paul b October 7, 2015 Share October 7, 2015 (edited) Congrats! That is quite a feat! Yes and besides her Feet, I also got the rest of her. Yesterday for our anniversary we went out to Jedadiah Hawkins Inn for a couple of days. You Long Island guys will recognize it. I think it is in Laurel on the North Fork of Long Island. I have passed it many times but never stayed there. It was built in 1860 for a sea captain. While we were eating dinner there last night another, slightly older couple was also eating there and we started talking about wine and anniversaries. There are probably 25 or more wineries out east on Long Island. So he heard which wine my wife ordered and we found out he is in some sort of wine club. When they were leaving, he gave us a bottle of wine for a gift. That was very nice as we didn't know these people more then ten minutes. Then the manager of the place gave us another glass of wine and just before dinner we went to a winery for a wine tasting and had a few glasses of wine. We were all "wined" out by the end of dinner. So this morning we headed to a Vodka tasting distillery not far from there and of course came home loaded with all sorts of flavored Vodka's. Edited October 7, 2015 by paul b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 10, 2015 Share October 10, 2015 I just added this anthias which I think is kind of cool. I had to many fish before so now I "really" have to many fish. They have to take turns putting their faces in the water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 10, 2015 Share October 10, 2015 My ozone generator croaked. Lucky for me I have a spare which I replaced it with. Now I will try to repair the old one because I really like a spare even though it would not be a disaster if this one broke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtelles October 11, 2015 Share October 11, 2015 Thoughts on mussels vs. clams? Grocery stores in my area stock plenty of mussels, but rarely clams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 11, 2015 Share October 11, 2015 I think mussels would be fine, cheaper also Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 11, 2015 Share October 11, 2015 So last night I looked at my tank and I was fooling around with something and I noticed my Ozonizer didn't have the light on and according to the read out, it wasn't making any Ozone. So I remove the thing and I have a spare one. I don't remember where I got it but I put it in and turn it on. It's a Gen-X Ozonizer but there isn't any read out on it and no way to tell how much Ozone it is making so I set it at the lowest setting. My old one put out 200mg ozone but I didn't know what this one puts out. I have been running Ozone full blast for decades so I didn't think anything of it and left it on. This morning I come down to feed the fish (the tank is in my finished basement) and I notice my copperband butterfly is up at the surface sucking air. (Either that, or he was looking at the picture of the Supermodel I have hanging on the wall and he is trying to whistle) I shot some live blackworms in the tank and he usually chases them down all over the place. He stays up on top sticking his nose out of the water. This is not good as he has never done that. Then as I am watching him, I see something red laying behind a bottle, obviously dead. My fish are well aware that they are not allowed to die unless it is from old age so now I am concerned. I carefully look around at the other fish and they looked a little "off". OMG, what happened? I go around the back of the tank and check the temperature. It is a little low, but it's not like I am going to see a dog sled team flying past the tank carrying an Eskimo so I dismiss that as the cause and just bump up the temperature a couple of degrees. The skimmer is also putting out a lot of foam. I look for a hospital tank, which I have not used since probably Jimmy Carter was President and I start to mix up some water. I don't know why because I don't even have any medications and I don't know yet what is wrong with the fish. I remove the dead, red fish which was an old cardinal who I was kind of fond of. I have no idea when I got him. It could have been five, ten or fifteen years ago (I have a lousy memory), I autopsy him mainly looking for parasites. His gills are clean, not one parasite. I look at the copperband, who is a really good friend of mine and he is staring at me like, What is wrong with me? Call a doctor. He is also breathing much faster than normal. Then it hits me. I smell Ozone. I don't normally smell anything because my smeller works as good as my memory. Just then my wife yells down for me to bring something up, or she was telling me how good looking I am, I forget, but either way, I yell back to her, "MY FISH ARE SICK". She tells me that in the middle of the night she came downstairs and the entire basement smelled funny with a strong odor. She was right, that little ozonizer filled my entire basement and tank with tons of free Ozone. So I Google that Gen-X ozonizer and there are all sorts of bad things written about it. First of all the rheostat that adjusts the amount of Ozone isn't even connected to anything so it puts out at least 250mg of ozone all the time even though I thought I had it on the lowest setting. I am sure it puts out way more Ozone than that to fill my entire basement after going through my 5' skimmer. So I immediately shut the thing off. We went out to my Daughter's in Manhattan for most of the day and now the fish look normal, except for the copperband. He looks better than he did before but is still breathing faster than normal as Ozone would deteriorate the delicate gill filaments. I am not sure if he is going to make it, it depends on how fast his gills heal. I really like that fish so I hope he lives as he is my favorite and is the first one to greet me when I come home. He is also my biggest eater. If he dies, I will replace him but I really hate to lose a fish, especially to a stupid error or a mechanical breakdown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 12, 2015 Share October 12, 2015 The copperband was on life support for a while and I thought I was going to have to give him mouth to snout resuscitation but he seems better. He came out and gave me a look so I fed the tank and he ate more worms than anyone so I think he is going to be fine. I really have never seen a fish that looked so bad, recover. If he is good tomorrow I will consider him cured and send him a bill. [IMG] I also repaired my old Ozone generator that has been on the tank for years but I will wait a week before I put it back on. Notice the 3 prongs to the left of the green knob? Those are the rheostat connections where wires are supposed to connect to control the amount of Ozone the thing puts out. There is nothing connected to them which allows the unit to put out uncontrollable amounts of Ozone. The makers of the device should have been shot when they allowed this to be sold because I know that they knew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 13, 2015 Share October 13, 2015 Today I noticed my solar electric on my roof that I installed in 08 is not generating anything. Not good. So I pulled apart the system and discovered there is no DC power coming from the 22 panels on my roof. So now I have something to do tomorrow. A few days ago we had a large lightning storm and I think my solar array was hit. I will go up there tomorrow to see what I can find. I would rather look at my fish or a Supermodel but I want to do this while the weather is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 14, 2015 Share October 14, 2015 I also installed the system. But I found the problem. Squirrels. Yes, furry rodents. They made a nest under the panels and ate the insulation off about 8 wires and completely cut two of them. I can't believe they gnawed through #10 thhn insulation and completely cut through 3 live wires. They must have done most of it at night when the panels are not generating 200 volts DC. You can see the red wire here completely cut as is the white.It took me most of the day because I had to remove 5 panels and clean out the nest and re install new wiring. But it is now working again. I also installed galvanized grating on the sides of the installation where they were getting through. Now on the front and back the gap is about an inch. I think they can still squeeze through and if they do, I will have to put grills on that, but that is a lot more work requiring 80' of grill and there isn't a good place to secure it there, but if I have to I will. or of course I can set a grenade up with a trip wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 14, 2015 Share October 14, 2015 At least it was an easy and fairly cheap fix. Could have been the lightning strike and that could have been much more expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 14, 2015 Share October 14, 2015 That is true, but then, my insurance would have covered it. I think they would have covered this also but I wouldn't trust anyone to fix it but myself. The squirrels also completely gnawed through 5 or 6 roof shingles. I replaced them with aluminum because I was to lazy to go and get shingles. They are under the panels so you will never see them and the aluminum is tougher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 14, 2015 Share October 14, 2015 Time to get the traps out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 14, 2015 Share October 14, 2015 I am hoping my gratings will keep them out. We have far to many squirrels for traps. These things have no enemies except cars. We need some eagles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 Start an eagle conservancy in your backyard. Then you could get grants to indirectly get rid of squirrels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 How much are squirrel skins worth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+much+are+squirrel+skins+worth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 That link says they are worth a dollar. I wonder how much they are worth if the squirrel is still wearing it? Perhaps with some insignificant burn marks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 in some places they consider the burn marks pre-cooked meals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 I just picked up "Gutter Guard" and I think that will do it for the 1" gaps in my solar panels. I can slice the guards into 3-2" pieces which will be perfect to keep the squirrels out of the front and back of my panels. I already installed mesh on the large gaps on the sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 15, 2015 Share October 15, 2015 I may have to go back to work just so I can take a day off. I can't believe how busy I am and I am retired for 8 years. I don't know how I did these things while I was working. This week I missed a Veterans Breakfast and a Veterans Bar be cue because I couldn't get the time to get there.We get up about 5:45 and start our day. Today we went grocery shopping (my wife has MS so I help her) Then from there we went to a dermatologist for a yearly skin check which I think is stupid but they tell me that we spend so much time in the sun on our boat that we should go and waste some time getting our skin checked. OK, the Dr. is kind of a Babe so I don't mind to much. We talk about SCUBA diving, fish, boats and like that. She also dug something out of my neck. I don't know what it was but I guess I didn't need it. Then we came home and I got a package, it was a new timer for our clothes drier which I took apart last week because the thing ran all night and didn't shut off, but the clothes were really dry. I turned on the light in the laundry room and it didn't work. Luckily I had a ballast, and I was an electrician in another life so I installed a ballast and fixed the light so I could see the drier. I installed the part but before I finished, my wife was yelling that the dishwasher is not filling with water and it smells. So I leave the drier and take apart the dishwasher. I think dishwashers are a stupid invention and I see nothing wrong with washing dishes the normal way. I also think it takes longer using the dishwasher by the time you rinse the dishes, load the thing and un load it. It smelled because water wasn't going in it and the heating element was just burning up all the plastic in there. So I find the problem, it was an overflow switch under the unit that was stuck, so I put that back together and go to finish the drier. Yesterday I spent all day on my roof re-installing wires under my solar panels on my roof because the stupid squirrels ate the wires. I guess my tomatoes that they have been eating all summer ran out and they thought they needed a little copper. This afternoon I went up on the roof and took some measurements and went to Home Depot (again) to get some more wire mesh to fill the gaps on the sides of the panels because yesterday I only did the ends. I fed the fish and noticed that no water was going into my reverse Undergravel filter. I took the powerhead that is hidden behind the rocks out after breaking some montipora and I had to clean out some gravel in the unit. I put that back together and glued the montipora back together. It seems that every day is like this so I want a day off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 16, 2015 Share October 16, 2015 skin checks are not to be taken lightly. My Mom and Grandma both have had to have skin cancer removed. Thankfully they caught it early enough. Back in my retail days I had to go to Delaware for a day to help cover for the entire store because one of their employees died from skin cancer. He was 30. Being proactive helps and catching it early is the key. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 16, 2015 Share October 16, 2015 I am proactive, that's why I went. I am also pro active about squirrels I devised this method of keeping squirrels out. I bought gutter guard and sliced them in thirds. Then screwed them in. You can see it here and to the right with the cover on. It took be like 4 hours but it is worth it to see the expression on their little faces when they can't get in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 16, 2015 Share October 16, 2015 The hard copy of my book came out 20 minutes ago. I can't wait to read it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul b October 23, 2015 Share October 23, 2015 I took a video. It was clear when I took it but on You Tube it is kind of blurry so I guess I am not like Stephen Speilburg.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxNyuupOwP8&feature=youtu.be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruleyii October 24, 2015 Share October 24, 2015 Looks good. What's the noise coming from? Water or a fan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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