Roku and the NowTV

The little magical box which turns your normal TV into a smart TV. I have been using the Roku media boxes and the featureless NowTV boxes provided by sky for running the emby client around the house. Roku offers a few different boxes ranging in prices and features. Their latest version the Roku 4 offers the most features namely 4k but with the highest price tag.

Many people have been turning to the £10 NowTV boxes. They are a dumb'd down version of the Roku which also has limits on it, such as the inability to install other streaming apps such as netflix. However the NowTV has a secret, a few presses of the keys on the remote revels a developer mode. The developer mode allows you to side load applications, the only restriction is you can only side load one application at a time.

This is perfect to side load a streaming app such as Emby or Plex. My flavour is Emby and for the purposes of this post will demonstrate how to side load Emby onto the NowTV.

Pre-Reqs

Download the Emby for Roku source files from github.

Extract the zip file and the file you are looking for is called Emby.Roku.Zip

Developer Mode

On the NowTV box you now need to enable developer mode. On the remote press

Home x3, Up x2, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right

Click on Enable Installer

And Agree to the terms. Make a note of the IP Address provided as you will need this for the next step.

Installation 

Head over to your PC or Laptop and open up a web browser. In the address bar enter the IP address from the previous step. If done correctly you will be presented with Development Application Installer.

Click on Choose File and look for the Emby.Roku.Zip that you extracted from the github repo. Then click on install and wait a few seconds.

Once the installer has finished you will see a message that says Install Success in red text.

And that's it. you have now successfully side loaded Emby onto the NowTV box. One draw back of side loaded apps is that they aren't updated automatically, so if a newer version is released then you will have to side load the app again. 

A very cheap and easy way to add an Emby client to another room in the house. I current run 3 of these boxes in various rooms and all perform extremely well. 

Disaster, Problems and Toys.

It's been a crazy week. As I mentioned previously my Calcium reactor sprung a leak, I've been attempting to fix it by repairing the pump with silicone until I can sort a permanent fix. This sort of worked, looks like its sealed for now but it rattles worse than a kids rattle. Also while I was on the case of the Calcium reactor I also purchased an adapter ring from JBL called U-M which allows me to use my solenoid with fire extinguisher CO2 bottles. This means I can use a 2kg cylinder which is cheap as chips to refill. So that was the problem.

The disaster, while doing some maintenance within the tank I managed to knock my LED light unit into the tank!!! One corner of the unit was submerged, luckily at the time the unit was unplugged. So after a mad panic which involved a air compressor, hair dryer and RO water to clean the electrics I decided to leave the unit to dry out over night. Next morning I plugged it in to find the controller, LCD screen and one channel of LEDs not working. ahhhhh. Panic mode, pricing up new light units. 24 hours later I managed to price up replacement parts and someone to repair it. Before sending the unit off I decided to create a new support for the light when over the tank, the support raises the height of the light, is strong and allows me to slide the unit backwards so that I can still access the tank. Once finished I test fitted the light and as a last measure I tested the light again, and would you believe it but its now fully working. Not sure how long it will last but panic mode is on hold for now.

Toys. On a rather brighter note, I've received some new equipment and additives for the tank. First up I managed to source a Maxspect Gyre 130, which also included every accessory under the sun for it. I've only just set the Gyre up and so far so good, it moves a huge amount of water in a linear line which is fantastic at keeping detritus and food in suspension. Plan is to run it in pulse mode majority of the time and in alternative gyre mode a few hours a day to mix it up. I will report back in a few days.

Additives. So I wasnt happy with the way my corals looked and decided to try NSW but also dose Red Sea Reef Colour ABCD along with AminoAcids and TraceHard. My dose scheme at the moment is 10ml of Aminoacids and TraceHard a week and 2ml every other day of the Red Sea ABCD. So far the aminoacids have made my SPS polyps extend like crazy.

DIY Tank cover

Keeping cool in the summer, and I don't mean wearing your baseball cap backwards with dark shades on!

My current seashell tank has a glass condensation tray which in the winter keeps the heat in well, but in the summer it keeps too much heat in. The simple answer is to remove the glass condensation tray however this leaves the top of the tank open giving the fish the perfect opportunity for carpet surfing (fish jumping out). What I needed was a DIY mesh cover, allowing the heat to escape, keep the fish in the water and still allow enough light to penetrate the water.

• Pros 
• Lets heat out
• Condensation tray not their to get gunked up and block light entering the tank
• Cons
• More evaporation means topping up with RO more
• Could potentially cause damp above the tank, however I have an extractor fan fitted to remove this issue, plus trickle vents in the windows always open. 

My DIY skills are a bit hit and miss, so first on the shopping list was fly netting. This stuff is cheap at around £2 for 2m x 1m and easy to work with. Next I needed to make a frame to hold the netting. I scourged the garage and found some plastic L shaped stuff, almost like trunking. It was perfect size and shape to make the frame. Cutting the plastic to shape I used hot glue to glue the 4 sides together and then used sticky back Velcro which came with the netting to secure the netting making sure to pull it tight so it doesn't sag into the tank. Pictures below show the DIY mesh cover and then fitted in place. Sorry for the poor light, I put this together at around 10pm last night so the moon lights were on.

Marine Tank Lighting

A big part of any fish tank setup is the light unit. Most people just see it as a way to light up the tank to display what's inside it. However in keeping Marine life the lighting unit is extremely important. Many corals are photosynthetic meaning they use 'light' to create its own food and as a results grow and thrive. Light also helps keep a stable PH, something often over looked, a stable PH is important to keeping your inhabitants happy and healthy.

In my tank I use a LED unit to light my tank, LEDs are cheaper to run than conventional lighting, they are also very customisable and programmable. What this means is that in my 3' long unit I can have a mixture of white, blue, red, and UV LEDs and each channel can be programmed from 0-100% brightness. There are 3 channels in my unit which can be programmed to change brightness every 30mins, channel 1 moon lighting 0-10% channel 2 blue and UV 0-100% and finally white, red, and green 0-100%.

Getting the right intensity of light for the corrent time period can be difficult. Below Image 1 shows how I originally had my light setup, ramps up slowly, peaks then begins to ramp down again. After seeking advice from a forum called Ultimate Reef I was advised to have a longer peak intensity and ramp it up and down quicker. Image 2 below shows what I am running now.

Image 1

Image 2

Marine Tank update August 2015 (part 2)

After attending a Wedding 4 hours away from home I decided to look around for a Marine shop. Anytime I go away I usually have a look around as the nearest LFS (Local Fish Store) to me is a 2 hour drive. I found myself in Kettering Aquatics. I was highly impressed by the place, their display tank was amazing to look at and something to aspire to. Their frag/coral tanks looked clean and tidy with a good selection of corals, fish and inverts.

For the last few weeks I’ve been researching new ideas to improve the flow in my tank, there’s 3 options I have narrowed it down to, Maxspect Gyre 130, Vortech MP40 or 2x Jabeo RW8’s. All have their pro’s and con’s however after visiting Kettering Aquatics I managed to narrow it down to either the Gyre which they had running in their display and was the only wave maker in there or the 2x Jabeo RW8’s which they had in many of their frag tanks. The gyre 130 produces a nice wide blanket type wave and has various settings such as pulse and gyre mode, this is a fairly new product which many reefers have ‘upgraded’ to over the vortechs. On the other hand the Jabeo RW8’s are also known for good cheap wave making capability. They don’t look too bad and having 2 allows the controllers to be pair and run in a sync’d mode. Still having a hard time on choosing, will research a bit more before I take the plunge.

While at Kettering Aquatics I made a few new purchases. 3x Green chromis, fighting conch, 5x turbo snails, maxima clam, toadstool softie coral, a few frags of xenia and a collection of sps frags.

I’ve add them all to the tank and so far all look ok, the SPS still looks like its sulking hopefully this will be ok and colour up soon. I have been researching Red Sea Reef Colour ABCD additives which I may give a go to see if it improves the colours.

Finally, I’ve always kept my marine tanks slightly higher temp than the norm due to having high powered lights that output a lot of heat or a hot house. Normal temps are usually 29-30c however I haven’t been that happy with them at that temp so I built a cooling fan which is hooked up to my STC1000 temp controller. The controller currently is set to bring the temp down to 28.5c, which over the next week I will drop it down to 27.5-28c and see if that has any improvement on coral colouration. Will talk more about this next week as a Tip of the Week. Stay tuned.

Test results this week.

CA – 390 (slightly low due to taking Calcium reactor offline to fix a leak)

KH – 8 (dropped to 6 recently now dosing sodium bicarb to bring back up to 8.5)

NO3 – 0

PO4 – 0

I will probably do a ICP test soon which costs £35 but you get results for a lot of parameters including some trace elements, it will be a good test to see where my tank is at now.