Technofile

I was good a good boy and did not purchas to many corals over the last month, then payday come along, the fish shops got amazing shipments in and I blew all that I had tried to save in 3 days. I will admit that some off the pieces that I got are well worth it, really amazing colours.

Pink Tipped Acro

This Acro has awesome pink tips. I am not sure what colour the rest of the frag will be, got a bit of yellow orange happening. This is quite a nice large piece which will have a great spot on the reef. I have not mounted any off these corals yet as I am not sure what I will be getting and where they will be going.

Green/Yellow Plating Monty

This Monty was quite green in the shop tank, went a little dull when we got it home. Hoping the colour starts to come out. The plating Monty is quite a fast growing coral and will make a great addition to the reef. I have seen people put very small frags of different colours together and they grow into amazing coloured plates.

Purple Goniopora (cf.Pandoraensis)

Purple Goniopora

This Goniopora caught my eye and had to be on the reef. This is a great LPS coral. I am still moving it around the tank till I can find a spot that it is really happy.  In the little overhang that it is in at the moment (photographed) seems to be a nice spot.

Green Florida Ricordea

Green & Blue Metalic Shrooms

Green Blastomussa

Unfortunately this beautiful green Blastomussa (sometimes called a Pineapple Coral) must have got damaged in transport. You can see the skeleton of the coral showing through at the center. The membrane is also receding a lot. Fortunately the colony on the sides of the coral are still looking strong. Again I am still moving this little guy around the tank to try find where it will be most happy.

Green Blastomussa

Another shot of the Green Blastomussa showing the healthy polyps on the left side of the colony. You can also see a small pink sponge or cauliflower coral in the image that came along with one of my shroom rocks and is growing nicely.

Favia Pallida

This large LPS is an amazing specimen. It is about the size of a small breakfast bowl. It has an awesome turquoise colour. This coral also sometimes called a Pineapple Coral is very similar to the Blastomussa but with smaller polyps. I can not wait for this one to aclimatize and see what the colour can really do. Cally calls this her Tortise Coral.

The Sun Coral is not a coral for the lazy. This guy has to be fed 2 to 7 times a week. When I say fed, I mean each and every individual polyp has to be fed. Not an easy task and made worse by the fact that if you leave it in the tank with its tank mates, as soon as the food hits the water, the fish and shrimps devour it. Shrimps are even known to pull partially digested food out the belly of the Sun Coral. Sounds like I am complaining here but I really am not, to see this coral fully open is just so amazing. It really is beautiful. I posted a picture of the coral fully open in a previous post.

Today is the first day I have fed the Coral with all the tank lights on, so I decided to try make a small video of the process. Because this is the first time under full lights, the coral did not eat as well, but it still ate and you will be able to see it do so. The process involves carefully picking the coral up from the tank sand bed, and without taking it out the water, transferring it into a container. I use a Tupperware floating on the service of the water. I then mix up some frozen food in a little tank water (Kryl seems to be the favorite at the moment) and then with a syringe and a straw I place bits of food into each polyp. I leave the Sun in the container over night so that it can digest the food before I put it back into the tank. This keeps the shrimp from undoing all my hard work and getting fatter.

This is a quick video of my pulsing Xena. I have turned off the return and circulation pumps and this soft coral is pulsing on its own as it looks for food. This was a very small piece about a month or so back and is growing like crazy.

Sun Coral fully open

A few nights back, I fed our Sun Coral with Kryl. It had not eaten well for a few days but it really enjoyed this feeding  (for those that don’t know, every few days you need to feed each individual polyp.) The night after this feeding, I got back from visiting my dad in the hospital (a whole other story) and the Sun was open bigger than I have ever seen a Sun open.

I had to get my camera out and shoot the shot above. It really is impressive. What a beautiful coral and when it looks like this, it is well worth the hard work.

It is a pity I did not pay more attention to the Hermit Crab in the foreground as it being out of focus kind of spoils the picture but I am still happy to show what the coral looks like.

On Saturday (after payday of course) we paid a visit to Jungle Aquatics to see the new shipment. Top of my list was a Blue Tang – Paracanthurus hepatus (regal tang, royal blue tang, hippo tang, flagtail surgeonfish and blue surgeonfish) that I had heard were in stock. I was also very keen to see what looked like a Blue Cauliflower soft coral.

The shipment really was a nice one and the fish and corals were very good looking. They had a few Blue Tangs so we chose a tank to catch one from and the guy got to it. Well  keeping Tangs in your coral tank is a doff idea. That fish can flatten itself against anything and hide under anything. Was quite a challenge but he got it right.

Blue Tang

The little guy was very skitish when I was dripping him, but once he was in the tank, he immediately started grazing on algae. He was shy for about 30 minutes and then joined the other fish and seems quite happy. At feeding time he ate well. I had a good look at the fish in the packet at the shop and all looked fine, but I have noticed that on the left side near the eye is a little fungus and there is a white spot on the tail. I hope he is healthy enough to fight it and get over it.

The Blue Cauliflower coral – Pocillopora meandrina – that I had heard about was a very strange but stunning piece. I could not help myself and brought it. I have not had much luck with cauliflowers in the past but hope this will go better. We were not sure where we wanted to place the coral so I just buried it in the sand bed on the soft coral side of the tank for now.

Cauliflower coral (Pocillopora meandrina)

It was a lot more open in the shop, and when I looked closely it has a sort of film over the polyps. It is in a high current, high light area.

The find of the day however, was a stunning Pink Lace Coral – Distichopora sp. From what I have read, this is a highly prized coral and very very rare to find. It was hidden away under a frag shelve and it was by chance that I saw it. The colour alone made me want it to bring some nice purple into the tank.

Pink Lace Coral

This coral forms ornate tree-like structures, with all the flattened, blunt-ended branches growing in one plane. The colour is deposited within the limestone skeleton and remains even after the animal tissue is gone, unlike reef-building corals which have white skeletons and the only colour is found in the living tissue. Unlike many other  corals, lace corals do not have the symbiotic algae zooxanthellae living within the coral tissue as they are azooxanthellate. They are therefore not dependent on light and can live where the reef-building corals, dependent on photosynthetic algae, can’t.

On the way home or when I was removing the coral from the bag, unfortunately a small frag broke off. I have mounted it and will give it to my mate Thane who just recently started up his tank. The frag is already showing its near microscopic size polyps. (I just noticed in this image if you look closely at the little eye in the center of the coral, you can see some polyps feeding. I have added some pictures at the end of this post that show this quite clearly)

Lace Coral Frag

Today when I got home, I noticed that the Cauliflower coral had lost its heads. This is a very sad. I decided to move it just in case it did not like the sand bed, and I wanted to get it mid water. Looking at the piece, I am not 100% convinced that this is not a dyed specimen. I can tell you that if it is, the fish shop are going to get a mouthful from me.

Original Location looking sad

In the image above, you can see the tips or polyps are missing and there is a slime or film on the coral.

New Location

Pink Lace Coral microscopic size polyps illustration:

Microscopic size Polyps

In the first of two posts, I described how I was setting about trying to install blue LEDs in my Light Unit to use as Moonlights. Today I got out of bed early for a Sunday and decided to get on with the rest of the project. I am going to say this up front, this was not a easy task and was not enjoyable at all. I started at about 8am and after some very very harsh words, blisters and pain, I finally got the light unit back up and temporally wired in by about 4pm. It is just about 8pm and I noticed one of the LEDs had come loose so I had to open the unit up again and try get it sorted out. Unfortunately this time the MH ballast decided to punish me and gave me one hell of a shock. My head is still spinning and fingers still tingling.

Ok so enough bitching and onto the details of the project. The first step was to get the light unit down. This involved removing all the electric conduit and cabling that has been installed to get at the light unit cables. This was not to much of a worry because my next big project will be to move all the electrics and put them in a cabinet just as I said I would not do when I started this tank. Just for interest sake, the light unit weighs in at 25 Kg and has to be taken down by unscrewing it from the suspending cables. A little contortionist like maneuvering  is required here.

Once the unit was out and I had recovered from all the spasms in my back, it was time to disassemble it (Not my back, the light unit). This involved removing the the glass and then the reflectors. I had to remove some of the actual MH light bulb holders to get some of the reflectors out, but in retrospect I did not have to do this.

Stripped Down Light Unit

To remove the MH reflectors, I had to remove the MH bulbs. I know from Halides, you do not want to touch them as the oil from your fingers will somehow cause them to blow. I used a combination of rubber gloves and tissue paper to pull the bulbs out. These are the double ended kind and here we hit problem one in many the day. I managed to break the one ceramic end.

Buggered MH Bulb

I was in a panic where or even if I could get a new one on a Sunday – you also don’t want me to tell you what these things cost. Anyway, deep breathes and count to 10.

MH Ballast

These are the 2 x 250 watt Metal Halide (MH) ballasts. Part of the project that also wanted to carry out today was to split these onto their own power cord. That way I can control each one individually.

MH Starter and Bulb Holder

The bulb holders in the image above have been removed. Bad idea. The way they are held in place is with a bolt that has to try and capture a nut in one of those groves that is not fixed in place. Does not make sense,  did not to me either and was a major ball ache. The cabling on this side is for the MHs so this is where I would add a new power cable and split the ballasts.

In the near future, I will also be adding two more T5 lights to the unit. (T5 are smaller florescent tubes to what you would be used to in a building etc and give off a better light). This image below shows the current electronic 54 watt T5 ballast.

T5 Ballast

I then marked the reflectors where the LEDs would be positions and then used my Hudy reamer to make the holes. I did the holes from the outside to create a small ridge on the inside to act as a small LED holder. This did not really work as the reflectors are soft ali and cut very easily.

Making Holes in the Reflectors

Holes for the Moonlights

Now this is where the blisters come in. I am a big fan of hot glue, but when I am sticking something with it, and it get on my finger, I am to stupid to let go just in case what I am sticking moves. Doh so thumb has a nice size blister to show for it.

LED Hot Glue Mount

I cut a bit of air line and then fitted the LED into that. Once that was done the LED was pushed into the tub and pressed through the reflector so that as much of it was in the mounting hole as possible but would not fowl the glass when it was refitted. You can also see my Hot Glue “Welding”. I was not shy here.

LED Mount

The holes for the new cables came next and after I marked them, I drilled a 5mm pilot hole and then finished off with a 8mm hole to accommodate the new cable. I will have to keep my eyes oped for some protective sheaths like the ones the original unit is using.

5mm Pilot Hole

8mm Hole for new Cable

Moonlight Connection

This is the new cable that will be used to power the Moonlights. Notice the small white cable tie that is used to keep the cable from being pulled out. Moonlight are not fitted here but the chocolate bloc that they will be connected to is on the left.

New MH Cable

The new MH cable and connection. I am not sure what it is, but these MH scare the hell out of me. I disconnected the original cable form the white chocolate block and then ran the new cable to the black chocolate block and that connects to the MH ballast by the blue and brown wires.

Time to put the unit back together. After checking my connections, I replaced the reflectors that I had washed thoroughly in warm soapy water and I also tested the MH bulb I broke right at the beginning. I was happy that it worked first time. Um friendly word of advice, don’t watch the MH as it comes on…… that white light when you close your eyes will stay with you forever. The reflectors were in place and I slid the glass int place. All gong well and I was so excited to put the unit back up.

Turned it over and something sounded very loos so had a look. The one MH bulb had fallen out. This meant I had to remove the side panels and glass to see what was happening. It seems even though I had tested them, the MH had been working just by contact, the were not properly seated in their mounts. This is where the bad language and temper flared.  No matter what I tried I could not get the bulb into the holders – remembering here that I could not touch the bulb with my bare hands and I did not want to get finger prints on the reflector. I broke both ceramic ends on the bulb and was freaking out. Poor Cally tried to help me but thought it would be safer to be in a cage with a hungry Tiger. I swear it took me 2 hours to get the bulb back in. Now I cold not get the reflectors and glass to fit properly. Eventually that was sorted and I noticed the joint in the center of the glass was over the center Moonlights so I had to strip the sides off again and then put the glass in from opposite ends. 20 min later I was lucky I still had glass to use.

Moonlight

Moonlight

Moonlight

Moonlights

Lights just went out so I tried to get a shot of the Moonlights. (The room lights are still on so the tank does still have light)

The Final Product

This is what it was all about (I think I might have to long an exposure as the real thing is a little darker.

Moonlight Full Tank Shot

Close up on the SPS side of the tank

There is nothing quite like staring at your reef tank at night when the big lights have gone out and there is the gentle blue shimmer of moonlights. My ProfiLux tank computer is able to take a special lamp that is dimmable and the computer can control all sorts of fun things on this lamp. The one big thing is the actual moon phase at the GPS coordinates that your tank is in. That is rather exciting, but alas, these units are quite expensive and there are other things I need to carry on with my Reef Tank project. I am also not 100% convinced that they are not just a toy.

As I said above, a moonlit Reef is amazing so I set about creating a DIY moonlight system for my tank. This will not be connected to any kind of moon phase but I will run them on variable lighting illumination – which basically means I can run them for different times. My biggest problem was getting to a accessible electronic shop that stocked blue LEDs. I also did not want the common big ones as the light is strange and I don’t like it. Eventually I found some awesome little LED units. A normal LED runs on 12 volts so they would need a resistor to run from my 220 volt system – just more things that can go wrong. The little ones I found are about 2.5mm and are 220 volt units. I am not sure how they do this but I am not complaining.

220 volt LEDs

The next thing I had to do was test them. I wired them up in parallel to some 4 core that I had about. Something went wrong and as I hit the switch something shorted and blam, the 4 core fused together. I thought the worst for my precious little LEDs, so one by one I tested them and they were all fine. No more messing about, I decided to wire them up to the final harness and would just test with that. All connections are soldered and covered in shrink wrap. I really don’t like the idea of electronics and salt water.

Wiring Harness

Now to test these babies. My plan was to slide the harness into the T5 sections of my lighting unit from the side. A few scolds later they were in and I ran a test. Problem, the LEDs are very directional and as they were not pointing down, they had zero effect on the tank. Out they came again.

Plan B: I found some very thin wire that I had lying around and setup a test bed type scenario by wrapping the wire around the light unit cables and then around the harness. I was also able to wrap the wire around the LED lead and this let me control the direction the LEDs pointed in.

Messy but dong the job for now

LED is not on here

In the picture above, it looks like the LED is on, but my MH are out and only my T5 Actinics are on and the LED is reflecting this light.

From the back

Close up - Actinics on

Still the LED is not on, it is just the blue reflection from the T5 Actinics.

MH on, LED on

Above the Light Unit is on and so is the LED. Quite a bit of light for such a little thing. I did try to take a picture of lights out with the moonlights on but they did not come out at all so I will have to get the DSLR camera out and shoot a few shots. The ripples on the bottom of the tank are amazing.

Next step of the project will be to take the Light Unit down (man it is heavy) and wire the harness in correctly and make sure it is all neat and tidy.

Just for interest sake, here are a few screen shots of what I was talking about with my Tank ProFilux computer and what it can do with lighting:

GPS Settings

My GPS coordinates are not set as I am not using them for anything at the moment.

Moon Phase Setting Screen

Above you can see some of what is possible with the ProFilux.

• Generating Clouds
• Current Moon phase
• Rainy days (obviously without the actual rain)

There are a ton of other screen but this is what is relevant to this post.

I had to pop out to fetch something for Cally today and I don’t have a means of playing MP3 in my car at the moment so I was thinking what CD to take with me. Now that is already old fashioned but not to much and most people should know what I am talking about. I opened the cabinet and what was there before me, my old old old tape box – yes I said tape as in that analog technology. I have an Audi Symphony head unit in my car and guess what, it can play tapes. Did not take me long to decide what I wanted to play, A Fist Full of Techno must have carried me through many nights and many trips, some real old style Hard Core.

For those of you that did not get to take a trip on Noah’s Arc, this is what a tape looks like and it actually has moving parts inside.

A Sony EF60 Tape

I still remember when the first tape to tape players came out, now if you had one of those you were hip. Then came players that could reverse the tape I you did not even have to take it out, you just pushed a button. Of course the real break through was the Sony Walkman…. wow that was awesome.

Still trying to find a Walkman actually, I want to put my tapes (see above image) onto MP3…

Last weekend Cally found a beautiful Sun Coral specimen and being one of her favorite corals, we decided to bite the bullet and get it.  This is a magnificent coral when it is open, but it is also very very difficult to keep. It does not like to much light and it needs to be fed. Feeding in tank is almost impossible as each polyp requires to be fed individually. There is also the big problem of Shrimp, as soon as the feed leaves the feeding tube they will attack it and nothing gets to the Sun. The only way to feed this little fella, it so take it out of the tank and float it in something (a tuppaware in this case) and let it open up. Once it is open a combination of frozen food is fed to each polyp  through a Turkey Blaster. I was leaving the Sun in the container for about 4 hours before returning it to the tank, but last night I noticed the bloody shrimp actually pulled the food out of each of the Sun’s mouths and ate it so the process was a waste of time.

Orange Sun Polyp (Tubastraea

Got my latest set of Holga shots back. I am very happy with a few of them, but there was a whole roll of film the did not come out at all. Starting to think this is an experiment in wasted time. The colours and the vignetting are just what I wanted. Anyway, here are the I really like.