Tank birthday, 47+ years

Paul B · Sep 20, 2017

rich nyc said:
Hey paul where did you get your purple queen anthias and arent they supposed to be nearly impossible to feed. They are a beauty I would say maybe even better the Kim Bassinger lol but she is on the old side for me lol

I like fish that are impossible to feed. Anyone can keep tangs, angels, groupers, eels, cardinals, bleenies and whale sharks. To keep anthias, mandarins, pipefish, ruby red dragonettes and a few others you need to do a little more than just throw in some frozen food or God Forbid, flakes once in a while.
You can see in these video's they are feasting on new born brine shrimp and frozen cyclopese. They won't live on hamburger helper zucchini or linguini. They also need to eat this every day, not just on the second Tuesday of the month or during Lent.

I get them from Aquarium Village across the street from Fortunoffs
PS, I would rather have Kim Bassinger.

Scubabeth · Sep 21, 2017

Hey, Paul! How is your back doing these days? Any improvement?

Paul B · Sep 21, 2017

Beth, I cut down on doing the Macarana and back flips in the morning and it is a little better. I rarely scream when I get up and I "can" get up. I think the nerve pills and Tylenol are helping as well as the 12 back shots. They still don't know what it is but they know I have these stress cracks in my spine and some crushed nerves. (like Duh, that sounds like that's what it is to me but what do I now?)
Now I am going to a rheumatologist where I have to sit in a room and see what she says. I know she isn't going to find anything else but she is a Supermodel so it doesn't really matter.
I am going with the cracked spine which isn't the worst thing in the world. I mean, I could go bald.

Thank you for asking.

Paul B · Sep 21, 2017

OOOOHHHHhhhh NNNoooooo, My blackworm tank crashed.

I don't remember when I set up my blackworm tank but It doesn't support blackworms any more. It must have a blackworm version of the Flu or chicken pox for worms.

Whenever I put in worms, they croak and turn into Jello.

I am currently bleaching it and I will have to cycle it again.

Normally I can add 4 or 5 portions of worms, but no more.

Tonight, after it bleaches for 10 hours, I will fill it with new water from my goldfish pond along with some scurvy stuff from the bottom and some garden soil. That should move along the cycle from 20 days to 20 minutes. I will let you know how that goes.

I won't run my tank without live worms

Brew12 · Sep 21, 2017

Paul B said:
OOOOHHHHhhhh NNNoooooo, My blackworm tank crashed.

I don't remember when I set up my blackworm tank but It doesn't support blackworms any more. It must have a blackworm version of the Flu or chicken pox for worms.

Whenever I put in worms, they croak and turn into Jello.

I am currently bleaching it and I will have to cycle it again.

Normally I can add 4 or 5 portions of worms, but no more.

Tonight, after it bleaches for 10 hours, I will fill it with new water from my goldfish pond along with some scurvy stuff from the bottom and some garden soil. That should move along the cycle from 20 days to 20 minutes. I will let you know how that goes.

I won't run my tank without live worms

You haven't been sharing your pain meds with them so it doesn't hurt as bad when the fish eat them, have you?

Paul B · Sep 21, 2017

I do give them pain meds before I feed them to my fish so they can relax as they get devoured as I have a conscience and worm lives matter.

Paul B · Sep 21, 2017

So today I washed and waxed my "all" fixed PT Cruiser and went for a spin. All of a sudden, It starts to overheat. OOOOOOOHHHHH NNNooooooo. I replaced the fan for nothing. It's something else. I have to question my mechanic skills and maybe get a Nerd card or worse, Snowflake card. Usually when I fix something, it stays fixed. I have completely lost confidence in myself and right now I am sticking my head in the gravel of my tank to hide my shame.

But before I did that, I tried to figure out the problem. I am positive that the old fan was defective. Could the new fan also be defective? I start with the testing all over again. It is hard because my PT Cruiser book is for a much older car and the wiring diagrams are totally different. I search the internet and can't find my car's wiring diagram. Now I have to do old fashioned detective work. I get out my trusty test light and jump in. I test the two relays and they are good. I switch them with each other and that doesn't work. Everything seems good. This is bad. If everything is good and it doesn't work, thats bad. Now I go and take a pain pill and put the car up on ramps. I want to jump out the fan and see if it is defective. I go to un plug the wiring harness from the fan, and it comes apart in my hands. Yeeeeahhh. The plug was loose. Like Duh. When I pulled up on the harness to connect the relays on top of the engine I must have pulled to hard and disconnected the fan wire. Simple two minute fix. I plug it in, turn on the car and the fan starts right up. This calls for two glasses of Grand Marnier and I may even give some to my fish.

Brew12 · Sep 21, 2017

Paul B said:
So today I washed and waxed my "all" fixed PT Cruiser and went for a spin. All of a sudden, It starts to overheat. OOOOOOOHHHHH NNNooooooo. I replaced the fan for nothing. It's something else. I have to question my mechanic skills and maybe get a Nerd card or worse, Snowflake card. Usually when I fix something, it stays fixed. I have completely lost confidence in myself and right now I am sticking my head in the gravel of my tank to hide my shame.

But before I did that, I tried to figure out the problem. I am positive that the old fan was defective. Could the new fan also be defective? I start with the testing all over again. It is hard because my PT Cruiser book is for a much older car and the wiring diagrams are totally different. I search the internet and can't find my car's wiring diagram. Now I have to do old fashioned detective work. I get out my trusty test light and jump in. I test the two relays and they are good. I switch them with each other and that doesn't work. Everything seems good. This is bad. If everything is good and it doesn't work, thats bad. Now I go and take a pain pill and put the car up on ramps. I want to jump out the fan and see if it is defective. I go to un plug the wiring harness from the fan, and it comes apart in my hands. Yeeeeahhh. The plug was loose. Like Duh. When I pulled up on the harness to connect the relays on top of the engine I must have pulled to hard and disconnected the fan wire. Simple two minute fix. I plug it in, turn on the car and the fan starts right up. This calls for two glasses of Grand Marnier and I may even give some to my fish.

It is so hard to remember the simple things when you have already eliminated them earlier!

Paul B · Sep 21, 2017

Brew. I am so mad at myself for not pushing in that plug a little harder. The problem was that a Cruiser sits about a quarter of an inch off the road so even on ramps the thing is right in your face. And I have an old face. That plug is connected solidly all the way up above the hoses, fan shroud transmission cooler lines and nuclear reactor so I could barely grab it with two fingers and Houdini was out having a pastrami sandwich so I couldn't get him to help me push in this plug. But all is well now

Scubabeth · Sep 21, 2017

Paul B said:
Beth, I cut down on doing the Macarana and back flips in the morning and it is a little better. I rarely scream when I get up and I "can" get up. I think the nerve pills and Tylenol are helping as well as the 12 back shots. They still don't know what it is but they know I have these stress cracks in my spine and some crushed nerves. (like Duh, that sounds like that's what it is to me but what do I now?)
Now I am going to a rheumatologist where I have to sit in a room and see what she says. I know she isn't going to find anything else but she is a Supermodel so it doesn't really matter.
I am going with the cracked spine which isn't the worst thing in the world. I mean, I could go bald.

Thank you for asking.

Your wife must have talked you out of your Macarana dance marathons, then, huh?

I'm glad that some of the medications/treatments are having some positive effect. You've been hard on your body during life (since you're not a sissy snowflake), but hopefully the docs can figure out how to keep you comfortable.

How goes your blackworm tank fix? Is it closer to being ready for use again?

Your PT Cruiser story made me laugh...I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who forgets obvious things from time to time. Ha!

Paul B · Sep 22, 2017

Beth, I bleached my worm tank and now it is filled with green goldfish pond water. I am not sure how this will work out but if I have time (we are having people out on the boat today) I will try to get some worms to try out. They may love the green water so much that they turn into Godzilla Larvae. Lets see how my wife reacts to that.

My back is not that bad now as long as I don't dance or play Twister,
but pain is for Sissies and Girly Men. You just have to work through the pain and not complain (except of course to your wife when she wants you to wash the outside windows like I have to do today as part of our fall cleaning

)

My wife has MS so I am needed to do all sorts of things. The reason I decided to move was because the new place has everything on one floor. Of course there is a beach, 27 wineries, a Vodka distillery very close, a workshop that I can build a Space Shuttle in (a very small Space shuttle but a Space Shuttle none the less) Christie Brinkley lives close, and the marina there is much nicer but that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

There is also a playground and pool and I know some people who love that sort of thing.

atoll · Sep 22, 2017

Paul, you just got to love your grandchildren to bits and they are more fun than a fish tank and just as hard work at times but the rewards are better. Here's 2 of mine Nellie with her sister and the youngest at just a few weeks old Olive. I have 7 now and love them all more than the world or my fish tank of course.

Paul B · Sep 22, 2017

Very Cool. Wow, 7, you must be more of a Geezer than I am. I have 2 and that is all I am getting. But I do have a great time with them even though I can't catch them.

atoll · Sep 22, 2017

Yep 7 but I think they are all done reproductive wise.Chancing is hard work for sure catching almost impossible unless you tie their shoelaces together and even then they can hop fast than I can run. I have 5 grown up children myself inc 2 sets of twins but then we bought a TV and they stopped coming along.

Paul B · Sep 22, 2017

Paul B · Sep 23, 2017

Today I emptied out my goldfish pond and took all the fish back to the LFS where I got them from. I always empty it in the winter because it is a small pond and I only really built the thing to put in a fountain that I made from copper sheets and I had no place to put it.

Then I want to my boat and had to fix the white light in the back. In my boat (and all boats) you need this silly light that sits on a pole about 6' high. (some boats can have short lights) The light reflector broke in a million pieces (apparently someone did the hustle or macarana on it during one of our not so quiet boat parties).
I went to get a new reflector and of course you can't get that. You have to buy the entire thing which costs almost as much as the boat. So I bought a one foot one and cut it apart and used the parts on my 6' light pole. It only cost me $36.00 for the $2.00 part that I needed. I often wonder how people live that don't know how to do things. Very few days go by that something doesn't break and I have to fix it. Either my car, boat or house something always breaks. Do people hire someone to fix all of these things or do they just leave them broken.
My wife has a cousin that doesn't know how to do anything so everything in his house is broken which drives me nuts. 99% of it is a no brainer things.

Here is my fountain. I took a video but I took it sideways. Is there any way to turn a video sideways? Anyone know how to do that?
The copper scoops all move up and down and there is a wheel near the water that spins.

atoll · Sep 23, 2017

Pual, welcome to the 21st century. I have 2 sons that are useless at DIY well one will have a go. However, give them a phone or a PC and they can do anything give them a hammer and they aren't sure which end to hold. Dad is only a phone call away but they are both snowflakes but my 3 daughters are all supermodels so kinda makes up for them.
In the last 12 months, I have made and fitted a few gates. hung doors. boxed in pipes. made a patio decking, laid a laminate floor, fitted a kitchen, repaired T&G floors, made and fitted airing cupboard lathed shelves, replaced the 7" skirting boards throughout my son's house and a multitude of other small jobs. God knows how much that lot would have cost them. The patio was a big job as I had to dig out and put in concrete foundations for the joists. BTW I retired from my paid job 8 years ago now I just work for free lol.

Paul B · Sep 23, 2017

That is because you are not a snowflake. My Daughter is pretty handy but my Son n law don't know which end of a screw driver to hammer in a nail with.

I figured out the video.