Julian's Fourth

jjbunn · Mar 15, 2016

Psiber_Syn said:
They burrow on the rocks pretty good give it time he may just be hiding also the decorator crab with pick your zoos so watch out fyi

Still no sign of him, but no carcass either, which is a good sign.

The decorator crab was standing over the zoos earlier, but seemed uninterested in them ... so far!

jjbunn · Mar 15, 2016

3/15: The firefish appeared: must have been in hiding.

Psiber_Syn · Mar 15, 2016

Glad he showed up musta got hungry

jjbunn · Mar 16, 2016

Psiber_Syn said:
Glad he showed up musta got hungry

I'm not quite sure what he's eating, if anything. I don't see him eat any food at all!

jjbunn · Mar 17, 2016

3/17: Received a new Jellas electronic pH meter. Calibrated it in the 6.86 buffer solution, then tested the tank water as being pH 8.1 - sounds good. Topped up with a couple of gallons of Safeway distilled water which measured 0 on the TDS meter. There are at least 20 porcelain crabs that came in on the live rock. One of them was dead on the sand. There are other crabs as well, smaller, except for the decorator crab, which is huge. His decorations consist of bits of sponge, which actually seem to be growing in size! Starting to see many more small snails, on the rock and on the glass.

jjbunn · Mar 19, 2016

3/18: Replaced the two Hydor powerheads with a single Jebao WP-25 wavemaker. I can make a standing wave with it, but that's just a novelty (who wants motionless water in a reef tank?), so I've put it on the random setting at the lowest power setting S1, which creates plenty of turbulence.

mcarroll · Mar 19, 2016

Man, you can really see the hotspot from that light in the middle of the tank in every single photo. It seems like you might be better off running two or three of those at lower power.

Did you record over 100,000 lux from your light at the water surface? (is your app finally calibrated?)

jjbunn · Mar 19, 2016

mcarroll said:
Man, you can really see the hotspot from that light in the middle of the tank in every single photo. It seems like you might be better off running two or three of those at lower power.

Did you record over 100,000 lux from your light at the water surface? (is your app finally calibrated?)

Yes, I agree the light cone is too small at this height. I'm going to remove the 60 degree lenses that come fitted with the Mars Aqua, which I think are too narrow. The LEDs themselves are 90 degree cone angle. If that doesn't brighten the edges of the sandbed, I'll get hold of some 120 degree lenses. Or, I could simply raise the fixture :)

Yes, the app is calibrated as best as I can make it. At 6" below the light I measured lux values of
R=33000 G=47400 B=64000 W=30400

Bringing the sensor closer to the Mars Aqua maxes out some of the readings to 65536 lux. In direct bright sunlight all sensor max at 65536, and give a PAR of 2400 with the current calibration.

jjbunn · Mar 21, 2016

3/20: Still fiddling with the WP-25. Re-arranged the rocks a bit. Not happy with the Bak Pak 2R noise level, so have ordered a Reef Octopus Classic 90 - hopefully it will be quieter and more efficient.

jjbunn · Mar 23, 2016

3/23: I found that the WP-25 was just too powerful with the provided 24 Volt power supply, so I switched the supply to a 15 Volt unit - much better! Now my sand stays put.

Removed the 60 degree lenses from each of the Mars Aqua LEDs. This leaves the 90 degree lenses on the chips themselves. The result is much better light coverage across the width and length of the tank bottom. Here's a photo:

Measuring the Lux values 6" beneath the canopy, with the blue/white controls each at 40%:

(The free Android app is available here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.julian.apps.luxparmeter )

jjbunn · Mar 25, 2016

3/21: Video of the decorator crab as he moves between two rocks - he really has to stretch!

jjbunn · Mar 25, 2016

3/25: Added a small yellow Tang (zebrasoma flavescens), and another small colony of Zoanthids. The tang is quite nervous, and appreciates the many hiding places amongst the rocks. Still no sign of the firefish, who has now been MIA for a couple of days.

Psiber_Syn · Mar 25, 2016

@jjbunn a little off topic you wrote this app? I too am a programmer interested in seeing source if your game? Could pastebin it or something just beginning with app dev and love to see how things are done if not that's cool too what languages are you proficient in?

jjbunn · Mar 25, 2016

Psiber_Syn said:
@jjbunn a little off topic you wrote this app? I too am a programmer interested in seeing source if your game? Could pastebin it or something just beginning with app dev and love to see how things are done if not that's cool too what languages are you proficient in?

Yes, I wrote the app. I can point you to the places in the Android documentation that will help if you want to do something similar. The access to the individual R,G,B and W sensor readings is not standard Android, however - I can point you to information on that as well if required. For Android you will need to be proficient in Java ...

Psiber_Syn · Mar 25, 2016

I have done a few games in java for Android I am also fairly knowledgable in python Perl php c# Sql etc etc lol Any info would be great sorry for highjacking :-)

jjbunn · Mar 26, 2016

Psiber_Syn said:
I have done a few games in java for Android I am also fairly knowledgable in python Perl php c# Sql etc etc lol Any info would be great sorry for highjacking :)

This is a good link for understanding how to enable and read a sensor - in this case the light sensor: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_sensors.htm
For the non-standard access to the full sensor values, see Section 2.1 of this paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1405.3760.pdf

Hope that helps!