# 6g Led Tank



## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

This is a neeeew 6g tank I just set up recently. The Lighting as mentioned are LEDs and was a DIY project and very easy to complete after I'd read up on the method on various reefing forums. These lights are still a little uncommon among freshwater but I can tell you that so far the ripple effect and color temperature has me satisfied! I got the leds and the driver from rapidleds.com. I'm using 2x 3w cool white xpgs and 1xwarmwhite xre, and the driver is a meanwell LPC 35-700. Believe this should be sufficient light for my 6g but hope its enough for my rotala color up nicely. 
To hold up the piece of aluminum heatsink that I mounted my LEDs on I just bent a piece of thick enough aluminum to a right angle, placed the LED heatsink on top and epoxied them together. Finally screwed the thing onto the back of my shelf. Easy! cool..
Going to be using a diy yeast Co2 setup with a nano differ for Co2 and dosing flourish excel occasionally and adding some regular flourish.

Aquascaping:
The Rocks are actually petrified wood I found on Ebay from a seller called kdd1957 and the substrate is pool filter sand.
So far I've only got some anubias planted but soon I'll be planting some rotala rotundifolia along the background and adding some Taiwan moss.

Inhabitants: 
Waiting for my lfs to receive next shipment so I can grab an Indian dwarf puffer or two if they get male and females. If for whatever reason that doesn't work I may get a few neon tetra.

Thats all for now and thanks for checking out my thread.

CURRENT FTS:



























The Leds and heatsink on the aluminum arm:









My filter with some clear acrylic teeth cut from a hatching box divider making it almost like a hang on the back refugium. I want to put some ludwigia in there to grow emmersed:









Where I screw the aluminum arm holding the heatsink to my shelf:


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

Little Update on my progress, I got plants today, unfortunately not those I was hoping to get but nonetheless something. I got Ludwigia (not sure of which sp. maybe you guys can ID?), plant that the guy called Japanese star rush (again no ID), some water sprite for the "refugium" and some cabomba which is also in the fuge since I have no clue if I even want it. Also a tiny bit of Taiwan moss that I anchored under an anubias rhizome.
Anyways have a look at my tank and any advice on my scape would be much
appreciated.



















and the water sprite plus cabomba in the HoB


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

question: will this tank be ok without any fish at all for like a week? I heard the plants need ammonia but I'm already adding flourish excel and Co2 in one or two days. Should I add fish food for ammonia??


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## Storms (Sep 12, 2011)

The tank looks great! You should be fine with no fish for a while. Let your tank cycle a bit before adding the fish.


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

Hey guys got a problem with my anubias, when I got them I dipped them in a hydrogen peroxide solution to get any hair algae off. Now the leaves look like they're dying. I'm not sure if it was the h.p. dip but dont think itd be regular excel dosing or too little light.

Any help on what I should do? Do I cut off the effected leaves?


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

I decided to try something bold to save them so I grabbed an empty fluval edge tank that I had sitting around to make an emersed set for them. So I put the rhizomes in a pot of soil and covered the top with some plastic wrap. So far the single leaves left on the two rhizomes seen to be doing fine.

I have a few concerns however because the air in the tank smelled bad and I have no heater in the water. Room temperature is 78 and I live in the tropics so humidity should be 76% outside according to a weather forecast. Is a heater absolutely necessary for the water to warmer than the air?

I discovered one of my anubias had the tip of the end of its rizome rotting, so I cut off the tiny bit and the end looks green and solid now.

I spay the plant occasionally with club soda (carbonated water with potassium bicarbonate, potassium citrate and potassium sulfate).

Any advice on how to continue?
Some pics:


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

Ive got a few new java ferns and also added 3 glowlight tetra as well as 3 neons. I got rid of the Japanese rush plant since I didn't like it.

Here's a picture of the setup now:










the anubias are slowly gowing big roots now in the emersed setup and one has grown a new leaf. No signs of rhizome rot either. I added diy co2 which releases the co2 into the air in the container and growth on the ludwigia definitely increased. Also added in some Taiwan moss which is doing good. Humidity is more or less 85%


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

update:


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## Big_Fish (Mar 10, 2010)

Really nice DIY LED project there...  
I've just placed an order with RapidLEDs.com
we'll see if we can get a sticky going.
(tank looks very nice as well! I love the hardscape)


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## AheartlessFish (Mar 18, 2008)

love the setup...love the LEDs 

please keep us updated on how the plants grow under LED


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## kafkabeetle (Oct 11, 2011)

It looks really nice! Some kind of carpet plant would look awesome, leaving the rocks (or wood ;p) to stick out bare.


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

Big_Fish said:


> Really nice DIY LED project there...
> I've just placed an order with RapidLEDs.com
> we'll see if we can get a sticky going.
> (tank looks very nice as well! I love the hardscape)


leds rock, be sure to add pictures!! I used only three on this 6g run at a 750ma current and the plants are growing without co2. I'd say this is a low-med light setup but I like that because I can keep algae under control. If I'd added three more leds, for like 18 dollars more, I'd have a high light setup.

The setup only cost 36 dollars for the leds and driver (plus 20 shipping), like 20 for the aluminum and 30 for the tools to build it. The driver can run up to 14 leds so I could always modify the fixture and add more If I wanted. If you get a dimmable driver, like the one I got for a reef tank I'm setting up, you can adjust the brightness. So for 100 bucks I got this fixture that'll last for years. Also like the shimmer effect! I put a 30w compact florescent over my tank to compare and not only did it look dimmer but it also looked lifeless without the shimmer.

I also really like how you can get dim-able drivers and chose the exact configuration of color temperature by either dimming them separately or simply choosing the color led (warm, cool, neutral etc.).



AheartlessFish said:


> love the setup...love the LEDs
> 
> please keep us updated on how the plants grow under LED


I will post a pic soon to update growth, Ive been trimming old leaves off my java ferns since they came with black spots. They regularly put out new leaves and develope baby plants at their roots.

My moss had to trimmed since it was getting huge.

My Ludwigia is growing new shoots and is slowly growing too. I think it'd have appreciated a more nutrient rich substrate but I'm sure it'll grow faster once I get some diy co2 running. I'm finally gonna get my co2 diffuser soon so I look forward to seeing how that changes the growth.

Leds grow both plants and corals well, It's important to buy good quality ones, like the cree 3w leds I use and use enough of them for what you're growing. If you have a big and deep tank you should get some optics for them as this will vastly increase the light penetration and par values at the bottom (these are usually sold on the same websites that sell the leds). Do a search for 'diy cree leds aquarium' on google and you'll definitely come across alot of diy led threads for both reef tanks and planted tanks.


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

kafkabeetle said:


> It looks really nice! Some kind of carpet plant would look awesome, leaving the rocks (or wood ;p) to stick out bare.


unfortunately I live on an island in the Caribbean and we barely have any aquatic plants here because of restrictions on imports. No one sells any and I had to get mine from fellow hobbyists. So for now, limited selection and no ground cover plants. I've spread my moss onto another of the small rocks and moved the ferns around a bit so I'll soon have more green patches on the sand


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

pics


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

*An update!
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*My anubias is recovering well, like 4 new leaves and lots of new roots. I think adding a teaspoom of liquid r/o right per gallon has helped it alot! 
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*I changed my light, I now have 1 royal blue, 2 cool white, and 1 neutral white led attached to this CPU heatsink. I wanted a cooler color mix and like it so far! Plus there is more light too!
*









*My yeast co2 reactor is working well with the nano diffuser. My only issue is that the bubbles dont pop at the surface but rather stick to the surface and are then pushed back under water by the filter flow and then stick to plants.. *


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

Update: ludwigia looking much more red and gave away of few java ferns


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