Cali Kid Corals

Reef Hobbyist 40B

I actually wanted to go rimless and ended up with this. Adding a hood is going to make this even worse.

How are others with rimless tanks and Kessils dealing with this?

Innovative Marine, Cadlight, etc are around the same height...

I know how you feel. I REALLY want to like rimless tanks. I REALLY tried to give the rimless thing a try with my old Solana 34 tank. It had the super nice looking "disco ball" halide fixture and all. I really liked the idea of making the glass box so clean and sleek, and the lighting so visually appealing.

In the end, my observations about my rimless experiences:
1. Too easy to splash over the edges while moving the cleaning magnet around or whatnot.
2. Could NEVER get the light spill contained just right in my room.

In the end I build a slim wood canopy for my Solana and was about to install thin eurobraces just to contain spills... moved soon after, but that was the plan.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nav
Have you tried lowering the light?

The photography industry has black foil (cinefoil, among others). Used to control lights. Perhaps you could make a 'snoot' out of that that wouldn't look too crappy. At least that would let you experiment with the idea. I found good pics of the concept googling 'black foil snoot'. :)
 
No, lowering didn't help. The snoot idea sounds interesting... I'm going to try something like this before I make a hood.

Good luck. After thinking about it you could just use regular Al foil for the tests. It would look odd but 'it's only a test'!

You could also stop watching TV while the tank light is on! :D
 
You can do something like this to cut down on some of the light hitting your eyes.
zygytejy.jpg




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.
 
My Kessil is 4" off water surface on my rimless tank. Very minimal light spill.
How come? U got Narrow? Also more than spill, I'm just trying to fix the light hitting my eye when viewing from sofa...

You can do something like this to cut down on some of the light hitting your eyes.
I guess something like that will work but also i guess that will cut light only from certain viewing angles.

Here's the cool part, I'm at work trying to design and 3D print a custom snoot for the Kessil :cool: The shaded area at the bottom is an extended two inch cylinder & the material is black matte plastic.

tumblr_inline_n5og00lqvw1sc62k6.jpg


Hope it works out. Will report back soon...
 
Many of the larger rimless tanks I've seen that keep the light from spilling outside the tank too badly use led strip lights. Plus, you can also customize the strip lights by selecting the appropriate beam angle.

That is what I plan on doing with my rimless. Purchasing a buildmyled.com strip light. Not as easy to do with a Kessil, since the beam angle cannot be customized.
 
Any tip on getting 60+ gallons of water into the tank (from a store)

I only have 3 5gal containers :|

Ask the store if they have some containers you could borrow for the day. The LFS I used to work at would do that.

If not, I have a TON of buckets you could borrow. I could probably get them to Aqua Exotic next week. FWIW I have no idea where you are located.
 
Everything is now set well in the living room… ready for rock, sand & water. Here’s how the plumbing looks like:

Herbie overflow… Two drains with different heights inside overflow connected to ball valves and then vinyl tubing into the sump.

Went through the leak test and had leaks in two spots… realized it was a bit loosely joint thread, so glued inner wall and fully tightened it. Second test was successful (ran water for 2 days and everything seemed perfect).

Disregard the ugly sump light… it came with the package :)

tumblr_inline_n5qfzkHlw11sc62k6.jpg


tumblr_inline_n5qg2gs2xN1sc62k6.jpg


Return system connected to a check value and then a loc-line to the tank

tumblr_inline_n5qg4dZjkA1sc62k6.jpg
 
Are you relying on the check valve to prevent back flow into the sump? They're notoriously unreliable.

The check valve will only work when the return pump shuts off, right? It looks like his return Loc-Line is pretty high up in the tank, so even in the event his check valve failed, only a limited amount of water would drain back into the sump.

@Navdeep, make sure your Loc-Line outlet is high enough in the water column so that in the event your return ever fails, the amount of water to back flow into the sump will not overflow your sump.

I had a check valve on my last setup, and I will tell you that it was better than not having one at all. I figured that if the chance was greater than zero that it will work when I needed it to, I installed it. ;)
 
Yes the locline is going to be almost at the top of water level

- reduces risk of siphon
- creates rippes for LED shimmer
- surface agitation

I also tested the the check valve by turning off the return pump and it never siphoned...

So everything good...
 
Back
Top