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47 year old tank


sen5241b

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Good luck with that, Paul. I have faith that you'll manage to keep it going. In fact, I'm counting on it. 

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This reminds me of a story. Everything reminds me of a story and 10 years ago I may have posted this on here. When I was about 14 or so I lived in Queens New York. At that time it was mostly empty lots and I used to walk through them to go to school. (Now Queens is more crowded than midtown Manhattan) There was even a horse stable next to my school. Now to find a horse, you have to drive 80 miles out on Long Island to where I live now or look at the ingredients on a dog food can. :rolleyes:

Anyway, in those days I had a load of friends and none of us was Sissy Snowflakes and we spent all of our time outside. In one of those lots there was a defunct greenhouse that must have went out of business many years before and all the windows were broken. Of course we helped break the windows.

Next to that thing we decided to build an underground fort. That's what kids did then as there was only 7 channels on TV, all in black and white and TVs had tubes so the picture wasn't very good and there was nothing on for kids.

So we got shovels. Shovels are something your Grand Father can tell you about. They had a wooden handle and a metal blade. There was no USB port, they had no batteries, and they didn't do anything on there own. You actually had to pick it up to use it. (they are heavy so you may have to get an old person to help you)

You put the metal part in the dirt (dirt is stuff outside your front door. You may see some if you have to travel to your mail box to get your new I Phone 15. It's the brown stuff that trees are stuck in. )

You put your foot on the metal part of the shovel and push down, then you pick up the dirt. If you do this long enough you make a hole and you may even get some muscles, (Those are bumps on your arms, girls used to like boys with muscles and didn't much like Girly men)

After a couple of weeks we had our hole dug big enough to put on the roof. That was made from logs, which come from trees. Then we put on plywood (made from flat trees :rolleyes:) Then you cover that with dirt.
When it was done we went inside. This was very cool.
In the fort we
made these rubber band guns in there that shot pieces of Linoleum (Google it)
Then it rained. So we had a swimming hole, a very muddy swimming hole. Eventually we got tired of that and we grew up a little and got cars, girlfriends and forgot about that underground fort. When we didn't have girlfriends we spent virtually all of our time looking for girls. That's what men did then. When we found a girl that we wanted to go out with, we had to speak to her with our mouth and actually look at her, face to face. I know this is a hard concept to understand but our thumbs were big and muscular so even if we had a phone we wouldn't go on "So many Fish", "E Harmony", "Match . Com" or "Who wants to Date a Nerdy looking guy . com" like so many people have to do today.
If you told a girl she looked nice, she didn't get mad and think you were a Perv. She blushed and said Thank You. And didn't think you were a sexist. WE didn't even have the term sexist.
When you took the girl out, you opened the door for her and you paid for the meal. The entire meal, tip and all. If you were not a Girly Man you knew how to talk to the girl and compliment her and not talk about yourself and show her your muscles or your I Phone. :cool:

Back to the fort. Eventually
trees grew on top of it and it looked like the rest of the lot. I was working at a Gulf Gas station across the street from there and they were going to build a shopping center there with an A&P. We had no Supermarkets then (or Supermodels that I can remember). All we had was a deli so our Moms were thrilled.

Anyway, one day I was watching the bulldozer. (real Men love to watch bulldozers because they are big heavy machines that make a lot of noise and break things)
The bulldozer was leveling the land and knocking all the trees down.
As the driver backed up, I noticed that the blade of the thing went straight up in the air and the machine disappeared.
It was then that I remembered the underground fort. :eek:

I ran over there to see if the driver was OK as he was climbing out of the hole. Not in a real good mood and bulldozer drivers were Real Men with Tattoos and all. He was fine but he had to come to the gas station I was working in to make a phone call. Cell phones were not invented and if they were, they would have been made out of wood like our TVs were.

They had to bring in a big crane to get that bulldozer out. That was real cool to watch. :D

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Saw this today in my feed and thought of you. I suppose a 10 year old coral might be considered young for you?

 

 

Crap. That’s anticlimactic. I can’t add the picture. Coral Magazine is looking for corals that have been in home tanks for over 10 years.

 

https://www.coralmagazine.com/looking-for-aquarium-methuselah-old-corals/?fbclid=IwAR1F5cVPcZt7NCRC0ojEVUilfxLxcOQ5pcywG62M0MzbgI46aNuZp7wD3P8

 

Post fail. ?

 

Edited by bues0022
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Last night, or actually this morning at 3:00am I hear:   "YOU HAVE A REMINDER, THE COMPUTER GEEK IS COMING OVER TO FIX THE COMPUTER" 
It was the Alexa on the other side of my house.  When I set the reminder I neglected to tell it PM and not AM and usually the thing asks me but I was probably sipping a glass of Grand Marnier and didn't pay attention to it and said something like : "Whatever".
 
10 Seconds later the Alexa in our bedroom says the same thing.  (This is a condo and not real big but my 2 Alexa's seem to be in different time zones because they tell me the same thing 10 seconds apart.)
 
I quickly get out of bed so as not to wake my wife and I put my mouth right near it's "ear" and whisper.  "Alexa, Shut Up"
The thing lights up and says:  "SORRY, I DIDN'T GET THAT.  YOU CAN ASK ME THINGS LIKE, HOW DO YOU SHUT THE DOOR, OR WHATS UP  OR ASK THE TIME IN COOS BAY OREGON OR, WHAT WAS GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER"  WAS THAT HELPFUL?"
 
I looked around and my wife just stirred a little.  I again whispered to Alexa, "Alexa, thank you, go to sleep, stop talking.
Alexa again lit up and said: 
 
I DIDN'T GET THAT, I CAN PLAY AMBIENT SOUNDS TO PUT YOU TO SLEEP OR LOUD SOUNDS TO WAKE YOU UP.  I CAN PLAY ROY ORBISON MUSIC OR TELL YOU FACTS ABOUT NANCY PELOSI.   DID THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION? "
 
Alexa, No and thank you.
"SORRY, I COULDN'T HELP YOU, BUT THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK:
 
So I finally got it to shut up.  
 
Then I hear the other Alexa in the dining room but it is far away so I run there to see what it wants.  It is still reminding me of the computer Geek.
I close the bedroom door and hope we can't hear it.  But these doors were probably from Home Depot and made out of three or four layers of Scott toilet tissue.  The good three ply ones but it didn't matter, I can still hear her. 
 
Then I hear: BEEP.   Aparently if Alexa thinks you didn't hear her, she just Beeps all night about every 2 minutes.  BEEP,,,,,,,,,BEEP,,,,,,BEEP ETC.
Try to sleep with that.  So I go to the thing and say :Alexa, Thank you, now be quiet.  She says "THANK ME FOR WHAT?  YOU HAVE NO MORE REMINDERS, WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR YOUR REMINDERS. 
 
Nooooooooooo.  Alexa, just go to sleep.
 
"WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO PLAY AMBIENT SOUNDS BLAH, BLAH,BLAH  "
 
I  unplugged her and go back to bed
 
"BEEP,,,,,BEEP,,,,,,BEEP"
Every 2 minutes "BEEP,,,BEEP,,,,BEEP.
I put the pillow over my head.  I thought maybe I just dreamt that I unplugged her so I go to check.  Yep, the plug is on the floor so I head back to my bed.
 
"BEEP"
 
Oh no.  Now what do I do?  It's 3:05 am and I don't want to get up.  I figure maybe I am getting abducted by Aliens or worse "Liberals".
I  go back into the kitchen and again check Alexa.  She is dead.  Then I look around and on the stove, the timer is saying, "Dinner is done" and beeping.
 
My wife shutoff the oven yesterday but apparently the times was still on.
So now I am not sure if I am awake typing this, or in an Alien Space Ship in a galaxy far far away. :eek:
 
 
 
 
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Bues, I probably have some 10 year old corals, actually I think it's a gorg.  But I lost a lot of them when I went on a riverboat cruise on the Blue Danube in Europe and my tank sitter let the water level drop 7".  Everything above that died.  I have been trying to fill my tank with corals because this tank is 6" higher than the tank I moved from and corals are very rare no matter how much you want to spend.  I went to an LFS yesterday and bought the only coral they had, and I didn't even want it. :smokin:

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Working on my new Steam Punk floor lamp.  The base is a turn of the century Auto Clave that dentists used to sterilize equipment.  It needs a lot more work but it is getting there.
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Been out a while. Still out actually. Will return to DC area on Saturday. Anyway, Paul, the fort reminds me of me and a few neighbor kids growing up on base years ago (when we were Navy brats). Anyway, Public Works had started a small excavation near a small storage facility across the street from our homes. When we saw it, the workers had left. So we grabbed our dads' shovels and proceeded to enlarge the hole horizontally, making a cave right under the cement slab. We thought it was so cool, until base security caught on and had PW backfill the hole. Looking back, it wasn't the brightest thing to be doing - digging under the slab of a building where a bunch of compressed gas cylinders were stored.... but, hey, we had fun and 50+ years later we have a story to tell. Making forts with your buds was just something you did as a kid back then.

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This morning I was in my workshop spit shinning my boots and as I was looking at the tank, I noticed everything was so "up" and colorful.  The fish are always up but the corals looked really open and awake so I decided to test my Alk which was like 5 for the last few months.  I have a very old test kit but I tested it and saw that it is up to 8 now which is pretty good.  Of course I had to add a half gallon of Alk but it worked.  The next time I change water from here I will have to check that as we don't have "many" hard corals around New York so I assume our water doesn't need any alk.
 
Last week I re did both our bathrooms (even though the place was built 7 months ago)  I made mine into a Real Man's Bathroom so no one mistakes it for a Girly, Sissy Man bathroom.
Before anyone asks what my wife thinks, she bought me the WW 2 metal posters. 
(I bought the diamond plate that goes all the way around, as the posters do.)
 
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I bought a new power washer for my new house because my old one was gas powered and much to big for this new place.  So I took the thing out of the box and had to assemble just a few little things.
I decided to read the directions because it has a couple of dials on it that I didn't know what they were for and unlike many people, I actually like to read directions.  Like most men I may not ask for directions, but I do read them. 
 
I noticed the part about cold weather storing because this will be stored in my garage where most things will freeze.
 
In the directions it says :  "Do not store in a place that gets below 32 degrees".  OK, the thing has water in it so that is common sense.
Then it says "If you have to keep it in a place where it gets below 32 degrees, drain out the water, pull the trigger to release the pressure,  then don't store it in a place that goes below 32 degrees".
 
I mean is it me?  They sell these things and put the directions in it and go to the trouble to translate the directions in 14 different languages including Farsi, Mozambique, Brooklynese,  and some dialect in ancient Arabic that only Jesus spoke but they don't take a minute to read the thing.  
I don't even think Jesus even had a Home Depot near by to get one. :confused: :why:
Edited by paul b
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CRASH'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''.  No, not my tank, don't be silly, I have an undergravel filter so my tank don't crash.  It was my knee that crashed.  I went tomy knee surgeon for a tune up on my new knee which has not been working well and I am not up to my 20,000 mile check up.  The thing hurts and the reason I got the thing was to stop the pain and allow me to resume my Male modeling job and bungee jumping.  :rolleyes:
 
The physicians assistant comes in and pokes my knee on the side and before she could ask if that hurts, I was half way to the ceiling.  I said WHAT WAS THAT???  She said, that is the ligament that is inflamed.  I said, YOU THINK!!!.  :confused:
 
She said, Thats not good.  I said YOU THINK!!!
So the surgeon who replaced my knee comes in and picks up my foot.  I said Now don't twist that thing.  He says, I Won't.  So he sticks his finger in a place at the bottom of my knee cap and before he can say, Does that hurt, I am past the center point to the ceiling.
 
He says, Thats not good.  So he tells me, this only happens to one in 3,000 patients.  He told me that once before.  I asked, do you think you can rummage through the dumpster and find my old knee to put it back in? ;Wideyed
 
From his expression I could see that He can't or won't do that.  He tells me I have two problems.  I have tendinitis in this ligament on the left side of my knee and I have this neuroma  on the front of the knee cap.  I wanted to say, No I had one problem, I let you operate on my knee.  Then he said, "This is very interesting".  Those were not the words I would have chosen.  :cool:
 
I said just shoot it up with cortizone.  He said he doesn't want to do that because cortizone next to metal causes,,,,,,I could swear he was going to say rust,  But he said infections.  It is almost boating season and I don't have time for this.  So he upped my anti inflamatory meds and said come back in 6 weeks.  If that doesn't work, we (meaning him, unless he has a mouse in his pocket because I ain't going to help) will have to open up the knee (like it's a jar of peanut butter) and remove that tendon and replace it.  "Replace it with what?"   Like a piece of bicycle tube, beef jerky, Silly Putty.  He didn't elaborate.
 
I will be in the Caribbean then, probably on crutches anyway so I hope we don't have to go that route.
 
So on the way home we have to go to an Italian Market because where we moved to we can't get good Italian food and we are both Italian so we need the right food.  Not make believe Italian American food, but the real thing.  In the store I am limping from my left knee so my right hip goes out.  This market is great and they have stuff all over the place that you can sample, which I do.  So I start limping worse and I almost fell to the floor from the pain.  But on my way down, from the corner of my eye, I notice some home made, fresh mazareli  (I can't spell that but we Italians call it Mootzadella with the emphisize on the Mootz)  That gave me the strength to rise up and stick a tooth pick in it for a sample.  Delicious.  Now I am going down again and my wife SCREAMS,, "PAUL".   Just then I notice a table with home made Italian bread and sauce.  (We Italians call it gravy, I don't know why)  But it was towards the door so I managed to get up enough to dip the bread into the sauce and take a bite.  Fantastic.  I was having a lot of trouble standing so I hobbled over to a table of pepperoni just in time.  Anyway, these tables of great and were in line towards the door which is how i made my way to my car. 
 
I texted my wife from there and told her that I missed a couple of cheeses if she could grab me some samples. :p
At home I grabbed some pain meds and a nice glass or Grand Marnier.  :D
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Ah Paul, you're almost lucky. I have a friend here - she got her knees replaced. But, guess what? The hardware has been recalled! It seems that the piece that extends down into the tibia (lower leg) wasn't quite long enough on these parts, so it's not as strong and has sort-of reamed the bone, making the glue come unglued. She's uncomfortable on what are becoming rickety knees. So now they have to go back in and replace the lower half of the artificial knee: Pull out the old, clean out the old cement and stick a "new and improved" piece back in; then back to rehab again. I'll bet that she'll just love seeing another bill to fix the bad parts put in the first time.

 

Say hi to Dale for me. I hope that you're both enjoying the new place.

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Tom, Thanks for that "uplifting" story.  I don't think mine was recalled because I didn't get an E Mail from Home Depot. :huh:

I think the Crazy Glue he put in is still holding.  It's something about the metal rubbing on the tendon for the side pain and I am not sure what the neuroma is from but I wish they were in the same place.  I would put back my old knee if I could find it in the dumpster, but I already looked. :why:

 

Dale says Hello. :biggrin:

Edited by paul b
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Probably the metal is just a little rough and needs a final polish. Sounds like a little red rouge buffing compound might do the trick. And maybe some Bondo if the crazy glue isn't holding. 

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I always do.  :biggrin:

I have this very old DeWalt 1/2" hammer drill and it was made in America so I don't want to part with it. I dropped it many times off the top of 8' ladders and it survived. But lately the clutch has been slipping and it got so bad that I couldn't use it any more.
The clutch mechanism is stupid anyway and made for Girly Men so the thing stops if the drill hits something that makes it stop instead of breaking your arm. I fixed it by jamming the clutch closed by putting round metal beads in the springs that put pressure on the clutch.
Now it works like a charm and just doesn't have a clutch. I could easily buy a new one but it wouldn't be American so I don't even want one for free. :D
I was also able to grease it so it is nice and quiet. 
IMG_2320_zpspev2gpqf.jpg
 

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I built a new Steam Punk Lamp.  This one is a floor lamp.  My Daughter gave me this for Christmas because she knows I like to build things It's an Autoclave from the turn of the century so dentists can sterilize things.  It was all tarnished and rusty.
 
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Now it is re purposed and has flame lamps in it so it looks like there is a fire in the base.
 
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My Biggest, oldest, coolest coral bit the dust.  Or substrate.  I don't know why as I didn't play any RAP music and my collection of Nancy Pelosi pictures are not in view of the tank. :rolleyes:
 
I have 3 other corals of the same type that are growing up the walls and reaching into my bathroom.  Maybe it just got homesick. :confused:
 
Everything else is doing great and I couldn't be happier.  Well, if Christie Brinkley rang my bell and wanted to help me care for my tank, I would probably be happier, but I keep it quite here so I don't miss the bell sound, so far, nothing. 
 
I just made some waffles (yes, of course from scratch,, I don't use Girly Man mixes) and I also made some chopped up, cooked apples with cinnamon, cloves, honey etc to put on them and I am waiting for my wife to get up.  (I love to cook)
 
Anyway I am still looking for more corals and especially gorgonians to put in the tank.  I go into all kinds of LFSs with all kinds of money, but no ones got nothing.  It is disheartening and I think the hobby is waning, at least here in NY anyway.
 
I flew over the South Pacific quite a few times and there are so many tiny deserted Islands where I wish someone would start a fish/coral farm.  If I were 102 years younger and had all sorts of money, I would look into that. I absolutely love tiny un- inhabited South Pacific Islands anyway.:D
 
Yesterday my Viet Nam Buddy and his wife (who I know longer than I know my wife) came over for a visit.  I haven't seen him in years.  He was a Grunt in Nam and like me has a couple of Bronze Stars, purple heart, PTSD and Agent Orange so we are very much alike, except for the hair of course.  
We went to dinner at a really nice place here that gives Veterans half price dinners on Mondays which is really nice, and the food is great.  I love it.
My wife and I are very lucky to have so many friends, many from high and even grammar school. :p
 
Wow, I was fat then.
Combat%20Brothers_zpsduhahsz2.jpg
 
 
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Sounds like you had a good time with your buddy, Paul. It's nice that you've kept in touch all these years.

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WE did have a good time.

My wife and I were cleaning out pictures to give to our Daughter and I found one of my Gangsta pictures probably from 15 years ago.  (Maybe 20) My wife was and still is a Supermodel. 

 

(Tom this must be before I came to speak at WAMAS)

On another note, I had a flood.  Luckily it was RO water.  The bucket that is hanging from my ceiling that gravity feeds my tank sprung a leak.  I built an acrylic sight glass into it so I could tell the water level and the thing cracked.  I don't know why, it has worked for 20 years.  So I had about 15 gallons of water on my Man Cave floor.  Not that much of a big deal because I built the place knowing I will probably have leaks at times.

I plugged the hole where the sight glass used to be and made an internal float so that I can see a rod on a float and a tube coming out of the top of the bucket.  When the tube hits the ceiling, the thing is full.

Paul%20Gangsta%20-%20Copy_zpshfjvwxyg.jp

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2 hours ago, paul b said:

WE did have a good time.

My wife and I were cleaning out pictures to give to our Daughter and I found one of my Gangsta pictures probably from 15 years ago.  (Maybe 20) My wife was and still is a Supermodel. 

 

(Tom this must be before I came to speak at WAMAS)

On another note, I had a flood.  Luckily it was RO water.  The bucket that is hanging from my ceiling that gravity feeds my tank sprung a leak.  I built an acrylic sight glass into it so I could tell the water level and the thing cracked.  I don't know why, it has worked for 20 years.  So I had about 15 gallons of water on my Man Cave floor.  Not that much of a big deal because I built the place knowing I will probably have leaks at times.

I plugged the hole where the sight glass used to be and made an internal float so that I can see a rod on a float and a tube coming out of the top of the bucket.  When the tube hits the ceiling, the thing is full.

Paul%20Gangsta%20-%20Copy_zpshfjvwxyg.jp

 

It probably was before you both came out to see us. But, hard to say, you both look the same. ;-)

 

She's a beautiful (and wonderful) lady. I know that you know that you're a lucky guy! 

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