Good morning!!!!

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Since they won't be display tanks for the most part, I'll just use sponge filters (I like Azoo sponge filters)... which are cheap ($5 to $10 apiece) provide a place for beneficial bacteria - which handle the ammonia cycle - to grow.

Some of the beneficial bacteria consume ammonia - a highly toxic fish waste/decay product - and convert it to nitrite, which is still pretty toxic, but much less so than ammonia.

Still other beneficial bacteria consume the nitrite and convert it to nitrate ... which is way less toxic than the other two.

The nitrate gets handled either by doing partial water changes, or by setting up a specialized filter whose design and media allow anaerobic bacteria to grow. Anaerobic bacteria will actually consume the nitrate. Plants in the tank will also help, as they consume nitrate as well ... since it's a fertilizer.

Part of the reason for moving things into a single room and setting up racks is to make it easier to properly maintain the tanks. All the racks will have drain pipes (1" to 2") mounted on them that are plumbed into a sanitary drain that runs to our septic ... so that I can do water changes without having to lug buckets of drained water. If I get real frisky, I might eventually drill the tanks, install bulkhead fittings, and hard plumb each tank into the drain lines at some point. Then it's just a matter of opening the valve on a tank to drain it.

The replenishment water supply will be fed from hose bib that has a Honeywell water tempering valve plumbed into it, which will mix hot and cold water to within a few degrees of whatever temperature it's set to.


We're on a well ... so no really chlorine to deal with ... other than when I use chlorine bleach to clean/disinfect something.

In those cases, I use a product called De Chlor (in a little green bottle) ... just takes a few drops to neutralize chlorine or chloramine.


Nope ... algae is either fish food itself, or a place where fish food (aufuchs*) grows and lives. Most of the fish I keep graze on and pick at it continually.

(Aufwuchs (German "surface growth" or "overgrowth") is the collection of small animals and plants that adhere to open surfaces in aquatic environments, such as parts of rooted plants.)

Many (probably most) of the fish I'll likely raise (African Rift Lake cichlids) are omnivores ... and for many, their primary diet in the wild is the aufuchs. Their digestive tracts/intestines have evolved over time to be quite long, to aid in digesting the high amount of plant material that they eat. Feeding them a diet with too much animal protein will actually cause an often deadly disease - called Malawi Bloat - as their gut/intestines pack up and clog.

So (for non-display tanks) I just let algae grow for the most part ... until it gets to the point it's hard to see into the tank through the front glass, then I'll clean it off with a Mag Float ... so I can keep an eye on things. I have two tanks that are currently in that state, where it's actually getting tough to see into the tank through the front glass due to all the algae. The fish don't seem to mind however.


Isolated for the most part, although the 100G Long will be a display tank and will have a 55G tank below it in the cabinet as a sump filter that it's plumbed into.


The only kind of dead fish I like to see is one I'm going to eat.


LOL ... no doubt.

Probably partially explains why I keep getting rebuffed, every time I suggest to the wife that she could watch a movie on Netflix on her cellphone.

Thank you for the info rs. Looking forward to hearing about your endeavors as you are able to get to them. Will you still keep a tank upstairs for display?

Warm up down here yesterday. It reached 70F, but a little rain and a front overnight has us back down to seasonal temps this AM. 49F.

I hope all of you have a great day.

 

[PJSprog]

34°F and light fog this morning, going up to 43° today. We successfully avoided any ice yesterday. Temps got a bit warmer than expected, and I hear the ice stayed well north of us. I'm OK with that. We ended up with about 1/2" of rain.

Playing in my studio Saturday night, and noticed a problem with my 6-string bass guitar. The volume knob was having no affect on the output. Checked for loose wires or bad solder joints, but found none. After I closed it back up, there was no output at all. So, I spent Sunday morning driving it to the builder for repairs. He was out of town yesterday, so I dropped it off with his wife. I was quite looking forward to recording some new bass tracks this weekend. Guess it's next weekend now.

 

[Looking4new]

Well an update on the Jeep. The freight hauler that was supposed to bring the parts 'guaranteed delivery', didn't. No parts so here I sit waiting for parts. The good thing is I still have the Jeep and it is still driveable. I just have to keep a close eye on the oil.

Re; daughter in law, no news is good news. These things do not get 'fixed' over night.

 

[txdon]

Good morning! 45˚ sunny, may get to the upper 50s. Kyle this weekend is heavy trash Saturday for the county. Good time to clean out the tractor shed and garage. I know as soon as I throw out that item I've been hanging on for 10 years I'll need it but I don't want to be like Drew's neighbor.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 49F @ 8:00AM. Rain likely. High 51F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.

Shortly after midnight the cord free telephone handset and iPhone in the headboard beeped; another power outage. A few minutes after that the phone rang. It was ADT calling to tell me the power was off. I reminded the courteous attendant that there were instructions in my file not to call me unless there was an alarm signal confirmed by a broken door/window contact and interior motion, but apparently that wasn’t enough to prevent another midnight rousting. :mur: Now there are more instructions in there that will hopefully make it clearer. Don’t know what they hope to accomplish with such phone calls. If I’m here, I either know about the outage, or I’m blissfully enjoying a night’s rest. I don’t bother setting the alarm when I’m here, so the phone call is nothing less than an irritation. And if I’m away, there’s not much I can do to restore the power.:shocked: Anyway, the power is still out, the repair ETA slipping from 5:30AM this morning to 3:00 this afternoon. The outage size has shrunk from 240 to 5, and is due to a faulty power pole component. At least it’s not a drunk slamming into another pole, something that happens all too frequently around here.

Hope those out traveling today take care and avoid the worst of the bad weather.

Managed to piece together the main linkage for the steering damper yesterday, and am waiting on some photos of a mystery bracket. A mechanic at a large eastern BMW dealership chimed in that he’s working on one of these bikes now, and would be happy to take photos when he gets back on Tuesday. Most motorcycle shops close on Sunday and Monday so employees can still work five day weeks. So today, if I can see well enough out in the garage, I’ll start installing the new 12 volt alternator and ignition trigger. And if not, I can catch up on some reading, or maybe head into town for groceries.

Hope everyone’s week gets off to a good start!

 

[sodamo]

63°F and .22 inches rain

Need to start and major cleanup and reorganize my work areas. Get unneeded junk to the transfer point but more importantly tools back where they belong.

Be safe
Have a great day

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Good morning! 45˚ sunny, may get to the upper 50s. Kyle this weekend is heavy trash Saturday for the county. Good time to clean out the tractor shed and garage. I know as soon as I throw out that item I've been hanging on for 10 years I'll need it but I don't want to be like Drew's neighbor.

Good info Don, will look into it. The inside of my barn looks like Drew's neighbor, but not to me. A 15" South Bend lathe, table saw, band saw, Yanmar 28Vdc battery tender generator, Dayton 7x12 metal saw, riding mower, Yamaha GT 80 project mini bike, Yamaha 180 Riva Scooter project bike, 2 tool boxes, freezer, water fountain, wood top bench, wire rack shelves, miller roughneck welder project...To some, it might be a candy store.

Too many projects...

RNG (and others stuck inside during the cold), here's a link to the upcoming Bonham's historic motorcycle auction coming up. Enjoy! Which one would you like to ride?

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24509/#/aa0=1&MR0_length=100&w0=list&aj0=lot_number_asc&m0=0

 

[toppop52]

Wow, it’s 36°! :cool2:

 

[rswyan]

34F and cloudy at 12:30, had an inch or so of snow overnight. They're currently calling for a 40% chance of a frozen mix.

Planning on doing some fish tank maintenance today.

Will see if I can talk The Woman into allowing me to pull the dishwasher out to fix it. Was a no-go yesterday ...

 

[jerrybob]

Heat Wave!!! 16 going to 38.

Jerrybob, sounds like you have our spring weather out there...hummingbirds and kayaks...sounds nice.

Eric, seems like most of our places are named after places/royalty in Great Britain...Norfolk, Suffolk, Southampton, Richmond, Middlesex, Sussex, Gloucester, Princess Anne, King William, Charlotte, Buckingham, etc. or Indians: Pungo, Mattaponi, Pamunkey, Powhatan, Nottoway, Rappahannock, etc.

The stories told of how many places were named includes pure flattery to royalty, or a view of the landscape that reminded the founders of home...such as Richmond's view of the James River reminded them of a similar named place on a rise above the Thames. We don't have a Shropshire, Virginia, but we've had folks here with Shropshire as a last name.

Spring and Winter temps aren't much different here.......rain varies each year. Today......42F right now.....will get to low 50's. Gonna cut down more trees today......no rain.......blue skies.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

26° and sleeting , snowing, raining.

Just got home from doctor appointment, it went well, a little painful. Now i get to wait 4 weeks and hope everything heals ok.

Hit sleet and freezing rain 30 min from home. 10 min on Interstate was ok, first part up 2 lane rd was ok, except for a pickup that tailgated us most of the way home. Bad accident at one of the lights, right outside a high school _(which isnt out yet). Wife was very nervous driving, the truck behind didnt help. But we got home safe. I live on main rd so its salted, side roads becoming ice.

 

[jbrumberg]

Until recently, the last time I posted was ~ 5 years ago. Recent cold weather research brought my back to TBN. I see some familiar avatars and see that a few of the frequent past posters have passed.

After the last period of subzero temperature, today's 24F seems like Spring.

 

[rswyan]

Thank you for the info rs. Looking forward to hearing about your endeavors as you are able to get to them.

LOL ... I'll probably make a few "progress reports" ... when there is actual progress to report.

Will you still keep a tank upstairs for display?

While I would love to keep a large display tank upstairs in the living room, I don't think it's in the cards ... largely due to the logistics of maintenance (a nearby drain and water supply)

Another issue is whether the floor joists would support it. There's one spot where I'm fairly sure they would - an outside wall where the joists probably aren't just nailed but actually rest on top of the basement wall. Unfortunately, the room in the basement under the living room is completely finished and has a drywalled textured ceiling ... so there's no real easy way to tell whether the joists are actually resting on something on the other end or whether they are just nailed up, or for that matter, which way they run ... although I'm fairly certain I know their direction.

Warm up down here yesterday. It reached 70F, but a little rain and a front overnight has us back down to seasonal temps this AM. 49F.

Enjoy it ... :thumbsup:

 

[ronjhall]

Almost like summer outside. 39° with bright sun. Got all the tools put away from plumbing project. Filled tractor with diesel. Filled hydraulic tank on chipper with 7 gallons of oil. All that after taking wife to doctor. Good report there. No more visits with him until June.
Back inside resting.

 

[Buppies]

Great news Ron for your wife and you

Raining here 33 degrees no ice at the house. Made a trip to northern tool purchased Milwaukee battery powered grease gun should come in handy

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Looks like at least part of the problem was a snapped power pole at the top of my property. I heard a large truck horn blow a few minutes ago, and when I looked up there there were two utility boom trucks, one of them trying to back down to the troubled pole. Looks like he got stuck, as that part of the neighborç—´ é›»riveway was piled up from loose dirt and never compacted. I went up there to offer encouragement, and to ask if they wanted access through my gate to another pole closer to the house. The gateç—´ open now; theyæ±*e still wrestling with the boom truck.:shocked:

I致e been using an iPad to watch email and fiddle with the Internet, and have it set up to use the iPhone痴 hotspot. The iPhone is resting on a milk carton on the front porch where it can get a decent LTE signal. Usually I don稚 get any cell phone signal here, so maybe Verizon痴 been tweaking its towers a bit.

51F isn稚 exactly cold here, Kyle, but it has been lightly raining since early this morning. 0.35 so far, and radar shows no sign of letting up. Your barn sounds like an Alladin痴 Cave to me, but then my garage would probably look the same way to you!:laughing:

Managed to warm up a breakfast burrito by boiling some water on the woodstove, then dropping it into a ziploc bag and dropping it into the water. Wasn稚 hot all the way through, so I壇 use the propane BBQ as an oven if I had it to do over. Probably better get a piece of meat defrosted in case they don稚 get the power on today, so I can fire up the BBQ for that. Lots of other stove top options in the freezer as well; sure not gonna starve because of the outage. Still plenty of pressure in the water tank, and there痴 plenty of bottled water on hand in case it runs out. Lots of those solar LED lights on hand, too, more preparations made after last year痴 wildfire.

And speaking of wildfires, I see theyæ±*e still doing more evacuations in the Santa Barbara area for the Thomas Fire. Hopefully this rain will help with that, too.

 

[PJSprog]

I'm forever asking The Wife if the stuff in the dishwasher is clean or "not clean." When I got home form work Friday, there was a magnet on the front of the dishwasher door that read "Dirty." :laughing: The other side reads "Clean."

I guess she was trying to head off any idle chit-chat. :confused3:

 

[Ed of all trades]

We delayed mom's Dr app this morning and got her in at 1:30. It was 42 outside and raining. I went out the back door to walk the dog and was suddenly laying on the porch. It is concrete and was still cold and was covered with wet ice. Little sore but no problems. Did not think of ice at 42.

Hope everyone is doing fine. Ed

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Ground is still frozen, so its gonna freeze even if air temp is warmer.


We always use clean and dirty magnet signs on dishwasher.

 

[daugen]

Welcome back Jay. Let's not make it 5 years again...it's fairly friendly here...

wow did it get warmer in a hurry. So nice I couldn't stay inside and went down to the barn, laid a rubber mat down on the snow and went to work on the
fertilizer spreader. At first I thought the pto shaft was too long, and I struggled getting grease into the universals, very tight, maybe super cold grease, and after quite a bit
of struggling, got the pto shaft on and it has slack in all range of motions. Tested it out, ran nice and quietly. Universal yellow plastic cone spreader, Belco, looked like decent materials,
holds 550 pounds which is plenty for me. Now I have to find a friendly gorilla to dump it all in...let's see, rent a gorilla. Actually my two burly firemen friends might do a
little better. They'll drink more of my beer than the gorilla though...

Held the glowplugs on for about 45 seconds on the little Massey. Bang clatter clatter, almost worthy of Youtube...
This girl has a cold heart, and doesn't even smell good until she warms up.
Not that I would ever tell a lady that.
Then she gets to work.

Toppop, new tractor, how exciting, pics please
Now that part in your life is filled back up. One step at a time.
Perhaps a nice garden this Spring will keep you engaged.

Best part of today is my long and pleasant talk with the head lady at the propane company seems to have done the trick. My propane tank is now full again. Yeah.
Of course I did just casually mention the name and phone number of the parent company, and was told calls to them would be handled in the same way. Really.
Well, I think I can thank my charm and persuasiveness for 10 percent and dropping the boss's name and number was 90 percent. Whatever. I was pleasant and
all ended well. For now, when I get a bigger tank in I'll feel even better.

planted a few rows of butter bibb lettuce, beginning to stagger planting by planting a few rows in successive weeks.

by then I considered this all too much excitement and said enough.