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pdxmonkeyboy

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Posts posted by pdxmonkeyboy

    Arrgh, just coming back from a trip to Europe - no power for 8 hours

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Sorry to hear about the tank.  Hopefully your corals were skilled at the reverse of holding their breath underwater.  Let us know what the eventual losses end up being.
    Last Fall, with the upcoming winter season, I sprung for an inverter generator for about $600 (Briggs and Stratton 1700 watts).  I began having second thoughts (cheapskate that I am) and never opened the box, thinking that I might send it back for credit.  This morning, 8 AM Garden Home time, our power went out.  First I installed the battery powered air pump, and after two hours, broke down and opened the generator box.  I worked like a dream and I recommend it for all reefers.  BTW, I used stabilized gasoline so it will not gum up the carburetor if the generator is not used for months and months.  You've got a great wife, but you already know that.


    yes this!!^

    I don't own a tank special enough to warrant the money right now but I was looking at battery backup systems specially made for aquariums (which means 3x the markup). For a little more money you can have a gasoline or NG fired generator to keep your whole house going in an outage.

    nice work!!

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    First tank.. grow out frag tank

    in Tank Threads

    Posted · Edited by pdxmonkeyboy

    2 hours ago, Paratore said:

    If you want the power of a frag tank, get a 1/2" drill bit for stone and drill holes in the rock. Allows you to place frags all over the tank as a "frag tank" but you can also have your full blow grow out colonies and fish :) it's a win win for sure.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    that sounds like a really good idea actually!  The only downside is that my hammer drill is made by porter cable. Remember when your dad had a porter cable drill that was his grandfather's and you could basically hit it with a sledge hammer and it would still work?  Well, that porter cable no longer exists. They were purchased by Stanley (who basically makes tools designed for housewives and male hand models)  so consider now they work for one and a half projects.  It works fine when the trigger works, it's just that the trigger only works about 25% of the time.  

    the ultimate diy powerbox of doom should be done by this evening. 

    • Like 3

    First tank.. grow out frag tank

    in Tank Threads

    Posted

    so an update on the most underwhelming new tank thread lol. So I finally carved put some time to put humpty dumpty together. I dosed some pure ammonia and bac in a bottle to get things started. Then 2 things happened.

    1. I decided that just having a frag tank isn't too eye appealing. I mean.. a bare tank with light diffuser and tiny corals... wow! So given that my tank is 14" deep I decided to add sand and picked up 50lb of live rock from Travis at upscales.
    #2. After running a circuit to the tank and slapping a power strip on the wall I shocked my wet hands while plugging something in. I thought "I have all this nice stuff and I'm simply jamming all the plugs into a powerful and bending over and unplugging things when I need to. So, I started construction on the "ultimate DIY power station of doom" .

    pics should come soon

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    • Like 1

    Will be purchasing from GulfSpecimen in the next few weeks

    in Grow Outs, Group Buys, and Competitions

    Posted

    yeah, I thought about being a doctor but interacting with patients would get tiring. the only doctor I know who truly loves his job is a pediatric neurosurgeon. talk about delicate and stressful. It could be worse, we could all be working at Wal-Mart. But sometimes I do wonder..is ignorance bliss? It would be nice to just have clouds passing through my head instead of spreadsheets and to do lists and getting totally annoyed at commercials like "hey, did your chemotherapy cause permanent hair loss?" well... forget the fact that AT LEAST YOUR STILL ALIVE.. let's sue somebody because your bald now. rant over. sorry to hijack your marine group order thread.

    great opportunity and cool species. if I had the room I would order a half dozen octopus.

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    Will be purchasing from GulfSpecimen in the next few weeks

    in Grow Outs, Group Buys, and Competitions

    Posted

    Ah, you have some icthyology background?  That was my dream as a kid...  Be like Herbert R Axelrod traipsing through the amazon region looking for new tetras and the likes...


    yeah i have some fish chemistry floating around in my head. Chloride cells, rete mirabele, yada yada yada. it's pretty interesting stuff..how a swim bladder actually works, how salmon osmoregulate between fresh and saltwater etc. But the reality of being a fish biologist is sitting in a lab most of the time and the rest of the time begging for money.
    I became a restoration ecologist/wetland biologist with dreams of traipsing through lush beautiful wetlands and restoring vast ecosystems. While I advanced enough to do those sorts of things most of my career was spent facilitating road, house, and business construction. Flooded with email, drowning in federal state, and local permitting red tape I walked away from all of it to become a farmer.

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    • Like 1

    Update your fire protection - AFCI vs CAFCI

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I thought that Afci were only required by code for bathrooms? I built a new bathroom in my old house and I had to put an Afci breaker on it. cost me $120 back then but they are way cheaper now.

    good insurance for sure but they can be a major PIA. As I remember they measure the difference in current between neutral and hot and trip if there is a difference. so simply plugging things in can trip them or automated relay driving devices can also occasionally throw them... dishwasher, clothes washer, etc.

    people think GFCI is the gold standard and it absolutely is not. it WILL prevent you from shocking yourself when a water pump looses ground (been there). But if there is a short, water on plugs, salt creep, drive a nail through the wire in the wall, rodent eating wire in the wall... the GFCI does nothing.

    I am not an electrician but have done complete rewires of two separate houses and also installed a very very very complicated wiring project at my company that involved maxing out two 700 amp 3 phase power feeds. You want to get nervous about fiddling around with electricity I'll give you a tour of our facility. lol. I put huge signs on the 480 disconnects "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT OPENING THIS".


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    Used Saltwater

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    vinegar is essentially a jug of acetic acid which is what is killing your plants. salt will definitely kill plants (if the salt concentration is high enough it essentially starves them for water as the root zone/soil concentration is too high for then to overcome). Remember the term active transport from biology..? that is what we are dealing with. (the use of energy to transport ions across a semipermeable membrane).

    if you want to kill weeds.. vinegar. if you want to kill your neighbors huge god [language filter] siccamore tree that sheds h
    hundreds and hundreds of spiky seed pods on to your lawn and deck... then a bag of kosher salt during a rainstorm will do it. Just saying...

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    • Like 2

    Rubbermaid 10 gallon food grade trash cans. free

    in Classified Threads

    Posted

    I have like... way way way to many of these at work. They are the grey rubbery plastic commercial kitchen trash cans.

     

    They have a 3/4" grommet installed near the bottom. Would be great for..anything you needed a trash can with a small hole in it for.

     

    trash can for the garage?, water storage?, ATO?

     

    I have a about 80 left so I would rather someone use them instead of me chucking them. I have lids, but they have a huge hole cut in them..

     

    I'm in ne, pm me and I'll put them on the porch.

     

     

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    • Like 1

    let store live rock.. yeah or nah

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    so I need some live rock to seed my new frag rank set up. total water volume with sump is around 90 gallon.

     

    I stopped by Broadway pets to buy some crickets for my son's gecco and they have live rock in their sump for $2 a pound.

     

    Thing is... they are not exactly a stunning aquarium store. One step above petco in my mind. What do you think the risk of inheriting tons of unwanted hitch hikers is? Also.. how long does it really take live rock to become full loaded with bacteria? It's like 2-3 weeks for freshwater but I see marine rock times that are all over the place.

     

    Thought or suggestions??

    thanks.

     

     

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