The tiger prawns have been cooking in there for three days now, and I have yet to be able to measure any ammonia. Typical of this hobby...the one time you want to see ammonia, you can't get it!

The prawns themselves still look pretty normal. They haven't turned to mush or anything like that. Maybe I should have used a dead fish instead...

There is a distinct smell starting to happen...and the tank is getting cloudy, so there must be some progress being made. Sigh...patience....patience.

Does anyone have a Nitrite kit they don't need any more? I don't want to purchase one, but I would like to monitor this cycle. Free, hands on, guided tour to anyone who wants to drop a nitrite kit off!

holy hell! high tech. I got two words for you my friend: "dream tank." and that is one niiiiice black box:biggrin:

I put a dead frozen shrimp in my tank to cycle and i got no ammonia either. I think it may have been a cooked shrimp? By the time it was half decomposed (by half i mean half the body was gone) I just threw in a chunk of squid and a new shrimp that was bigger and uncooked. I also added about 40lbs of cured LR and about 7lbs uncured LR rubble. that got my cycle going.

ammonia
 

I've used pure ammonia from the grocery store to cycle my freshwater tanks before (with a fluidized bed filter). I would start off really small amounts and gradually increase until it was getting so efficient that I could dump in a table spoon of ammonia and get no reading by the next day.

6 days and still no measureable ammonia. That's it...tomorrow the prawns are coming out and I'm going to throw a large dead fish in there!

Did the "television" you got for your aquatronica controller come as part of a package or did you have to purchase that and set it up separetly?

It is more of a computer monitor than a TV... Aquatronica has an option by which you can connect the controller to a computer. In my case, that computer is an old laptop. That is an option that has to be purchased and it provides the connection cable as well as the computer software. You have to provide the computer.

The computer can be connected all the time, or just intermittantly when you want to make a change or update the firmware of the controller.

The Touchscreen is just an additional monitor connected to the laptop. I'm not aware of anyone else running AQT with a touchscreen...probably because touchscreens tend to be expensive. (I was fortunate to find one at a good deal!)

I like the idea a lot. Can I ask where did you get the touch screen?

I'm not going to be much help here....

A friend had piece of equipment that used this touchscreen and he decommissioned the unit. I got to take parts from it! (That's why it looks so unfinished around the edges)

I assume that they could be purchased from a computer hardware specialty company of some sort. Here's the company that made mine.

http://www.elotouch.com/Products/LCDs/default.asp

Thank you.
Do you know which model you have aquired? How do you like it so far? Any comments/complaints?

It's a model that has since been discontinued. It's a 1545L. I had to download the driver from their website.

No complaints with the monitor. It works perfectly. The driver allows "double-clicks" and "right-clicks". The only thing missing is a keyboard.

The AQT software wasn't written to be used exclusively with a touchscreen. There are parts that require a keyboard (like setting the temperature, for example). That is a limitation of the software, not the touchscreen. All in all, it is pretty rare that I have to haul up the labtop to input something.

As I get the system fully operational, I'll show some screen shots so you can get a better idea of what the software can do. There are graphs etc.