It’s beauteous. I’m very anxious to get fish and corals into it, but the water’s warming up to liveability. Chemistry for these tropic creatures doesn’t work at life friendly rates until you reach 62 and it started at 58. So We’re trusting the lights to warm it—which it can do. The next question is how to cool it down and get the ‘heat budget’ balanced…
Sort of like making a planet behave…planets figure things in terms of albedo, ie, how much solar input does it reflect back into space— and internal heat from the core; and how much solar input it gets.
For a tank—it’s how much does the heater input, how much do the lights input, how much do the submerged pumps input, how much escapes via evaporation, how much radiates from the glass, the rates while the lights are turned on—and the rates during the dark cycle—not mentioning that we have 2 light cycles. And if you think I’m getting pad and par meter and thermometer and figuring all this out in numbers, nope, nope, nope. I’m doing it by setting up what has to run, and figuring out what has to increase (heater) and decrease (fans) for this to stay within a 1-2 degree swing day to night. Rock and sand are a heat sink: they hold the prior condition, and the more of that there is, the more resistant the system is to change; water holds the prior condition too, but not quite as efficiently, and not while it’s falling in air with wind blowing on it.
And my friend in the East is sending me an 18″x18″ box of rock. So there will be more rock coming next Wednesday.
As a footnote, we did break our diet and celebrate with a bottle of Champagne. Jane had weird dreams that didn’t make sleep easy, and, me, I just got a headache. But neither of us woke up 3 pounds heavier, so we’re happy.
do you want/need rocks ? my daughter is a geologist, so we have one or two around 😉
USPS boxes are rated up to 75lbs !!!
Lol—I think we’re closing in on it…we can only use calcium-based rocks, and we have another batch of live rock (soaked and bacteria-laden) inbound via a friend, so I think we’re going to have enough. But thank you very, very much for the offer!
Congratulations 🙂 I’m sure it’s going to be amazing. And I love the planet comparision.
Speaking of dreams, I had a Bren dream yesterday. I’m apparently looking so much to my Protector book (it’s going to arrive any day now) that I started dreaming about it 🙂 In this dream, there was a Foreigner movie, and as the dream logic goes, Bren and the gang have been actors in it. In fact Bren discovered that he pretty much enjoys acting and has talent for remembering lines 😀 Alas, he didnt enjoy so much the fact that he had to babysit about twenty (!) human kids on the mainland – and had to do quite lot of precautions and preparations (and worrying).
And there was this creepy insane Atevi girl who decided that she is human and appeared at his doorstep, face painted the color of the human skin, wearing a red dress and a crazy smile, demanding to talk to him… But I guess that last bit is just how my dreams are sometimes 🙂
Anyway, a Foreigner movie would be so cool 🙂
Lol——–that’s a wild one!
There is a project underway that will render Foreigner as an audio movie, ie, like a radio play, with sound effects, actors, et al. The neat thing is you can enjoy it in your car, and still drive…
“…my friend […] is sending me an 18×18 box of rock…”
Heheheh! A box of rocks! Oh, I’ll bet the courier / postal carrier just loves y’all both! *snicker*
(They probably get puzzled at the boxes I get too. But I’ve found more and more, it makes sense to order, since local stores may not carry it in stock anyway, or finding it among all the rest can be a pain.)
I bet the rocks are real purity, just what the fishies (and the hew-monz and kittehz) wanted.
I love your seat of the pants okeanoforming. It’s so great when people can find something they can geek out on, especially when their geekery has such beautiful results. To put words into the 11th Doctor’s mouth, “Geeks are cool.” (Aquarium geeks doubly so.) I was going to say I’m awaiting the results with bated breath, but then I thought maybe that was a bad pun that would be in poor taste to use around fish.
Found a serendoogle (http://theowlunderground.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/sighing-and-neologizing/) today that knocked my sox off and wanted to share. Even if you don’t much care for music, the idea is still pretty mind blowing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2NENlXsW4pM
Beauteous!
Most corals are in now, spreading out and doing fine. A small scarlet crab made it in by accident, but is also faring well. The temperature hit 80.7, so it was time to turn on the house AC AND to add a fan to the sump. It immediately fell to 79.4, which is acceptable. Trying to house metal halides in a canopy WITH a glass lid on the tank is a trick.
It occurs to me that a person could sit in that size container and have a really good, luxurious soak. They would probably not be as nice to look at, though.
Grin. You will not find either of us in that tank!
You’ve already BEEN in the tank. Upside down, scraping off glue. DO NOT WANT.
At least all of me wasn’t in it!
I’ve poked around Jane’s site a few times looking for pix – can somebody link me?
-thanks!
Just head over to http://www.janefancher.com/HarmoniesOfTheNet/ and scroll down the middle column. The link is here in the leftmost column, too. Or try a direct link: http://www.janefancher.com/HarmoniesOfTheNet/2013/05/02/tank-update/
hth
Ektus.