Clownz!!

Just a quick showcase of the 1 day build converting an old aquarium hood light into a 20 watt led light. Im not sure what was originally in the place of the current leds but I assume it was either a t5 or a t6, but as I want to set up a planted tank, I would have to replace the basic lighting anyway. The tank is a 20 liter bow front, and now has 20 watts pumping through it  , haha slightly overkill. The whole project cost less than $30 including 3 spare leds.

Parts:

Heatsink (cut in half for each led): http://www.ebay.com....=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

LEDs: http://www.ebay.com....=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

40mm Fans: http://www.ebay.com....=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

A 12v 2a Switching power supply

An Acrylic Sheet

Power adapter head

Tank lid

The aquarium led initially looked like this, you can see the 5 mounting points at the center of the image.

The heatsinks, leds and fans all parts that were purchased cheaply off of ebay.

Rough layout of how I wanted to mount everything.

Drilling holes in side heatsinks.

Mounting LEDs.

Finished LED mount arm.

Test fitting.

LED wiring, all in parallel including fans. Notice most wiring is hidden in center heatsink, and the joints between each arm heatsinks and center heatsink are cemented with heatsink cement.

Make acrylic cap.

All finished, mind the finger 

Bright! Muuuuucch brighter in person.

All done!

Alright in conclusion, everything worked out reasonably well. I am no electronics genius but I know a little, and hopefully enough for this to last into the future. Next time I would leave out the fans as I am quietly confident that there is no need. They honestly dont get too hot for concern with this many heatsinks. Thanks all for reading the post, any/ all feedback/ questions are welcome. 

Reminds me when my old aqua one AR-620 light lid fell into the aquarium whilst I was cleaning the aquarium. It wasn't explosive but it certainly gave me a reason to replace it   and scared me half to death.

I own/ have owned a few canister filters in the past (FX5, 2213, 2x Whale 500's, Rensun and recently HW-304B (Ebay Filter)).

Now in my opinion it really depends on whether sound, performance, reliability or price over time are the deciding factors for you!

- So sound wise the Whale 500 is by far the quietest canister filter I have even owned! Far quieter than the FX5 and marginally than the 2213. But not to say the 'eBay filter' was loud, as it was also very quiet, just not as quiet.

FX5 ☆☆☆

2213 ☆☆☆☆

Whale 500 ☆☆☆☆☆

Rensun ☆☆☆

eBay Filter ☆☆☆

- Reliability, to this day I have never had an eBay filter nor a Whale 500 die or have any needed replacement parts unlike a 2213 and an FX5 that I have owned of which I had to basically scrap because of the part replacement costs.

FX5 ☆☆

2213 ☆☆☆☆

Whale 500 ☆☆☆☆☆

eBay Filter ☆☆☆☆☆

-Performance, well they all do the job and since overkill is kind of my thing when it comes to filtration and I have multiple brands of filters on the same tanks I cant exactly comment on their individual performances.

-Price over time, The whale 500 filters use up a mere 18 watts (a very light on power filter) of electricity and when when compared to the eBay filter that I own uses 55 watts (given it does have a 9 watt UV steriliser and filters about an extra half as much). So in all there can be a difference but how significant? I do not personally wish to work out the correct mathematications but will on request on a filtration capacity to power usage basis.

​As for replacement parts. People always assume that there are no spare parts for these 'eBay filters' but I just bought a replacement globe 9 watt UV globe designed for my machine for ~5 bucks so I would assume that the other parts are not too hard to find and relatively cheap.

In conclusion, I personally think that if on a budget (like I generally am) go for a decent respected seller on eBay and get yourself one of HW-304B I have had no problem with mine so far and it has UV and a massive media volume! And if you are willing to spend a little more pop down to Vebas and pick yourself up some whale 500s my longest living filters yet!

The backing story:

8 months ago I bought a 2nd hand Fluval FX-5 off of Gumtree. The filter worked fine apart from a few starting issues such as; once staring and it goes through its air removal process, it wouldn't turn back on, Also the pump would occasional randomly shut itself off and refuse to turn on for an hour or so. But one day (2 months later) the filter refused to start at all. I took it apart, I cleaned it. Plugged it back in but still nothing. It refused to turn on. I tried several more times over the a period of a couple of months. But in the end I gave up, the FX-5 was abandoned. I went out to vebas and bought 2 new Whale 500's which took its place, filtering my large tank. Unfortunately now I no-longer had a UV steriliser and the threat of a white spot epidemic was causing some worry. So abandoned for 6 months, A week ago I decided that a new filter, with a UV steriliser was really the only way ensure that another white spot plague did not happen to my fish. So I dusted off the old FX-5 and created a design.

The project:

Me as a student being on holidays at the moment had 2 weeks to play with in which I wanted to build the filter and have it operational. I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible and use materials that I already had if possible.

So I had an old (dead) FX-5

A spare pond pump (9000 l/h)

A UV steriliser

And a sort of canister, that the original seller of the tank threw in for me when I bought it.

It was more a matter of placing all the pieces together so that they worked efficiently, quietly and powerfully.

How it works:

The water comes out of the shed/tank, down throught the UV sterilers into the modified FX-5. The water from the FX-5 is then pumped to the filter part and then back into the tank

Modification on the FX-5:

The FX-5 has 3 holes for water flow (as such). The input, the output and the drainer.

The modified FX-5 takes water in from the input and takes it down into the input of the pond pump which has a pump running to it on the inside of the machine. Creating a vacuum down to the FX-5. The FX-5 then fills with water and then pushes to the white external filter. Through the output hole.

The original pump was taken off of the side and the cord for the new pump had a place to be put though. the remaining area was taken up by aquarium safe silicone and 2 acrylic disks cut to fit the area. between them more silicone and they were then fitted into place and squeezed together to seal the hole.

The modified FX-5 then pushes to the filter which is soon to be filled with bio-balls. 

Thanks for reading the post   heres some more pics:

Thats it i'm getting shellys. Way to go!! now i'm going be on 4 tanks   Loved the series btw even if I did have to read all of it 

Cool video, Do believe the link you are after is here though.

Now... finally I have been able to turn on the two whale 500s and WOW, they truly are silent. I once thought my FX5 and Ehiems were silent, but this is something different. I mean I really have to press by ear to the thing and concentrate before I can hear it  . 

The only major con so far was the 'having to go back to Vebas and spending $50 on 2 more sets of hosing. Sicce have outdone themselves. Would seriously recommend them at the moment.

Just bought 2x Sicce Whale 500 from Vebas for my 6ft (740l) setup, I will give you my opinions in a short while.

As if I didn't chew up enough electricity as is... Or have enough tanks in my bedroom 

Well I got given a 215l, Aqua One AR-980.

Yes, It is a Malawi tank!! and this is my first set I have ever kept so I have allot of research to do on them. I really have no idea what I have in there apart from the 4 electric yellows and 3 clown loaches. And I was wondering if you guys could help me identify what the remaining 4 fish are. Sorry bout the quality of the pics but;

Also never dealing with these types of fish before I have noticed the vast difference in aggression compared to my peaceful asian fish , there are currently 3 electric yellows in 3 separate corners of the tank with what I believe to be the male chasing them, is this normal?

The tank was apparently well established before it was given to me, and running for a good 2 years before being given to me and the filter mesh certainly lives up to that description! But apparently some stock has been taken out in the last few months. The filter is the internal inbuilt system and I definitely want to upgrade to something larger as soon as possible any recommendations on canister filters would be greatly welcomed!!

Also is this enough stock for the tank bc aqua advisor says its only 76% then it reminds you to you that you need to keep the tank above the 100% mark? 

For the future, I have a tank for the clowns to go into when the grow out!! my 750l  .

Thank you all in advance for any advice! and answers to any questions! These fish are so playful and colourful it makes me wonder why I haven't kept them before 

Yea, I knew that it was going to be almost impossible to catch so I took out all of the ornaments and drained the water to about half in the beginning still took about an hour to catch the thing. What i found strange was that how quickly the trust was regained by my other fish; the Balla sharks and the Clown loaches were almost instantly happy to be hand fed again, they usually don't like me shaking up the tank!! Almost like they were saying thank you for taking it out of the tank  . 

I am currently acclimatising the fish you sold to me (the gold spot) into the tank. Still looking for more advice on what to put in the tank!!

My tanks are pretty much in an insulated shed...Can still get very hot though.I like the Ice-cream tub idea, that will be handy. I will set the lights hours shorter and take off the lids if it gets too hot!! I also heard about placing fans to blow across the water?

Yea, I have another (non noisy) classic 2213 (running on my Black ghost knifes tank) so Il do that!

 GONE!! I woke up this morning and looked across the room to a familiar but unseen sighting in the last few weeks. My eldest clown and a younger clown were playing around the tank with the ballas and the clown barbs. Not skittishly, but gracefully and with full-use of their dorsal fin! I eagerly got up and checked them for spots. Not a single spot! I threw in a cube of bloodworms and for the first time in weeks they ate, and they ate like like there was no tomorrow. I will continue to treat the tank for whitespot, and add the uv filter in a couple of weeks time. Firstly Id like to thank everyone who helped me including; Morley Aquariums, Klienz, Moses, sandgroper, vermont, karlos, neddy and crystal  . And I would also like to recomend the the treatment type I used; No lights, tons of aeration, a little salt, temperature set to 32 degrees, largeish water changes, time, patience and most importantly support! I would also like to recommend the product recommended to me by Morley Aquariums, It is called KnockOut ick control by Pondmax, I used other products before this like Ichonix and ick away but they did not work for me. It has been a long 4 weeks so thank you all again!! Glass half full, I still have 3/5 of my loaches!

Oh and one more thing the whitespot first appeared a few days after I bought a few fish from City Farmers, the first and last time I will ever buy fish there. I have also never had whitespot before now and hope I will be equipped to deal with it in the future with my previous experience. I am not stating that I got the whitespot came from City Farmers but stating that It has never happened to me before and that it happened a couple of days after I bought fish from there, perhaps coincidence 

Well... Unfortunately my tank isn't even a 100th of one of those tanks  . The rays look interesting though   The bichirs seem great (they are like bigger axolotls ), The raphaels look a bit shy... I was thinking a while ago about a large pleco, but have no idea where to get one all i can find are BN be cool if I could get a fish w/ personality like a fire eel? where do you I could get one?

cheers!!

Testing to see If I have got the BB coding right! for youtube videos, this is of my Black Ghost Knife

Thanks... at school atm and youtubes blocked   . I check it when I get home though!!   Thanks for your ideas though!!