Healdsburg

[Ranjib]

Latest fts

 

Growth is kinda stalled , since is stoped spot feeding 

 

 I have started doing little bit of broadcast feeding with reef roid 

 

 

[Lula_Mae]

On 1/28/2018 at 4:30 PM, Ranjib said:

Latest fts

 

Growth is kinda stalled , since is stoped spot feeding 

 

 I have started doing little bit of broadcast feeding with reef roid 

 

 

Looks like things are reaching.  Is there a way to turn up the light intensity or move the light a bit closer to the surface?

[Ranjib]

Yeah, its controlled by my own controller :-) , and currently its only clocking at 50% intensity . I was planning to ramp it up, since the polyps are kinda getting long (like they are reaching out for more lights). I was just not sure whats the best course of action, more light, or more feeding. I definitely want to restrict the growth of the grandis, while speed up the growth of other ones. May be just frag it instead. Here is the color and intensity of my kessil A80.

[Lula_Mae]

On 2/1/2018 at 12:51 AM, Ranjib said:

Yeah, its controlled by my own controller :-) , and currently its only clocking at 50% intensity . I was planning to ramp it up, since the polyps are kinda getting long (like they are reaching out for more lights). I was just not sure whats the best course of action, more light, or more feeding. I definitely want to restrict the growth of the grandis, while speed up the growth of other ones. May be just frag it instead. Here is the color and intensity of my kessil A80.

I'd probably frag the grandis and turn the lights up as even the ric looks like it's reaching somewhat.

[Ranjib]

6 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

I'd probably frag the grandis and turn the lights up as even the ric looks like it's reaching somewhat.

I did that last week, waiting to see the results. I have also started ramping up feeding. Maker faire is coming (in may) and I hope to put this tank for exhibit . Lets see how long it takes to see the effect. I have no idea how long it will take but I do expect to see some changes. As of today the only thing I have noticed is one of the purple zoa/paly (with black dots in skirt) has retracted 1/3rd of the polyp length. But I am also noticing couple of polyps of another zoa has closed up. 

[Ranjib]

Last week's FTS

 

Down below

Way up

 

The grandis colony needs to be trimmed, I am in dilemma whether to wait till maker faire (when this tank will be up for exhibit) and then frag, or do it right now. My tentative plan is to frag the whole grandis colony and rehome it to bozeman. I worry may might be too late, its already shading almost all the neighbors, I think I am going to loose one  of the slow growing red zoa, which is now surrounded by radio active dragon eyes, eagle eys, and rasta .. with grandis above . The whole colony (7 polyp) is closed up for few days.

 

 

[Ranjib]

 

FTS

 

Grandis is rehomed to bozeman. I am thinking of sticking a sps (purple stylophora or or orange digitata) on the empty space. We'll see. Not sure how the corals are responding to the new higher intensity. I think the sunny d and vamp in a drag (or solarflare) is now retracted a bit.  Solarflare is showing couple of new heads , finger crossed

 

[Christopher Marks]

On 2/16/2018 at 10:46 AM, Ranjib said:

wait till maker faire (when this tank will be up for exhibit)

How cool, tell us more about that!

 

I miss the Grandis in there, but I'm sure they would have quickly crowded out the others from up there. I wonder if there's yet another type of polyp you could perch up top?

[Ranjib]

7 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

How cool, tell us more about that!

 

I miss the Grandis in there, but I'm sure they would have quickly crowded out the others from up there. I wonder if there's yet another type of polyp you could perch up top?

Since last year, I am putting my DIY controller (http://reef-pi.com) up for exhibition in Bay Area maker faire. I had started the project to make an affordable & hackable opensource controller that anyone can build. As part of the exhibit I also show off two of my pico tanks, Healdsburg & Bozman. Last year our booth was in the dark room (its an indoor stadium where all the DIY LED related projects. Our exhibit draw huge crowd, and we won editor's choice award.

Booth setup, in the beginning of the event (its a 3 day event). My buddy hooking up the display controller

 

 

 

Showtime ..

 

Blue ribbon/editor's choice award

 

 

I love makerfaire, its a family friendly event with  a huge comunity of makers, DIYers, hackers, artists, musicians and other creative people. They also have fried vegetable and beer :-)

 

reef-pi made enormous progress since then. We have almost 30+ builds now, and lots of new features. So, I'll be showing off all of that, and two of my pico tanks (and that has become gorgeous as well)

 

@Christopher Marks if its ok with you, I would love to keep a nano-reef ad/link there. I generally keep reef2reef links, since the reef-pi build thread is there. But I learned reef keeping here, and still do all my tank/livestock discussion mostly here.

 

 

[Ranjib]

Fts

 

 

I thought i had lost this frag, but after removing grandis , I ca see these guys 

 

Solar flare , new polyp is growing 

 

Sunny d. Still extended polyp , but less

 

 

[Ranjib]

Tank is doing fine. I spend very long tittle time in maintenance (bi weekly 80% wc)

 

Now that the grandis are gone, I can take closeup photos of some other zoas on that spot .

eagle eye 

 

 

 

Sunny d, it has not retracted significantly since increasing the light intensity 

 

 

Solarflare baby

 

Ricordia and Monti island , from side view , i think the Monti is space constrained now,

 

[Ranjib]

 

Current state

 

 

Some zoas are closed up, not sure exactly why. I can only spot bristle worms all over the tank. 

 

 

This snail is native of my apartment,. He was born on the 29G, look he has grown up significantly :-)

 

[Christopher Marks]

On 2/25/2018 at 2:29 PM, Ranjib said:

@Christopher Marks if its ok with you, I would love to keep a nano-reef ad/link there. I generally keep reef2reef links, since the reef-pi build thread is there. But I learned reef keeping here, and still do all my tank/livestock discussion mostly here.

I'd be honored! It's awesome to see Reef-pi grow, congrats on your blue ribbon!

[Ranjib]

 

Current FTS

Tank is doing alright.  I have come to belive that the ricordia gets curled up due to flow, not due to lack of light. I have change the rock position little bit (rotated it slightly) and seeing the ricordia relatively flat since than.

 

Sunny D. No new growth (i have reduced feeding)

 

eagle eyes are growing slowly, now that grandis is gone

 

This one had some strange algae at the base  growing, just cleaned up this week during water change

 

Ricordia close up

 

I have trimmed the monitopora at the base, cleaning the glass was harder because of it. I'll see how fast it grows back

Among all the zoas mohawk is probably growing at highest rate 

 

 

I have added a green slimer frag , just to see how the tank does for sps. Its not dead or significantly lost tissue yet,

 

 

[jbh]

Question relating to your reef-pi system.

 

Can your system currently integrate with the reef keeper powerbars? is it possible with your current hardware?

[Ranjib]

2 hours ago, jbh said:

Question relating to your reef-pi system.

 

Can your system currently integrate with the reef keeper powerbars? is it possible with your current hardware?

I am not aware of reef keeper powerbars, cant say. If you can share some details on how its controlled I might be able to answer. Currently its tested with DIY powerbars (where we roll our own powerstrip using relays and receptacles ) and American DJ SR P8  powr strips  (off the shelf)

 

If the reef keeper powerbar has some sort of connector (like db9 connector in case of the adj srp  -8) then I think we can control that with reef-pi. Since we build the circuit, we can pretty much generate any control voltage , software does not require any changes.

[jbh]

I suppose I was mainly interested in an off the shelf relay power strip, and the dj equipment you linked is way more cost effective than the reef keeper equipment anyways.

 

Thanks for the info.

[Ranjib]

26 minutes ago, jbh said:

I suppose I was mainly interested in an off the shelf relay power strip, and the dj equipment you linked is way more cost effective than the reef keeper equipment anyways.

 

Thanks for the info.

I would agree. ADJ powerstrip is around 50-60$ . The powercontroller build is fairly simple, and should cost anywhere around 50-100$ depending upon your tools/wiring availability. I am very happy with the setup, its safe, simple and robust.

 

Here is the UI for my reef-pi power controller (which is hooked up to a ADJ SRP-8 powerstrip)

 

 

I'll update the official docs soon, it still reflects the old setup where we handroll everything.

[Ranjib]

Added a small live rock with blue clove polyp and a purple garf bonsai frag in it, from a local reefer. I wanted to keep blue polyps, but heard they are evasive , but this tank is fine . We’ll see how it goes. I doubt the acro will make it. But let’s hope for the best. 

 Rest of the corals are doing ok. Since I stopped feeding and removed hob filter, their growth has been stalled. I am thinking whether I should bring it back

 The tank was moved and re setup as part of the makerfaire exhibit, rock work has been changed

 

we’ll be moving to new apartment in couple of weeks , so things will change again, hence I didn’t paid a lot of attention to the rockscape

Sunny d

 

Ricordia is growing for sure 🙂

 

it is also one of the more popular livestock (from makerfaire stats)

[Christopher Marks]

Looking good @Ranjib, those new blue clove polyps are particularly cool. And a purple GARF bonsai too, now there's a name I haven't heard in awhile!

 

Do you suppose your water is 'too clean' now without the filter and feeding? Perhaps an occasional spot feeding?

[Ranjib]

2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Looking good @Ranjib, those new blue clove polyps are particularly cool. And a purple GARF bonsai too, now there's a name I haven't heard in awhile!

 

Do you suppose your water is 'too clean' now without the filter and feeding? Perhaps an occasional spot feeding?

I wont say its too clean, its probably same. But I have changed water change schedule from every week to every two week. For me the most prominent difference was slow growth of live stock. I do add a pinch of reef roids once in a while

[Ranjib]

Current FTS

 

 

Tank is humming along. All livestock are doing ok, Ricordia

 

 

Sunny Ds

 

[Ranjib]

 

Tank is humming along. 

Photo dump..

 

 

Asterina star and tiny father duster

 

 

Fire n ice zoa .. peeping through the cracks

 

 

 

Eagle eyes

 

 

Isopods are having fun

 

 

Tiny clode polyps

 

[Ranjib]

Current state

the ricordia is growing big 

rest all is business as usual..🙂

 

[Christopher Marks]

Always nice to see this one @Ranjib! You should add more more ricordea 🙂