[Badbrad8500]

@Mikii wrote:

Thanks much for the interest : )

I'm in the process of moving everything over from the 115g, taking lots of pics though. I'll post an update hopefully tomorrow or Thurs.

 

[Badbrad8500]

So Monday-Wednesday was exhausting. Here's how it went:

First thing I did was bring in two 20g Rubbermaid containers and started draining water from the 115g. Once the water level got down to the first coral, I started taking out all the coral and rock with coral attached. I seriously thought this would take MAYBE 20min to transfer this stuff to the 20g bins...nope, an hour later I was still going. Catching all the fish took another 30min or so, and that was with the water level at about 5". I used a spare 55g I had laying around to hold the rest of the rocks and water.

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[Mikii]

Wow, that sounds exhausting! Its all going to pay of though! That in wall is going to look so nice. What fish are you transferring over to the 150?

 

[Badbrad8500]

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Next was getting all the old sand into the new tank. I should mention that before I moved all the sand over, I made some additional PVC structures and zip tied some of my live rock to the bottom so the structures would be sitting on glass and not sand (heard about rockslides due to over zealous sand munching gobies, one of which I have : )

Then came the water!

Starting

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Full!

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[Mikii]

Was that RO water you filed it with? Or tap?

 

[Badbrad8500]

After the water was in and more rock was fastened to the PVC structure, I starting moving the fish in.

The first one I wanted to move was the Powder Blue, I went to go get him out of the 20g bin and saw he was on his side breathing very rapidly. Crap! I had a power head in both bins, I figured the temp wouldn't be a problem, but I only had one airstone, which was in the other bin (I had been alternating it between bins). I quickly grabbed the PB in my hand (he wasn't moving except for mouth and gills) and threw him (literally across the room) into the other bin where he sank into a corner. I was so mad, my Powder Blue was dying.

I started taking fish and coral out of the aerated bin and placing them into the new tank. Then I moved to the other tank and saw that I'd lost a cleaner shrimp and a Six Line Wrasse (Sleeper Goby and Purple Dottyback were still alive.)

Here's the black clown and his friend (they spent about a month in my old sump) hanging out together in the new tank for moral support.

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The tank with a PC light over it, you can see I just dropped all the coral into the tank, this was the end of Monday and I was beat.

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[Badbrad8500]

Tuesday! Lights and other stuff!

My main intention Tuesday was to get the lights working. I had around 95 3w LEDs on a DIY fixture I made, and I needed to integrate my wife's 28 LED fixture into mine while making the whole thing narrower by half and longer by 2ft.

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I ended up taking out small spacers I had put in between the rows of LEDs and then staggering them horizontally so that every other row stuck out 1.5ft from the middle. That way I ended up having 9 rows of 12-14 LEDs per row with 9 rows in the middle of the fixture, and 4 on the right, 5 rows on the left.

Wiring 9 drivers AGAIN was fun (no it wasn't).

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The end product....oops.

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When arranging the rows, I forgot that I needed every 2 rows to be the same, otherwise this would happen. Which it did. And I was mad. End Tuesday.