Long overdue mini update! Several months ago Aaron ('o2surplus') made me a new microcontroller for my LED fixture that includes a very cool LCD display. This is known as the "Typhoon" controller that is becoming more and more popular with the reefers, as it's much simpler to use than the Arduino boards. The controller has 4 built-in buttons to control all LED channels and intensity. It also offers on/off overrides. All this is done on the board itself and I no longer need to hook it up to a laptop and run the Arduino software to make edits to the LEDs, much nicer! Well today I finally took the time to mount the new boards in my project box and make the necessary cutouts.
Controller and LCD panel mounted to the inside lid of the project box
Designed by o2surplus
Revised project box, showing some Android love
LCD panel (current time and each channel's intensity) and input buttons: Menu - Select - Plus - Minus
Fish-wise, I recently lost two discus; one wild and the one domestic I had
Not sure what happened, but some sort of flesh-eating bacteria killed them. Started off as a little pimple on the forehead and spread like wildfire in two days, all around the head and eyes. Never seen anything like that before. Didn't even have time to treat in QT. Soooo, I don't think I'll be adding any more discus anytime soon. Not because I'm giving up on them, but because I don't feel like dumping more money on them. These aren't exactly cheap!
So, I'll be adding some other fish that can get along with my current stock. Added some eartheaters a few days ago, I'll be on the lookout for some more.
Satanoperca Leucosticta and the little guys I think are Tapajos red-heads
Shot of one of my angels, currently 5 in the tank
And something a little more interesting. My roselines have developed long flowing fins over the past couple weeks, almost like a butterfly koi. Also, the yellow spots on their tails turned white. Who knows what could have caused this. Crossbreeding? Hybridization? Whatever it is, they look pretty damn cool!