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- Unboxing the Orphek Atlantik Compact [Picture Intensive]
- Are Starfish Robots the Next Big Thing in Automated House Cleaning?
- The AquaNerd Weekly Recap
- Picture of the Week, Fossilized Stingray
- Tip of the Day – 6/23/2014
| Unboxing the Orphek Atlantik Compact [Picture Intensive] Posted: 23 Jun 2014 12:00 PM PDT
It’s unboxing time once again, with our newest toy to play with being the Atlatik Compact WiFi LED fixture from Orphek. This compact light is essentially a shorter version of the popular Orphek Atlantik, offering the same spectrum and efficience but packaged in a smaller light. It sports a whopping 42 emitters broken down into 8 different colors and spread across four channels of control. It has wireless capabilities built-in, allowing users to control each of those color channels via any Android powered device running the Orphek app.
As for the colors offered in the fixture, Orphek uses 18000K white, 450nm blue, 470nm blue, 420nm – 6000K dual chip, 410nm – 18000K dual chip, 395nm – 6000K dual chip, and wide spectrum red. Of this offering a total of twelve LEDs are of the dual chip variety, a not too common feature of aquaruim LED lighting but one that opens up all sorts of color blending possibilites.
Speaking of all the possibilities, with the use of the Orphek app and an Android device (tablet or phone), each of the channels on the Atlantik Compact can be individually controlled. The light features eight pre-installed programs, full dimmin capacity on all channels, the ability to create and store custom lighting programs, elaborate dawn-to-dusk programs, cloud simulator programs, and the ability to control up to 252 Atlantik fixtures simultaneously. Other benefits associated with the fixture and its software are the face that each light fixture is assigned its own IP address, aquariums can be located in different areas as long as they are in the range of the wireless router, and a built-in calendar lets users store up to eight programs per month. Man that seems like a mouthful. Unfortunately, there is no iOS version of the app, which is a disappointment since that’s all we use. We really hope that changes in the near future, but if you’re in a situation like us, Orphek does have a nifty Android tablet they can include in your purchase. As for our thoughts on the Atlantik Compact…much like any Orphek fixture, the Compact sports a really sleek design that sets the LEDs behind a clear acrylic cover and wrapped in a white acrylic housing accented with stylish metal accessories. These accessories include the hanging bracketry and the metal surround that runs down all sides of the light. There is no large driver/timer box that was saw on the PR-156 fixtures, since all of that control is now handled wirelessly. A great move for Orphek, no doubt, as it really cuts down on the amount of large hardware to run the light.
Regarding the light output of the Atlantik Compact, the one thing about the Orphek fixtures is they are ridiculously bright. Thank goodness for the added dimmability. When the light first arrived, I decided to play a little joke on my wife. So, I removed the lid from the 12-gallon nano aquarium that sits on my kitchen counter and set the Atlantik Compact directly on top of it and turned it on. She walked by, squinted her eyes, and commented that it was just too bright. After all, it was competing with the stock lighting from a JBJ LED Nano-cube, which are perfectly suitable for maintaining coral growth but are obviously not all that bright. I informed her of the prank, not wanting to stay on the couch (I kid, I never have to sleep on the couch), and proceeded to give the light a good once over before finding the next aquarium over which it would stay.
Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten the opportunity to play with the adjustable settings and the Orphek app. I’m an Apple fanboy, and apparently just about everyone in my immediate aquarium keeping circle is too. But, we will be adding to the review with an in-depth look at thsoe capabilities very shortly, which will include some video footage of the app, how the light looks, and all the other juicy details of the light.         |
| Are Starfish Robots the Next Big Thing in Automated House Cleaning? Posted: 23 Jun 2014 08:00 AM PDT
They make great cleaners in our aquariums, so why wouldn’t starfish be just as awesome at cleaning our homes? According to a recent posting on Discovery News, Turkish designer Rana Alper used starfish as a jumping off point for his design on the ultimate house cleaning robot. Named “Tody”, this robot doesn’t have the typical five legs we see on starfish in the ocean, but instead uses four flexible arms that are said to be lined with gecko-inspired grippers that help it climb all over various surfaces. The unit is made of polymer-metal composites that move with the help of artificial muscles. With this combination of appendages, the Tody can crawl around all over the floor, on top of furniture, and even up curtains. The robot cleans with its massive array nozzles, which is made up of 22 steam nozzles and 29 vacuum nozzles per arm. The water reservoirs and dust bags are located within Tody’s body. The soft-sided robot comes from Turkish designer Rana Alper, and takes much of its form from nature. The shape resembles a starfish, but its mobility and ability to use its arms for various tasks comes from the octopus. Tiny, gecko-inspired grippers on the underside of Tody's arms help it cling to a wide variety of surfaces. The robotic starfish follows voice commands to perform all of its cleaning tasks. |
| Posted: 23 Jun 2014 07:00 AM PDT
Weekends are never long enough are they? Yeah, it’s Monday once again, and while you’re dreading a long day at the office, we welcome it as a fresh start to another week of exciting aquarium related articles. Helping to kick off our week in typical fashion is our usual weekly recap, focusing on June 15 through the 21st. Over that span, our top articles included lionfish tolerating freshwater, a rare grouper showing up in Thailand, a sweet MACNA giveaway, a ban on lionfish in one particular state, and a free Lightning Maroon Clownfish. We hope you enjoyed the articles, and as always, we'll have another week full of aquarium hobby coverage ahead of us, so stay tuned.
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| Picture of the Week, Fossilized Stingray Posted: 23 Jun 2014 06:00 AM PDT
Over the weekend, we decided to squeeze a little science into our lives with a trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. There are so many things to do at the museum, with the big dinosaur and fossil exhibit being the centerpiece. Being the fish nerds that we are, we couldn’t help but gawk at the fish, coral, and aquatic invertebrate fossils in particular, obviously sharing some of our trip with you here today. Pictured is a fossilized stingray, whose shape is so well preserved in the sedimentary rock. You can see terrific detail of the stingray’s “bone” structure, including several features of the tail and internal parts. |
| Posted: 23 Jun 2014 05:00 AM PDT If you’re looking for advice on aquariums, whether it be a question on equipment or livestock, be very careful where you get your information from. With the ever growing importance of social media in our lives, more and more hobbyists are shying away from aquarium forums and are taking to Facebook Groups. While the thought of aquarium hobbyists coming together online to discuss tips and tricks to aquarium keeping may seem like a totally good and worry-free idea, the problem is that anyone can create a Facebook Group and anyone can come off as being an authoritarian on a particular subject. With an aquarium forum, you have things like join dates, post count, and even feedback scores to let you know that you’re dealing with someone who could possibly be trusted. Not to mention, you have plenty of fellow hobbyists there to validate the advice being handed out. On a Facebook Group, you don’t have any of those perks, and the group operator can delete comments at will with no repercussions from a club’s BOD, fellow moderators, or anything else. So, be careful with who you take advice from. In fact, be not just careful, but be doubtful as well. |
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