We changed out the white, hard to keep countertop in our kitchen; and, waste-not, want-not, two children of children of the Great Depression are we. Rather than pay an extra 50 to have the guy haul off the old countertop we had removed ourselves, thus saving 100.00 or thereabouts, we saved it in the basement, and on the Great Fishtank Revision, in which we finally did plumbing the way we should have when we moved in—we hauled out that countertop. So our old kitchen counter is now a) the short part, serving to top an old cabinet next the washing machine: viola! Laundry center, with drawers and a cabinet below (the old office cabinet.) and b) and yet more spectacular, the stand for the fishtank sump, pump, and equipment is now a broad counter with, of course, the old fish stand with doors and all. It looks incredibly civilized down there, and since what spills there is mostly salt water, the white counter is not going to meet many stains. Nice dark granite-look formica in the kitchen, and a major cabinet re-do in the basement, no nails, no fuss: that big counter is on a solid piece of cabinet and weighted down with about 75 lbs of fish tank sump, so it’s not budging. And has counter left over so we can run water tests, etc, in good lighting.
Eushu helped, of course.
I can’t begin to tell you how reassuring it is to know that you have such good help so close to hand. And at all times, too, and with respect to even the most challenging and demanding jobs 😀
Children of children of the depression are we.. .. yup. My cousin once made some remark about how things were done. Overhearing, my aunt asked him what Depression he had lived through. “The same one you did,” he replied. Two generation effect. And the world could use some more of that mentality now.
we in the UK had rationing during and after the second world war, to the same effect …. hooray, that sounds like a really good upgrade all round. how satisfying!
I bet Cajeiri would have loved to be involved in your project…except that he would have appropriated that nice countertop as a ramp for his car. And then, there would be Eushu chasing the car…and Cajeiri chasing Eushu…and a fun time would be had by all.
Except for Banichi, Cenedi, and probably Ilisidi….
No job is well done unless presided over by a cat. How great that you could repurpose the old counters.
We could use some help here. Please send Eushu over ASAP.
Nice that the project went so well. Eushu obviously belongs to that vast secret society of Helper Cats (not unlike the Free Masons?) as opposed to the society of Copy Cats, which is an entirely different order. I have helper cats working on this post right now.
If I needed the help from my cats, I’d probably never find them! When I don’t need them to help is when they decide that I’m wrong and I DO need them to help. Mind you, I said “need them to help”. Without the last 2 words, it’s a falsehood!
CJ, I did post a question in either the “up line” or “down line” thread, but apparently, I didn’t click on the “Submit” button.
I have a 30 gallon freshwater tank that hasn’t been used for about 6 years, ever since I moved out to the farm. There is a lot of scale on the sides, plus I still have the gravel and the bottom filter in place. What would you recommend I use to clean the inside of the glass, and can I clean and reuse the gravel?
I had thought of using lemon juice as a solvent, not full strength, just fill the tank with water and pour in a bottle of the juice and let it stand for a few days. I don’t think the citric acid in the juice will damage the adhesive seals but I don’t want to take a chance, either. I also don’t want any harsh chemicals (detergents, soaps, strong acids, etc.) to come in contact with the tank, since the folks at the pet store said that these agents would kill the fish.
Joe, white vinegar. Set it up: if the old pump still works, let it cycle a strong solution of white vinegar for several days. But they have better filters than that bottom filter now: I’d toss that. You could reuse the gravel,but need to really hose it down. Setting up for fresh water? A Penguin filter does pretty well, still, not state of the art, but pretty good for most purposes.
Remember that there’s a whole cadre of freshwater folks who don’t use filters or use sponge filters rather than the high tech/state-of-the-art gadgets and all their technical difficulties. If your concern in managing nitrogenous waste, you can do that quite simply. We rely on live plants for a lot of the ‘work’ and control our bioload. Depends on what you want to keep in your tank….
I do agree that undergravel filters aren’t as useful as Malaysian trumpet snails for aerating substrate, if that’s something you need to do. But I tend to dislike those little buggers myself but I do have them in a number of tanks.
I have never had to deal with scale since I live in a soft-water area but I’ve heard that oxyclean removes even the film that vinegar leaves behind. It’s a form of hydrogen peroxide….use and rinse and it’s safe for fish (according to those who’ve used it).
I’m currently in the process of setting up more tanks myself. I’ve had a number of larger tanks (for me) empty in the garage for awhile. But I stumbled on a gorgeous little ‘fire’ barb from Africa that I can’t live without so I’m building a few biotope tanks and we’ll see what happens from there. I filled up a 33L with substrate + water this weekend and just have to get it cycled before adding fish.
Oh no! [The] Big One
has been trapped by newspaper!
Cat to the rescue!
http://www.nanceestar.com/CatHaiku.html
Howl!
“You’re always typing!
Well, let’s see you ignore my
sitting on your hands.”
ibid.
Would one possibly file this under Catechism or CateKismet?..lol
@Paul….. 🙂 😀 😆
If you own or have access to a steam cleaner it will take scale off anything! I even cleaned the mess off my shower door with mine. The plus is that if you have allergies to cleaners this is just water…..well steam…..just watch out for burns.
white vinegar, can get very easily, in fact, I have some. If I’m going to use it, do I fill the tank, and then add the vinegar and run the filter, pump, etc? The gravel, well, I can use it for a decorative mulch out in the flower garden, I suppose, and just get new gravel. It’ll save me the hassle of worrying about any diseases I might have lingering in the nooks and crannies of the gravel clump. The bottom filter is really a royal pain in the neck, because the vertical tubes slip out, the gravel falls down into the receptacle, and I can’t get the tube back in. There’s a “Jack’S Aquarium and Pet Store” here in town, they’re a big box type of pet store, but not like PetSmart in the volume they have, but in the selection, yes, they’re nice. I just cringe every time I read about CJ and the fun with their saltwater system. At Shejicon3, CJ took me on a tour of the system, and I was fascinated, but slightly overwhelmed, too. Funny, I think I was the only one who expressed an interest in the infrastructure of the system, so I got the grand tour, and it was amazing. Those are the kinds of things I like to listen to people talk about, the passions they have for a hobby. Kind of like how I like fooling around with small flying insects that have these little spears on the back ends of their abdomens. But oh, the product they make is worth the pain. Anyway, I’m sure that if I start from scratch, at least removing the scale, etc. from the tank, and using new up-to-date equipment that not only does the job, but is also easy to maintain. I’m not a big fan of live plants in the aquarium, although I guess for the health of the aquarium, it’s better than those funky plastic plants. Mom always had the live grass for her guppy tanks, and while I’m not sure about the lead weights, the fish didn’t seem to have any health problems. I’d like to eventually go back and get a pair of discus, as well as other fish that can live with the discus. Those are temperamental fish, though, because if they don’t like each other, they’ll fight and you end up with two dead discus. I lost 4 of them that way, they were $75 apiece back in 1992, and they just never got along. The sales rep at the pet shop took them from the same tank, but once they got to our house and our tank, it was war. So, anyway, the main goal here is to make “kitteh TV” that would be more entertaining than watching a bunch of starlings fight over the feeder outside the living room window. I’d be keeping the aquarium in a relatively dark area, next to the computer desk (because it’s holding the desk up due to a collapsed cross-member under the desktop) I’ll probably have to change the light bulb, or maybe just get a whole new hood that will accept a more highly efficient bulb. Lots of research to do, just to keep the cats (and me) entertained. I’ve read up on both freshwater and saltwater systems, and I’ve learned that it’s actually easier to maintain a saltwater system once it’s set up properly, and buffered properly, etc., than to try to keep maintaining a freshwater system that can’t balance itself no matter how many water changes, tests, treatments, etc. Well, something to work on these cold, winter months, when I’m not trying to dig myself out of the garage. Glad I have the snow blower now, and the generator, now all I need is some high efficiency heating systems that don’t rely on fossil fuel or on external electricity. Maybe after I win the big PowerBall jackpot….oh wait, you have to pay to play and play to win, so I guess I won’t be coming into sudden wealth.
Angels make an interesting tank, and they get quite personable. I always thought of them as like horses, with their long fins and horsey little faces. They’re Amazonian ciclids, don’t taken much fussing with the water, unlike discus or African rift ciclids. I wish I could tell you a good freshwater site, but starting with Foster & Smith’s Live Aquaria is a good place to read up on possibilities.
I am heartbroken.
Monsieur Napoleon Bonaparte has been hanging about our back yard for about a year now. This morning I started the car intending to go to the bank, and there was an unexpected ‘bump’. Bony hadn’t moved from the back of the car where he was laying, and I clipped him; I suspect he has a broken leg, maybe worse but I hope not. I ended up taking him to the Humane Society. I’m hoping the story will have a happy ending, because they discovered a tattoo in his lip I had never suspected. Maybe he is fixable and can be reunited with his people. Meanwhile the day has a definite leaden lining.
Oh, misery! I can only say you have given him a safe harbor and done well by him. Nobody intended it: it’s an accident, no fault, no blame at all, just one of those unfortunate intersections of time and place. If it’s his time, or not—you have tried your best, and now it’s on the lap of fate.
Update on Bony: The tattoo led to the people who lived in the house behind ours, 17 years ago, so that is a dead end 🙁 His leg was not broken, just badly bruised, but during the course of the exam the vets discovered systemic cancer. He was showing signs of a cancer on the nose, but that seems to have just been the tip of the iceberg. Chances are good that Bony is not long for this world, regardless. The only thing I can do is comfort myself that he had something of a safe haven for the past few months.
Poor fellow…but at least he had a place. He may be sick, ergo not moving. And he won’t have to suffer a drawn out and painful end of life. Let yourself be at peace with it: you’ve given him much better than might have become of him, and his passing will be gentle.
Chondrite, that is definitely a heart wrenching occurrence I get upset if I accidentally hit a squirrel (or other critter in the road), or a bird flies into the front end of my car. While I was stationed on Guam, I had a neighbor who accidentally discovered a mama cat and her litter of kittens had somehow gotten under the hood of her car. She went out one morning to go to work and there was a loud screech and a lot of thumping under the hood. Needless to say, it was not pretty. I don’t know how she felt about the cats, but I worry about that every winter when I go out to the garage. I make sure I make plenty of noise, at least, if not to get any critters out of the garage, then to get them out from under the hood. I hope you’re able to reunite Boney with his family, or if he was used for some other purpose (testing, for example) rescue him from that fate.
CJ, I like angels, they just seem to be so calm and serene while they’re in the tank, and if it’s easy to take care of them, then I’ll probably go that route. Thank you for the tip on the Foster & Smith link.
Having read fish club stories of the fish-from-hell that turns out to be an angelfish, well….remember they are just another cichlid. If you want to consider a mellow cichlid, there are much more reliably mellow choices. Many of them are from South American or Central American and aren’t blackwater delicates.
Seriouslyfish.com has great specific info about the species you might be considering. That’s where I go to research habitat etc on anything new I try.
I think in the novella I wrote above concerning cleaning the tank, my question about concentration of vinegar to water got buried. I can calculate amounts of each if I know the ratio needed. Thanks.
I use straight vinegar on the marine stuff: it’s cheap at Costco. If you have water in the mix it takes longer, but it’s cheaper. Get the cheapest white vinegar going, and from a bulk store if you can. The stuff at the supermarket by the quart is hideously overpriced. You don’t want to drink it: it’s to remove scale with!
Having gotten a degree in Chemistry decades ago, I’ve never been off-put by “Ingredients:”. Bottom line: CJ is right, and read the label before you buy any “Apple Cider Vinegar”–the stuff that’s not very expensive is “distilled vinegar, caramel coloring, natural and artificial flavorings (and probably light on the ‘natural’ part). In Eastern Washington they raise enough apples (that’s where and how my folks met) that CJ can probably find the natural stuff at farmstands (some are as protective of their vinegar “mother” as others are of their sourdough “starter” for similar reasons), but most of the rest of us should beware.