The ‘common cold’ is about 200 different viruses, so I hear, and lasts around 7 days or so. Well, type B flu remains the chief suspect, because I’m still symptomatic (cough-cough) and it’s been, what, since this onset, about Wednesday before this last Wednesday? Thursday, Friday Saturday, Sunday, and Monday…with the stuff still hanging on. That’s 12 days. Bummer.

Some of Jane’s doll-hobby friends are out and about and we’ll do supper there, this time not in a driving cold rain and soaked to the skin.

And I hope to heck I’m not still contagious. At least I sort of got to lie within 20 degrees of flat last night without choking.

Meanwhile, what else?

The orange cat was fish-shopping this morning, to the outrage of Shu and Shi. Yes, nearly sushi, but not quite. And the fish seem finally to have snugged down to the winter sleep instead of wandering drunkenly around the pond, vulnerable to predators. They all are under their winter shelter.

And…it’s kind of drizzling today. Grey sky. Chill. We’re not showing signs of getting that gravel moved.

And the autotopoff died. Again. I used the first unit (which supplies fresh water to make up for the evaporation in the main tank) from before 2007 til now, and its replacement died within 2 months. The replacement for the replacement died within 1 month. These are not cheap units. I wrote them a note that they have a serious design flaw, and bought a unit from another company: this is not a thing you can have fail while you’re, say, out of town for a week. The big tank evaporates 2 gallons a day, and that evaporation drives the calcium feed to the corals, while the autotop helps keep the salinity level for the critters. A float switch, like a bathroom tank float, simply turns on a small pump as the water level sinks, and the small pump sends calcium-laced fresh water up to the tank to keep the salinity steady. This should not be a complex wiring job, and it SHOULD be waterproof—water tends to happen around tanks, after all!

So…one damned more thing breaks. And has to be replaced. I’ll be so glad when I get this system stabilized. I also concluded my skimmer is too weak: I ordered a more potent one, which should help over all with the chemistry. You know how the wind and waves kick up foam on the beach…that’s amino acids, dead and decaying plant and animal matter, all sorts of refuse: it’s sort of the ocean’s sewer system. And if you aerate marine tank water, you get that froth, too, which bubbles up into a place where it collects as murky to black-green water: you toss that, and it’s sort of like cleaning a fish-tank filter, which marine reefs don’t tend to have: we rely on the skimmer. Well, there are skimmers that do a good job on a 50 gallon tank—but the old skimmer isn’t handling this 100 gallon tank well. And it’s going to help, I’m relatively sure, if I get an upgrade. Wish me luck. This is going to be a beautiful tank. It’s not there yet. All the fish are healthy, but I’ve still got some water stability problems, and I think that skimmer problem is the heart of it.