Tank Thread Tank reached 38 years old...in 2009!

[Paul B]

These little striped cardinals are spawning. I have 3 of them and it seems 2 of them are female and are pregnant to the joy of the one male.
But cardinals are very easy to spawn and they will spawn even if you lay them down on the asphalt of interstate 80 on a hot summer day and a Mack truck runs them over twice. Not a really big Mack truck like a tractor trailer but a smaller dump truck that is only maybe half full of ball bearings or old VCR tape players.

 

[Paul B]

So a few days ago I took 2 other couples and my wife out to dinner on my boat.
On the way to the boat I noticed that the air conditioner started blowing warm air so I looked at the temperature gauge and the car was overheating. Great, just what I want with a car full of people and other people meeting us at the marina in five minutes.


Luckily I was right near a gas station so I quickly went in there and shut the car off.
I open the hood and antifreeze is flying all over the place.


Now I have to wait five minutes for it to cool down and dissipate the smoke. I get a rag and open the radiator cap. Of course by now I need antifreeze so I buy a gallon from the station. I put it in and wait a few minutes for it to cool down further. I start it up and it seems fine so then I drive the ten minutes to my boat to meet the rest of the group.


I figure I will fix it tomorrow and I have the rest of the antifreeze with me in case I get stuck again.


We get on my boat and go to dinner at City Island in the Bronx and it was excellent.


We made it home in my car with no problem and I checked the oil which was a quart and a half low. I figure between that and the antifreeze probably being low, It will be fine now.


"Yeah Right"


The next day we drove about half an hour to my friends boat for a dinner cruise and on the way home, the thing overheats. Great. I cool it down, put in antifreeze and get it home.


Today I checked it out and what do you know, the fan isn't working.
These silly cars with the engine in sideways are always a pain to work on and to change the fan, you have to be Houdini and take half the car apart. This car is a PT Cruiser and is about 4" off the ground. It's like working on a toy. Of course I disconnected the fan wires first and connected them to the battery to make sure the thing was broken and I checked the 3 relays that control it.


I take out the fan and only cut myself 4 or 5 times because I think as they assemble these cars, they purposely sharpen all the ends of any exposed metal to see how much blood they can make you lose as you work on the car.


I go to the auto supply and buy a new fan. (These things come with the entire shroud and fan motor in one assembly because God Forbid you can only change the defective motor and keep the fan and shroud)


I get the thing home and compare it to my fan. Of course the wiring connecter is wrong so I have to go back the auto supply (who is a friend of mine) and after 45 minutes of looking it up, I get the correct part.


I stick the thing in and this time only cut myself 3 or 4 times and I don't need a tourniquet.
The fan is behind the radiator and air conditioner condenser.


I put back the grill, hoses, wires, brackets etc and start the thing up. Success.


(Many, Many years ago, when cars had cranks to start them I was a mechanic for GM)







I know what your thinking. It's a PT Cruiser, a Nerd car and not exactly a "Chick Magnet". You would be correct if a Snowflake was driving it, But I drive it and I am a real Man and not a snowflake. I love this car but I also have one of these.

 

[Paul B]

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

 

[Paul B]

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.

 

[Paul B]

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.
I also put worms in my worm keeper to see how that works.


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.

 

[Paul B]

I figured out the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1yyOgu05XY

 

[LongIslandAndy]

I figured out the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1yyOgu05XY

Now that is really cool

 

[Paul B]

Andy, Thank you. That's because I am not a Snowflake.

 

[Paul B]

I still love looking at my tank after all those years mostly because, well first of all there are no Supermodels here right now and I went to church and breakfast with my beautiful wife this morning so I looked at her for a couple of hours. Now I am looking at my tank. I love the way it is now because it is filled with the combination of fish that I find the most intriguing.
My copperband is a little larger than I would like but it is what it is. My Bangai Cardinal is way past his supposed lifespan and I have been saying for many months that he should pass away soon from old age, but he is still hanging in there. This week he stopped eating (again) but he has done that 3 or 4 times in the last 6 months so I am not sure what he is thinking but I am sure he "misses" the "Misses" who died last year, also past her life span.
I love the bluestripe pipefish. They go off ontheir own to hunt but always find each other and spend time curling around each other, a perfect pair.
My Fire clowns are like an old married couple. Fighting then mating. This has been going on for decades and they never tire of each other.

My other two pipefish, a dragon face and a Janss pipefish are always on the move. The dragon face slowly inching his way along the rocks intently starring at every grain of gravel looking for a pod and the Janss who is like a Javelin cutting through the water searching for new born brine shrimp that escaped from the feeder. At that feeder is normally the two mandarins who stay there long after they ate the last brine shrimp in the hope there is one left. Eventually they get the hint and go out looking for more productive haunts but they always circle back for a quick look at the feeder.

The other cool IMO fish are a possum wrasse that rarely comes out along with a tiny red perchlet. Those two fish really colored up on their diet of worms, new born brine shrimp and clams. They are so much brighter than they were when I got them.

Of course there are quite a few wrasses, bleenies, anthias and gobies that I also find facinating but I forget their exact names so I rarely mention them.

I love this type of tank as I always find something that comes out of hiding that I forgot I had. I forget a lot. Why did I start this? OK I remember.
I do not like tangs and angels except for a hippo tang that I have always had up to a couple of years ago. They are one of the most beautiful fish but not as interesting as some of the fish I mentioned and much more common. You see tangs in every tank and if you dive, you see thousands of them as they are one of the most common fish in the sea. I just got tired of them.

Who could resist this face!

 

[Paul B]

I was just thinking of old times.
I remember once I was stationed in Colorado and in Colorado they have a lot of space. I rented, or borrowed a nice Manly motorcycle and headed out in the mountains to see if I could pick up any girls. After all I thought who I was with my hair and all.

So I see these two girls in a convertible so I head out in the plains after them with all my "coolness".

They finally stopped for a light and I very smoothly pulled up beside them to put my moves on them. I came to a stop, put my foot down, and my bell bottom pants got stuck on the starter pedal and I fell down right in the street next to these girls.

I stayed on the pavement until they left. That was fifty years ago. I am sure those two girls just stopped laughing last Tuesday.

 

[Paul B]

This little Cardinal is so pregnant she doesn't know which way to go.



I just took a picture of this guy because he rarely poses. Unlike Supermodels

 

[rich]

This little Cardinal is so pregnant she doesn't know which way to go.

[?IMG]

[?IMG]

can you repost. cant see thanks

 

[Paul B]

OK, I can see it, maybe it's me! I will post it again, let me know if you can't see it.

If you can't see it, just make believe there is a picture of Christie Brinkey on a date with me. :biggrin:

 

[rich]

nice awesome thanks
do those cardinals school or just good in pairs. I know you like difficult fish but I am not always up for the challenge lol

 

[Paul B]

Those cardinals do school but they are not difficult at all. As a matter of fact they are my easiest fish and sometimes go to my refrigerator to make their own dinner.
The pipefish and queen anthias are much more difficult and need special foods. Cardinals will eat newspapers if there is a picture of a fish in them, but not Liberal newspapers. :biggrin:

 

[rich]

Those cardinals do school but they are not difficult at all. As a matter of fact they are my easiest fish and sometimes go to my refrigerator to make their own dinner.
The pipefish and queen anthias are much more difficult and need special foods. Cardinals will eat newspapers if there is a picture of a fish in them, but not Liberal newspapers. :biggrin:

maybe liberal newspapers if there was an add with christy brinklely on it lol

 

[Paul B]

I would eat that. :biggrin:

 

[Paul B]

I bleached my worm tank because the worms kept turning into Jello. Maybe after so many years they get some weird bug that affects them in a way so they can't sing or do anything so they croak. I don't now. But after bleaching and filling the tank with scurvy goldfish pond water the worms seem fine. You can tell healthy worms because they stay in a clump with their heads (or tails) straight up and not laying all over the place like homeless worms. If you put your ear very close to the tank, you can hear them sing. One or two sound exactly like Pavarotti.

I have been thinking very hard as to how I am going to move this tank and it is not going to be easy. I went to the new house today which is under construction and I need to add heat to that room as well as water, electric and a sewer. Those things are not a problem but this will be in the winter and fish and corals frown on getting chopped out of ice especially in the dark. I am not sure I can keep them warm and lighted until I add those things.

 

[Paul B]

A couple of times a year my town has a drop off place for all the toxic liquids you have laying around that you can't or at least should not put in the garbage and they frown on you dumping it down the storm drains in the street.

Today is the day to do this so I gather all this stuff that I have accumulated in my house over the last almost 40 years I have been living here.

I got helicopter fuel, gasoline, fluorescent green paint, insect killer, sulfuric acid, hydraulic acid, Prizapro, two part epoxy, cleaning fluid, barnacle killing paint, grub poison, weed killer, grass killer, fungus killer, Godzilla Killer, carburetor cleaner, crank case oil and a number of other toxic things.

I take all this stuff and cram it into my car and bring to the beach where they will pick all this waste up. Its a beautiful day and I am enjoying the scenery to the beach.

It's a beautiful and large beach and I am now looking for the pick up point. I don't see anyone there except a girl wheeling a baby carriage. I notice there was a baby in the carriage so i am pretty sure she is not going to take this toxic waste off my hands. I drive to the water and notice the white caps as it is windy.

So I call the Town at 311 and hear the taped message. Then 1 press one for English.
"This conversation will be recorded" OK record it. "All of our operators are busy helping other residents"

Of course they are. (They only have one operator ) So finally I get this friendly sounding girl and she asks me how she can help me. I tell her I am at the beach looking for the toxic waste pick up place. She tells me to enjoy the beach because it is next month.

OK, so I screwed up by a month. Thats better than a year so I head home with all this stuff in my car.

Now I start thinking, if I, God Forbid get into an accident now. All of this stuff in the back will pour all over me. If that happens I will probably turn into Green Lantern, the Incredible Hulk, Spider Man, The Flash, The Torch, Iron Man and Batman's Penguin.
(But not Wonder Woman)

I would be also be fluorescent green, on fire and be able to fly and leap tall buildings in a single bound, but the best thing would be that I could kill bugs with my breath. :biggrin:

 

[Paul B]

I took a video,not a very good video, but a video none the less. The Jans pipefish was shy but you can just about make him out at the 50 second mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ms7msmYeo&feature=youtu.be