Hello, Geezer coming back to this forum. Paul B

[Dustin07]

If you think that is a good diet, eat them for a month and see if anyone wants to spawn with you.

this cracked me up

Feeding whole fish is very hard because they are not available commercially

this had me briefly contemplating going to the asian market where there are lot of options for full live fish that could be chopped up...

A great food is clams because we are feeding the entire animal, guts and all. A better food is live blackworms, or Whiteworms. If you feed your fish live worms a couple of times a week

I've seen you mention this a few times and I'm very interested, although I'm not really sure where to source worms other than the night crawlers I put on my hook and sometimes feed my chickens.

 

[Paul B]

Dustin, I use whiteworms that I grow and earthworms that I collect or buy in Walmart.

 

[Paul B]

One of my Jeeps, the Renegade has the "Check Engine" light on. This isn't a big deal and the car won't get stuck, but here in New York we have to get our cars inspected every year and they won't inspect it with the check engine light on.

I have the diagnostic tool and connected it to the port under the dashboard and it tells me the thermostat is defective.

I have changed many dozens of thermostats and they are generally a simple five minute job. But not on a new car where the engine is in sideways. (I used to be an Oldsmobile mechanic 100 years ago)

Normally the thermostat is at the front of the engine and held on with two bolts. This one is also on the front of the engine but the front is near the fender under the battery, battery box, computer and a few hoses and brackets so the 5 minute job is now a real pain especially now that the temperature will be about 8 degrees all week.

You also can't just buy the thermostat, you have to buy the thermostat with the housing and sensor all in the same piece of aluminum.
I have to remove the engine shroud, battery, battery box, computer, brackets and hoses just to see the thing. Then I need metric swivel sockets to remove it. I have swivel sockets but not metric ones.

I am also old and had 36 surgeries, mostly for shoulders and that battery weighs almost as much as my reef tank so this will be fun.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

You can't even see the ground any more when you look down in an engine bay!
No wonder cars float!!!

 

[Paul B]

This morning about 6:15 am I went for my morning walk. It wasn't too cold, about 35 degrees so too warm for ice.
But before I got 50 yards I slipped three times (but didn't fall) because of black ice. Thats something like black ich and another thing I don't believe in but we had such fog last night coming home from dinner that my windshield looked like sheet metal, rusty sheet metal. I couldn't see 5 feet.



Last night all that fog dropped to the road and turned into a thin sheet of ice. The more I walked the icier it got so I was afraid of breaking my hip and I'm not afraid of too many things. Komoto Dragons are one.

I am very sure footed and never fall as I have the ballance of a mountain goat, but what concerned me was that I saw 3 or 4 mountain goats laying on the side of the road and I could swear they had broken hips. They were doing that "BBBBAAAAAAHHH" thing.

I was also surprised when Dorithy Hamill skated by me at a good clip with that gold medal still hanging around her neck.



Anyway, yesterday, I invited two couples over for a dinner of linguine and white clam sauce, my favorite dish. So, after my walk, I made two loaves of Italian bread with olive oil and rosemary. I haven't baked it yet because it has to rise for 7 or 8 hours.

That's also one of the easiest dishes to make. I bought the clams this morning and after the bread is baked, I will also make some Brochette with some of it

Brochette



We are supposed to get 5" of snow today, but usually, when they predict 5" of snow, it rains. You have to worry when they don't predict snow; then, we know we are in for a blizzard.

(I don't know if the pictures show up on this forum)

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

They do, & that dock looks really ominous.

 

[Paul B]

I was correct about the snow we got. They predicted 5" and we got about a fifth of an inch and a lot of ice. Right now it is 20 degrees and very windy, so the little snow is flying all over the ice. I am going for my walk but I think I will carry one of my old boat anchors in case a gust of wind carries me into the woods and crashes me into an old oak tree with a yellow ribbon tied around it or antique Oldsmobile that has been stranded for 30+ years.

You never know.

 

[Dustin07]

I dont' think you'd catch me on that dock today

 

[Paul B]

Not today, but I do collect water there often. I collected it that day I took that picture.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

We have about 3 inches in Miller Place.

 

[Paul B]

We got almost nothing.

 

[Dustin07]

Hey Paul, for new years the wife cooked us up some giant pranws (big big ones, like 8"+). she saved the bits that she wouldn't feed us in a separate bag and last night I thawed a couple out, blended it up as small as I could and gave a little to the tank. I have never seen my fish so voracious. they absolutely loved the meal. I have not tried worms yet but the prawns were an experiement based on your posts and holy cow my fish loved them. Even my hippo tang who usually doesn't partake in the meatier foods.

 

[Paul B]

Dustin, my hippo never saw nori or any other seaweed or dry food except for the stuff that grows in my tank.

 

[Paul B]

I am considering going walking but it is pitch dark, 20 degrees, windy and all I can see is a road that looks like a glacier. It seems like a herd of Polar Bears spent the night dancing the Macarana all night leaving the frozen snow like craters on the moon. I will wait until it gets a little lighter so I can see if there are any mountain goats with fractured hips before I go out because it doesn't look like I could walk out there and I am not a Snowflake Sissy person with athlete's foot.

My wife frowns when I break a bone and I don't have many that I didn't already break. Maybe I will just go into my workshop and make copper anglerfish like Man

 

[Dustin07]

Dustin, my hippo never saw nori or any other seaweed or dry food except for the stuff that grows in my tank.

I have tried feeding mine nori and another seaweed I had on hand and they couldn't care less about the veggie platter! but you serve up fresh prawns and they're happy as a clam. My fish and I have that in common.

I am considering going walking but it is pitch dark, 20 degrees, windy and all I can see is a road that looks like a glacier. It seems like a herd of Polar Bears spent the night dancing the Macarana all night leaving the frozen snow like craters on the moon. I will wait until it gets a little lighter so I can see if there are any mountain goats with fractured hips before I go out because it doesn't look like I could walk out there and I am not a Snowflake Sissy person with athlete's foot.

My wife frowns when I break a bone and I don't have many that I didn't already break. Maybe I will just go into my workshop and make copper anglerfish like Man

 

[blange3]

I am considering going walking but it is pitch dark, 20 degrees, windy and all I can see is a road that looks like a glacier. It seems like a herd of Polar Bears spent the night dancing the Macarana all night leaving the frozen snow like craters on the moon. I will wait until it gets a little lighter so I can see if there are any mountain goats with fractured hips before I go out because it doesn't look like I could walk out there and I am not a Snowflake Sissy person with athlete's foot.

My wife frowns when I break a bone and I don't have many that I didn't already break. Maybe I will just go into my workshop and make copper anglerfish like Man

As I wander in and out of the forums over the last 20+ years there is always one constant, Paul B is here and as entertaining as ever!

 

[Paul B]

Thank you Blange.

 

[Paul B]

I just returned from my morning walk. The last few days it has been a little cold, around 12 or 18 degrees. Today it was 27 degrees, so I almost went in the pool due to the heat, but it is still covered, and the ice is kind of thick

As I walked in the dark, I heard a loud noise from the forest next to the road.


You can't really see the forest for the trees. Or in this case, the antique oil tank from when this used to be a farm

I immediately went into my Rambo Stance like I used in Nam..........OK, I didn't do that....I didn't do that in Nam either. I jumped back in fear thinking it was a rabid bear, mad squirrel or a horse with no name.

I quickly aimed my flashlight at it and to my chagrin. (I actually never used that word before and am just writing this post to interject it in here but I also never used the word "interject")

It was a deer. But a big deer, more like a Moose Deer, much bigger than even the largest squirrel. He looked at me and I looked at him,. We were both focused on each other to see who would make the first move.



All of a sudden, in a quick flash of teeth. OK it had a white fluffy tail, he turned around and ran which is exactly what I was "planning" on doing. But that deer was probably 4 years old and in 4 years I will be 80 so I figured I had way more arthritis than he did and in the time it took him to sprint 50 yards, I blinked 5 times because my eyelids work fine and that is the only part of me that doesn't have arthritis.



If you can't see the pictures, just make believe

 

[Dustin07]

Moose deer

Coincidentally I watched Rambo tonight, ha. I think they should make it high school curriculum now.

I complain about the cold a lot. It's not as cold as you but it's cold and I'm still out in it....

 

[Paul B]

So 2 weeks ago I bought a small urchin. It croaked. Then I bought another one...It croaked. Urchins normally live forever in my tank and this one lived about 12 years.



So I figured something was wrong. Like Duh. Everything else looks fine, but I also can't find two Harlequin shrimp. And I like harlequin shrimp.

So, it was time to pull out the test kit. I rarely test anything, and my test kits are old, so they came in wooden boxes. Most of them, I can't get the reagents out of the bottles because they turned to tar.

But I found an alkalinity test kit that looked OK. I tested the water, and the alkalinity was about 4. It's supposed to be about 8 or 9. I doubt urchins care about alkalinity, but since I have a ton of the stuff, I figured I needed to raise it.

I have been dumping a bunch in the tank for a couple of days, and I will probably test again tomorrow. I ordered a new Alk test kit just to make sure my vintage test kit is correct or at least close.