20 long AIO build

[dansyr]

Catching up on a few updates:

I picked up two green clown gobies from my LFS maybe 3 weeks ago. They were in pretty horrible condition, severely emaciated. You could see the shape of the skull. One passed within a few days, but I was able to coax the other one onto frozen food and he's fattening up nicely now. So food prep! The most enticing food seems to be fish eggs, next mysis shrimp although some are too big, and lowest-preference are "reef plankton" that look like calanus to me. Current blend (just made up today) is 3 cubes calanus, 3 mysis, 5 fish eggs, 0.5 freeze-dried hikari brine shrimp, and a scoop of brs reef chili. Add a few drops of vitamins, dilute in some DI and tank water, and then aliquot out into about half the tray.

 

[dansyr]

Also documenting first coral disease issue last week, one of the ASD goni's (toxic frills I think) suddenly started melting. It was OK the day before, or at least not visibly brown and mushy, but just before work on Friday I noticed about half the polyps were brown mush. Was in a rush to get out to work so no time for photos or a real treatment, but in an attempt to not let it spread to the tank I put it in a ridiculously strong iodine solution. Didn't even measure, maybe 100 ml in a whisky glass with ~5 mls iodine. But scraped off all the mushy tissue with a knife in the iodine, then pipette-blasted it for about 5-10 mins before i absolutely had to run out the door. 2 days later, it seems stable with the remaining polyps having some extension and showing no sign of disease, but time will tell.

 

[dansyr]

The build continues! Calcium consumption increased beyond what kalk could do in such a small tank without pH issues, so I switched to a DIY 2 part (Randy's). Dosing that frequently enough without making alk swings was getting to be a pain, so I built a doser! Overall cost about $30 including gratuitous display + about 10 bucks for the tubing. Tubing was the most expensive single part actually... Put the whole thing in an old p1000 tip box to have nice separation of electronics from motor.

Parts list:
Seeed XIAO esp32c3 i had picked up awhile ago (not using wifi yet but have plans)
Cheap L298N motor controller
2x of cheapest Kamoer peristaltic pump/motor combos (not stepper, just regular)
cheap 12v powersupply (kind with free jack to screw terminal adapter)
about 3m of 2mm ID silicone tubing
gratuitous lcd for fun