I’ve never used one before, and it is all the rave in this brave new Web 2.0 world.

I’ve now linked it up to my facebook account, this wordpress blog, adium (my IM client of choice) and anything else I can think of. I’m also running twitterriffic on my desktop and my iPod touch.

Lets see what happens next…

I obtained a 2′ x 1.5′ x 1.5′ tank which I want to divide up into 3 sections. The skimmer will be sitting externally so the first chamber is small (with a bubble trap). The second chamber will be a Deep Sand Bed or Refugium (haven’t decided yet). Finally the 3rd chamber is the return section (where top ups will be done).  Unfortunately, this is the biggest sump I could fit in my cabinet without some serious remodelling. I think it should be ok, but time will tell.

After placing the sump on the dinner table you draw a rough idea on where the glass sheets will go (I had previously had some glass made up for me so I had already measured it all out).

I placed the two outer glass panes with silicon. I thought I was quite clever in using magnets to hold the glass in place while I ran a bead of silicon around each sheet of glass. Silicon when curing has a very strong vinegar smell which went through the whole house.

After an hour or so I was banned from continuing inside (due to the smell) so I migrated out to the back cover. I was starting to get sick of the smell myself. I must remember not to silicon inside the house.

After moving outside I was trying to work out how I was going to rig up the next piece of glass as it sits up in the air. You can see below my awesome skills in carpentry at work again as i rigged up a template. Those magnets came in handy again.

You can see one of the magnets are a little ‘algea’ green.. that’s from my fresh water tank (I needed an extra pair of ‘hands’ for this one.

Finally I placed in the final piece of baffle. I also put the bracing back on the tank. Again my awesome carpentry skills are at work again. I probably don’t need this brace, but it might be handy for a lid of some sort. I can always remove it.

After waiting a few days (next weekend) for the silicon to cure it was time to fill her up and test there were no leaks.

So far so good.. the first chamber done, and the bubble trap was working as I intended. It isn’t often things work first time for me.

I’ll fast forward here, to where the sump is almost full. No leaks! I even tried to make micro bubbles with the hose in the first chamber while it was being filled, and the bubble trap works as designed.

Here is the same picture as above, but I’ve drawn on how the sump is going to be working. Simple

Here it is, in it’s final resting place. I underestimated how much heavier the sump was with the extra panes of glass in it. Too a bit to get it in there (I have to put it in sideways, and rotate it 90 deg as i move towards the right. This gives me enough space for some extra things on the left (like an auto topup device) and other equipment.

Still a bit more to do before I see any water.

• buy a return pump (I blew up the last one).
• plumbing the sump, skimmer and return pumps.
• get an electrician to put in some power points (I want a sep. circuit for the tank).
• IBC for outside (for water storage).
• Lights
• Powerheads

I’m getting closer….

Ordered the new skimmer for the marine tank a few weeks ago, and finally got around to putting up some pictures. It is a MS-A-150-6530 Marine Sources protein skimmer.

It arrived neatly in its box, packaged well with no broken bits. Probably the worst part was getting it out of the box. You’d be suprised how much static electricity builds up on acrylic and the little pieces of foam sticking to everything.

Finally got all the bits and pieces out, and getting ready to assemble.

Fast Forward a bit here.. this is the completed skimmer. Wasn’t really that hard to put together actually.

Did a water test outside in the yard. A few leaks, but nothing a bit of teflon tape and tightening the connections couldn’t fix.

Finally the skimmer is positioned under the tank next to the sump. I want to make sure I can remove this without moving the sump (as it will have water in it and be awkward to move when full).

Opps.. it isn’t quite high enough.. looks like I will have to raise the skimmer by about 5cm so that the return pipe is downhill.

To get around this, I’m using my extensive woodworking skills and am building a simple stand. Nothing fancy mind you.

Glue them all together. You can see the hours of thought and planning have gone into making this stand. Never get between me and my metal glue-stick-thingy of Liquid nails.

Finally painting it to seal it. Why is it black? Because I’m artistic. Ok, its the left over paint from the back of the tank. It is currently sitting on a broken office chair base – handy tip: these things make great stands when you are painting something because you can swivel them around while you paint. (patent pending).

Ok, that was a big update.

Still to do: Finish painting the skimmer stand (needs another coat), and work out the plumbing the skimmer from the overflow and into the sump.

Now that I have the skimmer sorted, I have a much better idea what I want to have in the sump. I’ll need to get some glass for the sump now.

Until next time…

This weekend I went back to Vista. While I cringed through the whole installation, it is suprisingly nice to use. Everything just works! I might actually enjoy this.

If anyone wants to look at Vista, I would suggest you install all the patches and install SP1 first, before judging it.

While linux might be a really stable platform, but for ready for the desktop, it just isn’t there yet.

BURP stands for Big Ugly Rendering Project. Currently the only application that BURP supports is blender, which is fine by me, because that is the only 3D modelling application I use (and all you ever need).

I have a few machines around at home here doing mundane stuff (backup server, file server, web server, etc) and I was originally looking on the net on how to set up a nice local render farm to play around with. While serching for one, I came across a distibuted render farm project on Blender Nation that the blender nation. What a great idea! I can donate some of my spare CPU cycles for other blender users, as well have access to a global render farm.

Here are my current stats (I’ve also added it to my sidebar).

Some of the notable blender renders are viewable in the BURP Hall of Fame. Some of these downloads are quite big though (20Mb+). You may have to use VLC to view some of the videos if you don’t have the right codecs installed on your computer.

BURP isn’t the only project that BOINC supports, there are hundreds, ranging from searching for aliens in space (SETI@home) to cancer research.

Donate some CPU cycles today!

Yes it has been a while since I have updated my site. There are a few things that need updating (and added) which I will do shortly in seperate posts (makes it easier to search/categorise) them for later.

With the new additions, I’ve also updated the website to run WordPress 2.5. It was surprisingly very easy to update, and all my plugins worked (except the backup one, but that has been causing errors for a while now so I’ve removed it).

I intend to add more frequent updates in the future, rather than just a single almighty dump in one go, promise!

For those who don’t know what Spore is, you have been living under a rock. Spore is the next game to be released by Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, Sim City, etc.

Basically the idea is you start of playing the game as a single cell organism, and you grow and develop your creature eventually exploring the universe.

You actually get to build your creature with the built-in editor. Kinda like a simplified 3D blender (which is why I think it is great). Here is a sample creature I found somewhere:

Probably the best demo explaining alot of the concepts is on youtube. It is a little old, but it should give you an idea on what Spore is all about.

Looks like I’m going to be rather ‘busy’ in 6 months, and 24 days (who’s counting – check the countdown on the side).

Yeah, it has been a while between posts. I had intended on posting at least something up every day, but with family down from North Queensland it becomes a little hard to find time away to post something up.

After this weekend they are heading home, so some of my aquarium plans might start happening. I can’t wait.