But the corals look happy, the Zoanthus, Palithoas and Hammer corals are expanded and looking very healthy... so it is hard to believe in water quality issues...
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Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Mithrax crab died...
But the corals look happy, the Zoanthus, Palithoas and Hammer corals are expanded and looking very healthy... so it is hard to believe in water quality issues...
Sunday, November 7, 2010
No more siphons: SW mixing containter now has a faucet
Yesterday we got busy eliminating the "last reason" to use siphons during water changes: our new saltwater mixing container didn't have a faucet. Now it does!
Thew whole point of this is with a faucet I can fill up my plastic jerricans by just opening the faucet.... no hoses, no siphons. No spilling water on the floor, no running freshwater in the hose to clean it afterwards. Less of a mess, quicker turn around time.
I drilled a hole into the Rubbermaid container we use to mix water and installed a simple PVC faucet. Here is my kid testing it (we filled the container to the top to see if it leaked):
And here is it in the "saltwater mixing room":
Maybe I'm a little bit paranoid with efficiency, of getting things done in the quickest way possible. :-) But I like it.
Snorkeler
Thew whole point of this is with a faucet I can fill up my plastic jerricans by just opening the faucet.... no hoses, no siphons. No spilling water on the floor, no running freshwater in the hose to clean it afterwards. Less of a mess, quicker turn around time.
I drilled a hole into the Rubbermaid container we use to mix water and installed a simple PVC faucet. Here is my kid testing it (we filled the container to the top to see if it leaked):
And here is it in the "saltwater mixing room":
Maybe I'm a little bit paranoid with efficiency, of getting things done in the quickest way possible. :-) But I like it.
Snorkeler
Saturday, November 6, 2010
LED lighting fixture:new milestone
Time to share a little more of my progress constructing a LED light fixture.
Last weekend I completed an important milestone, I prototyped the circuit +power source that would drive the LEDs (turn them on of off) with dimming capability. The power source is a simple PC ATX power unit, a used one in fact. The driver circuit is a simple MOSFET Transistor switch with a current limiting resistor, and a fuse to protect against over current in case a LED blows.
The dimming is done using an Arduino controller. Never heard of Arduino? They are a lot of fun, if you like to play with robotics or other types of programmable toys. Check out: http://arduino.cc . One day when my kid is a little bit older I hope to build small Arduino controlled robot car or boat with him.
Enough talking, here is a video of the prototype working:
It is dimming the LEDs up and down very fast just for testing. Obviously the final Arduino program will dim very slowly to simulate sunrise then sunset.
Nice huh? It is great to reach a milestone like this one when things work. It wasn't all rosy all the time, though. I spent almost an hour figuring out why the circuit wasn't working, and in the end I had forgot to make one connection. Once fixed, it came to life!
I was only able to build this driver circuit thanks to the help of kcress from ReefCentral, as registered in this thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914090 . ReefCentral is a great place where you find lots of helpful people from all walks of life. If you have a saltwater aquarium you MUST have an account there and participate in the forums.
Snorkeler
Last weekend I completed an important milestone, I prototyped the circuit +power source that would drive the LEDs (turn them on of off) with dimming capability. The power source is a simple PC ATX power unit, a used one in fact. The driver circuit is a simple MOSFET Transistor switch with a current limiting resistor, and a fuse to protect against over current in case a LED blows.
The dimming is done using an Arduino controller. Never heard of Arduino? They are a lot of fun, if you like to play with robotics or other types of programmable toys. Check out: http://arduino.cc . One day when my kid is a little bit older I hope to build small Arduino controlled robot car or boat with him.
Enough talking, here is a video of the prototype working:
It is dimming the LEDs up and down very fast just for testing. Obviously the final Arduino program will dim very slowly to simulate sunrise then sunset.
Nice huh? It is great to reach a milestone like this one when things work. It wasn't all rosy all the time, though. I spent almost an hour figuring out why the circuit wasn't working, and in the end I had forgot to make one connection. Once fixed, it came to life!
I was only able to build this driver circuit thanks to the help of kcress from ReefCentral, as registered in this thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914090 . ReefCentral is a great place where you find lots of helpful people from all walks of life. If you have a saltwater aquarium you MUST have an account there and participate in the forums.
Snorkeler
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