Biocube 29 led upgrade

J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#1
#1
So I decided that I wanted to upgrade my 29 Biocube to led lighting and scrap the pc bulbs. However the nanotuners upgrade costs a minimum of $400 and that is only if you dont make any upgrades. So after a lot of looking around I decided to use the Ecoxotic panorama led modules. These cost $99 a piece and I used three of them. This thread is going to show how I did this upgrade and give breif discriptions. If any of you have any questions you can feel free to post it or pm me.

1. To start I took the stock hood and removed the splash guard.

View attachment 1491

2. I then removed the two pc bulbs and the two bulb hooks. After the two hooks were removed I replaced the two screws.

View attachment 1492

3. I then proceeded to remove the part of the heat shield that covers the fans. and noticed that the small transformer stood up a little to high.

View attachment 1493

4. So I unscrewed the transformer from the hood. after it was off the hood I used a small bolt to attatch the yellow wire back onto the transformer. after the wire was screwed back on I found an area to lay it sideways were it wouldn't rattle around.
View attachment 1495
View attachment 1494
 
J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#2
#2
5. I then used a dremel tool to cut all the screw attachments for the heat shield down about 1/4 inch. I also used the dremel to sand the edge of the air guard on the intake fan to that the wires wouldn't get pinched.
[attachment=59483:name]

6. I then sat the heat shield back in place and used the handle of a screwdriver to carfully bend the heat shield along the edges of each fan in about 1/4 inch to give the light just a little more room.

[attachment=59484:name]

7. so these are the led modules that I am using

[attachment=59485:name]

8. To mount the first led strip is the hardest and why i had to mod the upper heat sheild. first on one side of the led strip take off one of the mounts. in the indents oin the heat shield the i made i then figured out were the mounts needed to be placed and drilled a hole just a little smaller then the supplied screws. now screw in the screw and the mount that you removed but do it backwards so that the mount is facing the wrong way. after you do this just attatch the other side of the light and reinstall the two screws of the module mounts that you took out.

[attachment=59487:name]
 
J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#3
#3
9. The other two led strips only take a few min to install. These strips go where the pc bulbs were. all you need to do to install these is drill the holes in the heat shield for the mount screws. Then you need to use screws that are the same diameter at those supplied but that are only a quarter inch long so they don't go through the roof of the hood. once all the lights are in it looked like this,

[attachment=59488:name]

10. The next step is somewhere along the outside of the splash shield you cut a small rectangular hole that fits all three electrical cords snugly. then in the back of the hood i cut another small hole and a slit that leads to it. i then slid all the electric cordes into the hole so they lead out of the hood.

[attachment=59490:name]

11. replace the splash guard and it is done. this is how it looks with the leds in and on.

[attachment=59491:name]

These leds look very nice in the tank however my camera doesnt pick up the color in the tank at all. I know that this sounds very complicated but it only took me about two hours to do it and that included brainstorming time. if done this way the biocube heat shield acts as an extra heat sync to the leds and will help to keep them cool. also this way allows the built in stock fans to still work. however i have not had a problem with them getting to hot but if they do all that needs to be done is the fans switched on.

Im sorry if parts of this are not very clear but i was doing this in a hurry and if you have any questions please let me know.
 
B

bigsittingrock

Clown Fish
#7
#7
Very cool. How would you describe the color of the tank? 15k 20k? Thanks for the detailed instructions.
 
J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#8
#8
Ya no problem. I don't have much experience with many different lights but I would say it's around 15k. It's a nice color with all of them on. And when just the blue one is on it makes my coral glow amazingly!!!
 
KhensuRa

KhensuRa

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
#9
How many total watts are you running now?

Any before and after pics of the tank with the lights on?
 
J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#14
#14
So here are a couple snapshots taken with my cell phone, sorry for the bad quality i will try to get some pictures with my good camera sometime later this week. The first picture is with all three lights on, the pic makes the light look ALLO whiter then it actually is. The second picture is with only the one 453 nm blue light on.

[attachment=59493:name]

[attachment=59492:name]

again these pictures don't do the actual lights justice.
 
B

bigsittingrock

Clown Fish
#15
#15
So how do you like them so far? I was at aquamart and seen they had the 453 so I bought it and replaced it with one of my pc's. Would you get one of each still or do you think you would do it different?
 
J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#16
#16
I love mine so far. They are so much nicer then the pcs. And my sps are all happy. If I had to redo it I would do it the same. Two of the white and blue, and one all blue. Over all I am very pleased with the way that my tank has turned out with these!!!
 
B

bilbo111

Detritus
#17
#17
I'm wondering what you did with the wiring for the orginial set up? Did you leave the ballest and all in place? I've been looking at this up date and seriously thinking about ordering?
 
J

Jfaiii

Butterfly Fish
#18
#18
I did leave all the original wiring in, I did this because I still wanted to be able to run the fans that are built into the biocube and if I ever want to sell it in the future I will be able to keep my leds and put the PC bulbs back in. If you have the money I would defiantly recommend this as an upgrade, I LOVE MINE! If you have any other questions just let me know, I am glad to help!
 
B

bigsittingrock

Clown Fish
#19
#19
I would go with 1 all blue and 2 50/50 though. I now have 1 blue, 1 50/50 ,1 all white and 1 evo slim all blue.
 
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