Cali Kid Corals

Thesassyindian's 13.5 gallon m̶o̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶p̶i̶t̶ nano mixed reef

TL;DR: Nothing much to report, except that one of my double-labeled corals has been upto some mischief, and needs to go!
Also, the blue tipped stag frag from @Corallus has regained its color. No significant polyp extension though :(
Visible in the second half of the second image, at 10:00 from the Galaxea.

Long version:
I picked up a frag during last year's frag swap, that was double labelled as "Tri-Color Stylophora" and "Galaxea."
Without doing my due diligence (lesson learned), I mounted this close to a Purple Stylophora frag on one side, and my beloved Duncan on the other.
However, as it turns out, this actually was a green galaxea, not the a stylo! Yes, the one with SUUUPER long sweepers.

Over the last few weeks, I had been noticing some bleaching near the base of the purple stylo, and that one half of the duncan closer to the "try-color-stylo" was always closed.
Never figured out what was wrong. Until yesterday, when I caught the Galaxea in the act. One long sweeper stuck to the purple stylo exactly where it has bleached, and another long sweeper stuck to a closed duncan polyp. :mad:

Needless to say, the imposter is no longer welcome in my tank!
On the flip side, I will be bringing some frags to the next frag swap that @Wlachnit recently announced. So pumped!!


Notice the double labels? Lesson to do my research before adding anything to my tank.
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Green galaxea, on the day I added it to the tank, and this morning, before fragging.
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OK folks, added another piece of automation to the tank today - A Kamoer X1 Pro 2:
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The setup was quite simple, and the prompts in the app are rather quite helpful.
One thing to note is that the unit is based on... surprise, surprise... an Espressif ESP32!
That said, it only works on the 2.4GHz band. So if you have a preconfigured access point, you need to specifically enable the separate bands.
I already had this enabled. If you want to know how to do this, here is a nice article for Xfinity routers - YMMV.
Also, here's a video by Kamoer themselves, to solve WiFi issues for those corner cases.

Next, I used an 800ml VOSS water bottle as a reservoir for the ESV B-Ionic Alkalinity supplement. Screwed in a 1/4" bulkhead with an acrylic tube inside the bottle, sitting a few mm off the bottom.
The length of the acrylic tube should be 275mm.
Don't forget to drill an air hole if you do decide to go thig route. Yay Physics!

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Here's the initial setup:
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And then it worked flawlessly - NOT!

The tube that came with the doser doesn't quite fit the bulkhead, and sucks in some air with the suction, evident with bubbles in the dosing tube :'(
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I tried using R/O tube but that doesn't fit the splices provided with the doser:
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If y'all know of any tube that will fit an 1/4" R/O bulkhead and this splice connector, please do share!!

For the time being, I've added some silicone around the bulkhead.

As for the dosing schedule. I used the "Quick Add" function to divide my daily Alkalinity dosage of 12ml and divided that into 12 equal doses.

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Let's see how this works out...
 
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use the correct barb size for the dosing pump tubing and use an adapter to go from barb to 1/4” push connect.

for example if the inner diameter for the dosing pump tubing is 3/8”, these two adapters will work.


John Guest Acetal Copolymer Tube Fitting, Adaptor, 1/4" Tube OD x 1/4" NPTF Female (Pack of 10): Push To Connect Tube Fittings: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

John Guest Acetal Copolymer Tube Fitting, Adaptor, 1/4" Tube OD x 1/4" NPTF Female (Pack of 10): Push To Connect Tube Fittings: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
smile.amazon.com
 
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RandyC said:
use the correct barb size for the dosing pump tubing and use an adapter to go from barb to 1/4” push connect.

for example if the inner diameter for the dosing pump tubing is 3/8”, these two adapters will work.


John Guest Acetal Copolymer Tube Fitting, Adaptor, 1/4" Tube OD x 1/4" NPTF Female (Pack of 10): Push To Connect Tube Fittings: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

John Guest Acetal Copolymer Tube Fitting, Adaptor, 1/4" Tube OD x 1/4" NPTF Female (Pack of 10): Push To Connect Tube Fittings: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
smile.amazon.com
Click to expand...
Looks like @Patio has had the same issue: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/trying-to-connect-ro-line-to-my-kamoer-x1-pro.27342/
 
Drip system tubing might be your answer.
It has the right OD and solidity to work with RODI fitting like that.
But it does stretch enough to get over some barbs.

A blob of silicone at the top of your water bottle will probably work also.
 
rygh said:
Drip system tubing might be your answer.
It has the right OD and solidity to work with RODI fitting like that.
But it does stretch enough to get over some barbs.

A blob of silicone at the top of your water bottle will probably work also.
Click to expand...
I had a blob of RTV on the push connect till a few minutes ago. Have a more elegant (read: overkill) solution now :)
 
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Carbide cutting acrylic...overkill much on the material hardness? Hahaha

And wow, that is some detailed lathe work to get around an off the shelf solution. I am simply impressed.
 
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