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DK's m..a..d.. d..o..-i..n..g..s........

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#1 · (Edited)
(BTW - These are projects under development and none are for sale at this time.)

I've had a slew of requests to post updates on my projects lately, so here goes. I'll have to do it in several posts.

First off, the big kahuna. Took me a year to engineer, and the past year has been in beta testing. I run my tanks off our well water, which happens to emerge from the ground like CO2 infused RO water with 10 ppm nitrates (farm fertilizer runoff). So all the water to feed my tanks has to be "made" to specs.

I designed this, what I call DK's water factory, to make me some water. It creates three streams of water which I can blend to make most any water for a given tank. So every tank gets custom water, twice daily, automated from this beast.

It wasn't without moaning and gnashing of the teeth, and I've had to learn incrementally what works and what doesn't and work laboriously slowly and methodically to formulate the global conditions, and then tweak each tank for optimization to their specie.

Each global test can only change parameters about 5% and takes a few weeks to take effect to observe the specie, so it's a long process. This is due to the fact that too drastic a change could crash one or more tanks.

On top of working out the global parameters for the Water Factory, I also fired up more tanks last year to accomodate more breeding projects. So it's been a busy year, just trying to get it all together and keep from accidentally killing stuff, which, alas, I didn't altogether avoid. I had some pretty good setbacks that tested my skills and nerve.
 
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#1,210 · (Edited)
And here's a shot of the CJDS in the secondary containment tray. As it turns out, the very first day of beta testing, and about a week after that, those secondary containment trays did their job...

DK later tweaked the design and concept, and used those secondary containment trays for an additional secondary function.


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#1,212 · (Edited)
While DK waits for her pain meds to kick in... the next picture.

We review the CJDS specifications - emptying the wallet is the name of the game, in the Cashew Jar Department Store.

But what is that?

Second picture shows the story. Tube on the left is from DK's tap. Two tubes on the right show final tank water, middle tube tested with standard pH test, right tube tested with high-range pH test kit.

What we have is tap that emerges in the pH 5 range (enough to eat DK's plumbing with acidity, as those of you who follow this thread remember last winter's main distribution line re-plumbing job using John Guest fittings, some pages back herein). The very low pH in her tap is due to high levels of dissolved carbon dioxide gas, which the magical well fairies bubble into her well water with their sparkly wands (ok, mebbe, mebbe not, but somehow it gets highly carbonated...)

Twice a day, the Water Factory III turns on, releasing this (pH 5 something, temperature 50F something in the winter months) water, which then traverses about 30 feet over about 2-5 minutes, emerging after injections, at the tanks. (Actually, 130 feet or so during the winter months, when the heat exchanger coil is activated and not on bypass.)

DK has, of course, learned that Mermaids, unlike teenagers, do NOT like carbonated water. They also prefer to bask in warmth, and do NOT like cold showers twice daily. Them's some high-maintenance chicks and dudes.

What we have here, therefore, is live-feed water that is wholly unsuitable for Mermaids, badly. A normal person would therefore pick another specie to cultivate, but to DK, this is simply a gold-leaf engraved invitation for more M..a..d... D..o..i..n..g..s...

I mean, a challenge. So, we's gotta take it up, and run with it, letting the squirrely brain zigzag here and there, trying to find a zany solution. We do it, because the challenge is there. Oh, and, because them Mermaids are ALSO already there, wanting cushier digs, demanding this and that just so, and asking for assorted silicone body parts, to which DK categorically says, "NO WAY!" (OK, mebbe that last part is a lie, DK has problems lying, at times...)

So the challenge was to come up with a real-time, simple, fail-proof, effective method to pull that large amount of CO2 out of the tap water BEFORE it hits the Mermaid tank bank. In our narrative, CO2 equals wallet bucks. (Those of you who are closet or vicarious arm-chair project junkies, EACH of those adjectives posed a substantial technical challenge, EACH ONE: real-time, simple, fail-proof, effective.) Cheap goes without saying.

If you've ever tried to de-carbonate water, you realize it takes a bit. This post is long enough, so we'll continue the discussion next post.

In the meantime, ponder thusly, these pictures.

Special thanks to Shrimptern 2.0 for support thinking about this project - they helped motivate me to KEEP pondering the problem until DK had a plan...


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#1,214 · (Edited)
DK LIES, again. This next post is NOT about the CJDS project.

It's a picture of her latest acquisition for her bins & barrels of parts & pieces. She got her some super-industrial sized (you KNOW how she loves anything industrial strength...) aluminium (that would be ah-loo-MIN-ee-uhm, if you are a Brit) wires.

She thinks they are impressive. Not sure what their fate will be, but she thinks them's a good addition, to the bins & barrels. Them's some BIG wires. Yep. BIG.


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#1,216 · (Edited)
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Don't tell anyone, but SOMEBODY has a crush on DK's god dog rottie...

******

AND... Breaking news!! Incoming German Dobie pictures on the way! Stay tuned!

******

AND... in the meantime, DK has ordered a piano lamp, and a 12 inch aquarium LED strip kit, and the two shall marry upon arrival. I know, it's a mixing of castes, but it's gonna be good, and substantially cheaper than buying an LED piano lamp which are scandalously priced. Just scandalous.


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#1,218 · (Edited)
Here's a graphic illustration of the power of carbonation. This is the drain in a white ceramic sink. The sink and drain were brand new in 1997, not 50 or 70 years ago like it would appear.

The acidity of our well water, due to dissolved CO2, has eaten away the chrome plating on the drain. It has also dissolved the ceramic finish on the sink edge, leaving a tan edge that looks like a mineral ring, but is actually the opposite, it is an erosion due to acid of the outer coating on the ceramic. DK kicks herself for not paying attention and figuring this out years earlier - all her 1997 white toilets have a nasty looking tan water level ring... permanent, and no amount of any sort of cleaning will ever get rid of them!

Pretty strong stuff, coming from DK's well (until we added a treatment system a few years ago). However, due to WHAT the treament is, it is bypassed for the Water Factory III input, as the shrimp won't like the treated water, so the water that enters WFIII is the super-carbonated water, very low pH.

*******
BTW - our piano teacher said our piano is in tune! We added a few gizmos to the piano investment, see below. It's so easy and cheap to get an iPod app for measuring sound freqency... makes DK wish there were something for light frequency so she could make her own iPod spectrophotometer for LaMotte testing... hmmmmm... hey Shrimptern 2.0... isn't that a great pipe dream??

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#1,220 · (Edited)
We don't think we'll have that issue, fortunately - this piano was moved into the previous owner's condo, sat for 8 years in their condo unused, and was still nearly in tune. (The piano moved with them when they moved, it had been given to the mom in the condo as a child and she'd had it since her childhood, they moved it when they moved into the condo and had kids, but the kids didn't want to learn to play it, so they finally decided to sell it as it was taking up a good bit of prime real estate in their condo.) The Piano Guild Technician was amazed at the condition of the pins, and that it held tune through a move and then eight years. But he also said it's one of the heaviest upright pianos he's ever moved and it's the mass of the hardwood and iron string harp that keeps the tune to a large extent (barring loose pins).

After we bought it, we had the copper bass strings replaced, because it still had the original IRON wrapped bass strings from that era (1893), which produce muffled, inferior sound. So the new bass strings will need to stretch a bit before they settle, which of course throws the piano out of tune.

The new bass coppers sound beautiful - they resonate like a musical thunderstorm!



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#1,222 ·
OK, I don't normally do this, but this one just kills me. It's those little subtleties that make it.

1) How carefully he puts it down.
2) How little one looks back, TWICE, to make sure it's OK. A sense of checking on "it's ok" at that 12-16 month age. Incredible.
3) How carefully he picks it back up, looks into the face to make sure it's ok, and just goes on, non-chalantly.
4) Of course, the elder statesman - what he does - doesn't surprise us dog people, does he? He's obviously in costume. That is REALLY a German Shepherd, in costume.

See it a few times, to see the subtleties.
 
#1,223 · (Edited)
DK tries to pull herself back on topic. While she awaits the dobie pictures' arrival. Crystal, DK needs pictures of yours, too. DK needs. We need a Moose in the thread.

Next up: pictures of the installed Cashew Jar Department Stores.

We have drilled the lids with holes for the input tubing. Each department store twin gets Water Factory III inputs in the first of the two cashew jars, and then an air line in both of the twins.

We are working with a concept of RESIDENCE TIME. We increase this by making the labyrinthine pathway for the input water, such that it has to traverse some things until it gets out of the "store."

The rough conceptual equation for degassing is:
RESIDENCE TIME x degassing rate x increase in temperature
= amount of degassing that occurs.



Today, we are just talking about RESIDENCE TIME, in this post. How DK manipulated the residence time from somewhere under 15 minutes up to 24 hours, in a live feed system. OHHHHHHHHHHH, how DK loves to manipulate, heh heh heh...

First, the input water is fed into the BOTTOM of the first jar. It fills the jar from the bottom, up, until it reaches the bulkhead between the twin jars, at which time it overflows into the bulkhead.

The bulkhead between the twins is fitted with tubing to the bottom of jar 2 so when the water starts coming into jar 2 it goes to the BOTTOM of jar 2 and then rises, again until it hits the level of the exit bulkhead, that exits the "store."

The WFIII cycle and input rates are calibrated such that one WFIII cycle fills one of the twin jars.

So (CYCLE) -> jar one fills.
Next (CYCLE) - > water from jar 1 is pushed into and fills jar 2, while jar 1 is filled with new input.

It isn't until the THIRD cycle, which is 24 hours later, that the original input water is now pushed out of the department store twins and down the output, into the Mermaid tanks.

Thus, the department store twin jars, with a certain water input rate, have bought us 24 hours of RESIDENCE TIME.

TIME is the first thing needed to pull gas out of water.

OK, this post is long enough, so more later. Ponder the diagram, and think of the concept of RESIDENCE TIME. This concept becomes useful for another aspect to be discussed, later.


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#1,225 · (Edited)
Yes, of course. You DO want a puppy, and soon. A wiggly, wriggly, shiny-eyed, soft, warm puppy. That follows you around.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Try as she might, she cannot stop obsessing about these. She is TRYING to shove these obsessive thoughts away, but they slither back into the squirrely brain like tar melting on a hot tin roof, finding cracks.

She tries not to think about them, but then her brain starts running numbers, making diagrams, thinking about specifications, and what is possible.

I fear she has fallen ill, with the next project.

Dang.


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#1,227 · (Edited)
So, in an AMAZING string, TWO DAYS IN A ROW, DK sticks on topic. Wow, she's on a roll.

Yesterday, discussing the CJDS project we introduced this conceptual equation and talked about RESIDENCE TIME. Today, we talk about degassing rate.

The rough conceptual equation for degassing is:
RESIDENCE TIME x degassing rate x increase in temperature
= amount of degassing that occurs.


Gas will reach an equilibrium in solution, dissolving into the liquid. How much gas you can stuff into that liquid depends on a few things. Of course one is how soluble the gas is in the liquid. Another is the pressure of the system - more pressure forces more gas into the system. Another is temperature - cool temperatures allow more gas to dissolve into the liquid.

We can get all fancy and say it in some famous dude's words:

Henry's Law

The solubility of a gas in a liquid depends on temperature,
the partial pressure of the gas over the liquid,
the nature of the solvent
and the nature of the gas.​

So let's review. DK's water emerges from her well - say, in winter months which are the most problematic and we solve our project problems based in part on the worst case scenario - at temperatures in the 50s F and with enough dissolved carbon dioxide to pull the pH down in the 5 or below range, fairly acidic.

Let's look at our graphic of the day - a nice fizzy soft drink, beading with condensation sweat, bubbling with carbonation, and you just know if you take a swig of it, you will feel the bite of carbonation. (Word geek alert: do you like DK's alliteration?)

Our soda illustrates this dissolved gas (carbon dioxide, even) in aqueous (that would be water-based) liquid solution.

What do we know about a soda?

  1. When you pop the can, you hear a pshhhhhhht sound, and if you don't, you know it's no good. That sound is the release of pressure in the can, that holds in MORE carbon dioxide gas in the soda, using pressure.
  2. You pour the contents of the can over a pile of ice, watching as you do the foam and bubbles, hearing the hiss of gas escaping solution and seeing this as microbubbles pop and produce tiny droplets, causing a sort of soda fog at the surface. This for most people is a compromise, because we want to drink it cold, but we know that we lose some fizz by pouring it out, pouring it over ice especially. It's not the cold of the ice, but rather the agitation of the liquid as it hits the solid matrix of ice that releases the carbon dixoide from solution, causing the foam and fog. We do it anyway, because there will still be enough gas left in the soda for a carbonation bite, even after we lose some from the ice agitation.
  3. If we put the soda back into the fridge, we know it will hold carbonation much longer than if we let it sit out hours or a day or two at room temperature. The colder temperature holds more gas in solution than warmer temperature, all other things equal.
  4. We also know not to shake a can or pour it high over the rocks, if we want to keep more carbonation. Once again, this is agitation, which releases gas from solution. In a closed 2 liter bottle (or can) that you have dropped on the floor, gas is released into the air space in the bottle/can, but the pressure inside the bottle (or can) if unopened rises from this, therefore eventually pushing more gas back into solution, and you end up back where you started. That is why bottled/canned soda can be dropped, heated, or whatever, and still hold the carbonation. The pressure will push the gas back into solution, as long as the bottle/can stays sealed.

OK, that's enough, for this post. Ponder on our soda picture, and the thought of dissolved CO2 in aqueous solution, and how agitation and temperature can drive the CO2 out of the solution.

The more agitation and temperature, the FASTER the degassing rate will be.

BTW - this explains why, if you are carbonating your planted tank with carbon dioxide (either DIY yeasty gas or pressurized from a cylinder), but then are using an HOB filter or canister spray bar on the surface, you are then agitating your gas right back out of solution, and shooting yourself in the foot, as the AIR above the water surface doesn't have as much CO2 as you are releasing from your water. On the other hand the AIR above the water surface has MORE oxygen than is down in the water, so the agitation is actually helping push oxygen into the water at the same time it is helping release the carbon dioxide.


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#1,229 ·
I remember Moose now! He's in here previously. I soooo see the German Shepherd in that second picture, in the eyes and expression. The first picture, he reminds me of a smooth coated Akita. He has a wonderful face!

And the Dobies make me want to get another one. I had one as a kid and he was a red, too. I just love to run my hands along a sleek Dobie, the are so sleek.

Thanks for the pics, C!
 
#1,231 ·
There are options for inexpensive spectrophotometry these days. Computers and cell phones have a lot of spare processing power. LEDs provide inexpensive stable light sources.

http://www.asdlib.org/onlineArticle...ophotometer/Cell Phone Spectrometer Paper.pdf

Public Lab DIY Spectrometry Kit
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jywarren/public-lab-diy-spectrometry-kit

Make: Liquid ID Spectrometer
http://creative-technology.net/MAKE.html

$35 DIY Spectrometer Gets Its Own Collaborative Database
http://www.techthefuture.com/technology/35-diy-spectrometer-gets-its-own-collaborative-database/

http://publiclaboratory.org/tool/spectrometer
 
#1,232 · (Edited)
there are options for inexpensive spectrophotometry these days. Computers and cell phones have a lot of spare processing power. Leds provide inexpensive stable light sources.

http://www.asdlib.org/onlinearticle...ophotometer/cell phone spectrometer paper.pdf

public lab diy spectrometry kit
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jywarren/public-lab-diy-spectrometry-kit

make: Liquid id spectrometer
http://creative-technology.net/make.html

$35 diy spectrometer gets its own collaborative database
http://www.techthefuture.com/technology/35-diy-spectrometer-gets-its-own-collaborative-database/

http://publiclaboratory.org/tool/spectrometer
AHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I have to quick ring Santa and ask for this. Forty mere clams, whutta value for geekdom. Hmmmm, come to think of it, I don't have to run to find my cell, since they don't ship until Feb. Perfect timing. You GOTTA love their spectrophotometer housing, that so suspiciously looks like this. Hm.

Need to figure out if these little lovelies are quantitative as well as qualitative, because we needs quantitative for the LaMotte readings (and other tests). We need to know more than what the wavelength is. We have to be able to compare how many photons at a given wavelength. I have to finish reading how these babies work.

Wow, this is gonna be fun.

Shrimptern 2.0 are you reading this??? You may have to come back here so we can make this thing and run calibrations. Wouldn't that be fun? Or mebbe some geeky Shrimptern 3.0 would like to come work on this project a week, over spring break (hint hint)...

Thanks a ton, Don!!

Um. Where's the $25 GC-MS DIY kit link?
 
#1,236 · (Edited)
WE INTERRUPT the DK's CJDS posts to bring you this:

LEDs arrived today. Surgery on the piano lamp, tonight. I was gonna take before pics, but Other Geek was burning to rip the lamp apart, so I did not have the opportunity.

It turned out very well. We did a few other mods to the lamp while we had it apart, for maximum adjustability.

And we have the lamp plugged into a Harbor Freight foot switch, down by the piano pedals.

OK, carry on.

DK looks around furtively, for other places where she can convert to LEDs...


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#1,237 · (Edited)
WE INTERRUPT our DK's CJDS posts AGAIN, to announce that DK's been rather bad, shopping and buying items for a Christmas stocking for herself, that might involve different sorts of crees. (She draws you aside to whisper conspiratorially into your ear the following: half the fun of m..a..d.. d..o..i..n..g..s.. is politely called "beta testing," which really means try a buncha stuff based on squirrely brain ponderings and see what happens, and if there is a catastophe, try to figure it out and solve it. The thing is, she loves to mess around with ideas, and products, and see what comes of her cray-zee "thoughts.") Yesterday, she spent we-won't-admit-how-many hours doing research, and the magical runes seem to indicate xpe and e27 and 6500. Yeah, that's it. Stay tuned.

That's all I'm gonna say. Santa might be late, as most are coming from overseas.

Oh, wait, she also has on good authority that Santa might be leaving her a new batch of gamma seals under the tree. (Honestly, you can never have too many gamma seals. They are just so useful.) This is the time of year when she gets antsy and all of a sudden the squirrely brain explodes in project mode and she gets raw materials needed that aren't in the bins & barrels. OK, so maybe she doesn't always FINISH the projects in the dead of winter, but the brain sure is busy scheming. She has YET to install the DK Water Snake. Yeah, um, and finish making all the Maseratis.

Hey, anyone out there wanna be Shrimptern 3.0? The projects are stacking up, and DK has accumulated hunger from when she had pneumonia and didn't eat well. Must be housebroken.


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