# DIY: Light stand and Spray bar



## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Not sure if anyone cares but I figured I'd post this anyways even if one person could benefit from it.

I will be getting a light fixture that needs to be hung and since I can't drill the ceiling or walls, I made a stand for it.
The 36" 2x96W Coralife fixture in the pic will be for sale.

Supplies:
2 x 1 1/4" conduit pipe (I used pvc instead of metal conduit. If you use metal you will need a pipe bender.)
2 x 1 1/4" 90 degree conduit elbow
2 x 1 1/4" conduit holder
2 x 1 1/4" end cap

The pipe was 10 feet long so I sawed it down to the desired length, then connected the elbows and end caps. 
Attaching the pipe to the stand was tricky since I have a wooden board extending over the stand so I couldn't drill it directly to the side or to the back of the stand.
I drilled the pipe with a 6" screw to reach the stand and held the pipe with a conduit holder which was drilled to a mini-stand on top of the stand. I might drill another screw to the stand at the bottom just to be safe.
All I have left to do is attach the elbow with a screw hook for the light to hang from. I originally had the elbows pointing straight forward but decided it'd be better to have them point inwards. So I am going to move the pipe to the center of the tank, saw the pipe more to make it shorter, and then spray paint the whole thing with krylon fusion.





















I've wanted a spray bar for my FX5 for awhile now but never got the courage to do it. You can find lots of these made with different sizes from other forums.

Supplies:
5' x 1" ID hosing
1 x 3/4" pvc tube
3 x 3/4" 90 degree elbows
1 x 3/4" end cap
2 x hose clamps
1 x pvc cement can

Saw the pvc tube to the desired length (I made mine 40" long). Attach the end cap on one end and an elbow on the other. Saw another 3 pieces of pvc tube at whatever length will fit your tank, and use them to connect the other two elbows together. When you are satisfied with the measurements, apply some pvc cement to the tubes and elbows that will NOT be underwater and let it harden. You will need to physically hold the pieces together as the cement will expand as it dries. I drilled my spray bar with 15 11/64" holes, spaced 1.5" apart. This will also be painted with krylon fusion. Switch the outake hosing with the 1" ID hose and attach to the pvc tube. You might also want to use suction cups to hold the spray bar if it's long.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Is the hose coming off of the FX5 1" by default? Just looking at your configuration keep in mind you might be making your filter pump work much harder and reducing the flow. You've gone from 1" I'd assume down to 3/4" and then put in 3 90 degree elbows that'll reduce the flow even more and if my quick calculations are right you've reduced the drill outs on the pipe to limit it even further to 5/8 or so from 3/4. This potentially could be putting a lot of back pressure on the filter.

2 45degree elbows are better then a 90 degree, if you can get away with it in your design, of course it ads to the size and the cost of the build but will put less pressure on your equipment


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

No it's not 1" by default, hence the hose change. I've looked at many other spray bars and it works very well. I'll test mine out and see if I need to increase the size of the holes if needed.
The 45 degree is a better idea. I'll see if this one works well first and it not then switch.



kacairns said:


> Is the hose coming off of the FX5 1" by default? Just looking at your configuration keep in mind you might be making your filter pump work much harder and reducing the flow. You've gone from 1" I'd assume down to 3/4" and then put in 3 90 degree elbows that'll reduce the flow even more and if my quick calculations are right you've reduced the drill outs on the pipe to limit it even further to 5/8 or so from 3/4. This potentially could be putting a lot of back pressure on the filter.
> 
> 2 45degree elbows are better then a 90 degree, if you can get away with it in your design, of course it ads to the size and the cost of the build but will put less pressure on your equipment


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Nicole said:


> No it's not 1" by default, hence the hose change. I've looked at many other spray bars and it works very well. I'll test mine out and see if I need to increase the size of the holes if needed.
> The 45 degree is a better idea. I'll see if this one works well first and it not then switch.


It will work fine, you just might be causing some back pressure on the pump that could lead to it kicking the bucket sooner rather then later.

Something I did on my diy spray bar on my 180g tank was I drilled a set of holes that faced the back glass on the tank too, as while I was testing I noticed a lack of current there. If you decide to add some more holes you could drill a few with a even smaller bit to point to the back wall as a solution such as you could add 8 holes that are drilled with 1/8" bit and you'd come up just shy of the same surface area that the 3/4" is


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Funny you mentioned that since on my first try I accidentally drilled through the other side. I guess I won't seal it up then.

Even if I made the holes big enough it would create back pressure?


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Nicole said:


> Funny you mentioned that since on my first try I accidentally drilled through the other side. I guess I won't seal it up then.
> 
> Even if I made the holes big enough it would create back pressure?


Drilling the holes bigger would make it less work for the pump to push the water through the spray bar, but there is a fine line. You should be trying to create with your holes approximately the same surface area of the circle the tube creates for its ID, if you drill a too much of a smaller surface area the water will have lots of pressure behind it pushing it out, which also means the pump is having to push the water that much harder. If you drill too much surface area with your holes you end up not having the affect of a even distribution of water through your spray bar. With spray bars there are 3 things that will create that backwards pressure, 1) how far the water has to be push vertically, 2) how many elbows are used which will reduce the flow rate into the spray bar area 3) surface area drilled out.

There will always be some "backward" pressure due to #1 but you should keep in mind #2/#3 as they will add more pressure on top of what comes in #1, if you restrict things to much you'll just be making your pump work harder and shorten its life.

When I created mine I aimed to get my drilled surface area just a tad smaller then my 2 return pump lines (1" x 2 surface area). Both of my return lines feed into a single spray bar from each end and I have nice even spray coming out of all holes (upwards of 50 on my bar), in fact I screwed up on mine first time and drilled 2 holes to many and you could actually see when the water got to the very centre the middle of the bar didn't have as much pressure coming out of the holes as the others closer to the sources


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Thanks I'll play around with it. I just like the effect a spray bar gives too much to give it up.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Nicole said:


> Thanks I'll play around with it. I just like the effect a spray bar gives too much to give it up.


Spray bar are for sure the way to go depending on the size of the tank especially in my opinion for a planted tank, all my plants get a nice flow of water over them even at the front glass that is on a angle about 22" from the spray bar holes. Might take a few attempts to get things just perfect with it, still cheaper then buying something similar and, a lot better learning experience =)


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## jkcichlid (Apr 21, 2010)

If suction cups are not strong enough,to support the far end of the spraybar, you could duplicate the intake end except the piece going down the back could be short with a cap glued on. This way it will always hang level and will have no issue with falling


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

Looks good,did you order your light yet? the same seller now has a full spectrum version for the same price


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Yup it comes Tuesday. Does he? I don't think they're Cree LEDs though? He has some bridgelux and stuff but Cree is more worthy 



dabandit1 said:


> Looks good,did you order your light yet? the same seller now has a full spectrum version for the same price


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Nice DIY. I wouldn't worry about back pressure. Hydraulic head, clogged media, etc all add to the backpressure of the FX5 already by its design, since the pump is at the bottom of the filter. The FX5 pump was rated at 950 gph without media but I see the new FX6, running the same pump is now rated at 563 through the tank which tells us that they're accounting for a flow loss of almost 400 gph. Every spray bar creates back pressure since it's forcing the flow to go through small holes. So you really needn't worry about it as I've run a spray bar on my Eheim 2028 for over 6 years now and the pump still works great (but pretty much every thing else has had problems. )


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

2wheelsx2 said:


> Nice DIY. I wouldn't worry about back pressure. Hydraulic head, clogged media, etc all add to the backpressure of the FX5 already by its design, since the pump is at the bottom of the filter. The FX5 pump was rated at 950 gph without media but I see the new FX6, running the same pump is now rated at 563 through the tank which tells us that they're accounting for a flow loss of almost 400 gph. Every spray bar creates back pressure since it's forcing the flow to go through small holes. So you really needn't worry about it as I've run a spray bar on my Eheim 2028 for over 6 years now and the pump still works great (but pretty much every thing else has had problems. )


Maybe I should describe back pressure in a way that would be a concern then. Lowing of gph due to restrictions after the pump.

To give you a idea of how much flow rate can be reduced by reduction on the spray bar drilling which is almost a 1/4" in size here is a little snippet on flow rates based on gravity

Based on gravity alone for feeding the water into a straight tube of 1/2" you have a gph of approximately 420gph, using 3/4" you have a gph of approximately 660gph. Just in that scenario you're reducing the gph by 1/3rd with that 1/4" reduction. Of course forcing the water through the tube with a pump will yield higher gph then just gravity fed but you get the idea of how much it can restrict things. Plus take into account how high the pump has to push the water up, add in the reduction of flow from the elbows and length of pipe and your pump you think might be turning over the tank water 10x a hour is possibly doing it half as much and working much harder to do that.

Just make sure you minimize any areas that can reduce the flow rate, such as drilled holes equal roughly the same as the supply tube, minimize the amount of bends in the pipe or ease the bends by using bends that aren't as sharp, then none of what I said matters =)


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

2wheelsx2 and kacairns are both right :bigsmile: question is can the filter handle the load lol one way to find out if you ask me


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

dabandit1 said:


> 2wheelsx2 and kacairns are both right :bigsmile: question is can the filter handle the load lol one way to find out if you ask me


Hehe of course the filter can handle it, but for how long, and yes then you only have on way to tell but then again, if the filter ends up prematurely wearing out, who is to say its really from the restricted flow and not just crappy workmanship/parts =). So in the end we are both right, there is no way to prove one way or another is good or bad, but with machines/electronics logically the less you make something work, usually the longer it will work or less problems.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

We shouldn't be handling the calculation on gph. It's easy enough to use fluid dynamics and drag and cross section of the pipe with assumed friction to calculate head load. We'd have to make some head loss assumptions due to frictino and the elbows and to coefficient of friction of the PVC. It's been a few years since I've done this but it's not rocket science and several of my consultant buddies still do this for a living. However I don't think it's worth our while since, like I said, there are people running spray bars for numerous years including myself. Engineering is mostly about empirical formulae and empirically, it can be demonstrated that spray bars don't really cause measurable degradation of pump life. Realistically, if one can demonstrate that the pump is not cavitating, why would working against a load degree a pump? I recently worked on a project where we pumped water in 16" PVC up an elevation of 30+ m with a 1200 GPM pump and there was no concern with premature wear. We did this for 6 months to dewater an open pit. There was no cavitation so no concerns with excess wear of the impeller blades.

I am not really concerned with proving whether I am right or wrong. I just don't think there is any cause for concern, especially since reefers spec pumps way above requirement regularly and throttle them back with gate valves. On the intake side, definitely, there is concern because of cavitation, but on the outlet side? I'd really be interested in seeing the calculations on the concern for the back pressure.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

That must of been on nice mod on a FX5 to have it working on 16" pipe, oh wait we shouldn't be comparing commercial/industrial components to those of consumer grade. The gph portion has a lot of other aspects that matter to it then those listed before, one such thing would be fish load in a tank. Someone stocks their tank and part of their calculations (say they used something like aqadvisor) then they limit their actual filter gph to half of what it actually is by not drilling the proper amount/size of holes which is what this is all boiling down to, could lead them into a overstocking issue. Of course there are many other factors that need to be accounted for, but explaining things in basic terms so those just browsing the thread can get information out of them instead of just saying "what did they just say?" usually helps =)


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

That commercial grade pump was screw drive. The FX5 drive is mag drive. If anything, the screw drive should have more wear from frictional losses. That "commercial" pump was not a solids handling pump so the hydraulic principles of a low viscosity fluid should still apply. If it were then different Cd's would be applied etc. People seem to associate "commercial" with more robust. I really wish that were the case. If it were, the companies I advise would not have to pay thousands of dollars for equipment downtime. The reality is that a properly spec'd pump should work under the conditions it was spec'd for regardless of price. If a piece of equipment is spec'd for a certain number of service hours under a certain condition, then it should meet that criteria. If anything the FX5 being converted to smooth pvc should reduce head loss due to frictional losses compared to the horrible ribbed hose it comes with.

I'm not sure how gph of a filter can affect bioload. Because if that's the case, the Eheim 2080 should never be able to outperform an FX5 in ammonia conversion. But Simplydiscus and MFK both have cases where it has been documented. But then oourse science has nothing to do with a lot of discussions. I'd like to hear how one can wear out an electromagnetic drive though since the impeller of the FX5 is one such. What are these other factors? Assuming that I want to get beyond these basic terms. Engineering minds want to know. 

I should leave Nicole's thread alone now. Suffice it to say that many spraybars have been made for FX5's and none of them have failed yet so I wouldn't worried about it Nicole. With that, I'll leave this thread alone for other s to enjoy Nicole's DIY.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

How does anyone do anything in life. When I find the answer to that question, I can give you the answer to every question anyone could ever have, until then I'll just follow what higher intellects say as it must be right..

Again, with spray bars, drill the holes equivalent or close to the supply lines area, limit amount of sharp bends and your spray bar will work similar to not having a spray bar but with all the benefits of having one. Its not rocket science although it seems that having a "engineering" back ground would help figure out this simple logic.


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

Wheres that emoticon of the smiley eating popcorn when you need it.....what did they just say lmao


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Just saw a debate on another forum with that emoticon. Had to google it though:


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

lol thats the one


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Woah what did I come back to. I don't think I understood any of that but hurray for people with intelligience in that field..there's a reason why I'm not in engineering 

I've been letting everything dry after painting it for a week now. It will be put to the test on Tues


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

welcome to the brightside lol. Let us know how the spray bar works out for you,keep an eye on the motor temp of your filter for the first while I think is what these guys were getting at in a nut shell lol
goodluck


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Everything turned out great! I didn't even have to replace the hose so not sure what the other diy forums are talking about, just use the same attachment that came with the nozzle.

I drilled extra holes 45 degrees to the originally drilled holes on the spray bar. One 45 degree hole for every other 3 holes. This way water below the spray bar will also be moved.

I wish I hadn't increased the hole size after worrying about the pressure on the pump because I'd like the current a tiny bit stronger. So if I did it again I would've stuck with the original 11/64".

The light stand also worked out well. I might make it lower in the future.


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

Looks cool. Only thing I may do is add the piece betw to make a complete arch for the light hanger


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Nicole said:


> Everything turned out great! I didn't even have to replace the hose so not sure what the other diy forums are talking about, just use the same attachment that came with the nozzle.
> 
> I drilled extra holes 45 degrees to the originally drilled holes on the spray bar. One 45 degree hole for every other 3 holes. This way water below the spray bar will also be moved.
> 
> ...


If you increased the hole size and drilled another 5 holes or so you might have actually made your drilled out hole surface area greater then the size of the ID surface area of the supply line which would explain the loss of pressure. I think in my initial response I mentioned you could drill 1/8" holes on the back of the pipe about half as many as the 11/64" you drilled on the front and it would of been enough or would of been even less if you used the 11/64". As long as you're happy, it works, and you learned and enjoyed the project that is all that matters in the end though!


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

I have a piece to connect them but I figured it look better if they weren't connected :/..and because I ran out of Krylon haha



gklaw said:


> Looks cool. Only thing I may do is add the piece betw to make a complete arch for the light hanger


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

It worked out. The angels don't like current and the food already flies everywhere so maybe it's for the best. I'd rather play it safe then have the pump overwork.



kacairns said:


> If you increased the hole size and drilled another 5 holes or so you might have actually made your drilled out hole surface area greater then the size of the ID surface area of the supply line which would explain the loss of pressure. I think in my initial response I mentioned you could drill 1/8" holes on the back of the pipe about half as many as the 11/64" you drilled on the front and it would of been enough or would of been even less if you used the 11/64". As long as you're happy, it works, and you learned and enjoyed the project that is all that matters in the end though!


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

Wow that one bulb is green. How are you liking the fixture? a few of my bulbs are greenish but no they arent quite that bad.


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Yeah I have two of them that are green which I actually quite like. The rest are solid blue though so that's good. I like the fixture, brings out some pretty crazy colours. Especially when you turn off the white and there's only the blue, my goodness it's like a radioctive tank! I've been meaning to take pictures of the corals but haven't gotten around to doing it. Everything is adjusting well except for this one acan. It opened up for a few days and suddenly it won't anymore. I have another acan of the same species which opens up to around 1" but this one is giving me a hard time >=(



dabandit1 said:


> Wow that one bulb is green. How are you liking the fixture? a few of my bulbs are greenish but no they arent quite that bad.


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## msjboy (May 2, 2011)

What brand is the led light and how many watts is it...looking into a evergrow led brand myself which is around $175 cdn.
Msjboy


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Nvm the acan started to open up again today! Just needed to give it some more shade. The lights were too strong, and I only had it on at 40% white and 70% blue..some powerful stuff!


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

msjboy said:


> What brand is the led light and how many watts is it...looking into a evergrow led brand myself which is around $175 cdn.
> Msjboy


24 x 3W Cree = 72W
I believe the Evergrow is Bridgelux so I decided not to get it when I could have Cree instead. I got my fixture for cheaper than $175 too but I had to bargain.


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

Im glad you like it,I'm running mine at 10%!!!!! 13'' above the water on a 10g right now. I keep my acan and blasto real low the acan expands to 2'' heads,same as you it was too bright for them. Glad to hear he gave you a deal,I got him down to 165$ shipped did you beat me? lol


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

Mine is about 15" above the water. You got an algae bloom so I wouldn't even turn the lights on  I find that the acans expand like crazy with no/little flow but apparently they grow slower. With more flow they're not as plump but grow quicker. I got it shipped to the border and picked it up there. If I got it shipped to my door I wouldn't have beat you  I LOVE the shimmer btw, added more surface movement and wowza!


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