The advantage of a controller with web access

[MichaelBrock]

For the recent Christmas holidays my family and I visited my in-laws in Seattle (far away). I had set up my tank with a larger than normal ato reservoir and otherwise just left it with no particular arrangement for fish-feeding, etc. I checked on the controller a few times a day.

The day after Christmas I was doing my morning check-in and found that the temperature was climbing out of the normal heater/cooling oscillation. The lights were off but I turned on the cooling fans to cool things off. That slowed down the increase but it wasn't keeping up. A call to the person watching after our dogs (some things you can't automate) revealed that our house thermostat had upped itself to 99 degrees and the house had gotten up to 93!

Hopefully the dog sitter would have found it a bit warm and unusual and reported it to us but the Apex earned it's keep!

I'm thinking now of adding a second thermometer to monitor the air temperature.

 

[MichaelBrock]

Doh, wrong forum! There are two sponsor forums I visit with regularity and the other one is the Neptune Systems forum where this should have ended up.

My TBS rock is doing well though!

 

[liverock]

Doh, wrong forum! There are two sponsor forums I visit with regularity and the other one is the Neptune Systems forum where this should have ended up.

My TBS rock is doing well though!

Is your dry rock turning a bit purple yet?

 

[MichaelBrock]

Quite a bit purple! Coraline is doing well.

Unfortunately, I'm losing barnacles. Probably to starvation and the combined efforts of the mantis shrimp I haven't yet managed to capture (one is easily 3 inches long). I have been feeding phytoplankton fairly heavily but I'm not sure it's practical to feed a reef tank heavily enough to keep them alive in the long term.

 

[liverock]

Quite a bit purple! Coraline is doing well.

Unfortunately, I'm losing barnacles. Probably to starvation and the combined efforts of the mantis shrimp I haven't yet managed to capture (one is easily 3 inches long). I have been feeding phytoplankton fairly heavily but I'm not sure it's practical to feed a reef tank heavily enough to keep them alive in the long term.

Barnacles are short lived critters.....and you are correct....cannot feed them enough!

Try some raw shrimp for the mantis.....but he may be well fed by all the life on the rocks....they are really smart...usually you only get one shot with a net...then they figure you out...also try the bottle trap on my page...!

sea ya
Richard TBS

 

[MichaelBrock]

I have a few of the bottle traps built and have tried it a number of times. Managed to catch quite a number of gorilla crabs but no mantis. The one I did manage to catch (maybe 2" long) I caught roaming around on the gravel and managed to scoop it up with the net.

All of the holes in the rock makes it especially difficult to pin them down. It's like watching an episode of Scooby Doo. It pops in one hole and then immediately sticks its head out another on the other side. I really don't mind having then there and don't mind the occasional hermit crab loss. Eventually though I expect to end up with a tank empty of invertebrates and an especially large mantis shrimp.