:: Tinted Journey ::

Hitched! from Tin on Vimeo.

I think it's been more than 3 months since someone updated this blog… It's been more than ONE YEAR AND 3 months, since I actually posted something myself, even then it was just pictures. It was fun to look back and read a few of our previous entries. That might have triggered the urge to try my hand at this again.

I think I just wanted an excuse to practice my rusty writing skills… see what it feels like to try putting words to paper or to the screen in this case. Even right now, I find myself obsessing about re-reading and re-arranging all this babble I'm jotting down. I think I'll always have that frustrated writer in me.

Also it's work from home Friday and I think my busy week (or month… or year!) has finally caught up with me. I'm a either too (a) tired (b) bored (c) lazy or (d) all of the above, to continue working a few more hours. That's beside the fact that I have lots of open items and tasks to work on. As somebody just told me I'm already on "weekend mode"!

A lot of things have happened in the past year…  good, bad and in-between. It's been quite eventful to say the least. I probably don't have the time and courage to share everything here, at least I hope to share all the good and fluffy stuff. 

Now I'm at loss on what to write next. To tell you the truth, I wrote this statement 15 minutes earlier, before I wrote and re-arranged a couple of stuff above. Now I'm at that point, where it holds true again. 

I think I have a pretty good idea what I might want to write about. Probably about stuff I've been obsessing about the past year. At first I was all obsessed about furnishing and decorating our apartment… but now for a few months now, much to my ney's dismay, my obsession has turned to that of all teenage girls these days… Twilight! I'd like think I'm not too old for this…heheh… besides I'm not alone. As much as I try to escape it… tsk tsk I still can't Maybe I'll give in and write something more about it soon… but now now, Ney should be home soon.

Till next time then.. hopefully in less than a year!

Upgraded the nano reef with new metal halide lighting that really makes a difference. I think the corals love it!

We were browsing through Ikea this one weekend and a huge ad for a hotdog was hanging from the rafters. Does this thing really need a disclaimer?

It's been a little more than a month since I've started the nano reef tank, and obviously my cycle has finished (I actually did not see any ammonia spike at all), so I decided to add some critters, a pair of fish and some beginners corals.

My livestock are as follows:

1 red legged hermit crab
1 blue legged hermit crab
3 nassarius snails
5 cerith snails
2 ocellaris clownfish (false perculas)
zoanthids (eagle eyes, radioactive eyes, green blast, pink palys)
red monti (montipora capricornis)
pipe organ coral
blue mushrooms

Here are some images:

pipe organ coral

my "mini" zoanthid garden

red monti cap

Heidi the clownfish

I can't believe I was able to track down this website still up in the inter tubes. This was the first ever site that I published over the internet. Based on the modified times of the files, I believe I completed this on July 13, 1999 (which was almost exactly 9 years from today). Of course it isn't much considering I was only introduced to the WWW in 1997 when I entered college and even though I was already doing some programming, I did not have an inkling what HTML was. I believed I drafted this site using Microsoft word, notepad and a couple of HTML tutorials online.

The site was just a total collage of pictures and content that I "borrowed" (Hey it was 1999, I don't think people even minded back then) from all over the place of my favorite anime Ghost Fighter also known as Yuyu Hakusho.  I think some people even thought that my site was the official site for Ghost Fighter back then, heheh.

Anyway, I immediately copied the site and dropped the small number of files on this server. Nothing was changed (except for removing the link to the special page) so everything is crappy and a lot of images are missing. I even have yellow text on the main page because it used to have a background image which is missing as well, haha. Here it is.

I knew that Google Street view has already mapped out some of the major cities but I did not know they were this comprehensive. What they have is a very handy tool to show a 360deg view of a particular destination or, in conjunction with Google Maps, a view of the turns you are going to make, the exits to take, etc. This is especially helpful in planning out your drive when you are going to an unfamiliar place. I do have my trusty GPS with me at all times but nothing beats having an idea of what your destination looks like. I believe that Google's plan is to have a view of all the streets in the world  I'll be waiting for that.

Here's a wikipedia article on Google Street view.

And here's a sample of it in action showing Great American Ballpark.

Looks like the tank is now in its diatom bloom phase. Current water params:

Temp: 79F
PH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm (should be a sign that the tank is cycling)

Here are some pics:

FTS:

Been dealing with a crazy amount of microbubbles coming from the Hydor Flo attachment. Looks like the MJ900 is pulling air from either the connection between the tube and the elbow or the elbow and the chamber outlet. I will probably need to replace that elbow with tubing and connect that directly to the pump. I hope I can find the right size tubing.

Water parameters for today:

Temp: 79F
SG : 1.0245
PH: 8.2
Ammonia:0 (it's weird that I could not detect this)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10 ppm (Ammonia and Nitrite should have been present at one point for the water to have this)

I've seen a couple of hitchhikers around the live rock. Some feather dusters and maybe a couple of crabs. My internet research showed that very few species of crab are safe to have in a reef aquarium especially with corals so I might consider removing them from the tank (If I can catch them that is).