The problem with the marine tank: first of all, Jane hasn’t been sleeping well—I heard her up and about at 4 am and got up to find out if she was ok; we got to talking editing, and I was half awake and feeling like crap…when we noticed the fish tank: most of the topmost corals were tucked in.<\/p>\n
I ran downstairs to do more tests. The salinity read a proper 1.024. But I was suspicious. Real suspicious. My refractometer is from 2004, has a rusted pin that means I have to hold the top plate on by hand while I read it…<\/p>\n
We had breakfast, and I tried to get a nap, no luck. The minute the local pet store would be open I was on its doorstep to get a hydrometer, a floating weighted wand that measures specific gravity and tells you salinity; and a swing-arm to do the same in its own way. Both instruments are notorious for bad readings, but I figure one can check the other. And I can make a swing-arm read. I was scut-help in a genetics experiment, a bigtime one, where we had to make a swing-arm perform…<\/p>\n
Now, mind, .001 is a ‘safe’ rise or fall in salinity, for tank purposes. Sure, torrential rain dumps the top layer of the real ocean full of fresh water, but, y’know, the fish MOVE to get out of that.<\/p>\n
I check the water that my refractometer says is 1.024. The hydrometer reads 1.020. The swingarm reads 1.030.<\/p>\n
Crap. After several tests and the recall how much salt I’ve dumped in there over the last 2 days, I’m going to trust the notoriously inaccurate swingarm. Jane’s alarmed to see me banging the thing on the counter—but I’m being sure I’ve gotten all the bubbles off the arm I can locate. That’s how we did it in the bigtime lab. And I’m now willing to bet that we had a minor problem two days ago and corrected it in the wrong direction. It’s safer to rush a correction downward than upward. WE draw off four gallons of tank water and toss them, replacing them with hyper-filtered (ro\/di) water.<\/p>\n
By now the fish store is open, some 30 miles away, in Idaho. They say they have a refractometer. We head out—with a sample of our ‘corrected’ water…which tests, now, with THEIR refractometer, at 1.025, exactly where I like to keep it. (The safe range is 1.024-1.026) We get same, and we head home. And of course as we get there—the corals are beginning to open out and the tank is already much happier. We hit the perfect mark, blind. And now with a refractometer that isn’t falling apart, we can confirm it.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile we’re just chugging along, each editing the other’s book.<\/p>\n
I was still shaking come supper, but we’d ordered some chips back when we were not dieting: they arrived. Terra Krinkle-cut Sweet Potato chips. I decided we were too carb short, and we agreed to open one bag and measure what we took. One ounce is under 30 carbs. And that would be a good thing. It worked. We had supper, worked on Jane’s cover, and went to bed.<\/p>\n
This morning started with a spoon falling and breaking one of our bowls from our main dish set as Jane was loading the dishwasher, but hey, it wasn’t our newest bowls. We’re both feeling better this morning. And we think we are now to a stage in this diet we could either switch over to South Beach or just incorporate a few of those chips. Or both.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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