# DK's m..a..d.. d..o..-i..n..g..s........



## DKShrimporium

(BTW - These are projects under development and none are for sale at this time.)

I've had a slew of requests to post updates on my projects lately, so here goes. I'll have to do it in several posts.

First off, the big kahuna. Took me a year to engineer, and the past year has been in beta testing. I run my tanks off our well water, which happens to emerge from the ground like CO2 infused RO water with 10 ppm nitrates (farm fertilizer runoff). So all the water to feed my tanks has to be "made" to specs.

I designed this, what I call DK's water factory, to make me some water. It creates three streams of water which I can blend to make most any water for a given tank. So every tank gets custom water, twice daily, automated from this beast.

It wasn't without moaning and gnashing of the teeth, and I've had to learn incrementally what works and what doesn't and work laboriously slowly and methodically to formulate the global conditions, and then tweak each tank for optimization to their specie.

Each global test can only change parameters about 5% and takes a few weeks to take effect to observe the specie, so it's a long process. This is due to the fact that too drastic a change could crash one or more tanks.

On top of working out the global parameters for the Water Factory, I also fired up more tanks last year to accomodate more breeding projects. So it's been a busy year, just trying to get it all together and keep from accidentally killing stuff, which, alas, I didn't altogether avoid. I had some pretty good setbacks that tested my skills and nerve.


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## EKLiu

That first picture makes my head hurt. And wow on the second pic!


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## DKShrimporium

*T-rex and black tigers, poison blues*

I started off with some breeder stock and right away did an outcross generation to a batch of top "black" blue tiger females. This was to spread the genes into a "seed" population for retrieval later after backcrossing. This reduces risk of losing the genes and also injects genetic diversity into the final production population.

The initial outcross tank also resulted in some of the original breeder stock breeding to other original breeder stock, resulting in pure strain offspring. Those F1s were removed and put into a first generation production tank. The remaining outcross siblings remained in a separate tank, to produce F2s, some of which would emerge as blacks. Those blacks then would be funneled out of the outcross tank and added into the first generation production tank.

The first generation production tank is now on its own F2s and is producing solid blacks, what I call scalloped blacks, T-rex blacks, poison blues, and I think I see some T-rex poison blues coming up, too, but must wait for them to mature to be sure. Once this tank is populated up, then I'll select upper grades from it to seed the second generation production tank. 

My first goal is to get a large, genetically diverse population with "black tiger" genes throughout. So the initial breeder stock included high grade dark and red eye blacks, high grade OE blacks, T-rex blacks, and one poison blue OE. Once I have enough population to split out amongst these groups, they will each be refined separately. But the first goal was a robust population with a wider gene base.

Here are some recent photos:

This first picture is a black resulted from the outcross sibling cross in the outcross tank. Neither parent was black, but both were half black carriers, and a very small minority of their offspring turn out black. The next pictures are from the now first generation production tank.


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## DKShrimporium

Here is another line under development - Orange Sakura. They are a bright, slightly creamy, slightly translucent citrus-y orange. You can see the quality of color on the male. The females are nicer, still, but like to hide in the weeds, and I don't disturb them. I'll get a picture one of these days of a female...


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## zxc

Keep up DK. good luck. waiting for your black tiger 4 sale.


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## antbug

Wow! That is one crazy setup. Nice job DK.


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## DKShrimporium

Red Tigers. 

I've spent the last year gathering breeding stock from about 5 sources, backcrossing to wild-type to make a seed tank, then taking the resulting F2s that were red to seed the first generation production tank with all reds. That tank is now producing its F1 generation and trickling in, but I just feel like I haven't hit the sweet spot with them, yet. I think I'm not doing well, and yet I do see offspring of different sizes in there. So I'm hoping to get these guys up and flying in the next months. They are a beautiful shrimp when they are happy - striped with day-glo scarlet.


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## DKShrimporium

Last month, I fired up the beginnings of SSS black and red tanks. Those will take about a year to proof the lines.

I couldn't get very many out of the weeds to eat, as they don't like their veggies (especially olive green freezer burned garden swiss chard) as much as their junk food with shrimp attractants and pheromones built-in! I'll try to get a better picture when more come out next junk food feeding.


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## avandss

wow


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## swissian

Your shrimps are amazing!


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## justin182

Nice setup!!! Great shrimps!!! Can't wait to see more DK!!!

Are those just regular substrate, or are they some special ones that buffer the water? Beside leaf litter, what leaves are those in the last pic?


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## Moe

Impressive setup DK!


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## Guest

that all looks amazing...


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## snausage

Those crs have awesome white coloration and I can't wait until you get a line of SSS going.


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## FriendlyNeighbor

I...love...your...setup!

...and I want your shrimp.


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## HypnoticAquatic

diggin on the blues for sure, thx for the updates


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## problemman

where did you acquire the orange sakura shrimp from? was this a cross between a yellow and red sakura?


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## aman74

greenisgood said:


> (BTW - These are projects under development and none are for sale at this time.)
> 
> I've had a slew of requests to post updates on my projects lately, so here goes. I'll have to do it in several posts.
> 
> First off, the big kahuna. Took me a year to engineer, and the past year has been in beta testing. I run my tanks off our well water, which happens to emerge from the ground like CO2 infused RO water with 10 ppm nitrates (farm fertilizer runoff). So all the water to feed my tanks has to be "made" to specs.
> 
> I designed this, what I call DK's water factory, to make me some water. It creates three streams of water which I can blend to make most any water for a given tank. So every tank gets custom water, twice daily, automated from this beast.
> 
> It wasn't without moaning and gnashing of the teeth, and I've had to learn incrementally what works and what doesn't and work laboriously slowly and methodically to formulate the global conditions, and then tweak each tank for optimization to their specie.
> 
> Each global test can only change parameters about 5% and takes a few weeks to take effect to observe the specie, so it's a long process. This is due to the fact that too drastic a change could crash one or more tanks.
> 
> On top of working out the global parameters for the Water Factory, I also fired up more tanks last year to accomodate more breeding projects. So it's been a busy year, just trying to get it all together and keep from accidentally killing stuff, which, alas, I didn't altogether avoid. I had some pretty good setbacks that tested my skills and nerve.


Awesome work on the setup side and your working with the animals.

I have a few questions if you don't mind.

That first rack on the right, is that 24" deep and about 72" or so long? I've seen a similar rack at Costco. Are those 15's set end to end? I was going to go with 10's as they are cheaper and I have limited space. However they are over 20" long and the next size down in racks is 18" unless I special order. So I thought I may go with 15's for the stability and because I'd have to go the next size up in racks anyhow.

About the wire mesh on those racks. If I recall correctly, some of the wires are up higher than others right? That's no issue if they are very close, but I think the ones I saw only had a few that were higher and I was worried about a way to even this out. It looks like you used foam? However, with rimmed tanks the foam pushes up on the bottom plane. They are meant to rest on the rim or something hard that doesn't form to the bottom. I was thinking they may even be safe right on top of the wires as long as the distance between wires is close. Not positive on that, but if it's only a 2" spread there should be any pressure points of consequence as the load is spreak by the trim.

If you did use foam, how do you find it holds up to getting water and other dirt on it? That was one of my concerns is how it will look after awhile.

I'm looking to do similar quality work as yourself with the shrimp, just on a much smaller scale. I could use some assistance, if you have the time or inclination, you can pm me. It's rare to find people trying to do every aspect to the highest standard. I'm the very same way, I just don't have all the knowledge yet.

Thanks,

Anthony


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## DKShrimporium

EKLiu said:


> That first picture makes my head hurt.


If you think of it as tinker toys, legos, and mud pies for adults, then it's not so intimidating. It was a WHOLE lotta fun to do. 



justin182 said:


> Are those just regular substrate, or are they some special ones that buffer the water? Beside leaf litter, what leaves are those in the last pic?


I believe in ecosystems - as my background is as a biologist. I do not believe in proprietary, artificial, designer, or chemically-induced and try to avoid them whenever possible. Regular cheap substrate. Backyard leaves - oak, maple, poplar, elm, beech



problemman said:


> where did you acquire the orange sakura shrimp from? was this a cross between a yellow and red sakura?


A shrimpy friend, and I was lucky to get a few. They are a color gene mutation of reds.



aman74 said:


> I have a few questions if you don't mind.
> 
> That first rack on the right, is that 24" deep and about 72" or so long? I've seen a similar rack at Costco. Are those 15's set end to end? I was going to go with 10's as they are cheaper and I have limited space. However they are over 20" long and the next size down in racks is 18" unless I special order. So I thought I may go with 15's for the stability and because I'd have to go the next size up in racks anyhow.
> 
> About the wire mesh on those racks. If I recall correctly, some of the wires are up higher than others right? That's no issue if they are very close, but I think the ones I saw only had a few that were higher and I was worried about a way to even this out. It looks like you used foam? However, with rimmed tanks the foam pushes up on the bottom plane. They are meant to rest on the rim or something hard that doesn't form to the bottom. I was thinking they may even be safe right on top of the wires as long as the distance between wires is close. Not positive on that, but if it's only a 2" spread there should be any pressure points of consequence as the load is spreak by the trim.
> 
> If you did use foam, how do you find it holds up to getting water and other dirt on it? That was one of my concerns is how it will look after awhile.
> 
> I'm looking to do similar quality work as yourself with the shrimp, just on a much smaller scale. I could use some assistance, if you have the time or inclination, you can pm me. It's rare to find people trying to do every aspect to the highest standard. I'm the very same way, I just don't have all the knowledge yet.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Anthony


The FIRST place, and really only place (aside from breeding livestock) I spend top bucks is on my shelving infrastructure. The most expensive thing I have is my shelving. If your shelving units fail, you lose EVERYTHING. You are mixing heavy weight, water, electricity, and lots of other pricey stuff, and if the shelves fail, you lose it all, and in a dangerous and damaging way. All the rest of my stuff is BORG off the shelf parts, modest tanks, heaters, and filters - nothing high end. To me, the real beauty lies in a gorgeous, healthy animal and perfect ecosystem, not the gizmos surrounding them - that is just noise to me, and fashion. My first generation of tanks were plastic drawers from the dollar store. I still have one in use, as a matter of fact, because it is producing so well still I hate to disrupt the population in it. It is currently cantilevered off the end of one of my shelving units because I don't have anywhere else to put it right now!

I use industrial, double-rivet boltless shelving with a steel beam center support, welded 1/4 inch epoxy coated grids, all rated at 1500 lbs per shelf. I put closed-cell foam board on top of the grids to distribute the weight. It's precisely BECAUSE the tank rims will sink into the foam a tiny bit that makes this so safe - all the weight load is then evenly distributed with no pressure points. I would never put tanks on a rigid wire grid with extreme pressure points resulting. Closed cell foam (BORG) is waterproof but will dent, tear, etc. if abused. It lasts just fine if you are reasonably careful. 

Since I like non-proprietary, I use 24x48 units, then I can use 48 inch shop lights overhead. They have the most widely available and cheapest T8 bulbs, and easiest to buy. I use 15 gallon tanks because they use the same glass thickness as 20s. The 10s are way too weak and flimsy in the glass for my liking.

I do use a couple of custom products: $8 mirrorized aluminum reflectors for the shop lights, and $10 custom twinwall polycarbonate greenhouse panels for lids that insulate but allow 90% light transmission through and are heat and impact resistant. Both contribute to energy efficiency, so pay for themselves.

-DK


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## aman74

greenisgood said:


> I use industrial, double-rivet boltless shelving with a steel beam center support, welded 1/4 inch epoxy coated grids, all rated at 1500 lbs per shelf. I put closed-cell foam board on top of the grids to distribute the weight. It's precisely BECAUSE the tank rims will sink into the foam a tiny bit that makes this so safe - all the weight load is then evenly distributed with no pressure points. I would never put tanks on a rigid wire grid with extreme pressure points resulting. Closed cell foam (BORG) is waterproof but will dent, tear, etc. if abused. It lasts just fine if you are reasonably careful.
> 
> Since I like non-proprietary, I use 24x48 units, then I can use 48 inch shop lights overhead. They have the most widely available and cheapest T8 bulbs, and easiest to buy. I use 15 gallon tanks because they use the same glass thickness as 20s. The 10s are way too weak and flimsy in the glass for my liking.
> 
> I do use a couple of custom products: $8 mirrorized aluminum reflectors for the shop lights, and $10 custom twinwall polycarbonate greenhouse panels for lids that insulate but allow 90% light transmission through and are heat and impact resistant. Both contribute to energy efficiency, so pay for themselves.
> 
> -DK


What's BORG?

It's my understanding that with a rimmed tank on a foam board you are creating an upward pressure point on the bottom pain as it's designed to be floating.

I don't think pressure points would be an issue on wire as long as the wire is close the weight is distributed across the rim. I could be wrong on this though and would probably still go with plywood or foam if going rimless.

So 10 gallon tanks glass is too thin for their size? Thickness only needs to go up as the size goes up. Do they fail more frequently?

Any details on the brand and source of the racks, light reflectors, and especially those lids, etc... is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Anthony


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## DKShrimporium

aman74 said:


> What's BORG?
> 
> It's my understanding that with a rimmed tank on a foam board you are creating an upward pressure point on the bottom pain as it's designed to be floating.
> 
> I don't think pressure points would be an issue on wire as long as the wire is close the weight is distributed across the rim. I could be wrong on this though and would probably still go with plywood or foam if going rimless.
> 
> So 10 gallon tanks glass is too thin for their size? Thickness only needs to go up as the size goes up. Do they fail more frequently?
> 
> Any details on the brand and source of the racks, light reflectors, and especially those lids, etc... is greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Anthony


BORG = Big Orange Retail Giant = Home Depot

This is mis-information. With closed cell foam, the PSI rating is surprisingly high. They use 1/8 inch sheets of this stuff to rest sill plates for entire houses on top, to distribute and "float" a load. A tank, even a large one, will sink maybe 1/32-1/16 inch - the foam never approximates touching the under plate of the tank. Putting a tank directly on a wire grid is not ideal. It may not become a problem with a small tank, but I personally would never do it, especially with a large tank. I work with glass (drill, cut, grind) and respect how it will do sudden things due to pressure points and the resulting fractures that can happen. 

The racks are extra heavy duty boltless shelving from globalindustrial. The reflectors are made by a local Amish guy near me dcooperworks dot net - just checked his website and the reflectors are now 10 bucks. The polycarb panels I have custom fabricated by Casey Kilgore at Ridout Plastics - eplastics dot com but I buy a 4x8 sheet of twinwall at a time and have the whole sheet cut down. You can't buy just a few panels cost effectively.

-DK


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## snausage

That DIY plastic drawer tank is so cool!

I totally agree with you that expensive gear isn't essential for breeding shrimp. I've recently switched over to ugfs because I get so annoyed by how the foam covering the intakes of my hobs clogged so quickly. That's why I'm surprised you're such a proponent of hobs considering it's more expensive to run a zillion of them and ugfs seem to prevent any planaria outbreaks and extend the life of the soil. 

Do you have lots of plants in your crs tanks? My first tank was originally densely planted, but I wound up ripping almost everything out because it was so hard to keep track of berried females and babies and it also made removing uneaten food a real chore.


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## justin182

Everything about your system and shrimps is :thumbsup:


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## liz3

DK, YOU ROCK! It is exciting to see your set up and the 1 order of Hino n-e's says it all when you look at them. Though, i now feel like a complete dunce for ordering an Azoo substrate . Oh well, it works, it is pretty but $$$. At least it is leaf litter in essence. or so i hope and think.


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## Joe.1

I am so looking forward to getting some of these shrimps. Great setup.


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## aman74

greenisgood said:


> BORG = Big Orange Retail Giant = Home Depot
> 
> This is mis-information. With closed cell foam, the PSI rating is surprisingly high. They use 1/8 inch sheets of this stuff to rest sill plates for entire houses on top, to distribute and "float" a load. A tank, even a large one, will sink maybe 1/32-1/16 inch - the foam never approximates touching the under plate of the tank. Putting a tank directly on a wire grid is not ideal. It may not become a problem with a small tank, but I personally would never do it, especially with a large tank. I work with glass (drill, cut, grind) and respect how it will do sudden things due to pressure points and the resulting fractures that can happen.
> 
> The racks are extra heavy duty boltless shelving from globalindustrial. The reflectors are made by a local Amish guy near me dcooperworks dot net - just checked his website and the reflectors are now 10 bucks. The polycarb panels I have custom fabricated by Casey Kilgore at Ridout Plastics - eplastics dot com but I buy a 4x8 sheet of twinwall at a time and have the whole sheet cut down. You can't buy just a few panels cost effectively.
> 
> -DK


Thanks much for the specifics. Do you have any pics of those lids? I'm wondering how you did them, handles or sliding, etc...

Do you feel you would go RO/DI if it weren't for your water supply? I ask because my water isn't bad, but I'd need fancy substrate to lower Gh/Kh/Ph for some species and if I could save on substrat the RO/DI system would pay for itself.

Also, even though my water is ok in general, I don't trust it fully. A lot of cities with aging systems blast the system to keep things in check at unknown times. I've also, on rare ocassion, had my water come out smelling. Not sure if this is bacterial or what, but it's kinda scary and surprising in a metropolitan area.

As you know, as your investment in stock goes up, so does the concern.

Do you sell mosly on here in the SNS or are you on Aquabid as well? Just wondering where to look for your stock.


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## Eden Marel

I'm green with envy.


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## Clare12345

More pics!


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## speedie408

Great job DK!! I really like the shrimps and setups.


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## DKShrimporium

snausage said:


> Do you have lots of plants in your crs tanks? My first tank was originally densely planted, but I wound up ripping almost everything out because it was so hard to keep track of berried females and babies and it also made removing uneaten food a real chore.


I keep different mosses. I don't really keep track of berried females; it's like trying to watch the pot boil...



aman74 said:


> Thanks much for the specifics. Do you have any pics of those lids? I'm wondering how you did them, handles or sliding, etc...
> 
> Do you feel you would go RO/DI if it weren't for your water supply? I ask because my water isn't bad, but I'd need fancy substrate to lower Gh/Kh/Ph for some species and if I could save on substrat the RO/DI system would pay for itself.
> 
> Also, even though my water is ok in general, I don't trust it fully. A lot of cities with aging systems blast the system to keep things in check at unknown times. I've also, on rare ocassion, had my water come out smelling. Not sure if this is bacterial or what, but it's kinda scary and surprising in a metropolitan area.
> 
> As you know, as your investment in stock goes up, so does the concern.
> 
> Do you sell mosly on here in the SNS or are you on Aquabid as well? Just wondering where to look for your stock.


Depends on my water, and its reliability. I would never use designer substrate, though. It fatigues over time and when you finally realize it's fatigued, you are stuck needing to re-do an entire tank at the mercy of its timing. With an RO unit, you change your filters, but you can control that, and it doesn't distrupt your entire tank to do, to make appropriate water. Plus, you don't have to shell over too much money, AGAIN, for designer substrate.

Mostly I hang around TPT, but I do occasionally put stuff on AB (ID = photosyner), to keep my feedback refreshed. The exotic stuff will first go up on AB, to help me recoup some of the horrifying up front expenses I've had to spend to get into some of these new varieties. I do not feel comfortable asking sky high prices for stuff, so when it's new I let the market decide on AB. When I have production up enough, I move over here and try to spread stuff into the hobby affordably.

Pic of a lid, below. I used a hole saw to drill a hole, then ordered buna-n grommets and plugs from Grainger.

Picture of some Black Tigers snackin' down in their "cave," while the boyfriends dance in the foreground... somebody just molted and is gonna be packing eggs, soon... whoo hoo! I just took these pics...

Picture of a coo-el Blue Tiger T-Rex baby.


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## Lance Uppercut

holy moly!


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## DKShrimporium

Here's another view of that coo-el Blue T-rex tiger. It's a juvie about half inch size right now.


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## H82LOS3

They are beautiful, pls keep us updated


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## aman74

greenisgood said:


> I keep different mosses. I don't really keep track of berried females; it's like trying to watch the pot boil...
> 
> 
> 
> Depends on my water, and its reliability. I would never use designer substrate, though. It fatigues over time and when you finally realize it's fatigued, you are stuck needing to re-do an entire tank at the mercy of its timing. With an RO unit, you change your filters, but you can control that, and it doesn't distrupt your entire tank to do, to make appropriate water. Plus, you don't have to shell over too much money, AGAIN, for designer substrate.
> 
> Mostly I hang around TPT, but I do occasionally put stuff on AB (ID = photosyner), to keep my feedback refreshed. The exotic stuff will first go up on AB, to help me recoup some of the horrifying up front expenses I've had to spend to get into some of these new varieties. I do not feel comfortable asking sky high prices for stuff, so when it's new I let the market decide on AB. When I have production up enough, I move over here and try to spread stuff into the hobby affordably.
> 
> Pic of a lid, below. I used a hole saw to drill a hole, then ordered buna-n grommets and plugs from Grainger.
> 
> Picture of some Black Tigers snackin' down in their "cave," while the boyfriends dance in the foreground... somebody just molted and is gonna be packing eggs, soon... whoo hoo! I just took these pics...
> 
> Picture of a coo-el Blue Tiger T-Rex baby.


Thanks so much for your help.

Also, your philosophy and approach mirrors mine. It's good to see people operating in a reasonable and professional manner. Can't wait until you have some to sell.


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## soundgy

Subscribed. I am similar minded to aman74 as well. Although I clearly have a lot more to learn from both of you. I have my moderate rack set up. Not nearly as huge a facility as what you have. Good Job on everything! I am going to add you and aman74 to my friends list as we all seem to have a similar passion for shrimp.


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## DKShrimporium

*Double post - deleted*

Technical prob - posted double, deleting one.


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## DKShrimporium

*Humble beginnings*

I don't make too many threads, because I'm a little shy and don't want to sound like a know-it-all. Shrimp teach me _every day _how _little_ I know.

One of the reasons I made this thread is to share my joy of working with shrimp. They are BEAUTIFUL animals, with very interesting behaviors to watch, and dreamy possibilities in genetics and breeding projects. Because they have short reproductive cycles, you can see progress easily in selective breeding projects.

You don't have to be rich, or elite, to enjoy shrimp. You should, however, _be willing to do your homework_, and _invest in the essentials for success_.

This is how I started, below, because it's what money I could afford: Plastic drawers and rubbermaid bins, cheapie shelving, shop lights, cheapie walmart filters.

Notice I had to even use the cheapo _nearly_ half-inch thick coarse particle board that came with the shelves - I had to tape plastic drop cloth over it to help water proof it. Because this is what I could afford for infrastructure, at the time. (BTW - underneath that particle board I had cut lengths of square tubing someone had given me from a junkyard, the tubing was put front-to-back as more support under the boards - those boards would never hold even the weight you see without steel bars underneath in cross support. In a pinch, slotted shelf supports  will do for support beams and are often available in the exact lengths you would need, too.) However, I'd suggest go straight to industrial grade shelving. I regretted trying to save money on a cheaper shelving unit; it was the first thing I replaced, even before I replaced the plastic tanks. And it was a PAIN to replace, because now I had all these tanks to move, to replace it.) 

I worked hard, and read everything I could, learned new things every day. I _focused_ on _targeted_ projects, and didn't just chase the latest fashion. I kept a budget and a prioritized list of upgrades, and pre-designed each expansion/upgrade. I made close friends with google, craigslist, ebay, the local plumbing/HVAC trade shops, metal and plastics fabricators, the department guys at BORG and Lowes (now, when I go in there, they know me, and don't ask "what I'm looking for" but rather "what am I trying to do" - because I typically use things in unusual fashion to accomplish a function - an example is my electrical conduit bulkheads on the plastic bins, below). Last time I went to Lowes, three of the guys came up to me, asking what I'm doing, today. I said, "I'm looking for a plastic hook. It has to hold about ten pounds. It has to be corrosion resistant, because it's going to be under water in a salt solution. Cheap wins." The plumbing guy went and got me a S hook for holding up PVC pipes ($2). The lumber guy's choice was a sheet panel holder (he lost at $6). The hardware guy won, with an over-the door plastic hook for robes ($1.50, plus it had a broad surface area to hook onto, which suited my needs).

By doing much myself - learning, DIY projects, making contacts, etc., I learned as I went along. It was a fun, frustrating, sometimes expensive journey, to get to today. And I'm still pushing forward, trying to make new inroads into my progress. It's a hobby that is enriching, if you make it so.

BTW - I got lucky and the Rubbermaid bins never split and burst on me, but I was nervous toward the end about this. They definitely aren't designed to hold water in this manner! The plastic drawers with casing are much more suited, although smaller. HA!

-DK


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## Moe

I love it! Nothing like putting two cool things together, DIY projects and shrimp.
Just goes to show you what a little thinking can do. DIY is so much fun trying to figure out and perfecting your projects. Especially your water change system!
Your set up shows everyone that you don't need fancy, high priced equipment to get amazing results.
Great job. Keep the picture coming please


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## DKShrimporium

LOL... Yeah, I always say it isn't _sporting_ just to go out and BUY something, or to use it for its _intended_ purpose... no lateral thinking involved there, so it's boring, to me. In the end, I love to create, I love to build, and there's nothing so fun to work with as living things, to build new things, and set up "worlds."

Black Tigers are a perfect example. To me, once you get to all black, and, say, all dark black, it's boring. Where is there to go? What is the interest? 

To me, the jackpot is in the T-rex's. What could you do with the patterns? What could you create, starting with this as a foundation? ...Changing the stripe colors, or the body colors, or breeding toward broken stripes or irregular dots... The kaleidoscope of possibilities in them fascinates me. Each one is unique, so you can get to know them, when you watch them.

-DK


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## Moe

Yep, the possibilities are endless! Just when you think you have see the best or coolest, someone else creates something nicer! Your shrimp are a fine example of that. Lol


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## Navigarden

Your work is so inspiring! I'm trying hard to set up a rack of my own I love shrimp!


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## aman74

greenisgood said:


> BTW - I got lucky and the Rubbermaid bins never split and burst on me, but I was nervous toward the end about this. They definitely aren't designed to hold water in this manner! The plastic drawers with casing are much more suited, although smaller. HA!
> 
> -DK


Is the plastic drawer the one in the middle with the HOB filter? What's the casing you're speaking of?

I assume these are some of those plastic storage chests, but I was wondering if by casing you meant the frame or something you improvised for sturdiness.

Did you have any concern about the plastics and what they're treated with? I saw mention of there being a chemical they use to keep them flexible that may be harmful to fish.

You had some bulkheads there, what kind of central system were you running?

Thanks for sharing the pics and info, as someone said it's inspiring to others. I know it's giving me some motivation.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Thank you everyone for your positive remarks; I appreciate them.



aman74 said:


> Is the plastic drawer the one in the middle with the HOB filter? What's the casing you're speaking of?
> 
> I assume these are some of those plastic storage chests, but I was wondering if by casing you meant the frame or something you improvised for sturdiness.
> 
> Did you have any concern about the plastics and what they're treated with? I saw mention of there being a chemical they use to keep them flexible that may be harmful to fish.
> 
> You had some bulkheads there, what kind of central system were you running?
> 
> Thanks for sharing the pics and info, as someone said it's inspiring to others. I know it's giving me some motivation.


Yes, the middle photo above, the cantilevered "tank" is the plastic drawer.

By "casing" I meant the part that the drawer slides into. In the middle picture, you see this, whereas it's missing in the wagon picture. The drawers aren't structural enough to hold the water without the casing, but by using the casing, you get the added structure, plus, in my case, I used sheet styro to line the space between the drawer and casing for insulation and energy efficiency. BTW - the "roof" of the casing has been sawn out.

I did learn to be very careful selecting plastic goods. Cheap brands use cheap polymers or thin walls that will crack or shatter sometimes. So I went with expensive brands and looked for designs with reinforced lines, as water exerts a lot of force on a wall and floor. I personally don't worry about plasticizers in a top brand product. LDPE, HDPE (low or high density polyethylene), polypropylene, and polycarbonate are the plastics to look for. LDPE, HDPE, and polypropylene are milky clear. Polycarbonate is clear. If a plastic container is glass clear, fairly cheap, and doesn't claim on the label to be made of polycarbonate, steer clear, as those non-polycarbonate clear resins (often acrylic) are prone to shatter under stress. 

My systems use central water in, central drain out plan. There are many ways to do this. To spoon feed the details wouldn't be sporting or help you exercise your lateral thinking, and it depends on your other infrastructure and budget too, anyway. 

I will add that all my systems are through GFCI power. I have other safety nets, too, that come into play when one starts to get a number of tanks set up. (sump pumps, water alarms, power back-ups, etc.)


----------



## zyn1

real mad lab!


----------



## soundgy

Would you mind posting more wide shots of your room (different angles) and some more closeups of your tanks? Please!


----------



## mysticalnet

wow.. subscribed!


----------



## DKShrimporium

So I went down to TRY to take some pics... I am honestly a lousy photographer... and I'm thinking about making a "Celebrity Shrimp" thread about the adventures of Rolf, the juvie Blue T-rex Tiger, and I'm looking at him, distracted because the ebony monkey boyfriends are swingin' through the trees AGAIN this morning... and then I see this...

...picture is lousy but I think you can see it... a brand new OE Black Tiger baby, about 2-3 mm long

...by the time I took this picture, Rolf had climbed back into the weeds


----------



## DKShrimporium

...and since we're talkin' babbiees, here's a shot of some OE Blue Tiger babbiees...

...they are in the 3-6 mm range


----------



## jeepn4x4

Thank you for sharing. This is such an interesting thread. Well done!!! I can't wait for more updates.


----------



## DKShrimporium

soundgy said:


> Would you mind posting more wide shots of your room (different angles) and some more closeups of your tanks? Please!


There are basically only two locations I can shoot from, due to the way the space is crammed. Here is the other, which is actually shot through a door. I can't get back enough to get a wide shot from anywhere else than these two locations.

And for close-ups... my tanks largely all look the same... like... habitat... water, light, moss, substrate, leaves. On first glance, my tanks look empty. You don't see the shrimp until feeding, and most my shrimp are trained to feeding stations that are not located to enable or conducive to photography, under the weeds or in the back of the tank where I can't get camera access. There are reasons for most everything I do, and why I do it THAT way, such that the last priority is set-up for the good photo-op, unfortunately. Here is a close up of the black tiger tank, in it you see the feeding station in the "cave" that is my best station to photograph them.


----------



## mysticalnet

greenisgood said:


> There are basically only two locations I can shoot from, due to the way the space is crammed. Here is the other, which is actually shot through a door. I can't get back enough to get a wide shot from anywhere else than these two locations.
> 
> And for close-ups... my tanks largely all look the same... like... habitat... water, light, moss, substrate, leaves. On first glance, my tanks look empty. You don't see the shrimp until feeding, and most my shrimp are trained to feeding stations that are not located to enable or conducive to photography, under the weeds or in the back of the tank where I can't get camera access. There are reasons for most everything I do, and why I do it THAT way, such that the last priority is set-up for the good photo-op, unfortunately. Here is a close up of the black tiger tank, in it you see the feeding station in the "cave" that is my best station to photograph them.


Very interesting thread, cool shrimp room, you must have a lot of fun!  I see the USPS boxes too hehe


----------



## Moe

I wish I had a basement! I love your moss, its super nice!


----------



## swissian

What kind of moss is that in your black tiger tank? It looks really nice!


----------



## guppies

Donna your setup is amazing!


----------



## soundgy

Simply Stunning!


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, today in my spare time, I did a little shrimp shopping. (Shropping??)

Hint: only ONE of these items will be used for it's _intended_ purpose! Although, I'm not sure _what_ the intended purpose of a UV flashlight is...

Tonight, I have a date with Ebay, although I'm reasonably sure who I'm going out with, already...

Stay tuned for more mad shrimping!

-DK

P.S. The lamps made me mad... they are FOUR TIMES the cost of 48" T8 lighting for the same amount of tube.


----------



## jeepn4x4

Very interesting group of items you have purchased.


----------



## Captivate05

I love your refreshing attitude when it comes to high-class shrimp.

I also love the lateral thinking. Grew up with that, and I love the creativity it inspires 

I'm curious to see what you do with this jumble of items you have here. Something that involves a heavy lager flask, but not for lager...


----------



## [email protected]

UV flashlights are great for rock hounds and night time insect collectors.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Captivate05 said:


> I'm curious to see what you do with this jumble of items you have here. Something that involves a heavy lager flask, but not for lager...


Ja, my shropping adventures took me to a very large kitchen specialty store, BORG, Lowes, and a drug store, today. 

The kitchen store had three good candidates of beer mugs, but I chose the largest, heaviest most he-man one for my purposes, with a thick, stout handle. I was in there probably an hour, going systematically aisle to aisle, looking at all the potential parts and their uses... kitchen gizmo stores can have surprisingly good "items" for projects. And, no, the turkey baster isn't for anything so mundane as sucking up leftover food or stuff off the substrate... it has a much more sophisticated fate... that also includes the hose disconnects. Ironically, the main thing I went to the kitchen store to get, they hadn't one that fit my criteria. But on my way home, eureka struck, and I'm off to the races on [Ebay Link Removed]

-DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

[email protected] said:


> UV flashlights are great for rock hounds and night time insect collectors.


Hm. Well, as a matter of fact, I've been known to do both. But I've never used a UV flashlight in the process, so now I can revisit those activities with higher tech. I suppose one uses it to look for birefringence or something like fluoresence in mineral crystals, and I'm not sure what with the bugs... as an attractant, against a white sheet?? You can use them to look for dog pee on your rugs, I know that.


----------



## oblongshrimp

How long are your lights on a day? It doesn't look like you have a problem with hair algae. I always seem to get hair algae when I add to many leaves.


----------



## DKShrimporium

swissian said:


> What kind of moss is that in your black tiger tank? It looks really nice!


I don't know! It looks a lot like shubbery to me, and sort of similar to Taiwan/Christmas, but grows upright. Here is a better shot, perhaps somebody out there could ID it for us?



oblongshrimp said:


> How long are your lights on a day? It doesn't look like you have a problem with hair algae. I always seem to get hair algae when I add to many leaves.


Hm, well, as usual, there's a complex answer to this. Each rack is on a timer about 12 hours, but the racks themselves are staggered so as to simulate dawn and dusk, so the racks on the whole are in total darkness about 10 hours.


----------



## whizzle

greenisgood said:


> Hm. Well, as a matter of fact, I've been known to do both. But I've never used a UV flashlight in the process, so now I can revisit those activities with higher tech. I suppose one uses it to look for birefringence or something like fluoresence in mineral crystals, and I'm not sure what with the bugs... as an attractant, against a white sheet?? You can use them to look for dog pee on your rugs, I know that.


A lot of people here in the desert use them to find scorpions. The glow really bright under uv light


----------



## aman74

greenisgood said:


> I don't know! It looks a lot like shubbery to me, and sort of similar to Taiwan/Christmas, but grows upright. Here is a better shot, perhaps somebody out there could ID it for us?
> 
> 
> 
> Hm, well, as usual, there's a complex answer to this. Each rack is on a timer about 12 hours, but the racks themselves are staggered so as to simulate dawn and dusk, so the racks on the whole are in total darkness about 10 hours.


Is that pearling I see? Nice moss, hopefully someone can figure out what it is.


----------



## snausage

That looks like stringy moss to my eyes.


----------



## A Hill

DK I didn't know you had such a setup going with so many great projects. I wish I wasn't in a dorm these days so I could do this at home but I can't. Funny enough I also have the start of an orange RCS strain but not without red, my goal is a mix of deep red/purple in females and orange with red striped males. They're back in RI though so I'm hoping they're still going well and producing babies for me. When I left I had a dozen berried RCS. If you want some to play with, when I'm back for spring break I'll send you some, I think you might be able to have fun with the strain. (these aren't for sale to anyone else reading this nor available, sorry)

The moss isn't erect moss or stringy moss. It is probably Taiwan moss as you suspected. Another close guess with christmas moss but I think it is Taiwan moss, the fronds aren't as crinkly as they would be on christmas moss.

-Andrew


----------



## justin182

I don't think it's Taiwan moss, which resembles Christmas moss in form. I think Taiwan moss is more symmetrical left and right, and the tip SLIGHTLY goes upward. Definitely not the whole thing going up.


----------



## DKShrimporium

A Hill said:


> ...my goal is a mix of deep red/purple in females and orange with red striped males.


Can you post a picture to show what you mean by striped males? I've never seen stripes on cherry males. 

++++++++++

Here are some more shrimp-y mosses. 

First is my favorite; I think it's peacock moss. It looks in pictures like Taiwan/Xmas, but it is a finer texture. I love this moss.

Second is I think stringy moss, in the yellows tank. It has a coarse, pointy texture and seems to grow upright for me. What else could it be if it's not stringy moss?

Third is flame in the background, java in the foreground, taken through very dirty glass in the Sakura tank. I need to yank the java, but haven't the heart, as those guys love to graze on top, and shrimp call the shots at my house, second only to the German Shepherds.

Fourth I think may be weeping moss. I've had it before in a properly planted tank and it looked different than this, but it was enhanced with juiced water and CO2 in that tank, whereas in this tank it ran with nothing but water for the past few months as the tank got cycled. I swear it is draping on me like weeping moss, and I had bought some a year or so ago that I threw into a tank and decided I was scammed.


----------



## Moe

very nice moss!


----------



## swissian

Wow! I love all the moss.


----------



## DKShrimporium

A few more pictures.

Black tiger mama.

Red tiger babies. Now I know why I think there's nothing in that tank... they are nearly invisible to see.


----------



## FriendlyNeighbor

greenisgood said:


> ... the racks themselves are staggered so as to simulate dawn and dusk, so the racks on the whole are in total darkness about 10 hours.


Can you explain what you mean by staggered? And is it necessary to simulate dawn/dusk with these shrimp?


----------



## gordonrichards

Black tiger momma = sexy sexy


----------



## aelysa

Does it grow like crazy with bright light? I have the same stuff, pretty sure it's erect moss.


----------



## DKShrimporium

FriendlyNeighbor said:


> Can you explain what you mean by staggered? And is it necessary to simulate dawn/dusk with these shrimp?


Each complete rack is on a central timer for that rack. So say rack #1 starts on at 6 am and off at 6 pm. Then rack #2 starts on at 6:15 am and off at 6:15 pm. Rack #3 on at 6:30 and off at 6:30...

I don't know if the shrimp care or not, actually. I do it because I want light down there if I go down early in the morning, or sort of later in the evening! There is always a rack lit up to look at, for a shrimp addict's fix!!!



aelysa said:


> Does it grow like crazy with bright light? I have the same stuff, pretty sure it's erect moss.


It does grow fast, but all my mosses do. And I've never grown it under other than shop light, so does that qualify as "bright light?" Also, one hint to the ID must be the way the outer parts of the "fingers" on the branches have this bend in them, and after the bend, sometimes the leaves are larger than before the bend. It always tries to grow up, too, never points down.

+++++++++++

So, back to madness. Here are pics of recent items, used for other than their intended purpose:

This is one of DK's "vats o' magic juice" - one of my water component streams. I mix the chemicals in the vat. I had trouble keeping my hose at the bottom, so was jamming it into a glass jar. It worked, but I was afraid of the jar breaking, and it also put the hose end inside the jar, which... I dunno... wasn't ideal. I needed a weight. (BING BING: lateral thinking alert...) So I thought about my needs... a corrosion resistant, non-reactive weight that I could put around my hose, to hold the end at the bottom of the vat. Yeah, that lager mug works just fine, and is stout enough (do you like my pun?) that I won't worry about it shattering. 3 bucks. These pics also show the $1.50 plastic hook, which is used to suspend my fountain pump (that thing will shoot a 12 foot height), which I use to "stir" my magic vats when I'm mixing a new batch o' brew...

BTW, that HOB sponge prefilter on the end of my hose is technically also being used for other than its intended purpose.


----------



## zxc

Hey, Donna. can you tell us more about your magic juice. it is for breeding purpose or for health?


----------



## DKShrimporium

zxc said:


> Hey, Donna. can you tell us more about your magic juice. it is for breeding purpose or for health?


One part eye of newt... one part pheromone... one part molting magic... one part addictive substance.... a sprinkle of sparklie dust...

Actually, it's just makin' water. Like equilibrium/RO right/Mosura Mineral Plus on a vat-like scale.

+++++++++++++

New pics. Please tell me if it's too many. I have a "new" camera, and plus the shreemps are doing well, so I'm having fun taking pictures, that's all. (I'm desperately trying to get as smart as my Idiot Camera - so far, it is waay smarter than I am.)

OE Black Tiger F2, about 1.2 cm today.

My menagerie of genes - poison baby, DE black, vintage line black, Mr. Poison blue. Mr. Poison blue is like a cuttlefish. He ranges from navy/dark royal, all the way up to bright royal/sky blue. Possibly hormonal with the molting cycle? Look at that load Mrs. Vintage Line is carrying! I'm very excited about the possibilities with her - she carries accents on the tail and also some white stippling, in addition to the ability to throw broken blacks toward T-rexes. Bred to a high grade male, she can augment the pigment in that direction, too. For now, it's all random in there, until it's crawling with interesting possibilities from the mix-n-match.


----------



## Moe

Keep them pictures coming!


----------



## zxc

moremore tiger pic DK


----------



## H82LOS3

OMG what a beauty


----------



## [email protected]

If someone gets tired of the pictures, the next person won't. 
Keep them coming. 
Seeing proof that they can be bred is helpful in an of itself.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, guess what? Mrs. Vintage Line dropped her babies in the last day! 

Here are some new entries, fresh off my new CCD, today:

A wad of Blue Bees, 2 mm tinies (no, those are not Mrs. Vintage Line's, alas - different tank).

Foolin' around with learning the manual focus on my "new" (eBay is my friend) camera - a spidery shot.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And here's a shot of Celebrity Shrimp Rolf, the OE Blue Tiger T-Rex.

He has let fame go to his head, and now refuses to pose for photos for free. He has also grown about 4 mm in the past week! I _will_, however, act as blossoming paparazzi and stalk Rolf, we will get his story chronicled!


----------



## jeepn4x4

Such amazing looking shrimp. Even from the backside.


----------



## speedie408

Great pix!! Keep them coming!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Pretty sure this is one of Mrs. Vintage Line's new babies. This little squirt is only 2-3 mm long today.

Nice shot of Mr. Orange Sakura, who cooperated and came up against the glass. 

Had a great pow-wow with Mr. Plumbing at Lowes, yesterday. He's my fav of the guys there - former Marine, now does a fire alarm business and diddles a few hours at Lowes in between. He loves it when I come in and he gets to problem solve with me. Yesterday, he told me about McMastercarr dot com -- oh la la, and I thought Grainger had everything!!


----------



## aelysa

Can't wait to see how new baby finishes out!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Finally coaxed a female orange Sakura out of the weeds. It's funny, because the red Sakura berried females like nothing better than to bask in the "sun" on top of their moss, but the orange ones hide deep in the weeds in their tank.


----------



## Betta Maniac

Oooooooooo, like the orange ones!


----------



## Big Dog

Very cool setup.


----------



## toanxtoan

DK, many years ago, in trying to find a good career path, I sat down and wrote out all the things i love to do. at the top of the list, 1. Creating environments where life can thrive., and 2. Being intelligent/creative. =)


----------



## HOLLYWOOD

One question.... with optimum conditions what is the growth rate of your OEBT from birth to 1/2"


----------



## whizzle

Any new shots of Rolf?


----------



## DKShrimporium

toanxtoan said:


> DK, many years ago, in trying to find a good career path, I sat down and wrote out all the things i love to do. at the top of the list, 1. Creating environments where life can thrive., and 2. Being intelligent/creative. =)


OK, so I gotta ask... what career did you end up in?? 



HOLLYWOOD said:


> One question.... with optimum conditions what is the growth rate of your OEBT from birth to 1/2"


Hi Arnold, - I'd say a good rule of thumb is 2 mm growth in length per week, fairly consistently.



whizzle said:


> Any new shots of Rolf?


I'll see what I can do; it probably won't be today, as I am pretty booked, today. I did see Rolf yesterday, and he's growing well and looking handsome.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So I went down there, asking after Rolf, and there were whisperings. Hansel, his dark eyed brother, came up to the glass, insisting Rolf is letting the attention go to his head. So I shot a pic of Hansel, instead.

He might be a previous offspring of Mrs. Vintage Line - you can see the effect of the white stippling on his bold T-Rex markings. I just love all the variations...


----------



## DKShrimporium

And then I heard this little gal fuming, "Bichromes... they think they're _soooooooooooooooo_ hot! Hmph! Splashy color, all over the place, it's downright VULGAR, I say!"


----------



## problemman

How did the t rex patterning come about?


----------



## Loachutus

problemman said:


> How did the t rex patterning come about?


 http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/s.../107610-t-rex-tigers-black-tiger-variant.html :icon_smil


----------



## HOLLYWOOD

Donna,

I have not seen this particular growth rate and was wondering what I can do to get this result.... im looking forward to your shrimp sale. 




greenisgood said:


> Hi Arnold, - I'd say a good rule of thumb is 2 mm growth in length per week, fairly consistently.


----------



## problemman

Loachutus said:


> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/s.../107610-t-rex-tigers-black-tiger-variant.html :icon_smil


Thanks!


----------



## toanxtoan

greenisgood said:


> OK, so I gotta ask... what career did you end up in??



Hehehe, i did engineering for a while but did not enjoy it. Last year i seriously begun a fish, shrimp, aq. plants room but not "making it" just yet. i want to grow dart frogs, and terrestrial plants for food, and maybe some chickens for eggs.


----------



## whizzle

Amazing shrimp! Like always lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Thursday Fun: Scenes Around the Place*

1. No, it's not used for hot beverages. I use it to adjust fittings.
2. DK likes handy things.
3. Dirty dishes
4. DK likes power.
5. DK is a closet mad alchemist.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And DK is ALWAYS tripping over one of these... my FAVORITE shrimp! Hey Todd, are you watching - that shrimp's for you??


----------



## antbug

hahaha that's the "are you messing with the shrimp again" look. I know cause I get it from my dogs all the time.


----------



## jeepn4x4

Are you sure your shrimp don't come from a test tube??????


----------



## DKShrimporium

Celebrity Shrimp Rolf, his bro Hansel at his back, and their broke-black bro Heinrich, take on the monos, "In yo face, redeye... _broke-blacks rule! Yur nuthin but a buncha clones!_"

"Watchit, fancy-boy yellow beads, we outnumber you broke-blacks, and we're gonna OWN this leaf," mono spews.


----------



## whizzle

lol love the dialogue


----------



## DKShrimporium

HOLLYWOOD said:


> Donna,
> 
> I have not seen this particular growth rate and was wondering what I can do to get this result....


I don't do anything special; I just throw them food - mostly Hikari sinking wafers and Ken's sticks, and then veggies when I have time to cook them.



toanxtoan said:


> Hehehe, i did engineering for a while but did not enjoy it. Last year i seriously begun a fish, shrimp, aq. plants room but not "making it" just yet. i want to grow dart frogs, and terrestrial plants for food, and maybe some chickens for eggs.


LOL, I just grow shrimp for fun. 

My dream career would be to raise litters of German Shepherds for service dogs - search & rescue, seeing eye, autism service, seizure alert, etc.



jeepn4x4 said:


> Are you sure your shrimp don't come from a test tube??????


No. Those little vacuum sealed bags. Much less trouble. So very fresh, too.

++++++++++

Back to the adventures of Rolf, the Celebrity Shrimp. 

++++++++++

In the meantime, Rolf has shed his narcissim and headed up the resistance. He is deep in the midst of covert recruiting.

Rolf sashays up to a clone recruit, whispers aside to her, "C'mon, join us... see, I have yellow eyes, too. But I can think _independently_. The bros and I have a plan... listen, _you don't have to become one of them_, just because you LOOK like a clone. _C'mon, think for yourself! Break free_!"

"Muuuuuuussssssssssst gooooooooooooo. It...calls...meeeeeeeeeeee. Alllllllllllll blackkkkkkkkkkkk. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre blaaaaaack. Must. Join. The. Collective...." she responds, foggily, stumbling toward the other clones.

Heinrich's efforts met a similar fate... the pull of the Collective was _very_ powerful.


----------



## Captivate05

greenisgood said:


> I don't do anything special; I just throw them food - mostly Hikari sinking wafers and Ken's sticks, and then veggies when I have time to cook them.
> 
> 
> 
> LOL, I just grow shrimp for fun.
> 
> My dream career would be to raise litters of German Shepherds for service dogs - search & rescue, seeing eye, autism service, seizure alert, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> No. Those little vacuum sealed bags. Much less trouble.
> 
> ++++++++++
> 
> Back to adventures of Rolf, the Celebrity Shrimp.
> 
> ++++++++++
> 
> In the meantime, Rolf has shed his narcissim and headed up the resistance. He is deep in the midst of covert recruiting.
> 
> Rolf sashays up to a clone recruit, whispers aside to her, "C'mon, join us... see, I have yellow eyes, too. But I can think _independently_. The bros and I have a plan... listen, _you don't have to become one of them_, just because you LOOK like a clone. _C'mon, think for yourself! Break free_!"
> 
> "Muuuuuuussssssssssst gooooooooooooo. It...calls...meeeeeeeeeeee. Alllllllllllll blackkkkkkkkkkkk. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre black. Must. Join. The. Collective...." she responds, foggily, stumbling toward the other clones.
> 
> Heinrich's efforts met a similar fate... the pull of the Collective was very powerful.


LMAO! Sounds like my fiance's commentary when he's watching my shrimp duke it out with the zebra oto for the Ken's sticks. Then they all get into an interesting battle when my gertrudaes try to take over, voiced over by my smarty-pants fiance.


----------



## Loachutus

> Hey Todd, are you watching - that shrimp's for you??


When will you be shipping him?:hihi:

Enjoying the thread and the madness.:icon_wink:icon_lol: Please keep it coming!


----------



## DKShrimporium

_We interrupt the adventures of Rolf (et al.) to bring to you a fresh, invigorating entry to the Gallery of DK. Do click the picture to view it properly full size._

This piece is entitled:

_Be Shrimp_​
If you find resonance with this piece, intuitively _understand_ the title, find yourself relaxing and entering into a state of alpha waves, while at the same time find your mind excitedly generating four letter words, _you score high on the shrimpkeeper's potential scale_.

If, however, you cannot understand why this is posted, and it causes your mind to wander in boredom and generate two or three letter words ("so," "huh," "eh"), I would suggest you _seek another life path_.


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

I got two four letter phrases.

Black king kong shrimp. (or maybe orange eyed blue/black tiger. It's shadowed) And a little part of me also screamed, "that shrimp is berried!" It sure looks like it. 

They're amazingly gorgeous. And you're near PA too! Are you open for tours? Lol jk :hihi:


----------



## 1aqumfish

I love where you are going with this!


----------



## gordonrichards

She looks like a mommy filled with eggs!


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK shrimp IQ quiz - test your shrimpkeeping.

Why should a shrimpkeeper care about this picture? (The answer does not have to do with fashion. I will post my response tomorrow, but in the meantime, chime in with your opinions...)


----------



## Captivate05

The baby shrimp has a poopy! Which means it's finding enough to eat well and is growing healthy.

That's my guess anyway. When babies poop good, it (basically) means they are getting what they need. Not the whole answer obviously, but when they don't poop, that's a problem.

Geez, what does parenting do to you? :hihi:


----------



## Amazonfish

Is that a piece of styrofoam? to me, it looks like that shrimp is not in water. It looks like it's chillin' out on a piece of styro. But I could just be looking waaaay too far into this.


----------



## Moe

That's baby shrimp has some good color for its age, its not very old.


----------



## RcScRs

1.) The shrimp has very good coloration and will possibly darken for a higher grade Blue Tiger Shrimp.
2.) Stripes are not evident due to picture quality, but possibly new strain.
3.) The surface the shrimp is on is very clean, perhaps new and contains very little to no microbacteria or algae. Could have been washed in tap water.
4.) There is a crack in the surface the shrimp is on and could lead to the death or off numbers on future generations.
5.) There is a fuzzy substance that could possibly be a fungus that is connected to the end of the shrimp or on its fecal matter which can indicate constipation as fungus can only form after being out for at least a couple of minutes.


----------



## Kibblemania1414

very impressed!!!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Another forum asked me to post these pics, so I thought I'd throw them up here, too. These are horrible pics, but examples of what I call "lavendar" blue tiger shrimp

I have a red-line of Blue Tigers I've been playing with a couple years, and they kick out what I call "Lava" tigers and "Lavendar" tigers.


----------



## RcScRs

Isn't that "red" gene common among Blue Tiger Shrimp? Every colony I have ever seen always had a few individuals with the red gene.


----------



## jczernia

[ LOL, I just grow shrimp for fun. 

My dream career would be to raise litters of German Shepherds for service dogs - search & rescue, seeing eye, autism service, seizure alert, etc.]


I should trade you K9 dog training for some of your shrimp or 3 of my GSD for your shrimp farm, LOL:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:


----------



## DKShrimporium

Captivate05 said:


> The baby shrimp has a poopy! Which means it's finding enough to eat well and is growing healthy.


Ladies and gents.... right out of the gate, we have a shrimpkeeper. This concept is aligned with my question (we cannot say "the answer" is "right" or "wrong" in this politically correct age). In the first week of growth, a baby shrimp nearly doubles in size, length-wise, so proportionally speaking it's metabolism is greatest the first week of life. Notice this baby shows a full and overflowing gut! 



Amazonfish said:


> Is that a piece of styrofoam?


Poly, yes. But not expanded poly-styrene. Poly-vinyl chloride. I've learned a lot about plastic polymers, from shrimpkeeping, believe it or not.



Moe said:


> That's baby shrimp has some good color for its age, its not very old.





RcScRs said:


> 1.) The shrimp has very good coloration and will possibly darken for a higher grade Blue Tiger Shrimp.
> 2.) Stripes are not evident due to picture quality, but possibly new strain.
> 3.) The surface the shrimp is on is very clean, perhaps new and contains very little to no microbacteria or algae. Could have been washed in tap water.
> 4.) There is a crack in the surface the shrimp is on and could lead to the death or off numbers on future generations.
> 5.) There is a fuzzy substance that could possibly be a fungus that is connected to the end of the shrimp or on its fecal matter which can indicate constipation as fungus can only form after being out for at least a couple of minutes.


You can see from the photo, with the baby in the foreground, that it is near the size of the width of a strand of moss. Actually it _is_ the size of a strand of moss, but looks slightly larger since it's in the foreground. So that baby is 1-2 day old, and 2-3 mm length - very young and tiny. Only a very strongly pigmented shrimp will show any color at this age; stripes aren't seen at this age.



RcScRs said:


> Isn't that "red" gene common among Blue Tiger Shrimp? Every colony I have ever seen always had a few individuals with the red gene.


Yes, this pigment is "endemic" to the blue tiger genome. Under a microscope, these shrimp (that is, all blue tiger shrimp) have what appear to be two sets of chromatophores: blackish blue ones, and reddish rust ones, distributed differently. They appear to be separate, suggesting separate genes to control them.

Looking at a crystal gold/white under the microscope, one can also see different chromatophores, some colored ones around the head/rostrum showing bolt colors in garden variety golds/whites. Some astute breeder noticed this trait and bred toward it, developing the bolt varieties. The element was already there, just became developed through selective breeding. So my reason for posting this was that in all the _many_ conversations I've had with folks about Blue Tigers, _all_ the interest is focused on the dark blues. With this reddish pigment, very interesting other possibilities exist.



jczernia said:


> I should trade you K9 dog training for some of your shrimp or 3 of my GSD for your shrimp farm, LOL:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:


Well, I think 5 German Shepherds might kill me. Right now, two are doing a pretty good job on me!


----------



## RcScRs

Wow, my mistake. I thought the moss was Egeria sp. All my proportions were off because of that! XD


----------



## problemman

I really like those lava and purples


----------



## damenblankenship

All I can say is wow! That set up is awesome!


----------



## ezcry4t3d

You are doing some spectacular things. Can you tell us how many total tanks of what sizes, total gallons of water, and roughly how many square feet do you have devoted to this hobby?


----------



## toanxtoan

greenisgood said:


> Poly, yes. But not expanded poly-styrene. Poly-vinyl chloride. I've learned a lot about plastic polymers, from shrimpkeeping, believe it or not.


DK, Have you found a good way to bond poly-propyl or ethyl?


----------



## DKShrimporium

toanxtoan said:


> DK, Have you found a good way to bond poly-propyl or ethyl?


3M scotch weld DP-8005 will chemically bond polypropylene and polyethylene


----------



## blacksheep998

Wow! Nice setup and some seriously nice shrimp!

I've seen tons of questions about your setups, but what I'd like to ask is about your shelves. I'd love to get my hands on some similar ones, and have found them for sale but were always out of my price range.

Do you mind if I ask where did you get yours?


----------



## bobp9500

I have used what we call Dexion shelves in my fish room.
It is now my opinion that you can't beat wooden shelves for your tanks.
----boB


----------



## Loachutus

> I've seen tons of questions about your setups, but what I'd like to ask is about your shelves. I'd love to get my hands on some similar ones, and have found them for sale but were always out of my price range.
> 
> Do you mind if I ask where did you get yours?


Checkout post #19.:icon_smil


----------



## blacksheep998

Loachutus said:


> Checkout post #19.:icon_smil


Ah, thanks. I'd missed that part. It seems that my concern with supporting tanks is well understood among the experts.


----------



## Gatekeeper

Haven't read all of it yet, but I am so subscribed. Some serious specimens.


----------



## DKShrimporium

ezcry4t3d said:


> You are doing some spectacular things. Can you tell us how many total tanks of what sizes, total gallons of water, and roughly how many square feet do you have devoted to this hobby?


25 tanks, when I SWORE to myself I was only gonna do a _tiny_ rack of nine tanks, at first... I'm too tired to do math right now. I also have an entire room for storing, measuring chemicals, packing boxes, weighing stuff, and a desk for the microscopes. Which is why I don't have a DSLR - the microscopes won. But it kills me what I can see in them, that I can't take pictures of to show. 



Gatekeeper said:


> Haven't read all of it yet, but I am so subscribed. Some serious specimens.


I dunno, Glenn. I suspect Rolf is a _flaming_ drama queen. He is this thread's resident Celebrity Shrimp. Right now he's deep into the resistance movement, which is keeping his - ahem - dramatic tendencies at bay. But once the days of resistance are over... I just see Rolf as letting _loose_. Don't say I didn't warn you.


----------



## Gatekeeper

Rumor has it that Hansel is a disgruntled young sibling with a grudge and a motive. Reports have it that Rolf took a red-eyed black out back and.... well, you know the rest.
Hansel has spoken with authorities and is now may be vulnerable to retaliation by his peeps.
You may want to consider relocating him (and three of rour of his girlfriends *wink *wink) into protective custody. I would be MORE than happy to help protect that young vulnerable shrimp from such poor treatement by his fellow male shrimps.


----------



## soundgy

LOL! I'm surprised you don't start charging to read this thread.

Pure gold!

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Gatekeeper said:


> Rumor has it that Hansel is a disgruntled young sibling with a grudge and a motive. Reports have it that Rolf took a red-eyed black out back and.... well, you know the rest.
> Hansel has spoken with authorities and is now may be vulnerable to retaliation by his peeps.
> You may want to consider relocating him (and three of rour of his girlfriends *wink *wink) into protective custody. I would be MORE than happy to help protect that young vulnerable shrimp from such poor treatement by his fellow male shrimps.


_Hansel steps out, taking time to think. He isolates himself from the rest, moving to a position of surveillance, re-plotting his strategy. He is worried Rolf may betray the resistance, caught up enamored with the red-eye clone. Hansel knows there is a new danger of the resistance being exposed, now. From above the fray, safe with a bird's eye view, he formulates his next move..._


----------



## DKShrimporium

_Hansel decides to change tactics, targeting the next generation of broke-blacks, while they are still young, and impressionable. He wanders into the midst of a few, casually strolling within speaking distance.

He sidelines a young one:_

"Hey - you. I see you are a broke-black, new around here. Whatchur name?"

"Adelheid, sir."

"Adelheid. Mmmmmmm. You know this means 'noble sort' and is from Old German, yes?"

"No, sir, I didn't know that."

"You should take heed of that. Whoever named you must have sensed your destiny. Let me tell you something..."

_Hansel whispers sideways to her, explaining the infiltration of the clones, opening up the concept of the resistance, suggesting to Adelheid that she must uphold the Old ways, and stubbornly resist the Collective's efforts toward eugenics. He thinks she may have listened, and then, having planted the seed, Hansel slips off, again, disappearing like a wisp of smoke...

Meanwhile, Rolf has been incommunicado. Red-eye clone lured him off, deep into the weeds, where he has not been seen for days._


----------



## ShortFin

greenisgood said:


> Which is why I don't have a DSLR - the microscopes won. But it kills me what I can see in them, that I can't take pictures of to show.


Perhaps a microscope upgrade with the one that can take pictures?


----------



## DKShrimporium

ShortFin said:


> Perhaps a microscope upgrade with the one that can take pictures?


Actually, the scopes are camera-ready, and I did buy the camera to go with them. What I did not know was that, when looking under a scope, the amount of photons available to the camera is not really sufficient, so you need to use an LED ring to augment the light. But more than that, the camera I got is a freeze frame video, which was the wrong thing - shoulda bought a still frame camera. The freeze frame is way too slow to capture a frame, and between the too-low light and the too slow capture, I gave up. (OK, so I have a low photography IQ)

Meanwhile, the shrimp under the scope with already incredibly bright light, is getting more and more psycho, and zipping around trying to escape that horribly bright light it senses.

**********

_In the interim, Celebrity Shrimp Rolf has strutted out of the weeds, smirk on his rostrum. He alights the zucchini slice like he owns the world._


----------



## DKShrimporium

_Hansel spots Rolf, and heads straight to the zucchini. Rolf, of course, gives Hansel the slip. Hansel is left looking around, and suddenly sees...

Rolf's red-eye clone fling has got herself knocked up!!!

Hansel is *fuming*. How *DARE* Rolf consort with the enemy!!!_


----------



## DKShrimporium

_Rolf, smooth, fancy guy that he is, has made his way over to some yellow-eye clone ladies. He says,_

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeey ladies, I see we all have yellow eyes! What say we travel to the pellet, later, and have a snack?"

_They stick their rostrums up in a huff, and stomp off, offended at his splashiness._


----------



## DKShrimporium

_Suddenly, Red-eye clone plows through the crowd, right into Rolf's rostrum._

"ROLF!!! And I thought better of you, you two-, no, three-timing crusty! Lies!! Everything you said was _lies_!!!"

"Baby, let me explain..."

***********

What has Rolf _done_? Has he ruined their chances for the resistance, _or is there some plan in place_???

Stay tuned...


----------



## whizzle

I think Rolf planned this from the beginning. Keep us informed. Viva la resistance!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Today in the mail, a mysterious package arrived, addressed to *DK's Mad Lab*. (no joke, this is real). 

I open it up, to find this inside:

I'm pretty sure one of _y'all_ sent it...

I can't figure out how they knew what I look like, in real life!!


----------



## aelysa

Now THAT is funny!


----------



## ckarr

Great thread and set-up, I remember reading about what you feed but not your water parameters?


----------



## justin182

He's probably one of your past customers! Props to him!


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, lest you think this is some sorta _high class _operation, lemme present DK's _*There I Fixed It*_

(Do click the link for hilarity - if you _really_ need a belly laugh, check out the Engrish section)

Project 1: Saturday's Madness involved the installation of a feedback relay switch into my water factory. It prevents gremlins in my pumps from firing the pumps if the water is not flowing, thereby disallowing my water to get to toxic levels of injected materials. I won't get into the specifics here, but that is the gist of it (that falls under do your own homework). I used a three-gang box to mount the relay, but needed a cover, and had to improvise with what was cheap and readily available. I bought two covers (one a single blank plate), used a little chop saw magic, a little hot glue (kinda like the liquid version of duct tape), drilled some holes, and made me a cover that works.

Project 2: I have two sump pumps in the operation. One is located such that I often have to lean over it to get to something, or see something. I keep nearly poking my eye out on the sump lift float. So I found me a ping pong ball...

Next project: where to put our new "mascot" from the previous post. I'm thinking above the water factory with a view of the operation.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So yesterday, the frogs arrived, just in the nick of time, but _still _not ahead of Murphy.

This morning as I was sipping latte, the electronic beeping started to penetrate my haze. It's hard to trace beeps in a house full of geeks, but I did discover one of my water alarms was going off in the shrimp room.

When you get above, oh, about ten tanks, it's definitely time to start thinking about secondary systems such as backups, alarms, sumps, feedback loops. This has been the theme, this week, in the shrimp room.

One of my input lines was not properly adjusted (I had changed a fitting on it the other day, and it was about 2 mm off in position, allowing it to leak and ooze, puddling on the floor beneath one of the racks). 

I hope you can learn from my mistakes. I'd already learned one lesson from water alarms before yesterday. This is that you don't place the water alarm directly underneath where you most expect a leak. Why? In my case, I came down to the shrimp room to find a mini-flood, and no alarm going off. The water had dripped right _onto_ the alarm, filling the electronics with water, shorting it out, ruining the unit. So now I place the alarms underneath the rack shelves, where the water on the floor will seep after a few minutes of collecting. This resulted in a proper warning to me, this morning.

Here are some pics: 

The old water alarms, with the hole on the top that got filled with water.

The new leakfrogs, that I couldn't resist because they were so cute. They also have vulnerability on the top surface, so they will be sitting under sandwich baggie hats during their watch. They are much louder than the old alarms, too.

And some other necessities - I keep a stack of towels in the shrimp room for such occasions. And for years I've had an industrial strength mop bucket, that I've been glad to have many times. You can squeeze out towels in the top part of it, as well as mop heads.

To those of you who struggle with shrimp: I have learned mostly from my failures, and I think I've made darned near every mistake at least once. I've learned that the next mistake is out there, waiting, and I probably won't know what it is, until I make it. So shrimpkeeping makes you methodical, alert, resilient, and humble. It has given me many lessons about life, in general.


----------



## oblongshrimp

Yes having extra towels around is ALWAYS a good idea. I can't remember how many times I have used them and they saved my ass. I was looking to invest in some water alarms as well, any specific brand recommendations?


----------



## DKShrimporium

oblongshrimp said:


> Yes having extra towels around is ALWAYS a good idea. I can't remember how many times I have used them and they saved my ass. I was looking to invest in some water alarms as well, any specific brand recommendations?


Well, my experience is limited so far to the two shown above, and the frogs just arrived yesterday and were deployed today. But I would suggest features to look for:

One nine-volt battery instead of multiple AA or AAA.
A low-battery indicator.
A battery compartment that snaps shut rather than has little screws you have to unscrew.
And, of course, a speaker that is loud enough to hear.

I will say I also have this product and endorse it, if money is no object - it's quite a bit more expensive per unit than the others, but has all the features. The wires in the arm are a hefty 2 mm diameter, so aren't flimsy cheap wires. I bend the wires to make an upside down "J" and hook it over the edge of a tank when refilling from a water change. It goes off when the water level reaches the contacts, and then you don't forget and overflow the tank. It can also be placed just about anywhere, because the wire arm can be bent to sense in any direction. It also has a blinking light warning for low battery. And, contrary to some of its reviews, unless you are _deaf_, you can hear this thing! I haven't ever deployed this one for a floor alarm, but it would certainly work well for that.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Is it just me.... or.... what is your first impression when you see this picture?

And also... look what was in the back yard just now!


----------



## jczernia

deer poop?? LOL
CBS:hihi:


----------



## flwrbed

crystal black shrimp on a cup cake and dear jerky. 
first thing i thought of.


----------



## XMX

Very impressive! Any update?


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK has been quietly doing mad science. Tinkering with mineral profiles, researching shrimp biology and doing other mad studies. 

I asked Rolf for a report, today, after he finally climbed out of the weeds, again, much more mature now, and offering a photo-op. He and Hansel are growing well, nearly 3/4 inch now. Subsequent batches have produced a few more that look closely like Hansel, so in a few more weeks, they will have grown close enough in size that I won't be able to tell Hansel from them on casual glance. Rolf remains one of a kind, though!

Also, got in a shipment of my new shrimp sistah sororities. I'm really pleased with this fired ceramic product.


----------



## oblongshrimp

What is the point of those? Just providing more surface area?


----------



## H82LOS3

Love the update pics, keep it up lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

oblongshrimp said:


> What is the point of those? Just providing more surface area?


They're man-caves. But for females. And for shrimp.

Berried females want cover. They want to eat like pigs. They want to hang upside down the few days before they bear their young. They feel very secure upside down in a dark tube with others. And the more secure they feel, and better fed they are, the better they bear.

Some berried "blue" bees, today.

**************

_Rolf casually sidles past his baby-mama. He whispers, "Sugah-swimmerettes, remember what we talked about, now. You can hang all you want with the clone sistahs afterwards. Heck, you can even join their clubs. The only thing is... the little swimmers are mine, OK? Once they pop, just send them all to poppa Rolf, and we're all square, between you and me, and the clones, remember?"

Baby-mama is relieved, thinking she can escape Rolf's proselytizing soon, and go back to the Club. Little does she comprehend that Rolf's plan includes not just her, but many of her sistahs are in the egg-way, too. Rolf has decided to trade one, for the many..._


----------



## XMX

Looking very nice! Are those regular black tigers or the ones with orange eyes?


----------



## nycfish

wow, your shrimp racks are amazing. I still need to put in an order for crs when it gets warmer. =)


----------



## dxiong5

Any update on your Red Tigers?


----------



## DKShrimporium

ckarr said:


> Great thread and set-up, I remember reading about what you feed but not your water parameters?


They differ from tank to tank, and, LOL, from day to day, as DK does mad science and experiments.



XMX said:


> Looking very nice! Are those regular black tigers or the ones with orange eyes?


If you read back in the thread, you will see there are a variety: vintage line dark eye black tigers from classic tiger stock, orange eye black tigers from vintage x blue tiger development, t-rex of both eye types, etc.



dxiong5 said:


> Any update on your Red Tigers?


They are slowly cooking along in the weeds. I haven't paid them much attention lately as I've been busy focusing in other areas. I did get a decent picture of one recently that shows better their delightful hot-sauce red coloring.

********

NEWSFLASH!! _Shrimp will make a liar of you, every time_! I no sooner than declared Rolf one-of-a-kind, than this little cocky dude shows up out of the weeds, today... Rolf Junior! He's approaching 1 cm size and as you can see is already charming the younger ones! Chip off the old block! (Actually, he's probably a later sibling, not offspring of Rolf.)


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

Looks awsome... Keep it up.. You are an inspiration to all us Shrimp keepers.


----------



## whizzle

ZID ZULANDER said:


> Looks awsome... Keep it up.. You are an inspiration to all us Shrimp keepers.


+1 definitely.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*For ULTI-GEEK shrimpkeepers - the low down on why Ca++ makes shrimp prettier*

I dare ya to read it:

http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/content/abstract/198/3/357

If you want it in one sentence, here it is:

_These data reveal an extracellular and an intracellular Ca++ requirement for RPCH action, and demonstrate that the centripetal or centrifugal direction of pigment movement, the translocation velocity, and the degree of pigment aggregation or dispersion attained are calcium-dependent properties of the granule translocation apparatus._​


----------



## mordalphus

Well that would be very scientific, Donna... Should put to rest some of these people who doubt the efficacy of mineral stones and mineral supplements.

Then again, it never does.

lol

Nice find, Donna


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

This study was done on Macrobrachium (e.g red claw shrimp) and I couldn't really make heads or tails of it, but...

Higher gH=better pigment distribution (nicer coloring) in shrimp? Within reason of course. There's a limit to gH, as too much causes molting problems. Errrr... think I got that right.

[strike]lol Liam I had to look up efficacy[/strike]


----------



## mordalphus

Nonono, calcium = good for pigment formation and coverage


----------



## DKShrimporium

*More shropping - DK's latest playthings...*

Mini-bulkheads...


----------



## whizzle

Bulkheads? Are you doing what we think your doing?


----------



## Cardinal Tetra

greenisgood said:


> I dare ya to read it:
> 
> http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/content/abstract/198/3/357
> 
> If you want it in one sentence, here it is:
> 
> _These data reveal an extracellular and an intracellular Ca++ requirement for RPCH action, and demonstrate that the centripetal or centrifugal direction of pigment movement, the translocation velocity, and the degree of pigment aggregation or dispersion attained are calcium-dependent properties of the granule translocation apparatus._​


Wow I'll have my bio degree in a month and I still had a heck of a time reading that lol. 

I really envy your red tiger btw. I sometimes get little red juveniles but they always disappear after time ( I'm assuming they turn into normal tigers).


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

So whats up with those and what are you using them for? Water changes or drains?




greenisgood said:


> Mini-bulkheads...


----------



## [email protected]

I'll see your mini bulkhead and raise you two. 
For the next hand, my ante is a grommet for connecting them to 1" pipe.


----------



## DKShrimporium

whizzle said:


> Bulkheads? Are you doing what we think your doing?


Well, I have _no idea _what you are thinking...



Cardinal Tetra said:


> Wow I'll have my bio degree in a month and I still had a heck of a time reading that lol.


Here it is in plain english, the DK paraphrase with reference to mass media examples:

_Ever see one of those nature TV shows about cuttlefish, and how they can make these mesmerizing waving patterns of color across themselves? They can do this by controling their chromatophores. Chromatophores are sort of like, um, well, pores, for lack of a better example. They are pigment-containing regions that can expand or contract the area containing pigment. When they are fully contracted, the animal can look nearly colorless, or clear. When they are fully expanded, the coloring can be dramatic. 

The way in which they expand or contract is not fully known, but it is controlled, or mediated, somehow by mechanisms that utilize calcium ions. It may be that hormones control it, and then need the presence of calcium ions to effect the change. But at any rate, this study concludes that whatever mechanism actually moves the pigment from a small region to a larger region needs calcium ions to do this effectively.

It doesn't have to do with *production* of the actual pigment, or the *quality* or *amount* of pigment. It has to do with the *molecular transport mechanism* that the chromatophores use to move the pigment from small regions to large regions. 

Calcium may also be involved in the production or quality/quantity of pigment, but this study doesn't address that._​


ZID ZULANDER said:


> So whats up with those and what are you using them for? Water changes or drains?


I'm makin' me some very high end acclimation chambers - set it and forget it style, because DK is sorta lazy and doesn't like to babysit things but rather likes to automate things - where I can drip high-end incoming livestock for days, or even weeks, for a VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY slow change in water conditions, until I get them where I want them. 



[email protected] said:


> I'll see your mini bulkhead and raise you two.
> For the next hand, my ante is a grommet for connecting them to 1" pipe.


Bu bu bu but.... a 1" pipe is rather large, doncha think? These babies need more like a 1/4" OD elbow. They are totally sweet, though. I do love parts...

Also ordered me a special plastic drill bit from an aircraft parts place. I do love it when I am taken to all different worlds, in search of shrimping parts...

Carry on, shrimpers...


----------



## mordalphus

so in other words, when crs are stressed, they constrict their chromatophores to become pale, and calcium ions are responsible for this action?


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> so in other words, when crs are stressed, they constrict their chromatophores to become pale, and calcium ions are responsible for this action?


Well, the study concludes that calcium ions are needed for the transport, but they don't know which direction it's used in: the expansion, or contraction, of the area of pigment. But the process whereby the pigment moves needs calcium ions present. In many cases in physiology, however, the calcium ion is used to mediate the active process (i.e., as long as calcium is present, the engine is running, and then is pumped back across a membrane afterward as the process goes quiescent and passive).

Based on my personal observations, I'd guess that the calcium is used in the dispersion of pigment - that the act of EXPANDING the pigment area is the active process, and the act of retracting the pigment area is the passive process. It could be that there are different mediators involved in the different directions, too. Usually, in physiological systems, there is a sort of baseline level of activity that is moderated up or down - it's not just as simple as an on-off switch. 

My guess is that calcium ions are used toward the _active_ process, and that the active process is that of _expanding_ pigment, and that inhibition results in passive retraction of the pigment.

Why I think this is that if you keep crystals relatively happy, they are fairly pigmented (so, a moderate level of active process going on, all the time, as baseline). But if you make them really happy, their pigment intensifies, such as when you finally feed them after a few days of not feeding. Cuttlefish increase their pigment into big displays in response to stress, positive or negative stress. This suggests that increasing the pigment area is the active process.

It's likely a lot more complicated that this, too. Usually, in physiological systems there is a reservoir of the thing like calcium that is under pump action that in the resting state the pumps are pumping the calcium into the reservoir and keeping a level of calcium in the reservoir. Then, when a stimulus comes for activity, the reservoir membranes are altered such that they leak the calcium out of the reservoir, and into a general area, where something else has calcium receptors that, when filled with calcium, make something else happen. So, the calcium, when loose, randomly finds a receptor to park in, causes a reaction, then eventually gets removed from the receptor via a recycling enzyme, and then pumped back into the reservoir, whose membranes have now recovered and are no longer leaky.

Biology is coo-el.


----------



## mordalphus

> the act of retracting the pigment area is the passive process


That sounds about right, because often if you look at CRS at night, their coloration is faded while in a resting mode. Not all of them, but I can pick out a few that are brilliantly white during the day, and faded about 6 hours after lights off.

Interesting for sure!


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

I find it hard to drip acclimate for a long time only because of the amount of water normally supplied but the shipper is low. I have wanted to automate here but with glass tanks that means drilling holes in glass. Not so much fun. I am in the process of switching my tanks to acrylic since its easier to drill and insulates better. The tanks are in the garage and this winter even though I am in CA was cold and the electric bill was high.


"I'm makin' me some very high end acclimation chambers - set it and forget it style, because DK is sorta lazy and doesn't like to babysit things but rather likes to automate things - where I can drip high-end incoming livestock for days, or even weeks, for a VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY slow change in water conditions, until I get them where I want them."


----------



## mordalphus

I drip acclimate in a 2 gallon bucket, placed in a 5 gallon bucket and generally do it overnight or however long it takes me to remember that i'm drip acclimating, lol.

Sounds cool though


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

so how does that work when you are being sent like a cup of water or just a little more. In a 2 gallon bucket wouldnt the shrimp be out of water?




mordalphus said:


> I drip acclimate in a 2 gallon bucket, placed in a 5 gallon bucket and generally do it overnight or however long it takes me to remember that i'm drip acclimating, lol.
> 
> Sounds cool though


----------



## mordalphus

Nah, they have about a centimeter of water usually. If the seller put less water than normal I'll use a dip'n'pour instead of the 2 gallon bucket, and still place it in the bottom of an empty 5 gallon bucket.

I usually buy over a hundred shrimp at a time though, so I generally have about a quart of water or a little more.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*More shropping - DK's latest playthings...*

I believe in method. In constancy and reproducibility (after I get done fiddling with variables, that is - LOL!!).

So today, I finally broke down and bought me this bad boy. It's a 1000-5000 microliter pipetman that will accurately dispense between 1 and 5 ml (it's adjustable, that is), every time. It's accurate and reproducible to 0.5%. No more messing with those stupid test tubes and the little mark, and getting a few drops more or less into them. But I have more important uses for this thing, too... (I bought the graduated cylinders to go with it a few months ago...)

(Don... Josh... are you reading??)

I once spent an entire week being trained by Lloyd's of London in Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance - no joke (that instructor was the most anal, obsessive-compulsive professional I had ever encountered), and it sort of polluted my mind... toward QA/QC
Carry on...


----------



## DKShrimporium

Bad Boy arrived today, freshly calibrated to third decimal place accuracy.

I set up a jig and used my new plastics bit to drill the micro-tanks. Here's a shot of the installed mini-bulkheads. These tanks are useful for acclimation, quarantine, medication, selective breeding.


----------



## [email protected]

Let me know what size pipet tips it takes.
The university surplus occasionally has boxes that are no longer useful for what ever lab they came out of. One never knows what one will find.
Today I got four pieces of perfect for LED light fixture - aluminum extrusions. They were originally a HEPA filter frame.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Bad Boy takes 1000-5000 microliter tips, but I will undoubtedly be investing in a 100-1000 microliter pipettor soon, too, so those two sizes I will use. I plan to reuse them as much as possible, though. I was horrified to see how much tips cost! - I negotiated with my vendor to get 20 tips for Bad Boy when I bought Bad Boy, because trying to buy the tips for Bad Boy would have nearly doubled my cost!

The whole shrimping thing has been such a fun adventure in lateral thinking / cross pollination. For example, just this week I bought stuff from and aircraft parts place, a lab supply vendor, an embroidery shop, and a memorabilia collector vendor. 

I try to spread my investment out proportionally: some toward livestock, some toward systems and systems upgrades. Right now, I'm on a QA kick, designing my systems and protocols for QA. If you don't have QA and are automated, you are setting yourself up for spectacular failure one day - never a good thing. 

Thanks for the offer, BTW - awesome! I am _such_ a dumpster diver at heart....

Any budding mad chemists reading?? PM me...


----------



## DKShrimporium

[email protected] said:


> They were originally a HEPA filter frame.


Let's hope it wasn't a discarded used filter cartridge from a laminar flow hood... eek!


----------



## dxiong5

Always interesting to see what you're up to. Sorry, what is "QA"?


----------



## DKShrimporium

dxiong5 said:


> Always interesting to see what you're up to. Sorry, what is "QA"?


QA = Quality Assurance

Basically, the theory is that every method is a process. (For example, raising shrimp).

Any method can be broken down into a protocol of steps, each step of which can be benchmarked by objective criteria. You identify the steps and benchmark criteria, then you check each step for constancy over time to make sure your method remains the same.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Bad Girl and Big Kahuna are on their way to DK's Mad Shrimp World. Part of the QA program, along with recent Ca++ and Mg++ titration tests. With these tools, I will be able to ensure consistent, batch-to-batch levels of minerals in the water factory.

Bad Girl is 100-1000 microliter pipette. Big Kahuna a 1000 ml graduated cylinder. Biology is coo-el. Chemistry is fun (I prefer to think of it as Mad Alchemy).

The larger micro-tanks have arrived. Maybe I'll post some pics later of the drilling jig and how I drilled them for the mini-bulkheads.


----------



## [email protected]

greenisgood said:


> Let's hope it wasn't a discarded used filter cartridge from a laminar flow hood... eek!


Cough, cough, rash, cough, why would you think that would be an issue? Cough, cough...

Actually it was brand new surplus. The used ones don't come through the surplus store for some reason. 
It's a high temp pleated box filter, or was. Now it's two pieces of 5.75" x 22.25" and two pieces of 5.75" x 23.75" aluminum heat sinks for LED fixtures.


----------



## [email protected]

A pack of 200 tips is "only" $39.26 here. 
http://www.bldsafety.com/Strl-Pptt-Tip-Unvrsl-1000-5000-p/s-128324.htm

I'll keep my tips on my look for list at U surplus. 

For those wondering, yes biological processes are processes that can be quantified. The FDA, for instance, requires quantification on biological processes used in medicinals and vaccines. I used to work for a vaccine manufacturer and the researchers had to quantify, unify, and document - everything.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's daily wish list, for the dumpster diver in you:


1.5 ml or slightly larger eppendorf tubes - color doesn't matter. Or capped vials of similar volume - I need them to dilute standard solution 1:10 of total 1 ml volume. (Bad Girl will come in handy, here.)
clear, disposable cuvettes, microcuvettes even better
Here's a shot of the (admittedly rough) jig I made to drill the micro tanks. Sweet bit.


----------



## [email protected]

You're making it hard on me. Eppendorf tubes usually run from $1.00 to $5.00 depending on how large a bag. I use them to give away samples of bring shrimp eggs. The most common buyers are beaders.


----------



## JamesHockey

Where'd you get the bulkheads?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk


----------



## DKShrimporium

[email protected] said:


> You're making it hard on me. Eppendorf tubes usually run from $1.00 to $5.00 depending on how large a bag. I use them to give away samples of bring shrimp eggs. The most common buyers are beaders.


So... it's hard on you because.... the beaders beat you up with sharp elbows at the lab dumpsters?? Or, did you mean that the beaders are trying to string brine shrimp eggs into teeny, tiny necklaces? (Miss Mosura, who is High Maintenance, says to her fiancee Mr. Hino, "I'm thinking about putting the bridesmaids in strings of brine eggs - what do you think darling?" Hino rolls his eyes and bites his tongue.) I could get by rinsing, with as few as a few - not the brine eggs, but the eppendorfs - but if they're cheap, I wouldn't mind a hundred or so. They're such _useful_ little things...

On the cuvettes, I only need one or two. I did the first Calcium titrations last night at the kitchen table. Today: Magnesium. 



JamesHockey said:


> Where'd you get the bulkheads?


Got 'em from here. I have my eye on their manifolds...

BTW, that's a lovely, happy avatar. So much dysfunction in the world -- it's nice to see happy people.

************

Big Kahuna arrived yesterday.

Next: a little shroppping at a tattoo supply... (DI rinse bottles). I was looking for vials yesterday while on the hunt for eppendorfs, and the perfumery people are useful for such things (I learned what a dram is), although I'll hold out for the eppendorfs so Don can have a mission in the name of Mad Shrimp Science... I could, of course, just get them off ebay, but that wouldn't be as sporting as involving another shrimper, and I'm all for spreading the Madness. Life is short, so make it fun, and don't be a sheep.

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

How'm I gonna explain that charge to TatooParts dot com on the credit card statement this month...


----------



## [email protected]

Those series are consistent enough. At the levels involved, a off shape drop can make an observable difference. I have that problem testing kH. Which is why one dilutes. Interesting. 

Beaders don't know enough to order lab supplies instead of bead containers. 
Non-Sterile, which is what I have, Eppendorf tubes aren't worth the shipping costs. ;-)
500 for $12.03
http://www.amazon.com/BrandTech-780...Centrifuge/dp/B003ULPAU6/ref=pd_sbs_indust_3f


No micropipette tips today.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Celebrity Shrimp Rolf finally climbs out of the weeds again, today. He has matured nicely!


----------



## mysticalnet

greenisgood said:


> Celebrity Shrimp Rolf finally climbs out of the weeds again, today. He has matured nicely!


Nice shrimp! What is it called? Blue tiger x crs?


----------



## shrimpnmoss

That's a sweet looking shirmp. I think Black Tiger X Blue Tiger = Rolf's patterns


----------



## DKShrimporium

Rolf is what I call a Blue T-Rex tiger. This is a result of black tiger x blue tiger. 

Black tigers were originally developed from non-blue, dark-eye standard (i.e. orange rostrum and tail) tiger shrimp by selectively breeding the ones with the broadest black stripes until they got the stripes to cover the entire carapace. Then, they took these shrimp and bred them over to blue tigers, and again selected toward broader stripe coverage and orange eyes. The complete coverage ones then were known as orange eyed black tigers. 

The ones with chunky black markings I call T-Rex, because they remind me of a T-Rex skeleton graphic.

Black tigers can range from Appaloosa-type spotty markings, to more continuous chunky T-Rex markings, to nearly complete coverage but with a scallop or jagged skirt line (I call those scallops), to solid black.

Some of the original, non-blue line blacks also carry white stippling on the black.

I'm crazy about the chunky, irregular black markings, especially when combined with blue color, orange eyes, or white stippling. They are each unique and can be watched with much more interest in a tank full of shrimp because you can identify each shrimp individually by their markings and characteristics.

There are also several eye types - chocolate brown that look black to the naked eye, dark tan with a black center, reddish, and then the metallic golden/orange eyes.

I just returned from a trip up to Ontario to see Niagara Falls; it was snowing up there, and the entire base of the gigantic falls was an ice field about 4 feet deep with cracks in it, and it was simply sublime and surreal to watch at the upper part of the horseshoe falls as the 3-4 foot chunks of ice came down the stream and went over the edge, plunging onto the ice field below. The mist also iced over on the bottom, making ice equivalent of gigantic stalagmites (but they were shaped like giant clods, not pointy) at the base of the falls...

Here's a picture of the American Falls, not the more famous Canadian Horseshoe Falls at Niagara which are upstream to the right of this picture (collectively they are known as Niagara Falls). The horseshoe falls were generating so much mist that you couldn't see them because they were then behind a cloud of mist! A picture of them just looked like a foggy day! The scale of the falls is misleading due to the foreground dark figures and the use of a zoom lens - that part of the photo is in the extreme foreground and the falls are hundreds of feet tall.

If you turn your head to the left, while looking at the American Falls, you see the second picture - the Rainbow Bridge that on one side is US soil, the other Canadian soil. On the bridge is a commercial bus, if you look closely. This give you an idea of the size of cliff that water is falling over.

-DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

I took the pictures in the previous post from atop the Sky Wheel. Here is a shot showing the larger picture. The foreground stuff is basically stuff on this side of a sort of "Grand Canyon" and the falls on the other edge of the canyon, falling hundreds of feet down. Maybe you can better appreciate the scale of things from this picture.

What you can't really see is at that foreground edge, if you stood at that chunky fence, you look straight down several hundred feet.

It was snowing big fluffy chunks of snow up until about half an hour before we rode the SkyWheel, so the windows on the SkyWheel were drippy with wetness, too, which made it even harder to take pictures through!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Wonder if there are shrimps under/behind those falls?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's the Canadian Horseshoe falls, which is what you see if you are looking at the American Falls and then turn your head toward the right (picture taken telephoto from atop the SkyWheel, again) - not very easy to photograph under these conditions with all the mist!

Standing at the edge where the water falls over, about a mile walk from where this picture was taken, one got the enormity of the falls - that water was falling in what seemed like at least an 8 foot thick wall edge. It was absolutely horrifying to think if a toddler would squirm over the all-too-inadequate 2.5 foot stone wall with decorative open iron railing 1.5 feet on top of that and over the fence into that water at the top... it would take a second to hit that edge, and then it would be all over. I stood there, staring at the 4 foot ice chunks going over the wall, thinking of this, and of the power of the Tsunami. I didn't take any pictures from there, because the mist was so thick in the air it would have coated the camera in an instant, so what was the use... it was like trying to take pictures while in the shower...


----------



## DKShrimporium

(I moved this picture into a post on the previous page so you can see them on the same page. Yeah... um...yeah... DK's ongoing reseach on water...)


----------



## Hobbes1911

Very nice work. I like how you employ the scientific method so closely. I am eager to see further progress. Keep up the good work.


----------



## Chucker

Just skimmed the first page and last five of this thread. Wow. Truly a mad scientist at work!

Funny how much I have in common with the posters. I live 90 minutes E of the Falls, and have fished the Niagara Bar where the river meets the lake. I'm in the medical device industry on the QA/RA side, so I'm all over the documentation thing. Micropipettes bring back memories of undergrad work for bio and chem. 

Keep on breedin'!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Chucker said:


> ...Micropipettes bring back memories of undergrad work for bio and chem...


Wow, in my undergrad we didn't HAVE micropipettors to use in student labs (those were for grown-ups) - just the old-fashioned glass ones with bulbs, that we afterwards had to rinse in acetone to clean and dry. Nowadays I doubt they'd do that as the VOC content is considered.

I have such vivid visuals of Niagara built into my brain, now. It's one of those sights that you have to see in real life, to get the sense of the sheer amount and power of water, ENDLESSLY plunging over that edge. I'm kind of glad we went when it was icy, as that was coo-el to see that way, although we missed a few things due to being pre-season. (Hiking the parks, night light scene, IMAX movie).

Down by the Horseshoe falls edge, the buildings near there had their windows trembling from the force of the falls, rumbling the rock base always. My mad scientist mind always goes a little mad-der trying to figure out how the heck they engineer and build things, such as that wall right next to the horseshoe falls. Before it was there, and they were constructing all that wall and walkway, what if some worker slipped and fell in...??!! I simply cannot imagine anyone wanting to ride over those falls in a barrel or boat or anything -- you'd have to be _suicidal_. Fluid dynamics in real life, in large scale...

It happens that, as a mad scientist, I see most everything as related, so I was originally going to mention this as totally OT, but actually, it's applied microbiology, so here goes:

DK's latest project is making Greek Yogurt. Break down skim milk proteins at near boiling temps, cool to innoculation temperature, innoculate with culture, incubate in handy convection oven at bread raising setting (100F) 6+ hours. It's so surreal to watch that stuff congeal over the hours, and the yogurt separate from the whey. After incubation, you filter out the liquid whey overnight, and the next day you have unbelievably thick, rich greek yogurt that is AH-MAZING. It's thicker than sour cream and just as rich, minus any fat. If I didn't make it myself, I'd have thought they were lying about it being fat-free and that good. Try doing this spoon trick with normal yogurt - NOT. This stuff is seriously thick. It kinda blows my mind how you can covert a liquid to a solid via organisms. The properties of proteins are so interesting, how they can covert from liquid, soluble, translucent things, into solid, opaque things, sort of like when you fry an egg. All by folding or unfolding a chain of amino acids. Biology is coo-el. 

************

On things shrimp-y:

I'm about to do one of the final larger phases of my automation expansion. I'll be converting over to a manifold system of distribution in the next month or so. So today, I'm shropping...

Last week's madness included making a batch of these dial-a-tank thingys, that will be mounted under each tank so DK can lazily eyeball the conditions feeding into that tank, and the water exchange ratio being used. That little project took me shropping to the ticket collectors world (for the rigid PVC slider envelope that these slide into and that are magnetically attached to my steel shelves - _can you say "*groupie*??_"), to online sewing store (for the clear plastic snaps), and using my already-had laminator.

Finally, before someone screams I'm so OT all the time - a picture yesterday of the blue bees, just because that's what I took yesterday. (Well, actually, I grabbed the camera and shot them because I was so intrigued that the whole tank of them went from latte brown to pepper black after I tweaked their water a few days ago.)

(But here's the thing: in mad science, what one does and learns in one realm eventually becomes the basis for doing something in the shrimp-y realm. It's only a matter of time before the yogurt making or other OT stuff becomes relevant to something I end up doing for the shrimp. Just you watch...)

DK


----------



## aelysa

To be more OT but not OT, my husband says that my mind is like a squirrel that can't find the correct hole to stash the acorn. This same squirrel has also ingested a lot of soda.
However, I think yours is just an ultra fast squirrel. All this takes a lot of follow through! Squirrel on crack!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hot off the presses*

...From two beginner shrimp keepers who were scared to death to get DK's BTs. These pictures were in my email this morning.

With a little guidance...this too can be you!

Knowledge is power.

_Todd's email snippet:

Ok, on to the subject of the email. Remember when you asked, "The driving purpose of this 20 tank is"? Remember my answer?

The driving purpose of the 20L is:
To make the next OE's you send me say, " When did she rearrange the tank?" Ok, really, for them to live out their full lives, would make me happy and be a good first step. *I'd scream like a little girl if they decided to raise some kids.*

See pic's 2089-2103 ;P

The question I have for you is, IF there are babies and they make it to teenagers you have a option's of, a video of my choice (youtube?) with a little girl screaming, *a video of me screaming like a little girl,* or " Thanks, but PLEASE don't!".  I need to practice if you choose option #2.​_​
(Are you watching, Don and Todd?? - - and Todd: NUMBER 2, and you post the link HERE in the thread BWAHAHAHAH!! And, Todd, inquiring minds want to know: Is one of your arms much larger than the other? Todd's profession involves holding about a dozen leashes with about half a ton of dog at the end in one hand...)

Congrats to you both... I can retire soon!

(Meanwhile... DK twiddles her thumbs while her custom manifold is being made...)

DK

*DK says: "Growing shrimp is fun. Growing shrimpkeepers is fun, too!"​*

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Todd said in his email, and I _quote_:

_Just so you know, you are welcome to do whatever with any pictures I send you._​Well, OK then.


.


----------



## Loachutus

^ROFLMAO!!^ I hate that dress.:tongue:



> Knowledge is power.


"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."-Dalai Lama
Great, now you're an Immortal Mad Scientist.:icon_roll No retirement for you.:tongue:



> With a little guidance...this too can be you!


Made easier by a great teacher!! 



> _Just so you know, you are welcome to do whatever with any pictures I send you._


You forgot the rest of that paragraph.



> Is one of your arms much larger than the other?


No, I switch hands.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, back to the mad doin's.



> (Meanwhile... DK twiddles her thumbs while her custom manifold is being made...)


Can wait to learn more and see pic's.



> Finally, before someone screams I'm so OT all the time - a picture yesterday of the blue bees, just because that's what I took yesterday. (Well, actually, I grabbed the camera and shot them because I was so intrigued that the whole tank of them went from latte brown to pepper black after I tweaked their water a few days ago.)


What did you tweak? Still that color?


----------



## deleted_user_8

DK= TPT's true shrimp "expert"!


----------



## [email protected]

Donna, you need the neighborhood semi-pro to come in a YouTube your tanks. I'd be temped to mount LCD screens inside tanks, run your videos, and save myself a lot of grief.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Uhhhhhhhh... can somebody interpret that last post of Don's for me? I'm just not putting together those words into a meaning I understand. What is he saying?

Todd - the blue bees are holding. I tweaked their carbonate levels, decreasing it. I had been running a carbonate study on them, seeing the effects. Here's a pic I just took, same tank.


----------



## Da Plant Man

Very cool! I am planning a 20g low, or 12g rimless tank to keep shrimp. I am thinking of having a single genus of plant in the tank, I thought it would look cool.


----------



## [email protected]

Sometimes I edit as if I need Clariton. I edited my post to clarify the suggestion that Donna get her tanks up on YouTube.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*My best friend Bubba*

Hey Don - 

In order to clear the brain and attempt to realize your full squirrel-like potential (see aelysa's post, above), as I do, you need one of these:

DK's FOURTH 34 ounce Bubba Mug for caffeinated beverages. (Yeah, I've gone through three of them already, and just got this one a week ago at - _of all places_ - Lowes, in the plumbing department!!!! - Well, technically it was on an end cap with a display of styro-coolers and such.) We can't be messing around with 8 ounces, or 16, 17, 20, or lesser portions. This lovely libation holder fits in the auto cup holder. People who have visited me in real life know this baby is nearly surgically attached to my hand.

Problem is, it's terribly top heavy and tip-prone. So I just solve that problem with a handy-dandy base made of a 3 inch Sch 40 PVC coupler. A little lateral thinking, to get to that solution.

DK


----------



## gordonrichards

That is great. I suggest offering this desktop solution to the manufacturer. You'd make a fortune :^)

-Gordon


----------



## MarkPeggie

Why do you always talk in third person speak DK lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

MarkPeggie said:


> Why do you always talk in third person speak DK lol


Oh, ja......

...Prolly 'cause - more than anything - I'm an observer (and then the corollary talking head that results). 

And when you have a squirrely brain like I do (_AND_ a 34 ounce Bubba Mug for caffeinated libations), there's always _at least_ one conversation between two parties going on in there, and so it's great fodder for third party observation.

Yeah, that's it...

Um hm.

+++++++++++

There's a little sky blue pee wee in the black tiger tank right now. You can see to the left a normal looking one of that same size.


----------



## asukawashere

Pretty shrimp are pretty... I like your itty bitty sky blue. Very electric. I think you should name him Lawrence. He looks like a Lawrence to me. Or if it turns out to be a girl, Lawrencia. Or maybe Florence? Hmm...

In other news, DK, I returned from my mad epic Florida vacation last week to find the blue bees I obtained from you a couple months back have more than doubled in number. Given that I only had 6 to begin with, the feat is less impressive than it sounds, but still - if I can spot 7 babies, that probably means there are like 10 more hiding in nooks and crannies where I can't see them. I spent like 2 hours cooing at a handful of barely-visible shrimplets in a 5g tank and it's all your fault. Okay, well, it's also my fault, I guess, for being easily amused and a textbook victim of collectoritis... I'm not sure what, exactly, my point is anymore (if I ever had one to begin with).

So... Hi!


----------



## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> Pretty shrimp are pretty... I like your itty bitty sky blue. Very electric. I think you should name him Lawrence. He looks like a Lawrence to me. Or if it turns out to be a girl, Lawrencia. Or maybe Florence? Hmm...
> 
> In other news, DK, I returned from my mad epic Florida vacation last week to find the blue bees I obtained from you a couple months back have more than doubled in number. Given that I only had 6 to begin with, the feat is less impressive than it sounds, but still - if I can spot 7 babies, that probably means there are like 10 more hiding in nooks and crannies where I can't see them. I spent like 2 hours cooing at a handful of barely-visible shrimplets in a 5g tank and it's all your fault. Okay, well, it's also my fault, I guess, for being easily amused and a textbook victim of collectoritis... I'm not sure what, exactly, my point is anymore (if I ever had one to begin with).
> 
> So... Hi!


_Oh yeah... DK spreads shrimpfections, one shrimpkeeper at a time..._​
Congrats on your growing infection/addiction! (Feel free to insert pics in this thread! DK loves to see pics!)

Lawrence... hm... what about *Oshrimpa* in light of current events? Hmmmmmmmmmm. Mebbe *Lawrence Oshrimpy-ay*?

Peeps? Log in, with your opinions...

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

Finally... some action on the horizon.

Just got word that my manifold should be arriving into my hot little paws today. So I'm off to Lowes plumbing dept to buy some accoutrements for major surgery later in the day (after the mail arrives) on DK's Water Factory.

The lesson herein has been one of pressure differentials and fluid dynamics (sounds fancy, doesn't it?) - the Water Factory evolved from its intended use over a measly nine tanks on one rack to today's twenty something tanks and we got a bottleneck on the supply side due to underengineering of incoming, so today...

...we fix it.

In other totally OT news, just got off the phone with an X who spent half his lifespan commanding the very types who just accomplished a huge goal for the country. THAT was an interesting conversation, between his background, and mine. Aside from other discussions, I was interested to hear he's about to launch a biz training detection dogs - for either I E Ds or BEDBUGS. Apparently, there is a strong demand for both, although not necessarily in the same sectors! And that's all I'm gonna say about parts of that conversation! 

More later, closer to surgery.

DK


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> _Oh yeah... DK spreads shrimpfections, one shrimpkeeper at a time..._​Congrats on your growing infection/addiction! (Feel free to insert pics in this thread! DK loves to see pics!)
> 
> Lawrence... hm... what about *Oshrimpa* in light of current events? Hmmmmmmmmmm. Mebbe *Lawrence Oshrimpy-ay*?
> 
> Peeps? Log in, with your opinions...
> 
> DK


You horrible enabler, you. Feeding into my need to collect shrimpy things... 

I'd insert pics if I could actually take any. My camera, while wonderful for macro shots of things that aren't behind glass, flips out whenever I try and take photos of my aquarium critters. Also the itty bitty scrimplets are barely visible in the first place.

As for you blue shrimp, I think that Oshrimpa would be an unfortunate namesake for such a cute little critter. But it's your shrimp and therefore yours to name  I still think he looks like a Lawrence, though.:bounce:


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## snausage

DK, how many water changes are programmed into your Jetsons-esque fishroom plumbing?


BTW, bed-bugs probably account for like 1% of our GDP atm. But I honestly don't know if I'd rather risk being blown up or covered in b bugs on a daily basis.


----------



## reybie

i e d detection... sniff sniff, boom, there's one... not good, stick to bed bugs


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## DKShrimporium

GRRRRRRRRRR... manifold box tracked for delivery today but WAS NOT delivered... must be on the afternoon truck to my PO. Grrrrrrr. Did finish the shropping at Lowe's plumbing, at least, and have a huge batch of yogurt preparing...



snausage said:


> DK, how many water changes are programmed into your Jetsons-esque fishroom plumbing?


They're on twice daily infusions that run anywhere from 4-25% volume, depending on what I'm trying to do with the tank.



snausage said:


> BTW, bed-bugs probably account for like 1% of our GDP atm. But I honestly don't know if I'd rather risk being blown up or covered in b bugs on a daily basis.





reybie said:


> i e d detection... sniff sniff, boom, there's one... not good, stick to bed bugs


Yeah, well, to us civvies, it's a no brainer to choose bedbug detection. First, nobody gets blown up. Second, you only have to train the dog to do one thing, really: smell the remnants of bedbugs. 

According to the X, in the I E D dogs, the training is much more complex, because in addition to training for an array of actual substances to detect, they also have to train method, or how the dog sweeps an area while looking, because if they do it wrong --- kabang, unfortunately. He says they now use radio collars to guide the dogs and keep the handlers at a distance. I didn't discuss specifics, but I'd imagine they work the dogs not unlike the New Zealand sheepherders work the Border Collies - with precision directional commands and that level of control.

But, to a danger-addict type, who have mottos such as "pain is weakness, leaving the body," the lure of getting back in the action and back with the brethren is pretty powerful...

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

*The manifold has arrived...*

It's a beta test, if it works as I think it will, I'll be switching the entire Water Factory over to these babies.

I spent all morning starting the re-plumb, so I should have shrimp into water by tonight, hopefully.

And, yeah, I could have made it myself, but I elected to have it made. Time was important, and experience also. 

DK


----------



## reybie

I'm a little late to the party but do you have a thread of what your whole setup looks like... jumping in the middle of a conversation kinda deal. All the gadgets I've seen so far looks pretty interesting!


----------



## aelysa

Reybe, just imagine a room chock full of aquarium racks four tanks high; dilligently tended to by handsome manslaves in loincloths...
I might be embellishing a bit.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, I told all the manslaves to stand out of the way so as not to FURTHER clutter my picture. 

Here is DK's Water Factory after today, with the beta manifold installed. 

The Water Factory has evolved from a single idea for one tank, to a very complex compendium of ideas that now automates a buncha tanks. 

It has now evolved up to the point of both some limitations that need to be fixed, and some complexities that need to be streamlined, so I'm in the process of addressing both of these. Today was simply the beta test of a manifold design and system - passed with flying colors, so I called my guy back and ordered three more manifolds this afternoon. All the gobbledygook you see here is in the process of getting cleaned up and streamlined with this next phase of evolution. 

I show this just for entertainment purposes, mostly for the extreme DIYers. I will not be discussing the particulars as that falls under what I call Do Your Own Homework, and I also have adopted a policy of not suggesting chemistry, electrical schema, or plumbing ideas as I don't want somebody to claim that I led them to catastrophe!

For those of you who missed the introduction to the Water Factory back in the thread, this factory creates custom water for each of my tanks, customizable for GH, KH, pH for each tank, individually. This monster is adjustable at about six levels along the way, so there are lots of possibilities. It will not put out lattes or diet coke, yet, however.

++++++++++++

In other news, did y'all read that the Bin Laden raid included a very specially trained dog in the raid? The dog was sent in to probe for booby traps and explosives, ahead of the seals. (The linked article mentions the remote radio commanding my X was describing to me yesterday, that I mentioned.)

DK



-


----------



## asukawashere

aelysa said:


> Reybe, just imagine a room chock full of aquarium racks four tanks high; dilligently tended to by handsome manslaves in loincloths...
> I might be embellishing a bit.


Dang, I wish I had some handsome manslaves to help out with my tanks... I have to make do with a little sister most of the time, who demands to be paid in Chinese takeout and car rides. Here I thought there was nothing glamorous about this hobby, at least not outside of the water... 



greenisgood said:


> For those of you who missed the introduction to the Water Factory back in the thread, this factory creates custom water for each of my tanks, customizable for GH, KH, pH for each tank, individually. This monster is adjustable at about six levels along the way, so there are lots of possibilities. It will not put out lattes or diet coke, yet, however.
> 
> -


Your photo baffles my mind. It looks like there're enough gadgets there to run an... I dunno, something with a lot of gadgets in it. It hurts my brain to think about it. 

If you can't get it to make the coke or lattes, maybe try to get sweet iced tea out of it instead. Diet coke is bad for you, anyway


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

ok. got it...


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Manslaves....crazy contraptions...what madness...

What are in those three water filters you have inline?


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Manslaves....crazy contraptions...what madness...
> 
> What are in those three water filters you have inline?


If course, I call them _Personal Assistants_, not manslaves.

The two on the left are turbulent mixing chambers, the third is a filter to take out any trace ppt.

DK


----------



## Loachutus

> I tweaked their carbonate levels, decreasing it. I had been running a carbonate study on them, seeing the effects.


Any effects on overall health? Breeding?

Thanks for the manifold pics!! I know what I'm doing with the leftover's from the next river tank manifold build. What kind of tubing is that coming off the manifold?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> Any effects on overall health? Breeding?
> 
> Thanks for the manifold pics!! I know what I'm doing with the leftover's from the next river tank manifold build. What kind of tubing is that coming off the manifold?


They seem to slightly prefer low levels of carbonates, although they do ok at mid levels.

The tubing is nominal quarter inch. You can choose between polyethylene such as is used for fridge ice makers, or vinyl such as is used for landscaping.

*****************

Still twiddling my thumbs on the next round of manifolds I ordered... the beta manifold did just what I thought it would do, so it's a patience game to get the others in and installed, then I will be ready to fly on tank tweakings.

Also have on order high range pH test kits - I discovered this winter that the Water Factory can indeed make me high pH water WHILE making all the other stuff, so that opens some avenues for fall projects...

This summer, I will be playing around with temps control, manipulating my infusion schedule to hopefully bring tank temps down during the hottest parts of the day. So this will be playing with infusion times, rates, etc. After I thought about it, why re-heat the incoming infusion water when - once up to temp - it will then get over temp and cause me to run the fans? Why not cool the tanks daily at a certain time, using the infusion system, with heaters deactivated during the hot times?

I have to say... being an armchair process engineer is even _more_ addictive than shrimpkeeping. But I guess coming from a kid who dismantled the monkey bars in the backyard and made a pony cart in 5th grade, this should not surprise me...

We all have our peculiarities, I guess...

I cannot even _begin_ to emphasize how this whole shrimpkeeping thing has enhanced my lateral thinking. It has forced me to look at the problems in a way where I understand exactly how things work from a global perspective that keeps in mind macro as well as micro perspectives - not how they should work in a single frame of reference. Often, the problems I've had to solve have been the result of a mind block, thinking in one frame of reference, banging my head against the wall, stuck in a paradigm. There is nothing so satisfying as escaping a stuck paradigm, skipping over to others, and then - BING - the solution presents itself, quite apparent in _that_ paradigm.

DK

below: new shrimp variety called I'm-lookin-4-a-furever-home-in-GSD-rescue


----------



## jczernia

I have 3 of the new shrimp variety you call GSD, be careful they consume a lot of water, but they make good security for the tanks.


----------



## [email protected]

Remember to never toss a Frisbee near the tank, if the xxD is likely to jump for it.


----------



## DKShrimporium

jczernia said:


> I have 3 of the new shrimp variety you call GSD, be careful they consume a lot of water, but they make good security for the tanks.


I have found this to be a useful supplement for this variety. Mine do best with a solid form, as anything hollow is decimated in five minutes.

Fortunately, I am not intimidated by mucopolysaccarides, but sometimes the rope-y strings of them that fling off this supplement and slap back onto my face are a bit troublesome.

*************

The high-range pH tests have arrived. My test water ranged right in the 7.8-8.0 range. Bingo. Gotta love science.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Your whole system tested at the Ph? Or only the ones that you increased the carbonate levels?


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> new shrimp variety called I'm-lookin-4-a-furever-home-in-GSD-rescue


I have seen these before and was pondering the notion of getting one. I hear they can perform many useful tasks even outside of the tank, such as keeping toes warm in the middle of the night and forcing their owners to get exercise (or keeping the manslaves in line, as the case may be). 

Unfortunately, my research proved that the maintenance fees on their environment are a bit out of my price range, and their appetite is so voracious that I would have no money left to feed my other specimens.


----------



## DKShrimporium

jczernia said:


> I have 3 of the new shrimp variety you call GSD...


Mmmm. I really need to see pictures of these. (Taps fingers lightly on chin.)



jczernia said:


> ...be careful they consume a lot of water, but they make good security for the tanks.


I have a special, custom tank, installed into a special, custom utility room with durock underflooring and ceramic tile on top (which DK installed when the house was built, in case there was constant mucopolysaccharide presence on the floor), just for providing water to these GSD. Again, this water system is on a very easy flush system to maintain water conditions. The entire room is dedicated to this specie, with a walk-in simulated rain room, even. This system is easy to use, but does pose a bit of a problem with the youngest specimens, as shown, when a manual system must be used for some time, until the spawn is mature enough for the custom system.

As a bit of interesting DIY trivia: when the house was first built, I had to rip out the toilet and go searching for an older one, as the modern code ones are a mere 3 gallons whereas I needed a 5 gallon unit for the water consumption of this specie.


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Your whole system tested at the Ph? Or only the ones that you increased the carbonate levels?


Just a few neo tanks that I was playing with water parameters, to see where I could get them.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

damn that pup is cute


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Just for fun... oh... wait... for ten bucks...*

This is a picture of some of my new shrimp feeding dishes. They are a recycled house part. The first person to correctly guess their source gets a ten bucks credit. Post your guess in this thread.

DK's four Rs: Reduce...reuse...recycle...RESCUE GSDs!!!

*In order to save bandwidth I will respond when the correct guess is made, and not to every guess. So if I don't reply to your guess, it means you are not correct, yet!* 

You can guess as many times as you want, though, as this is supposed to be fun, and also it's actually an exercise in lateral thinking, folks!

DK


----------



## kimdawg

I will guess that they are the bases that you burn candles on. Hope I win I want to buy some more CBS the reds that I got from you back in Nov. are multiplying like bunnies.
Kim


----------



## umdterps96

flood light cover?


----------



## reybie

Hrrm, reminds me of those candle stand thingymajigs.


----------



## speedie408

Those are lenses of some sort for light diffusion.  Don't know what they're called though. They're made out of glass.

**Edit** THey're "OPTICS"!!


----------



## leo1234

I think they are coasters??


----------



## DKShrimporium

umdterps96 said:


> flood light cover?


Wow, that was fast! Congrats!


----------



## speedie408

Damn... I got ninja'd


----------



## reybie

Dumb question, won't the shrimps drag the food off the dishes anyway? Some of my shrimps hoard the food in caves, under a leaf, etc.

droiiiiid


----------



## Burks

I can't even begin to try to understand your water system, but I do know it is cool!


----------



## DKShrimporium

YESSSSSSSSSS... just got notice that my manifolds have shipped. Time to go visit Mr. Plumbing at Lowes, again...



reybie said:


> Dumb question, won't the shrimps drag the food off the dishes anyway? Some of my shrimps hoard the food in caves, under a leaf, etc.
> 
> droiiiiid


Yes, that is true. I have somewhat gotten around this by feeding a mixture, including Ken's sticks, which fall apart and make "dust" all over my dishes. I also really like Hikari micro wafers, although they are a little bit more work to get into the dishes in the first place (I use an up tube from an undergravel filter to aim them down into the dish). And then there's always the chunk of veggie that is too big for them to heist.


----------



## disvegas

ur shrimps are really nice and i can't wait to see ur black tigers are ready for sale. pls pm me when u have some for sale here.

on a side note, i saw one of ur pic that u have a ceramic cave of which looks great. where do u buy it from if u don't mind?

disvegas,


----------



## DKShrimporium

disvegas said:


> ur shrimps are really nice and i can't wait to see ur black tigers are ready for sale. pls pm me when u have some for sale here.
> 
> on a side note, i saw one of ur pic that u have a ceramic cave of which looks great. where do u buy it from if u don't mind?
> 
> disvegas,


They will first go out on aquabid. I will put you in my notify file, and ping you ahead of time. Maybe in the fall, but right now my focus is on these Water Factory upgrades, and then stabilizing and calibrating the system after I do them.

Ceramic logs - I use the $5 ones - tell them Donna sent you! I don't get anything from sending you, but they made a really nice product and I wanted them to know I endorsed them out due to this. I like to support mom & pop business when possible, and this is one, and they do a good job.


----------



## disvegas

Thanks a lot for the link, Donna! I will make some purchase later.

disvegas,


----------



## DKShrimporium

disvegas said:


> Thanks a lot for the link, Donna! I will make some purchase later.
> 
> disvegas,


No probs.

**********************

Manifolds came in today. Had to chase around a bit to find the right parts I need for installation, as I wanted a certain type of check valve. I learned a few new things about check valve types today! Due to the type I selected, I have to slightly modify what I was planning to do, so I will put off the plumbing until tomorrow morning after the AM flush. 

In the process of these changes, I'm roughing in the infrastructure to easily add a few more parts in the fall to go on to my next round of projects... (It seems I can NEVER just do the project at hand... ALWAYS doing the NEXT one in my squirrely-mind.)

I will only be installing two more manifolds. The third one is a spare. I'm absolutely _anal_ about having emergency replacement parts for critical parts of the water factory. The manifolds will each be installed on a union, so I can easily adjust the angle they are mounted and also easily can pop those babies off to do any maintenance or replacement at a moment's notice. I just love unions, ever since I discovered them. They are the ultimate lego piece in plumbing.

While the Water Factory looks like a mess, it's designed so nearly every part is pop and go. I'm really anal about flexibility at every level I can build it in, and reversability. 

Tomorrow, I'll probably be in a really good mood, from all the PVC cement fumes!!


.


----------



## aelysa

greenisgood said:


> No probs.
> 
> 
> Tomorrow, I'll probably be in a really good mood, from all the PVC cement fumes!!
> 
> 
> .


I'm a little concerned how this will mix with your mega cup of caffeine.
I'll get some greek yogurt ready to read your crazy post tomorrow.


----------



## DKShrimporium

aelysa said:


> I'm a little concerned how this will mix with your mega cup of caffeine.
> I'll get some greek yogurt ready to read your crazy post tomorrow.


I decided to get serious and made a whole gallon of milk into Greek yogurt, yesterday.

**************

Today was the plumbing _marathon_. Once I cut water to the tanks, I have to keep going until I have the system back on or close to ready to turn it back on. I actually did get it on by tonight, although I'm going to run the first cycle manually tomorrow morning, and see if there are any issues with the pressure surge on start up. Tonight I tested the system, but with a gradual opening up of the water pressure, and it was pretty much ok - only a few minor issues I had to tweak.

During the plumbing marathon today, after I started feeling a little too good (y'know, from the fumes), I turned on the shrimp room ceiling fan. Twelve solid hours of plumbing later, I'm still sipping the last of my Bubba Mug, just snarfed down some reheated pizza, and am taking a seat, VERY tired.

During the marathon today, I standardized all the lines, and got everything much more organized, instead of cobbled together.

Tomorrow will be busy doing testing, to make sure the new system provides the pressure it should, and therefore the balance of flows.

Here's the before and after shots. The system is ready for one more expansion in the fall that will be easy to plumb in because it's mostly roughed in with today's work.

Whatddya think, it looks a lot cleaner now, doesn't it? 


.


----------



## zxc

impressive work. DK


----------



## AoxomoxoA

Stunning.


----------



## mattycakesclark

Nifty, Stenner pumps are great, but do you have a pile of spare parts lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

mattycakesclark said:


> Nifty, Stenner pumps are great, but do you have a pile of spare parts lol


I rest my case. Does this make me a _real_ Stenner gal?? I even have an account with Siemens, to get more parts.

I even have a jumbo tube of that nifty aqua green very expensive stenner grease, too. I keep all my parts in baggies because of that grease on everything!

At first I had my nose up in the air, thinking Stenner was stodgy and old-fashioned. I have come to be humbled, now, realizing the value of being able to take any pump and play mix-and-match, due to Stenner's NOT changing designs on things over the years. (Plus, you can buy used "fried" Stenners on eBay cheap that people who do not do maintenance allow to seize up, and then a few spare parts - and voila - _much_ cheaper than a new Stenner!!) 

Stenner has recently changed (GASP!! CHANGE!!) the way they mount the pump tubes into the tube ends to a MUCH better design - used to be crimped in metal, but now they are fused into polymer. The metal crimping included some latex ring at the tube end that would dry rot over time and goop up the roller head casing where the tube ends are held, as you can see on my spare pump picture. Now, NO LATEX!! Great improvement. I have one spare set of the old type tubes on the left, and one of the newer on the right. If you look closely, you can see the metal crimp rings, but not the latex rings, on the left ones.

Stenners are the ultimate pump for us Lego types.

.


----------



## Chucker

They may have dumped the latex if they want to enter the drug/lab/healthcare industry. I constantly see supplier surveys asking if products being supplied include latex or animal based products (allergy concerns).


----------



## Buff Daddy

How I've missed finding this thread over the last few months is beyond me...

DK, you da BOMB! I had a gf in college that was an Industrial Tech major- she could fix anything that wasn't electronic (that's my bailiwick). You two would have been good friends.

How impressive your genetics experiment is! You surely have a doctoral dissertation in the work you've done there. Seriously...

If I don't have to mortgage my house or sell one of my daughters, some of your shrimp will be living in NW GA one day... Okay, just as long as I don't have to mortgage the house. I'd put the girls up for sell/trade. No returns...


----------



## reybie

Hah! I saw that return policy edit


----------



## gordonrichards

I love your thread. You Rock!


----------



## asukawashere

Buff Daddy said:


> I'd put the girls up for sell/trade. No returns...


Nah, better to hold onto them for slave labor to clean the tanks... see discussion on previous pages re: DK's manslaves. 


DK, I am envious of your awesomeness and ability to noodle around with engineering thingies. What would it cost me to get you to take a vacation in CT in order to hook up my fishroom with some kind of fancy devices and make it look technologically impressive? I can pay in fine art if you prefer.


----------



## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> Nah, better to hold onto them for slave labor to clean the tanks... *see discussion on previous pages re: DK's manslaves.*
> 
> 
> DK, I am envious of your awesomeness and ability to noodle around with engineering thingies. What would it cost me to get you to take a vacation in CT in order to hook up my fishroom with some kind of fancy devices and make it look technologically impressive? I can pay in fine art if you prefer.


_Personal Assistants !!_

I think we need some examples of said fine art posted herein.

*************

I'm afraid to say too much right now, but, as of this evening, things are looking really good in *DK's Situation Room* ( _I've decided to call my shrimp room DK's Situation Room - what d'y'all think??_ ). In about a week, we'll know if I've hit magic, or not.

*************

I've learned something really interesting while banging my head against the wall, in the process: TDS readings are affected by dissolved gases. My system is reproducible to within 2.5 ppm TDS units or 5 microSiemen TDS units, and I knew this, but was seeing a strange, REGULAR jump of 5 microSiemens like clockwork when doing the testing. I finally figured out the jump was due to the testing times relative to the last flush - that one of my testing times was after outgassing, which was skewing the numbers by about five points per tank. Interesting...

The micropipettors and graduated cylinders have been invaluable, this week, in getting numerical answers to questions so that I know how to set my globals.

**************

Thanks for tuning in, everyone. It's fun to see people riding along with me on the Grand Adventure!

DK


----------



## jeffvmd

I love all the contraptions set up in your "Situation Room".:hihi:
I wish I had more time in setting up a tank room of some sort but alas, no can do. My wife'll definitely kill me if I started one.:frown:
This is a really great project you have been undertaking and thanks for letting us all in on the ride.
DK is the shrimp goddess!roud:


----------



## aelysa

_Ass_istants.
Hehehehe....

Does the situation room include a large flat screen of a stream flowing? Now that would be sweet.


----------



## DKShrimporium

aelysa said:


> _Ass_istants.
> Hehehehe....
> 
> Does the situation room include a large flat screen of a stream flowing? Now that would be sweet.


Hmmmmm. Ba... ba... but, that would require _actual wall space_. There's a reason the Water Factory looks so condensed... because that was the only three foot piece of wall space I had to build it on in the Situation Room!

I do have a sound system but rarely use it. I actually love the sounds of the Water Factory. It opens a cycle with a huge surge of whoosh when the global valve opens, followed by the machinations of the pumps, clicks of the injectors, water flow through the drain pipes into the sump basins which changes over time as the basins fill then the two sumps fire up and vibrate the entire house structure like one huge violin, all to cycle again, until the global valve closes. It's like a shrimp symphony...

The Situation Room and Water Factory are directly underneath my office, and I'm so attuned to every sound of the Water Factory that I've been known to go tearing down there when something wasn't quite right and usually I'm correct - I've forgotten to plug something back in after a procedure, etc.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

So what DEFCON are we at right now? 1 = No babies 5= babies galore?


----------



## bsmith

greenisgood said:


> _Personal Assistants !!_
> 
> I think we need some examples of said fine art posted herein.
> 
> *************
> 
> I'm afraid to say too much right now, but, as of this evening, things are looking really good in *DK's Situation Room* ( _I've decided to call my shrimp room DK's Situation Room - what d'y'all think??_ ). In about a week, we'll know if I've hit magic, or not.
> 
> *************
> 
> I've learned something really interesting while banging my head against the wall, in the process: TDS readings are affected by dissolved gases. My system is reproducible to within 2.5 ppm TDS units or 5 microSiemen TDS units, and I knew this, but was seeing a strange, REGULAR jump of 5 microSiemens like clockwork when doing the testing. I finally figured out the jump was due to the testing times relative to the last flush - that one of my testing times was after outgassing, which was skewing the numbers by about five points per tank. Interesting...
> 
> The micropipettors and graduated cylinders have been invaluable, this week, in getting numerical answers to questions so that I know how to set my globals.
> 
> **************
> 
> Thanks for tuning in, everyone. It's fun to see people riding along with me on the Grand Adventure!
> 
> DK


May I now refer to you as Wolf?


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> So what DEFCON are we at right now? 1 = No babies 5= babies galore?


DEFCON w.a.i.t. As of this morning, DK has a smile on her face, still. She is afraid to state any specifics, yet, as she knows the minute she smells the fumes of pride, something will crash.



bsmith said:


> May I now refer to you as Wolf?


OK, so clue me in. What is the reference?

*************

In other news, DK has 20 ceramic logs being made for the Situation Room at this moment. If they arrive ok, then she will order 25 more, and start a new structural phase of her tanks she has planned out. Basically, the plan is to use them in a layout in the tanks in such a way to enhance the rearing of young, even better. More details after the initial data are in, in a few weeks...

*************

And finally, I just have to put in a plug every now and then about DK's favorite things. I just discovered these totally awesome ultra useful velcro strap things this week on one of (_get that - ONE of_) my trips to Lowes. I bought them totally as an impulse item, which is against my principles, but I've been patting myself on the back ever since at this discovery. The thing is, they are elegant. One piece, totally contained. Simple to use, reversable, adjustable, strong, water and rot resistant, expandable by sticking two or more together, cheap, even self storing without a string or rubber band - the roll doesn't come unrolled by itself! 


I love to push the envelope, so when I design something, I try to make it from cheap, readily available parts or supplies, and make it adjustable, reversable, adaptable. Usually, at least one of those is a challenge, in that previous sentence. It's tremendous sport to do this, you cannot imagine the high when you finally get to the Holy Grail. Anyway, these are just a little tiny part of the system, toward this goal:


.


----------



## bsmith

Wolf Blitzer is the host of a news cast on CNN called the situation room.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*A penny for yer thoughts... er... juice*



bsmith said:


> Wolf Blitzer is the host of a news cast on CNN called the situation room.


I guess that explains it... I don't watch TV basically at all, and we don't get cable. I sat myself down one day and realized I was paying more and more money each month to watch shorter and shorter bits of crappier and crappier programs (y'know, as we channel surf during commercials, and by the time we get back to the original program it's already the_ next_ round of commercials) in between more and longer commercials, and gradually spending more and more hours of my lifespan doing so, and I says to meself, "Self, this is a stupid waste of lifespan and money, to pay to watch commercials..."

I pulled the plug, got out of the box, and never looked back.

*********

So, instead, I do super dweeby things, like this:

I spent the winter doing mineral profile studies and research, and closed in on my Magic Juice recipe which was launched with the new improved Water Factory. The shreemps seem to be diggin' it, I can say... more data on that in a few weeks, but I can tell from observation already that there is good stuff happenin' in that water, now.

This weekend, I calculated the per dose cost of *Mosura Mineral Plus*, *Fluval Shrimp Mineral Supplement*, and *DK's Magic Shreemp Juice (DKMSJ)*. Not even including the cost of shipping, and assuming a standard dose of bringing water from GH zero to GH 5 (in German degrees of hardness, that is) in a 20 gallon volume of water, I calculated:

*Mosura Mineral Plus*: $1-2 per dose (depends on the pH of your water, and how sloppy their quality control was in making your batch)
*Fluval Shrimp Mineral Supplement*: $1.50 per dose
*DKMSJ*: one cent per dose ($0.01)

So go ahead... spend your lifespan toiling, to earn the money to pay your cable bill and for designer products...

...or get sporting, and become a Mad Scientist! 

Doing your homework pays off and _uses_ your brain, doesn't _rot_ it!!!

(all images borrowed from Google)


----------



## shrimpnmoss

LMAO @ last post...genie juice. You should just bottle up some of that magic...and help the rest of us non-mad-scientist put the other two out to pasture....We need some magic I tell ya...


----------



## jeffvmd

I love the packaging on DKMSJ.:biggrin:
When can we get some??


----------



## DKShrimporium

*$200 prize - DK's Shrimporium contest*

$200 prize - logo design contest for DK's Shrimporium


So, after walking the tanks this morning, thinking about posting a picture of popcorn, because that's what's happening with DKMSJ infusions, right now, I decided it simply isn't fitting to share a name with a guy named Wolf. Ugh.

*****************

I've decided to dump "situation room" and embrace *DK's Shrimporium*.

*****************

I need a good logo: colorful, simple, classy, elegant, maybe some humor or hyperbole, are the buzzwords. Maybe something tuned toward Ye Olde Tyme visually. 

I am looking for sleek graphic art, not photographic art. I'm looking for visual simplicity not complexity. I do not tend to like visuals that run toward floral or scroll-y or gradient. I do tend to like bold, simple graphics and colors, levity, and either mystery or humor.

First, I'm going to print it out in color and laminate an 8x10 sign for the Shrimporium door, to greet me every time I enter the Magical World.

Second, if I like it enough, I will use it for all things DK shrimp-y.

So I'm offering $200 credit, good for 24 months from issue, to the winning design artist. I get all the rights to the design, when you submit it, if it is chosen as the winner. I'm only going to choose a winner if I like it well enough to use for my doings, but I know there is a lot of talent and creativity out there, so I'm throwing it out to y'all.

I will begin to evaluate for the winner in 3 weeks' time, and will continue to evaluate until I've selected a winner. I may not select a winner, if none of the designs accomplishes my goals - this will not mean the designs submitted aren't stellar and creative and unbelievably talented, it just means I'm looking for the right statement in visual form, and I'll know it when I see it. It has to have message, and personality, and clarity.

Since design is a matter of taste, and I will NOT comment on any of the designs until I announce a winner, post your design here in this thread as entry (or, if you prefer to keep it private, you may email me a prelim jpg file to the email in my sig below - I will only send confirmation email that it has been received, generically, to stay fair - remember to tell me who you are at TPT if you use email), and if you are winner I'll need a high res graphics file from which to do printouts and such when I use the graphic. You can enter as many times as you want. You will be rewarded the certificate for $200 credit upon agreement that I own all rights to the chosen design and submittal of a high res file suitable for my purposes (i.e. layered and useable in Photoshop or GIMP, in case I want to tweak the font or text or something). 

OK, so here's the deal with DK. She could sit right down and draw her own logo in five minutes. Her problem is she needs it in electronic form, to manipulate - a layered graphics file. Because she's gonna do different, coo-el things with it. So y'all can submit hand drawn entries, but if you win you will have to split the prize with someone who can turn your entry into the form I need, OK?

The logo/graphic must incorporate the text *DK's Shrimporium* and *arixa.com* somewhere in the design, prominently. (Yeah, if you go to that address there is basically nothing there, but I do own the domain to use someday.)

I reserve the right to tweak the winning design to fit my needs.

The winner and winning design, if selected, will be posted here when it happens.

Have at it, folks. 

I dare y'all.


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> _Personal Assistants !!_
> 
> I think we need some examples of said fine art posted herein.


I shall thus refer you to my website's gallery (which I totally need to update with more work, but that's beside the point). Imagine: shrimp imagery all over every wall of your house...



aelysa said:


> Does the situation room include a large flat screen of a stream flowing? Now that would be sweet.


Nah, what it needs is an Aquavision. See, I got me a cheap (i.e. free) couch and deposited it in front of one of my tank racks, stuck a little coffee table in front of it, and voila! Aquavision: serving all your aquatic couch potato needs


----------



## aelysa

What's your favorite two colors?


----------



## DKShrimporium

aelysa said:


> What's your favorite two colors?


Short answer: blue, and red

Long answer: for the purposes of the logo, which, in my mind, should reflect stylized biology or natural habitat (I can't help but keep getting flashes of a weird sort of combo of the Olde Tyme Turn-of-the-Century and Stylized Japanese Aquatic Art such as this), the colors would major in blue, non-olive-y greens, reds, blacks and whites. (The Olde Tyme reflects the actual wording "Shrimporium" which derives from an old time term, and the Japanese Stylized Art reflects the origin of the development of this hobby, for the most part - Asian, at least, are the origin of many of our shrimp species - and, I happen to like this clean visual graphic style and color palette they tend to use.) Splashes of yellow or orange ok, but not heavy toward these. Avoidance of muddy or olive-y colors or yellow/golden/olive undertones. My avatar is actually a pretty good primer of my thinking: I used an actual photograph and derivatized it into a gif with websafe colors, altering the greens a bit toward forest and emerald from their natural more golden/muddy undertones. There's a bit of humor built into the avatar, in my mind, as the oversized shrimp tail reminds me of whale-watching photos - sort of a visual paradox if you know DWARF shrimp. There is a bit of suggested movement and mystery to the graphic, as the tail is slanted and seeming to move off the frame. And yet, anyone who knows dwarf freshwater shrimp knows within a fraction of a second what that graphic is - a crystal red shrimp tail.

Here are some gestalts:

Olde Tyme General Store
Barbershop quartet - top hats, striped suits, banjos, black shoes with white saddles
Old time bicycle with Charlie Chaplin on top
Monty Python-esque scene of Moby Dick with a shrimp instead of a Whale
Graphics of koi on ceramic pieces such as vases
Stylized Chinese Paper cut art, simplified


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Nice contest.


----------



## aelysa

DK.
You so crazy 
Come on! I asked you what your fav colors were and it degenerated into a whale tail! You've been using that acrylic bonder stuff again haven't you... *Looks stern*


----------



## DKShrimporium

aelysa said:


> DK.
> You so crazy
> Come on! I asked you what your fav colors were and it degenerated into a whale tail! You've been using that acrylic bonder stuff again haven't you... *Looks stern*


Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh?


----------



## aelysa

greenisgood said:


> Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh?


Oh, nevermind 
<--- Gets to working.

Squirrel had really hard time reconciling Stylized Chinese Paper cut art, simplified with Old time bicycle with Charlie Chaplin on top. Ended up with showgirl shrimp tramp stamp.

Edit: totally made something uncolorful, scrolly, and floral


----------



## DKShrimporium

If I have an altered state of consciousness, it's not because of fumes, but rather poison ivy, which one of the Germans apparently brought to me, after skunk hunting next door in the wilds. I have half a leg blistered up, right now, so if I'm a bit loopy, that must be why....


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Aelysa, that logo is really really nice....*puts away my crayons*....but I don't know if DK breeds Sulawesi Shrimps...you might just have to give the store credit to me....:flick:

Skunk hunting?....call me weird but I actually like the smell of skunks....hummmm.......


----------



## speedie408

shrimpnmoss said:


> Aelysa, that logo is really really nice....*puts away my crayons*....but I don't know if DK breeds Sulawesi Shrimps...you might just have to give the store credit to me....:flick:
> 
> Skunk hunting?....call me weird but I actually like the smell of skunks....hummmm.......


You must be a smoker of the "good stuff" :wink:

I agree, that's a pretty SICK tramp stamp!


----------



## aelysa

I only take 15 percent of the credit for the tramp stamp, I used a free vector. Can't break out illustrator during the kids nap time, they always seem to wake up when mommy is working. I only composed it and made the shrimp. Speaking of the shrimp I made, I just now noticed they look male. Showboy shrimp? Sorry!
Lol! Just realized you said you DO NOT like floral and scroll. Gah!


----------



## jimko

did mis-spell the website? Minus a hundred dollars on that award.


----------



## aelysa

At this point I owe her money since I mis read her description!


----------



## asukawashere

aelysa said:


> At this point I owe her money since I mis read her description!



I dunno, I kinda liked it... but then I've always been a fan of the vector swirlies.... Swirlies... yeah.

--------

Anyway, I'll probably get out my tablet sooner or later and try to whip something up... after it's rejected, I can then adapt it for use in my Scrimpery (which is supposed to be some odd fusion of the words "shrimp" "crayfish" and "hatchery" ... I think... it just got a little lost along the way ). It doesn't sound quite as cool as "DK's Shrimporium" but that one was already taken...

First I have to figure out how to make bling for granny carts, though. Don't ask.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Really like this font, it's called carnivalee freakshow (Yeah, I would like that, wouldn't I??!!)

And something is whispering in my ear, "Channel Monty Python's Flying Circus..."
...and maybe a mythical shrimp on a nautical grid, with Mad DK riding cowgirl style like those spoofy postcards with jackelopes...
...or maybe a stylized picture from the Mad Lab figure, below...

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Or, channel the gestalt of these images, into a Monty-Python-esque theme: (image source: graphicsfairy.blogspot.com)

I just learned something new: STEAMPUNK!!


----------



## aelysa

-_-


----------



## Chucker

Yup, that fits steampunk. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and all that (comic is better than the movie)


----------



## DKShrimporium

Or, how about STEAMPUNK ship, in silhouette, flying through the blue/green "skies" as this graphic, with Mad Lab DK on deck, bushy hair flying, pointing toward a "flying" mass of shrimp silhouettes, in the wavy, cloudy "skies." Or perhaps a STEAMPUNK submarine, with Mad Lab DK's head silhouette in a porthole, chasing a group of shrimp underwater through a canyon.

_The problem with a squirrel-brain is that it generates ideas faster than you can actualize them..._

(C'mon... anybody else having as much fun with this as I yam??)

Anybody else _love_ Howl's Moving Castle?


Image source:


----------



## Chucker

Ooooh, or something in between the Moving Castle, and the ship used by the Crimson Permanent Assurance!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

So Japanese motif is out? 

DK,

I can see Steampunk being right up your alley. Mechanical elements, vintage theme...little bit alternative and off the beaten path....all it would need is a sprinkle of madness and we have a winner...actually a lot of madness...get to work designers!!!


----------



## DKShrimporium

We are talking about DK's Logo contest, for those joining us now.



shrimpnmoss said:


> So Japanese motif is out?


Not really... this is formulating in my squirrely-brain more and more...

Take _this stylized form for the background_ - sort of a mixture of stylized Japanese art and digital boiling down:

(image source: http://www.kuffner.org/james/gallery/raytracing/torii/)



.


----------



## DKShrimporium

(We are talking about DK's logo contest.)

Now, think Castle In the Sky - gestalt Ghibli, but think Chinese mountains as the source material, then add surrealism of flying through a space on a steampunk ship with mist and canyons and large structures like Chinese mountains, in search of elusive batches of "flying" shrimp.

(image sources: http://www.nilsmaier.de/startup/assets/images/Laputa.jpg, and http://mmimageslarge.moviemail-online.co.uk/ghibli-castle-sky.jpg and http://www.orientaloutpost.com/proddetail.php?prod=ldl-ls33&stext=chinese new year and http://images.sinohotel.com/images/2007/07/06/185443561.jpg)


----------



## DKShrimporium

(We are talking about DK's logo contest.)

Maybe some light beams shooting diagonally across the landscape, through the space, such as in the scenery from Princess Mononoke:

(image sources: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/featuredarticles/kie/forests/img/p03_photo01.jpg and http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs50/f/2009/258/4/2/Forest_Spirit_by_Akasuna__No__Sasori.jpg)


----------



## DKShrimporium

(We are talking about DK's logo contest.)

Now, every one of those elements is fairly complex. 

The GENIUS will be in _boiling them down, to the essential, least bit of them_, into a logo that one digests in a fraction of a second, from poster size, to avatar size.

This is not a small challenge.

But, DK is sporting, and likes a good challenge, and likes to infect others with her way of thinking. For life to be fun, it has to be sporting, DK believes. To do something the easy, pre-digested way just isn't _sporting_.



**************


----------



## asukawashere

... DK, you're killin' me here! What happened to "simple" and "graphic"...hmm?

And now you have me thinking about those wacky floating mountains in Avatar. Terrible movie, but very pretty to look at... *dies*

You know, oddly enough, I'm working on a painting right now that involves a bunch of desert rocks floating in the sky with cacti and an iguana and a bunch of fish swimming around in the air. I thought I was the only one deranged to come up with such a notion, but I have clearly been outdone here. Behold my envy...

...okay, actually, I can't really come up with the effort to be envious before 2pm (my preferred wake-up time), but you get the gist.

Now what to do for this logo...


----------



## DKShrimporium

IN OTHER NEWS:

Being the geek-o-dweeb that I yam, I decided this morning that it's time to push for optimization of the system, now that I have it dialed in. I'm doing a minor re-engineering of the system to match the spare parts of our household water treatment system, so if there is a problem, the spare parts will be the same between the two systems, since the two systems are based on the same basic hardware. This will entail changing some of the injection pump parameters and re-calibration of the injections, but should not be too difficult of a transition.

Yesterday, I plumbed in unions to the piping output of the sumps. This way, in a pinch, I can disconnect the sumps in minutes - to get into the sump pits or replace a dead sump pump with - what else - my spare I keep around. 

I already have duplication of systems in this regard in that I run two sumps and two basins, but they are on opposite sides of the room so if I had to use one for all in an emergency it would be a bit hairy to re-route the water over to the alternate pit. Easier by far to have a spare pit and pump, and the ability to change them out in a moment.

I also _finally_ solved an annoying slow seepage of water onto my floor that had puzzled me for months. I was getting a capillary effect of water back along my drain pipe and out the sump basin, down to the floor. This was possible due to the surface tension properties of water, and the very slight slope of my drain pipe. So I put in an elbow at the end of the line, and problem was solved. Whew, that was a head banger, for a long while. 

I might have identified the issue sooner had I been able to see it sooner, but it was only yesterday that I was able to SEE it as I cut loose the sump pipes to install the unions, which enabled me to see the physics of the problem. I had to make a SECOND trip back to Lowes for the elbow, but at least it solved that _annoying_ problem! I was all set to replace what I thought was a sump basin with a hairline crack when I realized what was happening, and so gratefully did not need to replace the sump basin.

Over this weekend, I will also plumb in unions on either side of my master valve, so in a pinch I can whip that baby out and clean it or replace it, without having to do actual plumbing.

"..._we the people, in order to form a more perfect union_..." - oh, wait, I digress. Squirrel-alert!

_Who knew that years of playing Lego would come in so handy, eventually..._


----------



## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> ... DK, you're killin' me here! What happened to "simple" and "graphic"...hmm?


Dat's why I need _HELP_!!! _Simple_ is anathema to _squirrel-brains!!!_


----------



## oblongshrimp

What are the sumps used for in your setup?


----------



## shrimpnmoss

My shrimps wish they were in your tanks.....


----------



## aelysa

greenisgood said:


> Dat's why I need _HELP_!!! _Simple_ is anathema to _squirrel-brains!!!_


Srsly DK. Rili.

Now I remember why I never ever do logo work. Slays me.








Was considering adding goggles, but simple and goggles just don't fit. I tried!
Edit: Ok, fine fine, it needed goggles. And angled text.
I just realized it's like your sig, without gravel. And the shrimp has more tattoos. Huh. Not as original as I thought


----------



## DKShrimporium

oblongshrimp said:


> What are the sumps used for in your setup?


They move out the removed water from my water changes. My basement doesn't have floor drains, unfortunately, so I have to use on-floor sump basins and sump pumps, tied into the main drain line of the house.

**************

Just finished reinforcing the mounting of the three new manifolds - they have been rather hanging in outer space and I wanted them bolted down securely in case one got bumped (like, as in, DK loses her balance and falls off a ladder, landing on the water factory...!!). I have nightmares of pieces of the Water Factory snapping off, with geysers of water shooting everywhere, filling the drain-less basement with water.... water level coming up to my eyeballs... gurgle... gurgle...

...squirrel-brains are haunting, sometimes...


----------



## mattycakesclark

greenisgood said:


> Stenner has recently changed (GASP!! CHANGE!!) the way they mount the pump tubes into the tube ends to a MUCH better design - used to be crimped in metal, but now they are fused into polymer. The metal crimping included some latex ring at the tube end that would dry rot over time and goop up the roller head casing where the tube ends are held, as you can see on my spare pump picture. Now, NO LATEX!! Great improvement. I have one spare set of the old type tubes on the left, and one of the newer on the right. If you look closely, you can see the metal crimp rings, but not the latex rings, on the left ones.
> Stenners are the ultimate pump for us Lego types.
> .


Yes, I like the new tubes. The #2 tubes for a while were a pain, seemed like every other one they were not crimped on well, and yoink! And the lack of the latex goo is nice, sitting there with a knife cleaning. I like them new tubes a lot. Where you yank the flow meter?


----------



## DKShrimporium

mattycakesclark said:


> Where you yank the flow meter?


I need a translation on this question... into squirrel language.

Does "yank" mean mount? Buy? What does "yank" mean in squirrel??


----------



## mattycakesclark

Aquire lol. it is a nifty idea.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Monday, while everyone else is grilling, DK will be sneaking off to the BORG to get the last and final thing for the DKMSJ system, and beta testing will begin Tuesday...


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, it turns out that DKMSJ is _*so*_ magic that....


_Rolf is pregnant!!!_​.​


----------



## aelysa

You could name shim Rolfisa.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Rolf you party girl you....been out late huh?


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> Well, it turns out that DKMSJ is _*so*_ magic that....
> 
> 
> _Rolf is pregnant!!!_​.​


I totally almost died when I saw that. Stop trying to kill me!!!

Good going, Rolf...ette?


----------



## DKShrimporium

I'm thinkin' just "Rolffe" (part of my reasoning is I do better without changing names, as it confuses me! - this just changes spelling)

I about fell off my little shrimp stool, when SHE crawled out of the weeds like this, about an hour ago. I only just found out! So naturally, I had to waste the past hour, trying to get a better picture, which this is questionably so, but at least a more sideways view.

She is such a gorgeous shrimp! You can see the influence of the Blue Tigers, now, with the rusty overlay over the black, all over a blue body. So gorgeous! Here's hoping to a whole crop of baby Rolfs and Rolffes!


----------



## aelysa

I feel a little obsolete. :tongue:

Could it be Rolf's twin sister? Perhaps Rolf is really hiding in the moss?


----------



## DKShrimporium

aelysa said:


> I feel a little obsolete. :tongue:
> 
> Could it be Rolf's twin sister? Perhaps Rolf is really hiding in the moss?


OBSOLETE? No way! You are on trend, here. Steampunk shrimp!

That is definitely Rolffe. The beauty (is that a pun??) of the T-Rexes is that each is absolutely unique in their markings, so you can tell them apart if you know the differences. I do have several Rolffeoids, but this berried one is unquestionably Rolffe.

I have those "high grade" ones too - all black with orange eyes, but I rarely take pics of them as they are b.o.r.i.n.g. and all look the s.a.m.e. Big ones, little ones, but they are all the same and b.o.r.i.n.g. When you watch a group of little appaloosa T-Rexes, it's ever so much more interesting as you can see the individual ones and tell them apart.

One of these days I'm going to snap an update picture of Hansel - also has developed into a gorgeous shrimp with the T-Rex framework and white accents. Looks totally different from Rolffe.

++++++++++

In other news, today launched the what I hope to be final formulation of DKMSJ. This is a slow process because it can take weeks or months to see if there are issues with the formulation. Sort of like drug trials and the way they work through phases. My first phase is toxicity/survivability. Second is lifespan longevity/reproduction. Third is optimization.


----------



## AoxomoxoA

greenisgood said:


> Anybody else _love_ Howl's Moving Castle?


Yes.


----------



## Neya

dirtyhermit said:


> Yes.



Me too.
Lately, I've been playing letting my toddler watch studio ghibli's to help her relax (before bed, or when she has nervous energy). Usually without dubs, and subs on.


----------



## jj..bequiet

ponyo, totoro and howls moving castle are always good for my little guy to relax to.


----------



## dzydvl

I know I'm late to the game, but any chance the contest is still open??? I figure it can't hurt to try and win


----------



## DKShrimporium

dzydvl said:


> I know I'm late to the game, but any chance the contest is still open??? I figure it can't hurt to try and win


Yeah, it's basically open at least for three weeks, to give people time to diddley-doodle. But after that, however long it takes, until we have a winner.

You can submit as many designs as you want, even.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Thought I'd post an update on the DKMSJ saga. (The latest formulation is a tweaking of the anion profile, for the chemi-geeks out there.) The initial results are very promising - DK has been gradually tuning each tank to its sweet spot and so far has berrying in all but two tanks, and those two are still about ten points out from their sweet spots and are still moving toward correction, so there is every reason to believe they also will pop like popcorn when I get there.

I have young from 2 mm on up that are thriving in the new formulation and some of the best color in the various tigers I've ever seen.

This has been a laboriously slow project with a lot of head banging, for DK to insist on hitting the sweet spot for every tank and AUTOMATED in doing so. It feels a lot like juggling a lot of balls - one or two is no big deal, but when you scale up the process to tens of tanks it's a lot more complex to get all the kinks out and onto auto pilot. And done with readily available and cheap formulation. And then streamlined and simplified into a KISS framework - has taken me two solid years of work, but I think I'm finally in the home stretch!  resistance is futile...

So far, things are lookin' really good, though...

Here's a brand new (~2 mm, 1-2 days old) DE black tiger hatchling, lovin' life in DKMSJ right now:


----------



## XMX

Looking good! Now when are you going to put some of those nice looking shrimps on the market?


----------



## tetranewbie

Do I/we have permission to use/modify a shrimp picture YOU took?


----------



## Tacct

Do you do anything to flush out the lines? It seems like the formulas would be slightly mixed between tanks if they use any of the same lines, or whenever you change the formula.


----------



## aquariumluvr

I've been following this thread since it was started...in envy of the awesomeness of your shrimporium. 

This is my contest entry. I was trying to play off of the whole T-Rex Tiger thing with the website in the shrimp. And the font is "Biker Bones"...get it? T-Rex? Bones? haha....


----------



## aelysa

That is one tough biker shrimp!


----------



## msnikkistar

I know you said you hate gradients, but it just looked flat to me lol

Please note: I will not be using the credit myself if I were to win. I am not greedy. I just like doing graphics.


----------



## mordalphus

Nice t rex nikki :>


----------



## shrimpnmoss

msnikkistar said:


> I know you said you hate gradients, but it just looked flat to me lol


DANG! That looks @#[email protected]%$ HOT!....Rolf is even the mascot.


----------



## mordalphus

That's hot stuff nikki, but it's definitely no contender to THIS:


----------



## bsmith

And Liam wins again. 


Can I get that shrimp from you I must have it!???!!??


----------



## msnikkistar

Liam always out does me


----------



## bsmith

Mad skillz with..... Mario paint.


----------



## mordalphus

bsmith said:


> And Liam wins again.
> 
> 
> Can I get that shrimp from you I must have it!???!!??



You know how long it took me to get a perfect picture like that of that shrimp? He's my only t-rex, so he's not for sale. Sorry, Bsmith. The hardest part was getting him to pose with his pleopods in the perfect 'arixa.com' formation.

Actually, believe it or not, that's an artists rendering of a shrimp that doesn't exist! I know, I just bent your melon, it took me 12 hours in MS paint on a laptop touchpad, but I finally got it to where it's 3D, and the depth of the picture really pops out at you. I hope DK likes it (crosses fingers)


----------



## aelysa

I feel like you should instawin for that liam.


----------



## bsmith

mordalphus said:


> You know how long it took me to get a perfect picture like that of that shrimp? He's my only t-rex, so he's not for sale. Sorry, Bsmith. The hardest part was getting him to pose with his pleopods in the perfect 'arixa.com' formation.
> 
> Actually, believe it or not, that's an artists rendering of a shrimp that doesn't exist! I know, I just bent your melon, it took me 12 hours in MS paint on a laptop touchpad, but I finally got it to where it's 3D, and the depth of the picture really pops out at you. I hope DK likes it (crosses fingers)


I also heard that you had a part in Avatar and Toy Story. It must be tough...:icon_mrgr


----------



## mordalphus

I really feel it brings everything to the table... It's colorful, it contains all of the right words (and even some extra words that are extra right), and it has that old timey feel you've been looking for (80's style dot matrix font is old timey, right) And look at the tail on that "p", it reaches way far down, like an old timey person was writing it.

I even dotted the "i"s, which is a rarity with me, as I normally just omit the letter "I" from everything I write as I find it is too much work for such a little letter.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Funny...I think Liam owes DK two bills for that logo...congrats DK!..


----------



## msnikkistar

h8 you liam. I am jealous


----------



## mordalphus

msnikkistar said:


> h8 you liam. I am jealous


it's ok nikki, at the end of the day you're the one with EVERY FRIGGIN SHRIMP IN THE WORRRRLDLDDDDDD ()*#$*$##!!!


----------



## msnikkistar

Not every....ONE DAY THOUGH! lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

kite949372 said:


> Do you do anything to flush out the lines? It seems like the formulas would be slightly mixed between tanks if they use any of the same lines, or whenever you change the formula.


Very good question. I have bypass routes installed that run to flush lines (so I just flick a valve and the Water Factory output goes to the flush lines instead of to the tank lines), and I've timed the dead space time so I know to run the flush 20 min if I tweak the mixture, then the new stuff will be going into the tanks. I can also draw samples from the flush lines while doing stuff, and track changes in TDS to know when they're stable. Since I'm now making DKMSJ in 14 gallon vats at a time that will last me, I dunno, a month or so, I do pre- and post- injection battery of tests to make sure I have the new vat's formulation correct and that the transition will be seamless. This is partly why I bought the micropipettors and graduated cylinders.



XMX said:


> Looking good! Now when are you going to put some of those nice looking shrimps on the market?


My orientation is not primarily profit; my orientation is science and development, so I have certain criteria in my projects that are benchmarks before I start pulling from a population. I may miss out on the sky high pricing of new species, but, again, I'm not about profit; I only use shrimp money to further my shrimp studies. So the short answer is: when the breeding populations fit my criteria for pulling, then I will make that specie available to the hobby, and my goal is always to get good enough at production to be able to supply y'all at affordable pricing.



tetranewbie said:


> Do I/we have permission to use/modify a shrimp picture YOU took?


To use in the logo? Sure. For other purposes, please specify.


.


----------



## Chucker

mordalphus said:


> I even dotted the "i"s, which is a rarity with me, as I normally just omit the letter "I" from everything I write as I find it is too much work for such a little letter.


Can we call you "Lam" from here on out?


----------



## asukawashere

Why am I even contemplating trying to make something when Liam is just going to leave us all in the dust like that? '


----------



## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> Why am I even contemplating trying to make something when Liam is just going to leave us all in the dust like that? '


DK's unofficial motto: Do not let _What The Other Guy Is Doing _deter you from greatness...

**************

IN OTHER NEWS:

The shipment of shrimp-y fired clay logs has arrived. These are the "walnut" colored clay - they darken slightly in water to about the color of the holes in the ends of them you see here. They have a new, smaller size in production, now, too.

I just love these... let the shrimpscaping begin...


.


----------



## Rion

Logo contest challenge accepted! Do you want the 8x10 landscape or portrait layout? This gives me an excuse to dust off all my graphic design programs and make sure I'm not getting rusty.


----------



## rickztahone

those clay logs look great.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

For those of us without design skills, we read this thread and wonder....how does DK control this madness? All this automation, home automation system? Controlled by iPAD? Big industrial levers? Voice Activation? Or do does DK just pick up the bat phone and her "personal assistants" do her bidding?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Rion said:


> Logo contest challenge accepted! Do you want the 8x10 landscape or portrait layout? This gives me an excuse to dust off all my graphic design programs and make sure I'm not getting rusty.


I'd say landscape is more useful if the design ends up as my logo because it will probably also become a home page.



rickztahone said:


> those clay logs look great.


I just finished installing about half of them, which entails significantly disturbing my lovelies - holy cow they've been busier than I thought under those weeds! I have hours of shrimp sorting to do as soon as all the tanks come to equilibration!



shrimpnmoss said:


> For those of us without design skills, we read this thread and wonder....how does DK control this madness? All this automation, home automation system? Controlled by iPAD? Big industrial levers? Voice Activation? Or do does DK just pick up the bat phone and her "personal assistants" do her bidding?


I'm s'posed to have CONTROL of all this??? Waaaaaaaaaaa.......t?? Nobody told me!

A few years ago I built an automated poultry barn... nipple waterers with heat cable on a temp sensitive circuit... a central pulley system to all the chicken stall doors on a curtain motor that was X-10 controlled...


----------



## shrimpnmoss

I'm s'posed to have CONTROL of all this??? Waaaaaaaaaaa.......t?? Nobody told me!

A few years ago I built an automated poultry barn... nipple waterers with heat cable on a temp sensitive circuit... a central pulley system to all the chicken stall doors on a curtain motor that was X-10 controlled...[/QUOTE]


That's it? Maybe because it was a few years back...so you were still honing your skills....I'm sure if you made that today....there would be an auto-egg collector/omelet maker all-in-one.


----------



## FIT BMX

I would like to see that chicken barn it sounds great, I have always had lots of chickens around (for eggs NOT meat )







. On the contest, is hand drawn ok ,I am not a computer person. :icon_ques


----------



## DKShrimporium

FIT BMX said:


> I would like to see that chicken barn it sounds great, I have always had lots of chickens around (for eggs NOT meat )
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> . On the contest, is hand drawn ok ,I am not a computer person. :icon_ques


Hand drawn is possible, but in the end I need electronic form, because I guarantee you my squirrelly brain will generate ideas with the final product that it will want to derivatize. So I need electronic form to be able to do this.

I will have to look for better pics, but here is a shot that shows a bit of everything pertinent:

Inside the barn, it was designed sort of like a horse barn with different "stalls" for pens. Each pen had a slider door that was attached to a pulley system to open and close it; the doors were mounted into tracks. (This picture was taken early during evolution, so the coop door is not attached to the pulley yet but rather is held up by a nail at this time.) The central watering system was piped around the perimeter of the barn. The pipe was wrapped in heat cable, then foam tubing, then marine grade vinyl (the chickens, for those of you who don't know, would peck at foam insulation until there would be nothing left, so the foam insulation and heat cable had to be protected from curious chickens). In the pic, you can see two yellow drinking nipples coming off the grey pipeline. Under the nipples, I installed funnels tubed down under and through the floor, as drains for when the nipples dripped as the birds drank (otherwise, the litter gets wet and this is bad). The grey paint near the bottom and also on the floor was epoxy paint - since the floor was plywood this kept the floor sealed.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's a picture of an incubator I built from scrap: plywood box, aluminum flashing lining, mesh shelves, reptitemp heat controller, flexwatt heat source, computer fans to distribute heat and humidity, automatic egg turner, reptile humidity gauge and thermometer, double pane glass front (I used this incubator for demonstrations, so you could see the hatching happen through the glass front)... I forget what else. I can't find a finished picture of it right now.

I'd set up the incubator in a preschool, take in a poster of egg development over the course of embryonic development, go in twice a week to candle the eggs for the kids, so they could see the blood vessels at first, then later the embryo and chick moving around in the egg. Toward the end, we marked the liquid level in the egg bubble on the shell, to make sure the humidity was correct (the egg must maintain a certain humidity or the chick dries out and sticks inside the shell and cannot move properly to hatch out, but too much and the chick hatches still in fluid, drowning.) - There was a lot of control needed to do this properly, as the preschoolers were expecting a perfect hatch! 

This project actually gave me a lot of the foundation for my shrimp work, now - working with how to control all the variables in the incubator to have a perfect and perfectly timed hatch. I totally believe that everything one learns is useful across the board, it's just a matter of lateral thinking to figure out HOW it's useful.

The first incubator I ever built was in 5th grade. It used, ironically, an aquarium heater, as the heat source and thermostat. My best friend and I hatched rare ducks from it, that year - they were some sort of Swedish breed that was marked like a pinto pony, and we couldn't afford to buy them, but managed to con a local person to donate some of their eggs to us. So we made our own.


----------



## FIT BMX

Will scanning work or not?

Those kids are very lucky to have a teacher like you!roud: We had a foam incubator for a short time when I was a kid, hatched out a runner duck then my dad slipped and stepped on it no more incubator.:icon_frow 

The coop looks great! your chickens are lucky, my chickens are not so lucky they sleep in the old horse barn. As for animals I have about 30 egg layers (a mix of breeds) around 25 Silky chickens 10 Guineas a duck ( just one the others were eaten by coyotes had a lot more guineas to but you guessed it) and one Irish Dexter cow plus a lot of dogs. 

What all do you have or is it just shrimp and chickens?

P.S Chickens love foam for some reason.:icon_roll


----------



## GDP

I envy your skills. If its not made by someone else, I would be screwed lol.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Too :icon_cool


----------



## aelysa

I never knew Diet Coke cans were useful for shrimp logs. Learn something new every day


----------



## DKShrimporium

GDP said:


> I envy your skills. If its not made by someone else, I would be screwed lol.


I have a lot of skills because I've had a lot MORE failures. I seem to learn best from failures, believe me. I'm just compulsive, and stubborn, so when I have a failure, it makes me determined to master something, that's all.

And I guess the other thing is I'm sporting. I don't like to do stuff the in the box way - it isn't sporting. I have to re-invent the wheel, that's sporting. Read this link.




FIT BMX said:


> Will scanning work or not?
> 
> 
> What all do you have or is it just shrimp and chickens?


OK, so here's the deal with DK. She could sit right down and draw her own logo in five minutes. Her problem is she needs it in electronic form, to manipulate - a layered graphics file. Because she's gonna do different, coo-el things with it. So y'all can submit hand drawn entries, but if you win you will have to split the prize with someone who can turn your entry into the form I need, OK?

Right now I have shreemps and Germans (shepherds, that is). 



aelysa said:


> I never knew Diet Coke cans were useful for shrimp logs. Learn something new every day


Oh, diet coke cans aren't shrimp logs. They're measuring implements. They measure size, time, and cost. Like: how big is it relative to a diet coke can? Or, how much time will this take - how many cokes worth if I have a coke each day in the afternoon at about 3 pm? Or, how many diet cokes could I buy with how much this is gonna cost me? Diet cokes are very useful, especially when the Bubba Mug is empty, for the day. The Bubba Mug is ONLY for mocha lattes.


----------



## DKShrimporium

IN OTHER NEWS:
******************

Today, pregger Rolffe came right up to the glass, showing off her eggs. Too bad the glass was so dirty, but I got these nice shots.

******************

The last two tanks have now been pulled into their sweet spots for several days, now, but no action! This _totally_ fascinates me, because, as it happens, these are the SAME two tanks that were the _most_ out of whack, for the _longest_, having been at the end of the lines, when the pressure differential problems caused problems. So it appears these populations have a substantial lag time in their physiology to re-equilibrate to the new normal, before they feel the conditions for breeding.


----------



## FIT BMX

OK, so here's the deal with DK. She could sit right down and draw her own logo in five minutes. Her problem is she needs it in electronic form, to manipulate - a layered graphics file. Because she's gonna do different, coo-el things with it. So y'all can submit hand drawn entries, but if you win you will have to split the prize with someone who can turn your entry into the form I need, OK?

That's cool with me. I might be able to put it in a layered graphics file I will look into it, but if not splitting the prize is great for me and it would make someone else happy too.:icon_bigg


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's next mad project*

After feeling twitchy for several days, because with DKMSJ doing its magic, all I have to do is sit around and drop food pellets into tanks then watch the popcorn pop (i.e., that would be code-speak for females berrying up), I finally figured out my problem is I am not _working_ on anything.

So I've had this idea of converting my dissecting scope from horizontal orientation to vertical orientation, and thassa wut igonna do.

This is, after all, mad science, so we have to do things the freako way.

Ideas are welcome...


----------



## shrimpnmoss

awww...heck...you should just turn that thing into a telescope...


----------



## GDP

Why is it that when I look at that I want to make a grahpic banner out of it lol?



shrimpnmoss said:


> awww...heck...you should just turn that thing into a telescope...


Speaking of which making a telescope from scratch is a pain.


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so it took me a few days to get around to it, but the results work, even if they are crude. The platform is actually precision measured to fit the focal length and viewing spot of the dissecting scope. 

Now, I have to make a glass observation chamber with front and back plate glass for best optics.

The idea is to isolate a shrimp into the observation chamber, and get a REALLY GOOD look at it. For various reasons...

_Side note here: It would have been much more finished and elegant except that I specifically wanted to use a piece of hardwood I had - turns out this piece, which was original to the construction of our house (it was an extra bannister piece) had petrified in the interim years. I was trying to split it into two rails using the chop saw and the blade caught the wood and sent it flying, cracking a split all the way down it (fortunately, it was close enough, so I used it rough like this). I had fixed a jig to do the rail cut, 'cause in a previous life I was a safety professional, and don't you know I would have lost a hand today if I had not done this._


----------



## shrimpnmoss

What? You weren't an engineer in a previous life? ..*shocked*


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> What? You weren't an engineer in a previous life? ..*shocked*


Nope, haven't played "engineer" yet, in life. I just fake it.

A real engineer would have, and would have used, a table saw with rip fence, which I don't have. Well, yet.

*************

In keeping with the KISS principle, I decided to order some of these and try them out first. Google and that auction site are my friends, but in this case amazon. They're a one inch footprint, which is close enough. And the lid will come in handy, too.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*gourmet cooking...*

My absolute _favorite_ shrimp food, and a few peanut butter cookies, too.

Beet tops - incredibly nutritious.

Cooked to perfection in the time it took me to post the first pic - about 3 min.


----------



## mordalphus

Yah! I myself, and my shrimp both love beet greens! Collard greens and chard too!

But I pan fry my beet greens with vinegar, olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper for myself, I dunno if I could eat them blanched like my shrimp do.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Yah! I myself, and my shrimp both love beet greens! Collard greens and chard too!
> 
> But I pan fry my beet greens with vinegar, olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper for myself, I dunno if I could eat them blanched like my shrimp do.


No garlic?

I have a craving for greens, now... time to go eat a trough of garden greens...


----------



## mordalphus

garlic is good too if I don't have to talk to anyone for the rest of the day


----------



## Bahugo

I could sketch you a design to enter if you wouldn't mind it being in pencil/pen work.

Edit: Re-read it, I'll start working on one for you tomorrow.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*I know I should clean my glass, but...*

My babies just love it!

Also, it's IMPOSSIBLE to take any pictures at my house without getting a German in it!


----------



## asukawashere

mordalphus said:


> garlic is good too if I don't have to talk to anyone for the rest of the day


If you eat a meal that has garlic along with a big glass of milk, you'd be okay. Something in milk neutralizes the chemicals responsible for "garlic breath." I take advantage of this trick all the time, since I loooove milk and loooove garlic... 


.....figured I'd throw in a helpfully off-topic scientific tidbit for the day.... :biggrin:


----------



## mordalphus

Wish I could, but I'm lactose intolerant. On the other hand though, shrimp enjoy stinky garlic! Maybe I'll toss a chunk in the next time I'm blanching their greens


----------



## Loachutus

Will you be attaching a camera to this? I'd like to see a GSD get in that shot.:icon_wink


----------



## Rion

Alright I haven't had much time to work on logos recently but I had two that I had done quickly that I've been meaning to post for awhile; I've been working 8 days straight, so haven't had any free time. More to come when I get a day off work.

I've been trying to keep things simple on the design so far though the type isn't where I'd like it and I'll probably have to make my own. 

The first design I've been toying with colors on it so here are a few examples.



























The last one was my rush attempt at a olde time poster but I think needs more work or at least more text. I might have to hand make it, scan, and edit it.










(These have been sized down from their original a 8x10 size)
Anyways, off to work again.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Update 6/27*

So, the logo entries have been rolling in, here and to my mailbox. DK is sitting around, pondering, as I am wont to do. Some clever folks out there, as I suspected.

*************

After all the drama of starting up a bank of new tanks last fall, fine tuning the Water Factory, reverse engineering DKMSJ, only to watch the tanks pop like popcorn when it all fell together, the past month has been B.O.R.I.N.G. just sittin' around waiting for the babies to hatch.

I did see Rolf (Rolffe, excuse me) upside down in the weeds two days ago, white-bellied. Yesterday, she crawled out of the weeds for some zucchini, empty bellied. So I'm on the micro-baby watch as I know they're in there, she was right on schedule to drop them.

Had a bit of drama last week when I discovered the water coming from my tap at 20-50 ppm nitrates, not a good thing when you are on automated system. I live between cornfields and am on well water, and I had been noticing how high the dog balls were bouncing.

Whaaaaaaat? Is she going off track with her squirrelly brain, AGAIN??

Nah, this is a perfect example of, if you pay attention, things relate to each other.

The dog balls were bouncing extra high because we were having a dry spell in the weather, causing the soil to be harder. This, combined with a June/July window of peaking fertilizer runoff (for the cornfields), caused my well water to have unusually high concentration of nitrates.

Fortunately, we had nearly a week of rain soon after, driving nitrate levels down to under 5. So we're all coo-el, now. I believe the peak has passed.

During the high nitrate levels, I had to dial back the new water infusions way back to amounts my biomass could process each infusion. Since each of my tanks is basically one huge mossarium, the plant mass can soak up a certain level of nitrates quite handily. 

Balancing a system is the fun, for me. First, you have the ecosystem to set up and balance with light, water chemistry, plant mass, biomass due to shrimp. Second, you have the whole cycle of infusion volume, population density, and feeding mass to balance. So when I had to dial back the infusion volumes to handle the tap nitrates, I then had to dial back the feedings, due to the lower infusion volumes. So this week, I'm power feeding to get my populations back on track, and pushing infusion volumes a bit higher than normal steady state, to refresh the tank waters.

-DK


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Do you do anything artificial to increase the O2 saturation in your water system?


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Do you do anything artificial to increase the O2 saturation in your water system?


Hm, well, the truth is the entire tank is an artificially made environment. So semantics are at play, here. 

The short answer is no.

I don't pump any air into the water.

The longer answer is yes.

I use HOB filters, which oxygenate the air as they pick up oxygen in their "waterfalls" and also drive a bit across the surface as they hit the tank water. My water is infused twice daily, and as it happens my tap water has a very high dissolved CO2 content, causing the plant mass in the tanks to photosynthesize and produce oxygen (my moss will pearl, at times).

I'm not sure shrimp need super high oxygen levels in the water per se. What I think they need is very clean water, and this tends to coincide in conditions in nature where there is high oxygen content in the water as well. And by clean, I mean from a physiological/biological perspective - meaning the water may have algae and other stuff in it in a healthy, balanced ecosystem and not necessarily be pristine empty and clear with zero turbidity, but rather is very amenable to growing healthy aquatic species and is not amenable to growing foul with pathogenic bacteria, etc.

-DK


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Ok. The answer is no then. I meant to ask if you injected O2 via air stone/sponge or soechting oxydants. 

You and your shrimp magic....I'm surprised that your high CO2 content doesn't reduce breeding like others have reported....it must be pretty high and nutrients must be in the water for moss to pearl...

Hey, how about posting all the logos that people have been sending in...or at least the ones that didn't get culled. Let us see dem!


----------



## spyke

So............. have you decided on a logo or not? Cuz i'm a student graphic designer and would relish the thought of doing a shrimp logo! 

Here is one that i did for my self. my own fish food company. kuvua . (doesn't exsist, just self motivated portfolio work)

and here is a link to my deviantart so you can take a look ata few other things i've done. even though half of it isn't up on that site.










http://eveeon-dreamscaper.deviantart.com/


----------



## Neya

I like your work. However, as a note, if you hadnt actually said "Kuvua" I would never ever be able to figure out what that logo said. The font is nice, just almost completely unrecognizable.



spyke said:


> So............. have you decided on a logo or not? Cuz i'm a student graphic designer and would relish the thought of doing a shrimp logo!
> 
> Here is one that i did for my self. my own fish food company. kuvua . (doesn't exsist, just self motivated portfolio work)
> 
> and here is a link to my deviantart so you can take a look ata few other things i've done. even though half of it isn't up on that site.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://eveeon-dreamscaper.deviantart.com/


----------



## spyke

it's more conceptual...not finished.
i have like 30 sketches and versions, this one was just the best looking, not most legible.


----------



## DKShrimporium

First, on the logo contest - 



spyke said:


> So............. have you decided on a logo or not?


DK is sitting around, stewing. There's also a lot of action behind the scenes (I had both an injector and a light fixture blow out, so I have to attend to them first, and I've got $400 + supplies arriving soon and a bunch of odds and ends to see to, all while house guests from out of town are due to arrive July 5, oh, yeah, and we just signed a contract to cover our roof with solar panels and all that's about to bust loose, too), here, so I'm inclined to stew a few more weeks so I'll be better able to focus, then. I don't feel the compulsion to rush, because, really, all the cool stuff you might want to use your prize money on isn't ready yet, anyway, and I'm considering making available to the winner some stuff that is not otherwise available... and not otherwise gonna be available for a while, either.

So until I actually announce a winner with big fanfare and confetti and all that, you can still roll in your ideas.



shrimpnmoss said:


> Hey, how about posting all the logos that people have been sending in...or at least the ones that didn't get culled. Let us see dem!


I do have plans to do this, but won't until after the winner is selected. 

It has been surprisingly hard to keep my mouth shut about the entries that have rolled in, I didn't realize how challenging that would be!

***************

In other news, this morning I saw my first Rolffe micro-baby. It's almost a miracle I saw the teeny li'l yeller eye up there in the moss, really. It's a bit older than I thought, at 3+ mm size already, but I knew Rolffe must have dropped them in the last several days, so they may be half a week or more by now. Rolffe is one of the more reclusive of the bunch, so I'm not sure how long she had been berried at the time I discovered _he_ was a _she_.


.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

You're such a tease.


----------



## spyke

ok...got some ideas and 2pages of sketches...lets put it in the computer! woot!


----------



## spyke

just a rough comp of 1 main idea....steampunk inspired baby!


----------



## spyke

eww..image looks squished....click on it to see correct proportions...sorry.


----------



## Bahugo

Posting imagine tonight! Hope you are still accepting submissions.

Edit maybe not my scanner doesn't want to get working.


----------



## spyke

umm...so who won?


----------



## DKShrimporium

spyke said:


> umm...so who won?


Um, so DK has to admit, she's been doin' a lot of sittin' around pondering, and nothing concrete is done at this time. Not to say nothing is happening, just that nothing is done yet. I have this quality of sitting on things, pondering, and then it seems that one day something just erupts, from the fog. It's a process I've come to rely upon. Actually, I just read an article on summer boredom, and how it's actually a good thing, because to reach the most creative state one needs to get "bored" to open up the mind. Yeah, that's it.

Part of the issue is I've been generally so-totally-lazy in recent months concerning things-shrimpy. Seems after ironing out the kinks to automation in the Shrimporium, I've achieved a stupor, as I don't have any more expansion plans I want to fund, etc. I make a batch of DKMSJ once a quarter, throw some food into the swarming masses when I think of it, and don't have to do a thing otherwise these days, except count babies for jollies. So I've just gotten so lazy, and have been focusing on all the other things I do, besides shrimp, lately!

The other part of the issue is that a few floors above the Shrimporium (on the roof, actually), DK has been working on closing a deal on a project that makes the Shrimporium pale in comparison. Negotiating with bankers, etc., that sort of thing. I was all nice and all that, through several times of being called "dear" from one male banker, ignoring his patronizing attitude, until the _third_ time when what he _said_ the terms would be and what he _wrote_ into the documents did not match up, and he was magically apologetic about the _inadvertent_ mistake but yet unable to produce any correct written documents... then... well, I'd just had it. He got it with both barrels, shot out into orbit, by formerly "sweet li'l ol' me" - his next note suggested I had made myself "crystal clear" - I really like that... "crystal clear." The next phone call I got was from his boss. I made myself "crystal clear" to her, too. I don't _hear_ any better from estrogen, than from testosterone, folks. I had to dump them at the altar, and move on to plan B, because I always am cooking a plan B, to be sporting, anyway. Shrimp have taught me to always have a backup plan.

+++++++++

In other news, last night the frogs were chirping - as in DK's water alarm Leak Frogs. I of course went tearing down to the basement at 10 PM to find the floor flooded. Used up the entire pile of at-the-ready shrimp towels to sop it up.

Took an hour or so to sleuth all around with the flashlight and then bang my head against the wall repeatedly. It wasn't until I let go of a paradigm that I was able to make any progress (see paragraph 1, above).

Turns out it was NOT any of DK's Shrimporium toyworks that were causing the water.

As most of y'all know, the east coast (and lot o' other places too) has been roasting under a nice heat dome, making the power companies dance in anticipation of their profits, from all the 24/7 air conditioning that is a-happenin'. Ours included.

So much so, that the unit in our basement was sweating to the oldies enough to cover the floor in condensate! I finally traced the water back to our air handler!

++++++++++++


----------



## spyke

ah...just the answer i was looking for.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, I've been dormant for a while - doing pretty much nothing, shrimp-y. (This is not to say the shrimp haven't been doing anything, just that DK hasn't.) Feels sorta good. 

But now, I've got the itch.

I think my next project, which I've been getting poked in the ribs about for six months, is to build a heat exchanger. The purpose of this would be to use the outgoing used water to transfer heat to the incoming water-factory water, so the streams hitting the tanks in the winter aren't at 50 something degrees, causing my heaters all to kick in like furious during a water infusion.

The very good thing is, though, that we used last winter's electricity consumption - which included this massive use of tank heaters - in the calculations for the house solar system. So if I can get a decent heat exchanger going, this may put us into _surplus_ electricity production...

I mean, how alluring is the concept of possibly getting off the grid, folks??

heh heh heh...

Now, to go off and get bored, so the creative thoughts on how best and cheapest to make a heat exchanger can emerge in DK's squirrel-y-brain...

For me, the main issue is CO2 in the water, and how to retain it best, until it hits the tanks...

HMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... already generating some ideas to re-use ('member - DK likes to reduce/re-use/recycle/rescue GSDs) some parts... my camera batteries need a re-charge, but as soon as they are up and running I'll post some pics...


----------



## shrimpnmoss

You are crazy...I mean that in a good way....


----------



## DKShrimporium

Heat recycling IS the future. You heard it here, first. _And shrimp took me there_...

Time to go schmooze with some DIY geek freaks...

*Geek riddle: What do dolphins and arctic foxes have in common?

Answer, tomorrow.*​


----------



## DKShrimporium

greenisgood said:


> *Geek riddle: What do dolphins and arctic foxes have in common?*​


 
No guesses? You guys are B O R I N G !!

Twenty bucks Shrimporium credit to anyone who gets my riddle correct...

DK


----------



## dhgyello04

There both mammals?


----------



## DKShrimporium

dhgyello04 said:


> There both mammals?


While that is true, it is not the answer to this riddle. The answer has to do with the thread discussion, you see.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

They both retain heat using countercurrent heat exchange (CCHE), while retaining their old tyme looks.:biggrin:

And they are both delicious...ahhahah....

Call me girl!!!....I bred your awesome OEBT and sorry to say sold them off to make room for a NEW project because I don't want more than two tanks in the house....I'm ready for new shrimps:icon_wink


----------



## A.M. Aquatics

Meat/fur of both is worth $200?


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## honda237

I would have gotten this if my stupid laptop wouldn't have shut down on me. But ya my guess is countercurrent heat exchange to maintain body temp. Same method you are going to try and use to heat your tanks with. Dang you shrimpnmoss


----------



## WaveSurfer

greenisgood said:


> *Geek riddle: What do dolphins and arctic foxes have in common?
> 
> Answer, tomorrow.*​


They all live in groups?


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> They both retain heat using countercurrent heat exchange (CCHE)


We have a winner - I did see you changed your answer to more correctly state the concept.

Counter current heat exchange is seen in many animals, especially those who inhabit cold climates on ice or in the water. It's an elegant solution that conserves body heat for the animal, done by anatomy.

DK will be pondering this anatomy, and how to artificially create it, using the most artificial of materials, LOL! There's a certain amount of irony in there, methinks! The kicker is gonna be finding the correct, non-toxic materials with good enough heat transfer...

There are, of course, products out there that do this. But those of you who follow DK's doings know that she is cheap and sporting, meaning she needs to constantly re-invent the wheel, using cheap, readily available, non-proprietary parts.

*************

In other news, DK's getting ready to start some studies with neos. If anything interesting comes of it, I'll let y'all know. I just have a hunch...




.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

If you can build it, I think the most efficient system would be a tube within a tube. Like a gas pump except you won't be venting but cold water entering the outer tube and a heated waste water core. That would be hard to build....unless you get your hands on some gas station pump materials....but again those parts probably won't exchange heat very well...you'd need a tube that doesn't retain heat very well....and that is non-corrosive...good luck!


----------



## DKShrimporium

I absolutely LOVE how shrimp-y projects take me to different worlds.

So where has the heat exchanger/grey water heat recovery project taken me to by this morning?

Radiant heat flooring (or, conversely, ice roof melting systems), and a product called hePEX tubing, a polymer tubing engineered for heat transfer.

Stay tuned, folks, I'm thinking about this hePEX and some playthings such as these leftover DK doings parts (DK has barrels and shelves of spare parts from past projects, always an interesting tour through a funhouse...):


----------



## DKShrimporium

I just had a _totally_ eureka moment. Simple, elegant solution, maxed out efficiency. Oh babieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Stay tuned. Gotta do me some shopping and beta testing.


----------



## GDP

I love those moments lol. Had one yesterday.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Freak-o!

Guess what I learned today?

The material that has the highest thermal conductivity is...

DIAMOND

Who-da thot? I had no idea.

***********

In other news, groceries arrived today, along with another slew of water tests, and some new foam sheets...



.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's exotic livestock in new show pico-tank!*

LOL, check it out! Anyone else grow these?



.


----------



## mordalphus

Is that a Marino trapdoor snail? Lol


----------



## Ben.

HAHA that's awesome, happens to my ramshorns that are in natural sunlight Never that lush though.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Is that a Marino trapdoor snail? Lol


He's an ultra-liberal "greenie" ramshorn. - Y'know, the kind that tries to make his shoe-box home self-sufficient for energy... he's trying to jump on the solar energy bandwagon. He grows his own food source, cleans the environment, and insulates his home all at the same time, using green, renewable technology. LOL

**************

Last night, I did a study and discovered it takes about 8 minutes run time for my system to equilibrate to a new setting. This means, with the Water Factory, I can turn a knob, and have a measured new water stream in 8 short minutes into the tanks. Since I have turbulent mixing chambers in the Water Factory that mix in the concentrate injector streams, I hadn't been sure how long it took to flow through the dead volumes and come to equilibrium again once I change a global parameter, for that new water to hit the tanks. So now I know. (Takes a deep Geek bow...)

In other news, DK did some shrimp-y shopping just now:



.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And on the heat exchanger project:

I think I'm going to pull a radiant heat pipeline (hePEX) off my feed CPVC input line, then run the hePEX through my wastewater sump barrel to pick up the heat, then return it downstream to the CPVC feed line, warmed. In the interest of marrying cross-culture, sharkbite is my friend. 

So far, I think this is my shopping list:


.


----------



## dtsuyuki

This logo stuff is hard. I'll keep working on ideas, but here's what I got so far..


----------



## DKShrimporium

Those of you who read this thread know I sort of sit, apparently "dormant" for a while, letting things soak in, until I decide to move on something, or until a moment of inspiration hits. 

I've been just sitting on the concept of a heat exchanger for, what, about two weeks, now. One of my lessons in life lately has been to slow down, streamline, and MAKE SURE I need to do something, buy something, before I take the leap - a sort of reverse-squirrel process. Right now, I especially want to make sure I _need_ to buy something, or that I'm buying the _best_ choice.

I've been stewing on the heat exchanger idea, and haven't moved on anything yet.

This morning, I start obsessing on the idea that if I'm going to do it, I really need to know it works, and I need to know how well it works. I just do. I mean, why do something if you don't have a means to measure the effects?

So I start pondering how the beejeezuz I could set up my system, cheaply, such that I could actually measure the efficiency of my heat exchanger.

And then, it comes to me...

Two valves, and a loop of plumbing is all it will take. Maybe 5 bucks and 5 minutes of plumbing extra in the project.

I'll make a diverter circuit in my supply line, with two valves, one to the heat exchanger branch, one to the diverter loop branch. By selecting which of the two is open for flow, the water will either go through the heat exchanger and on to the Water Factory, or it will bypass the heat exchanger, and go to the Water Factory. In a second, I can do one or the other, by adjusting the valves.

Then, it's a matter of running the Water Factory, and taking an end point stream and measuring the temperature under the two conditions.

So, this makes me happy.

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Friday Fixes*

Every once in a while I just get the itch to fix a small, irritating thing; today was one of those days.

First fix: converting my homemade stainless cart into a drying rack for Shrimporium dishes. The cart I made from a scrap piece of stainless counter I mooched off a lab where I used to work, when they had to cut it off to make room for a doorway. So now it's in the Shrimporium holding stuff and being useful. I used a piece of cut-down fluorescent fixture grid for my drain rack; the grid I had bought for another project but didn't end up using it for that.

Second fix: I hadn't figured out a secure, easy access place for the pipetman pipettors. You can't just hold these guys like a pencil in a pencil jar because you don't want to damage the dispensing end or the tips will not have an airtight fit onto them. I'm of course too cheap to buy a proper (readroprietary) rack for them, so I had to figure out a handy and cheap place to store them. I just made some suspension loops from my new favorite velcro strap thingys.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Friday Fixes, part II*

Third fix: I've been storing my 1000 ml graduated cylinder up high on my pvc pegboard wall, but even the large, extended pegs I have weren't long enough and I've had that baby fall back down on me a couple time when I bumped it trying to reach for something else on the pegboard wall. So since lately I've had pex on the mind, I figured out to cut a couple pex extenders and jam them onto the pegs - worked like a charm, and they are securely on there, too.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, I've declared my potassium studies over for the time being, and have been working on magnesium. I will do a tweak or two, and then I think I'll finally be happy.

Here are the latest shrimp-y toys, helping in the Madness. The cumulative Madness has significantly improved my capture rates, I can tell you (as in the number of young per batch making it to juvies). These are some of the very few toys for Shrimping I cannot buy at BORG!

*************

In other news, I'm VERY excited that I have apparently a few what I call Appaloosa tigers that have popped up in recent batches of the Black Tiger tank. I've been surprised by the Black Tigers, in that they pretty much produce like themself, and not much of a mixture of "grades." I was expecting a degradation over time with a mixed population, and just haven't seen it. But apparently mixing just the right two T-Rex's together has FINALLY yielded me some Appaloosas. They are absolutely my favorite of the spectrum. I'm also finding that the pigment develops a bit on black tigers, in that it will actually spread toward more coverage over time. So I have to wait for my Appaloosas to mature into juvies to see what I've really got, then will snap some pics. Right now, they are small, and the tank glass is furry, too, but I'm keeping it that way for the young over the summer breeding season. That's why I haven't shot many shrimp pictures in recent months.

Finally think I've got the Red Tigers dialed in, although knock on wood that my upcoming magnesium tweaks don't crash them! This has been a much slower than I want project, due to the DKMSJ work I did the past year.

OH, and BTW, I'm learning so many things are not true. I've run the Blue Tiger tanks all summer at 78, and they've been fine and churning out the babies to boot. Whodathot.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

You know Donna, I never bought into the whole you HAVE TO keep tanks under 75 degrees thing. I know quite a few people in Asia that keep likes to keep their tanks between 75 and 77. Once someone told me that baby survivability is highest around 75.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Shrimp sculpture*

So, last night the shreeeeeeeemps got sugar snap pea pods. Here's what was left this morning.

A new way to make sculpture...


.


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

DK,

Before you pick your winner. I have something I've been working on for hours. Would you mind giving me some time (at most, a day) to finish it up? I think you'll like it because it is just comical enough to be uniquely DK. (I mean this in a very good way  )

Edit: Spent more than 4 hours of work on this darn thing. Almost done!


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

http://imgur.com/2QCVYl&FHk3j

Check them out people!

They show up compressed here so check them out on Imgur!

I worked on them for a while


----------



## spyke

you so win......sh*t...

lol


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Lol that thing has a shrimp tail and whiskers!


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

Hahaha it's a TyrannoShrimp

(also had ideas for a King Kong shrimp, Tiger shrimp, Cherry shrimp, etc.)


----------



## DKShrimporium

Holy Bajeebers! I was up on a ladder messing with a tank when I thought an airplane hit our house. The whole rack of tanks started to slosh and then there was a huge bang upstairs. 

THANK GOODNESS I had tied down my racks with kevlar rope bolted into the floor joists above them, in case any freak thing like this ever happened. The rack would have fallen over on me, with all that weight!

We had an earthquake! Stuff fell off the walls!

Yeah, I'm still sort of in shock. I can't even use my phone because the cell towers are overloaded. Philly and Wilmington evacuated some hi-rises due to panic the news is reporting.

So, I guess I'm not gonna bother shipping shrimp, today.

Hmph.

DK


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Glad your tanks made it OK. Thank God there was a safety officer onsite.roud:

On another topic. Can you share some information or conclusions from your K study? I'm mainly curious if dosing K affected your shrimp breeding?


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, in true geek-like fashion, the squirrely-brain takes off, wondering if my ground water will be affected by the earthquake - any new cracks in the bedrock, causing a different flow of water into my well? Will I see a wave of turbidity or nitrates (I live near farmland and we get fert runoff into the ground water; this year it's been lean because it's soy rotation, so they fert less heavily than corn years. Corn is a hungry plant.) from the next Water Factory cycle? Better be on the lookout, ready with my testing kits, just to be sure.

I can't answer too well on the K+ question because I didn't have the variable isolated. Based on a compilation of experience, though, I'd say planted tank K+ levels don't much affect what shreemps decide to do. I'm running very low K+ levels right now in a test, but concomitantly decreased my GH, so any effect could be due to one or the other, and more likely to the GH overall than the K+. I know, that's pretty much a non-answer.


----------



## GDP

Unless you were like +/- 50 miles of the epicenter your ground will be fine.


----------



## asukawashere

Holy schnitzel! Glad to hear you (and the shrimp) are okay. Safety planning FTW! 

You may wish to look into the matter of counseling for the shreemps, though. It's possible the trauma of quaking will reduce breeding rates. :biggrin: Psychological trauma can result in a number of debilitating physiological issues.  If I, for one, were a shrimp in an earthquake, I'd probably have a heart attack.

All jokes aside, though, I'm glad that you're well enough to be squirreling away about groundwater effects XD


----------



## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> You may wish to look into the matter of counseling for the shreemps, though. It's possible the trauma of quaking will reduce breeding rates. :biggrin:


I'm hoping it's sort of the opposite, you know, like when the power goes out in NYC and all those people are stuck in elevators... what happens nine months later...


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## Senior Shrimpo

DK,

I was really freaked out by the earthquake as well. I didn't even feel it but I was driving at the time and the radio started yelling "5.9 in Mineral, Virginia!" 

Apparently, because the East Coast has more dense rock in it than the West coast, the quake was felt over a much wider distance. 

I bet they'll be selling "quake preparation kits" tomorrow at all the grocery stores.

Sorry to get so off topic... lol, when I heard of the earthquake, I didn't even think of my tanks. I immediately thought "OH, I hope I feel some shaking!" Good job me, want to be hit by an earthquake.


----------



## GDP

Im more worried about the hurricane. But yeah I have to admit in the back of my mind I was thinking about my tanks lol. Glad your stuff is ok.


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## Senior Shrimpo

DK,

Update with some more t-rex tiger pictures!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK plays with leftovers... and makes a new Neo tank*

Yep....so.

While everyone is busy hunkering down for the irate Irene, DK up and decides today to tinker around with leftovers.

So I scrounged through my PILES of leftover shrimp-y stuff (you would not believe how many parts and pieces of stuff I have...) and decided to set up a new Neo tank.

It was rather fun, I had stuff around for the entire setup, and all I had to do was flip a switch on the Water Factory and make me some neo water to fill it, although what I did was run a manual infusion, re-route the used water off some neo tanks (I stirred up the substrate in their tanks to get me a good bacteria load in the used water) and collect it, and, voila, instant, cycled tank. Pretty coo-el.

Nobody even noticed I made a new tank! Complete with a half-basketball sized chunk of moss, donated from an overgrown other tank. Hee hee!

I have one more empty tank sitting in the garage that one of these days I'm going to go after, too, but I'm done for today. The limiting factor is I need to drill it, and I have to get in the "mood" for drilling. At any rate, it's not today...

I'll try to get some pics, maybe later this weekend...

DK


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## zachary908

Sounds awesome, Greenisgood! Can't wait to see some pictures!

Oh, slight derail, but I finally got the temps to a hood range for my OEBT tank. What do you keep yours at? I can get it as low as 69 degrees now.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, we've been out of power since 8 PM last night, when the howling, whistling winds and driving rains started, and lasted all night. They've largely subsided now and it's just a blustery drizzle and light grey skies, unlike the black cloud cover of last evening.

Fortunately, I live in a house of Geeks - notice the capitalization, we are Geeks in capital letters no less - so emergency preparedness is mostly second nature. We have the shrimp racks routed to the generator circuit, the generator running, and all is smooth, aside from the rather grating noise of the generator. We have gallons - barrels - of water, gasoline, and kerosene stored in out buildings. Big barrels, like 55 gallons. (Craigslist and the pharmaceutical industry nearby are my friends, for great barrels.) 

Last night the leakfrogs went a-chirping and there was about a gallon of water on the basement floor under the racks, I think what happened is my sumps cut power before the evening flush finished draining and the sump pit got a bit over-filled. I did note this and re-routed the sump power to the generator circuit today.

I just ate some tasty scrambled eggs cooked on a propane camp stove - the generator watts are well occupied running nearly 30 tanks (they are getting filtration, but no lights or heat right now), fridge, freezer, computers, well pump, and TV. The only half-casualty at the moment is the loaf of honey wheat bread that got half-way through cooking in my breadmaker last night, when the power went out. Bummer! The other Geeks took it out and spread the HALF COOKED BREAD DOUGH on saltines and made mutant "smores" last night; I did not participate in this... eeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I am not _THAT_ Geeky... _nope_.

Later, I dug the leftover dough out of the pan, fired up the gas grill with fire bricks, and we made some pretty darned good grilled pepperoni pizza. Now, I'm off to make some grill peanut butter cookies, on the fire bricks. We have a few hours until dark...

I wonder how our other East Coast hobbyists fared... wishing you well.
________

Update: The grilled peanut butter cookies turned out great! Who knew you can make cookies in a fire brick grill...

DK


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

Question. When you do water changes it's automatic right? So is there sponge covering the drains in the tankS? If you have already covered this sorry for asking again but there are pages and pages to read through.


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Sounds like my house when my the power went out for two days. Generator is so loud and annoying, and you have to put gas in it every 6 hours. But we had to or we would loose thousands in corals..


----------



## DKShrimporium

ZID ZULANDER said:


> Question. When you do water changes it's automatic right? So is there sponge covering the drains in the tankS? If you have already covered this sorry for asking again but there are pages and pages to read through.


Nope; I do lose an occasional shrimp down the drain, but I balance that against the possibility of overflow with a screened drain - not worth it. I put little video arcades on the substrate that attract the youth like maggots to a corpse, 'cause it's usually the wee ones that have drain adventures... OK, so maybe I lie a little...



10gallonplanted said:


> Sounds like my house when my the power went out for two days. Generator is so loud and annoying, and you have to put gas in it every 6 hours. But we had to or we would loose thousands in corals..


Yeah, corals are the most sensitive, IMO, in a power outtage - thing is you really need to run the _lights_ too, for them. Between the cost per square inch and their sensitivity, I just don't go there...

---------------

Power's still out. The new "wives" I put into the brand new Neo tank on the first night have fared without a hiccup - DK's busy settin' up several polygamist shrimp cults this fall...


.


----------



## ZID ZULANDER

Thanks for the information...


----------



## 10gallonplanted

Yeah its kind of funny how all the power from the generator went to tanks. It was still stressful even with the generator because it was still hot and trying to keep the tanks cool was a pain.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Man, am I _wiped_. 

Coming off the hurricane, getting everything back to normal, I decided since the system was sort of down due to the hurricane that I would quit procrastinating and fix a few fundamentals in the Water Factory that were bugging me - I had some pressure differentials I did not like and attributed them to placement of small check valves, so I re-plumbed the manifolds up to the highest point and removed all the check valves to each rack. This involved re-plumbing every last line. And then taking a day to tune it all and run tests.

Then, got more ants-in-the-pants and decided now is the time to fix a bunch of things around the homestead, before import goods jump up in price. So the past two days, I've installed a new kitchen faucet and sink-mounted soap pump, installed a new bowed shower curtain rod and shower head, and installed new bathroom light fixtures into three bathrooms (The original ones were very cheap but got the job done when we originally built the house, but now we are systematically converting every possible thing to more energy efficient types.) So four fixtures later, I'm very tired.

In the process, the other Geek arrived home from one of _many_ trips to the BORG with _the_ most he-man Milwaukee half-inch hammer drill. This thing is so he-man and heavy that you cannot use it one-handed, it has a second lever to hold to manage the weight and torque on your trigger hand. I mean, you'd have to have a body builder's arm to heft this (seven-plus-pounds) thing one-handed, which of course I do not. I once cracked a finger while using a hole-hawg, so I have ample respect for high-torque drills, and this thing sorta scares me. Variable speed, but crap if you slip on the trigger that sucker goes FAST - like jet engine fast - and it has the torque to do some _damage_ (well, ok I was thinking this as I drilled my stainless kitchen sink for the soap dispenser hole - that was fun because it was enlarging a 1 1/8 inch hole to a 1 1/2 inch hole - not fun, as a virgin hole is MUCH easier than an enlargement where you cannot place a pilot bit)

I did manage to clean the glass on about ten tanks today, but still haven't finished the cycle of getting the batteries charged and INTO my camera, for taking pictures. Been busy.

DK


----------



## spyke

lo-go, lo-go, lo-go!


----------



## zachary908

Sounds like a busy day. Man, that drill looks beastly!


----------



## asukawashere

Ack, I know how you feel DK. We just got power back yesterday, and internet only a couple of hours ago. I've got a week's backlog of internet stuffs to sort through and haven't slept well in days thanks to the steady, grating thrum of motor noises from the generator. But, at least I didn't have many losses - 1 mosura CRS, 1 macro rosenbergii, and a handful of malawa shrimp. Life goes on.

Unlike your unbridled geekery, though (which I still envy, naturally), I spent several of my many hours of boredom performing hard manual labor. Painting the basement floor (or, rather, the half of the basement floor the fishroom isn't on), moving large pieces of furniture, pondering the dismantlement of the 80-foot hickory tree that's down in our driveway (fortunately, no garages or motor vehicles were damaged in this event), and so on.

On the other hand, my shrimp all decided that this was the week to have a gazillion kids. I have new shrimplets/craybabies in a half dozen tanks... which, while entertaining in the sense that I spent untold hours trying to count them (not like there was much else to do) and I like shrimplets a lot, but a bit nerve wracking in that we were running on generator power and my shrimp go making fragile bitty shrimps left and right. '

What on earth are you going to do with the monster hammer drill? Break apart the better part of a cliff face?


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Scenes from the Geekery*



asukawashere said:


> ...pondering the dismantlement of the 80-foot hickory tree that's down in our driveway ...
> 
> ...What on earth are you going to do with the monster hammer drill? Break apart the better part of a cliff face?


Wow, that was a LONG time to exist on generator! Congrats on your success on that!

On the hickory tree: I've posted ads on craigslist, under their "free" section, my ad aimed at artisans and woodworkers - you'd be surprised what responses you may get from these types, looking for material to work with... and these types have tools... and trailers... (Plus, if you're going to lose a beautiful hardwood tree, it's great to try to give that gorgeous wood a second life as some beautiful artistic object - this was my thinking when a walnut tree of ours died a few years ago.)

Yeah, um. The drill. Well, when I started to drill the sink deck hole with the old drill, it had been gradually dying, having been rode hard and put away wet many years and through the construction of our house and all the Geeky projects thereof afterwards in succeeding years. It was time. But I didn't choose the drill, it just showed up attached to the other Geek's hand, after a trip to the BORG. I actually asked this same question - why do we need THIS MUCH drill? The answer: "Well, you just never know what we may want to do, in the future..." (I will admit here that I personally do use the hammer feature on not a rare occasion... of course this is a household that thinks nothing of punching a few more tapcon holes onto the cinderblock for x, y, or z project.)

So later last night I announced I foresee a new CORDLESS drill in our stable, since now I can't just grab the corded drill and plunk a few holes with it - now the corded drill is a major undertaking. The cordLESS drill is just about to go, too. We use our tools a lot around here.

So what did the other Geek say?

OK, so when we bought the faucet at BORG, there was a sign on the shelf that said BORG does faucet installations, starting at $169.... (...and surely it would have been an extra charge for the soap dispenser install, and again for the HOLE for the soap dispenser install... not that we would ever hire these things done...)

Yeah, you guessed it. "The drill was paid for by what we saved on the install..."

Geek logic, gotta love it!

Here's a few shots of the Geekery taken just now, I did put the batteries in the camera, this morning! See all those wires?? WE did them, not an electician. We did. One. By. One.

Oh, and see the soap dispenser? A very nice CAST BRASS, CHROMED unit by Koehler - _not_ a chromo-plastic fake. It was $20 more to get one that is METAL, over plastic, and I thought that was well worth it, considering I'm drilling a HOLE into my sink deck for the thing... When my geeky hands are dirty and I slam down on the thing to get me some soap, I won't be worrying about breaking it.


DK


.


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## zachary908

That's is a lot of wires! The new soap dispenser looks good, great job!


----------



## asukawashere

Indeed, 'tis a lovely dispenser. I'm more the "hey, look, the soap bottle comes with a built-in pump thing!" type, myself, but if I were to have a soap dispenser, I would want it to look like that. 

And holy &*^$%@! that's a lot of wiring. And Geekery.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Just some pics*

First is just what DK considers a beautiful shrimp tank. This happens to be my BSC crystal tank (broke student crystals - low grade). 

Second picture is from the black tiger tank - a picture, finally, of an up and coming Appaloosa Tiger - a pattern variant of Black Tigers. I have been very surprised that they are not produced often - mostly the black tigers produce like self with not much degradation back in pattern. So these guys, I have a few of them in the last batch, must have come from a special combination of two vintage style T-Rex's bred together. At any rate, I'm thrilled, as they are one of my favorites. (I need to clean the glass in that tank for more pictures, but right now they are into another breeding cycle and I don't want to disturb them, so that's why my glass is so dirty.) 

What fascinates me about the Appaloosa Tigers is that they are sort of pattern throw backs, but one would think that in a pattern throw back in black tigers, the pigment back-off would lead to THINNER _stripes_. But in the case of the Appaloosas, you get a patchy/chunky pieces and sometimes large irregular SPOTS on the field. This is so fascinating to me!


DK


----------



## GDP

Haha nice patch panel.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Senior Shrimpo said:


> DK,
> 
> Update with some more t-rex tiger pictures!


Wasn't ignoring you... well, I _was,_ just _temporarily_.

I think the thing about taking shrimp pictures is that it frustrates me, because I can never capture what I want. So, I kinda avoid them.

Anyway, I thought I had cleaned my glass, so took some shots.

The theme here is T-Rex and freckles. Some do, some don't. I love texture and variety, so I'm featuring a few shots of T-Rexes with freckles. The third picture is a juvie about 8 mm currently, and I'm very excited about this one because I think I'm going to have a heavily freckled whole field with the T-Rex "bones" overlay. How coo-el is that? Sorry about the bad pics.

I'm thinkin' mebbe I should rename those Appaloosas to "Techtonic Plate" tigers. Because the pigment patches remind me of geography more than spots. Well, at least right now. I know if I keep going in this direction I eventually get more toward Appaloosa, but right now the spots are more like plates.


.


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> I'm thinkin' mebbe I should rename those Appaloosas to "Techtonic Plate" tigers. Because the pigment patches remind me of geography more than spots. Well, at least right now. I know if I keep going in this direction I eventually get more toward Appaloosa, but right now the spots are more like plates.
> .


Maybe call them "Tobiano Tigers" instead? "Tectonic Plate Tigers" is a bit wonky  "Tobiano" fits with the horse theme you started with "Appaloosa" and rolls off the tongue a bit more easily


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## zachary908

Great pictures, Donna! I love the t rex tigers. I can't wait for my OEBT's!


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## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> Maybe call them "Tobiano Tigers" instead? "Tectonic Plate Tigers" is a bit wonky  "Tobiano" fits with the horse theme you started with "Appaloosa" and rolls off the tongue a bit more easily


Oh, yeah. Totally. I can never remember which are Tobiano and which are Overo, but Tobiano Tigers sounds coo-el, thanks for the name, and we're off to change it...

Yeah... Tobiano Tigers.

Just for the record, here's a picture that shows further down the spectrum, of color regression - I'm crazy about these patterns and will be trying to get back there. But you can see if you were to further regress the color placement, you might eventually get to Appaloosa. 

And BTW, I used to have an Appy. Here's his picture. We used to trail ride the Rockies, up across the Continental Divide. Oh, those were the days...

So, um, I guess y'all can see I've had a predilection for texturey-splotchy-spotty animals from way back...


.


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## wrangler

tobiano= white crosses over the shoulders, generally have the facial features of a solid colored horse..ie star, snip or strip and leg markings that are mostly white








Overo = white does not cross the back, have wild facial markings such as blaze and high leg markings,ie stockings









You can have a horse that combines the two patterns-thru genetics and this is called a Tovero....and it may exhibit combinations of both above horses....the most common as the horses typically shown in tv as "Indian" horses......mostly white with a chest "shield" of color flank color and a bonnet of color over the ears. Most times these horses will have 1 or both blue eyes.









On a side note my absolute FAVORITE pattern in paints is called a "splashed white". This particular horse is an overo pattern, but the horse looks like it was lifted and then dipped into white paint. Absolutely LOVE it on a bay horse....stunning!!









And to keep this on topic.....I would say your shrimp are overo.....altho they do exhibit tovero coloration in some with the white going over the shoulder..... ;-)


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## DKShrimporium

OK, we'll have to modify once more to Tovero Tigers. I just like the alliteration. I do agree Overo is closer, unfortunately.

Contestants #2 and #4 heads smell of something other than Quarter... almost a bit of Arab or Morgan flavor in the head lines and neck arch... Actually, #4 kinda looks like a warmblood overall. Maybe it's the distribution of the white playing tricks on my eyes, making the legs look a tad thicker...

"Dipped" would be a better description than "splashed" but I guess it's not a flashy enough term. I always did love to stare at a horse's blue eye... the blue is mesmerizing, really.

Thanks for the pics! Now I wish I had a horse, again. I always did want a paint, still do.


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## asukawashere

I was looking at the middle pic in post #470 when I suggested tobiano (those shrimp have the clear band going up and over the shoulders), but tovero works, too. 

Or we could just be a bit more vague and call them "pinto tigers" or "piebald tigers" - but I agree with the alliteration being cooler 

My personal favorites are the gypsy vanners - they look so cool, with the pinto coloration and the feathers all over the feet and whatnot. Just not a very practical sort of horse to own, nor a particularly affordable one. But very nice to look at.

My sister has a quarab gelding, though. He's a fleabitten gray (or, as I prefer to describe him, a dirty white horse) named Indigo. I ask you, of all the things to call a pale horse, how did they come up with _Indigo_?? Every time I visit the menace, he tries to steal my wallet. My sister insists he's just looking for treats in my pocket, but I'm onto their little scheme. She's training the thing to be a darn pickpocket.

I like your appaloosa. Very pretty horse. I've always liked any horse with multicolored markings, but there's something about that white with the little brown spots and speckles that's really nice.


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## wrangler

I did think of one more possibility......

Sabino.........









This is a pattern within overo.......has the blotching and randomness of ur shrimp!


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## DKShrimporium

Hola! That looks like a pinto put through a roan-machine! Or a blurring filter! Coo-el. (Aside: DK's latest madness is she has bought herself an inch-thick 450 page manual to Inkscape, a freeware vector art program, and she's stuffing it into her squirrel-brain, 'cause she wants to play with logo submissions behind the scenes - of course she CANNOT leave well enough alone, she must play!)

WDB, my horse, was a lovely strawberry roan up front. I miss him. My other horsey-color weakness is dapple greys, not too common.

Now, looking up at that pic above of the toward-Appaloosa pattern (in post 473), I do see some "white" over the shoulders, so I think we can declare it's not a cheat to use Tobiano, after all. I just love that word, it rolls around in one's mouth with a_ lyrical rhythm_. So, I think I may indeed go with Tobiano.

That leaves us with the to-date non-sequitur collection of Black Tigers: Monochromes, Broke-Blacks/Scallops, T-Rexes, Tobianos, and maybe someday Appaloosas. Why not. Yeah, why not. All you out there squirming, reading this - - it's because you don't know how to properly chill and have fun, in this _very short_ lifespan. 

Oh, and, see, I CANNOT take a non-macro picture, without a German in it.


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## Senior Shrimpo

Woot I wasn't ignored :bounce:

Inkscape looks pretty  Also, those horses look real cool, but the one wrangler posted has buggy eyes... it looks like its gonna blow a gasket.


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## DKShrimporium

asukawashere said:


> My personal favorites are the gypsy vanners - they look so cool, with the pinto coloration and the feathers all over the feet and whatnot.


Owowowow. Just googled, and I think I've died.

Wouldn't a mini-version of one of those make the best seeing eye horse?



asukawashere said:


> I was looking at the middle pic in post #470 when I suggested tobiano


I call that pigment fault line the "Hollywood waist"


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## DKShrimporium

...And, continuing with our non-sequitur theme of the day... (click the link!!)

However, someday, I'm a gonna integrate the ideas therein, into shrimpkeeping...

...or something else, in my life.

Hey, any of y'alls out there reading actually learning anything here, or producing novel thoughts? We aim to present thought-provoking material. (_Everybody_ should know the difference between Tobiano and Overo, in case you're ever on Jeopardy.)


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## DKShrimporium

*So, I got lucky...*

I'm pretty much a lousy photographer, so the pics you see are the ones I _manage_ to take.

I got lucky just now and one of my favorite T-Rexes came up to the glass, and held still. They are zippy little water monkeys, and hard to get shots of because they just don't hold still.

I really like this one - she's one of my favorites! 

(I've flipped the picture upside down because she was hanging.)


.


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## zachary908

She's beautiful, Donna!


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## DKShrimporium

Here's another pretty one. This female, and the female in post 482 above are both what I call vintage line black tigers. The original black tigers were developed first from non-blue tigers. Afterward, they were then crossed over into blue tiger lines, in an effort to get a uniformly black shrimp. But before they went over into blue tigers, the vintage line black tigers had some really neat characteristics not seen in the BTOEs (black tiger, orange eyed).

Vintage line have a coppery cast overtone. They also have a reddish or copper tint at the rostrum and tail, unlike BTOEs that have dark pigment in the rostrum and tail (see the others in this picture for that pigment in a dark eyed BT).

Some vintage also have lovely buff accents, such as tips to the tail, crescents along segments on the dorsal line, and buff stippling or accents along the lateral line, and buff segments on the back of the head. They also can have gorgeous banded legs that are very striking. This particular female shows all these characteristics, if you look carefully. I never did get her to turn more sideways for a better picture. :icon_neut


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## karatekid14

Wow those are very beautiful. Having never kept shrimp (except amanos) how much would it cost? I am guessing it would also be difficult to care for too.


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## DKShrimporium

karatekid14 said:


> Wow those are very beautiful. Having never kept shrimp (except amanos) how much would it cost? I am guessing it would also be difficult to care for too.


I don't really know. These are for development, not for sale, so if you can find any for sale, then I guess it's the law of supply and demand.

++++++++++++++++++

One of the last rounds of T-Rex babies, I got a batch with much more regression - wondering if they may have been Rolffe's crossed with another T-rex or Vintage line. At any rate, for the first time, I have a handful that show a light field with markings on it - even as 4 mm size they looked markedly different than previous batches, so I'm thinking they will mature differently, too. 

Here's a pic of one that I can't wait to finish out - looks the closest yet to an Appaloosa style marking. The pigment will develop a tad, but I doubt it's going to spread much toward any convergence, based on how I've seen others develop. They pretty much stay the same pattern, and the edges of the pigment may spread just a tad as they mature, sort of like baby regular tiger shrimp have skinny stripes at first that sort of get a bit meatier as they mature.

I'm very excited about this little guy, and his siblings. TOBIANO!!


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## zachary908

Donna, down the road when you have a larger colony of these guys and if you ever sell them.. let me know!roud:

The OEBT's are doing great by the way. Even saw my first molt this morning!


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## DKShrimporium

And here's a shot showing that lovely buff color detailing in the Vintage line Black Tigers - just love this!


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## DKShrimporium

And here's a sibling (two pics) to the one above in post 486, this time a light field but with heavy freckling, and regressed pattern a bit more suggestive of standard tiger stripes, but still looks like we may end up with broken up chunks caudally in the pattern. These guys are about 1 cm size right now.

I think this guy will finish out to look very similar to the picture of the adults.


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## disvegas

ur shrimps are awesome looking and i particularly like the t-rex tigers. don't forget to have some sales when u have extras though.

disvegas,


greenisgood said:


> And here's a sibling (two pics) to the one above in post 486, this time a light field but with heavy freckling, and regressed pattern a bit more suggestive of standard tiger stripes, but still looks like we may end up with broken up chunks caudally in the pattern. These guys are about 1 cm size right now.
> 
> I think this guy will finish out to look very similar to the picture of the adults.
> 
> 
> .


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## DKShrimporium

*Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new Celebrity T-Rex!*

Named "ILMHISF" (*Lefty*, for short)

That stands for: I Left My Heart In San Francisco

*Lefty* has a freak patch of missing pigment, right where the "heart" would be, over the left "chest." And a slash mark all along the right chest, where the knife went in. She musta been something... Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....

Take a look at the freak-o... can't wait until it's mature and I can make comic strips!


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## DKShrimporium

...And for those of you that think monos (monochromes) are the bees knees, here's a couple shots of some. While my glass is "clean" and my batteries charged and in my camera.

I'm currently in the process of inducing another round of breeding in these guys, after which I will not clean the glass again for a while, so the babies have lots o' slime to pick.


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## DKShrimporium

A couple pictures of the RT, this morning. I got lucky and caught them just as the lights went on. They are a reclusive specie and nocturnal for the most part, at least so far. The pregnant females are very hard to photograph as they stay hidden, or stay in the shadows if they come out.

So I'm pretty happy I got these shots this morning to show you.

The first is a lousy picture, but good illustration of how I look at a production tank when taking metrics. Those of you who beg me for things behind the scenes know I will not budge in selling livestock until my tank metrics fit my models - this I do with a long term outlook; without the proper metrics to back a breeding population, I won't be able to create the kind of vigorous, broad-based production colonies that enable me to pipeline production, and provide out to hobbyists livestock that will have vigor.

What I see when I look at this picture is a proper spread of production in miniature. Here we have a berried, healthy female, a mature male in the background, a juvie male in the foreground (notice his antennules are not colored up yet like the mature adults), a mid-size pee wee, and a micro-baby. When I eyeball a production tank, I will not pull from it unless the population shows a spread like this. (This tank is developing the spread, but still has some ground to cover on raw numbers, so no, they are not up for sale in the immediate future, sorry. As you can see, though, I am making progress.)

The second picture is fun because she's about to hatch out; you can see the baby eyes.


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## EKLiu

Nice!! Can't wait to get some of those red tigers.


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## madness

asukawashere said:


> My sister has a quarab gelding, though. He's a fleabitten gray (or, as I prefer to describe him, a dirty white horse) named Indigo. I ask you, of all the things to call a pale horse, how did they come up with _Indigo_?? Every time I visit the menace, he tries to steal my wallet. My sister insists he's just looking for treats in my pocket, but I'm onto their little scheme. She's training the thing to be a darn pickpocket.


I grew up on a farm where my grandfather raised horses for buggy racing. I was violently allergic to horses so unfortunately I never spent much time with the horses other than to tag along as little kid and help whoever was feeding them but one thing I clearly remember is how onery horses are.

Horse breeding, grading and naming is a perfect fit for being applied to shrimp breeding and I can't believe it never dawned on me before.

I am glad that someone else had the foresight to think of it.

Last summer I went up to the Bighorn mountains along the Wyoming/Montana border for the first time in almost twenty years (my grandparents used to live there) and while I didn't have time to go looking for a herd of wild horses we actually had a couple in the road that we got a good look at. The wild varieties in colors and markings in tiger shrimp definitely reminds me of the wild horses.


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## DKShrimporium

New thread I just posted.

As you might surmise, the squirrely-brain is fascinated with many things. I'm known to ponder the technical terms of splotchy-spotty patterns on cute ponies.

But on the other end of the spectrum, this past week I've been morbidly fascinated with: *krokodil*

Google it. Google images. If you are the most he-man iron-gutted, even Youtube it. _*But only if you are NOT squeamish*_.

++++++++++++

In other on-topic news, DK's latest shrimp-y project involves a new love-affair with Glad's Press-N-Seal wrap. I'll let you know if it works.

Oh, and, brand new batch of 2 mm RTs on the glass, this morning.

++++++++++++

And today, I finally learned what the heck my squirrely-brain problem is: Next time someone yells at me in frustration, "*What the **** is your PROBLEM*?!!!," I can now calmly state, "It's a reduction in short interval cortical inhibition, actually."

And then I'll show them my twitchy fingers...


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimp... spreading the JOY.*

So today in the mail I get the nicest surprise. One of our peeps ordered up a batch of DK's Blue Tigers for her mom. Her mom sent me a _homemade_ card and _handwritten_ thank you!

Shrimp... spread the joy, and spread the addiction...


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## DKShrimporium

In other news, today DK did a little "back to school" shopping, courtesy the 'net. I guess it's the shortening daylight that does it. Reminds me of all the years when I had to return to school, after a summer, which in turn entailed returning to learning science, and then returning to the lab. So come fall, I get these cravings for lab stuff.

So, I bought me a few things I've been chewing over for a while: a Fisher Scientific magnetic stirrer (ebay and "best offer" is my friend), a set of pyrex beakers, a magnetic stir bar, and magnetic stir bar retriever. 

Mad science, here I come.

DK is NOT good at doing anything of a repetitive nature, so whenever possible she automates. Even down to little things like mixing eye of newt and powdered dragon scale into Magic Shrimp Juice. So now, voila, I put them on the magnetic stirrer, and go have me a latte, instead.


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## fishtank01

I was reading a post and saw a link to your contest. I thought I would chime in. Hope you like it!


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## DKShrimporium

fishtank01 said:


> I was reading a post and saw a link to your contest. I thought I would chime in. Hope you like it!


Got it! - DK

**************

In other news, I've become insane. 

Every so often (OK, actually _pretty often_) I get obsessed with an idea, and _MUST_ explore it. 

Last night I was doing some research, looking at two different topics, seemingly unrelated. I had this eureka moment when I pulled up an obscure link and VOILA, staring me in the face was a solid cross-link between the two topics. So, I haven't even gotten around to much Inkscape, let alone address the heat exchanger project yet, and now have several tanks ready and waiting to be re-set for this winter's projects, when vroooooooooooom, new obsession hits me. So, I already have a full docket of mad science for over the winter. This year's theme: biologically generated water conditioners and micronutrients. I know, I know, I have a compulsion to re-invent the wheel. The thing is, that way I learn stuff. I find it so very hard just to shell out cash for some black box (and almost always overpriced black boxes with proprietary bells and whistles). Plus, it's so very fun to do mad science, and reverse engineer stuff down to a penny on the dollar for proprietary stuff. _That_ is really sporting, doing that....

************

Tonight I'm cruising Google, when I come across this most lovely item. I mean, she's got pretty green, and red, and blue. And she'll scream if the TDS is above, or below range. And she turns off an injection pump if the TDS for whatever reason rises to a defined threshold. 

I know what DK wants for the holidays, this year...


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## DKShrimporium

OK, so I _totally_ lied. As it happens, my obsession took over and DK declared the holidays NOW.

A quick trip to a big box, a few phone calls to folks on eBay and out on the West Coast at HM Digital, a few hours spent studying schematics, and here we have what is going in about two weeks to become the coo-el-est upgrade yet to DK's Water Factory.

This baby is a triple gang old work electical box, fitted from DK's pile o' parts 'n' pieces with an acrylic lid. This will be mounted onto the Water Factory wall board, and into it will slide the ahhhhhh-mazing TDS controller seen above, with the oh-so-alluring green, red, blue, and yellow twinkling lights (although we hope _not_ to see the yellow ones very often at all, mind you).

This baby will provide real-time monitoring of TDS produced by the Water Factory, which, when calibrated, will enable DK to precisely dial-a-molt. I've been gathering data on what parameters I need to do, but the sensitivity of the Water Factory wasn't where I wanted it, because my readings were delayed. So I'm now going live with TDS monitoring all the time, and I'm also adjusting some globals to enable me much finer granularity in my control. Between the two upgrades, I think I'm going to have a lot of fun this winter!

This unit will also provide a critical back-up fail-safe mechanism for the Water Factory. It will know right away if something is not functioning properly and automatically shut down the system if so. That is actually how I was able to justify it.

This is getting dangerously close to a tiny little homemade pilot plant, hidden away in the basement...

All y'all have no idea how much fun it is, to make water.

We got any process engineers reading??

DK is very excited!

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## Buff Daddy

If your projects continue to turn out awesome critters like this:









By all means keep tinkering, DK!


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## DKShrimporium

So, while we're waiting for the lovely in-line TDS controller to arrive, DK has done some other shropping (shrimp-y shopping), amassing a pile of ingredients for her "shrimp super vitamins" project. She has spent embarassingly voluminous amounts of time creaking about the bowels of Google searches, gathering information with which to tinker, this winter.

The ingredients have arrived from all over the globe from human, animal, and ag suppliers, and today I treated myself to this new toy, courtesy of the world of pottery and polymer clay art. (Yet another interesting niche I got to visit, chasing shrimp-y projects.)

It's a small scale extruder that I can put DK's magic vitamin paste into and extrude into, well, shapes, which I then can put into my dehydrator and chunk up into palatable pieces.

I think it will be really fun! (Just think of it as Play-Doh for "adults.")

But perhaps not nearly as fun as watching that in-line TDS controller with all those red, blue, green, and yellow lights... and live feed numbers...

After the TDS controller gets installed, I'm going to change some globals to increase my granularity in the Water Factory.

And then it will be just about time to start thinking about the heat exchanger, again.

Oh, yeah, and as an interesting little side item, because the in-line TDS controller also displays live temperature, and I'll be installing the heat exchanger with a bypass loop, I will be able to see the real efficiency of the heat exchanger!

How coo-el is that?



.


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## zachary908

Cool stuff, Donna. Those vitamins sound pretty interesting!


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## DKShrimporium

Sometimes, I get onto a theme and just run with it. Yeah. Um. Yeah.

This fall, the theme seems to be control mechanisms to _verify_ steady states.

To that end, we have the TDS controller en route. 

Yesterday, I reconfigured the Water Factory for higher granularity of response, installed some ports to flush dead volume better, and launched the new settings on 8 infusions daily, and got my global water streams recalibrated back to within range, manually. 

Previously I had been running two infusions, but now I'm monkeying around with more infusions of shorter duration, and wondering how that may affect my need for a heat exchanger (although I have figured out just how I want to configure the heat exchanger if I do make one, and know the sources for all but one of the parts so far).

Having a visual for line temp and TDS got me to thinking that I really DID want to pursue a visual for line pressure, as well. So recently, DK took a virtual trip (I just love visiting alternate niches) to the world of tanker drivers/mechanics and did a little shropping... (Did the guy with the headset make me feel welcome??)

I'll post some pics when all this comes about. Right now, I'm just enjoying the ruminating, ahead of time. Y'know, anticipation is the most delicious part, oft-times.


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## DKShrimporium

Now I know why I procrastinate. Today, while doing not much anything of earth-shattering importance, the EUREKA moment hit me, how to rig the heat exchanger to solve a few problems I had been facing in my design. (The answer was in the toilet, literally.) And not only that, I have the "stuff" around here in my piles o' leftover and surplus bits to do it.

So today I ordered all the parts for the heat exchanger save three which I will pick up at the BORG. (Pexsupply.com, Farmtek.com) 

There's going to be a massive re-do of the system when all these parts come in, including installing the TDS controller, pressure gauge, new global solenoid valve and pressure regulator, heat exchange circuit, etc.

I can't wait...

DK


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## DKShrimporium

DK's Water Factory is a HOT MESS, now!

TDS controller is installed and monitoring live... heh... heh... heh...


************
The last of the parts for the heat exchanger should arrive tomorrow. 


.


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## EKLiu

Wow its like you need a PhD in engineering just to look at that picture.


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## umdterps96

was there ever a winner of the contest?


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## aelysa

I think that last pic should be your logo.


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## DKShrimporium

EKLiu said:


> Wow its like you need a PhD in engineering just to look at that picture.


DK has had ZERO engineering courses in her life. But, she has Google...

In the meantime, the new pressure gauge has arrived, causing DK to laugh heartily.

OK, so when you buy something, there are certain intangibles to take into account. Like, _where_ to buy something.

DK likes cheap, but good. So in looking for just the right pressure gauge, she ran across the tanker trucker supply place. She thinks to herself, "Those types don't mess around, and won't tolerate junk. They also aren't going to overpay." So, she buys there, trying to blend in and go incognito amongst the truckers and mechanics.

The box arrives, and she busts out laughing. I mean, who else but trucker supply would industrial staple shut a six inch box weighing less than a pound? So funny!

But the contents did not disappoint.

The new gauge is hefty, you can tell it's going to be a good piece. It has stainless body AND connector, AND the connector is welded onto the body. Unusual, rare, even, in a gauge in this price point. And, she's glycerin filled. DK learned a lot about pressure gauges this week.


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## DKShrimporium

umdterps96 said:


> was there ever a winner of the contest?


Um, well, actually, DK HAS chosen the graphic, although is not ready to announce. I want some time to play with some ideas with it using my Inkscape, and just haven't had time yet. I will be getting to that phase following the completion of the Water Factory and heat exchanger projects, while the tanks are busy cooking babies. 

I do apologise for this taking so long... longer than I had thought. But one thing shrimp keeping has taught me and taught me WELL is to be patient, and methodical. It does pay off, immeasureably.

Stay tuned... until the ultra-secret decision is finally unveiled.


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## DKShrimporium

*Updates*

OK, so the TDS controller is online and functioning flawlessly; I have it set up to monitor right now but not control, yet.

The new pressure gauge paid for itself within 5 minutes of install due to teaching me some stuff about my system that I didn't know, and is also operating as imagined - love to watch those things during live water-making! The WF is now dial-able to a realiable 5 TDS units to a given tank on command... heh...heh...heh...

I have also roughed in the heat exchanger loop/bypass. Now, I'm sorta procrastinating until I gather enough energy, again, to do another round of work. The next step is dicey, because I have to cut my main drainline and I dread that. Once I cut the line, then I have to custom fit the barrel for the heat exchanger to the tank drain lines, rig the heat exchanger into the barrel, set back up the sump, custom fit the lid to the sump barrel. I'm pretty tired so I'm going to wait until this weekend to tackle that project.

Oh, in the middle of all this, I also installed a new faucet with side squirt gun into my utility sink, because once the heat exchanger barrel gets installed this would be a lot more complicated to access, so I had to stop, shop, and install that, but it was successful.

And in the middle of THAT, my microwave fried, so I had to stop, shop, and get a replacement, because I quickly learned I cannot live without my microwave. Ever read reviews on them? Impossible to pick one... they all have problems dying soon, nowadays. We live in such a disposable society, I hate that.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Just watched "Temple Grandin" (Netflix, _not_ soon to be Quickster) about... Temple Grandin - Claire Danes did a great job. 

_My new goal is to be the Temple Grandin of shrimp keeping_...


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## ramawo

> _My new goal is to be the Temple Grandin of shrimp keeping_...


Awwww.... really.... now you get me interesting.....


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## DKShrimporium

*Heat exchanger is IN and LIVE inline!*

...And... DK is pretty tired. (See pictures this post and the next post.)

The goal of the project is to knock the chill off the incoming winter well water, which can enter the system in the 50s temp-wise. This is not a maximized system by any means, but hopefully will alleviate super-cold water entering the tanks and causing all the heaters to actuate at once.

Basic scheme is input water for the Water Factory enters a coil at the bottom of the waste water barrel. The coil spirals up toward the top of the barrel, then continues into the Water Factory.

Waste water from the tanks (warm) enters the BOTTOM of the barrel (it is routed through the blue discharge hose you see here), fills up the coil space, overflows into the central bucket, fills central bucket until sump is triggered. The coils are always under water, and always get the warmest water, in theory.

The large PVC rings under the central bucket provide some dead space and residual water at the bottom of the coil barrel.

The hepex tubing (red) is coiled around with clothesline for spacer, so there is water space between loops of the hepex coil. Not elegant, but it was cheap, easy, and got the job done. If you've ever worked with pex tubing, you know it has a mind of its own, so you end up fighting it, and hepex is even worse - more rigid and stiff, and with more memory than regular pex tubing. I had to fight every **** level of coil into the barrel. I gave myself a break, though, and splurged on the $10 pex tubing cutter with ratchet... so glad I did. Much trickier than it looks to wrap this hepex with clothesline and coil it into the barrel, believe me. I knew it was going to be a fight, so rested up between projects to do it.

Hepex tubing is not nearly as efficient at heat transfer as standard heat exchanger coils, which are typically super-heat-conducting copper. We cannot use copper, or metals! Hepex is better at heat transfer than pex, which is basically an insulator. Hepex was designed for use in radiant heat flooring, driveway melters, etc. The big advantages are cost and inert composition.

By the way, I found the hepex on clearance online, got it about half price, so that made DK happy.





.


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## DKShrimporium

A few more pictures. Fitting the lid was a pain, but one of my projects this year is getting my relative humidity under control, so every source of vapor must be controlled.


.


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## NightshadeF1

DK, your DYI skills never cease to amaze, very clever heat exchange method. Reminds me a lot of the many counter-current exchange methods employed by nature. Awesome! 

Also hope you don't mind I do this here but I just wanted to say thanks for the wonderful CRS! They are beautiful and doing great!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Why, thank you. Hafta do somethin' to keep the squirrely brain occupied.

*********************************

And now... what has been cooking in DKMSJ?

Hm. Do pink and blue make purple, DK wonders?

(Of course, I tweaked the DKMSJ recipe today, so now that I'm posting these pictures, I'm guaranteed to crash tanks, you know. Shrimp make sure I stay humble.)


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And more happy DKMSJ clients, and clients-to-be with eyeballs:


.


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

Wow DK when did you get BBs and umm pink shrimp? lol Logocontestlogocontestlogocontest

You're like a mystery wrapped in an enigma (to quote some spongebob  ) Announcethelogocontestwinnerimusingsubliminallmessagingisitworking


----------



## madness

That white speckling on the red tigers is cool looking.


----------



## ShortFin

Do you plan on having Tangerine and White tigers too?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Senior Shrimpo said:


> You're like a mystery wrapped in an enigma


For some reason this elicits images of a certain Taco Bell product wherein they took food "product," deep fried it in rancid oil, added cheez-oid food "product," then wrapped this in a refined white flour soggy overcoat, and sold it to hungry college students.



ShortFin said:


> Do you plan on having Tangerine and White tigers too?


Bu...but... if I got into white tigers, I'm deathly afraid I'd end up with something named Montecore, and I'd end up with an egregious neck wound, rendering me less capable to do projects.


.


----------



## Buff Daddy

greenisgood said:


> And more happy DKMSJ clients, and clients-to-be with eyeballs:
> 
> 
> .


I think I got a fry of this breed from you, DK. If I can find the attachment I posted last night, I'll show ya.

Found it...









Nope! This one has orange eyes and the body is "more blonde" than your red tigers. The photo doesn't do the colors of it justice.


----------



## ShortFin

greenisgood said:


> Bu...but... if I got into white tigers, I'm deathly afraid I'd end up with something named Montecore, and I'd end up with an egregious neck wound, rendering me less capable to do projects.


lol....you shouldn't worry about Montecore, just send your dog to tame him or ship him over to me. I have a cages and chains all ready for him. :smile:


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

greenisgood said:


> For some reason this elicits images of a certain Taco Bell product wherein they took food "product," deep fried it in rancid oil, added cheez-oid food "product," then wrapped this in a refined white flour soggy overcoat, and sold it to hungry college students.
> 
> 
> 
> Bu...but... if I got into white tigers, I'm deathly afraid I'd end up with something named Montecore, and I'd end up with an egregious neck wound, rendering me less capable to do projects.
> 
> 
> .


Well as a guy who loved taco bell up into a two years ago I gotta agree their food was garbage... but it was so good! That's the one thing that could probably take me back to junk food.

Montecore was SO cool. I don't really buy that the he was carrying the guy off stage with his teeth though...


----------



## DKShrimporium

*The Ant and the Grasshopper*



Senior Shrimpo said:


> Well as a guy who loved taco bell up into a two years ago I gotta agree their food was garbage... but it was so good! That's the one thing that could probably take me back to junk food.
> 
> Montecore was SO cool. I don't really buy that the he was carrying the guy off stage with his teeth though...


SO... DK is curious... what happened two years ago that you stopped eating food "product" from TB??

Montecore still chills in his pad in a Vegas penthouse, he's just not in the public eye anymore, BTW.


*******************

In other news, DK spent this weekend, well, basically recovering from the recent weekends of heavy-duty projects. 

I did play ant in the "ant and grasshopper" game (I was the ant, dutifully preparing for winter, storing provisions, that is), collecting very specific leaves from a particular tree, drying them in my convection oven 12 hours, then carefully packing them into an airtight 30 gallon barrel (craigslist and the nearby pharmaceutical industry are my friends), for this year's supply. 

I have to wait until the leaves reach a certain "age" falling off the fall tree, to harvest them - too early season and they are not cured well, too late and I miss out as they get too wet and moldy and most have blown away. So this weekend I had to force myself to harvest, as it was the correct window. 

We have over 200 trees on our land of all different types, and over the years I've learned what is best, finally homing in on what to gather. These are Tulip Poplar leaves, mixed with a small proportion of aspen. They are by far my favorite leaf for shrimp. Or, I should say, they are by far the favorite leaf of my shrimp.


.


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

Lol did I sound super mysterious? Nothing exciting happened. :tongue: I just stopped eating fast food because one of my buds told me how bad it was for you so I googled it. I'll tell ya, ignorance is bliss.

I love giving leaves to shrimp. IMO they're great because shrimp can eat them anytime and it doesn't effect water quality much (other than a tiiiiny bit of tannins). Mine really love mulberry, enjoy aspen, spend a lot of time on oak (though they don't eat it a lot they're constantly picking at it though) and like maple a bit but maple disintegrates fast.

Montecore is super cool. He's got a pretty nice set up too.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, the first data on the heat exchanger is in. 

Today I ran the system about 12 minutes to make sure I got to steady state, then switched to bypass (no heat exchanger) and watched my feed temp drop 3 degrees. 

It was still dropping when I turned the system off, so I'm not sure how far it would have gone. 

But even three degrees is significant, when you are talking about tens of gallons of (cold) water going into tanks, causing 30 heaters to kick on - that's a lot of wattage load (probably you physicists would argue it's amperage load, not wattage load, right?), and all at once. 

It was a good day to test the system, as a cold front with snow storm has blown in, so the well temps should be nice and cold.

I have yet to get around to playing with my shrimp vitamin recipe and mini-extruder, or get to Inkscape, though.

I'm already onto ordering supplies for the next two projects: nylon rods, 316 stainless wire, and inline filter screens... 

And I forgot to mention I had a potter in the hobby custom make me fired clay feeding dishes for all my tanks... (A few RTs checking out their new trough, below)

-DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

Next, on the project shopping list: (bonds Nylon to Stainless Steel)...

I'm also on the hunt for small diameter extruded c-channel in a polymer.

...And it's time to drag out the drill press, and rig a jig...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*I hope it's not a bad omen*

So today... FINALLY... (DK had to put on her mean face and send a serious email to the company to see some action) the solar company showed up to do the first phase of install - the mounts. I went to take a picture to show roofers (someday - if we need the system removed for a re-shingle job) what is underneath the solar panels. Here, you see some of the mounts that the mounting rails will be installed to.

And when I went to preview the picture on my computer, I saw this big ol' Turkey Vulture a settin' away up yonder...


***********

In other news, I was notified that my nylon rods are on backorder. I could get them elsewhere, but at triple the price, so I'm again taught patience by my things shrimp-y. So that project is on hold until early Dec. when the rods should arrive.

Today, however, another batch of parts arrived. They weren't quite what I was expecting (of course I am using a part for something other than its intended purpose, as I am wont to do), so I will need to make a trip to the plumbing section for a few _more_ parts to do what I want to do.

When I get the right parts assembled, I'll post my prototype and about the project a bit more.


.


----------



## ch3fb0yrdee

Whats that called and how did you make that donna.


----------



## DKShrimporium

In true squirrely-brain fashion, we interrupt the previous topic to present DK's latest example of the 4 Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rescue German Shepherds, that is.

In this case, re-use.

You know those cheesy plastic hangers the store clerks are supposed to remove but often don't? They are my favorite source of great clips. I use the clips in the freezer as the metal is not affected by the cold. I also use them to secure air lines, wires, etc. I also think they are great for closing bags of chips and such in the pantry.

So today, I took a few moments with the chop saw and converted the latest batch of hangers... (BTW, those are kid's size 16 hangers...)


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

ch3fb0yrdee said:


> Whats that called and how did you make that donna.


Hmmmmm. OK, let's call them "DK's Water Conditioning Towers."

They are made from:

3/4" inline filter screen
(1) 3/4 x 3/4 CPVC coupler
(1) 1/2 inch length of 3/4 CPVC pipe (cut into a ring)
(1) slice of closed-cell foam tubing such as a swimming pool noodle (in my hoarder's stash of parts I actually had these foam tubes from something that was packed shipped in them that were the perfect size, so I used those from my stash)

See pics, below. 

The idea is they hold the water conditioning elements _in the water column behind fine mesh_, so the elements don't get lost into the substrate where they will essentially become inactive, and also therefore the substrate doesn't get gunked up. By the time the elements break down and pass through the mesh, they are bio-degraded. Just keep 'em full, as they decompose and debulk, add a little more matter to the top of the chamber.

With these, I can fool around with such things as barley straw pellets, montmorillonite clay balls, or whatever other Mad Science I want to try.


.


----------



## ch3fb0yrdee

That's a pretty awesome idea. I initially thought the 3/4" inline filter screen was meant for you inlet pipe for your filters. Where did you pick up the inline filter screen from?


----------



## DKShrimporium

ch3fb0yrdee said:


> That's a pretty awesome idea. I initially thought the 3/4" inline filter screen was meant for you inlet pipe for your filters. Where did you pick up the inline filter screen from?


You can get 'em on ebay if you search for *3/4 hose filter*. (The links get cut if I try to put them into a forum post.)

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

So you know that saying, "When it rains, it pours?" 

There must be a corollary something like when projects are completed finally, they give birth to _more_ projects...

Way back when, I started collecting parts and thoughts on the next project.

Due to some progress on - ahem - a couple of OTHER projects of mine, today I had to get serious about THIS project. I have been mulling it, basing it on a nasty technology used in hospitals, but hadn't quite figured out how to put it all together... until my Eureka (I hope) moment, today.

So here's the concept sketch... stay tuned. Of course, I have a few MORE parts to gather, now that I know how I'm going to attempt it.


.


----------



## mordalphus

Doing some blood scrubbing?


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Doing some blood scrubbing?


Yeah... don't you know DK's Shrimporium is dripping and oozing with buckets and barrels and bathtubs of blood... needing scrubbed.

************

So last night, I did my nearly _daily_ trek to the Lowes 5 min from me. I zip down to the plumbing fittings, which I have NEARLY memorized, but, alas I'm looking for a STREET elbow, which they've mysteriously put away from the elbows. There's a guy standing there, staring at fittings, he says, "What are you looking for?" - and I look up to tell him. He shows me where they are, on the bottom, and I say, "What are you doing with that monster bulkhead?" (He's holding a 2 inch bulkhead with some Sch 40 parts attached.) _He lights up like a Christmas tree_.

We spend the next 45 minutes talking shop - he's setting up a 500 gallon reef tank (most of what he's going to try, I've already done, but in smaller scale, and he's getting more and more excited), says he estimates it will cost him $100 a gallon (you do the math - turns out the guy is a consultant, so I guess it's believable). Lots of other super interesting parts of the story (such as: he got interested in the reef tank while 8 months in a wheelchair recuperating from being HIT HEAD ON BY A SEMI - at 100 mph impact the police said - WHILE HE WAS IN A MINI-VAN. Guy was a walking miracle. He was airlifted to a famous teaching trauma hospital in the metro area. Turns out his brother is chief of trauma surgery down south in a large hospital, but trained in THIS hospital. Guy has a weird last name, they saw it and wondered if he was related to Mr. Trauma Chief, called him and interrupted his surgery. Yes. They pulled out all the stops, pulled in all the chiefs of surgery, and that is why this Humpty Dumpty was looking pretty darned normal to me, standing there in Lowes, staring at Sch 40 fittings next to me.) 

I meet the MOST interesting folks in the plumbing section of Lowes. The stories I could tell. (Once I ran into a guy walking the aisle with a super rare breed of dog.)

OT? I dunno. I learn an awful lot, doing things shrimp-y.

Oh, and I did pick up the rest of the parts, for the project above, although I did change some things in the design, on the fly (I channeled the fluid, as Temple Grandin would do, and realized some changes needed to be made.). Par.

***********

In other news, DK is busy calibrating her Presto Fry Daddy and her two Rival Slow Cookers to see which will be able to provide me 135-140 F temps. DK is going to undertake Sous-vide this winter. Time to shop for a stainless toast rack.

-DK


----------



## 10gallonplanted

The semi was going 100 mph and he survived, he sure is one lucky man. What did he say when you told him about keeping shrimp?


----------



## mountaindew

This is a fun thread to follow DK. 
Interesting systems you are developing and building. Looks a little like a dialysis system for water column control! Anyway, nothing like some mad science and creativity applied to your passion.
mD


----------



## DKShrimporium

10gallonplanted said:


> The semi was going 100 mph and he survived, he sure is one lucky man. What did he say when you told him about keeping shrimp?


This is probably not true, the forces would have been fatal. Probably, the officer added the relative speeds of the two vehicles to get this number. Two vehicles each traveling at 50 mph hitting head on does not equal a 100 mph collision. Here's a link.

But he did whip out his blackberry and show me pictures of his van - The force somehow blew off the driver's side door and sheared off the steering wheel - he said the air bag exploded BEHIND the car, down the road (I can't figure that one out...).

The front crumple zone was FLAT to about 6 inches but the passenger safety cage was pretty darned intact. Studies show that vans are one of the best vehicles for preserving the driver because the driver sits high, above the crumple zone for the most part.

We got busy talking about rigging sumps and overflows and refugiums, using barrels, custom LED arrays and spectra for coral, emergency backup systems... never really got around to talking livestock much.



mountaindew said:


> This is a fun thread to follow DK.
> Interesting systems you are developing and building. Looks a little like a dialysis system for water column control! Anyway, nothing like some mad science and creativity applied to your passion.
> mD


It's actually a rig for two different jobs; the wild card in the design is the pump - will it work how I envision, and how strong will it turn out to be? I hedged my bets and bought a ball valve so I can control it, because I think the pump will have more than enough power to run the circuit, perhaps way too much power!

************

The Sous-vide project has just taken me into the cyber-worlds of home brewing and bio-diesel. In the end, brewers won; I chose their brewing funnel over the hot oil biodiesel funnel - just ordered an 8 inch nylon funnel that I'm going to rig rather like a percolator in my fry daddy, to ensure convection so the water bath is even top to bottom. The fry daddy is doing a great job of holding temps, so I can go with that, I've already learned. Can't wait to try it on some beef, especially normally bad cuts such as round. Wish me luck...


----------



## DKShrimporium

In other news...

DK broke her thumb, yesterday. Well, she, and a rubber mallet gone awry, broke it. 

She was installing locking casters on a new table for her chop saw, gettin' Western with the caster holder (she wanted the casters _tight_ into the legs) and somehow that mallet missed and hit her thumb. I'm sure I've cracked the distal bone of the thumb, the one under the nail, because the thumb pad is purple and tight and swollen, as happens when bone is cracked and seeping blood.

Fortunately, it's not on my dominant hand.

Owwwwwwwwww. I searched the house in vain last night for oxycontin, vicodin, codeine... anything.... to no avail. Alas, all we stock is aspirin. 

I _was_ gonna post today and say I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my filter sock to arrive so I can beta test the new contraption, except now I just don't feel like twiddling my thumbs.

Ever try to open one of those Splenda packets with one thumb out of order? Try it...

And here's another question this forced me to ponder: _Why is it we have the instinct to put an injury into our mouth and suck on it_? That is the second thing I did, after some choice vocabulary...


----------



## ohbaby714

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_licking


----------



## DKShrimporium

ohbaby714 said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_licking


EWWWWWWWWWWWW! -- That part about the coach licking the wound of her player... ewwwwwwww!

************

It wasn't actually _licking_, but _sucking_. Yep, I musta sucked my thumb a good several minutes. The sucking actually decreased the pain, because every time I took my thumb out of my mouth, it started to throb anew. Something about either bringing more blood supply to the area, or perhaps the lower pressure on pressure receptors in the skin, or _something_ makes the pain lessen when you suck on a wound... 

I can remember sucking my knee when I skinned it, as a kid, come to think of it.


----------



## ohbaby714

I know, right! lol
Amazing how everything can be find on the internet.
And about the knee thing, i'm getting old cause i can't even come close to licking my knee


----------



## spyke

so what happened about this, you found the winning logo promise... I don't believe it.


----------



## oblongshrimp

I recall seeing a something on tv about it and how they identified the protein or whatever it was in saliva that has healing properties and were isolating it to see what they could do with it.


----------



## gordonrichards

Feel better!


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> It wasn't actually _licking_, but _sucking_. Yep, I musta sucked my thumb a good several minutes. The sucking actually decreased the pain, because every time I took my thumb out of my mouth, it started to throb anew. Something about either bringing more blood supply to the area, or perhaps the lower pressure on pressure receptors in the skin, or _something_ makes the pain lessen when you suck on a wound...
> 
> I can remember sucking my knee when I skinned it, as a kid, come to think of it.


Methinks you should enlist a tankful of Garra rufa to do the sucking for you. Just saying. Though I think they prefer dead/diseased flesh to swollen, inflamed thumbs. Maybe. In any case it would at least be entertaining to try...

I know sucking can help an open wound scab over by bringing more blood (and thus platelets) to the area. I have no idea how that applies to smushed digits.

Anyway, sorry to hear you're hurt and hope you feel better soon!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Top ten things that are surprisingly hard to do with one thumb out of order:


Tear open a Spenda packet
Open a "resealable" sliced cheese packet
Crack an egg (for us mere mortals who use the two-handed technique)
Shampoo one's head (OK, so you can do this one-handed, or two-handed-one-thumbed, but it just feels so WRONG)
Q-tip out both ears simultaneously
Floss one's teeth
Pull on stretchy lower extremity garments, such as hosiery (oh, yeah, TRY IT)
Clip the fingernails of the GOOD hand
Two-handed CHUCK-IT lob of balls for impossibly active German Shepherds
Fasten a clasp on personal articles of clothing, for example a necklace.
***********
In other news, the 8 inch nylon funnel arrived yesterday, so last night I crept off to the workbench, pulled out the tin snips, scripto lighter, drill press, and special plastics bit and did me a few little "modifications" to the thing, approximating a percolator. (Sous-vide project)

********
What's the substrate? -- stained glass window I made years ago - that was in with today's pictures as I shot it yesterday, gettin' ready to pawn it on craigslist soon with some others - can't keep everything at the rate I accumulate stuff...


----------



## DKShrimporium

spyke said:


> so what happened about this, you found the winning logo promise... I don't believe it.


I hear ya, I hear ya. I've been fighting with the solar company lately, training them that they will ignore me at their _peril_ (I'm down to a half-day response time, now, from WEEKS response time - we MUST have their system up and running SOON so the powers that be can certify it, or else we lose a LARGE amt of money due to tax consequences by year's end). Just notified of one stroke and TWO deaths in the family, this month. I need a chunk of brain space to do what I want to do with the graphic, learning inkscape from scratch - that is the hangup. 

But I hear ya, loud and clear. Thx for the patience.


----------



## DKShrimporium

I've decided to give up shrimp-ing and open a super-gourmet restaurant. 

I mean, last night I took some rather cheap Costco pork chops and initiated trial 1.001 in DK's "sous-vide" Fry Daddy. Six hours later, we were cutting the garlic-y-greek-sage-cider-vinegar infused slabs with our forks - no knives needed on two inch thick pork chops... when's the last time YOU did that?

And then... because DK MUST try things, I went on to make a pumpkin custard, using the "sous-vide" as a water bath (custards want about 190F for perfection).

Who knew a humble Fry Daddy could catapult one up a social class or two???

Time to dig out the rib rub recipes...

*******

Time to shop for some neoprene closed cell sheeting - gonna make me an insulating jacket for the Fry Daddy.


.


----------



## asukawashere

greenisgood said:


> I've decided to give up shrimp-ing and open a super-gourmet restaurant.


Dibs on Rolffe if you're closing up shop! :hihi: plzkthx

On the other hand, I would miss following your journal of shrimpy madness if you go and be a chef instead. Maybe you can compromise and just cook gourmet food for the shreemps instead... uh huh  Premium-cut spinach leaves marinated in a cocktail of liquefied green beans with a dash of paprika and oyster calcium, drizzled with a glaze of DKMSJ....


----------



## mordalphus

I think instead she should combine her loves and raise shrimp for cooking in her fry daddy.

Mmmm, deep fried BTOE on a bed of spinach and mustard greens, sprinkled with basalmic vinegar and sesame oil and garnished with black and gold sesame seeds.

YES PLEASE!!!


----------



## asukawashere

Methinks BTOE are a bit small for food application. Could you imagine the cost per pound? Perhaps farming some nice Macrobrachium rosenbergii would be a better choice... except that they get to be rather alarmingly ginormous and would gladly eat your face given half the chance...


----------



## GeToChKn

Everyone always asked me when I say I'm breeding shrimp, O, can I eat them? Sure, give me $30 for 1 SSS and you can eat him, he's about an inch long. Everything thinks shrimp and their mind goes right to shrimp-ring shrimp. lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Stir-fried RTs, with jalapenos sprinkled in. I think I need a 12 step group for jalapenos, sriracha, and hot wings sauce addicts. I'm eating two of the three as I type, here.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Back on topic, here.

So, the filter sock I ordered _expedited_ shipping (from a location about two hours' drive away) shows up about two weeks later. HMMMMMPH!

This spurred me on to quit procrastinating some plumbing, toward what I call the DK aquavac project. So last night DK slipped off, rolled her now rolling chop saw table into the work room (which is NOT climate controlled, and thus the need to remove my $$$ chop saw into climate control after each use), chopped a few pieces of pipe, and did a little plumbing. Here is the pic, more to follow later today. But this is the critical bit, as a Brit would say.

Today, I'm a gonna swing by Wally-world and hopefully they will have a heavy duty toenail clipper for the DK, my newest tool in the arsenal, it will be... 

...stay tuned.


*********

Update: I've decided to splurge the nearly twenty bucks and buy the product that will "cut through a man's gnarled, oaken toenails" and that "can actually do the job on those ghastly chunks of horn that adorn our toes" (see the product review from *a suburban secret*) from my friend Amazon, instead. DK never likes to _mess around_, when it comes to selecting the right tool for the job. 


***********


...And for those of you who think this is tending toward just-too-much-testosterone lately...

Something else that came in the mail, this week. I had a friend artist make them for me.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so....

...there she is, folks. Really, she ain't elegant at all. But I hope she will at least be functional, to do the jobs I designed her to do.

The question remains... will she be a phenom, or will she be an epic fail? 

I won't be able to test her until at least Sunday, perhaps later, due to scheduling.

Still on the hunt for a certain sized silicone funnel...

************
UPDATE: - The 316 stainless wire is tracking to arrive today. Alas, the nylon rods are on backorder until the end of this month, though. These items are for the Maserati project. Ask Liam. Come to think of it, I still have to shop JoAnns for that project... and maybe pick me up some fresh dental floss or fishing line.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

The low carbon 316 stainless has arrived. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

After pondering, and awfulizing, I've decided I'm going to need one of these, to run DK's Aquavac:


.


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

Lol, that's pretty darn awesome! 

DK's aquavac? Does DK patent her inventions? Cuz she's making Edison proud. Meanwhile, shrimpo is secretly swiping all her inventions to make Shrimpo's watersucker (okay maybe the name needs a little revision). Mwahahahah!


----------



## Senior Shrimpo

Mwahahahahahaha. The goal is to suck up water and somehow fishes... for a profit!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Lol, that's pretty darn awesome!
> 
> DK's aquavac? Does DK patent her inventions? Cuz she's making Edison proud. Meanwhile, shrimpo is secretly swiping all her inventions to make Shrimpo's watersucker (okay maybe the name needs a little revision). Mwahahahah!


DK doesn't think of them as inventions so much as alternate applications of ideas (y'now - lateral thinking - DK is big on lateral thinking). There isn't much novel or innovative component, only the _combination_ or _application_ thereof. It would fail the prior art part of patent discovery, but I do have a lot of fun!

Speaking of which...

DK is suffering from tinnitus at the moment, after an entire day watching over 80 teams in a Lego Robotics competition.

I need to decompress... and my ears feel like I'm underwater...

***********

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with a pair of awesome vintage solid maple end tables from My Friend craigslist, to do some restoring, along with an awesome craigslist entertainment armoire that I'm converting into a storage closet, also needing some restoring. So many projects...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, I've recovered from my sensory overload at the Lego Robotics competition, managed to refinish an armoire and bed yesterday, kept track of my RT auction, and was doing pretty well until....

...dog goes and gets skunked last night!!!! AGAIN!!!! UGH!

***********

In other news, the deluxe toenail clippers have arrived, and DK deems them well worth the nearly twenty bucks. She has beta tested them in her Shrimporium and is happy to report that they will do the job, and do it well, in her bio-security program. Anyone care to venture to guess what she needs them for? (Hint: she used them, for example, on that new aquavac gizmo) I dare ya...


.


----------



## mordalphus

To remove zip ties? Lol, that's what I use mine for


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> To remove zip ties? Lol, that's what I use mine for


Oh, ja, close enough. 

I use them to cut the tails off of them, once installed. 

On the little ones, the fingernail clippers work great to cut the tail close and curved with no sharp edges. 

But on the large cable ties, the fingernail clipper isn't strong enough, and other methods leave wicked sharp edges that can slice a hand open and be a bio-security threat to DK's well-being -- she plunges her hands into primordial soup in tanks daily, exposing any broken skin to any number of micro-organisms.

This lovely Japanese implement (somehow, I just wouldn't have thought of Japanese as having oaken horn-like toe growths, I might have leaned more toward the Germans in this sense...) slices through the large cable tie tails and leaves a SMOOOOOOOOOTH product, nothing left to send me to the ER for stitches, or worse yet IV antibiotics. 

Cost for just _showing up_ in an ER: at least $500 to walk in the door

Cost for this lovely implement: $18.40 delivered to my door in 2 days

_Ability to rationalize a new toy........priceless._​ 
.


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## asukawashere

Hate to break it to ya, DK, but that metal hook thingy on the left side of your wire bundle looks a lot more likely to cause open wounds than the plastic zip tie tail...

Of course, justification of new toys is not something I want to get in the way of  Except I will point out that in some 15+ years of daily plunging of my hands (and I chew on my cuticles _a lot_, so there's almost always broken skin involved...) into primordial tank soup, I've never once needed to go to an emergency room for an infection 

Is that a blue bolt with mosura headgear? Me likey.  More photos plzkthx!


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## DKShrimporium

I'm *sucha* geek. 

I'd like (...no... I'd LOVE to) to print this out and hang it on my wall, for reference. It's such a GREAT page.

Like... I'd never really thought about the fact that there are EXTERNAL tooth locks, as well as INTERNAL tooth locks. And those castle nuts... very coo-el.

DK's busy shopping some hardware to rig her new bed frame to the refinished bed, and of course she stows away bits of hardware trivia in her squirrely-brain for such time as she needs _just the right thing_ on a shrimp-y project.

Oh, and, today, she swung by Harbor Freight, tried not to think about the child labor that must be used to produce such cheap products, and bought the foot switch for the aquavac.

The thing is, that water pump hooked up to the aquavac is a fountain pump rated for a pretty impressive fountain, so I didn't want to have my gizmo pop a seal or get out of control with the output, and have wet hands and need to grab a plug to unplug it. The foot switch will enable me to kill the pump quickly and easily if I ever need to. I was happy to see that it comes with a substantially long, quality cord. While using the aquavac, I will generally have both hands busy, you see...

And now, the shrimp will be on autopilot the next few days, while DK shifts her attention to the furniture issue (I think an order of sex bolts is in my near future -- really)... well... and eating.

.


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## GeToChKn

greenisgood said:


> And now, the shrimp will be on autopilot the next few days, while DK shifts her attention to the furniture issue (I think an order of *sex bolts* is in my near future -- really)... well... and eating.
> 
> .


Whats a sex bolt?


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## DKShrimporium

GeToChKn said:


> Whats a sex bolt?


You need to read the GREAT page to learn this!!!


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## mordalphus

It mates with a mating bolt


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## asukawashere

GeToChKn said:


> Whats a sex bolt?


An unfortunate application of Rule 34 of the Internet


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## DKShrimporium

So... all y'all who actually _read_ this.... you know that DK often starts up an idea, lets it stew/ripen (that's code for _procrastinates_), and eventually revisits the idea and implements a version of it.

This week, I finally HOOKED UP that stunning, beautifully-colored TDS controller to the master Water Factory valve. It has been up and running inline as a monitor, but not as a controller, so far. I am happy to report that I was successful in this regard, and even had my first system shut-down when a parameter I had designated was breached. I had put tight parameters into the system to see how tightly my system runs, and sure enough it popped a few points out of bounds and caused global shut-down. This is utterly fantastic news to me, as now I have increased confidence that a pump malfunction/gremlin will cause my system to abort, thus preventing any fatal infusions. DK is a likin' this idea, tremendously...

...Like I said, I've been MOSTLY busy with non-shrimp-y things lately, and letting the shrimp glide on auto-pilot. I do love auto-pilot... There has been a good deal of secret-y mad science going on behind the scenes, too... but we don't write about that until it ripens.


************

In other news, DK spent last evening in the presence of mixed company - some rather _rough_, some _artificially_ well-groomed. Orientation course for her joining a local "Sportsman's" club, (and the NRA - had to join the NRA as pre-requisite for club membership). In this case, "Sportsman's" is code for weapons firing - firearms, bows, etc. - alas, nothing "incendiary" or "armor-piercing," though. 

DK was blown away by a display at the clubhouse of arrows one of the competitive archery folks had mounted where the arrow was shot down the shaft of another arrow in a competition, like the Disney movie Robin Hood. Dang, that's ACCURATE shooting!

DK will be partaking of the pistol ranges, possibly the rifle range, probably not the archery or trap ranges, but, hey, you never know...

Turns out, ol' squirrely brain is a crack shot with her Sig Sauer and other goodies in her safe, and misses the action.

The crowd sort of reminded me of my days back in Schutzhund training...

*******

DK also did trial 1.00 Sous Vide now using the West Bend Versatility slow cooker, gently cooking a big ol' slab of chuck over two days...

Seems to me if you're going to join a "Sportsman's" club, then you'd better be a _bona fide_ carnivore...

*******

...And now, I have restored furniture hardware parts in, finally, so will be assembling the final product, later today. One of the pieces is a bed that I replaced the old frame with a new bolt-on frame, that, _of course_, didn't fit correctly, so DK had to wrestle with the steel beams and the bench-mounted vise to "convince" the frame to fit properly... I did win this battle.

*******

You may be thinking all these items are OT, but I assure you, somewhere in there will grow to be something I apply to things shrimp-y -- just you wait...


*******

Below: DK's Sig, Other Geek's Beretta. Of course, I get the Sig, as it's GERMAN, and DK has a thing for things GERMAN. And this reminds me... one of these holiday days, I need to get out the extruder, and get at it...


.


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## Senior Shrimpo

Oooh you did shutzhund? That takes some serious determination and skills. 

Sportsmans clubs can be cool places, I've only gone once and didn't really like it but my pop has been doing it as long as I can remember... he just spent some crazy amount on a new shotgun too, didn't even ask how much. He loves it and he's met some really cool fancy people there but there are some weirdos. haha.


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## madness

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Oooh you did shutzhund? That takes some serious determination and skills.
> 
> Sportsmans clubs can be cool places, I've only gone once and didn't really like it but my pop has been doing it as long as I can remember... he just spent some crazy amount on a new shotgun too, didn't even ask how much. He loves it and he's met some really cool fancy people there but there are some weirdos. haha.


Trap/Skeet shooting shotguns are absolutely ridiculous in price. Even a very nice automatic shotgun that you would actually use for bird hunting can be cheaper than a mid-range shotgun for competition or trap shooting.


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## DKShrimporium

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Oooh you did shutzhund? That takes some serious determination and skills.


I think it's about 80 percent the right dog, 20 percent handler skills. I've had Germans for over 20 years, now, and one of my current ones is out of Niko and you'd barely have to do much with him to title him - the extreme drive and all the traits are built right into his genes. (This is the one who's gotten skunked about five times so far this year...) His whole life he lives like a bull in a china shop. (My other German is a rescue.)


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## shrimpnmoss

What?!?! DK bought a factory made gun? DK I would think that you'd be able to turn that caulk gun into a real gun.


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## tetranewbie

Wow, I'm amazed... somebody else like shrimp, and does shutzhund training with German Shepards!

Niko is Gorgeous!!! I think you might appreciate this page, it's my pup's dad. http://zauberberg.com/german-shepherd-dog/german-shepherd-stud-dogs/262-jack-vom-zauberberg.html

Do you have pictures of yours?


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## DKShrimporium

tetranewbie said:


> Wow, I'm amazed... somebody else like shrimp, and does shutzhund training with German Shepards!
> 
> Niko is Gorgeous!!! I think you might appreciate this page, it's my pup's dad. http://zauberberg.com/german-shepherd-dog/german-shepherd-stud-dogs/262-jack-vom-zauberberg.html
> 
> Do you have pictures of yours?


I can't get to your link because my firewall is saying it's unsafe.

Here he is. He MUST be where the action is at, so he's always underfoot. He tries to climb the ladder while I'm up on it tending to top rack tanks. He tries to climb the ladder into the attic when we are up there... stuff like that. He can't just run up to you in the backyard, he HAS to body slam you and taste you with his teeth. I have to be careful when in the backyard because I'm afraid of him slamming me and blowing out a knee! I do put limits on him but his drive is just so strong that he doesn't care about pain, consequences, etc. Everything is over the top with him. There is no question that I am Alpha with him, but he just is SO ebullient - hard to describe if you have never had an EXTREME drive dog.

His latest gig is that he sits halfway down the stairs in the mornings, waiting for me. He wants to be sure nobody can get down the stairs without him knowing about it. He doesn't want to wait at the top of the stairs, because he's driving an agenda. He believes that he is drawing the person toward the garage door, which, if he can just get you there, he will lobby HARD for a game of ball.

This dog pushes his agenda 24/7.

Oh, and he's so confident he sleeps all four feet to the sky spread-eagle, propped up against a wall or dresser, airing out his manly parts in the ceiling fan breeze.

.


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## tetranewbie

Oh that face is priceless! 

My girl is much the same way, she sleeps in the doorway to the bedroom so that you can't possibly leave without her knowing, and she's always lobying for a game of ball, or tug, or stick, or anything really! She's got her SchH2 title, and i'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep going with her.


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## DKShrimporium

This is another Niko son, that my best friend owns. Her male's jaws are so strong he managed to get his lower mandible INSIDE that little hole in the end of a monster Kong (that's the largest size Kong made, on his mouth). He had to be put under anesthesia for them to get the Kong off with cable cutters. Fortunately, he didn't lose any tissue from strangulation. You can't tell from the pictures, but that dog is 120 lbs.


.


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## DKShrimporium

And this is yet another Niko son, owned by my best friend's brother, who is in law enforcement. You can see the drive here, as Recon retrieves his Kong from the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket full of water.


.


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## mordalphus

*facepalm* a law enforcement dog that waterboards itself... aye-yai-yai


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## DKShrimporium

Gunner, my friend's Niko son, isn't fat, either. He's just built like a tank. Here's a picture of Gunner when he was a pup - see the build. (That's Recon under the table.)


.


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## ren

what breed are those dogs? they arent shepards are they the reason i ask is when have my dogs they looked nothing like that.


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## tetranewbie

Those are some great pictures! The bone on those dogs is mighty impressive. I've never tried putting any of her toys in her water bucket, that might be interesting. I've sure known some labs and porties to go bobbing for 'em. That story with the Kong is great. I'm glad he came out of it okay.

This is a really old picture, but your puppy pics reminded me of it. She was ~3 months old here.


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## DKShrimporium

ren said:


> what breed are those dogs? they arent shepards are they the reason i ask is when have my dogs they looked nothing like that.


Yes, they are German ShepHERDS. ShepHERDS were developed to HERD SHEEP, thus the correct spelling of the breed. They were later developed to be multi-purpose working dogs.

These Schutzhund dogs are not the typical "German" ShepHERD seen in the US, as they come from working lines, which typically means European or Eastern European lines, where the breeding objectives are far different than the AKC type here in the US. In those lines, you see a lot more sable coloring which are what all these pictures show - sable is wolf-like (agouti) coloring that is black hairs spread sort of evenly among another color such as tan or mahogany, rather than solid black saddles over the back as is popular in the US.

*********

Nice looking pup! How about some adult pics, especially on the field! What's her forte in the sport - tracking, protection, or obedience - usually they shine more in one due to the drive profile of the dog. Congrats on the Sch II - that is a _nice_ piece of work to achieve, especially in a female. My working days are looooong since past, now I'm just hosting rescues. My current Niko boy is a runt with probably a kidney issue, as he's nearly half the size of the line (he's probably 70-75 lb range). But OMG, that means he has twice the drive per pound! He's like a Jack Russell in a GSD size, although he is NOT hyper, he is DRIVEN, big difference. He settles just fine, but when he's DOING something, it's like he's on high octane - driven, pushy, focused, INSISTENT. He would have destroyed my house and beat me up if he'd been full size! (Example, to ask to go outside, he body slams the door.) And, he would have beat the tarnation out of my other rescue, too. 

HA! I do the same thing, see! For size reference!

And below is Recon's paw - he wasn't even done growing at that time, and his paw is 3 inches across. Recon and Gunner are littermates, and Recon is the skinny one, although I'd bet he's filled out a lot since I saw him. Gunner looks fat, but he's not. Those two live in Texas and are working dogs, and you cannot keep fat on a working dog in that climate - it will kill them. Not to mention on a 120 pound dog (Recon was 110 at the time) you don't want any extra weight as the hips are already carrying enough. They must have had a dam with gigantic genes, as Niko is much more typey as a working Sch dog, appropriately smaller and less bulky than Gunner. Gunner and Recon make great patrol types due to their size and the intimidation factor - Gunner is like a freaking draft horse when you get up close to him - you feel more like you should be pitching a saddle over him than grabbing a lead.


.


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## tetranewbie

I love the puppy picture with the soup can... so cute!

I'll try to dig up some more photos of my girl. She's two now and I'm considering breeding her, but I don't know if I'm going to try for SchIII, talk about work! Her forte is mostly obedience (I've also done AKC obedience trials and she's gotten 6 high in trials) but she's a really good tracker as well. She's a little too small to be a real force in protection work (she's 70lbs) or so but has really good bite. She's also indimidating as all hell to most people because they say she looks like a wolf. Or around here, a bit coyote. I definitely know what you mean about the weight on working dogs, I'm in AZ and the heat here doesn't tolerate any excess weight. Most people think the working dogs are much too skinny, but my girl's drive keeps any weight off. She eats, no let me rephrase that, she _inhales_ her food.


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## DKShrimporium

madness said:


> Trap/Skeet shooting shotguns are absolutely ridiculous in price. Even a very nice automatic shotgun that you would actually use for bird hunting can be cheaper than a mid-range shotgun for competition or trap shooting.


Yeah, um, try tactical (code for sniper) rifles. Don't ask me how I know this... I will disavow any knowledge.



shrimpnmoss said:


> What?!?! DK bought a factory made gun? DK I would think that you'd be able to turn that caulk gun into a real gun.


Some things, DK doesn't MESS WITH. Like pH monitors, gas regulators, in line TDS monitors, firearms, etc. It's a balance between re-inventing the wheel, but learning, but also knowing when the DIY learning curve is not worth the risk of DIY. That, and DK does NOT want to encourage any loonie thinking on the part of Other Geek. And besides, that's not a caulk gun, that's a _micro-extruder_. Fancier names make things worth more, you know...


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## Senior Shrimpo

Wow, schutzhund really sounds interesting. I love the dedication to producing a better and better animal with better and better capabilities. Unfortunately when I was looking for a dog I wanted a pit bull and got into looking at pit bull breeders (as if you need to get them from a _breeder_, there are hundreds of them in shelters in Pittsburgh alone) and found out how terrible breeders are breeding them for the opposite- bigger heads, more muscular bodies and tougherness, disregarding problems with hip displasia, heart issues and general unhealthiness. That lost some of my faith in breeders  But there are still definitely good breeders who know what their doing and are working towards a better dog.

I've shot sniper rifles before... Suuuuuper cool. Turns out I'm a pretty good shot too, who knew?


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## GeToChKn

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Wow, schutzhund really sounds interesting. I love the dedication to producing a better and better animal with better and better capabilities. Unfortunately when I was looking for a dog I wanted a pit bull and got into looking at pit bull breeders (as if you need to get them from a _breeder_, there are hundreds of them in shelters in Pittsburgh alone) and found out how terrible breeders are breeding them for the opposite- bigger heads, more muscular bodies and tougherness, disregarding problems with hip displasia, heart issues and general unhealthiness. That lost some of my faith in breeders  But there are still definitely good breeders who know what their doing and are working towards a better dog.
> 
> I've shot sniper rifles before... Suuuuuper cool. Turns out I'm a pretty good shot too, who knew?


Its the same with any breed nowadays, people inbreed all over and do whatever they can to get a certain trait out regardless the effect on the puppies down the road. I had an Italian Mastiff, Cane Corso. Beautiful dog, was fine for the first 18 months of his life then epilepsy hit him. Spent a few years on meds and it was managed to about 3 seizures a month, all in a cluster. Then one day he went into a bout and couldn't stop seizing and 36 hours and $2000 later, had to put him down. After doing some research, then is one breeder in Ontario, Canada who started breeding dogs and introduced it into the line and 10 years down the road, a good percentage of dogs now in this whole area of that breed are either carriers or end up with it down the road. This lady is so not liked, there is websites dedicated to her and the people affected by her wrecklessness, but its something that might not show until you breed your Cane Corso with someone else's, they're both carriers and then poof, you start putting puppies out. Say 50% of those end up epileptic, well the other 50% the people breed them cause their dogs are fine, and even some of the 50% that are effect will probably try and breed and get some money off puppies before they die or get too bad. It's sad that a whole breed of dogs in this area is ruined.


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## DKShrimporium

GeToChKn said:


> I had an Italian Mastiff, Cane Corso. Beautiful dog, was fine for the first 18 months of his life then epilepsy hit him. Spent a few years on meds and it was managed to about 3 seizures a month, all in a cluster. Then one day he went into a bout and couldn't stop seizing and 36 hours and $2000 later, had to put him down.


I'm very sorry to hear of your experience, very painful. Whenever a breed gets fashionable, especially if it's rare, the profiteers emerge from the woodwork.

_In general, unfortunately, there is a strong undercurrent of profiteering in livestock/pets in US culture, linked with a tendency to breed toward charicature rather than correctness. While this does exist in other cultures, in American culture both pricing and traits are charicaturized --this is what American culture tends to do - if a smashed face is sort of cute, we breed to such smashed face distortion that the animals cannot properly breathe on a plane, etc. There is also a tendency to covet "fancy" animals as an item of status, an accessory of fashion, a statement of power or wealth, etc., rather than as a living organism to be kept with good husbandry and with which to develop an inter-species understanding. (Japanese culture also tends toward this; however, unlike American culture, Japanese culture is very educated on quality and is insistent on quality, whereas ofttimes American culture is not.)_

**********

In other news, the last pieces of DK's Aquavac project have arrived, and I believe they will work as intended. I'm a bit burned out with projects, right now, so will probably not fire up the AV for a while, yet. But it's good to know I have the stuff all in place...


----------



## DKShrimporium

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Wow, schutzhund really sounds interesting. I love the dedication to producing a better and better animal with better and better capabilities.


My philosophy is that *everything you need to know to live wisely, you learn in Schutzhund training*. No joke.


The thing observers don't necessarily understand about the sophistication of Schutzhund is that it REQUIRES a sound, balanced animal. The sport entails three aspects: tracking a scent, protection (chase and bite and corner and hold the "bad guy," and fight him if he resists), and precision obedience.

What most lay folks don't realize is that to excel in the sport, you must have a BALANCED dog. A dog who is rip roaring to protect and use the vise-grip bitework, but who is not balanced, will not be able to stop and focus and THINK, to do the tracking, or stop and read commands precisely, to do precision obedience. A dog must be able to MODULATE VARIOUS DRIVES (prey drive, protection drive, food drive, pack order, etc.) in order to switch from optimal performance from one of the three aspects to another of them; each aspect requires a different optimal profile, and the world class performers are able to MODULATE between drives to work in the correct drive profile for that aspect.

What most lay folks also don't understand is the delicate and incredible place of the handler. It's an art form for the handler to let go of his/her pre-conceived ideas and goals and ego, and learn to READ their dog, and work WITH the dog's profile and suggest to the dog when and how to modulate. (This is not unlike working with horses and flying lead changes and many dressage moves.) There is a saying in the tracking aspect - _what goes down the line comes back up the line _- if the handler is all nervous and full of pressure for the dog to perform well on tracking, it affects the dog's ability to concentrate and perform well on tracking, a very cerebral activity at higher levels when the dog is reading overlapping and various age track scents and must distinguish which track is the correct one to follow NOW, to stay in order on the track. The handler must develop confidence in themself - that they have indeed taught the dog the correct objectives and how the problem solving should occur - and confidence in the dog, that the dog knows what the objective is and has the skills to achieve it. At that point the handler must GET OUT OF THE WAY and let the dog do the work. This is harder than it seems, it entails a full trust in the dog.

Stuff like that. Schutzhund training will take a person's mind to incredible places, if the person pays attention and learns. It's all in there.

You can also meet some INTERESTING people, LOL.


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## tetranewbie

I completely agree with you about what it takes to do this kind of training. At first it can be very difficult to take a step back and let your dog do what they do. 

And yes, interesting people indeed.

I finally found some working pictures of her, and one with her favorite toy.


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## DKShrimporium

She looks GREAT! 

What I love to chuckle about is that most folks will have difficulty seeing the second picture and the third as the same dog - HA! Kody (that's my Niko boy) greets us each morning looking rather like the second shot - mouth open wide, teeth ready for action. He is so peculiar in that he HAS to put his mouth on you to feel you, in order to feel like he has done a complete greeting - rather like a blind person has the need to feel you with their hands - he somehow completes his greeting through oral feedback! He is not trying to bite - he is feeling you through his teeth - he never clamps down. I suppose it's a load of ambivalence on his part (this dog does NOT have confidence issues), his drive suggest to him to push for pack dominance, but he KNOWS he ranks lower, and will lick you like a fiend, but then always has to finish his greeting with a teeth-feel. He has all these endearing compulsions due to his high drive. And since I don't work him, I let him indulge in them because it helps vent steam for him - he simply needs to vent steam in them.

That booda picture is to die for... those eyes...

I can't do boodas in my house, they end up in teeny-tiny micro shreds that mess up the vacuum and make _EVEN MORE_ GSD mess in my house. When Kodiak was little, he had a big horse saddle pad in his crate - EVERY night he would drag that thing out and fight it, until it became nothing but shreds. He is SUCH a funny boy - whenever in the crate with the door shut, EVERY time you let him loose, he jams his head against the door like a battering ram and SHOVES his way out, to "help" you do it faster. He is such a hilarious tiny guy.

I really like the agitation shot - she shows nice German structure - good deep angulation on the shoulder blades and deep but proper angulation on the rear quarters. Plus, a nice strong back line. 

Add more pics and text any time you like!

**********

In other news, I FINALLY got notice today that the nylon rods for the (shrimp-y - we're back on topic, here!!) Maserati project have shipped and will be here Monday! Whoo-hooo! They've been on back order over a month, now, but DK was too cheap to get them elsewhere because they were screaming cheap from drillspot.com and I spend so much money on things shrimp-y that I have to save where I can, and it teaches me patience, too.

**********

Hey Liam - what's with the new pony avatar??


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## ch3fb0yrdee

I think Liam is a horse pimp now, too! :red_mouth


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## mordalphus

*The mods were joking that they'd make the bad apples among us have a pony avatar and write in pink. I volunteered to test it out... So far my shame is unbearable.*

All seriousness aside, you better hook me up with one of DK's magic maseratis once you start cranking them out


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## ch3fb0yrdee

DK, what is this "Magic Maseratis" Liam is referring to?


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## mordalphus

Only the most speedy and proficient crustaceon entanglement contraption known to man.


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## Senior Shrimpo

Getochkn, that sounds terrible... I really like cane corsos too. It's a shame people do that to the breed, I guess the lady wouldn't have really known but still it sounds like irresponsible breeding was a big culprit. I love mastiffs and all those big dogs. I settled for a shiba though, because I'm crazy (and they are too).




greenisgood said:


> My philosophy is that *everything you need to know to live wisely, you learn in Schutzhund training*. No joke.
> 
> 
> The thing observers don't necessarily understand about the sophistication of Schutzhund is that it REQUIRES a sound, balanced animal.


You know, I totally agree with that statement... certain dogs just naturally have that golden thing, I meet a lot of golden retrievers and labs that have it as well as pit bulls, they just naturally had that thing since they were born and their owners were good enough to channel it. It's probably a lot more complicated than that but honestly working with my previous dogs has taught me they aren't complicated creatures. They don't care about drama and stuff that humans get so wound up in, they don't care about what happened in the past, all they care about is what's happening now. I really love that about dogs. 



In other news: Hey Liam... you're a horsey


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## DKShrimporium

Meet my new DoggodRottie. That means: I've been asked to be this little blue-coated chunk's Doggodmother. I have, of course, accepted, even though it's a grave responsibility. I shall have to have a word with the Germans. The little guy is, after all, German - just a different _type_ of German.

I'm the little guy's (well, little as of today) fall back plan, if something were to happen to his human. I'm supposed to help out in the naming, what'd'ya think?

How about "Kleine Garnelen"??


DK


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## tetranewbie

Ohh that's so frickin adorable!


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## DKShrimporium

...And on the Maserati front, I have _finally_ finished assembling all the goods.

Nylon rods - had to wait a month for them, but it was worth the wait. They exceeded my expectations - they will have a great weight and feel, and just the right touch of flex. They have a spun texture so there is a bit of grip to them, they are lightweight. I was _expecting_ a slippery glossy finish and a much heavier feel, and much more brittle and hard texture. Turns out, they are much better, and not too difficult to machine. So DK is happy.

316 low carbon Stainless steel wire and jump rings

Just the right netting - this stuff is stretchy and fine mesh, doesn't unravel when cut, and is fine in water. Had to look rather long and hard to find it, but I did. 

Nylon monofilament thread.

You can see I've toyed around already with the prototype of the jump ring placement as a hanging ring.

You can also see, weeks later, DK's smashed thumb!

********

I should add: the objective of the Maserati project is bio-security. Each tank will have a unique net. Each net is component-designed for bleach-ability and durability.

********



.


.


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## GeToChKn

Cute puppy. They all start out small and cute and look like this, my great dane mastiff mix at 7 weeks old.











Then turn into this in 2 years.


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## Senior Shrimpo

Aww nice Rottie, also very respectable dogs. DK I think you and I think a lot in terms of dogs, shiba inus don't count because I need a littler dog or else I'd be going Am. bull or german shepherd all the way. Anyway, I on Sunday I found out a friend of mine/dog breeder reserved the last shiba inu (aka mine!) to someone else when I had been talking to them for a while to reserve it (and pretty much had a deal), so no X-mas shiba for me. So now I see other people's puppies and I all I can think is Bah humbug. Just call me Ebenezer. 

Ouch @ the thumb... that had to hurt.


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## DKShrimporium

The original Maserati - what's left of it...


.


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## DKShrimporium

dk _loves_ brindle!!!!


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## GeToChKn

greenisgood said:


> dk _loves_ brindle!!!!


Hehehe. It's so much nicer in person too to see than the camera shows. He's a great puppy.


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## mordalphus

Hey your maserati looks more like a net than mine, lol


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## DKShrimporium

This was my little brindle foster "Monkey" - playing with one of DK's rescue Germans.

And how she was first discovered, starving... her tissues were so weak they couldn't hold her joints in the proper positions at that time.


.


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## DKShrimporium

GeToChKn said:


> They all start out small and cute and look like this, my great dane mastiff mix at 7 weeks old.


Um. Thatum din't start out small. Thems paws are already nearly the size of that tennis ball, at seven weeks! Hoooooooooooooowhaaaaaaaa!




Senior Shrimpo said:


> Aww nice Rottie, also very respectable dogs. DK I think you and I think a lot in terms of dogs, shiba inus don't count because I need a littler dog or else I'd be going Am. bull or german shepherd all the way. Anyway, I on Sunday I found out a friend of mine/dog breeder reserved the last shiba inu (aka mine!) to someone else when I had been talking to them for a while to reserve it (and pretty much had a deal), so no X-mas shiba for me. So now I see other people's puppies and I all I can think is Bah humbug. Just call me Ebenezer.
> 
> Ouch @ the thumb... that had to hurt.


Bummer - who doesn't want a Christmas puppy? What a friend... giving YOUR puppy to some stranger!

On the other hand, DK has a friend who throws extra German puppies her way - so far _three_ of them over the years.

Got to be a balance in there, somewhere...

She was more actively involved in GSD breeding earlier, here is the dog by which we met, her stud at the time out of whom I got my first German - they paid $10,000 to have this dog smuggled out of then East Germany, and you can't tell from the picture, but that dog's head was the size of a basketball nearly - the most Rottie like Shepherd I've seen to date. When they first got him here, they had him in the largest size plastic crate and he just stood up and arched his back and popped the top half off, then proceeded to eat the mini-blinds in her house while they were at work. 


.


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## Senior Shrimpo

Hubba hubba, that's one cool dog. I wonder why the spent so much to get good bloodlines from Germany? That's astounding to me. I guess they wanted really good bloodlines? I know there was a guy near me who's a big time shiba breeder and he was getting 'em from top notch Japanese breeders, I guess it's kind of the same. I find that so cool!

I love learning about this kinda stuff.


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## DKShrimporium

OK, so, in between the legal posturing with the Solar company, the projectile vomiting disease, the plumbing main in our house springing a leak due to corrosion of fittings due to well water at pH 5 something and dropping everything to order replacement parts (John Guest is my friend, here, as is the new PEX tubing cutter - see posts on the heat exchanger project...) for the whole main house hot and cold plumbing lines, and... what else...

DK's managed to set up jigs in the drill press and chop saw and come up with v 1.00 Maserati prototype. So far, she's real happy. This baby will be bleach proof, extremely light and maneuverable, have 3-axis stability, and just be....slick.

I am using my jewelry (earring) tool to make the bends in the wire - that is the red-handled tool whose "snout" consists of two cones instead of plier grips, see last picture. And the DE-luxe toenail clipper, to make that oh-so-smooth finish on the cable tie.

Whaddya think? Liam??

.


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## DKShrimporium

What's going on in the house plumbing main joints... ARGH!!

Ironically, we have since put in a water treatment system so no further damage will occur to the joints.

It was the technology of that treatment system that enabled DK to build DK's Water Factory.

So you see, all things are related...


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## mordalphus

What do I think? Me thinks that is SWEET!

Nice work Dk


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## DKShrimporium

So... I've decided to tweak one thing... I've made smaller the hole for the hanging ring; this way the ring is hard-mounted rather than swinging. This will help when I have one-handed operation and want to re-hang the net on its hook - I will not have to fuss with a wobbly hanging ring.

Those of you who are wondering why-the-heck I'm custom fabricating shrimp nets when I could buy them for a buck or two... let me just quote Julia Roberts: "...this thing corners like it's on rails..." - until you've used a Maserati and are serious about your netting skills and biosecurity, you will never understand...

Also shown: The very high tech jigs I made. (For those of y'all with Asperger's, that is an example of _tongue-in-cheek _- Wiki it.) And some new organization towers I treated myself to. I ordered two, they sent two but one missing the central axis, so I called and they replaced that whole one. Of course, DK then had to rig her own replacement axis from... what else... plumbing parts... so I got 3 for the price of 2. You can see PART of the mess I'm attempting to organize, in the background... and also the rigged one on the right with the CPVC axis.

************

In other news, I have 50 pounds of chemical goodness tracking to arrive today, toward 2012 DKMSJ and likely far beyond! DK HATES to run out of critical stuff. OK, so she's a hoarder.

Oh, and, a few of the John Guests have arrived... more to arrive today. I know what DK's gonna be doing during x-mas vacay... wish me success in re-plumbing my house! BTW - while DK has the full complement of PEX plumbing tools, she has opted to use John Guest because between the PEX tubing and the JG fittings, the well water will touch NO metal, only lovely polypropylene. Most other brands of "push fittings" result in water contact with metal, or are not endorsed by actual plumbers.


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## mordalphus

You know DK, when you first tried the original maserati, you were unsure about it. A doubting donna. Then I got a PM a week later full of praise and undying affection. Haha!

I'm gonnna have to steal a few of these indestructable ones from you when you get a chance.


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## tetranewbie

Pardon me for what might possibly be a horrible question, but... what do you mean by "netting skills and biosecurity" and somehow I have a very hard time comparing a shrimp net and a Lotus Esprit


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## DKShrimporium

tetranewbie said:


> Pardon me for what might possibly be a horrible question, but... what do you mean by "netting skills and biosecurity" and somehow I have a very hard time comparing a shrimp net and a Lotus Esprit


Ever see those animal TV shows where the camera guy in a helicopter is filming a herd of something from above, and the herd is scattering in all directions from the scare of the helicopter - the chaos? This happens to shrimp also during average netting - they disperse from fear and the startle reaction. 

When you are trying to pick a shrimp, a particular shrimp, at a feeding station let's say, if you have a Maserati, you have the ability to approach with such finesse, you can go in there, single out your shrimp, cut him off from the herd, and net him out, _without disturbing the other shrimp at all_, due to the maneuverability of the Maserati. Because it's very light and fine and maneuverable, not slippery to the hand or heavy and clunky. 

And I have 30ish tanks (kinda depends on how you count them; some are split tanks with a divider), livestock coming and going all parts of the year, and a background in biology. It's only prudent practice to isolate each biome from the others, for biosecurity purposes. One infection coming in could quickly spread otherwise, taking out $$$$ in livestock. So all my tanks are isolated from each other - water supply, etc. Anything that touches tank water is disinfected before it touches other tank water. Because of this, I bleach my net, every time I use it. But now, I'm making a Maserati for _each_ tank, dedicated for _that_ tank, to further simplify things and to reduce the number of bleach cycles on a given net. I've searched high and low for the right nets, and found nothing suitable available, so I have to make them to my own specs. The original Maserati taught me netting skills using a fine instrument; unfortunately it was constructed with third world materials and didn't last well. 

************

In other news, the 50 lbs. of chemical goodness did arrive, as did another box of John Guests.

And DK took her nearly daily trip to Lowes, to buy a new set of drill bits, so her Maserati holes would be nice and clean.


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## DKShrimporium

We interrupt our normal programming for a tour into a world DK finds fascinating. Right up my alley...


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## spyke

i'm still waiting on those dang logos....come on! lets see who won!


----------



## DKShrimporium

spyke said:


> i'm still waiting on those dang logos....come on! lets see who won!


Oh, ALL RIGHT!!!

I haven't had time to input the Inkscape book into the squirrel brain, and I will be doing some very coo-el things to the submitted graphic, but I will say that here are two snippets of the pre-finished final graphic upon which the logo will be based. Am am sorry for the truly too-long development time; I never expected it to drag on this long, but things just keep getting inserted into my schedule!

Our winning artist is ASUKAWASHERE, thank you Asuka for the wonderful contribution!

As you can see, there is a STEAMPUNK influence...

I've tried a piece out in my avatar today, just for fun...



.


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## theemptythrone

I love it!


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## tetranewbie

Very nice! Thanks for the explanation as well!


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## DKShrimporium

So... DK's been busy neutering push pins... for the Maserati project. 

Anyone wanna guess how they'll be used??


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## shrimpnmoss

to hang the nets


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## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> to hang the nets


Oh ja, you rock, H.


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## shrimpnmoss

greenisgood said:


> Oh ja, you rock, H.
> 
> .


Not as much as you rock! I hope I won a Maserati with my next shrimp order. Still driving a Honda that rotted out from repeated use.

See I have a little DYI in me too!

View attachment 38893


View attachment 38894


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## DKShrimporium

...And... does it double as a cheater chopstick, for those who cannot muster the finesse to chopstick (coined verb, here) properly??? That'd be a big spoon of rice, in there.

_Did you know DK can pick up single grains of rice using chopsticks? She is good at chopsticking._ 

Inquiring minds want to know.

That's the problem with inquiring minds... they always want to know.


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## DKShrimporium

So.....the Maserati factory has been in full swing today. I got all the machining and de-burring done, and refined my beta model with a quarter inch extension from the pole to enable a 15-20 degree tilt to the net. The purpose of this is to have a planar surface with no pole interference when you want to trap a shrimp against the glass.

The extension caused my smallest point on the attachment to migrate up and off the pole, so I had to add some channels on the end of the pole to hold the mini cable tie in the correct place.

Next, designing a method for uniform bending of the frames, and figuring out the netting part - both rather tedious, so I think I'll rest a few days before undertaking them, and ponder them in my mind...

***********

In other news, we finished the hot and cold house main re-plumbs, courtesy of our great friend John Guest. It's like tinker toy plumbing.


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## DKShrimporium

OK, so... I lied. After handling the Maserati beta a few moments as above, I realized I wanted to do the offset differently.

Fortunately, DK has this THING about designing things MODULAR and REVERSABLE. So it was easy to pop the cable tie, make the adjustment, and back onto the pole...

So here's the new way, I call it the "Starship Enterprise" configuration.

The problem with the angled offset is when you want to net out a shrimp and bring it flush to the surface for examination - with the angle, this dips your net handle deeper into the water in order to bring the planar surface to the water surface. With a flat net, you stay near the top of the water when you do this, much better.

OK, I'm done playing with the Maseratis, for today.


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## mordalphus

Looking at the netting a little closer....

Is that one of dks old tranquility blouses being repurposed?

In other news, I like the enterprise configuration. I've always hated trying to scoot a shrimp up to the surface along the glass, only to have them shoot out the side of the net when I get it up there. Brilliant!


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## theemptythrone

mordalphus said:


> Looking at the netting a little closer....
> 
> Is that one of dks old tranquility blouses being repurposed?
> 
> In other news, I like the enterprise configuration. I've always hated trying to scoot a shrimp up to the surface along the glass, only to have them shoot out the side of the net when I get it up there. Brilliant!


true that, i might just have to buy one of theese from you dk..

made any that can handle a 55's depth?


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## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Looking at the netting a little closer....
> 
> Is that one of dks old tranquility blouses being repurposed?


And... how IS IT that Liam knows such a thing as a "tranquility blouse"??? - 'Cause DK had to try to look this thing up in Google images, and still isn't sure what one is. DK thinks there was never such thing in her history.

*******

In other, FANTASTIC, news, DK had a flash of lateral thinking _brilliance_ and came up with her new secret weapon that is gonna MAKE the Maserati process work. She had to think a few minutes, and came up with this:

Anyone wanna guess how this lovely item, salvaged from the trash no less, is gonna MAKE the Maserati process work?? I dare ya. I will give hints later, 'cause I know nobody's gonna have a clue, yet. I will say it involves a kitchen appliance...


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## mordalphus

Hmmmmmm, my guess is using it as a guide for bending and measuring the wire frame.

And a tranquility blouse is the rough linen shirts that hippies wore, COME ON!

Watch the movie club dread, its a hoot.


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## mordalphus

Heres a fuzzy picture, see the material? It's the SAME!


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## DKShrimporium

Pony avatars... references to "tranquility blouses"... Liam, you are rather - _colorful_ - lately.

I suppose if you are doing what they are doing, the material might look the same. But otherwise, not.

But now that I see what I COULD BE, if only I had a "tranquility blouse," I've decided to dedicate my perfect fabric to the making of such a blouse, and switch my Maserati netting to the product, below. I have other reasons, too...

**********

No. Not a gauge for bending the frames. Has to do with the netting part, and how I'm gonna do it. Has to do with fooling a kitchen appliance into doing something for me that it otherwise would not be doing for me. 

Heh heh heh heh....


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## madness

greenisgood said:


> Pony avatars... references to "tranquility blouses"... Liam, you are rather - _colorful_ - lately.


This really made me laugh.


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## Geniusdudekiran

DK -- I'm tired of the Maserati. Build a Lamborghini net.


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## tetranewbie

Geniusdudekiran said:


> DK -- I'm tired of the Maserati. Build a Lamborghini net.


 
No... a Zonda!


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## Geniusdudekiran

tetranewbie said:


> No... a Zonda!


Just skip to the veyron.


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## tetranewbie

But Zonda's are so much cooler!!! They're more mechanical and analog then the veyron, not to mention 1/3 the price... sounds like a good recipe for a shrimp net if you ask me!


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## DKShrimporium

So DK's busy asking herself, "How many basic geometries are there to making a box or cup?" 

_She is, once again, channeling Temple Grandin_.

And she asks herself, "What are the functionalities I want?"



She pretty much has the answers to the second question:

I need a box or cup with one open rectangular face.
I want fairly stiff, so there is no folding in by the net material.
I want no tucks or acute internal corners where a shrimp can get stuck.
I want THE LEAST AMOUNT OF HAND SEWING to make them!!!
I want to K.I.S.S., as much as a squirrely-brain designer is able
Now, I sit...

...and try to achieve alpha wave status, opening the channels to lateral thinking... allowing the visuals to swirl and flow, in my brain...

**********

Are you ready for the next hint?? Here is a picture of said kitchen appliance, that uses my yesterday's salvaged trash super-gizmo.


And I had to rig up the gizmo in the second picture, last night, to go along with the plan. (The EPS block is glued to the piece of paneling - for those of you who haven't evolved into plastics terminology, EPS is *e*xpanded *p*oly*s*tyrene, commonly known as styrofoam.)


.


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## mordalphus

Gonna vacuum form the netting? Either that or just use the impulse seal on your vacuum packer?

Ps. All these alpha wave channels are making me think you made that tranquility blouse and are currently wearing it.


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## shrimpnmoss

This is like watching a season of MacGuyver with Shrimps! Are you going to test which net color is the most stealth?


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## DKShrimporium

In the course of playing with the technology to make the nets, it became apparent that I'd need to standardize my procedures and develop some specialized gizmos for production. 

Today, I dug in my piles and bins and barrels of parts and pieces, selected a scrap of lexan, dug out one of my favorite coo-el tools - the pop-riveter - and put together this gizmo:


.


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## DKShrimporium

DK has made the first beta of the 3-D netting and is thrilled with being able to pull something off she didn't think she'd be able to do... Actually, she made up a whole net, completely finished and water tested - she was happy to learn the wetting properties of the mesh are appropriate, something she had been concerned about.

But she's getting ahead of herself. 

Right now, the step she's trying to standardize is the wire bending for the frames. She's feeling as though in a pinch she could be an orthodontist (using old technology, that is) as an alternate career. As it is, she formerly spent an entire week, in-house and at _excessive_ cost to her former place of employ, being trained by Lloyd's Register, learning the fine points of picking apart _process_, so she's been applying this knowledge toward the Maserati project...

One bit of wisdom that has surfaced in the wire bending protocol is that _the order of events _matters. So she's working on optimizing this.

Latest pics - the tooled ends, other tools rigged toward making the wire frames, and a couple tries at frame making.

**********

In other news, she has been organizing all those parts and pieces into those organization towers, and yesterday treated herself to ordering a new 2 inch magnetic stir bar, and eight more industrial shelving rails - she will use the extra rails as hanging and other storage capability. They are tracking to arrive today, less than 24 hours from being ordered! That rocks.


.


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## DKShrimporium

So... here's what all the net buzz is about. First, we look at the functional criteria:


Wettable
Water stable - won't rot from water exposure
Disinfectable
Not subject to corrosion in salts or bleach
Physical properties - in this case, we want relatively stiff, something that will hold its shape fairly well but yet still have flexibility
Light colored, preferably sheer
Very fine mesh size
Cheap and easy to buy locally
Relatively strong and robust
Looking at the criteria, and digging into the squirrely brain for the _materials_ database, this pretty much leads us to plastics polymers, and the usual suspects: polyester, polypropylene, polyethylene, nylon, etc.

Our first choice (the now Tranquility Blouse fabric - Liam, where's my pattern, or are you gonna sew it for me, and add your own embellishments??) was polyester. It had some advantages over other polymers: doesn't ravel, stretchy in one dimension. The ravel and stretchy come in handy as sanity savers when you are having to hand sew and custom fit tiny nettings to little frames for 30 something nets. DK hates hand sewing - she is NOT GOOD at doing anything of a repetitive nature, thus she tends to automate. But the wettability wasn't as good as she wanted, and once wetted, the fabric lost body, could easily collapse, not ideal. So she went down the list. WE DO NOT FEAR FAILURE; WE MOVE ON, and TRIUMPH.

Polypropylene or polyethylene mesh is a great choice of material, except: too hard to source, expensive to buy, and also tremendous raveling problems. Nylon has the same problem with raveling, but has the advantage of being source-able, with great tensile strength, and stiff. Hmmmmmmm. Let's think nylon, how to solve that pesky, pesky ravelling problem. DK digs once again into the squirrely brain, this time in the _shopping_ database, then drops by her local craft store, in the Bridal section, and gets her some fancy sheer nylon bridal ribbon. It was even on sale, 3 spools for the price of 2, whatta deal. She fools around a bit with the flic bic lighter, not to her liking as the control is lacking on the singeing (you geeks out there, note this is a weird word where you _retain_ the silent e at the end when adding ing in order to retain the soft pronunciation of that first "g" - in geekinese this is called a _voiced postalveolar affricate_ pronunciation) of edges.

Enter lateral thinking, and our kitchen appliance:


DK's on her way, now.... stay tuned...


.


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## DKShrimporium

...And... because she CANNOT leave well enough alone... (and *HATES* hand sewing, did I mention that??)

DK has been reverberating (that's geek code for OBSESSING) on this lovely idea of melt-welding, thinking she'd surely like to skip the hand sewing step, altogether. 

So, she starts focusing in on plastic spot welding.

First, she sees if there is such a thing, and goes shopping - yep, they do exist, but $3400 is not in DK's budget.

Time for more lateral thinking.

What does DK need, to do plastic welding, to afix the nets to the frames?


A small area of weld
A pincer like approximation of heat surfaces, that will fit INSIDE the net diameter (um, the seal-a-meal doesn't meet either criteria, so far, bummer)
A method of controlling both the pincer approach (tension/pressure) and temperature of the heat
She accesses the _miscellaneous parts and pieces _database in her squirrely brain for ANYTHING that might move her toward these criteria, reviewing previous hair-brained schema she has had, and the parts and pieces left over from them...

EUREKA.

The answer lies in STAINED GLASS. She used to be a stained glass artist, among other things... (See, I TOLD YOU all things are EVENTUALLY related... I had no idea this was coming back when, when I posted this.)

Pictures, later...


.


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## diwu13

This thread is a really great read and shows how important being creative and intuitive is :]! 

I'm stumped, I need pictures on how stained glass relates to melting the nylon.


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## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> This thread is a really great read and shows how important being creative and intuitive is :]!


Why, thank you.



diwu13 said:


> I'm stumped, I need pictures on how stained glass relates to melting the nylon.


We're getting to that.

*********

First, let's take a look at the Seal-a-Meal, and break down the process parts:


Controlled temperature heating element
Non-stick coating _over_ the heating element, so melted plastics don't burn on, and stick.
Some sort of cushion-y, heat-resistant gasket.
Some sort of method to bring the gasket to the heating element and apply pressure, sandwiching the to-be-melted plastic material in-between, with a prescribed amount of heat and pressure to effect the melting/seal. In the case of the Seal-a-Meal, it's a hinge, and the hand provides the pressure.

(And, by the way, the last element of the Seal-a-Meal is the chamber for suction, to suck the air out of your bag. That nifty from-the-trash gizmo DK made is used to plug the suction hole, fooling the Seal-a-Meal into thinking it has finished sucking the air out of the bag. In this picture, I'm using a white one to plug the suction port - look closely, the suction port is in the center of the unit sort of where that upside down "V is pointing - the "V" is actually guide lines I wrote to place my ribbon at a prescribed angle to make slanted seals, same as the red tape is doing.)


Anyone wanna guess what DK's already found to effect (word geeks: know thee the difference between *e*ffect and *a*ffect, and the difference between each as a noun, and a verb, because they both are both but they are NOT interchangeable!! - there's that _voiced postalveolar affricate_ again!!) the above? 

She has already solved each one, with stuff I already have in my _parts-and-pieces_ inventory. 


.


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## DKShrimporium

In the last 24 hours, DK has discovered there's a distinction between _Stupid Stubborn_, and _Useful Stubborn_. She used to have a friend who would make Stupid decisions, then proudly proclaim he was "so strong, because I'm so stubborn" - and DK mentally made note that being stubborn was Stupid.

But in the last 24 hours, she took herself nearly to the point of despair, and NEARLY aborted the spot-welding goal, except that she is (she was forced to admit, to herself) _unbelievably_ stubborn. She gets into her head, "I wonder if I could pull that off..." and _cannot_ let go. 

She threw out the Epic Fail samples (um, they looked like a ribbon full of cigarette burn holes - NOT pretty, and definitely not useable for Maseratis), went back to the drawing board, and STOPPED and applied her Process knowledge (i.e., she must be MISSING or FAILING a step). She met with her friend Google and re-researched the heat welding process, adding _one_ tiny but totally _necessary_ bit of information:

In the heat welding process, you must have a COOLING CYCLE built into the protocol. Therefore, you must apply heat to melt the material and merge it, THEN instantaneously remove the heat, keeping the material in place (i.e., _without_ distorting the melded section), and then have a cooling cycle so it re-forms, welded, without disturbance before the polymer is again hardened.

_Process ofttimes dictates method_. There are two paradigms of method here - one is to have a stationary heat source with moveable gasket (as in the Seal-a-Meal), the other is to have a moveable heat source and stationary gasket.

To have a stationary heat source, you must be able to instantantly turn off the heat generation from your heat source. No cando, with DK's heat source. Therefore, we choose number two.

This post is getting too long, and I'm out of time for the time being, so we'll stop there, featuring the results of DK's intense stubbornness - we are getting there!! More later, when I have a stretch of time...

For now, you can see DK is getting screamin' close to her desired consistent spot-welds, already!! 

-- In case you think this is easy to do, try it! You have a couple of degrees of temperature within which to work, a second's timing within which to work, and you must apply consistent pressure each weld - go outside any of these parameters, and you end up with cigarette burn holes or failed bonding. _I dare ya_... 

********

In other news, DK needs to make a trip to the local drug store, to do a bit of shopping in the girl's barrettes section...


.


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## mordalphus

Soldering iron with a silicone baking mat? That's what I was thinking last night, curious to see what you came up with


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## shrimpnmoss

I think Lean Six Sigma would help DK squeeze inefficiencies out of all her processes.


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## DKShrimporium

So... Other Geek in the household got ahold of this dangerous book... something about simplifying your life and decluttering, getting rid of "extra" stuff. But he knows that we often do whacky and zany things, so he comes to me with this, asking me if I have any use for it.

It's a heat sink out of something electronic - we will dismantle things for parts, at times.

I can't think of a use for it, but say I want to keep it, because it MIGHT come in useful, someday. This was about three days ago. 

So it's been sitting on my desk, staring back at me. Feeding my subconscious with thoughts of heat dissipation. Little did I know how soon I would access those thoughts... stored away in the _concepts and methods_ database of the squirrely brain...


.


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## DKShrimporium

And here we have the beginnings of the setup. A certain-sized block of wood, hot glued to the edge of my workbench, cantilevered out a bit.

So soon, I found a use for the leftover bits of those silicone funnels I ordered for the Aquavac project (remember??). A bit of one, double sticky taped to my block of wood.

And over this, a layer of Reynold's release aluminum foil. This is beautiful - already had it, it's cheap, it's moldable to any size, it conducts heat very well, and it's non-stick.

And over that, a second flap of Reynold's release.


OK, I'm STARVING, and lunch calls to me, is screaming, actually.


.


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## diwu13

Heat sinks are great. My physics lab had tons of extra from dismantling old pieces of equipment as well. You can even use it for many things around your house. If your desktop computer is getting too hot and running the fans frequentyly it's really easy to trim down the heat sink and place it where it needs to go :]! I also have a heatsink sitting on my modem as that heats up quite a bit for some reason.


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## DKShrimporium

I found the Epic Fail burn holes ribbon as I was cleaning up today. You can see that without just the right combination of temperature, pressure, timing, and cooling cycle, you end up with... holes. 

This is where the heat sink came in.​ 
Nylon melds at roughly 750-752 degrees. So it's pretty hot, but a very narrow window. At that amount of heat, it's easy to get hot edges and lose your meld and just melt a hole in this fine mesh. So I needed a method to feather out the hot zone at the edges.

I had wrapped my heat source in Reynolds release wrap for the non-stick properties but what happened was the Reynolds came up to temp and was hot all the time. The molten plastic sticks to it, but will release from it after it COOLS.

So I came up with the idea of NOT wrapping my heat source in the RR, but instead making a free flap of it between my heat source and the plastic.

This way, the heat source transmits through the foil, but also gets feathered at the edges, as the foil in a sheet disperses the heat like a heat sink will. This way, I was able to make hot spots with feathered melted edges, then lift the heat off the weld with the Reynold's Release still in place until it cooled, then I could peel off the RR from the melded, feathered tack weld.

Below you see the problems before these adjustments. Then the spot welds achieved after the adjustments, notice the feather zone of melt in some (the ideal weld will be slightly less time, so there is a smaller central zone and no peripheral melt zone, like the weld at the tip seen.) And another shot of the foil non-stick "sandwich" apparatus.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> I think Lean Six Sigma would help DK squeeze inefficiencies out of all her processes.


That LSS stuff would be right up DK's alley... except the part about paying large sums of monies for it, and having to sit in lotssa chairs and rooms and meetings, to program it in, especially with crowds of corporate sheep. But the _concepts_... yes...

DK's processes are inherently inefficient on the first level, because she is typically re-inventing the wheel.

The Maserati project is a perfect example of this. All told, she could go out and buy a net for 99 cents, and chuck it at that price as soon as it's worn. But it would not be the high performance specimen a Maserati will be, and the database bits she's harvesting from the Maserati project are already stewing in her brain toward _future_ projects, using this technology. With the technology to hot-weld plastics meshes, DK can think of any number of uses, in shrimp-dom. Custom breeder boxes, well controlled divided tanks, larger capacity water conditioning towers, microbaby feeding stations, 3-D shaped lattices for cultivating mosses into Seuss-esque underwater topiaries (think: Edward Scissorhands, if you will, and a larger mesh size such as large hole plastic canvas for needlepoint) - tons of future possibilities. 



diwu13 said:


> I'm stumped, I need pictures on how stained glass relates to melting the nylon.





mordalphus said:


> Soldering iron with a silicone baking mat? That's what I was thinking last night, curious to see what you came up with




With that in mind, let's continue the narrative, 
and pick up at _stained glass_.​ 
There are two basic techniques to making stained glass: copper foil, and lead caning. You can google them and learn for yourself, but both techniques require soldering, and in some cases, you need a lot of control over your solder iron because you can get ripping on the soldering and you must have a certain heat output and speed to soldering. Too hot, and your solder melts between pieces and drains out the other side or melts too much of your lead cane, ruining a joint. Too cold, and it doesn't bond and fill properly, in a stained glass piece. So depending how fast you are going, you need adjustable heat output. Of course they sell fancy over-priced gizmos to do this, but years ago DK rigged her massive solder iron to a rheostat at cheapie cost for the same effect. This makes her heat output fairly controlable, as you've seen in her latest spot-welds.

Here is the next shot to the set-up.​ 
She's taken her drill press, swung it around backwards to cantilever the drill part over the edge of the workbench. Put in a large hole saw bit for a spacer, and then mounted her soldering iron to it, stabilizing it against the hole saw. (LOL, duct tape was too big, so she used electical tape! - There, I fixed it!)

This produces a method to RELIABLY lower the soldering iron a specified amount with great accuracy and the exact same angle of approach each time. The drill press has an adjustable depth-stop that she is utilizing for this purpose, as well. It also has a spring loaded lift, so when she lets go for the cooling cycle, it's hands free operation as far as letting the sample cool - the soldering iron is well controlled for position. (This picture was taken earlier, when she was lining the solder tip with the RR foil; she is now using the flap instead, as in the above post.) 

This gives her _accurate reproducability_, which is critical to plastic welds. You have to operate within about a one to two percent margin to get uniform welds - not a big window. 


.


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## xxbenjamminxx

Lol this thread reminds me of my everyday life soooo much its funny. Im always "rigging" up stuff like this. Love reading this thread, and have been lurking/following it for a while now. 

Keep up the great work and its really gets the ideas and creativity flowing.


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## DKShrimporium

xxbenjamminxx said:


> Lol this thread reminds me of my everyday life soooo much its funny. Im always "rigging" up stuff like this. Love reading this thread, and have been lurking/following it for a while now.
> 
> Keep up the great work and its really gets the ideas and creativity flowing.


Why, thank you.

I've decided that posting here, rather than having my squirrely-brain explode, is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY cheaper than therapy, and, besides, the money I save from therapy I can apply to zany-re-invent-the-wheel projects...

Below is a closer view of the high-tech (ahem) soldering iron attachment. DK has threaded the power cord and sort of knotted it to secure the iron, pulling it up snug against the drill plate, so when the drill head is lowered, there is actually stability and also the ability to add pressure downward on the iron, although it takes very little, but _some_, downward pressure to make the welds. You can also see the drill-depth stop mechanism.


.


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## [email protected]

This might be of use. 
Constant Heat Roller Sealer
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23802&catid=792 
They're available in higher wattages from other suppliers.


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## DKShrimporium

[email protected] said:


> This might be of use.
> Constant Heat Roller Sealer
> http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23802&catid=792
> They're available in higher wattages from other suppliers.


Hey D,

I gotta tell ya, DK saw this gizmo and then and spun off a _good_ 30 min designing her own up in the squirrely brain, only to realize she had already ordered what she thinks she's gonna need to do freeform seams... arriving Wednesday, we shall see. It comes with the official tag "professional grade"...something she is very attracted to (word geeks, that should read "to which she is very attracted") in a marketing ploy... she tries _not_ to be influenced by marketing, but in the odd time she IS actually going to _buy_ a product, she does find herself attracted to certain words, such as "professional," "industrial," and "super heavy-duty." Said item was both "professional grade," and inexpensive - a combination to which she is particularly susceptible. She plunked down her denaros because it has something built into it that she cannot replicate well in the DIY realm, in the same price range, and in the same tiny, sleek, compact real-estate.

If not, some large gauge copper wire, teflon tape, and beading supplies applied to the new gizmo Wednesday should do the trick... (she has already accessed the _shopping_ database and piles and bins and barrels of parts and pieces inventory for where to get the goods...) [ADDENDUM: just looked up the heat tolerance of PTFE (that's geekinese for teflon), and it's not going to work in the 750 F temperature zone, so let's hope plan A for free-form seams works. I'm not really sure how often I'd need free-form seams, but I just had some _really_ entertaining thoughts about applying this material and technology toward costuming for Madonna or Lada Gaga...] 


************

In other news, DK has a new DeWalt cordless, to go along with her new titanium bits...

She is sipping her Bubba (34 ounce) Mug of coffee, trying to detox from the excessive _consumption of mass quantities_ (Liam, do you have the reference thereof??), yesterday, while wondering what zany places she will go (figuratively) in 2012. She has some rellies who are about to embark upon a hundred-plus day round-the-world (as the Brits would say) cruise, and she has ordered herself a pair of fancy chopsticks from the travelers. She CANNOT imagine how SHE would balloon up like a mushroom cloud, cruising and buffet-ing for over 100 days...


----------



## mordalphus

You know, DK, if anyone could relate to a conehead, I'm sure it would be you.

Haha.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> You know, DK, if anyone could relate to a conehead, I'm sure it would be you.
> 
> Haha.


That pony's sorta growin' on me, Liam. My GodDog Rottie is due to arrive to his home, today, and will resemble your pony eventually.

***********


We do a lot of quoting around here, being classic and literate:

Coneheads,
Princess Bride
Holy Grail
***********

In other news, anyone know where DK can get some CSM+B WITHOUT the added iron?

***********

And in OTHER news, DK had the dangerous good fortune to run across the _mother lode_ of Starbucks coffee on clearance at $3 a bag, so she stocked up in a big way into her freezer (remember, she is a hoarder and deal monger), and is now jolting along on 34 ounces of stee-ronnnnngggg java. That stuff is high octane.

She shops at an Amish warehouse that gets truckloads of various stuff at cut rate prices, and is totally spoiled on cheap but good stuff from them, such as Starbucks at one third price. I think I bought 15 bags. It freezes fine, so long as you fully thaw it before opening. The warehouse uses gas lanterns to light the place, and I have to drive around the horse and buggys in the parking lot, careful not to spook the horses, although Amish horses (here we are back to ponies, again, circular isn't it?) are pretty stout against spooking.

She also scored several cases of Fage Greek yogurt at 25 cents a cup. She eats lotssa Greek yogurt. In case you're shocked, or wondering, it's living in the garage in wonderful December temps, just right.

*********

And for those of you who need more than fluff, some interesting material.

And if you want some material on the other end of the spectrum, try this.


.


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## diwu13

Hm... why do you freeze the coffee? Can't you leave it in a cabinet or something since those bags are supposed to be airtight? 

And at $3 a bag for starbucks I would've gotten 15 too ! Great deal!! Were you serious about driving slowly around the horse drawn carriages?


----------



## Chucker

She is. There is a good-sized Amish population in the Finger Lakes are of NY, as well as portions of the ADK foothills and St. Lawrence River plain. Matter of fact, some Englisher business have hitching posts and water troughs at the edge of the parking lot to accommodate Amish customers. Then again, some of the Amish just pay the Englishers mileage to drive them to wherever they have to go :icon_wink


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## DKShrimporium

Ja, we have Amish buggy parking spaces behind the local Starbucks with a picture of a horse and buggy, and hitching post, and shovel. The local Walmart has a horse lean-to barn with hitching posts and shovels, too.

The most disorienting is when you get behind an Amish buggy at the drive-thru at the bank. I'm still not used to that!

********

In other news, I finally had a chance to swing by a certain drug store, and pick up some hair clips...

My "professional grade" gizmo did not arrive today and so I'm stuck waiting for it, to continue with the Maserati project. Should be here one of these days...

And uber-lazy DK needs to thin out her tanks, one of these days. Picture stinks because my glass is so slimy, but, hey, they like to graze it!

I've been trying to figure out why I let the tanks get so crowded, then I remembered... I didn't want to break the Maserati, netting them out to sort them, so thus started the Maserati project. You see, the logic is circular.


.


----------



## diwu13

Wow, you don't get access to those experiences near my parents house in NJ or where I live now in CT. Sounds really interesting. Won't there be like horse poop randomly on the streets then?

And why is the coffee in the freezer D:?


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## [email protected]

If there are horses present, there are or shortly will be, horse apples. (road apples) 
You're only required to pickup after them in parking lots. Not roads.


----------



## ShortFin

Those Amish buggy....I remember reading a story not too long ago where they refuse to put reflectors on the carriage and cars ram into them when driving in crappy weather.


----------



## A Hill

So I just kinda read kinda skimmed the whole thread. Wow, what a crazy completely not boring thread for sure. You should win some sort of award or something. 

The projects you have going are great, I'm a big fan of the Red tigers. 

Oh, and an extremely late response about the RCS, they're long gone by now but it was vertical stripes going up and down. They were some amazing shrimp that unfortunately because of school I didn't have the chance to truly work with. Only one red female is left from the line. 

Keep up the craziness!

-Andrew


----------



## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> Wow, you don't get access to those experiences near my parents house in NJ or where I live now in CT. Sounds really interesting. Won't there be like horse poop randomly on the streets then?
> 
> And why is the coffee in the freezer D:?


Ja, we have horse-poop on occasion on the roads.

OK, since you've asked the coffee question TWICE, you get the Geek answer.

The flavor of coffee - it's quality - is a function of the freshness of the aromatics in the coffee.


The aromatics are affected several ways:
In open air, they will eventually disperse, as aromatics do. (i.e., oily beans dry out)
In the presence of oxygen, they will oxidize, causing unwanted qualities to the flavors they produce.
In the presence of water or water vapor, they will also convert chemically, causing unwanted qualities to the flavors they produce. (this is why if you brew at too hot a temp or leave sitting on the heater, you make tar instead of coffee)
Chemical conversions are a factor of ambient temperature, the amount of oxygen exposure, the amount of moisture exposure.
Coffee is packaged after roasting in vacuum packed bags which then "breathe" CO2 after packaging. They are not packaged in inert gas, so there is the presence of a small amount of oxygen in the sealed bag. Over time, the oxygen will degrade the aromatics, especially the higher the temperature. 

The best way to store coffee beans longer-term is in the green, whole, unroasted state. In this state, the aromatics are still bound inside a sealed bean inside the matrix and inside a membrane surrounding the bean. However, this means you must buy green beans, and be your own roaster. 

(We digress here to mention that taking a coffee bean from a green sorta wet bean to a roasted bean entails adding JUST ENOUGH heat to dry the bean and drive the aromatics from the matrix a bit and condition them to be the desired chemicals for flavoring. Add MORE heat to a roasted bean, and you start to degrade the aromatics - roasting is a fairly technical art. For a long while, DK pondered making her own roaster, but decided she didn't want a crude one with poor temperature control, and didn't want to burn down her house either - there's a lot of DIY roaster projects using the old style hot air popcorn poppers, etc. The Super Coffee Geeks will roast a handful of beans and grind them just before brewing, making your cup o' java an hour long process. DK is simply not _that_ snobby.)

Keeping a factory sealed bag in the freezer until use stores the aromatics at very low temperatures, where the rate of oxygen reaction is very low due to temps and low oxygen levels. However, the danger is that a fool will open the bag while it is chilled, causing moisture to condense on the beans, further accelerating degradation. So you must bring all the beans up to room temp before opening a frozen-stored bag.

Once opened, it will degrade much more quickly, so we hope to consume it within a week.

Caveat here: when buying _mother lode_ Starbucks, you must dig through the hundreds of bags and get the recent dated ones for freshness, even though they are all sealed.

-END COFFEE GEEK LECTURE-


----------



## diwu13

Thanks for the geek answer! I expected that type of answer from you, from reading through your other posts :]! I was aware of the variety of ways the coffee would lose it's flavor, but I figured the vacuum sealed bags would be able to stop that from occurring. Guess I've never hoarded that much coffee to notice the change in flavor four or five bags down the line. The fact that every single store I've been in that sells coffee keeps the bags outside made me really wonder why you put yours in the freezer haha.


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## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> Thanks for the geek answer! I expected that type of answer from you, from reading through your other posts :]! I was aware of the variety of ways the coffee would lose it's flavor, but I figured the vacuum sealed bags would be able to stop that from occurring. Guess I've never hoarded that much coffee to notice the change in flavor four or five bags down the line. The fact that every single store I've been in that sells coffee keeps the bags outside made me really wonder why you put yours in the freezer haha.


She's the only one in the household that drinks it, plus being a hoarder, she already had a stash of several months' worth in her freezer. So these bags will be in storage a good while, before consumption. Coffee beans are a high priority item, as they are high priority consumption and also undergoing huge price hikes lately. So their supply curve is shifting, and DK is mindful of that, preparing for further down the shift, to maintain her price points as long as possible.

DK has a household goods _price points_ database in the squirrely brain, and when something on her list hits a price point, it triggers a bulk buy. This is how she operates. The caveat to this is that she WILL NOT BUY until she hits a price point, but HATES to run out of stuff, so she gets really efficient at price point shopping. Only a very few items are not price pointed - milk is one - when she gets close to running out, she will buy it, regardless. She does not constantly go to stores (she lives in the boonies, near the Amish), either, so it's a challenge to keep a running inventory of goods "in stock" under her set of "rules."

(In one iteration of her professional past, she was in charge of creating and maintaining a chemical inventory and database for 14 R&D commercial laboratories, including setting up computerized inventory and barcoded, automated inventory assessment and ordering.)

DK believes life should be _sporting_. If it's not a challenge, it's not sporting... DK wants to have _fun_; if it's not _sporting_, it's not very _fun_.

She believes in letting _other people_ pay retail...

Who knew the topic of coffee beans was laden with DK's philosophy...


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Oh babieeeeeeeeee...*

You see, sometimes, it's worth it to buy. To buy correctly. It came today...


$34, including shipping, and DK is _on her way_, with the Maserati Project...


.


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## diwu13

Nice writing/melting! Are we gonna get to see a picture of the device your ordered?


----------



## Ben.

SWEEET! that's so awesome, draw DK's shrimp logo on there!


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## DKShrimporium

Ben. said:


> SWEEET! that's so awesome, draw DK's shrimp logo on there!


DK rises to a _sporting_ challenge...

***************

[HOT OFF THE PRESSES: - DK's new GodDog Rottie, "Angus" - who couldn't love a chunk-face like him??? DK is anxiously awaiting more and more pictures...]


.


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## DKShrimporium

So, after sitting, _and sitting_, and thinking, _and thinking_, DK came up with a brainstorm, how to best make the net baskets, using her new technology.

She made a few ugly prototypes, and thought about posting them, but stubbornly refused to show anything so ugly, thinking them unfinished looking. Usually, if she is stubborn enough, she can figure out a way to make something _sleek_.

And she did.

She pondered 3-D geometry, method, ease of production, strength of final product. She twirled some ugly prototypes in her hand, looking at them from every angle, for - um - longer than she cares to admit.


She zoned out until she hit _Alpha wave_ status with free-flow ideas.


Here is the first _sleek_ basket prototype. It is sleek in the end product - all seams are very strong and sealed and neat. It is sleek in how it's assembled - she made jigs to standardize production and it's very easy to get proper seams and alignment, now, so she should have reproducible sizing and quality.

The idea is that the flaps will bend up and over and to the outside of the wire loop on the net, and then be heat tacked down. 

DK is working on the tacking method, to clean that up - still messy.

Whaddya think?


.


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## mordalphus

Looks pretty slick, how well does that design work in the water?


----------



## Ben.

DK, you crushed my challenge haha. I like the basket, especially the mesh you use, it looks really fine. perfect for shrimp.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Looks pretty slick, how well does that design work in the water?


This is super-crudely done for demo, but you can see the concept. (I also mistakenly mounted the basket backwards, but doesn't matter for this demo.) 

This net is fully wetted, and you can see how it is semi-rigid, holds its shape. 

This is what I want, because when I bring it up out of the water, I don't want basket collapse.

I like to net out a chosen shrimp gently, and then lower the net into the receiving container, tilt the net under water, then gently raise it upside down, encouraging the shrimp to walk down the net and eventually swim off the edge, into the open container. This is much less stressful or frightening to the shrimp than dumping it into new water. 

So, I want a net that holds its shape as it's drawn up out of the water, with the basket upside down, the bottom of the basket rising up out of the water like an island volcano, if you will. Most nets, if you try to do this, collapse or invert.

But not DK's Maserati.... heh heh heh...


.


----------



## diwu13

So these will be up for sale for the general public right? That looks great even when wet (and backwards) lol!

Think you'll do those spot melds on the final? Or are you working out a better way for now?


----------



## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> So these will be up for sale for the general public right? That looks great even when wet (and backwards) lol!
> 
> Think you'll do those spot melds on the final? Or are you working out a better way for now?


Ja.......well.......actually....

...this is a "DK wonders if she could pull this off" adventure. She just wanted some nets with some very specific characteristics and was not able to find them anywhere, so she made her own. As she is wont to do. Not a sales endeavor, at all.

The latest toy she ordered is below. The interesting thing about it, other than that is was "professional grade" and cheap, is that it has a temperature _regulated_ tip at _750 degrees_, which, very luckily, happens to be exactly the temperature she needs to work with melding nylon. 

The temperature control using this is much finer than using an iron with a graduated energy input such as a rheostat. When working with plastic welds in nylon, one has a operating temperature window of 750-752 degrees F - not a lot of variability. So she figured it was worth the bucks to get this control. She needed a new soldering iron for finer stuff, anyway (this replaces a 40 year old one in her tool box that was inherited from a family member) and this just pushed her to get one, and pick a specific one.

She has not yet made the jig to do the spot welds, so currently has no control and those seen were crudely done by hand - she anticipates a similar improvement in the spot-welds as she saw in the baskets, once she gets a system worked out for consistency. Just hasn't done that bit, yet.


.


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## DKShrimporium

So, yesterday afternoon, while so many were nursing their headaches or sleeping them off, DK was standing around, yet again, twirling a beta Maserati in her hand, staring at it from all angles as it rotated, contemplating method... trying to get to Alpha Wave state...

She looks up, and sees this:


...And says to herself, "Hmmmmmmmm........"


.


----------



## Buff Daddy

Hmmmm... a locking, extendable handle?

Wellers are great irons. I don't think there is a dog in any of their product lines.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Buff Daddy said:


> Hmmmm... *a locking, extendable handle*?
> 
> Wellers are great irons. I don't think there is a dog in any of their product lines.


Been there, done that, don't like.

*************

Here's the scoop:

DK needed a jig to make exact replicas of the basket frames. Turns out, her handy-dandy tilt-table thingy has just the right size steel frame. So she is using it for a jig, to bend the frames.

The 316L stainless wire is very stiff, so you have to secure it on one edge to bend it around a corner, or else you get a curve instead of a crease, if you will. So she looked around, found one of her clamps with a recessed groove, perfect, this holds the wire stiff against the jig, so when she bends it around the corner, it forces more of a crease than a curve.

Finally, DK was on the hunt around the place for a steel plate with a small hole in it, to do the final bend on the tiny bit of end wire. She was getting too wide of swings in her curve in the bend, using needle nose, but also after the frames are bent, it's a bit tricky to get that last tail into a position to bend that end - for example, she couldn't use her vice, as the rest of the frame got in the way.

So after hunting around for something suitable that would give her the leverage to bend that bit of tail (there is about half inch of tail bent, then she snips it back to about eighth of an inch), she realized a slit would work nearly as well as a hole, and then tried the Ultra Toe Nail Clippers, voila.

So frame production is now standardized. 

Next, a jig for spot-welding, and to standardize that methodology...




.


----------



## DKShrimporium

The pictures are kinda sloppy, but here's the latest. Part of the _sporting_ aspect is to find _what DK already has_, to use, to do this.

View of a standardized basket frame. You can see how the tips of the ends fit into the pole, so there are no sharp edges exposed; this also gives a great deal of stability to the attachment.

View of installed basket frame over frame jig; you can see the frames will tend to be uniform, using the jig - this is important, because the net is made from ribbon - it is a specific size and DK needs it to fit fairly exactly to the frame once assembled. All her tolerances are about 1-1.5 mm, not a lot of slop.

Now for the welding jig. Found a scrap shim just the right size. Hot glued it, cantilevered, over the edge of my workbench. Hot glued a strip of cotton webbing she had around, also the right size, to the shim, pulling taut. (_continued in next post_...)

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Next views: 

How the installed basket frame with netting fits over the welding jig. The jig supports the entire side at a time and is a snug fit.

Cotton webbing is now lined with Reynold's Release wrap. RR flap installed above, as well.

One disadvantage of RR is that it's not transparent, so you cannot see where you are on the net. However, it is moldable, which helps a lot. By first finger pressing the wrap, you get a topography of what's underneath it, to guide you. By noting where the frame rests, you can judge where to put the weld line.

DK's now made the weld line, using the ugly test netting from before with the punched-through spot welds. With the jig, DK can run a seam rather than use spot welds. View of a test seam. Final seams will be run closer to the ribbon edge than here, but you can see the method, here.


----------



## diwu13

Looking good! What do you approximate the final production time for one net will be?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Now, DK just needs one more thing... looking for a mouse trap...

Oh, wait, just found this. This should do, perfectly...

***********



diwu13 said:


> Looking good! What do you approximate the final production time for one net will be?


Good question, I'll try to calculate this in a few days. Up until this point, every stage has included R&D time, but once the systems are in place, the time is not that much, because everything's standardized. This is the whole point, of course, because I have to make at least 30 of these buggers for now.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK....so........here's how the clip/clamp thingy comes into play.

DK's rigged the next generation jig, using the clamp. The idea is that the net baskets come with four flaps that come inside the net frame loop and loop to the outside, where they are welded down, so the flaps end up on the outside of the net. The clip/clamp thingy holds the net frame AND bends the flap and holds it up, through, around, and down, for welding. This makes it so she's not struggling with things falling out of her fingers as she's trying to weld; when plastic welding, she needs everything secured, so all the precision can go into handling the solder iron for an even weld, so she needed the net frame and net held securely during this time.

After the net is held in place, the upper flap of RR is pulled down and the solder iron run across the seam. That's the part that takes the most skill as it's timing and pressure, to get the best seam produced.


Bonehead DK made a couple errors in this prototype: 

First, she forgot and mounted the basket onto the frame backwards, once again.
Second, she needs an extra step during basket making to split the one side for two flaps, in order to fit around the handle on that one side. She didn't do that here, and that is the next step to problem solve and set up a separate jig for.
But, she thinks she's making very nice progress, whaddya think?


.


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## diwu13

Good progress me thinks! Will that jig be able to hold onto the bent part of the metal frame? Seems like the bent part will be in the way of the clip closing, but I guess after you weld three parts, that last flap won't be going anywhere anyway.


----------



## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> Good progress me thinks! Will that jig be able to hold onto the bent part of the metal frame? Seems like the bent part will be in the way of the clip closing, but I guess after you weld three parts, that last flap won't be going anywhere anyway.


OK, so today I pondered this. Here's the solution - the pictures don't show the RR and net baskets, but just the frame and clamp basics for more clarity:

I've cut a notch out of my clip/clamp thingy, to allow for the part of the frame that goes to the pole. I will be able to use this jig now for both solid side welding and the one broken side, alleviating the need to switch jigs for the fourth (broken) side. This will streamline production when I get going en masse. 

When the pole side of the net is put into the jig, it tends to want to tilt the pole backwards, the pole falling toward the bench and raising the rest of the frame upwards as the net pivots. So to control this, I've added a weighted clip that is clipped to the bottom of the frame, to pull the pole back upright and maintain that position. That's what the clip on the bottom with the padlock is for - the padlock is my counterweight.


.


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## mordalphus

DK, jerrryrigateur extraordinaire


----------



## DKShrimporium

And for those of you eaters, particularly _carnivores_, the latest on the sous vide project. DK gotter this silicone steamer thing that has a nylon skeleton inside. So the middle plate and legs have some oomph, but the edges are floppy and rubbery. 

She bought the large one and trimmed it down, so the edges are floppy but firmer, and it just fits inside her "sous vide" chamber. This does the job really nicely - the food packets sit on the sides of the white nylon funnel, convection currents draw cooler water at the base through the base holes, hotter water exits the volcano top as it were, a natural water circulation that holds temps pretty even top to bottom using convection.

The red silicone steamer is placed on top upside down - this holds any bags down in the water bath when the lid is applied to push it down, and prevents any food surfaces from floating, causing uneven exposures to temps.

Tonight is marinated pork chops. Takes a bit of getting used to eating pork chops that are not chewy but are instead the texture of prime rib, but I can handle it. Haven't started working on the recipe database, yet, but bought some reference books that should help when I get around to it. So far DK's done a variety of pork chops and a chuck roast. 

Over the holidays, she invested in a professional grade thermometer, and recalibrated the Kitchen Kettle. The Kettle works great at holding temps once calibrated, especially for such a cheap piece. 

DK's also been researching foam neoprene, to make a velcro-ed on sleeve for over the kettle, to increase energy efficiency. She's figured how she will do it, but just hasn't done it, yet...

Sous vide will become the dominant meat cooker in this domicile, for sure...


.


----------



## madness

Yet another crazy (brilliant?) project. 

The rigid net is a wonderful and long overdue idea. Traditional fish nets really stink for shrimp netting.


----------



## ch3fb0yrdee

Any shrimp updates Donna?


----------



## DKShrimporium

ch3fb0yrdee said:


> Any shrimp updates Donna?


Ja... been a busy week. Lotsa mad science going on behind the scenes here, but not that I'm discussing publically. Other than that, boring. The shreemps eats, grows, berries, pops, climbs around on moss, every day. DK been there, done that, now she is focused on specific projects including breeding projects, and also systems projects. She is not too interested in taking pictures of shreemps - plenty of those to see elsewhere with peeps with better cameras and lighting than she uses. She just finished a potassium titration and is next going to do the enema studies - of course, not used for their intended purpose...

**********

Now, back to the Maserati project. 

Finally, a first run production. DK is happy with the quality and consistency, and thinks she has all the systems in place now for production. Here are pictures, hot off the press. I squished the basket in one, so you can get a sense that the basket is semi-rigid, and yet flexible, too.

Oh, yeah, and this time, she made sure to mount the basket the correct polarity. roud:


.


----------



## diwu13

Looking food. Mounted on the right side of starship enterprise as well! roud:


----------



## shrimpnmoss

I love Angus. I want a Rottie one day. Can you line up all your poochies and take a picture? Lemme see dem working DOGGS!


----------



## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> Looking good! What do you approximate the final production time for one net will be?


So, this question has, of course, been _festering_ in DK's mind, as questions are wont to do in there. 

She, therefore, had to answer it, and set out to time a net-making. It took about 30 min of casual work, not including the machining of the pole, which was already done. She'd estimate about 5 minutes on the pole, if the jigs were set up, though.

The 30 minutes entailed cutting the 316L wire, shaping it, trimming it, attaching it to the already machined pole. Making the net basket from a raw spool of ribbon, and then attaching it to the net frame. The time is soaked up in a little fooling with the net frame, making adjustments to get it just right, and then setting up and seaming all the net seams - they have to be done with very tight tolerances, so I take my time to do this. (But, hey, there's not ONE STITCH of sewing!!!) And then careful placement into the jig and seaming onto the frame, using the Weller.

I made a longer one when testing this - I'll have several longer ones for the larger tanks, to use.



shrimpnmoss said:


> I love Angus. I want a Rottie one day. Can you line up all your poochies and take a picture? Lemme see dem working DOGGS!


Kodiak (L), Angus GSD-rescue (R). Angus RGD (that's Rottie GodDog) doesn't live with me, as he's my GodDog. The GSDs are currently wearing their hunter-orange outfits, as Kodi is known to wander off next door onto the 44 wild acres where herds of deer live and hunters roam. It is there that he met Mrs. Skunk no less than 5 times this year, and the last time was not even done smelling two weeks later (this, AFTER de-skunking treatment with peroxide/soda/dawn) when he found a nice, juicy rotten deer carcass to roll in... almost as putrid as the skunk smell! Kodi fancies himself a wild wolf, thinks he's feral. BTW, we have an INDUSTRIAL strength invisible fence rated for 25 acres coverage. Kodi just walks right through it, and, indeed, will walk right along the border, getting zapped without a care in the world. Angus won't go near it hell or high water.

**************** 

And, DK decided to quit messing around with little jars of jalapenos. Finally just broke down and bought one that would last more than a week. She's a spicy gal. She's currently out of Sriracha sauce, an _emergency_ except she has a quart of hot wings sauce...in the wings (like my pun?).

.


----------



## jostas

curious about those collars, do they serve a special purpose?

gorgeous dogs btw!


----------



## DKShrimporium

jostas said:


> curious about those collars, do they serve a special purpose?
> 
> gorgeous dogs btw!


The GSDs are currently wearing their hunter-orange outfits, as Kodi is known to wander off next door onto the 44 wild acres where herds of deer live and hunters roam. It is there that he met Mrs. Skunk no less than 5 times this year, and the last time was not even done smelling two weeks later (this, AFTER de-skunking treatment with peroxide/soda/dawn) when he found a nice, juicy rotten deer carcass to roll in... almost as putrid as the skunk smell! Kodi fancies himself a wild wolf, thinks he's feral. BTW, we have an INDUSTRIAL strength invisible fence rated for 25 acres coverage. Kodi just walks right through it, and, indeed, will walk right along the border, getting zapped without a care in the world. Angus won't go near it hell or high water.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

haha....Mr. I have one floppy ear is pretty darn cute....yeah...lots of dogs are desensitized to the invisible fence....some learn that one quick shock and they're home free...and I thought tomato juice was the key to de-skunking? He'd probably just lap it up anyways...


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> haha....Mr. I have one floppy ear is pretty darn cute....yeah...lots of dogs are desensitized to the invisible fence....some learn that one quick shock and they're home free...and I thought tomato juice was the key to de-skunking? He'd probably just lap it up anyways...


Tomato juice does nothing for skunk smell, except smell like V-8 skunk. You use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide activated with baking soda, mixed with a touch of Dawn for spreadability, and you have to do it FAST.

********

In other news, I forgot this: DK is now a card-carrying member. But she's not a hunter of animals, though...


.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

greenisgood said:


> Tomato juice does nothing for skunk smell, except smell like V-8 skunk. You use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide activated with baking soda, mixed with a touch of Dawn for spreadability, and you have to do it FAST.
> 
> ********
> 
> In other news, I forgot this: DK is now a card-carrying member. But she's not a hunter of animals, though...
> 
> .


Ok. Noted. See what happens when you read one too many bedtime stories to your kids? I got that tomato/skunk tip from Fancy Nancy. She got skunked and her mom made her take a tomato juice bath. Or was it Curious George? Don't remember...

Call me weird...but I actually like the smell of skunk...a little...


----------



## Alpha Pro Breeders

shrimpnmoss said:


> Ok. Noted. See what happens when you read one too many bedtime stories to your kids? I got that tomato/skunk tip from Fancy Nancy. She got skunked and her mom made her take a tomato juice bath. Or was it Curious George? Don't remember...
> 
> Call me weird...but I actually like the smell of skunk...a little...


Your not the only one, I think it smells like Corona beer and that my favorite.


----------



## jczernia

greenisgood said:


> Tomato juice does nothing for skunk smell, except smell like V-8 skunk. You use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide activated with baking soda, mixed with a touch of Dawn for spreadability, and you have to do it FAST.
> 
> ********
> 
> In other news, I forgot this: DK is now a card-carrying member. But she's not a hunter of animals, though...
> 
> 
> .


 The best thing to use to get rid of the skunk smell on a dog is the product used by women when they get that not so fesh feeling. It works:biggrin:


----------



## jostas

greenisgood said:


> The GSDs are currently wearing their hunter-orange outfits, as Kodi is known to wander off next door onto the 44 wild acres where herds of deer live and hunters roam. It is there that he met Mrs. Skunk no less than 5 times this year, and the last time was not even done smelling two weeks later (this, AFTER de-skunking treatment with peroxide/soda/dawn) when he found a nice, juicy rotten deer carcass to roll in... almost as putrid as the skunk smell! Kodi fancies himself a wild wolf, thinks he's feral. BTW, we have an INDUSTRIAL strength invisible fence rated for 25 acres coverage. Kodi just walks right through it, and, indeed, will walk right along the border, getting zapped without a care in the world. Angus won't go near it hell or high water.


Our bullmastiff (who is about 175lbs) does the same thing, not even the high-tencil 4,500 volt deer fencing we have around the perimeter of our farm will keep her in. She will take the shock and run right through it when she see almost any kind of animal on the other side. She has even caught a few of our chickens  I wish we could figure out something to deter her from leaving the appointed dog yard. The other 5 have been shocked once and will not even go near it. I worry about her being mistaken for a deer or bear by the hunters also!


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Call me weird...but I actually like the smell of skunk...a little...


There's DEFINITELY a matter of degree, here. At point blank range, skunk odor will make you instantly nauseous and give you a migraine - don't ask me how this works, but I can vouch for this.

I'm the same way with cow and horse manure smell, at a distance. I grew up next to a cow pasture, and also had a horse, and I rather like the smell of manure in dilute form. The things we admit....

*********

In other news, I did a production run of 4 nets, and now the DK's Shrimporium is shaping up....


.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

How did you attach the plastic hangers to the metal frame?


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> How did you attach the plastic hangers to the metal frame?


Do you mean the green thingy to the black? Look here.

Hot glue. It's a girl's version of duct tape. Fixes everything, nearly.


----------



## diwu13

So... when can we buy these nets ! And where can I find your selection of shrimp for sale?

*edit* I see you really old for sale thread, but any new updates with that? I'm sure you've gotten more shrimp since then!


----------



## tetranewbie

diwu13 said:


> so... When can we buy these nets ! And where can i find your selection of shrimp for sale?


^+1


----------



## matti2uude

jczernia said:


> The best thing to use to get rid of the skunk smell on a dog is the product used by women when they get that not so fesh feeling. It works:biggrin:


That's what I use when my Rotties get skunked.


----------



## DKShrimporium

jczernia said:


> The best thing to use to get rid of the skunk smell on a dog is the product used by women when they get that not so fesh feeling. It works:biggrin:


Peroxide is probably much cheaper, for the volumes I use! 

1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tsp Dawn dishwashing liquid
ONLY enough tepid water to make enough to soak yer dog - DK has to use about a quart of warm water per recipe, one recipe per dog

Skunk odor is a chemical reaction and develops after spraying, so time is of the essence for the best results. So we stock peroxide, and stuff those hunde into the dog shower if they come home a-stinkin' - use a car sponge and sponge them soaked with this solution (no other water) - wait 5-30 min, then rinse out. Works really well - the peroxide short circuits the chemical reaction that makes the skunk smell. Costs under a buck per treatment. 



Hey, whose Germans are those?? Gorgeous! 

***********

In other news, look what DK fished out of a Blue Bee tank tonight - look at the proportion of white on this little lady!


.


----------



## jczernia

greenisgood said:


> Peroxide is probably much cheaper, for the volumes I use!
> 
> 1 quart hydrogen peroxide
> 1/4 cup baking soda
> 1 tsp Dawn dishwashing liquid
> ONLY enough tepid water to make enough to soak yer dog - DK has to use about a quart of warm water per recipe, one recipe per dog
> Skunk odor is a chemical reaction and develops after spraying, so time is of the essence for the best results. So we stock peroxide, and stuff those hunde into the dog shower if they come home a-stinkin' - use a car sponge and sponge them soaked with this solution (no other water) - wait 5-30 min, then rinse out. Works really well - the peroxide short circuits the chemical reaction that makes the skunk smell. Costs under a buck per treatment.
> 
> Hey, whose Germans are those?? Gorgeous!
> 
> .


When you are out in the woods doing K9 rectifications Douches is dogs best friend.
Thank you, those three boys are mine:biggrin:


----------



## DKShrimporium

jczernia said:


> When you are out in the woods doing K9 rectifications Douches is dogs best friend.
> 
> Thank you, those three boys are mine


Them's three very good looking boyz.

*************

Ja, they _would_ be better for portability. 

The peroxide mixture oxidizes the skunk oils, rendering them water soluble and thus removable. 

DK has been furiously googling douches, and so far it seems that Massengill is the one used, and probably the one using acetic acid? So she's pondering the chemistry of acetic acid and skunk oil...


AND... she's JUST NOT SURE she likes the implications... that *douches are suitable for de-skunking*. _What does this say about their *intended* purpose_???

OK, so... on further reading, it IS the acetic acid in the Massengill that is doing the trick. Likewise, vinegar can be used (the acid content of vinegar is dilute acetic acid). Neither is as active chemically as the peroxide/baking soda solution. Here's an interesting tidbit: originally, tomato juice worked much better than it does now, as it was much more acidic years ago. In the interim years, tomatoes have been bred for reduced acidity, therefore products made from tomatoes are less acidic and less effective at breaking down the thiols in skunk oils. So, DK learned a few more bits of trivia to stuff into her squirrely brain, tonight.

And yet more trivia: thiols, the smelly compounds in skunk smell, are also the compounds in garlic smell. They are used commercially to add odor to odorless gas lines so leaks can be detected via smell.

Thiols are organic and not water soluble, when treated with peroxide they are oxidized to sulfonic acid, which is water soluble. Still looking for what acids do to thiols...


.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

I knew Fancy Nancy wouldn't lie to my kids! I guess that's how they rolled back in the day before Google and genetic manipulation...


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, lately, it's been a comedy of errors, in DK's Shrimporium. I'd be upset, except that I know from experience (lots of it) that the best progress I ever make is in the face of "failures."

Here's the scoop: the leak frogs were going off the other day - water on the floor. The frogs do a great job. DK goes down to the Shrimporium, indeed the frogs to not lie, what the heck is the problem?

In spite of the heat exchanger, during a 30 minute tank flush in the winter, when water is entering the house in the 50s F, by the time it's entered into the tanks for 30 minutes, most of the tank heaters are kicking on. This resulted in the breaker popping, causing loss of power to the entire system - filters, lights, sumps, water factory.

Loss of power to the water factory by default settings causes shutting off the master valve, so no more water input into the system... very good thing.

HOWEVER, AFTER the water factory shuts down, the overflows in the tanks CONTINUE to dribble-drain for another hour or so, due to the surface tension properties of water at the tank surfaces, feeding too-high water levels into the overflow drains. So water continues to accumulate into my sumps, while the sumps are not powered.

The sump barrels overflowed onto the floor, a bit.

So I learned three things:


I need to decrease the flush time and increase the flush frequencies when water input temps are so low. By decreasing the time, the tanks do not dip enough in temps to kick on all the heaters at once. So I just dialed my flushes back to 20 min, and added one more flush.
I need a power-out alarm, so I know if that breaker pops on me, so I can go re-set it. Simple, Amazon is my friend.
I REALLY, REALLY want a  WaterSnake like cable water detection system on my floor perimeter, so I get the wailing alert of water on the floor BEFORE a lot of water accumulates and makes it to a frog. The frogs are placed in very good strategic locations, but they are only spot detectors, and DK has wanted, for a while, a server-room-like water cable perimeter detection system. Thing is, she's too cheap to pay the thousand bucks.
This, of course, started a squirrely-brain obsession session. How the heck to do a DIY a perimeter cable detection system - KISS, cheap, low maintenance?

...AND... I think I've come up with it.

Stay tuned. This is going to be really fun, if it works. It's a great harebrained idea.

DK


----------



## shrimpnmoss

greenisgood said:


> This, of course, started a squirrely-brain obsession session. How the heck to do a DIY a perimeter cable detection system - KISS, cheap, low maintenance?
> 
> DK


Could you modify *these*?


----------



## wicca27

so this kind of bits i cant see the pics


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Could you modify *these*?


HMmmmmmmmmmmmm...............

Possibly, I _could_ use sharks with lasers on their heads, yes. 

But it would not fit my criteria, which are: cheap, _readily available_, easily replaceable parts. (My definition of that is I can buy them at the local pet, grocery, or hardware store, or get them online within a few days, and if online source, they are cheap enough to buy and keep a backup part.)

I will tell you that so far it has involved shopping on Amazon, for more of something I already have, and have featured in this thread, and also shopping at a boat rigging supply place...

The first generation will be battery operated. 

Normally, I'm not too interested in battery operated stuff, because I hate buying and replacing batteries. However, part of the point of this is to have functionality _when the power has failed;_ we we need at least battery back-up power as default if the power fails. 

The unit I will be starting with has held battery life for a few years now on one battery, and also alarms visually and audibly when battery life is nearing the end - things I insist upon. It uses a 9 volt battery, not some obnoxious battery size. After I proof DKSnake v.1.0, I will consult my Geek about making some relays to have a plug in and battery backup functionality, also rigged into a power-failure alarm. I guess I could shop already for a 9V DC power supply...

v.1.1 will have the power supply with a relay to switch to battery backup in the case of power interruption.

v.1.2 will have a relay to a solenoid valve, to shut off the house water supply if the unit is activated. 

The room that I will be covering with DKSnake has the well basin, hot water heater, HVAC system (which has a condensate runoff pump), shrimp racks, and is also the drainage location for the fail-safe washer drain on the floor above (it is rigged to drain by gravity into one of my sump basins, so is reliant on both power and the sump being operational), so installing such a system would provide protection from a washer mishap, well basin leak, hot water heater leak, furnace pump failure, and any event from the shrimp racks resulting in water on the floor. 

And all for under $100. Whaddya think?

*************

In other news, DK has some nice strip steaks Sous Vide-ing in marinade. 

Her latest chuck cooked Sous Vide came out like prime rib.

It doesn't look so good in the picture, but it sure tasted good... and you could cut it with a fork.

.


----------



## wicca27

dk what kind of substrate to you use like a pea gravel or soil type or mix


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> dk what kind of substrate to you use like a pea gravel or soil type or mix


Hey C - I use turface. 

*************

DK's working on a couple other system things right now - a method to spot check feed head flow rates, and a method to _spot_ check feed line pressure. 

With these protocols designed, she will be able to troubleshoot whether a line feed is feeding an errant rate, and if it's due to line pressure or a blocked feed head. Occasionally she has a feed head malfunction and she'd like a proactive way to see it coming rather than waiting for signs of a malfunction.

Never a dull moment, with automation!

The thing is... automation is so darned fun!

****************

Twiddles thumbs, awaiting the DKSnake parts to arrive...

...Shopping for another pressure gauge...digging up a quick disconnect brass fitting amongst the piles o' parts 'n' pieces...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So last night DK did a little surgery. She had a light go bad - ballast blew. She contacted her good friend eBay and found a nice source, so, as is her habit, she bought in quantity to have a spare. The new cheapo shop lights (which is what she uses) have changed quite a bit over the years she's been using them - they used to have decent ballasts inside that were multi-purpose and electronic and would last; nowadays these same fixtures come with single purpose cheapo dedicated mostly magnetic ballasts. It's a lot harder to use them to overdrive bulbs, and they fry easily. So when she found some decent ballasts for $8, she bought a few.

She has had it with paying FOUR TIMES the "normal" cost for a fixture's lamps (that's the real term for "bulbs" if you want to get technical). Right now, she has four 18 inchers over a 65 tank, and she's going to use a new ballast and cut down an old 48 inch fixture to make a 36 inch fixture, which will bring the lamp costs down to only TWICE the "normal" cost (for 36 inch T8s). She usually pays $3-4 per lamp "normal" cost (for 48 inch T8s).

Also shown is something in her bins o' parts 'n' pieces she dug up, yesterday. It's one of her favorite parts - a tiny quick disconnect with shut-off - slick little piece. She's going to rig this at the end of a new pressure gauge she just ordered to make a portable gizmo to spot check her line pressures to the tanks.

Yesterday, she went ahead and ordered 9V DC power supplies for the DKSnake project v.1.1.

Stay tuned...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Recently, DK went to her fav restaurant and had her standard baby back ribs. The restaurant has been bought out and is under new management. DK was disappointed in the new pricing, food, and offerings, but she loves ribs. So this was just the impetus she needed to embark on Sous Vide ribs, finally.

Today, she threw a big ol' triple slab of baby back ribs into her cart at Costco, and decided now is the time.

Ribs will need the larger of her improvised Sous Vide cookers: the Rival oval slow cooker. Normally she uses the Presto Kitchen Kettle. Both appliances hold temps very well once properly calibrated.

She needed a rack to hold the bags upright in portion sized bags. After much Googling for stainless toast racks and such, pondering, and wandering around the domicile staring at cooking racks, plastic crates, plumbing parts, and other items, she finally caught sight of a barrel of K'nex out of the corner of here eye, and...

...voila.

(Don't try this with normal temperature cooking, folks.) 

***********

In other news, all the parts except the "snake" have arrived for DKSnake. Still waiting on the "snake" and then DK will be off and running, to try out her idea.

***********

BTW - shreeeemps have a new favorite food - edamame

.


----------



## Buff Daddy

After the Apocalypse, DK, You can live at my compound and help engineer a brand new world. Oh yeah, my compound will be known as "Buff Daddy's Glaucoma Treatment Center and Distillery." I figure the Libertarians will be in charge by then and _everything_ will be legal...


----------



## DKShrimporium

Buff Daddy said:


> After the Apocalypse, DK, You can live at my compound and help engineer a brand new world. Oh yeah, my compound will be known as "Buff Daddy's Glaucoma Treatment Center and Distillery." I figure the Libertarians will be in charge by then and _everything_ will be legal...


Yeah. Um. So. 

Inquiring minds simply MUST ask... why a post-apocalyptic _*Glaucoma Treatment Center*_??? I can certainly understand the need for a post-apocalyptic _distillery_...

Does radiation give one Glaucoma? Cataracts, I can imagine, but Glaucoma?? Inquiring minds are wondering this.

**********

In other news, DK finally fired up the Aquavac. OK, so she learned some pretty good lessons right away, like:


When that nagging little voice speaks, such as when it says, "You really should not make the first try on this monster upstairs on the carpet but instead down in the Shrimporium where the floor is concrete..." - she should STOP, and LISTEN. Um, OK, lesson learned, heh heh.
The first trial should be on a bathtub of clean water, checking all the joints to see if there are any problems with leaks.
Check that all the joints are secure BEFORE firing up the FOUNTAIN grade pump.
Fortunately, she has a Rug Doctor in house.

And, also some PVC cement, to get to that joint that she thought was glued, but wasn't.

The good news is that _while_ the joint held by friction, that sucker was cycling water and doing a REALLY coo-el job. She's gonna be niiiiiiiiiice. It was almost worth the mess.

**************

The soon-to-be DKSnake snake has arrived... heh heh. Now DK has all the parts all the way up to v.1.2, except for the relay that will switch from house power to battery back-up power. She needs Other Geek to shop relays, for that, and Other Geek wasn't feeling the need to do that, this weekend. 

However, DK has a secret weapon. _DK will be making Sous Vide baby back ribs, as an enticement_. 

And y'all thought this Sous Vide stuff was totally _off topic_...

_There's no such thing as off topic, here_...

*******

AND, while DK has spent the last two years fooling around with Shrimporium systems, she has TOTALLY NEGLECTED her upstairs 75 gallon L144 tank. It was this tank she went after today, with the Aquavac. But first, she pulled a MONSTROUS amount of Bolbitis out, to make it easier. Check it out, look at the coke can, to get a sense of just how freaking much Bolbitis that is....

You can't get a sense from the picture, but that heap is piled up about a foot high, too, and is SOLID Bolbitis.



.


----------



## Buff Daddy

greenisgood said:


> Yeah. Um. So.
> 
> Inquiring minds simply MUST ask... why a post-apocalyptic _*Glaucoma Treatment Center*_??? I can certainly understand the need for a post-apocalyptic _distillery_...
> 
> Does radiation give one Glaucoma? Cataracts, I can imagine, but Glaucoma?? Inquiring minds are wondering this.
> 
> **********


Almost anyone can get a DX of glaucoma over the internet these days*. Glaucoma is treatable with a medicinal herb that relieves pressure in the eye. The particular herb can also be used to make rope. I figure it would be a pretty good cash crop with a dual purpose. And legal if the justice system is moot, which it will be.

*Edit: I want to bottle an elixir/tonic. I quit smoking cigarettes almost 15 years ago and despise any smoking these days.


----------



## ch3fb0yrdee

WOW thats a HUGE cluster of bolbitis!


----------



## madness

Most bolbitis I have ever seen. Wow.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Buff Daddy said:


> Almost anyone can get a DX of glaucoma over the internet these days*. Glaucoma is treatable with a medicinal herb that relieves pressure in the eye. The particular herb can also be used to make rope. I figure it would be a pretty good cash crop with a dual purpose. And legal if the justice system is moot, which it will be.
> 
> *Edit: I want to bottle an elixir/tonic. I quit smoking cigarettes almost 15 years ago and despise any smoking these days.


Myself, I think I'll be an arms dealer, in the post apocalyptic world. There will be _quite_ a market, if I'm right. (The ones NOT smoking, and NOT sipping elixir, I'd guess, would be the customers rambling through my doors, as the others would be... otherwise engaged...)

While I'm waiting for the next customer, I guess I could spend time doing macrame... prolly a good demand for hemp hammocks in a post apocalyptic world...

**************

In other news, DK ran the aquavac for a few hours the other day. She got smart and put it in a large BORG mortar mixing tub. It still has some chamber leakage issues, but she knows what they are and is preparing to fix them (the gamma seal which is NOT supposed to leak is leaking, and one of the bulkheads is also leaking - some silicone will fix both in short order, she thinks). She was pleased that the monster actually does what she hoped it would do, and she had a whole bag of string algae and detritus accumulated in her bag to show for it.

The main use I designed the Aquavac for is to remove substrate from a tank being re-set, so I don't scratch my glass. The beauty of it is that it's a balanced circuit, so the same amount of water removed from a tank is also put back in (recycled) so you don't have to worry about water gaining or losing over time as it runs, you just accumulate stuff in the bag. The same setup could be used as a monster DIY canister filter.

***********

The "snake" has arrived, and DK wired up a test circuit. She is pleasantly surprised at the sensitivity of the snake and now the challenge is to figure out the mounting of it on the floor - KISS, cheap, easily available and replaceable, and removable are her buzzwords. The large Sous Vide is busy cooking a batch of Greek seasoned stew meat (destined for whole wheat wrap fajita/wrap sandwich things), after which she will do the baby back ribs. This is also the first trial of the K'nex rack, and it's working perfectly. Y'all really need to check into this Sous Vide stuff...

**********

Yeah. Um. That Bolbitis filled half a black trash bag. Some of it's so tall it grows up and out of that 75 gallon tank. I had to bag it overnight as I didn't want to put it back into the tank until I had power cleaned that water in there. 

***********

Part of the reason I had to remove the Bolbitis was that in that TOTALLY NEGLECTED tank I had grown up also a jumbo batch of my arch nemesis: duckweed. I got rid of most of it, but now the challenge is to keep it from coming back, to rid that tank of every micron. I've done it before, but this time I'm going to AUTOMATE the process.

And. So. DK's next project is to make a continuous loop surface skimmer, portable from tank to tank (thank goodness I only have one tank with duckweed, but I want portability just in case...) Most of my shrimp tanks already have automated surface skimming with the overflows active three times daily, but in the larger tanks (40,65,75s) I want to be able to power clean the tanks with the Aquavac or power skim the surfaces, if ever need be. Not really because I need it, but because it will be _fun_ to design and build...

So I've been looking at swimming pool skimmers, to see what the essential elements are. The trick is going to be to downsize it from a pool size and power one (first pic, below), but upsize it from a cheapo aquarium biofilm skimmer (second pic, below) to something in between that can catch duckweed. DK has about five pump sizes to mess with, in her buckets o' parts 'n' pieces. I think a duckweed eater is a good challenge, don't you??

Pic one link reference: http://www.caromal.co.uk/SKIMMER.gif
Pic two link reference: http://www.petsolutions.com/images/Products/20635002.jpg



.


----------



## Buff Daddy

greenisgood said:


> Myself, I think I'll be an arms dealer, in the post apocalyptic world. There will be _quite_ a market, if I'm right. (The ones NOT smoking, and NOT sipping elixir, I'd guess, would be the customers rambling through my doors, as the others would be... otherwise engaged...)
> 
> While I'm waiting for the next customer, I guess I could spend time doing macrame... prolly a good demand for hemp hammocks in a post apocalyptic world...


Ammo will be the issue, there. All the equipment in the world is no good without gunpowder/pyrodex/etc. for the cartridges. No saltpeter or sulfer-no gunpowder. Reloading cartridge capability is also finite. I'll have an arsenal, but ammo will be used for deadly force situations only. Compound bows and arrows for hunting. Side arms for those who have trained. I also currently have _several_ functional black powder weapons that I've built/collected over the years... and ammo molds and lead bars and etc, etc. I have lots of the etc... 

You could prolly use hemp for knitting vests as an insulation layer between two sweatshirts or on top of a sweatshirt. Hmmmm... sheep will be needed for woolen goods, and I might need to go shopping for UnderArmor products this weekend. 12/21/12 is less than a year away, you know... lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Buff Daddy said:


> Ammo will be the issue, there. All the equipment in the world is no good without gunpowder/pyrodex/etc. for the cartridges. No saltpeter or sulfer-no gunpowder. Reloading cartridge capability is also finite. I'll have an arsenal, but ammo will be used for deadly force situations only. Compound bows and arrows for hunting. Side arms for those who have trained. I also currently have _several_ functional black powder weapons that I've built/collected over the years... and ammo molds and lead bars and etc, etc. I have lots of the etc...
> 
> You could prolly use hemp for knitting vests as an insulation layer between two sweatshirts or on top of a sweatshirt. Hmmmm... sheep will be needed for woolen goods, and I might need to go shopping for UnderArmor products this weekend. 12/21/12 is less than a year away, you know... lol


As is happens, between a (1) federal prison alumnus and (2) retired special ops commander - one of the two is a close associate to DK (secretly, DK has an edgy side to her) - DK knows that lethal weapons can be made from just about anything, if one knows anatomy and physiology and a bit of physics. So "arms" need not need gunpowder, in a post apocalyptic world (and besides, remember DK's motto - cheap, readily available, and non-proprietary parts - in a post apocalytic world black powder would not fit these criteria, but one with good lateral thinking skills would not be hampered by this fact...).

Sheep and goats are a good choice, as they can eat most anything (goats especially) and produce fibers, food, and hides. Goats have horns, too, that could be turned into things... (Not to mention  the latest goats make spider silk, which when added to human skin culture can make bullet proof skin...)


----------



## DKShrimporium

And here we have the first piece toward DK's Duckweed Detonator- it's an important piece. 

DK decided it would be much more sporting to force herself to _make it from parts she already has_, so she dug around and came up with this, to start with...

These are electrical conduit pieces with an o-ring, and a pipe support. She wouldn't allow herself to get another pipe support to fit, so she forced herself to chemically fuse the size she had, to use it...

DK has the basic chamber picked out from her parts piles, but now DK _ponders_ the catch grid. Ponder... ponder... ponder... seek the alpha waves...

She's also heavily pondering the physics of something akin to the Bernoulli principle... well, kinda...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And here we have why it matters. I've selected for the first trial a skungy old powerhead, as the water mover. I'm hoping it will be about the right amount of water movement for what I'm trying to do. I had to convert the input into an in-line format, so I had to do some DK rigging, and DK supports. Plumbing parts and "useful things" - aka cable ties - are my friends, here, and _parts I already have_.


.


----------



## GDP

I seriously dont have words for your shrimporium. I think Im jelous, envious, curious, interested, and I dont even know what else.


----------



## DKShrimporium

GDP said:


> I seriously dont have words for your shrimporium. I think Im jelous, envious, curious, interested, and I dont even know what else.


How about... "inspired."

DK wishes to inspire folks, with this thread. To think independently, creatively, to appreciate science and technology. To take risks, and try things, to challenge oneself. That is why she writes this thread.

Well that, .....and _fun_.

Life should be _fun_.

***********

In other news, here is the selected chamber for the DK Duckweed Detonator. DK has too many of these and so had extra, even though she does use them heavily. This particular one is made from a "shatter proof" polymer, which enables machining better. She has drilled two bulkhead holes in the base, and on one side will be taking out an edge, but hasn't done that yet. She stacked one inside the other to see if she could use the bottom of one as a template for her catch basin - voila - perfect size. See next post, about that.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And.

Digging through her bins o' parts 'n' pieces, she selects a net she never uses, and doesn't understand why she bought it in the first place, ages ago.

But the great thing about it is it's perfect. 

It has a rim of some sort of polymer, which she will re-form, and a net that slides onto the rim, and which is already the correct size for her catch basin. The net is the right grid size to catch bits of duckweed, and also is BLACK, so the tiny little white bits will show! What luck! She has pulled the rim from the handle to access the polymer rim and remove the netting, for re-forming the rod to the correct size.

**********

NEXT UP: Making a custom catch basin, from parts she already has....


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And. 

Now, for the rod work, or re-work.

From experience, she now knows the rod doesn't have the waxy feel of polyethylene. It also doesn't feel quite the same as her nylon rods for the Maseratis. Possibly polypropylene? She is in the dark, here.

She takes a stab at softening temperature, using her past experience, sets her convection oven at 300 and keeps a close eye on the rod, looking for it to soften - voila, seems about right.

She then uses the second chamber to make a template for the size ring she needs to fit inside the chamber to hold the net.

A little cardboard, out of the trash, makes the template, along with a utility knife.


.


----------



## GeToChKn

Buff Daddy said:


> *Edit: I want to bottle an elixir/tonic. I quit smoking cigarettes almost 15 years ago and despise any smoking these days.


Try a vaporizer for certain herbs. There is no smoke, its a vapor and the best way to consume herbs.


----------



## DKShrimporium

She uses her favorite brads to attach the template to a scrap of OSB hanging around. Using more brads, she rigs a jig, for forming (re-forming) the rod, to the exact shape she needs.

A few tries in, roughing it, she cuts the rod to length and refines her jig, until she has the final product, custom fitted to her Duckweed Detonator chamber.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Now, supports for the net ring, so it doesn't twist in the chamber and fall down.

She hunts around... finds a tube used to connect a toilet to its water supply that is an extra part. Using her handy-dandy PEX tubing cutter, she cuts four lengths.

Hot glue... a girl's version of duct tape - it can fix just about anything. 

She hot glues in the four tubes, making a suspension platform for the net ring.

Voila.

***********

NEXT: Making the waterfall edge.

DK is outta time in her break, and besides the pictures she emailed herself haven't arrived, so maybe the next episode tonight...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so here we are, back at the ranch...

**********

First, some offsets. Cut from a scrap of plasti-wood (is that an oxymoron??) DK had around. She hot glues them like cleats to the bottom of the chamber, to hold the chamber level once in the tank.

Next, a piece of grid. She has some scraps of grid from a fluorescent fixture (that actually she used for her drying rack featured back in this thread), but none the right size, so she makes one the right size by melting two little pieces into a larger piece.

So now, you can see she's cut the waterfall edge in the chamber.


.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Great one stop shop. There is a rumor that the end of the world is this year

DK, I need to order the following for post 2012:

10 Black Tigers
10 T-Rex
1 Sniper Rifle 
1 Silencer
some self guided ammo like this. Ammo
1 German Shepard Dog with lots of DRIVE

Yup, I'll be set for anything with that package.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And here we have the global perspective, on this newest monster in DK's stable of automation tools.

The concept is basically the same as the swimming pool skimmer, with the exception that I have not included a weir (I learned a new word, in this project - there is always something I learn...) in the design.

The chamber has a waterfall edge that is _lower_ than the tank water level. So of course, the water then falls into the chamber and fills it up, sucking the surface water to do so. The rate at which it sucks surface water is a function of the depth of laminar flow at the waterfall surface - that's the part that is sorta Bernoulli but not exactly. I chose the side surface of the chamber rather than the larger front surface for the waterfall edge because of three things:


There was already a hole in the side of my chamber, where a bulkhead had gone. (least important reason)
Using the end, with a smaller waterfall, would make the water flow faster for the same amount of pumping.
I wanted to utilize a circular current on the tank surface that would feed surface water into my waterfall. By locating the waterfall on the side and having the powerhead shoot out the other side, it causes an overall circular current on the tank surface which continuously feeds new surface water and debris into the waterfall. Pulling the waterfall from the front edge would have pulled surface water from the center of the tank, with no real method to create a "feed" stream.
Because the waterfall edge is lower than the tank water surface, I figured I'd need some sort of weight to keep pulling the chamber down into the water, so I used the weight of the powerhead, which is why I mounted it to the bottom of the chamber. The weight, and pull, of the powerhead stabilizes the chamber's position in the water, if the chamber starts to empty too much.



The powerhead pulls water from the chamber from two places:
From the general chamber water, fed by the waterfall
From the auxillary feed port, the second bulkhead in the chamber bottom.
The trick is to encourage MORE pull from the waterfall feed than from the auxillary feed, and balance the flow so the pump keeps pulling what is falling over the edge. I placed a sponge prefilter over the auxillary port to add a scootch of resistance, making less resistance pulling from waterfall water than auxillary port water, at least until the net clogs with debris. It still pulls from both sources, but the ratio is favored toward the waterfall water so long as its resistance is slightly less than the resistance of the auxillary port. 

If the pump is too weak, it still pulls, but the waterfall is slow because the chamber water level is nearly the same as the tank water level and doesn't suck surface water fast and therefore doesn't surface vacuum the duckweed very well. If the pump is too strong, it pulls not only the waterfall water but also the auxillary feed water, and if it's strong enough, it will start to pump more water out of the chamber than is being replaced by those two feeds into the chamber. The result of this is that the chamber water level lowers over time, until it reaches a point where the chamber starts to float up and the whole system stops working. So the most important balance issue is to not pull TOO much water from the chamber - that would tip the balance toward emptying the chamber.

As the water falls over the waterfall and into the chamber, it is pumped out the bottom of the chamber by the powerhead, continuously. The system will work continuously unless the flow balance is altered, for example if the catch net clogs with debris such that now most of the water is now pulled from the auxillary feed port.

Points of control can be added into the system to help balance adjustability, for example: a variable plate at the waterfall base to adjust the height of the waterfall edge - the deeper the waterfall layer, the slower the surface vacuum; a valve on the auxillary port to adjust the resistance across that port via the degree to which the valve is opened or partially closed. And of course, if one has a variable output pump, that is also a point of adjustability. 

At any rate, here are the global pics, of the set-up. 


.


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## DKShrimporium

Here's another global view of the DKDD. Here, you can see the sponge prefilter on the auxillary port. I've also added a 45 degree piece to the powerhead output stream, to kick the stream back up to the surface, to drive that circular surface current.

THIS WEEKEND: The sea trials. Will it work??? - I'll be at University of Delaware all morning, so I'll be reporting back after that...

*************

In other news, today the last pieces arrived for the DKSnake project. I now have everything needed for the install, except for the relay to divert wall power to battery power, so the first install will be on battery power only. Here's what I spent the week awaiting.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Back from UD.

OK, so for frame of reference, this is a 75 gallon tank. And these are the starting conditions. (This is a bucket from the de-bulk of the DK Aquavac.)

As you can see, DK needs these tools to automate tank cleaning when a tank gets outta control!!!


.


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## DKShrimporium

Still running around.... just back from Lowes, where I picked up a few fittings for my spot pressure tester and feed line tester. Wandering around the store, I was lucky enough to wander past the sheet cutting saw where in the dumpster I discovered two 4x8 sheets of foam board. 

The guy running the sheet saw said I could have them, so DK went dumpster diving and she knows just what she'll use them for! (German ShepHERD added for scale.)

Whee-hoo! Now, onto the sea trials...


.


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## wicca27

i have a mixed german shepherd they are great dogs. yours done look to happy in that pick lol


----------



## madness

When I was a little kid I had a dog that was one half German Sheperd and one half wild coyote (never really heard of anyone keeping a non-wild coyote, maybe that is redundant).

It was the coolest dog ever.

Looked like a German Shepherd but a lot smaller.


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## DKShrimporium

madness said:


> When I was a little kid I had a dog that was one half German Sheperd and one half wild coyote (never really heard of anyone keeping a non-wild coyote, maybe that is redundant).
> 
> It was the coolest dog ever.
> 
> Looked like a German Shepherd but a lot smaller.


How did you know it was half coyote? Inquiring minds want to know...

********

News flash: Updated DK GodDogRottie pics. He's up to 30 lbs something and growing like a beef cow! Here is the other Angus with some friends.

***********

Next up: What happened with the DK Duckweek Detonator???



.


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## DKShrimporium

Oh, wait. I lied. This just in. Some other lovely, lovely Germans, soon to be sharing digs with DK shreemps.


.


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## AlisaR

ShepHERD is not pleased to be accomplice to dumpster diving. Way beneath him.


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## tetranewbie

Wow, those Dobe's are gorgeous!


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## madness

greenisgood said:


> How did you know it was half coyote? Inquiring minds want to know...


A litter of pups was found along with the dead mother (a coyote) at a construction site.

The German Shepherd part was what had to be guessed at but it was pretty clear that the father was a shepherd (whether pure blood or not who knows).

Awesome dog. Really smart. He looked sort of like a small German Shepherd with mange (had that scruffy sort of fur like coyotes have).

We lived in the country - there would not be a could in the sky and he would disappear into the house and hide in the basement. Sure enough within an hour or two a storm would show up. The poor dog was scared to death of thunder.


----------



## ch3fb0yrdee

tetranewbie said:


> Wow, those Dobe's are gorgeous!


Lemme 2nd that. Your Dobes are just awesome! I'm cannot wait until I get my own.


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## wicca27

i had red dobies. 3 of them an american, a german, and a king what wonderfull dogs they where. had to rehome them when i moved its a shame there are so many wonderfull breeds on the band list for houses now days. 

any who how the shrimpies doin dk we got side tracked lol


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## DKShrimporium

madness said:


> A litter of pups was found along with the dead mother (a coyote) at a construction site.
> 
> The German Shepherd part was what had to be guessed at but it was pretty clear that the father was a shepherd (whether pure blood or not who knows).
> 
> Awesome dog. Really smart. He looked sort of like a small German Shepherd with mange (had that scruffy sort of fur like coyotes have).
> 
> We lived in the country - there would not be a could in the sky and he would disappear into the house and hide in the basement. Sure enough within an hour or two a storm would show up. The poor dog was scared to death of thunder.


Wow, what a great story - wish I could see a pic of this hybrid! At DK's house we've often had discussions about what a blockbuster a mini-GSD breed would be - I would love to have Beagle-size GSD's running around.

Angus 1 (DK's GSD rescue) was squinting in the misting rain in that picture. Angus 2 (GodDogRottie) is living the good life down south with lots of extended pack.

Just to be clear - the shreemps are going to where the Dobies live; the Dobies are not coming to live with DK (although I'd love to have them, but the DK German ShepHERDS would probably not be pleased to have new sleek Dobies show up, prancing around...).

I'll digress here and tell a DK Dobie tale. When she was younger, DK had her first Dobie, a red named Suron. She rescued him, also, and after putting on some weight and getting rid of parasites and mange, he developed into a big ol' sweetheart. He had been personal protection trained, and DK worked him a bit using her best friend as decoy, for fun. At the time DK's older brothers no longer lived at home.

Some DK cousins, teenage girls at the time, came from out of state to visit the DK family home. DK was a pipsqueak early-teen at the time and her older brothers didn't listen all that well to things she said. Well, the older brothers came over to visit and met Suron, he was a big goofball all afternoon. The brothers took the teen girl cousins out for some evening fun, and pipsqueak DK told the brothers to have the cousins back before DK was in bed or Suron would not let them into the house. They laughed.

And came home in the wee hours. The cousins came in the foyer, first, Suron greeted them with a butt-wag. The SAME brothers that he had goofed with all afternoon THEN came across the threshold, while DK was now asleep, and they no more than crossed the threshold when Suron launched full mode at them, slamming them up against the front door with his body and front end while raising a holy racket to wake the dead - scared those macho brothers outta their minds. DK had to drag herself from her bed to call off Suron and let the brothers out the door.

Suron knew they were OK during the day, to visit our home, while DK was up and active. Suron also knew the cousins were staying with us, and were OK to come into the house. But Suron was not ABOUT to let those brothers into the house when DK was not around, in the wees. Gotta love a good Dobie story...

Heh heh.


.


----------



## GDP

madness said:


> A litter of pups was found along with the dead mother (a coyote) at a construction site.
> 
> The German Shepherd part was what had to be guessed at but it was pretty clear that the father was a shepherd (whether pure blood or not who knows).
> 
> Awesome dog. Really smart. He looked sort of like a small German Shepherd with mange (had that scruffy sort of fur like coyotes have).
> 
> We lived in the country - there would not be a could in the sky and he would disappear into the house and hide in the basement. Sure enough within an hour or two a storm would show up. The poor dog was scared to death of thunder.


If I ever get a house or what not, im getting a half wolf/half husky. Most beautiful dogs ive ever seen. Plus I dont want a subserviant dog, I want a companion and friend.

But anyway DK Im going to have to hire you to come and build me an awsome shrimp room like this lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Now that DK's mind has calmed down from secretly designing her own Superbowl commercials, back to DKDD.

This DKDD isn't meant to be a tank fixture, but rather a tool to pull out when tank needs a tune-up or has gotten out of hand. It isn't meant to stay in the tank, but rather to be employed as needed, set-it-and-forget-it until the job is done, then remove it and run a cleaning cycle through it and bench it.

She plunked that dude into the pond-scum-tank, fired it up, made a few adjustments, let it run. 

B.O.R.I.N.G.

An hour later, not a micron of Duckweed to be found on the surface. 

And it was _entirely made of stuff she already had_. Every single part. 

Coo-el.

For review: first pic is starting conditions (this is a bucket of debulk she did, first), a few pics of action, and the surface an hour later.

Whaddya think? She votes it was a _smashing_ success. 

Time to start thinking about the DKSnake install, now.

.


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## diwu13

Wow that did a GREAT job with the duckweed. I guess you took those larger pieces of leaves out with your hands first?

Any chance a fish could get sucked in and stuck in the DD until you come to rescue it?


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## tetranewbie

Wow! DK, very very cool! And SO much better than trying to net the stuff out for hours at a time!


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## jone

Food for thought about your 1/2 husky 1/2 wolf you want to have...With that kind of a cross breed,,you may want reconsider..The 1/2 husky is a domesticated dog ,,not shy of humans and interacts well ,and the 1/2 wolf is really still wild dog to an extent,but never forgets its instincts along with a prey drive...So in the end you would problably have a cross bred dog that is not shy of humans ,but still retains its prey drive..Not something to leave to chance especially around children..With any dog there is a "High Archy" being played/set,,,you being the human has to be the higher one in the scenerio,,even with domesticated dogs....When you have a cross bred dog (1/2 domestic and 1/2 wolf)Usually the puppy and teenager age dog will be fine,,til it starts getting to adult maturity is when you will know what situation you are dealing with..Everybody's experiences are different..Seen a documentuary about this indentical topic of this actual cross breed..Not a very good scenerio,,both human and animal sacrifice in the end..Give it time,,mother natures instincts always wins...We have all seen these TV shows with these people that keep wild type animals,,they usually end up the same way,,,badly..There are alway exceptions though,,seen this scenerio play out with my brothers cross breed dog and family,,ended up not being a mtach for a longer relationship just for these negative reasons.... Something to think about..Sorry to derail..


GDP said:


> If I ever get a house or what not, im getting a half wolf/half husky. Most beautiful dogs ive ever seen. Plus I dont want a subserviant dog, I want a companion and friend.
> 
> But anyway DK Im going to have to hire you to come and build me an awsome shrimp room like this lol.


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## wicca27

i have to agree with jone on that one. ive had a wolf hybrid was crossed with german shepherd. we got him cause owners could not control him killed several cats that got in the yard (huskies are bad about cat catching any way) and in the end we had to put him down cause as he got older he was gettin more and more aggressive even to me. he was prob 3 when put down. yes he was verry pretty but not a good family dog for sure. 

sorry i have jumped off topic dk but i just have to share a pic of my moose (shepherd/pit mix) i just love pits to death this is my 4th one 



















dk your duck weed eater is awsome. wish i could come up with stuff like that. i think you could make alot of money with selling them


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> ...i just have to share a pic of my moose (shepherd/pit mix)...


 
He's a good looking guy. He kinda has shades of Akita and Boxer looks, too.

I love that "Haliween" !! LOL!!



.


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## DKShrimporium

*******​ 
*IN OTHER NEWS:*
*DK has changed her user name *
*from *
*Greenisgood *
*to *
*DKShrimporium*
********​


----------



## diwu13

Yea I noticed that change haha. Any link to current shrimp you're selling? I see a really outdated one in your threads but nothing more recent.


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## GDP

DKShrimporium said:


> *******​
> 
> *IN OTHER NEWS:*
> *DK has changed her user name *
> *from *
> *Greenisgood *
> *to *
> *DKShrimporium*
> 
> ********​


 
dun dun dun ....... foreshadowing perhaps?


----------



## AlisaR

Whaaaaa! You mean I didn't have to make a new account to change my username?


----------



## wicca27

awsome dk hehe yeah that was my daughters handy work on the fridge lol


----------



## tetranewbie

Hey DK, I just saw this quote and thought of you! Figured you might like it!

Thomas A. Edison - "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."


----------



## Drink_soy_sauce

DKShrimporium said:


> At DK's house we've often had discussions about what a blockbuster a mini-GSD breed would be - I would love to have Beagle-size GSD's running around.


To get even more off topic...i too have a shepherd mix. She's not quite beagle size but she's around 30 pounds. By the way, this thread is awesome!


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## Tacct

AlisaR said:


> Whaaaaa! You mean I didn't have to make a new account to change my username?


I asked KyleT about it not to long ago and was told they don't do name changes... Guess its time to ask again.


----------



## DKShrimporium

GDP said:


> dun dun dun ....... foreshadowing perhaps?


Nothing is different except the name, it's not meant to indicate some big event...



AlisaR said:


> Whaaaaa! You mean I didn't have to make a new account to change my username?





kite949372 said:


> I asked KyleT about it not to long ago and was told they don't do name changes... Guess its time to ask again.


TPT has close to TWENTY THOUSAND registered users. 

You would not believe the stuff that goes on behind the scenes to keep this site running, especially the squabbles that our patient mods and admin have to deal with on their _free, unpaid time_.

I had a _basis_ for requesting a name change that I shared with the admin in my request letter; furthermore, I am a Power Seller level financial contributor (I need the mailbox space that comes with this level, as I get so many PMs). The admin took into account my request _based on my (private) reason for the request_, and it was granted for this reason. PLEASE do not take this as an open invite for everyone to tweak their name - the admin do not have the resources to do this! I did not mean to start a trend, here, only to fix a problem I had faced due to the old name.



tetranewbie said:


> Hey DK, I just saw this quote and thought of you! Figured you might like it!
> 
> 
> Thomas A. Edison - "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."


Oh, yeah, I SO identify with this!!! Thank you! Mebbe there is a bit of Edison in me...

Do you think Edison would have been featured on _Hoarders_??



wicca27 said:


> awsome dk hehe yeah that was my daughters handy work on the fridge lol


Bet she's as cute as her artwork! Haliween!



Drink_soy_sauce said:


> To get even more off topic...i too have a shepherd mix. She's not quite beagle size but she's around 30 pounds. By the way, this thread is awesome!


YES!! YES!! Like that! LOL, it looks like you picked her off the shelf to buy, in that pic with the new outfit! Where can I get one??

******

IN OTHER NEWS: - DK is seriously considering investing in the item, below. Anyone know what its _intended_ purpose is? Of course, DK will not be using it for its intended purpose... 


.


----------



## tetranewbie

> Oh, yeah, I SO identify with this!!! Thank you! Mebbe there is a bit of Edison in me...
> 
> Do you think Edison would have been featured on Hoarders??


Glad you liked it!

I think Edison would've been one of those guys who burned his place down often enough that it'd clear it out a bit, but I could always be wrong!


----------



## jone

Looks like a hoof/hooves gouge or rake for animals that have hoofs for feet..sorry about the spelling


----------



## wicca27

i was going to say the same thing something to clean hooves with or some kind of leather tool


----------



## wrangler

I think it's used to dig out thrush areas on horse hooves.....


----------



## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> Looks like a hoof/hooves gouge or rake for animals that have hoofs for feet..sorry about the spelling





wicca27 said:


> i was going to say the same thing something to clean hooves with or some kind of leather tool





wrangler said:


> I think it's used to dig out thrush areas on horse hooves.....


 
Very good. A hoof knife, for trimming hooves.

But here's what I'm going to use it for:


.


----------



## madness

DKShrimporium said:


> Very good. A hoof knife, for trimming hooves.
> 
> But here's what I'm going to use it for:
> 
> 
> .


Please tell me that you are not going to use the same tool for BOTH purposes?


----------



## Drink_soy_sauce

DKShrimporium said:


> YES!! YES!! Like that! LOL, it looks like you picked her off the shelf to buy, in that pic with the new outfit! Where can I get one??
> .


Haha. That was her backpack she got for Christmas. I was sending some pictures to my aunt to show her how good she looked in it. :icon_smil And i found mine at the Humane Society. She had a sister. If only you had adopted her!


----------



## mordalphus

You gonna use that hoof knife to carve the fat off of ribs?


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> You gonna use that hoof knife to carve the fat off of ribs?


bingo - the fat doesn't render off the same way, when you Sous Vide them, so I'll remove as much as possible before cooking. I did the first batch the other day, and the meat was quite tender, but now I'm working on just the right rub recipe, hopefully low glycemic.



madness said:


> Please tell me that you are not going to use the same tool for BOTH purposes?


Well, if I did, then one of the purposes would be the intended purpose, which it's not. Whew. Otherwise, I'd have to lick it clean between uses (ewwwwwww!!)

************

IN OTHER NEWS:

Freshly delivered. More projects. A few more micro-bulkheads, and eight monga sized syringes, that DK had to get all the way from Hong Kong, to get cheap. Whee-hoo, she's ready to roll, now.

My other 12 pound box of project goodies tracks for delivery Monday. That box is hopefully gonna fix a problem I've had for a couple of years, now, and have been pondering how the heck to solve the problem (in an AUTOMATED way, that is).


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Missed this post:


diwu13 said:


> Wow that did a GREAT job with the duckweed. I guess you took those larger pieces of leaves out with your hands first?
> 
> Any chance a fish could get sucked in and stuck in the DD until you come to rescue it?


Yes, I first de-bulked the pond scum in the tank by removing all the Bolbitis then using a large net to scoop out the bulk of stuff. But then, replacing the Bolbitis, all those little bits of duckweed that got stuck to the Bolbitis as I lifted it out then came off the Bolbitis and over days have floated up to the surface. The DKDD removed all that made it to the surface, now each day I find a handful more that have made it up to the surface, and I remove them by hand. I sort of beat the Bolbitis to loosen them, the way one beats dust out of a dirty throw rug, if you will. 

The waterfall only sucks about 1/4 inch of water depth off the surface, so you'd have to have a really surface dwelling fish to even be in the zone.


----------



## DKShrimporium

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK got something stuck in her craw and decided to overhaul the Aquavac. She had persistent problems with seal failure using the Gamma Seal, so she decided to change paradigms and solve a number of other issues, as well. She needs two more clamps before she can sea test it, so stay tuned, but otherwise, it's totally overhauled... (she cannibalized the v.1.0 and raided her pantry for the locknlock container to try for the chamber) - only thing she has to buy are two more hose clamps. 


.


----------



## jone

Thats pretty funny..Got to love it..Heres another story,,,,,I am not an avid hunter at all,,,but I always tell my brother,friends and others to make sure you wake up and make time to eat a good breakfast before you go hunting..I really hate to see anyone hunting on an empty stomach....They always have some choice words to say back to me...I love jagging people about hunting these days..


----------



## DKShrimporium

This just in....

DK's GodDogRottie... faster than a speeding bullet... cuter than Justin Bieber... ears that defy gravity... check out the little pink tongue action during the speed!


Andale... arriba!!!


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK is *smacking* her forehead and _laughing her (squirrely) brains out _at herself, right now.

Aquavac v.2.0 taught her a few lessons. She's now working on v.3.0. She has it mostly done, but... of course, needs a couple fittings. 

More on that later, after she gets the fittings.

*******************

In the process of digging through her bins and barrels of parts and pieces, and extended to her hoarder drawers, she ran across this. It is her absolute favorite puzzle.

She once presented this puzzle to a CEO during a job interview (OK, so it was a small, start-up company, not like a major corporation), and not only got the job but commanded a hefty raise in the initial salary, because he could NOT figure it out, and DK wouldn't tell him the answer until she got what she asked for. (It pays to understand human nature; the VP of the technical arm of the company was also in on that interview and got presented the puzzle at the same time; the CEO was afraid the VP would figure it out first then give him **** about it forever. DK was astute enough to recognize _ego_ at work; and let the _ego_ work for her and her bank account. When the CEO later called her in for a "secondary" interview, _without the VP_, she knew the scoop, and made her move...)

The object of the puzzle is to balance all the loose nails onto the stationary nail, using only what's shown in the picture. 

*HINT #1: The only nail to touch the wood is the stationary nail.*

I will give additional hints every so often, stay tuned. I will entertain questions, and give the answer after a while. If you figure it out, please give some time or do not give the solution until folks have some time to work on it!

DK dares ya. Work those brains.

It took DK about a day and a half, and getting into some _serious_ alpha waves, to get it. The fastest person to figure it out for her was a super mensa PhD engineer, who figured it out in one day, after thinking on it overnight (probably also achieving alpha waves).


************

I wanna be like this guy. "If you're not doing something different... you're not doing anything at all.... I like to make things; I like to make smart beautiful things..." (Data scientist carves out new life as sculptor.)


.


----------



## leo1234

Turn the wood sideways and then place each nail on the staionary one. But the nails will be touching the ground though.


----------



## leo1234

Or you can bend the nails and into u shape's and then place it on.


----------



## tetranewbie

LOVE that puzzle! Takes a while though...


----------



## jone

Take one nail and lay it flat,,take the remaining nails and alternate the heads along the shank of the other nail 90 degrees..after that is done,,pickup the one nail that has all the other nail head across (the heads will interlock on the shank of the other nail)and balance it on the stationary nail head ..This is a very balanced oriented ordeal..takes alot of patience and a steady hand.. This is alot harder thatn anyone would think..


----------



## diwu13

leo1234 said:


> Or you can bend the nails and into u shape's and then place it on.


If you can bend those nails with your bare hands you got the puzzle down easily haha.


----------



## [email protected]

jone got it, but as I found it easy to pick up the nail sandwich, I have to guess I've spent... err invested, more time - several decades ago while in college - balancing empty ummmm... containers on top of each other. 

Here's a picture http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/balancing-nails-trick
and a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4w9e3-etC0&feature=related


----------



## DKShrimporium

tetranewbie said:


> LOVE that puzzle! Takes a while though...


 
$25 Shrimporium bucks to Tetranewbie FOR ACCURATELY FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS.

****

Some of rest of you... didn't. The point of the post was to provide fodder for problem solving, and see the _process_ of problem solving unfold.



****

Tetranewbie was astute enough to understand the _objective_ of the post...


.


----------



## wicca27

congrats tetranewbie. thats a cool puzzle dk


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK does a lot of projects. The first, and most important, step to any project is to _get a global perspective of the objectives_. Because it's from the global perspective that any compromises must be negotiated.

Yesterday, I almost posted in someone's thread about some very challenging problems they are about to face, but then thought better of it - that would have removed a valuable learning process - problem solving. They will be better off, down the road, from the experience of problem solving than from being told the problems and solutions, first.

************

The Aquavac project is a great example of the problem solving process. 

First, my global objectives are to develop a tool with certain capabilities that will fit into the overall scheme of optimized automation in shrimp keeping. 

So to this end, I needed a tool which would:

clean an incoming water stream, (debulk the mulm from a tank)
vacuum up small particles and isolate them, (remove substrate for recycling or clean algae patches or plant fragments)
be usable on any of my tanks
be robust and dependable
be cleanable/disinfectable easily
Now, in any building project I tend to use some global parameters:

make the construction heavy duty
design in a modular fashion
make any aspect of the design easily alterable or replaceable to the extent possible
use commonly available, inexpensive materials
keep it as simple as possible, given the above
good, but cheap - good comes first
Aquavac v.1.0 used a bucket with gamma seal I already had, that was supposed to be robust and air tight. The capacity was within the range I wanted. I had the bulkheads and plumbing parts, and bought what I thought was a suitable pump to drive the AV with enough power and flow to accomplish the technical goals.

Problem was, the gamma seal would not seal, mostly under pressure but also under vacuum. Both conditions occur - pressure as one primes the chamber, then later vacuum as the pump is circulating. The whole thing wasn't at all elegant, but would have been just fine, had the gamma seal worked. I tried a number of fixes, and couldn't get it to seal in the manner I needed.

*********

Aquavac v.2.0 utilised a different chamber, a locknlock container that I knew would create an airtight seal under vacuum. It was moderately robust, but I worried about that. I did, however, discover that it would pop the seal and leak under pressure, so it went bust. Bummer, I wasted a locknlock, however I had bought it clearance and its cost was maybe $3.

AV v.2.0 solved two other problems from v.1.0. 

First, it had a see-through chamber, so when the filter sock gets full one can see that and change it out, easily.

Second, in v.1.0, the tubings were coming off the apparatus straight up and were kinking over time when they flopped over. So v.2.0 mounted them horizontally rather than vertically.

What 2.0 lacked, I soon discovered, was a bleed valve that would become necessary to make pump priming easy. I could have installed one, but the big picture told me to move on from the locknlock container - every hole in a container is a point of potential failure. That FOUNTAIN GRADE pump driving the system is not to be disrespected - a failure will result in a LOT of water displacement in a short time.

It also had an awkward footprint and a layout that was vulnerable at a number of stress points - not robust from this perspective. DK hates babysitting. DK likes set-it-and-forget-it, and not having to worry about some weakness.

Time to get REALLY serious about a robust chamber.

**********

The hilarious thing is, when DK went to her bins and barrels, thinking "pressure vessel, AIR TIGHT seals under PRESSURE and VACUUM, transparent, robust, about a gallon volume" - she realized she had bought the very part ORIGINALLY for this project, to use, but then had relegated it to parts, due to _capacity_. It had all the other characteristics needed, easily. (Such a part IS available in a larger capacity, but isn't exactly cheap, so she had moved on, not ready to compromise YET.)

That was the moment, recently, of forehead smacking and laughing hilariously.

OK, this post is long enough, for now. Plus, I need to shoot some pics later for illustration.

*********

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

This arrived, today... time to dig out the sharpening rods... for the ripe price of $12 shipped to my door, a stainless baby back rib de-fatter with exotic wood handle...

Y'know a hundred years from now, if we haven't obliterated ourselves by then, folks will look back on such a thing and be in awe that a cheap tool could come with a REAL, beautiful WOOD handle. By then, there will be no more trees, only polymers..

Sort of like that lady licking the strawberry jam spoon in Soylent Green...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's latest doing, while she waits for the new Aquavac chamber to arrive.

Them thar's the monga syringes flown in from Hong Kong - much cheaper and better to make a manifold from than graduated cylinders - they are 100 ml capacity each.

This here's a manifold for reading both absolute, and relative, flow performance of her feed lines.

_In case you're wondering, the manifold is mounted hidden inside the cabinet door under a 65 gallon tank. Just to be clear, this stand DK got el cheapo on craigslist. That is NOT her carpentry!! That is, however, her cobbled together mounting for the manifold - lately she is forcing herself to use what she already has in parts and pieces, whenever possible._


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

The jumbo Aquavac chamber has tracked locally and will arrive Monday. So today, DK heads out to buy some polyester tube socks and nylon knee highs... Oh, and she needs to look for a scrap of this in her piles of parts 'n' pieces.

She's also trying to get up the gumption to finally install that DKSnake and try it out. She just hasn't quite merged with the mood to drill for tapcons, yet, but it's coming. And she needs to do some detail work using the chop saw on some specialized pieces of plasti-wood (is that an oxymoron??).

**********

In other news, yesterday she called in her trusty senior citizen co-conspirator (SCCC), for a consult. He's a _worse_ project junkie than she is, and also a hoarder. One does _not_ let him loose on a project unless one is ready, TODAY, to go full tilt on it, with him _right_ there. She laughs, because she called him to put him on the hunt for a utility door with certain criteria (36 x 80 slab, left hinge, top half glass, metal, insulated, cheap), and to her hilarious delight, _he already had one in his stash_!! That is a _serious_ project hoarder. He had gotten it free, too. So we hauled it down to the place of the crime, and began our planning... DK gets _serious_ this year about chilling her Shrimporium, so it's a bit l.a.r.g.e.r. project, going faster than planned, but, hey, who is she to argue with progress...

Those of you who have read _The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo_ _(not seen the movie, cheaters - that is like looking at the answer to a puzzle before you solve it...)_, DK will let you in on a little secret. Her Shrimporium is attached to a space like in that book, and the door will be going onto the jam between her Shrimporium and that room. _(There are NO nefarious activities to take place in that space, however, and she will not be showing you the space but does present the jamb in the pic, below. The Shrimporium lies beyond that door...)_

Guess she also needs to pick up that PT dimensional lumber today, too, or SCCC will be twitching, wanting to know why she doesn't have it, YET!



.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Not gonna lie to ya... it scared DK to do this on her chop saw.

But she does think it will be perfect.

She was fortunate and did it safely (she rigged a jig; she did not do it freehand!!!), but it would probably have been worth the few bucks to buy the perforated pipe rather than try to do this. However, she _did_ manage, and it's a part she already had, or could fabricate from something she already had...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So... DK hasn't even left the house yet. She got diverted on yet another project:

Shrimphenge

First, the map. Under a glass plate.

Then, the pieces, glued together.

What the heck it is, really???


.


----------



## wicca27

hey dk sorry to be bearer of bad news but mail dont run monday its a holiday package will arrive tuesday. dont hate me just wanted to warn you


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> hey dk sorry to be bearer of bad news but mail dont run monday its a holiday package will arrive tuesday. dont hate me just wanted to warn you


Hm..ja. Cherry pie, tomorrow.

************

IN OTHER NEWS:

Quiet around here, with nobody guessing what Shrimphenge is all about. So I'll let the pictures do the talking...

DK's already recycled the Aquavac bucket, back to its original role.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Fresh off the presses:

"My cuteness knows no bounds, and my head is bigger than my body!! I AM ROTTIE!!!"

DK's GodDogRottie, Angus. The latest.


.


----------



## azjenny

Sooooo precious. I love Angus....

And I still don't know what shrimp henge is...


----------



## Jeffww

Magnetic stir bar with some jury rigging to work on a big heavy bucket?


----------



## DKShrimporium

It's HERE!!! 
UPS is working today!! ​ 
_NOW_ I understand 
why these things cost so much! 

Pics soon...​


----------



## DKShrimporium

azjenny said:


> Sooooo precious. I love Angus....
> 
> And I still don't know what shrimp henge is...





Jeffww said:


> Magnetic stir bar with some jury rigging to work on a big heavy bucket?


Yeah, it's actually just a mechanical support structure so I can leverage a cheaper, smaller magnetic stir unit to use as a jumbo one. The magnet mover is plenty strong, it's just that the platform is quite a small footprint.

That middle picture is a perfect optical illusion, I realized; it looks as though the pipes are half-inch taller than the plate, but the picture below shows the truth:


.


----------



## jone

You gotta love that face....There is nothing better than having your friend look at you with a 150% + interest and love or that treat you are holding up in front of him..LOLOL...savour these moments,,he will be a big boy in no time at all..


DKShrimporium said:


> Fresh off the presses:
> 
> "My cuteness knows no bounds, and my head is bigger than my body!! I AM ROTTIE!!!"
> 
> DK's GodDogRottie, Angus. The latest.
> 
> 
> .


----------



## jczernia

DK did you get a box of Campbell's tomato soup?? I love that stuff!!!!
Your puppy is cute how old???I say 3+ months


----------



## FreedPenguin

LOL maybe something else inside the box?


----------



## DKShrimporium

jczernia said:


> DK did you get a box of Campbell's tomato soup?? I love that stuff!!!!
> Your puppy is cute how old???I say 3+ months


Nope, not soup in the box... something MUCH MORE SUBSTANTIAL.

Angus the Rottie isn't my puppy, but rather my God Dog, y'know I'm the godparent. But reports put him at 4 months age and I think 40 lbs right now. 

********

Sometimes, you get lucky.

I'm sooooooooooooooo glad I sprang for Aquavac v.3.0 chamber. 

Nearly _half inch solid walls of polycarbonate_ (DK is very fond of polycarbonate), 1.5 gallon dead volume (she measured it earlier today) - _perfect_ - and this baby is built.like.a.TANK.

DK has discovered to her delight that serendipity handed her something really great. 

Inside the chamber lid (just look at those nearly half-inch thick polypropylene walls in that lid!!!), there are supports that EXACTLY fit the drainage pipe, such that the pipe can be snugly fit up into the supports. DK will be taking great advantage of this, stay tuned...

She was already taking advantage of the ribbing of the drain pipe, but this little feature is going to make it even more advantageous...

********

Who can guess what my chamber is, and what I paid for it? _I'm curious if anyone can find a better deal than I did_.


.


----------



## wicca27

the drian pipe that goes under the drive way for water in the ditch to go though? 2.50 a foot?


----------



## jone

Underdrain piping with slots or corrigated piping,,but what is DK going to use it for though??


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> the drian pipe that goes under the drive way for water in the ditch to go though? 2.50 a foot?





jone said:


> Underdrain piping with slots or corrigated piping,,but what is DK going to use it for though??


The corrugated drain pipe is simply the _insert_ to be used _in_ the new Aquavac chamber. The chamber isn't yet pictured, as I want to see if anyone can guess:

_What is the new Aquavac chamber, and how much did DK spend on it_?

It was _not cheap_, at all. However it is *good*. 

V.e.r.y...g.o.o.d....


----------



## jone

The actual aquavac chamber is piece of 6" or 8" clear PVC with female threaded ends in which this black corrugated piece slides into with your threaded end caps with O rings seal to make a chamber...You are going to drill and install an inlet and outlet port to circulate the water..


----------



## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> The actual aquavac chamber is piece of 6" or 8" clear PVC with female threaded ends in which this black corrugated piece slides into with your threaded end caps with O rings seal to make a chamber...You are going to drill and install an inlet and outlet port to circulate the water..


SO..........if it were six inch clear PVC, it would cost DK $171 plus $25.60 in shipping for a two foot length - Nearly $200 just for the raw clear pipe! 

Then, a six inch clear PVC cap to bottom out the pipe would cost an unbelievable $234 plus shipping.

Yowza!

And then... it would be PVC. But it is not. It is _polycarbonate_. And her cost was less than $434, shipped.

Did DK mention that she has a fondness for polycarbonate?


.


----------



## jone

polycarbonate is probably be a more cost effective substitute to the clear PVC??? Pretty much is same material characteristics that they are able to be threaded and machined for the threaded end caps to be used..


DKShrimporium said:


> SO..........if it were six inch clear PVC, it would cost DK $171 plus $25.60 in shipping for a two foot length - Nearly $200 just for the raw clear pipe!
> 
> Then, a six inch clear PVC cap to bottom out the pipe would cost an unbelievable $234 plus shipping.
> 
> Yowza!
> 
> And then... it would be PVC. But it is not. It is _polycarbonate_. And her cost was less than $434, shipped.
> 
> Did DK mention that she has a fondness for polycarbonate?
> 
> 
> .


----------



## tetranewbie

I'm gonna guess that the "chamber" was actually *almost* used for it's intended purpose... i.e. a scientific grade vacuum chamber... ? Maybe?


----------



## DKShrimporium

tetranewbie said:


> I'm gonna guess that the "chamber" was actually *almost* used for it's intended purpose... i.e. a scientific grade vacuum chamber... ? Maybe?


This was a very good guess.

Well, it is being used sorta kinda for its almost intended purpose, but it is not a vacuum chamber (see picture, below), which would have been out of DK's price range, and also they cannot take _pressure as well as vacuum_, typically. In a vacuum chamber, the bell just sits down on the plate, and is held onto the gasket by suction. The minute you would put pressure on this, the bell would simply pop off! Not handy in DK's application!

DK amused herself, noting that the Nalgene vacuum chamber DOES have a *polycarbonate* component, and the lid DOES look very similar to her lid. 

And she was especially amused by the fact that this particular one was being sold by an _auto parts store_ - what the heck would a vacuum chamber be used for in an auto parts application? Anybody out there know? But still, the $200 + price tag is higher than she paid. 


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

One of my fish puppies - a full belly on a L144.


.


----------



## matti2uude

DKShrimporium said:


> This was a very good guess.
> 
> Well, it is being used sorta kinda for its almost intended purpose, but it is not a vacuum chamber (see picture, below), which would have been out of DK's price range, and also they cannot take _pressure as well as vacuum_, typically. In a vacuum chamber, the bell just sits down on the plate, and is held onto the gasket by suction. The minute you would put pressure on this, the bell would simply pop off! Not handy in DK's application!
> 
> DK amused herself, noting that the Nalgene vacuum chamber DOES have a *polycarbonate* component, and the lid DOES look very similar to her lid.
> 
> And she was especially amused by the fact that this particular one was being sold by an _auto parts store_ - what the heck would a vacuum chamber be used for in an auto parts application? Anybody out there know? But still, the $200 + price tag is higher than she paid.
> 
> 
> .


For bleeding brake lines most likely.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And, so. Here we have the chamber v.3.0, along with its normal sized cousin, chamber v.2.0. 

V.2.0 had it all but capacity, and was a mere $14.

V.3.0 truly has it all, including capacity. The pictures don't do it justice - it's beefy. 

So, who thinks they can find a better deal than DK did? 

Here are the specs: 

20 x 4.5 sump
polycarbonate sump, polypropylene cap
90+ PSI rated
3/4 NPT fittings
AND pressure release valve
 
I think I got a pretty decent deal on it... and it will definitely fit the bill.

Now, Liam, next I recycle the blouse fabric, to make custom filter socks...


.


----------



## mordalphus

LOL nice!

That think is huge, now I need to make a fluidized purigen bed filter that holds 2 liters of purigen... Didn't know they made housings that large


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> LOL nice!
> 
> That think is huge, now I need to make a fluidized purigen bed filter that holds 2 liters of purigen... Didn't know they made housings that large


Sheesh! That'd be pushing $200 of purigen, just to fill that thing!

You prop up the proprietary products market, Liam!

DK


----------



## jone

You really love your Campbells soup..


----------



## wicca27

love the bristlenose i have several shortfin blue eye albino. and one long fin brown


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK sits around and ponders stuff, in pursuit of shrimp keeping. Today, she ponders this. It's a chelation affinity chart that the voodoo blood chelation folks have provided her. This curve is important, to understand, in what she is lately trying to do...


.


----------



## jostas

thought you may appreciate this blog DK -
http://diyourfaceoff.com/


----------



## DKShrimporium

jostas said:


> thought you may appreciate this blog DK -
> http://diyourfaceoff.com/


Ja, that reminds me of the thereifixedit. You want to see some _scary_ DIY - the cichlid and monster fish forums have has some _doozies_ of projects. I'm a total amateur compared to those guys.

********

In other news, DK was ALL OVER cyberspace the past 48 hours, researching her next project - a collaborative effort. She spent most of her brain waves today focused on the word _epilimnion_.

**********

She tried to buy the PT lumber for her door frame, but stood at the pile looking at #2 studs, complaining to another guy standing there staring at the same, and in the end, she _just couldn't do it_. She has to go to another place, and get DECENT lumber. Something worth building is worth building well. She can't help it. 

She _did_ get a lovely monstrous offset caster, though, toward that project...

*********

She also shot a picture of the Aquavac chamber next to a spare Eheim 2215 for size.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And here we have the latest....

A Czech German. Is that an oxymoron? No, he's not mine... he lives with another TPT shrimp keeper, on the other end of the country.

Named "Car" and destined to be a K9 unit.

Car will be cheering on this spring's project, in between ball throws.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, in the course of researching her latest shrimp-y project, over the weekend, DK learned:


*For the men*: Aftershave - the stuff _you slather on your FACE_- will _eat through polyethylene_, _the plastic that will endure beyond history without degradation_
*For the women*: chemical depilatories (Nair and the like) can involve slathering extremely high pH solutions onto the skin - it will burn the bonds in hair, but can ALSO burn your skin if you leave it on too long
There are roughly 2 grams of carbon dioxide gas in half a liter of Pepsi (we're not counting the CO2 from sugar metabolism here, folks)
Soft drink bottles are engineered to withstand about 20 atmospheres pressure
There are 400 calories in 1/16 of a Pellman's Triple Chocolate cake, making the entire cake 6400 calories, so in other words you could eat the entire thing and theoretically consume fewer calories than to gain two pounds of body fat
Pondering pKas, solubility constants, stoichiometry, mass balance and the like requires the consumption of a great number of the above mentioned calories, along with prodigious amounts of Starbuck's overly strong brewed java

She also stared at this picture, until either it began to talk to her, or she began to hallucinate voices, she's not sure which, yet. The numbers 6.3 and 8.2 are _particularly_ relevant. Sometimes, (well, ok, often) she just feels _completely inept_, because things aren't speaking to her.


DK has to get back to work, now, with what brain cells she has left...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

It's been a couple of years coming.... the next generation Water Factory. The parts are starting to roll in... here's the first new part...


...about a pound of _extremely_ value-added plastic.

Stuff to arrive from as far as Israel in the next couple of weeks...

DK has stuff coming and going, and her head is swimming with _tech-nese_.

She is very pleased to have finished (she's pretty sure she's finished, that is) her extensive calculations toward the first new DKMSJS water recipes.

She evicted a couple hundred shrimp today from a particular tank, and did some technical messing around - that tank is now super-insulated, super heat controlled, super vapor controlled and soon to be super water controlled. Now, she just needs mermaids... I hear they are nothing like sea monkeys...

Stay tuned.

*******

IN OTHER NEWS, the Pellman's Triple Chocolate cake is all gone, now, and DK is in a state of dechox, today. It had to happen sometime.


.


----------



## tetranewbie

DK, do you do shrimp-room tours? Your online explanations are great but I can't wrap my head around some of this stuff you're doing!!! Too bad you're 2000+ miles away...


----------



## DKShrimporium

tetranewbie said:


> DK, do you do shrimp-room tours? Your online explanations are great but I can't wrap my head around some of this stuff you're doing!!! Too bad you're 2000+ miles away...


I don't think the brain melt that might ensue is covered by my policy... I'd havta check...

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

After days and DAYS of calculations and re-calculations, and then a quick trip to Lowes, DK rough plumbed in Water Factory v.3.0. She neglected both bodily input and output for waaaaaaaaaay too long during the plumbing bit, and is about to drop from, first, fatigue and, second, the wave of splanchnic shift due to finally attending to bodily functions.

Two injectors added to the fray - yes, she admits it's getting to the point of ridiculousness, and she battled real estate issues trying to fit them in, but there they are, and this has been one hekuva project - some of the most fun stuff ever. I just hope it works...


.


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## wicca27

one word....... WOW


----------



## cookymonster760

dude how do you even think of this stuff i mean wow you are managing like 30 different complicated things at once great job


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## speedie408

I haven't visited this thread in a minute.

Three words... CRAZY SOPHISTICATED!! Oh... & AWESOME! 

I see a water meter hooked up, with the meter lid open... what are the 2 devices with the half cut jugs covering?


----------



## mordalphus

DK covers up her secret sauce with milk jugs and garbage bags :>


----------



## DKShrimporium

cookymonster760 said:


> dude how do you even think of this stuff i mean wow you are managing like 30 different complicated things at once great job


This is DK's version of lazy. She doesn't like to do things of a repetitive nature (i.e. water changes), so she automates. She makes crazy, whacko contraptions to work for her, then just throws a food pellet now and then.



speedie408 said:


> I haven't visited this thread in a minute.
> 
> Three words... CRAZY SOPHISTICATED!! Oh... & AWESOME!
> 
> I see a water meter hooked up, with the meter lid open... what are the 2 devices with the half cut jugs covering?


Those are Stenner injection pumps. They have a fan facing upwards and the sophisticated milk jugs are just dust covers on the cheap.



mordalphus said:


> DK covers up her secret sauce with milk jugs and garbage bags :>


And a squirt of Sriracha, which she replenished with two bottles, yesterday. The gallon of jalapenos are going pretty fast.

DKMSJ is so tasty that she was growing stuff in the mixing chambers, too, especially the covered one that was sorta close to a tank and was soaking up the fake sunshine and making diatoms in her mixing chamber. She put a stop to that with a total eclipse, and drowned out the zillion cries of the diatoms by swigging a good Bubba Mug of Starbucks...

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK hopes to go live with the new water recipes later today (this morning she's at Univ. of Delaware all morning, shortly). She should know in about a week how her soup recipe cooks out...

She did some remedial surgery on one of the injectors last night, converting it from one model to another - that was pretty fun, and she must give the company 5 stars for customer service for calling her back within 5 minutes and talking her through the process at 4:45 pm on a Friday afternoon. Here, she thought she was buggered to wait until Monday to make the conversion, but we got it done over the phone in 15 minutes. Nothing like talking to someone who understands the "guts" of something, to help one understand...

I'm off, now.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, after completing the UD stuff this morning, DK swung (_word geek alert_: _did you know you can use either swang or swung as the simple past tense of swing_??) by the Delaware Technical and Community College to the Delaware Mineralogical Society's annual Gem, Mineral and Fossil show. (She goes to it nearly every year.) 

She knew just which booth to head to (I know, I know, bad grammar), and then after consulting with their Head Geek, geek-to-geek, she scored some MOST lovely silica-based petrified wood for her new project - all for the bargain price of $20 (that would be well under a buck a pound, and retail near here is many times that at the fish store, although generally DK would not BUY rocks, but in this case she did - and petrified wood is hard to find, anyway, except at the G,M,&F show, plus there is no shipping!), and she was glad to fund their doings with a bit of cash, as they are nice folks and not playing video games but rather exploring the earth in their spare time.

Here is her haul:


Whaddya think? I can just see shrimp - er, I mean mermaids - crawling all over these ledges...


.


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## tetranewbie

Wow, those are gorgeous!


----------



## mordalphus

Beautiful pieces, I love the splintered wood style! I like it more than the fractured logs that are more common. My petrified wood is the latter


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so DK didn't make the 4 PM water making, due to delays playing with the new rocks, and so DK didn't get all the tasks done... hopefully she can make water tomorrow; she's very close.

Here are some shots of the rocks in the tank; DK knows some of you could do better hardscape than this, but this is set up with habitat in mind and DK wanted UNDER surfaces so she did it like this. Plus, she just doesn't obsess that much on stuff like this.

Liam, I think you mean petrified wood like sliced hot dogs? I do like the more natural look of splinters rather than log slices, for sure. These happen to go very well with my substrate color, too, although, again, color isn't priority for my set-ups. 

DK's been doing some super-fun whacky alchemy, lately. I sure hope her calculations were in the ballpark. There were so many variables to best-guess...


----------



## AlisaR

Whhhhhaaaa! So JEALOUS of those rocks. How was the mineral show?
You need some random sticks btw.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Perhaps some of you wonder where DK gets her -- uh -- _thinking process_.

I will let you in on a secret: it's the pillowcase.

Her best friend made her this magical pillowcase of sock monkeys floating in space riding bananas. It does the trick. DK sleeps on it, lets the magic soak into her brain all night as the sock monkeys work their wonders.

So, you too could have this _thinking process_. If you had a best friend like DK has. Who would make you such a pillowcase.

They are hard to get, though.


.


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## DKShrimporium

AlisaR said:


> Whhhhhaaaa! So JEALOUS of those rocks. How was the mineral show?
> You need some random sticks btw.


It's a great show. Usually DK is torn between the fossils and then the coo-el mineral samples and then there are all those colorful shiny beady things, too. Today, she was pressed for time and only had time to look for the rocks, and she was not disappointed. It's a great value at only $5 to get in, and then such bargains! And those rock hound types are really nice folks, too. 

I thought about sticks but sticks get in the way of nets... I'd like to keep it simple, and I think with this arrangement there is plenty of crawly surface and also of hidey hole type places.


----------



## FreedPenguin

So well written, informative and entertaining to read! Just awesome DK!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hot off the presses*

Angus the GodDogRottie, now half a hundred pounds, already hit the tweens and has himself a sleek female companion. He lets her push him around, being a nice guy. Just look at the bulk on my GDR!

And laugh at his goliath head and teeny sharp baby teeth he's about to lose! 

GDR's "dad" and I are scheming to build a dog cart. DK has wanted to build a dog cart for a number of years, now. She soooooooooo wants to build a dog cart!!!

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK is making new water! She can't wait to test it out, now that it's live!!! She is basically exhausted from the recent marathon to make the new branch off the Water Factory. She should know by tomorrow if the recipes are showing promise, stay tuned...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Soooooooooo*

After a head-banging and gnashing session, following a set of numbers that were in the cosmos, DK entered an advanced game of "_Iszitdooyingwattayefinkitiz_." Sort of a technical cat-and-mouse, played to the death.

And DK don't wanna die.

So, back to the drawing board. She had to go through _every_ element of the process, and hardware, and calculations, and theory, and see if they were EACH doing what she thought they should be doing. It was a very healthy exercise for the squirrely brain, let me tell you.

Turns out, there were a few technical issues - very easy to fix once _diagnosed_ properly (thanx to all the control points she has "engineered" - use this term loosely, understand - into the system) and then one more bit of chemistry that must be added on. Turns out one of the injection streams wasn't actually injecting as the flow rate was below the minimum spec, so she just had to add some flow rate to get the thing actually injecting, to create her Mermaid Water. 

(To my two co-conspirators - you know who you are: are you reading?? This means currently she is flushing perfectly lovely Mermaid Water down the drain to create this flow rate, which translates into she will probably convert at least two more tanks to use this water rather than waste it...) 

So, in the past 24 hours, she has gone from _utter despair_ to _she's.breathing.down.the.neck.of.her.prey.going.for.the.kill_. Only, the very last phase of problem solving requires functional, live, pH monitoring. (She needs to do a live titration to get a number she needs to recalculate and reformulate the vat concentrates.) The very unusual, nuclear-powered (this term is _metaphorically_ used, here) chemistry to solve the problem was anticipated a week ago and ordered and arrived just the other day. It was a bit scary how it was packaged, but did manage to arrive intact. The entire box WAS coated in tape, though. Tape as a secondary containment is not DK's idea of secondary containment. And let's hope that's a NAME BRAND ziploc bag that seals tightly, until such time as DK is able to transfer, outside, the powdery contents to a suitable container. Ebay is great, but scary, at times.

So, she dug around in her bins, was shocked to discover she has not ONE, but FOUR pH monitor/controllers lying around, unemployed. She fooled with them - more head banging. Finally, after probe cleaning (the probes WERE stored in fluids, folks) and calibration and testing and re-testing, she pitted the cheapo drop tests against the calibration solution, only to find the calibration solution was in outer space... no freakin' wonder the cleaned, calibrated probes were reading so very strange. Turns out, the calibration solution was not doing what she thought it was doing, at all. These are critical bits of information to know.

All this to say, she just ordered a probe reconditioning kit and set of fresh calibration solutions. Failing those, she buys replacement probes. 

BUT.....

Once she has functional, live pH capability, she goes in for the kill.

She already has eight of nine critical parameters JUST where she wants them, produced lickety-split from the Water Factory. She has only to master the last parameter (yeah, pH, you guessed it - the problem here is that her well water comes from the ground super-carbonated and this affects the chemistry of the entire complex buffer system real time and must be compensated for in Mermaid Water) and she is in territory she doesn't think anyone in the US shrimpdom has yet entered, in water chemistry. This has been THE most fun project, head-banging aside. Mad, mad doings. You cannot even believe the dormant brain cells she called up into action, lately.

Oh, and, she decided to add a control point to the Water Factory that enables her to split the Mermaid Water factory from the Other Water factory, so she can run either factory, or both, at any given time. This is most helpful when developing recipes, as then she can run only the factory needed and divert the outputs to flush and test the streams, without affecting any other thing.

Coo-el.

Stay tuned...


.


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## shrimpnmoss

Wow 1/2 a hundred pounds and barely losing his baby teeth? He's going to be a MONSTER! I love Rotties. I can totally see him drafting a couple of buckets of DKMSJ around.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, basically, being in _denial_ about the state of reality (i.e., that she's not in high school anymore), DK is turning back the clock to high school and in discussions about taking herself a SPRING BREAK with a *Shrimptern* from TPT! 

If we can get the details ironed out, we will be tank-monkeying in the Shrimporium that week, moving/re-setting a number of tanks, probably installing the DKSnake, possibly the door, and all manner of other fun, fun projects, in between (over)eating stuff that isn't quite good for us, and visiting the local attractions. And, I'm sure, waaaaaay too many trips to Lowes.

Stay tuned...


.


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## wicca27

lol i so could use a spring break myself lol


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## shrimpnmoss

That's a cool pic! Mutant giant OEBT with goggles....lol


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## AlisaR

On my phone there was a slight jpg artifact going on with the eggs, made them slightly radioactive glow looking. Either way, pretty awesome!

For the longest time I thought the "goggles" on your avatar were rocket propulsion shrimp exhausts. I should have known they were telescopic goggles. Duh.


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## Loachutus

Is that the winning logo?


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Wow 1/2 a hundred pounds and barely losing his baby teeth? He's going to be a MONSTER! I love Rotties. I can totally see him drafting a couple of buckets of DKMSJ around.


Well, remember, this Angus is DK's God Dog, so doesn't live locally. DK has German ShepHERDs who DO live locally. But RGD Angus is perfect for dog carting, or he will be!



AlisaR said:


> On my phone there was a slight jpg artifact going on with the eggs, made them slightly radioactive glow looking. Either way, pretty awesome!
> 
> For the longest time I thought the "goggles" on your avatar were rocket propulsion shrimp exhausts. I should have known they were telescopic goggles. Duh.


Do you recognize the egg concept?? And the goggle concept? Hmmmmmmm???

And, you had the wrong end, on the goggles! HA!



Loachutus said:


> Is that the winning logo?


 
Another piece of it. There is an entire page graphic that was developed. You can see where the avatar came from, in this piece.

Here's another avatar graphic I played with:


.


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## AlisaR

You need that really rotund shrimp in there. Does that glove have a very rotund shrimp grenade attached to it? Yes, why yes it does.

Though I am very interested in the boots. An avatar of just a single giant boot. Nice.


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## DKShrimporium

AlisaR said:


> Though I am very interested in the boots. An avatar of just a single giant boot. Nice.


OK. I can use it with a certain type of people...


.


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## AlisaR

Yes! That speaks of getting stuff DONE.

I don't envy you having to change tanks around. Sucks. Who's the lucky shrimptern?


----------



## DKShrimporium

AlisaR said:


> Yes! That speaks of getting stuff DONE.
> 
> I don't envy you having to change tanks around. Sucks. Who's the lucky shrimptern?


She doesn't really get stuff _done_, so much, as _started_. And then, the squirrely brain kicks in with ANOTHER idea, and she's off and running. Like, she still has a pile of Maseratis to make.

She's only _moving_ tanks because she wants to allot a top rack shelf for the new project, and some of the tanks up there are full of shrimp so can't easily be netted out and re-set. She has methods to move tanks full of shrimp without emptying them. 

The shrimptern is still under discussion and not finalized. She's had a number of shrimpterns over the years from TPT and keeps the details of these agreements private - the last thing she wants is her life becoming a reality show! 

The pH probe conditioning solutions and calibration solutions arrive today... should have the titration done this weekend on the Mermaid water.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Heh...heh...heh...

So, DK fired up the _nuclear_ chemistry, today. She just finished an hour and a half flush of the Mermaid tank, using the handy-dandy lever that lets her isolate the Mermaid Water factory. Tomorrow, she can trend the data and see if she's making wonder water, or a toxic tank! Fingers crossed!

She had already visited the bio-diesel folks (y'know, those dudes who make diesel out of french fry oil) for some supplies, but found herself back in their world today learning more handy, handy stuff from them. She learned _the_ most amazing thing from them, that she is gonna apply, to do some mad science with the Shrimptern, and report back to y'all. Such coo-el things to be learned, in different niches!

She's filled her rattle-y brain with Pepe Deluxe tonight, and realizes it's the perfect stuff to pipe in while in the iJoy chair (craigslist and rich frat boys who run out of dorm space are her friends) alpha waving it - for her, it was a soothing disorientation experience, knocking her thoughts off the rails. Steam punk for the ears, sorta.

More to come... mad science is SO in full swing, here.


.


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## wicca27

oooo thanks dk i like them time to go hunt music lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

And so... a day later... the nuclear chemistry results are rolling in. The trends are spot on - BEAUTIFUL. Now, we see if she holds during automation.

We have _every_ last parameter where we want them...

DK's brain sorta hurts from all the chemistry this past month. The issue wasn't as much that the basic chemistry was that complex - it was moderately complex - the issue was she was trying to AUTOMATE this chemistry, _starting from completely opposite water_.

DK has turned lead... into gold.

Figuratively speaking, that is.

NEXT UP:

DK is going to do some shipping studies, burying a temperature probe into different packaging and heat pack combinations to learn the behavior of the materials... The probe arrived today and she likes it.

BTW, the pH probes were all toast, even after extensive re-conditioning. (This adventure forced her to learn how those magical probe things actually work, and why they poop out, and how reconditioning sometimes works.) So DK had to order a replacement probe, today. In the meantime, she stares at colors from drops...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, first, we do what in the patent industry is called _prior art_. It means gathering of information and things tried that have gone before the current proposed project. She found some useful items, and from them made some guesses, and has the first round of heat study going.

http://www.pangeareptile.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-31798.html

http://www.michiganreefers.com/forums/advanced-topics/62394-heat-pack-study.html

Here is a graphic borrowed from the data of the study link, above. The orange notations are DK's notations, but the data are shown for example.

DK loves to "travel" to other hobby niches!


.


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## AlisaR

Wait. How are they doing dyi heatpacks? I'd love to make some smaller heatpacks.


----------



## DKShrimporium

AlisaR said:


> Wait. How are they doing dyi heatpacks? I'd love to make some smaller heatpacks.


You could make smaller ones by cutting commercial ones in half, and re- sealing the cut edge quickly. Probably need some sort of edge clip rather than tape to do that. (Think: those cheapo report covers with a plastic spine thingy that clips the pages into a mylar cover, or something like that, that would clip the edge all along the edge. Fold the cut edge over on itself once or twice like a hem, and then clip along the edge.) 

The point is that the material inside the heat packs, when exposed to oxygen, starts an exothermic reaction (heat-giving). The amount and the BLEND of stuff inside the pack causes the LENGTH of time it's active and its peak temperature. The exposure to oxygen, and its rate determine how fast the reaction can happen, so it may be that you don't want that cut edge letting in a whole lot more air than a "sealed" heat pack would allow. (Sealed in the fiber pillow in this case, not sealed in the original plastic wrap. Not sure if the porosity of the red stripe side is _quantitative_ or not.)

I'm sure some DIY-er has fooled around with exothermic powder chemistry, but personally I'd use the raw materials already ready made in an existing heat pack formulation.

Of course, you'd have to do the opening, cutting, and re-sealing, and shipping immediately before shipment, 'cause as soon as you open the plastic wrapper of the commercial heat pack you have started the chemical reaction rolling.


----------



## wicca27

dk your my hero such a wonderfull mind and come up with all kinds of good things keep it up i like learning


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## DKShrimporium

DK monitored her heat experiment last night and got herrsef some really good data. _Prior art_ suggested to her when the heat would peak, allowing her to set the experiment so she could see the peak and then go to bed, but as it happens she was up to let a GSD out last night so got a data point in the wees, anyway. Once the peak was reached, the heat sink has held temp even (at the same temperature) since the past 9 hours so far. Since she is not wired into a computer, her experiment is portable, and she simply carries the box with her when she needs to move, and keeps it at room temp on the exterior!

DK's own _prior art _in this regard came from back in the days when she built an egg incubator and calibrated it for egg temperature. This is a fine calibration, to the tenth of a degree. She devised a method to measure a simulated egg in situ using a similar probe. Since eggs are essentially fluid (at the onset of incubation, and then that fluid miraculously turns into tissue - she never gets over the amazing transformations in natural processes), the process translated into her attempts, here. 

So you see, all things are related.

Round 1 is still ongoing, for a couple days...

***************

Some more _prior art_:

http://www.allboas.com/heatpack.php

http://www.vernier.com/innovate/testing-heat-packs/ - some clues in that one if you truly want to make DIY heat packs

http://www.microlabinfo.com/Experim...acks.ColdPacks.PDF/1.4.HotPacks.ColdPacks.pdf - some exothermic chemistry combos

http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/quick/alcom/hotpacks.html - here's an actual homemade heat pack recipe, compliments of middle school science

http://mthsscience.org/Science_fair/SF_Chemistry/Make Your Own.pdf - more homemade heat pack makin'

http://www.dynamicscience.com.au/tester/solutions/biology/spotsmedicine/heatpacks1.htm - some good science looking at reactant ratios in making heat packs

http://www.chameleonforums.com/testing-limits-heat-pack-freezing-temps-50404/ - what if you put a heat-packed box in the fridge or freezer?

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/content.php?41-Heat-Packs-and-Cool-Weather-Shipping - this guy looks at the effect of using a gel pack heat sink and also a foil wrap with known holes for measured oxygen to the heat pack in how they affect the heat into a styro box

DK conclusions from the above link: heat sinks useful, foil notsomuch. However, he is using air and shipping spiders. In shipping shrimp, we use bags of water. We can then use the bags of water as most excellent heat sinks, which is what DK's approach is based upon. The trick is to load your heat sink with BTUs (British Thermal Units - units of heat) from the firing up of the heat pack, and maintain it with BTU "leak" across the life of the heat pack by moving heat from the heat pack to the heat sink mass, but NOT let the heat sinks exceed the critical fatal temperature for the specie. So, total BTUs transferred, and RATE of BTU transfer are what we pay attention to.

*********

By way of equipment, DK has not the fancy-schmancy heat coupler auto-logged stuff of some DIY-ers. Instead, she is very basic. She invested $30 in this, and a pen and paper: (BTW, she really likes this little unit. It also has timer and alarm function - alarm on time and also on temp upwards as in once a temp going upwards is reached a beeper initiates. You can set it on the fly, so DK has been setting it for one degree higher, and knows exactly when the next degree is reached, for her data logging...)


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> oooo thanks dk i like them time to go hunt music lol


Unnnnnnnnnnnnnghhhhhhhhh... listening to Queen Of the Wave by Pepe Deluxe for the first time, now. Was sent to me to hear.

I have no words to describe how much I like this. I fear that I'm going to park in the iJoy chair for days on end, get me one of these vintage (MUST BE VINTAGE) color wheels, pull the shades, and just have this piped into my brain via the ears... and be generally useless. I'm already half loopy from - um - sleep deprivation last night.

I'm just waiting for my heat study to give me the heat curve, tonight. I will have to do at least a second round of it, as the current materials combination is transferring too much heat to the heat sink, but at a nice even rate. (This means increase the mass of the heat sink, the size of the box, or the R value of the baffle chamber. The first two increase shipping costs, so we focus on the third.) I need a slightly higher R baffle, next round. I'll post pics of the setup after I tear it down.

Now, back to listening....


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpternship is confirmed!*

We're going to make March Madness look sane.

Week following Easter is "spring break" for Shrimporium tank monkeys! The Shrimpternship is _confirmed_, and DK is very excited at the prospect of the projects to come... (It will not involve blistering sunburns at the water's edge or getting _tanked_ in the traditional sense of spring break - like the pun???...)

DK's had a couple MAJOR eureka moments the past 24 hours, resulting in her brain going off like a jet engine... she's decided to rebuild the Water Factory from the ground up, which basically means re-arranging the componentry (ok, she admits there are a couple of hunks of NEW componentry coming in, too...) into a more orderly fashion and while doing so addressing a few "executive" issues, such as separation of church and state, um, I mean separation of water flow and electricity source, improved access and modulization for maintenance or replacement of componentry, improved failsafe/alarm engineering, etc. Once her brain decided this WAS going to happen, she awoke with a major buzz in the wees, re-designing the thing in her head, trying to cram all the stuff into an orderly roadmap in the very limited real estate - aye, there's the rub. Gonna be a major upgrade... this will not be happening during the Shrimpternship but will be much discussed and possibly done later this summer in Shrimpternship II after all the design work is complete and parts gathered and logistics worked out. It's gonna be like Ty Pennington came in and hurricane-ed the Water Factory in 24 hours!

She's gonna break it down into three branches: 1) Low ratio blends, 2)high ratio blends, and the brand new branch 3)ferts!!

Now, she's on the run, getting all the ducks in a row for the Shrimpternship so we can be off and running on arrival! First order of business is ordering parts needed so lead times are met by Shrimpternship window, and then menu planning so there is plenty of fuel to rocket us to progress! She's enlisting a local junior geek to install serious tune capability into the Shrimporium so we can pipe in the mesmerizing Queen of the Wave... she's shopping for jumbo disco balls and laser strobes with computer driven programmability (OK, not all of that is true, she lies).

The Aquavac will have the first real run, as DK thinks the perfect time to try this is with another party to help out in case anything goes awry with that FOUNTAIN GRADE pump at the helm. Y'just never know.

She's thinking of asking the Shrimptern if they would like to write a daily blog in her thread here, of all the ruckus of the day. She has some pretty darned coo-el things planned for the Shrimptern to learn about the guts of the making and running of the automated Shrimporium, the science behind the way she does things, and all sorts of stuff she doesn't write about herein. Shrimptern's brain is going to swell, trying to find places to put all the bits 'n' pieces of trivia and coo-el info into a matrix-brain-database.

**********

Tomorrow, round two of the heat experiment commences...

Now, she's got the word _quinquennial_ stuck in her brain... somebody's been talking to her a lot about this word, lately...


----------



## DKShrimporium

Shhhhhhhhh... don't tell the Shrimptern... might scare them off!!


.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Shrimp Legos. Sweet!


----------



## wicca27

lol looks like there is going to be some fun later. i was thinking tetris lol


----------



## wicca27

dk how are things going not seen this updated in a few days are you working bugs out of the system


----------



## DKShrimporium

Apologies to all for the lack of responsiveness. DK is immersed (pun, pun!!) in a MARATHON project and cannot come up for air until the water is flowing again. On top of this, her next door neighbors, the whole family except the father, were in a fatal car wreck where the other driver did intentional death-by-vehicular-suicide at 100 mph - neighborhood has been supporting the family. My neighbors all survived thanks to their Suburban and modern technology and life flight - the fatality was the other driver who had once before attempted unsuccessfully to commit suicide by vehicle.

I'll get back to y'all when I have an opening. Shrimptern scheduled to arrive Sunday!!!

DK


.


----------



## wicca27

thoughts and prayers for the family


----------



## diwu13

Glad their family is well.

I believe this is the first time I've seen pictures of your actual tanks in your shrimp room !


----------



## acitydweller

sad news indeed.


----------



## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> Glad their family is well.
> 
> I believe this is the first time I've seen pictures of your actual tanks in your shrimp room !


The family _survived_, but the mother had a torn carotid artery from the shear forces and due to this has had multiple strokes. She is in a high end rehab hospital currently. Her right side is broken from orthopedic injuries, her left side incapacitated from the strokes. I don't know her prognosis, but I do know the facility is one of the best. We are busy feeding her family as, - you know, Murphy's law - they happened to have their kitchen torn apart, ready for a remodel when this happened, so have no kitchen on top of it! 

********

I haven't taken too many tank shots the past year because I've been preoccupied doing studies and photography is very low on the priority list - they are tiresome to photograph because they aren't really set up for pictures - wrong lighting, slimy glass, etc. 

Shrimptern and I will be doing some SERIOUS tank wrangling next week. That, along with the ALL NEW DK Water Factory 3.0 is going to be a phenominal upgrade. DK pulled out all the stops, emptied her paypal account and then some (don't tell), and fixed every little bug she's accumulated in her 2-3 years of making WF 1.0 and 2.0. I think she must have done 100 upgrades this version - and each one was detail oriented and rather more time consuming to implement than she estimated... she thought after pre-making modules that the install would be a solid two days, but she underestimated the detail work time and it's taken about triple the time she estimated. She has bruises and blisters and hands so sore she had trouble buttoning buttons and shampooing her hair! 

But, it's SOOOOOOOOOOO gonna be worth it!!!!!

OK, I have to get back to work... just did a coo-el re-mount of the Stenner pumps, I can now pull them off the wall in two seconds, no need to unscrew the mounting anymore! - This 3.0 has nearly every component pop-n-go.

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

Your friendly neighborhood shrimptern here. DK has ask me to write about my time in the Shrimporium so here it goes. 

First off, is very cool to see all the projects and gadgets she's bloged about in use. We spent Sunday reseting some tanks for some new shimp she has coming in and today added the plumbing to them and began getting the DKWF 3.0 up and running.

Also learning about some of the mad science she does. I hope to be able to put some of it to use, especially if she has success with these new shrimp.

She's a pretty good travel agent. I got a tour of the surrounding Omish country. Beautiful countryside, lots of cows, horses, and buggies. I was also treated to some of the best ice cream I've ever had, so rich ,creamy and YUMMY!!

Can't wait til tomorrow.:icon_wink


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## wicca27

cant wait to see new pics


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## diwu13

Sounds like your having a blast shrimptern !


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK, here.

Shripmtern is being modest. Day one we physically moved 5 tanks, including emptying and cleaning and resetting two of them, and moving three others with shrimp still inside. This was done to get the species in the right positions for the new water system and also to correct some placement for temperature preferences.

The WF 3.0 work is too long to describe here, but it's detail work that will result in a phenomenal system, that we also worked on.

Today, we ignite the Aquavac for her maiden run, emptying a 75 and re-setting two 75s, moving one from upstairs to downstairs in the shrimporium, after we drill it.

Gotta run... busy week!

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so we've been busy. Really, really busy. Right now, DK and Shrimptern are tired, really really tired. So tired, DK sent Shrimptern up to The Chair instead of writing here. Shrimptern has been bonding with the iJoy chair. But what a great week so far!

Today, we took a side trip up to That Fish Place through Amish country, returning to do Shrimporium work. Today's bit of new knowledge was how to remove silicone residue from glass... we used a baking soda paste wetted by WD40. Afterward, we washed down the tank with Dawn dish detergent and a good hose rinse. (Yesterday, Shrimptern learned the art of glass drilling.)

Don't tell, but DK definitely got the good end of this deal. Last night, DK was sipping hot tea while Shrimptern did the dishes! Today, DK had to pop out to Lowes to find a part, and while she went Shrimptern made this amazing black beans and red rice with chunks of sun dried tomato, red onion, marinated artichoke... um... yeah... Shrimptern is a good thing, DK has learned!

We have been too busy to stop to take pictures, and you should SEE the Shrimporium (NOT!!!) - it looks like a tornado hit in there. Actually, it sorta did, figuratively. 

Just as we moved the upstairs 75 gallon tank down to the Shrimporium to automate it, Other Geek ordered up two servers and DK will bequeath the former 75 rack to OG for his server rack...

Oh, we did fire up the DK Aquavac yesterday after a bit of fooling with it. We had so much fun playing with it we even rigged up the shop vac flat spout to it to see if we could use it underwater just like a regular vac, vacuuming the tank "floor" and such. (Unlike a wet-dry vac such as the shop vac, the Aquavac is a "closed loop" system that returns the water to the tank, so you can keep cleaning up as long as the filter bag has room for more accumulation.)

Today's part used for an unintended (plumbing) purpose was this:


----------



## FreedPenguin

Wow DK your level is light years beyond mind. I was proud of my UGF lol!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Your friendly neighborhood shrimptern here again. 

What a week!! Learned alot. The Aqua-vac is so cool and simple. It's amazing how simple she keeps things, except of course the DKWF. It's still hard to get my mind around that thing. I could never come up with something like that. It was fun watching her get it cranked up. 

I spent a few hours netting shrimp out of her 'broke student tank'. I think I netted at least 200 shrimp out. Needless to say my shrimp netting skills have improved and the Maserati's blow all other shrimp nets outta the water. I wish I had more time to help her make more, then again maybe not, because I would have probably tried to sneak a few in my luggage.

She took me to get some greek food today. OH MY GAWD!!! The place was called Grecian Delites. Eastcoasters, look for their feta spreads in a store near you, soon. I ate myself into a mild food coma. 

It was also great getting sonicly assalted by Queen of the Wave on almost a daily basis. Great album! 

My time here seemed so short. I hope to get back someday. People like DK are what make this hobby (especially the shrimp side) so fun and interesting. It'll be a sad day for all of us if she ever decides to get out of it. She is one heck of an amzing person. She's helped a lot of us to become better shrimpers and most of that takes place behind the scenes. 

*Shrimptern bows to the Shrimp Sensei and says a BIG OLE THANK YOU!!*


----------



## wicca27

i want a pic of this net


----------



## GeToChKn

wicca27 said:


> i want a pic of this net


It starts back here.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/shrimp-other-invertebrates/126629-dks-m-d-d-o-i-47.html


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## wicca27

thanks for the link back i SOOOOOOO want one of those lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, Shrimptern has departed for parts far away, traveling home halfway across the country. What an incredible week, and so enriching for a friendship.

It's a bit scary when two extreme hobbyists and foodies get together and symbiose!

Yesterday while chewing the fat, after finally finding some real estate in the tornado storm of the Shrimporium, getting that BEAST of WF 3.0 actually _live_, running feeds to the tanks, we were rewarded to see 5 red tigers non-chalantly wander out of the weeds displaying their loads of eggs! Mind you, this is two weeks into dead water tanks, awaiting the new system. Spring is upon us and with it prime breeding season, and for this reason DK is _most_ grateful for all the willing assistance Shrimptern provided with energy, tunes, and bright blue eyes! This was such a great experience DK will be slunking off to ponder how to do much more of this thing...

One thing that happened was DK was forced to take apart an injector down to the guts, which frightened her, but once inside she was glad of it, learning the way it works and now she's no longer intimidated about the black box-ness of those things - she now knows exactly how they work, and therefore how things can go astray and therefore how to fix them.

Shrimptern didn't mention it, but on the last (daily) trip to Lowes, we ran into DK's fav plumbing guy, who of course chewed the fat with us a good half hour before we were able to go find our parts. Turns out, Lowes plumbing manager knew some folks darned near where Shrimptern lives and had some pretty good anecdotal stories thereof.

Oh, and here's the latest configuration of DKWF 3.0. Up until the day before we fired her up live, DK was awaking in the wees with new EUREKA moments, how to re-configure the beast for one reason or another, mostly to do with new objectives enabled by the new technology, and with chemistry compatibility and component maintenance in mind.

Also a shot of the 75 we moved from upstairs down to the Shrimporium.

Life is short folks, and the world is full of folks, quite a few of them amazing people.

DK closes this post with one of her driving quotes, appropriately from the original Dr. Doolittle soundtrack.

Shrimptern, this is for you. 
DK knows this 
- one of her favorite quotes -
will especially speak to you, 
and your week here:​ 
_"Our lives tick by like pendulum swings,_
_Delicate things, butterfly wings, _
_Life is full of beautiful things,_
_Beautiful people, too._
_Beautiful people, like you."_

_I've already discovered what you left me in the fridge..._​ 


***********

AND IN OTHER NEWS...................................


.


----------



## AlisaR

Red tigers. Lust!


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Have you ever considered entering in a rube goldberg contest? First place hands down!

http://www.rubegoldberg.com/


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK is still getting under control, here, although the WF 3.0 is screamin' perfect, so far!!!

DK is liquidating a bunch of aquarium equipment, locally.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Ever wonder what DK looks like??

Pretty much just like the 9th picture down, especially first thing in the morning...

Portrait of DK (paddle flap picture).

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK updated the Aquavac yesterday, pictures coming after my camera batteries charge.

.


----------



## diwu13

Lol I was expecting an actual picture of you. Those sea slugs look amazing wow.


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## DKShrimporium

For ToddlerMom:

Here's what a proper Super Tiger should look like. First, a happy one will have bright red antennules. The stripes are distinct and crisp, and with a white shadow. There are distinct pigment granules on the body of the carapace, with a slight tint of blue/grey. There is a copper colored tint to the tail and rostrum. If the stripes are sickly, or the carapace is copper tinted, it's likely the shrimp is quite unhappy - look at the antennules for color and they will be nearly colorless in an unhappy shrimp! Also, the secondary white shadows behind the main stripes, and body granules are almost non-existent in an unhappy ST shrimp.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Lousy picture (I AM NOT A PHOTOGRAPHER!!! I STINK!!!), but as soon as I pulled back the moss for some lighting, they all started scooting around fast, looking for food!

Here is a better look at the pigment in those antennules - it's BRIGHT red when they are happy.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Here's a male, juvie, red pigment genes (bottom picture). See the bright red antennules, and longer proportion of them? Males of either color gene show less of the body granules, but you see the copper tint front and back, too. 

And a female, see the white shadow stripes, orange tints, red antennules, granules.


.


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## AlisaR

Drool...


----------



## DKShrimporium

AND... here's the latest version of the DK Aquavac (3.0, now, soon to be 3.1) - made a holder for the larger "tank" and hard plumbed the line to the pump.

Next, I'm going to cut the hard plumb branch and insert a dummy section, so I can pop off the large tank and put on the small tank. I'll want to use the large tank when I'm sucking substrate out of a tank. I'll want to use the small tank when I'm using it on a smaller tank, or when I want to super-clean the tank from mulm.

********

Shrimptern: see what DK bought the other day, $3 ... what's she gonna use it for....


.


.


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## mordalphus

Hummus!


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Hummus!


Gotenny good recipes??


----------



## DKShrimporium

Ooooo... this one sounds interesting...one of my fav sites:

http://www.recipesource.com/munchies/dips-spreads/02/rec0251.html


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## wicca27

lovely red tigers dk seems like my red tiger female has been berried forever now


----------



## mordalphus

I love Hummus. I'm a hummusidal maniac. I make mine with just chick peas, a little juice from the can, a lemon, garlic, olive oil, tahini. If I'm feeling extra feisty ill take a dollup of Thai whole chili sauce and slap it in the blender.


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## FreedPenguin

I love hummus too!
For a second there I thought u were feeding your shrimp garbanzo beans DK! lol!


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## James (Western Canada)

Donna: Ok, first thing in the morning.....but BEFORE coffee??....or AFTER coffee?? lol










this might explain why everyone has always told me that redheads are trouble!! 
James



DKShrimporium said:


> Ever wonder what DK looks like??
> 
> Pretty much just like the 9th picture down, especially first thing in the morning...
> 
> Portrait of DK (paddle flap picture).
> 
> *********
> 
> IN OTHER NEWS:
> 
> DK updated the Aquavac yesterday, pictures coming after my camera batteries charge.
> 
> .


----------



## FreedPenguin

^hahahaha that picture is awesome


----------



## DKShrimporium

James (Western Canada) said:


> Donna: Ok, first thing in the morning.....but BEFORE coffee??....or AFTER coffee?? lol
> this might explain why everyone has always told me that redheads are trouble!!
> James


 
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??

I can't heaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar you, I'm rockin' out to Queen of the Wave right now!


_...DK is celebrating one week on DKWF 3.0 - I must say good things are a happenin' here, just as I had thought they would...._


----------



## Loachutus

DKShrimporium said:


> Gotenny good recipes??


How about this one, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sun-dried-tomato-hummus/

and then of course there's, http://humus101.com/EN/ 

With almost 7lbs of beans, I think you may have enough for some falafel also? Some sauce to go with it? http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tzatziki-sauce/

Great tiger pics!!

Flexible PVC on the rest of the Aquavac?


----------



## DKShrimporium

LATEST NEWS: Today, we have a new land line! We had ditched it a few years ago and gone to cells, but the latest twist with Other Geek's two new servers and stuff related thereof brings us back to a land line.

BTW - number's 867-5309 - ring a bell with anyone?? OK, so I lie, once again...

What's this gotta do with shrimp?

Well, NOW DK can do this, once she gets the DKSnake installed!! It can be done via cells, but I just don't trust 'em! To do that, you have to have a dedicated cell, make sure it's charged, etc. MUCH more reliable with a land line!

Whe-hooooooooo!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> How about this one, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sun-dried-tomato-hummus/
> 
> and then of course there's, http://humus101.com/EN/
> 
> With almost 7lbs of beans, I think you may have enough for some falafel also? Some sauce to go with it? http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tzatziki-sauce/
> 
> Great tiger pics!!
> 
> Flexible PVC on the rest of the Aquavac?


 
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK ordered herself up a shrimp, from Japan, in commemoration of DKWF 3.0.

Yeah, it's in there.

Pictures in a day or two, after she does some "acclimating!"


.


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## wicca27

do tell me its a decoration and not a living shrimp in an envelope? please?.....


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## sbarbee54

Yes do please tell if it was a live one or decoration....


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here is DK's new Japanese shrimp: (Liam will be pleased the trash bag is now passe - we are moving up in fashion!)

Isn't my shrimp striking? Needs a name...


.


----------



## wicca27

way awsome dk i love the new shrimp ..... shrimp kong?


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> way awsome dk i love the new shrimp ..... shrimp kong?


 
Oooooooooo!

Or, Shrimpzilla!


----------



## mordalphus

Was shrimp Kong a shrimpanzee?

I say you name him shrimpzilla, keeper of hiddensauce.


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## wicca27

i like it


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## Loachutus

How about Ebirah?


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## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> How about Ebirah?


Oh, that is even BETTER! Perfect! 

Ebirah, it is. 

As a kid, I grew up staying up WAAAAAAAAAY too late Friday nights and summer nights in the concrete basement watching those cheesy Japanese sci-fi movies, so this is all pure nostalgia! I still remember the giant ants scaling the walls of Tokyo skyscrapers and giant blobs of slime oozing out windows with loads of Japanese citizens screaming and running down the streets!

**************

The shrimp is a fabric print called a furoshiki (text from seller on etsy dot com, search "people" for kyotocollection if you want one to decorate _your_ shrimp space!):

_Furoshiki are traditional Japanese wrapping cloths. _

_I get my furoshiki directly from Hayashi San(Mr. Hayashi), who took over the business from his father, and his company has been making high quality furoshiki like this for over 70 years here in Kyoto. As with many traditional things here, furoshiki are not as commonly used as they once were, and without increased support, both in Japan and abroad, it's inevitable the number of furoshiki companies will keep thinning._

_I've been looking for an authentic source for furoshiki for some time now, and was so glad to find Hayashi San. His company is a member of the Furoshiki Study Group, which is made up of Japan's surviving 40 or so Furoshiki companies. They aim to introduce people to the beauty and practicality of furoshiki. _

_I was also fascinated to learn a bit about the rich history of furoshiki, which is quite long and colorful. As a student of the Japanese language, I was surprised to realize that 'furo' is from the word for bath. I'd never thought to connect the two! And 'shiki' is a thing that is spread on the ground. It seems that In the Edo Period, from the 17th to 19th century, larger sized furoshiki were used to wrap the clean clothes in, carried the just worn clothes home, and in between, were spread on the bath house floor to stand on while changing._
​


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK has been busy cross-pollinating with some other hobbyists... should hopefully have some new goodies to show later today or soon...

heh heh....


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK has gained 85 pounds in the past 24 hours... silica-based petrified wood... all goodness...


...can't y'all just see teeming masses of shrimp crawling all over these ledges...


.


----------



## mordalphus

Dk, I think we need to have a talk about your recent silica-based addiction. This is two times in as many months that youve come home with a 'score'...


----------



## AlisaR

DKShrimporium said:


> ...can't y'all just see teeming masses of shrimp crawling all over these ledges...
> 
> 
> .



I sure hope so!


----------



## dxiong5

Great looking stones! I _can_ see shrimp crawlin' all over them...particularly them Cardinals and their ever-busy white peds - speaking of which, do you keep Sulawesi shrimp?


----------



## wicca27

i so need some of that weight in my tanks its very nice looking


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Dk, I think we need to have a talk about your recent silica-based addiction. This is two times in as many months that youve come home with a 'score'...


Oh, yeah, right, Liam.

I'll bet if we bumped into one another in a dark alley and I slipped you a rock, you'd take it. And come back, and ask if there's any more...



dxiong5 said:


> Great looking stones! I can see shrimp crawlin' all over them...particularly them Cardinals and their ever-busy white peds - speaking of which, do you keep Sulawesi shrimp?


I haven't a single one... their little white claws _would_ look neat, all picking away, though...


***********

Here's what DK did with them. The biomes are designed to culture biofilms on a large top surface area, and have a viewable large underneath area for partying.


.


----------



## wicca27

looks good is there a secret to where you get it cause i would be interested to know where i myself could find some


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> looks good is there a secret to where you get it cause i would be interested to know where i myself could find some


It can be found on ebay and craigslist but beware of sizing; it's extremely hard to tell the size from photographs and weights - look at measurements. Also beware it's expensive to ship as it's heavy and would need good packaging. 

The best way is to find a local gem and mineral club and then ask around among members. Tell them you want something inert that won't leach carbonates or other things. This is how I sourced it, and even then I was extremely lucky because my local club no longer has a source of it. Many collection places require a permit to collect, and if you don't have an active permit you cannot collect raw material.

*************

Pic, tonite - DKMSJ from DKWF 3.0 at work - 5 berried, 1 saddled in this pic


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's something I've been playing with a couple years, now: papaya crystals. They are selectively bred for the "bleed" gene in pigment and have a nearly fluorescent pink/salmon/neon orange overlay. Still working on these...


.


----------



## AlisaR

Why do you show me these things!?!


----------



## wicca27

those are awsome dk


----------



## DKShrimporium

AlisaR said:


> Why do you show me these things!?!


Simple: There are a lot of new masculine heavy-metal head banger (KING KONG, RED WINE) new varieties, and we girls need ours, too. 

So something pink and lacey...

Next, DK's gonna develop a shrimp in nude with black lace overlay... that's girly!

Or maybe a snow white with metallic beaded necklaces... or scarlet red rostrums...

*****

Here's a pic that better shows the scale of rockscape using the petrified wood:


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And some detail shots of the amazing contours of this petrified wood...

They remind me so much of the water's edge scene in What Dreams May Come...

.


----------



## jameshill247

at the risk of sounding stupid...

whats petrified wood?? 

it looks great though!


----------



## James (Western Canada)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood

Take a look @ the list of elements that can be in this!!

*Elements*

Elements such as manganese, iron and copper in the water/mud during the petrification process give petrified wood a variety of color ranges. Pure quartz crystals are colorless, but when contaminants are added to the process the crystals take on a yellow, red, or other tint.
Following is a list of contaminating elements and related color hues:
carbon - black
cobalt - green/blue
chromium - green/blue
copper - green/blue
iron oxides - red, brown, and yellow
manganese - pink/orange
manganese oxides - blackish/yellow

James

=========================================================


jameshill247 said:


> at the risk of sounding stupid...
> 
> whats petrified wood??
> 
> it looks great though!


----------



## wicca27

tanks look awsome. hey dk mind shareing your parameters on the red tigers. i have had mine berry 2 times now but no babys yet


----------



## mordalphus

Looks good! Seems like DK's setting up to do some Sulawesi  Did you make the under side viewable like that because cardinals and harlequins and the like enjoy being under stuff?


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> tanks look awsome. hey dk mind shareing your parameters on the red tigers. i have had mine berry 2 times now but no babys yet


These guys will breed GH 3-8. Not sure on the KH as I've always kept them in KH 0. Temp 68-78.





mordalphus said:


> Looks good! Seems like DK's setting up to do some Sulawesi Did you make the under side viewable like that because cardinals and harlequins and the like enjoy being under stuff?


Pretty much every shrimp I've kept likes to hang on the undersides of things if given the opportunity.

I watched this movie once, Field of Dreams, and it says _if you build it they will come_... trying to find a recording of Mermaid calls...

************
Red tiger mama getting close... you can see the eyes...

And two red tiger babies recently minted, they are about 4 mm now.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And some fresh papaya.

The berried female in this pic has very subtle pigment - the papaya head, a mid-body stripe, and then the tail. Three recent babies on the glass - the middle one shows early promise of stronger pigment.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Oh Shrimpterrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn:

Grecian Delights

DK especially likes the caption on the Feb 28 picture: _Ain't a woman with a drill a sexy sight?_​


----------



## plamski

Nice.I can wait till september when shipping will begin :icon_roll:smile:


----------



## shrimpnmoss

The papayas are awesome.


----------



## Hyzer

Mind blown.http://i.imgur.com/D3lON.gif


----------



## AlisaR

The wait. My fingers are crossed


----------



## mordalphus

DKShrimporium said:


> Pretty much every shrimp I've kept likes to hang on the undersides of things if given the opportunity.
> 
> I watched this movie once, Field of Dreams, and it says _if you build it they will come_... trying to find a recording of Mermaid calls...


Mermaids my butt, I think you're gonna try the higher pH spectrum of your magic water machine and get yourself a slew of sulawesi critters and start pumping them out too 

pfft... mermaids..

MERMAIDS!? COME ON DK!!! YOU GOTTA DO BETTER THAN THAT! Where's my KRAKEN!? Or my Ōsanshōuo!? Mermaids are for pirates and babies!


----------



## Bananariot

DKShrimporium said:


> Here's something I've been playing with a couple years, now: papaya crystals. They are selectively bred for the "bleed" gene in pigment and have a nearly fluorescent pink/salmon/neon orange overlay. Still working on these...
> 
> 
> .


:icon_eek::icon_eek::icon_eek::icon_eek::icon_eek::icon_eek::icon_eek:
My golden obsession has just started......now I want these.........
I want papaya shrimp xD


----------



## AlisaR

I just bought some Golden from Liam. I'll have some Mango in, oh, "a few years"


----------



## DKShrimporium

Hot off the presses... DK's GDR (GodDogRottie) is heading toward 80 pounds and is a man about town...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Quite recently, DK surreptitiously transported herself across state lines to pick up some of these.

Riddle: what do these, plus the odd leftover aquarium heater and air pump create?? Liam??

Hmmmmmmmmmm.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

Holding bin for incoming water adjusted to proper tank temp that 3.0 draws from....or a 1 person homemade Jacuzzi....


----------



## DKShrimporium

Oh, and, Liam: DK's having MUCH more trouble with _this_ addiction, than with silicates. She has a _serious_ problem...


.


----------



## mordalphus

Lol, I have a roasted seaweed problem as well.

I also have some of those food grade water barrels!


----------



## James (Western Canada)

Donna:Is the addiction YOUR consumption, or for the shimplets? I have some ROASTED seaweed here, comes in a bundle of three pkgs of 5 grams per pkg, $1.50CDN/bundle @ one of the markets in Chinatown. Very good salty, crunchy, mmmmm

BTW: I sure hope you didn't pay anywhere close to what graingers wants for those barrels, usually see them on CL or kijiji for $20-25 ea!! (less if you buy many)

James



DKShrimporium said:


> Oh, and, Liam: DK's having MUCH more trouble with _this_ addiction, than with silicates. She has a _serious_ problem...
> 
> 
> .


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> Holding bin for incoming water adjusted to proper tank temp that 3.0 draws from....or a 1 person homemade Jacuzzi....


Oh, man, you're good! Yes... a hillbilly hot tub! And here I thought my riddle would be good for a least a day's entertainment...

Actually, DK is going to use one, _sans heater and air_, to make DKMSJ concentrate, so she can make it once a month instead of once a week, 'cause automation has made DK lazy(er).



mordalphus said:


> Lol, I have a roasted seaweed problem as well.
> 
> I also have some of those food grade water barrels!


These had Smucker's apple puree in them... you should smell them! Mmmmmmm!



James (Western Canada) said:


> Donna:Is the addiction YOUR consumption, or for the shimplets? I have some ROASTED seaweed here, comes in a bundle of three pkgs of 5 grams per pkg, $1.50CDN/bundle @ one of the markets in Chinatown. Very good salty, crunchy, mmmmm
> 
> James


Oh, yeah, my own addiction. DK is UNABLE to eat only one package of these at a time. And then, Costco started carrying them in the jumbo packs... not good, for addicts...

Picture Sesame Street's Cookie monster... that is DK on seaweed.


----------



## mordalphus

Apple puree? I thought for sure it was what your mermaids were shipped in


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Apple puree? I thought for sure it was what your mermaids were shipped in


Well, didja ever consider that maybe Mermaids love apple puree? One idea is not necessarily exclusive of another... lateral thinking at work here...


----------



## mordalphus

I did consider that, but then I remembered that mermaids, in fact, are disgusted by our terrestrial fruits. Your roasted laver, however, is in more danger than you know!


----------



## mordalphus

My stash, up high where mermaids can't get it


----------



## AlisaR

Mermaids were cooked apple puree. But shrimpier and more disgusting and decomposed.
Reattempt in the summer.

I'm very interested in one person hillbilly hot tub. Yeehaw!


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> My stash, up high where mermaids can't get it


Oh yeah...?


.


----------



## AlisaR

DKShrimporium said:


> Oh yeah...?
> 
> 
> .


:icon_eek:

I'm keeping my roast nori in the safe!


----------



## mordalphus

DKShrimporium said:


> Oh yeah...?
> 
> 
> .



Lol, no fair, you can't roll the bathtub into the kitchen! It's a house rule!


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Lol, no fair, you can't roll the bathtub into the kitchen! It's a house rule!


 
Rule?? What is this word, "rule?"


----------



## wicca27

i thinks "rule" is something ment to be broken hehehehe


----------



## FreedPenguin

man you guys have all the fun in here!


----------



## DKShrimporium

The mermaids are slapping their tails and cackling wildly at you, Liam!!!


.


----------



## wicca27

oo ooo ooooo mystery box. this thread is like christmas lol never know whats going to pop up next lol


----------



## nguymi

man you have some sweet activities!!


----------



## DKShrimporium

The mermaids are a-singin' away in their mobile blue ocean, _laughing that they can travel at will on their new skateboard_, to steal seaweed!!! BWAHAHAHAH!!!

AND, they have guardians!


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

nguymi said:


> man you have some *sweet activities*!!


If you're going to join the thread, then you must understand the terminology. We don't do "activities"... we do....


m..a..d.. d..o..-i..n..g..s..

************

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has NOT EVEN installed the DKSnake, yet, but is already contemplating a derivative. You see, she is so lazy. She wants a warning system for when her giant vats of DKMSJ concentrate are getting low, because she is TOO LAZY to check levels in them, all the time.

She thinks she has it figured out. It'll take some special bulkheads and some contemplation of...


bumper cars


yes. the ones at the amusement park, that is



.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

The left dog looks mean and ALL BUSINESS!....the right one with the floppy ears looks like his less-serious more laid back sidekick....


----------



## DKShrimporium

LOOK AT THIS! She looks like she was dipped in Doritos powder, except it's neon pink as well as neon orange! Look up at the reflection, this photo is not juiced in any manner!


.


----------



## AlisaR

Aaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhh.........!!!!!

No more fruit salad ambrosia papaya mango whip cream. I just can't handle the shrimp lust.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Lest you think the Papaya crystals fell out of the sky - they didn't. Here is the grandaddy of the strain.

DK would look at him in resentment and mutter under her breath, "_You are RUINING my gene pool_!!!" She would look at him and declare him the ugliest duckling, ever, and kept wondering why he was SO darned ugly, until one day she in a fit put him under the microscope, and discovered... pigment. She decided it would be sporting and good game to turn lemons into lemonade, for the fun of it.

She then crossed him out to an assortment of whites/goldens and took F1s against each other, separating out the more pigmented ones.

You too can do mad science. If you are mad.

And there you have... _the rest of the story_...


.


----------



## Mike Hawk

amazing


----------



## AlisaR

Going to have to check the stores for a Papaya daddy. Took a close look at the CBS tank and couldn't find a red bleeder.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Death will teach about life.


----------



## AlisaR

:icon_cry: Unimaginable.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Buffo, the GDR, says, "I can guard. Really. I can. Gimme something to guard. Mermaids? No problem. I can do anything you Germans can do..."


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's Broke Student Crystals tank should be back up into production in a couple months... for technical reasons, that tank's been out of commission for a year or so.


No longer...


Just seeded it with these guys.


.


----------



## wicca27

nice shrimps you got there


----------



## GeToChKn

Is this what your papaya head started out looking like?


----------



## DKShrimporium

GeToChKn said:


> Is this what your papaya head started out looking like?


That is a most excellent question, which brings up another: how many pigments are involved in making Papaya Crystals? 

(Bolts started out like the above, only with a darkening rostrum that under the microscope proved to be chromatophores showing bluish pigment - this was bred toward extension until today's bolts.)

I suspect it may be more than one. 

Yes, I did start with some goldens showing a tinge on the head and tail in... orangey/gold. But primarily I bred them to reds and blacks showing a strong pink bleed on their white and noticeable on the sides of their body. After working this color a few generations and selecting back out to whites/goldens and away from reds/blacks, I have enhanced the Papaya coloring somewhat. I am seeing weaker pigment on the males but still a blush on the abdomens from the pink pigment and distinctly orangey/golden tinted heads and tails. The females vary but go up to a rather strong neon pinky/orangey color - this is somewhat hormonally mediated and is more intense during reproduction, but it does persists outside reproduction as well.

I have a new batch of babies on the ground now that are distinctly pink, compared to babies from a different female in the same tank that show primarily white, right now. I'm anxiously awaiting them to grow to see how the pigment matures. They look rather like orange sakura babies at present, and are about 4 mm size.

It's making me crazy that I'm not able to capture pictures of this - my tanks are rather low lit, and on top of that the way the light source is placed it will give back lighting if I try to take pictures, which usuallly ruins the picture, and either the camera or my monitor seems unable to reproduce the neon nature of this pigment as they do not look the same on computer as in real life. In real life the pigment is like those neon painted injected fish, or the color of neon pinky-orange silly string (remember that stuff??).

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

The petrified wood is beginning to culture all manner of lovely landscape slime - tasty biofilms and some algae and diatoms. I'm seeing colonies of stuff that I've never seen before, but this isn't surprising as the water is different quality.

Had a mermaid sighting, yesterday.

----------

Waiting on some - what else - parts. Gonna try Phase II of the aquavac functions. Phase I was to use it to vacuum gravel from a tank, to avoid having to scrape the tank glass - worked quite well. Phase II is to use it to polish established tank water _in situ_, so I can stir up the substrate and set it running to debulk the mulm in the tank.


----------



## wicca27

good luck dk sounds like you got some work ahead of you. cant wait to see the papaya shrimp babies hope you get the color worked out on the computer/camera end


----------



## GeToChKn

I have a hard time getting a good white shrimp photo too sometimes. that above pic doesn't do justice of the red on the head of him/her? as well. I was just curious, saw yours and thought I have one starting to show some traits like that, more so than other goldens I have.


----------



## FreedPenguin

DKShrimporium said:


> DK's Broke Student Crystals tank should be back up into production in a couple months... for technical reasons, that tank's been out of commission for a year or so.
> 
> 
> No longer...
> 
> 
> Just seeded it with these guys.
> 
> 
> .


Dang DK everything you do is on a large scale!
That picture is just SWARMING with shrimp!
that not seeding that is dumping! lol


----------



## madness

DK: IIRC you have a background in biology, right?

Have you ever posted up much of your research/speculation/findings on Taiwan Bee genetics or on any sort of 'color science' in general (similar to what you discuss a few posts up)?


----------



## pinoyghost2

I have a couple of crown Mosura's that are slowly turning pink, on the nose and middle of the body and some on the tail, on is berried too! Maybe I should try one out with a Golden?


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK is a lousy photographer, so when she gets a halfway decent picture, she celebrates. One of her favorite shreeeeeeemps:

She lurves her those "comic book" eyes with the teeny pupil!


.


----------



## wrangler

Hey it's the pintoloosa!! Gorgeous!!


----------



## DKShrimporium

One of those pinky Papaya babies... not sure how it will finish out, but for now it's promising!


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wrangler said:


> Hey it's the pintoloosa!! Gorgeous!!


Prexactly!!



GeToChKn said:


> I have a hard time getting a good white shrimp photo too sometimes. that above pic doesn't do justice of the red on the head of him/her? as well. I was just curious, saw yours and thought I have one starting to show some traits like that, more so than other goldens I have.


Yes, while other _cull_, we _scheme_!!!!!! We watched Rudolf and felt sorry for the Island of Misfit Toys inhabitants! Mad science lives on!!!



FreedPenguin said:


> Dang DK everything you do is on a large scale!
> That picture is just SWARMING with shrimp!
> that not seeding that is dumping! lol


Them thar's one inchers, too, not little uns. From a 15 gallon tank.



madness said:


> DK: IIRC you have a background in biology, right?
> 
> Have you ever posted up much of your research/speculation/findings on Taiwan Bee genetics or on any sort of 'color science' in general (similar to what you discuss a few posts up)?


Thing is, Mad Do-ings are not peer reviewed. 

OK, so even DK screws up. Round 1 of TBs she destroyed thousands of dollars in breeding stock by feeding the little pigs some nori - turns out anyone who tasted it, which, they all did, dropped dead within 24 hours. She first noticed 30 minutes into it that they were standing STONE STILL like STATUES, and thoughts to herself, "hmmmm, thats be weird..." She conjectures that the particular batch of nori contained a copper-rich alga, as some do.

That hurt. Some lessons are more painful than others. Don't _even_ ask how many tanks she put nori into that day... (fortunately, her philosophy is to have so many shrimp that some will always survive a cataclysmic failure... good advice she gave herself, early on - problem is it was too early in the TB colony to have enough. As soon as she noticed something "off," she ripped the nori from all the other tanks - lesson here: TEST ANY NEW TREAT OR FOOD - she smacks herself upside the head at her expensive stupidity)

Round 2 of TBs, she had them in an upper rack across the Shrimporium from the WF. Turns out, the feed lines she was using, for that run length, the pressure dropped enough to make her feeds all messed up. Shrimptern could testify that her tanks are pretty much moss worlds, and she does NOT get in there and stir things up - she leaves the little beasts in peace, so when they meet their demise, she doesn't notice until a long time when she doesn't see anything emerging from the weeds... she had no reason to suspect the water was wrong, or so she thought.

So, she fixed this problem a few weeks ago. And she has extensively tested that particular row on the rack to make sure the new fancy-schmancy imported parts are up to snuff, which they appear to be. Someday she will get more TBs. 



pinoyghost2 said:


> I have a couple of crown Mosura's that are slowly turning pink, on the nose and middle of the body and some on the tail, on is berried too! Maybe I should try one out with a Golden?


Well, the point is not to mix them with Goldens per se, but rather with a shrimp that also shows some sort of "break-through" or bleed pigment and is missing the patterning of reds and blacks, so white or golden, but with pigment promise. You could also breed her to one of her upcoming sons to try to intensify the bleed, first...

DK's gonna throw all her leftover bleeds with pattern into a tank and make a race of Confetti Crystals... Just imagine what you could do along these lines mixing Papayas and Bolts across TB-pigmented patterned shrimp... think outside the box, people!


----------



## wicca27

what is the spotted one a cross with black tiger? its cool. love your shrimp


----------



## sbarbee54

That is a great pic of the pintoloosa!


----------



## DKShrimporium

$1.86

DK ponders... hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

*********

Crystal: that is a vintage line Black Tiger


----------



## wicca27

it is very pretty dk. and are you building mini toilets for your shrimp now hehehe


----------



## DKShrimporium

Friday riddle:

DK is LAUGHING HER BRAINS OUT at these shrimp! She was working on a certain project today, and these guys shocked the heck out of her!

Enniewon wanna guess?



.


----------



## mordalphus

Is the tank below.them split like that? With crs one side and oebt on the other? That would be funny


----------



## wicca27

time to tell the shrimp its not the 50's and they can co mingle now hehe its only the color of their shell hehe


----------



## DKShrimporium

It's every bit as sinister as colorism.

DK did not realize the extent to which there is a thriving shrimp underworld. Sure, she'd heard the accounts of the canister shrimp - plenty of 'em. She's personally seen the shrimp climb phenomenon - into the HOB where they set up offices.

But yesterday, while she was putting in a secondary spill tray under one of her sump basins, she had to take the sump basin all apart to place the tray. And she found an entire community, a ghetto, of underworld shrimp, secretly thriving under the most adverse conditions.

This gang was living off the output of her utility sink, where she dumps water testing chemicals, washes her hands and bleaches nets and containers, and sends the water down the drain...

...into the sump basin.

Where

they were all living, peacefully, but surreptitiously.

When you live in the underworld, you must be a survivor!

.


----------



## Mike Hawk

DKShrimporium said:


> It's every bit as sinister as colorism.
> 
> DK did not realize the extent to which there is a thriving shrimp underworld. Sure, she'd heard the accounts of the cannister shrimp - plenty of 'em. She's personally seen the shrimp climb phenomenon - into the HOB where they set up offices.
> 
> But yesterday, while she was putting in a secondary spill tray under one of her sump basins, she had to take the sump basin all apart to place the tray. And she found an entire community, a ghetto, of underworld shrimp, secretly thriving under the most adverse conditions.
> 
> This gang was living off the output of her utility sink, where she dumps water testing chemicals, washes her hands and bleaches nets and containers, and sends the water down the drain...
> 
> ...into the sump basin.
> 
> Where
> 
> they were all living, peacefully, but surreptitiously.
> 
> When you live in the underworld, you must be a survivor!
> 
> .


Wow that's amazing did you check them for three eyes :hihi:


----------



## DKShrimporium

So... DK had to spring the $1.86 for the float ball, on her now weekly trip to Lowes (OK, maybe _twice_ weekly, but, hey, after WF 3.0 at least it's not _daily_).

The rest of the parts she scrounged from her buckets and barrels o' stuff.

Made her a level indicator in her new industrial 55 gallon size of DKMSJ concentrate vat. She is lazy, so now can make DKMSJ only once a month or so.

You can't see it, but I assumed you'd figure it out: the float ball is at the end of the floating rod down in the barrel, when it sinks with the liquid level the rod length up top gets shorter. Eventually, DK will likely rig this up to even more goodness, but for now she will use her eyes. At least she doesn't have to undo the lever lock ring and pry off the lid to see the liquid level, for now...



.


----------



## AlisaR

Wow, can you breed out some of those nuclear waste survivor shrimp?


----------



## wicca27

what kind of shrimp where they or did they start off being did you create a new strain of shrimp hehe. i have always thought they are stronger than we think they are this just proves it lol


----------



## James (Western Canada)

Donna: Instead of this....










Have you ever tried these??










they are called snap grip clamps, they work well on things like that, and as an added bonus they can be released, rather than having to cut them, as you would have to cut the tie wraps......

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-hose-clamps/=ha4sqp

James


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> what kind of shrimp where they or did they start off being did you create a new strain of shrimp hehe. i have always thought they are stronger than we think they are this just proves it lol


Well, let's see. There were crystal reds, blue tigers, orange sakura, blue bees, a red tiger, and I forget what else in the ghetto grouping!




James (Western Canada) said:


> Donna: Instead of this....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have you ever tried these??
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> they are called snap grip clamps, they work well on things like that, and as an added bonus they can be released, rather than having to cut them, as you would have to cut the tie wraps......
> 
> http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-hose-clamps/=ha4sqp
> 
> James


Got 'em.

Four sizes, two colors, even. (My smallest ones are all in use, presently.)

Just used some this morning, as a matter of fact.


.


----------



## mordalphus

Donna, have you ever thought about using your powers for good instead of evil?


----------



## Loachutus

DKShrimporium said:


>


What is to become or ever became of the Ghetto Gang? Inquiring minds wanna know.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Donna, have you ever thought about using your powers for good instead of evil?





Loachutus said:


> What is to become or ever became of the Ghetto Gang? Inquiring minds wanna know.


Being an EVIL slum lord-ess, DK keeps one caridina and one neocaridina ghetto tank, into which she plops any respective shrimp that may have social (well, OK, or challenges of _cosmesis_ - that's not actually a word, according to dictionary.com, _but it should be one_) issues and doesn't fit into their otherwise correct tank. Her personal "Island of Misfit Toys" x 2. 

So, they have vastly upgraded their digs, and certainly now they have much more _legitimacy_. Occasionally, she will debulk the slums to some desperately poor student-type who wants to dabble in cheap shrimp. (Liam, does that qualify as "good??")

But mostly, she watches the slums for three-eyed freak-os and observes Darwinianism at work. Interesting things happen, in the slums, she can tell you. Shrimp are not so different from people, she's discovered from ghetto watching, tending to form cliques and mingle with their own. There is the occasional Romeo and Juliet where the Montagues and Capulets merge genetic material, but it happens rather rarely, actually! Mostly, they want their little Johnnys and Suzies to look just like them.

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Zoro tools had the stupidity to send DK a coupon for $30 off a $75 order (she ordered $75.92, so paid $45.92 to get these items cheap, _and_ free shipping), and they offer free shipping on orders over $50 as well, so DK made good on it, buying herself another drum dolly and a pressure regulator/gauge combo, and some 8 foot long 1/4 inch PVC rod (the idea of _PVC_ rod really appealed to her, because she can glue it easily, which this may just come in very handy someday when she digs the rod pieces out of her buckets and barrels of parts) with which she may make a few longer-handled Maseratis or use in the liquid-level indicators/alarms she has swimming around her squirrely brain, lately. This thought process is significantly interrupted this morning, however, with thoughts of reactors to pull the CO2 from her water, live - long story. Not good when two competing projects are fighting it out in her brain at the same time... so noisy.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, ok, now.

The zoro toys have arrived. The "drum" dolly is actually a trash can dolly which had appropriate specs for what DK wanted. Problem is it's built for a certain container with a ridge at the bottom, so has a button sticking up to fit into that ridge...hmmmmm... DK needs a flat bottom to support her barrel.

Once again, PVC pipe is useful.

But, she throws out to all y'all peeps: how should she secure the rings on the platform, so they don't slide around or fall off? She has an idea, but thought it would be fun to see if anyone out there bests her idea.

The black part is polyethylene, which means effectively that no glue will bond to it.

Simple, cheap, works, y'know.

Have at it, peeps...


.


----------



## GeToChKn

I'd use L brackets to secure the PVC there.


----------



## Mike Hawk

Here is my idea

Drill 2 holes in each pvc pipe
Run some type of rope through the holes
set the PVC tubes in place
Tie the rope tightly to keep the PVC from moving.
The finished product would look like you have it in that picture but with a rope running through all the PVC


Or you can use 3M Scotch Weld DP 8010 but that's kind of expensive.


----------



## sbarbee54

Sand the roller a little, and go to Lowes and look in the caulk ilse. They have plenty of plastic bonding materials, from lock tights to JB weld. I think even gorila glue brand makes some. Key is scuffing the roller. We used a JB weld to piss off the janitors in high school, we sanded the bottoms of the rollers a little, then used 10 tubes of JB weld we took from Auto shop and glues 20 of the trash cans to the rollers she he had to empty all the trash cans by hand and not the dolly.


----------



## DKShrimporium

GeToChKn said:


> I'd use L brackets to secure the PVC there.


Mmmmmmm. HMmmmm.

5 brackets, 15 holes, 15 screws, minimum

Pretty cheap, pretty simple. Would require a trip to Lowes.



Mike Hawk said:


> Here is my idea
> 
> Drill 2 holes in each pvc pipe
> Run some type of rope through the holes
> set the PVC tubes in place
> Tie the rope tightly to keep the PVC from moving.
> The finished product would look like you have it in that picture but with a rope running through all the PVC
> 
> 
> Or you can use 3M Scotch Weld DP 8010 but that's kind of expensive.


Yeah, I know you CAN glue (ok, chemically WELD) polyethylene, but that stuff is like $25 a tube, nope. Plus, the lead time and shipping... not locally available _or_ cheap. 

*******

10 holes, but have to be drilled on slippery round surface - I guess that wouldn't be too bad - stick 'em in the vice to hold 'em. Rope is cheap.

Necklace concept is simple, but presents some challenges of lateral stability - the rings may not shift laterally so would have to be secured from doing so somehow.

Mmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmm.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

sbarbee54 said:


> Sand the roller a little, and go to Lowes and look in the caulk ilse. They have plenty of plastic bonding materials, from lock tights to JB weld. I think even gorila glue brand makes some. Key is scuffing the roller. We used a JB weld to piss off the janitors in high school, we sanded the bottoms of the rollers a little, then used 10 tubes of JB weld we took from Auto shop and glues 20 of the trash cans to the rollers she he had to empty all the trash cans by hand and not the dolly.


LIAM!!! _I_ am not the evil one!!! 

********

Um, whachu callin' the "rollers?" - 'Cause I DO want the wheels to roll. I just DON'T want the PVC rings to move. 

Really, the guy at Lowes is gonna think I have a crush on him, showing up _so often_.


.


----------



## Mike Hawk

What about the necklace idea with 2 smaller diameter PVC between the others or aybe 15 PVC rings roped together that are slightly smaller in diameter but the same height.


----------



## wicca27

velcro tape?


----------



## DKShrimporium

So... let's review. Need a solution to stabilize the PVC rings on the dolly platform, to keep them from shifting or falling off. Ideal solution is cheap, simple, doesn't require a trip to Lowes, uses stuff DK already has, does least damage to structure, leaves no sharp edges, and is reversible. OK, so I added a few things, but they are always on my list, anyway. (Also on my standard list is _modular_ and _re-configurable_, but they don't apply here.)

First, we must be mindful of structural considerations - this is meant to bear weight - liquid weight - and we want no failures due to our do-ings. We take a look at the underbelly.

DK is rewarded for hoarding... she dug into her stash and pulled out these peculiar screws she had saved "because they might come in useful, someday!" _Just_ the thing.

Five minutes to make a template - this is key, because she used geometry to her advantage - need the _widest_ point on the circle so that only two screws can be used and the ring will not be able to move.

One minute to mark the holes, two to drill them. K.I.S.S.

Voila.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, yesterday, a "local" TPT hobbyist came over to buy some aquarium equipment DK had up for sale, no longer needed due to automation. He and his lovely, friendly, but very quiet girlfriend were here a good time, looking through stuff. (They drove 1.5 hours to get here - that is local when you live in the Amish boonies like DK does.)

Mr. "Plant guy" left.... _with a bag of shrimp_. And a buncha other stuff.

DK spreads the infection...

He also almost left with the Germans, who, while we were loading up his car and the side door was open, took it upon themselves to quietly and non-chalantly climb up into his car and seat themselves, one in the back seat, the other in the driver's seat!

**********

This week, she also managed to score a new junior addict client - a 5 year old whose hobbyist dad set up a tank for Jr. and asked junior what he wanted in it - "shrimp like daddy's tank" and so a boatload of cherries later, DK gets reports back that said 5 year old spent the entire evening staring at all the new cherries, especially the tiny babies amongst the ones DK sent them...

DK spreads the infection...


.


----------



## AlisaR

Is there a cure?


----------



## DKShrimporium

AlisaR said:


> Is there a cure?


Not that I've discovered. At best, one can shift one's drug of choice.


.


----------



## mordalphus

Called it!


----------



## AlisaR

That one is definitely a Samantha vs a Sam.


----------



## DKShrimporium

I like this new term I just read, "You've been zuckered."

For such an intelligent specie, we are surprisingly stupid, at times - devoid of _common sense_. 

What sort of business model is this - DK buys two 8 foot long 1/4 inch PVC rods at $4 something each. The company offers her a ~40% discount AND free shipping on said purchase. They arrive thusly. Just the packaging would cost again what the product is worth. And the freight - they arrived by private truck freight - would probably be double what the product is worth.

So, for less than $6, she gets these delivered like this, to her door.

Somebody's business model ain't a gonna survive long at this rate.

And sometimes, DK just needs a good rant.


.


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## wicca27

oooo what are you going to do with those


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> oooo what are you going to do with those


Dunno, yet. The irony is that they were a filler item, for my order. But being PVC, I can use them in any number of ways, someday, including gluing them to make coo-el stuff!

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK wants some of these, from Sulawesi: (Don't think they could share a tank with shrimp, though... shrimp would be too tasty...)

(source: http://www.richard-seaman.com/Underwater/Indonesia/Lembeh/Highlights/index.html)


.


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## DKShrimporium

DK has decided to name this chick _Cheeto-Dorito_ (roll the r). Sorta like Charo, she is colorful (the color of cheetos and nacho doritos), flamboyant, and voluptuous, y'know.


.


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## wicca27

is that from the papaya line dk its an awsome orange and love the white baby that snuck in under her in the last pic lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> is that from the papaya line dk its an awsome orange and love the white baby that snuck in under her in the last pic lol


Yeah. Most of them look like orange creamsicles, but Cheeto-Dorito (roll the r) looks like a cheeto. The camera or monitor just doesn't capture the pigment well - it's nearly fluorescent in nature on her. The picture of her in the shadows (not backlit) is more accurate than the closer one - the closer one is washed out due to the camera compensating for low light combined with the low light being backlit through the shrimp.

She didn't start out colored! It came after sexual maturity and has intensified more and more. As babies they are white, but now that the pigment is getting stronger due to selective breeding, I swear I'm seeing a tiny bit of pigment on some of the babies. You can see this best from a distance when looking at the RANGE of babies, you see a few that look pinkish RELATIVE to the others. Here's a picture, trying to show this - look at the segment behind the chest, on the abdomen/tail and you see a faint tint of peach color. That is a 3-4 mm baby. I'm super excited to see how this season's babies finish out, but it will be several months before I know since I have to wait all the way to sexual maturity.


.


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## wicca27

verry cool congrats on it showing earlier now and keep up the good work your shrimp are awsome


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## DKShrimporium

Nuthin' like a little drama.

It all started at 6 am two Sundays ago, with a $900 ambulance ride into another state to the ER of a _gigantic_ medical complex, and went from there.

(DK was in the ambulance, but was not the protagonist, thankfully, and the situation has resolved without permanent negative prognosis. Well, other than the financial.)

From there, DK has had the flu - at least it isn't hospital-acquired MRSA flesh eating stuff.

DK's furnace/central air blew out the air handler, so she will be doing HVAC surgery this weekend.

DK's Other Geek managed to blow out the light in the the less than year old microwave, so a new bulb is ordered and the schematic printed out for future microwave surgery when it arrives. (Never noticed how useful a light in the microwave is until it went out.)

And, to top it off, the Mermaids went and got thesselves knocked up.

Sheesh.


.


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## guppies

With all the drama going on, you managed to sneak in a berried cardinal


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## wicca27

sorry bout all the "drama" hope all is well or at least getting better, and congrats on the new berry. i was looking at that pic of the Cheeto-Dorito (roll the r) and the baby under her and the tail of the baby does have a slight orange tint to it in that pic good luck with all the new shrimp and all the other goings on


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## DKShrimporium

Sometimes, things just show up in the mail, here. Like today, look what a surprise DK got. She wondered why the box was sloshing, sounding like water.

Does anyone else think of elephants, looking at these guys??? 

Coo-el. 


.


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## DKShrimporium

And while I'm at it, my GDR is nearly unrecognizable as a puppy!!!

There's a whollotta dog food between those two pictures, but not much time!!


.


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## AlisaR

Woohoo!


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## DKShrimporium

************BREAKING MONDAY MORNING NEWS***********

DK has just concluded (well, for the most part - the practical part) discussions toward Shrimpternship 2012 2.0!!

Shrimptern 2012 2.0 will be traveling cross country (like, almost 1/2 cross country) and arriving *next week*! There is a full docket of potential projects and more importantly DK is coming off that stupid flu and is getting really hungry after not eating so much for 2 weeks!

DK is also hoping Shrimptern 1.0 will be able to return later this summer to see the fruits of their labor... due to WF 3.0 work when 1.0 was here there was nearly no shrimp activity going on. The tanks are starting to move toward their production parameters now and by late summer we should have some decent shrimp action going on.

This morning, DK ordered these, in preparation for the latest hair-brained scheme, which she hopes to find time for in Shrimpternship 2.0. The tricky part is going to be to do it _in situ_... There is so much to do, she realizes! Using parts from something Shrimptern 1.0 and she tore down, she just this morning came across her new project obsession! She may need Shrimpterns 3.0, 4.0, 5.0...!!!

DK needs to go shopping for some raw materials, now, before Shrimptern 2.0 gets here...


.


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## wicca27

are those draw sliders? this is interesting to say the least


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> are those draw sliders? this is interesting to say the least


Well, that would be their _intended purpose_, which would be true if, for example, the project was to build a king-sized captain's bed with six pull out aquarium tank platforms underneath it - one could lounge in bed and pull out the drawer du jour and spy from the top down on one's specie of interest, perhaps sprinkling a little spirulina dust down upon the subjects.

But, we are not using them thusly.

It isn't _sporting_ to use too many things for their _intended purpose_. That does not require lateral thinking, or too much innovation.


.


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## wicca27

that is true, i can only imagine what you will come up with for those


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## mordalphus

Dk is installing slideout shotgun mounts under all tables and beds... I know how you country folk work!


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## sbarbee54

sweet idea!


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## DKShrimporium

sbarbee54 said:


> sweet idea!


The captain's bed, or the gun turrets?

And, Liam, really. Shotguns? Technology is sooooooo much more interesting than that, nowadays, even for bubettes.

**********

Next part of the project, after digging around DK's bins & barrels o' stuff:
Yeah, they're really dirty, still. Their INTENDED purpose is home gutters. Their first DK purpose was wall-mounted poultry feeders. Now, they are on to their next rendition...


.


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## wicca27

ok im guessing moving lights? pull them out over the tank and push them back a bit to do maintanece


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## DKShrimporium

Oh, WOW. Shrimptern 2.0 has just come up with a brilliant idea. We are already working on some projects, ahead of time.

I need to go back to the drawing board, a bit, with the new idea.

Went to Lowes today, and it borders on embarassing for me to go there nowadays. The guys there know me so well that they love to help me, because I always present them a challenge with a project doing something whacko. They are eager to get to me when they see me in the store. Not that I'm there all the time oh how I lie...

Some of the parts I bought I can use with the new idea, but now I need to go back to Lowes to change a few out...

Coo-el.


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## DKShrimporium

BREAKING NEWS>>>>>>>>>>

Look what I found in the yard. OK, so it's a hummingbird nest, big deal.

But, look closer. This particular nest is made from DK's Germans' and DK's hair. It so happens that among other hats, she is the family cosmetologist, and, being a bubette, she throws the hair out into the back yard. Yeah, she cuts her own hair, even.


In one picture, if you look at the full size image, you see a hair that is half white half black - telltale agouti. In the other close up, dark human hair with severed ends...

.


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## wicca27

thats cool


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## mordalphus

Haha, everyone calls me a hair farmer because I'm covered in the stuff, but Dk actually is one.


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## DKShrimporium

DK and Shrimptern 2.0 are pondering this, behind the scenes, in preparation for next week...

Do ya like my fancy schmancy photo-studio backdrop - it's a T-shirt clothespinned around my desk lamp...


.


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## dhgyello04

lol.... I love following your post Donna.


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## DKShrimporium

Didn't think I'd be ready for another _how-do-they-stay-in-business_ rant, so soon.

So, DK orders herself a pair of heavy duty drawer slides. In the top picture. For $18, shipped.

Other Geek: "What did you order that's SO HEAVY?"

DK: (rolls eyes, scuffs feet, flicks pupils back and forth rapidly) "Um, have no idea. Din't order anything that should weigh that much."

Opens package.

They sent a *case*, instead of a *pair*.

Hmmmmmmm.

********

Oh, and the light bulb for the microwave arrived, as well. 


.


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## wicca27

that case should come in handy for something or another right hehehehehe


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## tetranewbie

Holy bejesus DK!


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## Craigthor

bwahahaha... Now all the shrimpie tanks can go in an out.


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## DKShrimporium

Well now, normally DK is not too interested in drama. And she has an executive policy of categorically NOT photographing and posting pictures of herself or her body parts online, unless there is no way to avoid it - I mean: hands, no big deal.

But thank goodness for itching.

This morning, her wrist was itching.

By some amazing fortune, she was able to spot and recognize this - yikes!!!

She used her best forceps, and still the head broke off and now she's wondering what to do. She even used the forceps under her microscope, to do the deed, and can use same microscope to verify that, yup, that nasty mouth part is still attached to her.

By the way, all these were taken BEFORE she "removed" the vermin. See how dang small it is??

UGH!!

Oh, yeah, DK is totally not into fine accoutrements, as you can see from her cheapo import watch. They do nothing for her.


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## DKShrimporium

UPDATE (yes, minutes later).

DK could not abide by tick parts embedded into her, no matter HOW small. So she got out a needle and did the deed.

Here is the needle she used. Under the microscope.

The tick parts picture is a blow up of the needle picture.

See how small? DK is impressed with herself that she was able to get these pictures!

Said wound is now recovering slathered in neosporin and underneath a fancy-schmancy waterproof bandage, although she will not be subjecting that area of skin to shrimp tank water for at least 24 hours. Unfortunately, being a Geekette, and thus having not one but TWO microscopes, she has pulled samples of shrimp tank waters and seen all what is growing in there, to glom onto such broken-skin wounds...


.


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## wicca27

awsome pics, sorry about the reason for them, do keep an eye on the area and take photos with you to the dr if for some reason you start filling ill


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## sbarbee54

put some vasaline on it next time. it will sufficate it and it should back out in 3 hours or so. Most ticks with their body broken off are still alive and will continue to cause havok, but some do die. Another trick is to soak it with rubbing alcohol. Or just get a scalple and have at it


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## Bananariot

Are you gonna have the tick checked for lyme disease? Idk how it is in PA but Long Island has a crazy amount with deer and such so whenever we get a tick we send it in just to be safe 

Hopefully everything's good!


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> awsome pics, sorry about the reason for them, do keep an eye on the area and take photos with you to the dr if for some reason you start filling ill


Yes, on alert for Lyme, for sure. Ironically, I just had delivered a bottle of doxycycline this week!



sbarbee54 said:


> put some vasaline on it next time. it will sufficate it and it should back out in 3 hours or so. Most ticks with their body broken off are still alive and will continue to cause havok, but some do die. Another trick is to soak it with rubbing alcohol. Or just get a scalple and have at it


Fortunately, I know definitively that I got all the parts out, from looking at the process under the microscope. That thing was incredibly small - we're in prime tick country (often have a herd of deer in our backyard and have 44 acres of wild scrub bordering our yard that is full of deer) but this is the very first time in all these years living here I've ever actually seen one of these tiny ticks. We get the large ones daily in tick season, between two Germans.



Bananariot said:


> Are you gonna have the tick checked for lyme disease? Idk how it is in PA but Long Island has a crazy amount with deer and such so whenever we get a tick we send it in just to be safe
> 
> Hopefully everything's good!


Well, don't have it anymore. Got to it early in the process so hopefully chances are very low. Even if it was a carrier hopefully I nuked it with the neosporin which is soaking the wound for a day.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK broke with tradition and went to the BORG. Picked up a couple pieces of lumber, a few bits of hardware, and a security torx set.

She then had it out with the microwave, and in 5 minutes... _let there be light_.


.


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## wicca27

never thought about the light being so important in the microwave but you do have a point kinda need one when using it for something other than popping corn


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## diwu13

Dang... you are definitely a righty then haha. I can't imagine how much longer it would've taken if you were a lefty!


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## DKShrimporium

diwu13 said:


> Dang... you are definitely a righty then haha. I can't imagine how much longer it would've taken if you were a lefty!


The hard part was that I did it under the microscope, so every time I pushed the skin with the needle it changed the plane of focus. I had to rig the plane of focus slightly depressed so when I did push it went INTO focus. 


.


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## ravensgate

Good gravy...needles and scalpels for ticks? Must be in lyme country. I remove at least 30 a day from dogs and horses and occasionally myself. Fingernails and being used to pulling them do the trick! 

Fingernail polish remover gets them to back out. That or vaseline or rubbing alcohol like suggested but fingernail polish remover does it quicker.


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## DKShrimporium

Heh heh heh... Shrimptern 2012 2.0 is en route, today...

*********

IN OTHER NEWS

DK re-did a made-from-parts-'n'-pieces canopy light fixture, over the weekend. It's over a vintage craigslist tank (36", the WORST size tank to light) and she wanted to improve the light performance but with a cheaper light source. She replaced four undercabinet 18 inch fixtures that required $8 per bulb (minimum, more if specialty bulbs) with an array of spiral compact fluorescents at a couple bucks a pop and readily available in the correct spectrum at her local Lowes. She ditched the idea of encasing the run in the vinyl gutter as it was the wrong dimensions, and eventually came upon the sockets-mounted-into-conduit-junction-boxes - they are the perfect size and weight and structure. The sockets are ceramic ($2) with an L bracket attached to them which DK used to pop-rivet into the junction boxes. Tank doubled its available light at a cost of only 30 more watts power consumption (went from 4 x 15 watt linear bulbs to 5 x 18 watt spirals).

(The doubling wasn't due to wattage, but rather distribution: going through the polycarbonate twinwall at an angle, light is lost; this new configuration produces more light directly over the plant mass that passes straight down through the twinwall. The Twinwall is part of DK's vapor control and energy efficiency program.) 

Everything about this tank is utility, so elegant and sleek it aint!


.


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## DKShrimporium

The Mermaids are changing their outfits... had a smorgasboard of zucchini last night and apparently their outfits got tight... hussies!

Under the microscope the molts are perfect... but have you ever looked at a molt under the microscope? _Teeming_ with microscopic life...


.


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## tetranewbie

Wow, that's a great scope shot!


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, Shrimptern 2012 2.0 has arrived, and in true DK fashion she worked her so hard she was too tired to blog on evening 1. After a fairly extensive technical tour of the Shrimporium, including such critical items as ways to use a coffee maker in a Shrimporium not related to producing libations, we went after the double wall over. Yeah, you heard right.

Oh, yeah, it was after chowing on black beans and red rice a la Shrimptern 1.0.

We pulled the wall oven (double wall oven, that is - twice as heavy) from the cabinet and installed two new squirrel cage circulating fans, fooled around with the electronics, and then re-installed it into the cabinet. A replacement brain is en route - that will be installed in a couple days.

We must get the oven back in working order because, well, we have plans for it, this week. So now you know. DK gets real excited to meet anyone who has no qualms about hauling an appliance out of the wall and rippin' her open and re-gutting it. Niiiiiiiiiiiice.

Murphy, being ever hard at work, made sure to blow out the appliance (as well as the guest bathroom light fixture ballast) in the days just before Shrimptern's scheduled arrival. 

There was one night Shrimptern 1.0 was so tired that they laid down on the basement floor face down about 5 minutes, to re-charge. At the time, DK was gutting a light fixture, if I remember correctly. And they plan to come back, with fireworks (literally)!

DK scratches her head. Must be the awe inspiring Germans, the draw.

Today we head into Shrimporium projects, and there are a pile from which to choose. 

DK must sign off now, because she needs to order the "wow" part for a project that's been in the making... hope to pull it all together this Shrimpternship to share with y'all. DK smiles, even now, thinking about it...

In her squirrely brain she keeps hearing, "CHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!...........CHhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"


.


----------



## Shrimptern2.0

Howdy all!

This is shrimptern 2.0 reporting in from the shrimpery! (Okay, well that's actually not true, I'm reporting in from the iJoy chair)

Today was day one of real shrimping, and I have a few things to report, 
1. No matter how amazing you think the paypayas are, you're wrong. They're better! Cheeto Dorito (roll the r) made an appearance for me today and wowy howy she's a beaut. 
2. No matter how complicated you think the water factory is, you're wrong. It's more complicated. But totally neeto.
3. Mermaids are shy
4. Souv vide chicken + satay = delish!

Stay tuned for more m..a..d.. d..o..-i..n..g..s........


----------



## DKShrimporium

Know why that's short? 'Cause this is what we did today. We cased in a doorway to the Shrimporium for a secondary door that will hold an air conditioner, so the Shrimporium can have its own climate control and humidity control system when needed.

So, we's tired. 

And then, we ate that satay, and it mades us sleepy.

So, sleepy, and tired. But we got a lot done.

Oh, and Shrimptern 2.0 discovered the very first berried female of a specie that is DK's newest. That was very exciting, as DK has only had them about a month! They're in proof of concept phase now, along with the Mermaids.

We had a brand new Mermaid molt, so we's threw it under the dissecting scope, and Shrimptern got to see all the stuff flying and teeming about a discarded shrimp carapace - lots o' action biologically.

The double oven brains did arrive, and we did install them, but alas the error code is telling us that the keypad is bad... 

Did our DAILY trip to Lowes, but have not had Amish ice cream, yet. Quite possibly tomorrow, though. DK will get the coconut and some sort of, yes, chocolate, yes a hogful two dips. We shall see what Shrimptern 2.0 tries. It's high milk fat stuff.

Here are some pics, from today:


.


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## DKShrimporium

JUST IN:

We snuck off to the local, well, place of shopping (DK augmented her daily 34 ounce Bubba Mug of java with a large Macky-D's iced coffee... - counter-acting the sleepy and tired, but too cheap for Starbucks, that is...), and here is the Amish parking behind the Starbucks. Shrimptern took the pic for me and emailed them home...


.


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## diwu13

HAHA. There's the horse and buggy parking you told us about a while back


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## DKShrimporium

That there's four balls of milk fat, two of which sent DK into a food coma today. She probably scared the beejeebers out of Shrimptern 2.0 today as she _nearly_ fell asleep at the wheel after a legendary eat-fest, and sort of drifted off the road while driving, nearly into the weeds. She actually had to return home and take a nap, until the blood fat level subsided.

Peanut butter swirl, butter brickle, chocolate almond, coconut. Jersey cow milk Amish ice cream.

It was worth it, and believe it or not, not the end of eating for the day, either...


.


----------



## tetranewbie

Hola!

Once again reporting from the wonderous iJoy chair. 

Today was... DELICIOUS! Yes, the whole day. Amish ice cream = best stuff ever! And then there was a smorgasbord of samples... salsas, relishes, jams, dips, soups... heaven. And I even got to bring little jars of heaven back with me, and they're all MINE bwahhahahaha!

After we had satiated ourselves with amish delights (like the turkish ones, but better) we ran off to what was quite possibly one of the coolest grocery stores ever. Even had walk-in freezers! (haha, get it... "cool"?)

By this point, I do believe that I had accomplished the near - impossible! I had worn DK out. Literally, she napped! (Or rested at the very least) Granted I've only known her in real life a few days, but I really didn't think that would ever happen! And I'm taking full credit for it!!! 
shhh... I promise, it wasn't just because we had filled ourselves with yummy foods that made us sleepy, really it wasn't!

Exciting news from SHRIMPLAND too!!! We spotted a bunch of Cheeto Dorito (roll the r) babies today, and they're showing incredibly amounts of pigment at such a small size, they're gonna be freaking awesome! 
Tomorrow should see the install of the A/C system for the shrimporium, and possibly the WATER SNAKE! It's a wonderfully simple and yet very elegant solution. I'm consistently impressed here! 

Stay tuned for mores! Oh, and pictures too...


----------



## DKShrimporium

See, I'm not the only one with food-coma-induced malfunction. Shrimptern 2.0 has de-cloaked by accident. 

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Here is the daily picture of progress. Mostly, we progressed by ingesting calories, driving through Amish farm country for the day. We brought home a _vat_ of tzatziki. If we cannot cook using an oven, we will yet prevail using sous vide, gas grill, cooktop, or some other technology!

We did a tiny bit of work on the doorway, after dinner.

In case you're wondering, DK had the door, already, free. She didn't want to decrease the doorway opening any, so they made a secondary filler on a hinge that fills the space and swings out of the way. 

We threw a couple Cheeto Dorito babies under the scope today, to convince ourselves that the pigment we were seeing was real even in 3-4 mm babies, and yes, we saw it under the scope!

We did water changes in 20 something tanks, twice, today. Oh. Wait. We just sat around and watched, doing nothing. The Water Factory did all that. My bad.


----------



## Loachutus

DKShrimporium said:


> That there's four balls of milk fat, two of which sent DK into a food coma today. She probably scared the beejeebers out of Shrimptern 2.0 today as she _nearly_ fell asleep at the wheel after a legendary eat-fest, and sort of drifted off the road while driving, nearly into the weeds. She actually had to return home and take a nap, until the blood fat level subsided.
> 
> 
> .


DWI-FC?











YUM!!

Sounds like y'all are having fun! What are you guys gonna put the tzatziki on?

Hey Shrimptern, what's your favorite shrimp in the Shrimporium and how are the German's treating ya?


----------



## Shrimptern2.0

Loads and loads of fun!!! 

Fav shrimp... paypayas, or cheeto dorito to be precise, however the red tigers are pretty high up there... and the germans? I LOVE germans!!! I've even gots one myself! 

More later... it's cookie time


----------



## DKShrimporium

I'm going to have to kick Shrimptern 2.0 out, soon. It's getting really bad. 

Today, we gorged - and I mean gorged - on Greek food. I hate to post the picture because as Shrimptern 1.0 will tell you (make a Shrimptern 1.0 account and chime in, 1.0) this picture does NOT do it any justice. The chick who owns this little joint scored an account with whole foods, consider that. 

We had roasted garlic hummus and roasted red pepper hummus, and two kinds of feta spreads: spinach and spicy buffalo - with _fresh_ toasted pita wedges.

We should have stopped there, but went on to a classic gyro and classic falafel plates, with sides to boot.

Shrimptern 1.0: we tried to get some of those buffalo mozzarella curds, but the guy said he won't have any more until fall, so we have to wait, to try them.

After which, we swore _never to eat, again_.

And then did some more work on the door project, and, um, right now as I type some sort of mutant black tar death by chocolate with pecans cookies are cooking...

IN THE OVEN WE FIXED THIS MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, so we're about to eat, again.

Shrimpternship, you should try it.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, now, after consuming death, um, I mean chocolate, and before the food coma hits, we talk about actual Shrimporium progress, today.

Mostly, we worked on the secret "elevator" project. Nope. No pictures on that, yet.

But then in between that and gorging, we did a few things toward the A/C project. And here is the pictorial update on that, just to prove we DID do something other than gawk and gorge.

Oh, and Shrimptern 2.0 reminds me that we also 

Fixed the oven!!!!!!!


.


----------



## Bananariot

Hehe that last picture in post 1090 reminds me of something else...........


----------



## wicca27

glad yall got the oven fixed. you never know how much you use something till you dont have it


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## Shrimptern2.0

After a long day's drive, I'm back home, and have had a chance to reflect on all the goings on in the shrimporium. 

The level of shrimping in that room is truly remarkable. The systems that DK is running give a whole new meaning to "high-tech", *and* low maintenance, at least in the in-tank manner. 

Projects galore! But they all seem to be centered around a deeper understanding of shrimpkeeping and a more natural approach to their habitats. One of the most impressive attributes of the shrimproom is the number of different types of water being produced from one source (neos, cardinias, and mermaids).

Oh, and the seemingly simple solutions to really annoying shrimp problems were really nice to see. For example, the Mazarati's... they really should be made commercially available seeing as the problems with traditional nets are well known. roud:

It's gonna be really amazing when all the tanks find their sweet-spot, but I'm not entirely sure that the tweaking will ever be fully finished. 

Oh, and food for thought - Cheeto Dorito (roll the r) x Blue Bolt = ???


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## DKShrimporium

Shrimptern2.0 said:


> The systems that DK is running give a whole new meaning to "high-tech", *and* low maintenance, at least in the in-tank manner.


DK is _laughing her brains out at the insight and irony of that there statement_. 'Cause she and 2.0 spent obsessively long sessions anally trying and _re_-trying, adjusting and _re_-adjusting on things, to get to that place of "low maintenance" in the end. So, you pay up front, or in the back end, but DK just likes to pay up front, is all.

***************

DK's teeth are calming from the chattering, her legs quieting from the writhing, her hands from the twitchings, her brain from the waves of craves... coming down off the dechox. Yes, she had to de-tox from the death-by-chocolate cookies. Oh, man, she wants one now, even.

We closed out the week with the now traditional last night fireworks a la junior geek and wii session pitting adult against tween... the last shrimptern challenge...

What a week we had, blew by like one of those special ops flash grenades that blows up a flare in your face, leaving you temporarily blind and waiting to recover your senses! It all went so darned fast, between the agonizingly long sessions of nit-picky fittings of stuff. We had a ton of fun, lots o' brain picking both directions, and a lot of labor, but not nearly enough to actually burn the calories we ingested. 

Both main projects we worked on still have a few details to finish; I will post pics with updates as they get finished - had to stop and re-assemble the furnace air handler today due to triple digit heat index arriving tomorrow for the week. From a birds' eye view, the projects don't look as time consuming as they were, due to detail work, and we also had some significant diversions into other areas such as FIXING THE OVEN, working on DK's car tail lights to rid them of pesky stink bug carcasses, and ripping open that furnace air handler, that ate up project time. (OK, so we fly by the seat of our pants, here.) 

We had the chance to pull a number of molts and see them under the scopes - all the bio-activity on them by microbes and the miracle of molting from a structural standpoint. I was also able to find and show 2.0 water ticks - ewwwww just like land ticks but sucking on our little friends underwater instead of our Germans above water.

Many, many thanks to 2.0 for hours of assistance and great, enriching f2f interaction - something becoming increasingly rare in these days of mobile aps and cyber-living (there's a certain irony to that, as y'all read this, isn't there??). 

I have so totally enjoyed both shrimpternships and especially both shrimpterns as people. They are unequivocally both much stronger than I am, and also much better at sleep deprivation. 

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Today, between bouts of dechox nystagmus (look it up), DK swears she spotted waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in a daaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrk crack the silhouette of a baby mermaid!


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## DKShrimporium

So... Shrimptern 2.0 sends this pic, which has inspired DK to develop a recipe entitled _cocoa psychosis_

And, here is the best DK could do, in the crack. Attempted picture of mermaid baby at 2-3 mm size, in the crack.


.


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## diwu13

Congrats on the icecream and the baby mermaid shrimp haha! Those wood pieces look so nice ! Jealously.


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## wicca27

cant wait till mermaids get bigger congrats


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## DKShrimporium

So yesterday, I learn that Shrimptern 2.0 has returned home, infected. They have sent me this picture, of brand new tanks. Sure, it starts out this way, but it's progressive; it will grow _relentlessly_.

Meanwhile, Shrimptern 1.0 left infected, also. Word is, they helped themself to some Globalindustrial shelves locally and are starting up some tanks, after relocating sometime... about....now. Don't have pics of those, yet.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!


.


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## DKShrimporium

AND IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has been exceedingly lazy, lately - quiescent. Sometimes, she gets like that. 

While she has been lazing about, wearing off the chocolate cookies she over-consumed during Shrimpternship 2.0, the Shrimporium tanks have been slowly but steadily heading toward sweet spots, finally, after WF 3.0 was implemented and a buncha tanks were re-set as well. It's getting really good, around here. _Finally_.

Today's most interesting news: DK has discovered some low-grade bolts among the Papaya offspring! She had a bolt male in there about a year ago and he must have dropped some genes into the pool. This is getting interesting! She also saw, for the first time, a teeny tiny baby Mermaid out foraging with teeny tiny white claws, so mesmerizing to watch. There is a berried female in that tank about to drop young, too, any moment. The first Mermaid babies are heading toward quarter inch already. Although, I have only ever seen two of them at once, so I don't think there are that many of them, unless everyone is hiding in the back of the hardscape, all the time.

And, you may be aware, we here on the East Coast have had some heat lately, so DK fired up (sort of a reverse pun, there) the new Shrimporium climate control system (a.k.a. the window A/C in the door) and it's working just as she had wanted. She finished out the project with some detailing for tightness and is happy with the final results.


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## wicca27

nice maybe one day those of us who are not shrimpteruns can see the whole mess of tanks lol congrats on the bolts blue and orange go well together lol


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> nice maybe one day those of us who are not shrimpteruns can see the whole mess of tanks lol congrats on the bolts blue and orange go well together lol


There are pictures of the tanks at the beginning of this thread - just gotta find them! They still look the same... rather boring at first glance, as Shrimptern 2.0 will tell you, until you learn each tank's project and story...


************

Today, we dedicate this (not so good) photo to Shrimptern 1.0. 

I give them a whole lotta credit, because at the time they came, DK had turned off most the tanks for breeding in preparation for WF 3.0 and a buncha tank re-sets (very hard to re-set a tank sprinkled with micro-babies!!). In fact, there was NO WATER RUNNING into any tank until the last day Shrimptern 1.0 was here, because DK was STILL finishing the 3 week long install on WF 3.0 up until then! Looking at the tanks while 1.0 and 2.0 were here was an exercise in faith; the tanks did not have the appearance that DK knew what she was doing, but she took the embarrassment of having guests see the state of things because she was driven by goals and a vision, and knew despite how things looked, they were on a trajectory toward a discreet goal. OK, and maybe she wanted an excuse and co-conspirator to over-eat with, too.

Here's a shot from the present, we've pulled the black tiger tank back into the sweet spot, thanks to the help with the projects Shrimptern 1.0 gave. I especially like this picture because it shows something I am partial to... genetic diversity in a colony. Here are three Black Tiger berried brood mamas, with three types of eyes: 1) golden metallic, 2) what I call comic book eyes, which are a reddish brown with comical black pupils, and 3) nearly solid black/dark brown.

Oh yeah...


Many thanks to both Shrimpterns 2012.


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## wicca27

beautifull shrimp dk


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## DKShrimporium

Maybe this is why Mermaids have such startlingly perfect teeth.

This article is aligned with one of DK's philosophies: that everything can possibly be linked or related (i.e., useful things can come from the weirdest places, if we only file away interesting bits), so pay attention to details that may be useful someday. Sort of like hoarding bins & barrels of parts 'n' pieces...

DK worked another round on the project with which Shrimptern 2.0 assisted, yesterday, but it doesn't look different enough to post pics, yet. She's still pondering exactly how she's going to do something, with it. Sometimes, she just stews over something, a long time, until it comes to her. She wants to make the finished project worthy of Shrimptern 2.0's approval. Because, Shrimptern 2.0 put a good deal of blood, sweat, and tears into helping her. OK, maybe not _exactly_ blood and tears, but certainly sweat, both literally and figuratively.


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## DKShrimporium

To Shrimptern 2.0:

Today, DK's contemplating this. It's 6 Kg, about the right mass. And she already has it, and it's not in use. Plus, it has this handy-dandy handle thingy. She's thinking along these lines, due to the pesky fact that otherwise she's gonna need latches and such...

Next: find a piece o' pipe, and some pulleys and cable...

I think I'll have a lunch date with my friends Zoro and Drillspot. Or maybe I'll meet "someone" new...


.


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## DKShrimporium

Yeah. Um. Couldn't wait until lunch.

Dug around in the bins and barrels of parts 'n' pieces, came up with these. Probably overkill, but DK _already has them and they are not in use_ = repurpose and USE.

Pole is the piece of heavy duty closet pole she hack-sawed off a closet pole last month, and couldn't bear to throw the extra piece away ("It might come in useful, someday," said her hoarder-self.) Yeah, that can hold weight, fershure.

Shrimpterns 1.0 and 2.0: Look at all that vast expanse of cleared real estate on the workbench!!!!!

****************

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has treated herself to a DVD collection of Studio Ghibli works. Gonna watch them on the drive up to Montreal, next month. Tomorrow, Wag the Dog is coming from Netflix, for her to watch yet again, whilst she contemplates current events surrounding a certain newly announced celebrity divorce and the concomitant spin creations that will be a happenin'...


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## Shrimptern2.0

Wow DK! 

I saw that weight hanging around and pondered along your pondering lines as well! Sorry to hear the other idea got booted... it had so much promise! 

Now I have to ask... how *long* did that workbench space last?


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## DKShrimporium

Shrimptern2.0 said:


> Wow DK!
> 
> I saw that weight hanging around and pondered along your pondering lines as well! Sorry to hear the other idea got booted... it had so much promise!
> 
> Now I have to ask... how *long* did that workbench space last?


You _KNOW_ that DK hates to kill a coo-el idea. But she had to _balance_ the options.

Using the original idea, the system would have been stressed, and would have needed an extra step as well, to latch and unlatch (2 steps, depending how you count). The stress would have come from countering the force to regain position. She, in the end, voted that these considerations outweighed the coo-el factor. Hmmmmm was there a sort of pun, there??

Using the present physics, we lose one or two steps to actuate/deactuate, and hopefully we are not stressing the structure as we do not have to change forces (or perhaps better stated, overcome a force) to regain position, either direction.

And so, she's playing around with this, for now.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK spied _five_ baby mermaids at once, today. A record. For a long time she thought there were two, max. She has tweaked their water and SWEARS they prefer it now. I know, superstitious thinking. I know. But there are some new observations - we now have more picking, and our color has changed a tint toward red and away from black. So possibly those are actual data, toward improvement. We haven't the proper controls to know for sure, though.


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## DKShrimporium

Dropped by Lowes, picked up a few - what else - PVC parts. More on that, later.

In the meantime, Shrimpterns 1.0 and 2.0 will appreciate this cross-pollination.

DK's been channeling ye olde tyme Iditarod. Specifically, the old style pulling harnesses:


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## DKShrimporium

Worked a bunch on the project last night. It is rather steampunk!

The physics, which had been bothering DK due to stresses on the frame, seem now to be solved, by applying the forces in the right _places_.

Here's the beginning of the harness, using the closet pole and some - what else - PVC parts.


**********

BREAKING NEWS, THIS MORNING:

DK's been sittin' around, trying to figure out a sumpin'. It just came to her, as she was alpha wavin' it. Time to dig in the bins & barrels of parts 'n' pieces for two scraps of lexan, and get out the drill press. 

Only one more technicality to solve, now...


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## DKShrimporium

DK likes these. Evidence of proper plastics drilling: the scrap is in one piece, the hole has been SHAVED from the material and there is no melting - sharp drill bit, slow drill speed, and moderate pressure does it. DK likes trivia.

Drilling glass, another story. Not _shaved_, but _ground_ through. (Although I guess one could argue that at higher magnification the diamonds are shaving off the glass surface as they "grind"...)

OK, I digress, but the shavings looked so coo-el!

These bits will enable one of DK's obsessions: adjustability on the fly.


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## DKShrimporium

Next pics:

Shrimptern 2.0: Look, I used the punch! HA HA!!!


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## DKShrimporium

************************

_We interrupt this thread to show:_

Yes. Now, carry on. Back to business.


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## wicca27

the mermaids are so pretty dk one of these day i will give them a try lol


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> the mermaids are so pretty dk one of these day i will give them a try lol


It's pretty hard not to fall in love with their stunning colors. 

It took me about 3 years to get ready for them; I KNEW I didn't have the infrastructure in place to keep them, and didn't want to just kill batches of them from known deficits on my part, so I had to wait until I had at least a fighting chance at keeping them. 

Two things happened for this. One, I evolved in my water making to where I began to think I could make the correct water. Two, I was offered some stock, which enabled me to spend the money I would have spent on stock, on the water factory upgrades to keep them. I never seemed to have the pot full enough to spend on BOTH getting stock AND the quite expensive water factory equipment I needed to make their water. It all came together this year, though, and while I'm still in proof-of-concept, at least so far it's not a failure. I do have some adjustments to make, as my survival rate is not where it should be for either adults or babies, but the fact that I DO have survivors of both, and had active breeding of more than one female is greatly encouraging to me.

Considering my water comes out of the tap at pH 4-5ish and GH 0 KH 0 (yeah, figure that one out - I have seltzer on tap - it's so acidic it ate through our plumbing fittings in 10 years and we had to re-plumb our mains, before we finally saw the light and added a treatment plant - it had stripped the chrome off our sink drains and etched water lines in the porcelain of our toilets with the acidity) and goes LIVE through Water Factory 3.0 into their tank, twice daily, to make _vastly _different water, I think this is quite a technical feat.


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## DKShrimporium

NEWS FLASH:

DK just spied a brand new Mermaid baby on the heater - about 2 mm size. She got this crummy picture. This news has excited her! We are one step further along the proof-of-concept trail!

She was able to get this picture of an adult and earlier vintage baby just now, too:

She is celebrating rockin' out to Kansas' "How long...to the point of no retur-urn.........." at volumes slightly uncomfortable.


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## DKShrimporium

I don't think I had this conversation with 1.0 (because, uh, there WERE no babies pretty much when 1.0 was here), but I did with 2.0 - how I look at a tank for production. I look first for 2 mm babies, then look at the size spread.

2 mm babies tell me that I have a recent drop, which is a pretty good indicator that present water conditions are good for breeding (this applies to me, because I am constantly refining my DKMSJ formulation or tank feeds, trying different things, and it takes me at least 2 months each tweak to see the results). A good spread of babies tells me that my capture rate is good, lots of berrying up pipelined and babies rolling off the pipeline. Because my tanks are set up with cultured food sources, babies tend to grow at very even rates, so different size babies by 2 mm or more are from different mothers.

Here are a few pictures illustrating the spreads in black and red tigers, taken today: (seen better if you look at full size image by clicking on thumbnail)

NEWS FLASH: Just as I was gettin' ready to post pics, the dogs were a goin' nuts and I shot the deer pics outside my window, through the screen!!


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## wicca27

congrats dk, i finally have baby red tigers myself i had to move them to higher ph than what they were in before they went from 6 to a ph between 7 and 7.5 (my kit only measures in .5 degrees ) my gh is about 7 and kh is around 2. does this differ from yours alot?


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> congrats dk, i finally have baby red tigers myself i had to move them to higher ph than what they were in before they went from 6 to a ph between 7 and 7.5 (my kit only measures in .5 degrees ) my gh is about 7 and kh is around 2. does this differ from yours alot?


I have two tanks of 'em slightly different conditions, but this is in range, yes. I've had discussions with folks having them breed up to about GH 12 believe it or not and not sure on the KH - depends on the mineral profile _making up_ that GH I suppose (that GH number you get tells you only the number of drops of solution that will titrate out or sort of neutralize divalent cations in total in the solution, but doesn't distinguish WHAT those divalent cations are or the mixture thereof - divalent cation is a positively charged ion with two positive charges, so Ca++, Mg++ are the big ones in natural water but not the only ones. Think of it as chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies - so many chocolate chips of whatever brand, so many macadamia nuts, in the dough - can vary but is always called chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies - GH number is total of divalent cations, regardless of ratio or what they are.). My pH bounces due to my native water (when the tanks get their twice daily infusion of carbonated water, it drops the pH about half a point or more temporarily), probably from sevenish to mid sixes; I don't keep a live meter on it. I do keep a live meter on the Mermaids, and their tanks swing a good half point, and their water is more buffered, too, than the red tiger tanks.

*********

Couple of shots of the new Mermaid babies. DK is starting to ponder another lighting strategy for their tanks, in order to get more light into the tanks and grow even more biofilms. Hmmmmmm.......

UP NEXT: BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROJECT.


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## DKShrimporium

DKShrimporium said:


> UP NEXT: BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROJECT.


DK lies. LIES. This is not our regularly scheduled project, yet.


This just in... photographic evidence of bolt in the papayas. Two examples, two different juvies. 

Shrimptern 3.0 applicants: I need someone with some photographic savvy and equip. (Must be housebroken.) 


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## DKShrimporium

BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROJECT (really, this time)

Next pic. We have added construct to the previous 5 layers.

We digress here a bit for some explanation. 

The Shrimporium is a UTILITY space, set up for _utility_. It is not set up for _cosmesis_. Think of it as a mad lab, as it were, for DK to try things.

'Cause... DK _*must*_ try things.

And so, a lot of it would be considered crude, and ugly, by ADA snob types. She, however, finds the term "ADA snob" to be an oxymoron, as it involves a person simply buying somebody else's ideas and products. So ironic. 

But DK believes that _cosmesis often locks a person out of many options, so she gives it low priority_.

Therefore, this project is a CONCEPT project, exploring a CONCEPT, and it's not real pretty. This was exacerbated by the fact that most of it is comprised from leftover bits and pieces - stuff DK already had. 

But, having finished it, _DK assures you if you could touch and feel it, you would understand its sleekness, in function_. DK needs a Shrimptern 3.0 who can shoot and post some videos...

***************

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has discovered that the Mermaid tank is actually quite crawling with an assortment of babies. It's like they made a pact, and all decided to de-cloak on the same day. At least three different vintages of 'em. 


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## DKShrimporium

BACK STORY ON CURRENT PROJECT (BSCLL), PART I:

When DK was developing the Shrimporium, she in the early days bought equipment second-hand. (Her very first tanks were plastic drawers from the dollar store.) She has since changed philosophies and would now only buy new tanks. Now, in the long run, standardization pays for itself, in her automated system.

However, at one point, she was looking for a cheap tank to fit a piece of real estate, she had slightly over 3 feet in space between her utility sink and the furnace, so the space wasn't negotiable.

She found a very old former saltwater tank (glass is much thicker than modern thickness, making the tank extremely heavy to start with), already fitted with a giant bulkhead, 65 gallons. It came with a sound, although ugly stand. The stand did allow for storage and its frame was sturdy. Critically, the stand had an open back, so _nearly all practical access to the tank back is from underneath, through the open back of the stand_.

She got both for $50 total, which she thought was great. The tank has a lot of capacity due to being deep, but still fits the 3 foot space.

The tank has been set up several years as her broke student crystals tank (second to lowest grade crystals tank in her fleet). 

When she installed it, the bulkead plumbing and TIGHT spaces that ensued really meant that that tank will not be moved until it's permanently torn down. Just not worth moving, otherwise.

Wisdom from DK's new Kansas album: 
*"And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know..."*
Music thumps loudly, a little too loudly in the background...​


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## DKShrimporium

BACK STORY ON CURRENT PROJECT (BSCLL), PART II:

DK recently re-set that tank completely, because it had developed a technical issue due to an experimental set-up DK had tried. It had had a false bottom (i.e. raised substrate layer) to make the tank less deep for fishing out shrimp. (DK's arm is only so long, and this is before she bit the bullet and custom made her own nets to solve that problem.) The false bottom was comprised of about 150 lbs of pea gravel layer under the substrate layer. 

The tank was populated up with broke student crystals, and the entire back had cultured a moss wall. 

DK did NOT want to start the tank back from scratch, so she opted to net out the crystals as much as possible to another holding tank, then manually remove the substrate and gravel layer with the tank _in situ_ and _still running_. This kept the cycle and moss wall intact. Lowering the water level to do this would have compromised the moss wall and also even so the tank would have been awfully heavy to move forward, due to the pea gravel, not to mention the hard plumbing in the back would have posed problems.

The problem was that over the years, and due to stocking density, the pea gravel layer had loaded up with mulm and taken on a life of its own, altering the tank system. She had to get rid of the mulm bulk and with it the technology that allowed it to accumulate to that extent.

Here's a picture of the tank shortly before DK went after the re-do. She had turned off breeding and pared down in preparation, but even with moving the livestock she wanted to preserve the moss wall.

(DK takes a break now, because she's decided to make a new light fixture. More on that later.)


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## DKShrimporium

We, because we have a squirrely brain, interrupt the previous topic to show the new light fixture, for the Mermaid tank bank. DK was inspired by the slime farming Guppies does, and wanted to adjust the light. Due to a few factors, she settled on this build. 

The Mermaids are now getting nominally 10 watts per gallon lighting... (I say nominally because it's the watt equivalent from CF bulbs, and then I lose a bit through the polycarbonate twinwall lids.) Hopefully, this should farm some pretty good slime for DK and the Mermaids.

Made of - what else - PVC parts.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

.


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## wicca27

that is awsome you inspire me to do so many thing if only i had the spare parts lol


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## jone

You always inspire me to keep me to keep on my toes with all the new ideas...what is the white gravel/substrate in the tanks??


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## DKShrimporium

AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM:

Current project (BSCLL) back story, part III:

Thus was born the aquavac project. The aquavac was conceived as an _in situ_ method to debulk any of her tanks from substrate mulm, allowing her to run tanks in perpetuity without a re-set. Her whole model is to simulate continuous process found in nature.

After weeks of clearing turbidity (it took much longer than she anticipated to settle back down - she should have at the same time run the Aquavac and de-bulked the mulm in there but she did not.), she moved the stock back into the tank, but due to the weeks of turbid water the moss wall had taken a huge hit, even though it had never been moved or disturbed from its moorings; it had been light deprived. DK realized the moss had been thinning the whole last year, and it occurred to her that this was because over that year she had added the twinwall lids, cutting down the light. So, DK re-did the lighting over the tank, solving four problems at once: 1) She boosted lumens to get more to the moss and also deeper into the now deeper tank, 2) She re-distributed the lumens, so they were more evenly spread pointing downward into the tank and through the twinwall channels - with the linear fixtures the light source was concentrated in two strips toward the center of the tank and due to the square channels in the twinwall lids and this distribution pattern, the front and back of the tank was really getting light starved, as the angle of light hitting across the twinwall at the front and back bounced most of the light and did not transmit it THROUGH the twinwall; with the new distribution much more light is penetrating straight down and through the twinwall toward the target areas, especially the rear of the tank where the moss wall resides, 3) She eliminated the existing linear 18 inch fluorescent fixtures (that she had picked up clearance at Lowes for 5 bucks, so used them) which eliminated most of the weight of the canopy, and 4) She eliminated one of her pet peeves: paying - OVERPAYING - for a specialty item, in this case _18 inch t8 daylight bulbs which were FOUR TIMES the cost of 48 inchers of the same bulb_. N.O.T. A.C.C.E.P.T.A.B.L.E.

The canopy over this tank DK had made from scraps o' stuff she already had in her bins and barrels o' parts 'n' pieces, adding in the clearance fixtures and a few bits o' bought hardware. It was a flip-top and worked just fine until the twinwall lids were added. However, it bugged DK as access was limited into the tank and when access was made by flipping the lid up the light blinded her and did NOT light the tank, so work was mostly dark. Very annoying, and eventually this just HAD TO GO.

This same year, DK instituted the beginnings of her vapor control project, as her basement humidity was unacceptable and the tanks were part of the problem, especially in summer when they got a bit too hot and DK had to blast them all with fans to cool them, forcing humidity into the air. The solution was climate control in the Shrimporium. Thus was conceived the Shrimporium climate control project, the second of two major projects that Shrimptern 2.0 helped with during their week here (the first is the current project).

ENTER SHRIMPTERN 2.0, and our early discussions about what projects they could hope to engage in while here; we had discussions via PM and email ahead of time in preparation for the week.

Below: the old setup. And then DK's new lighting for the 65 (look familiar?? - it's her new favorite thing). 


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## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> You always inspire me to keep me to keep on my toes with all the new ideas...what is the white gravel/substrate in the tanks??


One o' them bagged gravels. DK wanted white to see the red Mermaids better. Also to bounce the light around better and not be a light sink.

Um, still waiting for more pics of the boys and girls.


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## DKShrimporium

BACKSTORY ON CURRENT PROJECT (BSCLL) Part IV:

And here, we have the concept sketch I sent to Shrimptern 2.0.


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## plamski

Hi Donna. Great DIY projects. Why did you choose plastic cover for your tanks instead of clear glass?


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## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> Hi Donna. Great DIY projects. Why did you choose plastic cover for your tanks instead of clear glass?


That's a really good question, Plamen.

There are a plethora of reasons why. I've gone through glass (heavy, breakable, expensive, not-changeable, not energy efficient), plexiglass (absorbs moisture and warps), lexan (pretty good, but not energy efficient), and now twinwall renditions in my evolution.

Twinwall is the current favorite because:


It insulates. This increases energy efficiency, but also light transmission. On glass, plexiglass (acrylic), and lexan (sheet polycarbonate) lids, condensation will form on the underside of the lid; this disrupts light transmission through the lid and also encourages growth of layers on the lid itself, which further impedes light transmission.
It is easily mill-able. DK is constantly trying new things, often re-arranging parts. She can fit a twinwall lid around a filter output, drill a hole for a feeding port, do any number of things.
It is impact and heat resistant. This gives a larger margin of safety - DK is less worried about breaking a lid or melting one from a light fixture.
It is useful stuff for someday when DK recycles the lids into something else, much more useful than odd size pieces of glass, which are much more limited in future uses.

She makes a feeding port in each one, clothes it in a buna-n grommet and drain stopper lid. This port is easy access for feeds yet doesn't let much vapor escape, and the port doubles as a holder for DK's TDS meter, when she wants to get numbers and track trends.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

This post is for Shrimptern 1.0.

Two of DK's favorite things:

.


----------



## wicca27

y do you keep your red and regular tigers together? most people would want to shoot some one for that. i have thought about keeping a couple types of tigers together but not done so yet


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> y do you keep your red and regular tigers together? most people would want to shoot some one for that. i have thought about keeping a couple types of tigers together but not done so yet


That belief suggests they do not understand genetics, or the derivation of Red Tigers.

Red Tigers are a subset gene of the Wild/Super tiger popluation.

The absolute healthiest thing one can do is keep them intermingled in a _broad based gene pool_, to perpetuate red tigers and yet have the broadest possible gene base.

I use this philosophy with a number of cultivars of shrimp - keeping one tank of select specialty cultivars, and a second mixed tank of the cultivar mixed in with its wild-type population. This provides long-term genetic diversity for the populations from which to draw robust breeding stock.

And here's a pic for ya: from the bolbitis tank. (Which happens to house my L144s. The fins are lookin' really ratty - wondering if the bumblebee cats are hassling them. There is no other livestock in that 75 gallon tank except L144s and bumblebee cats, and a few snails. Anyone know about this?)


.


----------



## wicca27

i had a prob with my brown long fin bn spliting his fins (not as bad but still deep splits) and was told its cause they are zipping around the tank to fast. kinda like a flag getting shredded in high winds. mine has healed with no sign of the damage


----------



## DKShrimporium

WE INTERRUPT OUR - INTERRUPTION - FOR BREAKING NEWS:

So, DK reads her inbox this morning, gets a message from someone about Mermaids, starts her thinking...

Coffee's brewing, she steps into the pantry to stare at space, can't remember why she's in there... staring at the jar of Costco cashews...

And.

It. Comes. To. Her.

The next project on the roster, to fine tune the Mermaid tanks. She's gonna improve two things at once, with this new idea, hopefully.

Good thing she goes through a jar of cashews a week, nearly. Yeah, she's pretty nuts. Gonna need six, possibly nine, of 'em, and some of those coo-el micro bulkheads from jehmco. And some shreds. Hmmm... she has polypropylene twine, that will do in a pinch. Shrimptern 2.0: are you reading...are you with me?

(Well, actually, she first has another project, to make a pulley system for the new Mermaid light fixture.)


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

AND NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROJECT, backstory (BSCLL) part V:

So, the idea was a better combination of lighting and access, into this tank.

The lighting was improved, but the problem of it not being AVAILABLE and also it being BLINDING with the flip top lid had to be remedied. Sometimes things just drive DK nuts, and then they HAVE TO GO.

So, she decided on a LID LEVITATION project, inspired by a thread by our honorable DIY guru Hoppy.

At first, she wanted to use a different approach, using these:

It would have been so coo-el, to hear that chshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........


.


----------



## larcat

I just want to say one word to you, since you seem to be OCD when it comes to DIY and things aquatic:

Aquaponics.

Sorta like tossing a grenade into a shrimp infested china-shop?


----------



## DKShrimporium

larcat said:


> I just want to say one word to you, since you seem to be OCD when it comes to DIY and things aquatic:
> 
> Aquaponics.
> 
> Sorta like tossing a grenade into a shrimp infested china-shop?


OCD? _Me_?

I will admit I've done an inordinate amount of reading about both hydroponics and aquaculture in recent years. They're finding they make more cash crop off freshwater shrimp grown as a second crop in rice paddies than the rice brings in. Very interesting stuff.

But it ain't limited to things aquatic. You should've seen my automated chicken barn!


----------



## larcat

If you are at all interested, I've got two aquaponics builders in the family and could send some pics.

IMHO their PVC-fu rivals yours 



DKShrimporium said:


> OCD? _Me_?
> 
> I will admit I've done an inordinate amount of reading about both hydroponics and aquaculture in recent years. They're finding they make more cash crop off freshwater shrimp grown as a second crop in rice paddies than the rice brings in. Very interesting stuff.
> 
> But it ain't limited to things aquatic. You should've seen my automated chicken barn!


----------



## larcat

This might makes the juices in your shrimp brain flow.

http://www.aquaticeco.com


----------



## larcat

DKShrimporium said:


> But it ain't limited to things aquatic. You should've seen my automated chicken barn!


Moveable screen enclosure you keep the chickens in to munch bugs off of plants? Feathered roundup.

Fiancee is obsessed with Chickens, but not frying them or chopping their beaks off.


----------



## larcat

Ok, I think I have run out of thread.

Kind of a bummer. If planted tank is a competition, p. sure this wins _something._

I'll post some aquaponics pics in here. Think you will like them.

We have fish-taco fry sitting in a metaframe at home right now, because the tilapia are very amorous, and the fry room isn't put together yet at the school. Fancy digs for a fish-taco.

How do you feel about worm poop?


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so... DK's been busy.

First, she was gettin' on her PVC-fu procrastinating making a rig to pull up the Mermaid light fixture. But she has now done that, and even with some stylish purple accents.

*****

We interrupt all the -- interruptions -- to show you folks the absolute latest in aquascaping. It's called the _self-made landscape_.

About a month or two ago, DK liquidated a cherry tank to a TPT member who was a-wantin' a pile o' cherries. So, DK had a cherry study tank she was wanting to re-set so she caught everything she could find in that tank and shipped 'em out o' state to be stared at by at least one little person in the household. Good home.

But in that tank, there were microbabies that she missed. And, she got busy doin' a-uther stuff. So that tank just sorta sat. And the microbabies in there all a-grew up.

And in this tank, there was some green stuff a-growin'. And the funny thing about it was when the tanks get their water injections twice daily, it brings in DK's carbonated well water, which any sort of green life likes, bein' it goes to town photosynthesizing and all.

So the green stuff in that tank started to grow, and photosynthesize, and in the process put off oxygen bubbles. And the oxygen bubbles floated the green stuff up, shaping the landscape. Sorta a coo-el concept, actually. 

So here we have the self-made landscape shot (taken through green, murky glass in an abandoned tank). DK's almost tempted to leave the lost Atlantis alone...


.


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## DKShrimporium

HOT OFF THE PRESSES: 

DK's GDR (god dog rottie) is a white collar, black tie sorta dude. Now tipping the scales in excess of 90 lbs., 45 of which are that bowling ball between the ears with the short snout attached...


.


----------



## sbarbee54

Great looking rott


----------



## wicca27

nice dog and cool shrimp blimp hehe


----------



## DKShrimporium

sbarbee54 said:


> Great looking rott


Yes, isn't he? I wish he lived here, with me, as I could use a big ottoman to go with my sofa. Rotts are much better suited as ottomans than Germans, that are not as bulky.

***********

Well, let's see...

DK's been fooling around, not finishing the posts on the "current" project. HA

In the meantime, Shrimplantis has arisen about another inch, like a growing green volcano. Soon it will be flowing with microbaby shrimp.

So, back to the topic at hand. (BSCLL project, conclusion).

*************

So, the biggest hurdle was that the tank was not accessible, except through the base false back. This was quite the trick, between DK and Shrimptern 2.0, having to spend much too much time fooling around finding suitable anchoring points with suitable clearance for tools, such that the back rails could be mounted adequately and leveled properly. DK shan't bore you with all the gory details, but suffice it to say it took the entire Shrimpternship 2.0 week and then a few weeks until it was right.

There were many, many fittings, shim-ings, pre-drillings, lag boltings, levelings, etc., that week.

And an entire batch of those super destruction by chocolate chunky cookies.

The rails, once mounted and leveled (plumbed, actually), were mounted then with the drawer slides, vertically. Other bits and pieces were added to allow for the mounting of the canopy lid onto the drawer slides. 

Then, it was a matter of pulleys, cord, a suitable counter-weight, balancing the system, and

finally,

a little extra touch - a gizmo to pull up the twinwall lids automatically when the canopy is elevated.

When all was said and done, DK was tickled, as she now can use a _single fingertip_ to raise and lower that canopy and twinwall at once, giving her quite good tank access WHILE well lit! (And thus was named the Broke Student Crystal Lid Levitation - BSCLL - project)

Yeah, she knows it's crude, _but it was so much fun to do, and you can't believe how slick it is to lift that sucker up with a fingertip and watch it stay in place_...

And she's gotten lazy, so has condensed a buncha stuff into this last post, because, well, she has other stuff going on here and is about to embark on the next thing....


.


----------



## wicca27

that is AAAWWWSSSOOOMMME


----------



## sbarbee54

Do you have solar on your house? If not that would be another great DIY for you to cut back all the electricity in the shrimp cave.


----------



## DKShrimporium

sbarbee54 said:


> Do you have solar on your house? If not that would be another great DIY for you to cut back all the electricity in the shrimp cave.



UNNNNGHH!! If you only knew.

The short answer is no, _but we were supposed to_.

And the long answer is too painful to elaborate upon.

Let's just say the picture below was a very fitting omen, on our roof. This was taken on day one of the install.

**********

DK's off, for a bit, now...


----------



## wicca27

DK any thing new to share would love to hear what you have been up to for the last month


----------



## tetranewbie

So DK... long time no updates! 

What gives? lol


----------



## sbarbee54

Dang, solar is a must for my next house. Will be shortly as my fiancee finishes school in a year, so we can start making babies instead of practicing.... So either the house has to have solar and a extra room for my fish stuff. Or a out building so I can add solar to that and have a aquatics building.

Miss your blogging what is new?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, uh, hello. 

DK's been... busy... an' off doin' STUFF. 

Apologies to those who have been pinging me various methods. 

Among other things, Shrimptern 1.0 came BACK for _another_ week, and oh, boy did we have lots to do (and eat) and, at least for me, a whole lotta fun. The fireworks segment of the week was exponentially expanded, I shall say!

**********

Next up, not quite yet, as I'm still not under control with STUFF, but... soon. See picture, below. No telling, Shrimptern 2.0!

(DK's also COMPLETELY outta room for posting pics, so she's now got to go delete some to make more space, or... no more pics...)

This is gonna solve a few issues. Plus, it's just coo-el. DK likes the coo-el. 

Preparation for this project involved the consumption of a number of 2.5 pound vats of Costco cashews. Yeah, um, that there's 15 pounds of cashews worth. Fortunately, DK loves cashews. 

It's now under beta-test...


.


----------



## sayurasem

Use a thrid party photo uploader roud:


----------



## DKShrimporium

The latest on the Mermaids - F2s on the way:


.


----------



## dhgyello04

Awww how cute.

DK you have been missed.


----------



## tetranewbie

YAY for updates!


----------



## DKShrimporium

dhgyello04 said:


> Awww how cute.
> 
> DK you have been missed.


Why, thank you. :eek5:

****

Shrimptern 2.0: This pic's for you. Part of the cashew project, coming up. Beta testing underway.


.


----------



## wicca27

i dont know what the heck it is but do love the shot dk


----------



## dubels

Love this thread. Glad to see updates.


----------



## DKShrimporium

The next Shrimptern (3.0), DK needs a-sommun who can take short videos and post 'em on youtube. She'd like to show a video of the great Water Factory III at work (it'd be like a Wonka movie!), the Broke Student Crystal Lid Levitation in action, stuff like that. Or a super-geeky type who can help her devise a wild-n-crazy records keeping system.

Right now, she's sipping her Bubba Mug of 34 ounces of joe, and contemplating a seed of an idea that was planted while Shrimptern 1.0 was here for the second time: Making a small, rack-end herb garden that hydroponically uses used shrimp tank water (and light). DK just canNOT be bothered, running to the store, for fresh herbs, but she loves to eat them. Too bad they are only in season in the garden a couple months a year.

Oh, by the way... yesterday she served as tractor mechanic consultant, and was successful in fixing a problem. And keeping said tractor owner out of the hospital from the kah-ray-zee "see-I-fixed-it" thing he had done. Took a bit of fast talking to get a stubborn tractor owner to undo his fix job, but she got him to undo it, and fix it _properly_. Said tractor being some 50 years old, a veritable relic. Being so old, parts are hard to come by, and stuff wears and doesn't fit properly. The problem was a loose engine belt, that could not be tightened any more, and was rubbing on a radiator hose. Tractor owner thought he'd cut a piece of tin can, wrap the radiator hose with it and -- YOU GUESSED IT -- duct tape, and all would be well.

DK took one look and imagined WHEN the belt either broke, or rubbed through the tin can until it caught it high speed and ripped it off, neither situation was in her playbook of "good things to happen" - and so she had to act. 



.


----------



## wicca27

any new updates dk would love to hear


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> any new updates dk would love to hear


Yes, well, in answer to the private inquiries about shipping shrimp, DK has decided to take a sabbatical until spring, due to planned studies about to begin, which will involve a bit of toxicity so she does not ship anything under unstable or toxic tanks. And she wants to do this last leg of studies to finish her really, _really_ long water-making project. To date, she has methodically looked at cation (Na, K, Ca, Mg) profiles and anion (Cl, SO4, CO3, HCO3) profiles and spent a whole lotta time trying different things, which, thankfully, are nearing completion in a marathon project. But she has one more "leg" of the project that will take her through till spring... y'know, she gets these questions in her head, and just has to try to answer them. She is so stubborn, she is.

On another front, lately she has pondered a great deal the department store experience, applying it to the cashew jars...

_You're on your way home on a Saturday afternoon, from whatever it is you *do* on a Saturday. But there's a problem: you've sprung a hole in your sock. Driving down the main road, you spy the mall. "Aha," you think to yourself, "I'll just drop into Sellzall Department store and gitme a new pair of socks, real quick-like." So you careen into the parking lot, snag a spot, and saunter into the mall, feverishly looking for the Sellzall store entrance, once in the mall. You approach the Sellzall entrance, thinking of a quick purchase, only to face a veritable labyrinthine ordeal, past the shiny, smelly cosmetics counters with those girls standing next to bar stools, make-up brush in hand, past the juniors and sportswear departments, wandering around looking for the stupid, hidden escalator to the upper floor. Finally locating it, you travel altitude then discover you must AGAIN traverse a labyrinthine pathway past housewares, white goods, children's clothes, electronics, bedding, and... eventually... to the department with yur basic underwear and socks..._​

...beta testing completed today on that project, and if she gets enough joe in her tomorrow, she will start on posts on that, stay tuned... :confused1:

Yesterday these arrived, which were the last sticking point to getting the beta testing completed:


.


----------



## wicca27

ooooo this looks verrrrry interesting ..... hmmmmmm cant wait to seee


----------



## DKShrimporium

F2 Mermaids on the ground, now. More berried females about to drop.


.


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## wicca27

so awsome dk i so want some of them one of these days


----------



## GMYukonon24s

Them Mermaids are BEAUTIFUL!


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's in the thick of it, right now, but almost done with STUFF.

BUUUUUUUUUUT.......


Heh heh heh...

Lookieeee what showed up in her mail! She was like, "Huh? I didn't order anything from England! Whazzis?"

Thank you, to the sender!


.


----------



## wicca27

that is to awsome


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK... so the contract terms are defined, and it's in their hands now, and DK can now post about the cashew jar project.

And this here is a super-duper high-tech map of DK's "Cashew Jar Department Store"


...Whutizzit???


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And.

Here, are the technical specifications, of the Cashew Jar Project.


.


----------



## dougolasjr

lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

I'm just not suuuuuuuure whether y'all caught this.

See here, Pepe Deluxe has SOMEHOW gotten a hold of DK's picture and has used it on their T-shirt, _even_ demonstrating the squirrely brain in her head.

And, her camera is reading it more toward navy/cobalt blue, but it is 
this color​

.


----------



## wicca27

that is to cool dk

im still intrerested in this think though


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> that is to cool dk
> 
> im still intrerested in this think though


_OK. So. The orange stuff. 

You know, as you wind your way through a department store, 
dropping cash on purchases, everywhere you turn is merchandise 
where you can drop your cash. 
Those cash register stations, they are a sort of MATRIX, 
ready and willing, to soak up your cash.

The orange stuff is the matrix of cash registers, in the store.



Yeah. You go in, flush with cash, you leave, broke. Like this:_​

.


----------



## sbarbee54

LOL what a riot


----------



## DKShrimporium

So....... while we do laundry and all power-consuming chores (y'know, in case we lose power), waiting for Frankenstorm Sandy to barrel into us in a day or two, we continue...

A short trip to Lowes, to buy some secondary containment vats of just the right size/dimensions. DK didn't have them in her bins & barrels of parts, and in this case deemed it worthy of some cash outlay to have the right thing, as the cashew jars will be stationed OVER light fixtures, so secondary containment is prudent.

When planning a project, DK always asks herself, "What is the worst thing I can think of that can go wrong?" - and then plans for it. Sort of like that Seal Team Six leader, in an interview said that they plan and train for every possible contingency, but he also assumes SOMETHING will go wrong, in every mission.

Next, we shopped for just the right parts, to make a bulkead of sorts, as DK's bulkead stash didn't have quite what she wanted. Then, we make a bulkhead drain into our secondary containment tray, in case the cashew jars leak or overflow for any reason.


.


----------



## sbarbee54

Better safe than sorry, I like the way you think... I bought a small generator incase the power goes out, just enough to power fridge/freezer, TV, direct TV, and all my tanks!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Ahem.

So, today.

This shows up, in the mail, from the UK. It's a poster. I'm so glad it beat the storm here.


.


----------



## Hockiumguru

Hey DK, I was wondering where you purchase the twin wall? I read back a few pages and came across your post about it, and its benefits over glass, plexiglass, but didn't see where you purchased it from. what does it typically cost?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Hockiumguru said:


> Hey DK, I was wondering where you purchase the twin wall? I read back a few pages and came across your post about it, and its benefits over glass, plexiglass, but didn't see where you purchased it from. what does it typically cost?


I get it from eplastics dot com, but there you have to buy a whole sheet and have it cut down. You can get smaller quantities from greenhousemegastore dot com, but the price per square foot is a bit higher if you buy less than a full sheet
; most hobbyists have no use for a full sheet (4' x 8').

I use the 6 mm normally; for Sulawesi tanks 8 mm to help hold in the heat better.

And I'm not sure for you, since you're in Canada, whether you could get it shipped up there cost effectively, but I guess you can ask them.

DK


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's Goddog Rottie reflects after Sandy blows through*

He's happy to hear DK made it through, OK, but he knows millions of folks are having significant disruption to their lives, now. The experience has left him feeling foggy - that's nearly 105 pounds of fog, that is.


.


----------



## wicca27

such a good looking dog i want one just cant have them living on post


----------



## DKShrimporium

double post, deleted thissun


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's latest project, which she was in the THICK of negotiating _in the middle of storm Sandy_. It was a rather complicated transaction, which culminated today, involving the coordination of five parties - buyer (that'd be DK et al.), seller, piano guild technician, piano mover, woodworker. Oh, and one more party (HOWARD!!!) - print magician.

That there is an 1893 brazilian rosewood for the record DK does not support decimating tropical rainforests for the making of pretty things Blasius & Sons Philadelphia-made upright cabinet grand piano. Back in the days of real ivory, which this has. DK DEFINITELY does not support the killing of magnificent animals for a body part to make pretty things. DK, picking the brain of her very high end woodworker friend (check out his classic cars section), is gonna painstakingly restore said piece. (Kevin Costner: "If you build it, they will come..." DK: "If it can be built, it can be _re_-built...")

DK likes a challenge...

But that wasn't even the larger deal DK was closing, at the same time. She is one day from closing a deal two magnitudes larger, probably Monday. Oh, yeah, and then on TUESDAY, she's a gonna help close a deal probably SIX magnitudes larger, which you also can be a part of.

And then, she'll get back to the cashew jars, for y'all.

Stay tuned...


.


----------



## wicca27

so pretty dk wish i knew how to play


----------



## DKShrimporium

Hot off the presses... (that there's a Mermaiden)


Yeah, I know my glass is slimy, but actually I'm kinda glad. It seems to be these biofilms that they eat.

The last batch are growing nicely, too.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*AND.... DK adds parts and pieces to her bins and barrels*

OK, so she's a hoarder. She already told you this.

Here are the latest parts and pieces of her hoard.

Extruded aluminum rails, originally for mounting solar panels. DK's thinking garden cold frame, other frame, who knows what, someday.

A pile o' stainless steel bolts and stuff. The heads of the bolts fit into the channels of the extruded rails, so this could be useful.

A few aluminum plates with holes...

Hm. What to do with these....


.


----------



## wicca27

endless possibilites thats what lol


----------



## plamski

You can put swing and have some fun in your shrimp room. Or you can support train rails with those extrusions and to have model train to bring you cocktails from upstairs. :hihi:


----------



## wicca27

i like that idea cocktail trolly lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> You can put swing and have some fun in your shrimp room. Or you can support train rails with those extrusions and to have model train to bring you cocktails from upstairs. :hihi:


Hi P and C!

Um, there's NO REAL ESTATE in the Shrimporium for a swing or train! 


BUUUUUUUUUUUUT, this week, this was added, and DK can't help but see all that mounting real estate for stuff!!!!


AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


She also had one of these here, yesterday (that there's a 60 foot boom, heh heh heh...):


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well... somma her real estate got used up.


But there's still plenty left!! 


What to do...


.


----------



## AoxomoxoA

DKShrimporium said:


> DK's latest project, which she was in the THICK of negotiating _in the middle of storm Sandy_. It was a rather complicated transaction, which culminated today, involving the coordination of five parties - buyer (that'd be DK et al.), seller, piano guild technician, piano mover, woodworker. Oh, and one more party (HOWARD!!!) - print magician.
> 
> That there is an 1893 brazilian rosewood for the record DK does not support decimating tropical rainforests for the making of pretty things Blasius & Sons Philadelphia-made upright cabinet grand piano. Back in the days of real ivory, which this has. DK DEFINITELY does not support the killing of magnificent animals for a body part to make pretty things. DK, picking the brain of her very high end woodworker friend (check out his classic cars section), is gonna painstakingly restore said piece. (Kevin Costner: "If you build it, they will come..." DK: "If it can be built, it can be _re_-built...")
> 
> DK likes a challenge...
> 
> But that wasn't even the larger deal DK was closing, at the same time. She is one day from closing a deal two magnitudes larger, probably Monday. Oh, yeah, and then on TUESDAY, she's a gonna help close a deal probably SIX magnitudes larger, which you also can be a part of.
> 
> And then, she'll get back to the cashew jars, for y'all.
> 
> Stay tuned...
> 
> 
> .


Wait! That thing is absolutely gorgeous! 
Did you order the catalog? I didn't see a phone #, or website on there...

What happened to Tuesday?


----------



## DKShrimporium

AoxomoxoA said:


> Wait! That thing is absolutely gorgeous!
> Did you order the catalog? I didn't see a phone #, or website on there...
> 
> What happened to Tuesday?


Yeah, they were out of catalogues, and their web guru/IT staff back in 1893 wasn't worth squat toward making them a presentable web page.

It arrives tomorrow from the piano tech. The wood work won't happen until this coming summer, likely.

Tuesday, the Dems won the Big One. That deal was FINALLY closed.

***********

After a fair bit of drama (involving a flying electrical meter that landed on concrete and BROKE, rendering DK's domicile void of electrical power until such time as an emergency call was made to the power company for a replacement meter), and DK's jaw DROPPED when the rep showed up a MERE MIRACULOUS 3 hours later on a Friday afternoon (HOW often does *that* happen, people??!!) DK is finally back to her Cashew Jar Department Store postings:

So, using some bulkheads and tubing, she makes the Department Store thusly. Out of - what - cashew jars (a la Costco).


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

There's the new meter. See how it reads 0 0 0 0 PRE-zero.


.


----------



## wicca27

ive never seen a new meter


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's clawing her way back... had pneumonia. She hasn't forgotten about the Cashew Jar postings...

Here's a shot of the jars, with the red/orange matrix. The matrix is a polyethylene net, like used in bath scrubbies. Just so happens DK has a stash of it, from a previous project.


.


----------



## wicca27

really cant wait to see what you do with all of this i love this thread. and so cant wait till spring hehe i want more shrimpkies lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Heh heh heh...*

DK's latest project (aside from the Cashew Jar Department Store). Ennywon know what izzit?

(Hint: you use an iPod with it, to get the job done...)

.


----------



## Amandas tank

Wow this thread is all over the place! I love it!!! Shrimp, dogs, icecream, ticks, plumbing, tanks, peanuts, more shrimp, more dogs...its great!

My favorite picture of all in your fun thread is the 2 dobermans...of course because I have one myself. 

Anyway...that was a fun read!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Amandas tank said:


> Wow this thread is all over the place! I love it!!! Shrimp, dogs, icecream, ticks, plumbing, tanks, peanuts, more shrimp, more dogs...its great!
> 
> My favorite picture of all in your fun thread is the 2 dobermans...of course because I have one myself.
> 
> Anyway...that was a fun read!


Well then, we must have some pictures of yours, here, then. We love hunde, especially anything of German origin.

Those are Vinces's dobie boys. Vince!! We need more pictures!!

Here's the latest picture of DK's god dog Rottie:

And of her two Germans. (Flop eared is her rescue GSD.)

(Oh, and SHRIMPTERN 1.0: DK is sucking down JD cough syrup and it's quite effective!! She's trying not to laugh hysterically between doses!!)


.


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## Soothing Shrimp

DKShrimporium said:


> DK's latest project (aside from the Cashew Jar Department Store). Ennywon know what izzit?
> 
> (Hint: you use an iPod with it, to get the job done...)
> 
> .


LOL It's a piano tuner. It turns the pegs the strings are attached to. What do I win?


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## sbarbee54

The flop eared dog is to die for! Winner of the month for best picture


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## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> LOL It's a piano tuner. It turns the pegs the strings are attached to. What do I win?


How about a gigantic bag of German Shepherd hair? Two colors, even. Black, and tan. Lots of the hairs have both colors on the SAME hair! It's called agouti!



sbarbee54 said:


> The flop eared dog is to die for! Winner of the month for best picture


Yes, Shrimptern 1.0 tried every which way to convince DK that Mr. Flop Ear should go home with Shrimptern 1.0. But DK couldn't part with Mr. Flop Ear.


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## wicca27

i was just about to ask about the muli colors on one strand of hair for the gsd. moose is that way. when i clipped him he had a gold colored band about 1/3 way down the hair so was funny to watch the hair come off he was rainbow stripped lol


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## Soothing Shrimp

DKShrimporium said:


> How about a gigantic bag of German Shepherd hair? Two colors, even. Black, and tan. Lots of the hairs have both colors on the SAME hair! It's called agouti!


LOL I think I'll pass. What's behind door number 2? :flick:


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## DKShrimporium

And here's a shot of the CJDS in the secondary containment tray. As it turns out, the very first day of beta testing, and about a week after that, those secondary containment trays did their job...

DK later tweaked the design and concept, and used those secondary containment trays for an additional secondary function.


.


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## wicca27

cool


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## DKShrimporium

While DK waits for her pain meds to kick in... the next picture.

We review the CJDS specifications - emptying the wallet is the name of the game, in the Cashew Jar Department Store. 

But what is that?

Second picture shows the story. Tube on the left is from DK's tap. Two tubes on the right show final tank water, middle tube tested with standard pH test, right tube tested with high-range pH test kit.

What we have is tap that emerges in the pH 5 range (enough to eat DK's plumbing with acidity, as those of you who follow this thread remember last winter's main distribution line re-plumbing job using John Guest fittings, some pages back herein). The very low pH in her tap is due to high levels of dissolved carbon dioxide gas, which the magical well fairies bubble into her well water with their sparkly wands (ok, mebbe, mebbe not, but somehow it gets highly carbonated...) 

Twice a day, the Water Factory III turns on, releasing this (pH 5 something, temperature 50F something in the winter months) water, which then traverses about 30 feet over about 2-5 minutes, emerging after injections, at the tanks. (Actually, 130 feet or so during the winter months, when the heat exchanger coil is activated and not on bypass.)

DK has, of course, learned that Mermaids, unlike teenagers, do NOT like carbonated water. They also prefer to bask in warmth, and do NOT like cold showers twice daily. Them's some high-maintenance chicks and dudes.

What we have here, therefore, is live-feed water that is wholly unsuitable for Mermaids, badly. A normal person would therefore pick another specie to cultivate, but to DK, this is simply a gold-leaf engraved invitation for more M..a..d... D..o..i..n..g..s...

I mean, a challenge. So, we's gotta take it up, and run with it, letting the squirrely brain zigzag here and there, trying to find a zany solution. We do it, because _the challenge is there_. Oh, and, because them Mermaids are ALSO already there, wanting cushier digs, demanding this and that _just so_, and asking for assorted silicone body parts, to which DK categorically says, "NO WAY!" (OK, mebbe that last part is a lie, DK has problems lying, at times...) 

So the challenge was to come up with a real-time, simple, fail-proof, effective method to pull that large amount of CO2 out of the tap water BEFORE it hits the Mermaid tank bank. In our narrative, CO2 equals wallet bucks. (Those of you who are closet or vicarious arm-chair project junkies, EACH of those adjectives posed a substantial technical challenge, EACH ONE: _real-time, simple, fail-proof, effective_.) Cheap goes without saying.

If you've ever tried to de-carbonate water, you realize it takes a bit. This post is long enough, so we'll continue the discussion next post. 

In the meantime, ponder thusly, these pictures. 

Special thanks to Shrimptern 2.0 for support thinking about this project - they helped motivate me to KEEP pondering the problem until DK had a plan...


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## sayurasem

Interesting read haha


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## DKShrimporium

DK LIES, again. This next post is NOT about the CJDS project.

It's a picture of her latest acquisition for her bins & barrels of parts & pieces. She got her some super-industrial sized (you KNOW how she loves anything industrial strength...) aluminium (that would be ah-loo-*MIN*-ee-uhm, if you are a Brit) wires. 

She thinks they are _impressive_. Not sure what their fate will be, but she thinks them's a good addition, to the bins & barrels. Them's some BIG wires. Yep. BIG.


.


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## Soothing Shrimp

Shrimp sculpture!


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## DKShrimporium

*Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!*

Don't tell anyone, but SOMEBODY has a crush on DK's god dog rottie...

******

AND... Breaking news!! Incoming German Dobie pictures on the way! Stay tuned!

******

AND... in the meantime, DK has ordered a piano lamp, and a 12 inch aquarium LED strip kit, and the two shall marry upon arrival. I know, it's a mixing of castes, but it's gonna be good, and substantially cheaper than buying an LED piano lamp which are scandalously priced. Just scandalous.


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## wicca27

awww those 2 are so cute hehe. cant wait to see the german dobie i know there are only a couple breeders in the states. i miss my dobies i had all they body types and all 3 were reds


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## DKShrimporium

Here's a graphic illustration of the power of carbonation. This is the drain in a white ceramic sink. The sink and drain were brand new in 1997, not 50 or 70 years ago like it would appear.

The acidity of our well water, due to dissolved CO2, has eaten away the chrome plating on the drain. It has also dissolved the ceramic finish on the sink edge, leaving a tan edge that looks like a mineral ring, but is actually the opposite, it is an erosion due to acid of the outer coating on the ceramic. DK kicks herself for not paying attention and figuring this out years earlier - all her 1997 white toilets have a nasty looking tan water level ring... permanent, and no amount of any sort of cleaning will ever get rid of them!

Pretty strong stuff, coming from DK's well (until we added a treatment system a few years ago). However, due to WHAT the treament is, it is bypassed for the Water Factory III input, as the shrimp won't like the treated water, so the water that enters WFIII is the super-carbonated water, very low pH.

*******
BTW - our piano teacher said our piano is in tune! We added a few gizmos to the piano investment, see below. It's so easy and cheap to get an iPod app for measuring sound freqency... makes DK wish there were something for light frequency so she could make her own iPod spectrophotometer for LaMotte testing... hmmmmm... hey Shrimptern 2.0... isn't that a great pipe dream??

.


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## Soothing Shrimp

Old pianos are notoriously hard to keep in tune due to the loosening of pegs and stretching of strings.


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## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Old pianos are notoriously hard to keep in tune due to the loosening of pegs and stretching of strings.


We don't think we'll have that issue, fortunately - this piano was moved into the previous owner's condo, sat for 8 years in their condo unused, and was still nearly in tune. (The piano moved with them when they moved, it had been given to the mom in the condo as a child and she'd had it since her childhood, they moved it when they moved into the condo and had kids, but the kids didn't want to learn to play it, so they finally decided to sell it as it was taking up a good bit of prime real estate in their condo.) The Piano Guild Technician was amazed at the condition of the pins, and that it held tune through a move and then eight years. But he also said it's one of the heaviest upright pianos he's ever moved and it's the mass of the hardwood and iron string harp that keeps the tune to a large extent (barring loose pins).

After we bought it, we had the copper bass strings replaced, because it still had the original IRON wrapped bass strings from that era (1893), which produce muffled, inferior sound. So the new bass strings will need to stretch a bit before they settle, which of course throws the piano out of tune.

The new bass coppers sound beautiful - they resonate like a musical thunderstorm!



.


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## DKShrimporium

IN OTHER NEWS:

Here's a picture of the growth of the latest round of Mermaid babies, I have a decent crop of them and they are all thriving (thanks to the cashew jars) and growing well. This batch is now about 1 cm.


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## DKShrimporium

OK, I don't normally do this, but this one just kills me. It's those little subtleties that make it.

1) How _carefully_ he puts it down.
2) How little one looks back, TWICE, to make sure it's OK. A sense of checking on "it's ok" at that 12-16 month age. Incredible.
3) How carefully he picks it back up, looks into the face to make sure it's ok, and just goes on, non-chalantly.
4) Of course, the elder statesman - what he does - doesn't surprise us dog people, does he? He's obviously in costume. That is REALLY a German Shepherd, in costume.

See it a few times, to see the subtleties.


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## DKShrimporium

DK tries to pull herself back on topic. While she awaits the dobie pictures' arrival. Crystal, DK needs pictures of yours, too. DK needs. We need a Moose in the thread.

Next up: pictures of the installed Cashew Jar Department Stores.

We have drilled the lids with holes for the input tubing. Each department store twin gets Water Factory III inputs in the first of the two cashew jars, and then an air line in both of the twins.

We are working with a concept of RESIDENCE TIME. We increase this by making the labyrinthine pathway for the input water, such that it has to traverse some things until it gets out of the "store."

*The rough conceptual equation for degassing is: 
RESIDENCE TIME x degassing rate x increase in temperature 
= amount of degassing that occurs. *​

Today, we are just talking about RESIDENCE TIME, in this post. How DK manipulated the residence time from somewhere under 15 minutes up to 24 hours, in a live feed system. OHHHHHHHHHHH, how DK loves to _manipulate_, heh heh heh...

First, the input water is fed into the BOTTOM of the first jar. It fills the jar from the bottom, up, until it reaches the bulkhead between the twin jars, at which time it overflows into the bulkhead.

The bulkhead between the twins is fitted with tubing to the bottom of jar 2 so when the water starts coming into jar 2 it goes to the BOTTOM of jar 2 and then rises, again until it hits the level of the exit bulkhead, that exits the "store."

The WFIII cycle and input rates are calibrated such that one WFIII cycle fills one of the twin jars. 

So (CYCLE) -> jar one fills.
Next (CYCLE) - > water from jar 1 is pushed into and fills jar 2, while jar 1 is filled with new input.

It isn't until the THIRD cycle, which is 24 hours later, that the original input water is now pushed out of the department store twins and down the output, into the Mermaid tanks. 

Thus, the department store twin jars, with a certain water input rate, have bought us 24 hours of RESIDENCE TIME.

TIME is the first thing needed to pull gas out of water.

OK, this post is long enough, so more later. Ponder the diagram, and think of the concept of RESIDENCE TIME. This concept becomes useful for another aspect to be discussed, later.


.


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## Betta Maniac

STOP! You're making me want a puppy.


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## DKShrimporium

Betta Maniac said:


> STOP! You're making me want a puppy.


Yes, of course. You DO want a puppy, and soon. A wiggly, wriggly, shiny-eyed, soft, warm puppy. That follows you around.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Try as she might, she cannot stop obsessing about these. She is TRYING to shove these obsessive thoughts away, but they slither back into the squirrely brain like tar melting on a hot tin roof, finding cracks.

She tries not to think about them, but then her brain starts running numbers, making diagrams, thinking about specifications, and what is possible.

I fear she has fallen ill, with the next project.

Dang.


.


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## Betta Maniac

DKShrimporium said:


> Yes, of course. You DO want a puppy, and soon. A wiggly, wriggly, shiny-eyed, soft, warm puppy. That follows you around.


The Mastiff does enough of that for several dogs and dozens of puppies ...


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## DKShrimporium

So, in an AMAZING string, TWO DAYS IN A ROW, DK sticks on topic. Wow, she's on a roll.

Yesterday, discussing the CJDS project we introduced this conceptual equation and talked about RESIDENCE TIME. Today, we talk about degassing rate.

*The rough conceptual equation for degassing is: 
RESIDENCE TIME x degassing rate x increase in temperature 
= amount of degassing that occurs. *​
Gas will reach an equilibrium in solution, dissolving into the liquid. _How much_ gas you can stuff into that liquid depends on a few things. Of course one is how soluble the gas is in the liquid. Another is the pressure of the system - more pressure forces more gas into the system. Another is temperature - cool temperatures allow more gas to dissolve into the liquid.

We can get all fancy and say it in some famous dude's words:

*Henry's Law*

The solubility of a gas in a liquid depends on temperature, 
the partial pressure of the gas over the liquid, 
the nature of the solvent 
and the nature of the gas.​
So let's review. DK's water emerges from her well - say, in winter months which are the most problematic and we solve our project problems based in part on the worst case scenario - at temperatures in the 50s F and with enough dissolved carbon dioxide to pull the pH down in the 5 or below range, fairly acidic.

Let's look at our graphic of the day - a nice fizzy soft drink, beading with condensation sweat, bubbling with carbonation, and you just know if you take a swig of it, you will feel the bite of carbonation. (Word geek alert: do you like DK's alliteration?)

Our soda illustrates this dissolved gas (carbon dioxide, even) in aqueous (that would be water-based) liquid solution.

What do we know about a soda?


When you pop the can, you hear a pshhhhhhht sound, and if you don't, you know it's no good. That sound is the release of pressure in the can, that holds in MORE carbon dioxide gas in the soda, using pressure.
You pour the contents of the can over a pile of ice, watching as you do the foam and bubbles, hearing the hiss of gas escaping solution and seeing this as microbubbles pop and produce tiny droplets, causing a sort of soda fog at the surface. This for most people is a compromise, because we want to drink it cold, but we know that we lose some fizz by pouring it out, pouring it over ice especially. It's not the cold of the ice, but rather the agitation of the liquid as it hits the solid matrix of ice that releases the carbon dixoide from solution, causing the foam and fog. We do it anyway, because there will still be enough gas left in the soda for a carbonation bite, even after we lose some from the ice agitation.
If we put the soda back into the fridge, we know it will hold carbonation much longer than if we let it sit out hours or a day or two at room temperature. The colder temperature holds more gas in solution than warmer temperature, all other things equal.
We also know not to shake a can or pour it high over the rocks, if we want to keep more carbonation. Once again, this is agitation, which releases gas from solution. In a closed 2 liter bottle (or can) that you have dropped on the floor, gas is released into the air space in the bottle/can, but the pressure inside the bottle (or can) if unopened rises from this, therefore eventually pushing more gas back into solution, and you end up back where you started. That is why bottled/canned soda can be dropped, heated, or whatever, and still hold the carbonation. The pressure will push the gas back into solution, as long as the bottle/can stays sealed.

OK, that's enough, for this post. Ponder on our soda picture, and the thought of dissolved CO2 in aqueous solution, and how agitation and temperature can drive the CO2 out of the solution.

The more agitation and temperature, the FASTER the degassing rate will be.

BTW - this explains why, if you are carbonating your planted tank with carbon dioxide (either DIY yeasty gas or pressurized from a cylinder), but then are using an HOB filter or canister spray bar on the surface, you are then agitating your gas right back out of solution, and shooting yourself in the foot, as the AIR above the water surface doesn't have as much CO2 as you are releasing from your water. On the other hand the AIR above the water surface has MORE oxygen than is down in the water, so the agitation is actually helping push oxygen into the water at the same time it is helping release the carbon dioxide.


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## wicca27

ha ha ok ill post pics, moose is not a dobie (would love another though) moose is my pit/german shepherd mix 

here is my moose hehe will be 3 jan 29th

















and the dobies i used to have (were all rescues)
rebel the german dobie pintcher 3

















russel the king dobie 2

















and theia my femal american dobie 8


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## DKShrimporium

I remember Moose now! He's in here previously. I soooo see the German Shepherd in that second picture, in the eyes and expression. The first picture, he reminds me of a smooth coated Akita. He has a wonderful face!

And the Dobies make me want to get another one. I had one as a kid and he was a red, too. I just love to run my hands along a sleek Dobie, the are so sleek.

Thanks for the pics, C!


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## wicca27

your welcome. yeah almost every one who sees moose asks if he is an akita only true pit owners/lovers tend to see it thank goodness lol. i think russel the king dobie with the floppy ears was my fav he was so funny and such a ham lol


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## [email protected]

There are options for inexpensive spectrophotometry these days. Computers and cell phones have a lot of spare processing power. LEDs provide inexpensive stable light sources. 

http://www.asdlib.org/onlineArticle...ophotometer/Cell Phone Spectrometer Paper.pdf

Public Lab DIY Spectrometry Kit
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jywarren/public-lab-diy-spectrometry-kit

Make: Liquid ID Spectrometer
http://creative-technology.net/MAKE.html

$35 DIY Spectrometer Gets Its Own Collaborative Database
http://www.techthefuture.com/technology/35-diy-spectrometer-gets-its-own-collaborative-database/

http://publiclaboratory.org/tool/spectrometer


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## DKShrimporium

[email protected] said:


> there are options for inexpensive spectrophotometry these days. Computers and cell phones have a lot of spare processing power. Leds provide inexpensive stable light sources.
> 
> http://www.asdlib.org/onlinearticle...ophotometer/cell phone spectrometer paper.pdf
> 
> public lab diy spectrometry kit
> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jywarren/public-lab-diy-spectrometry-kit
> 
> make: Liquid id spectrometer
> http://creative-technology.net/make.html
> 
> $35 diy spectrometer gets its own collaborative database
> http://www.techthefuture.com/technology/35-diy-spectrometer-gets-its-own-collaborative-database/
> 
> http://publiclaboratory.org/tool/spectrometer


AHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I have to quick ring Santa and ask for this. Forty mere clams, whutta _value_ for geekdom. Hmmmm, come to think of it, I don't have to run to find my cell, since they don't ship until Feb. Perfect timing. You GOTTA love their spectrophotometer housing, that so suspiciously looks like this. Hm.

Need to figure out if these little lovelies are quantitative as well as qualitative, because we needs quantitative for the LaMotte readings (and other tests). We need to know more than what the wavelength is. We have to be able to compare how many photons at a given wavelength. I have to finish reading how these babies work.

Wow, this is gonna be fun.

Shrimptern 2.0 are you reading this??? You may have to come back here so we can make this thing and run calibrations. Wouldn't that be fun? Or mebbe some geeky Shrimptern 3.0 would like to come work on this project a week, over spring break (hint hint)...

Thanks a ton, Don!!

Um. Where's the $25 GC-MS DIY kit link?


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## [email protected]

DKShrimporium said:


> AHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!


I thought you'd like it. ;-) 
Calibration is going to be the key. The open source database will help a lot and becomes more useful and valuable as people build their own devices and contribute to it. 

Here is another link someone with your interests probably shouldn't spend too much time browsing. 
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/


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## DKShrimporium

[email protected] said:


> Here is another link someone with your interests probably shouldn't spend too much time browsing.
> http://hlt.media.mit.edu/


DK should like to have THESE, lining the walls of the Shrimporium. It would really freak out any new Shrimpterns, as they walked around in there. They look to be activated by a motion sensor. DK would rig the sensor to also start an audio of shrieking and screaming. Or perhaps moaning. In another corner of the Shrimporium, she would extend this idea to have a motion sensor activate a disco ball, some flapping origamis, and a loud audio of Queen of The Wave. Heh heh heh...

**********

Difficult as it is, DK is now returning to the project AT HAND, putting ASIDE these neato future obsessions, at least for one post.

Crystal, back to you. Back to the orange bubbly stuff, in the picture.

Thinking back on our carbonated bubbly soda, giving off CO2 soda fog as it hits the ice cubes. (bing bing bing: ice cubes = matrix)

Sorta like making butter. Ever made butter? Most people haven't. You start with whole milk (not the homogenized sort, the from-the-cow sort) which is a soup mixed of milk aqueous solution and emulsified with milk fats. Yeah.

You pour this complex mixture into a chamber, and... basically you agitate this mixture around, until butter forms. 

But what is happening, when butter forms?

Why, of course, it's the holiday cocktail party.

You throw a buncha people in a room, and after a few hours of hors d'oeuvres and cocktails and (this is the agitation part: ) _mingling_, the drunks are grouped together at the bar (bar: think of the bar as MATRIX), thinking themselves clever, sucking down liquid courage. The sobers remain dispersed throughout the room, trying to get away from the bawdy too-loud stories coming from the drunks at the bar. The execs are trying to act above the fray, but we know where they really belong...

And there is WAAAAAAY too much colorful, glittery fashion that shows WAAAAAAY too much skin on bodies that shouldn't be showing that skin...

Like this (i.e., the drunks), fat particles begin to stick together and clump, when sloshing whole milk around in a butter churn. The clumps snowball in size, and you get a lump o'butter in the end. If you do it right.

Gas molecules in solution are kinda like this. They look for an excuse to come out of solution, but sorta need a place to stick and gather friends, to make bubbles, before then can then rise as a bubble and escape solution. (I know, I know the REAL scientists reading this are groaning at DK's florid analogies that are not QUITE perfect.) Ever notice how in a tumbler of soda, or a pasta pot of boiling water, the bubbles start on the surface of something, generally? The sides of the glass, or the bottom of the pan? 

This is because the gas does better coming out of solution if there is a matrix surface to stick to, to start the snowballing process.

So, enter DK's CJDS matrix, the orange stuff.

This picture is from a jar of DK's tap water with the matrix down in the jar, allowed to sit overnight. You can see how the bubbles of CO2 wanting to exit the liquid have formed and grown on the matrix surface.

So, back to our conceptual equation:

*The rough conceptual equation for degassing is: 
RESIDENCE TIME x degassing rate x increase in temperature 
= amount of degassing that occurs. *​
Part of the degassing rate is whether you provide extensive matrix surface, to initiate bubble formation faster and help grow bubbles. The greater the surface area of matrix, the more efficient bubble formation. The other two considerations of rate are agitation and solution temperature.

Even without heat or agitation, the presence of matrix will help you to degas a solution.

But for now, ponder on this picture, and think MATRIX.


Ooooooo. DK just thought of a neat experiment to try, to illustrate a point coming up. She needs two cashew jars, some matrix, some of her well water, and a fridge. Fortunately, she eats a lot of cashews, every day.


.


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## wicca27

awwwww its the orange scrubby thing in the cjds that has collected gas bubbles. so cool i thought the first time i saw it it looked like some sort of salt water anemone hehe to cool dk 
see like this lol


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## DKShrimporium

WE INTERRUPT the DK's CJDS posts to bring you this:

LEDs arrived today. Surgery on the piano lamp, tonight. I was gonna take before pics, but Other Geek was _burning_ to rip the lamp apart, so I did not have the opportunity.

It turned out very well. We did a few other mods to the lamp while we had it apart, for maximum adjustability.

And we have the lamp plugged into a Harbor Freight foot switch, down by the piano pedals.

OK, carry on.

DK looks around furtively, for other places where she can convert to LEDs...


.


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## DKShrimporium

WE INTERRUPT our DK's CJDS posts _AGAIN_, to announce that DK's been rather bad, shopping and buying items for a Christmas stocking _for herself_, that might involve different sorts of crees. (She draws you aside to whisper conspiratorially into your ear the following: _half the fun of m..a..d.. d..o..i..n..g..s.. is politely called "beta testing," which really means try a buncha stuff based on squirrely brain ponderings and see what happens, and if there is a catastophe, try to figure it out and solve it_. The thing is, she loves to mess around with ideas, and products, and see what comes of her cray-zee "thoughts.") Yesterday, she spent we-won't-admit-how-many hours doing research, and the magical runes seem to indicate xpe and e27 and 6500. Yeah, that's it. Stay tuned.

That's all I'm gonna say. Santa might be late, as most are coming from overseas.

Oh, wait, she also has on good authority that Santa might be leaving her a new batch of gamma seals under the tree. (Honestly, you can never have _too many_ gamma seals. They are just so useful.) This is the time of year when she gets antsy and all of a sudden the squirrely brain explodes in project mode and she gets raw materials needed that aren't in the bins & barrels. OK, so maybe she doesn't always FINISH the projects in the dead of winter, but the brain sure is busy scheming. She has YET to install the DK Water Snake. Yeah, um, and finish making all the Maseratis.

Hey, anyone out there wanna be Shrimptern 3.0? The projects are stacking up, and DK has accumulated hunger from when she had pneumonia and didn't eat well. _Must be housebroken_.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Twenty seven. Support the mental and emotional health of someone near you, today.


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## DKShrimporium

The Shrimporium is not unlike an advanced game of Whack-A-Mole. The moles would be: equipment issues, power issues, water chemistry issues, fauna and flora husbandry issues, maintenance issues, streamlining issues, emergency planning issues, etc. Oh, yeah, and this mole: recordkeeping issues - HEY I NEED A SHRIMPTERN 3.0 WHO CAN HELP ME WITH THIS PROJECT ALONG WITH OTHER COO-EL PROJECTS LIKE THE DIY SPECTROPHOTOMETER AND THE DK WATER SNAKE - CAN BE THIS SUMMER OR THIS SPRING BREAK IF YOU ARE A STUDENT TYPE. WE FEED AND HOUSE YOU WELL BUT WORK YOU HARD DOING CRAY-ZEE WEIRD SHRIMPORIUM DOINGS.

Right now, DK is grappling with an unusually high failure rate of a heater she started to transition over to. Thankfully, she didn't fully transition (she buys heaters as she has shrimp cash).

Here is the product. DK's experience is that this product has a much too high failure rate. About half of the units she's installed have already failed. So, she warns you. The picture below is the type DK actually has, the newer model is in the link below.

Via Aqua titanium heater. She has an older styling than this picture, and they may have fixed the problem, but her problems are that the control unit stops controlling, the indicator light doesn't light, and no heat is produced. It seems more like a controller issue than the heater element failing, but there's no way to determine this easily. At any rate, they DON'T work after about a year! And to be clear, during the WFIII cycles, the heaters kick on toward the end, and only run a minute or two. They hardly run at all in between cycles as the tanks are fairly insulated. I am not overtaxing the heaters!

********

The above mini-rant started because DK was preparing to post of a bird's eye view of Shrimporium progress, to date, because she has moved past some significant milestones in her global goal list.

Namely, at present, from _a single water source_ (her carbonated well), she in the dead of winter now has Water Factory systems running to produce _on the fly_ different waters that are successfully resulting in berried shrimp right now in the following tanks. There are three aspects to this that were part of the global goals that she has made significant progress on that she is sorta celebrating. 


Waters for basically three different types of habitats from a SINGLE water source, made on the fly.
Water recipes made from cheap, easily available ingredients - almost nothing proprietary (the one exception is the fertilizer branch with includes CSM + B, potassium nitrate, and potassium phosphate ordered online).
Everything else is cheap and DK can get within 5 minutes of where she lives either from a big box BORG type store or a grocery store.
Using the first two, she can get AT THE SAME TIME, rather different species into breeding mode.

She spent a couple of years trying out things and could get the neos to fly but the caridina weren't happy, or vise versa, etc., and this has taken quite a bit of problem solving. This in itself is not that difficult; the DIFFICULT part of it is she INSISTED on making a global water system with cheap, easily available feed vats (the injection concentrates from which she makes the various waters) that are fairly simple. 

Right now, the entire system runs off 5 feed vats, and she's in process of transitioning this to four if her latest trial is successful. She makes feed vat concentrates once every few months, and it takes a few minutes a batch plus she stirs them overnight. 

So when all is said and done, she is pretty darned lazy - no water changes, and only make 5 recipes of shrimp juice concentrate every few months. Not bad.

Wild Tigers
Red Tigers
Blue Tigers
Black Tigers

Crystal Reds
Crystal Papayas

Mermaids (Cardinals)

Orange Sakura
Fire Reds
Cherries
Yellows
Green Neos

Blue Bees

Now, granted, the berried number in most of these is very low as it's dead season not breeding season. DK was wondering why her berried rate isn't higher in her Blue Tigers, and this led her to start looking more at tank temps, which she has dialed way down. But on top of that, this morning she noticed that one of the Blue Tiger tanks is downright cold, and a quick check of above-mentioned heater in said tank resulted in learning that heater is kaput.

Last winter, she ran up against some barriers, namely that when the Water Factory kicked on while all the tanks were lit for the day, all the heaters would kick on during the cycle as cooler water entered the tanks. The combination of all the lights AND all the heaters running at once caused her circuit breaker to pop each cycle on colder days when the incoming water was colder. She has all her tanks on one circuit which is run into the emergency generator panel, this is why the breaker is not diversified.

So, as those of you who are faithful readers recall, last winter she took step one to ameliorate this: she built a heat exchanger for incoming tap water entering the WFIII.

Next, she shortened the WFIII cycle times, so less cooler water enters the tanks each cycle. This is a finely balanced thing, as the TIME of cycle affects a number of things: fraction of water turned over and therefore amount of water freshening, temperature dip experienced by tanks during cycle, relative fraction of carbon dioxide entering tanks each cycle, how much time heaters kick on and when due to cycle happening, etc.

Third, she dialed back winter tank temps, down near 70 (except for the Sulawesi bank of tanks). But this year, she wants to raise those temps back up toward 74, as the lower temps are depressing breeding. 

So, she is doing a lot of prep toward power balancing the cycles. 

This post is long enough, now. More on that later. 

And one of these days, she'll continue the CJDS posts.


.


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## wicca27

you are one busy lady but love the read and so much information in these post its awsome


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## DKShrimporium

You know how you buy the kid, or the cat, the toy, and then they spend hours playing in the BOX? (And the actual toy gets ignored...)

DK's like that.

She got her first test LED bulbs in today, promptly took them apart, and now is entertaining herself staring at the funky lenses, imagining a really REALLY steampunk pair of goggles, made out of these, on her avatar shrimp, up there.


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## wicca27

lol that is too funny


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## DKShrimporium

Because DK _cannot_ stay OT, here is a picture of Shrimplantis, lately. While Amano-ites painstakingly and anally arrange elements in their tank, DK just lets whatever happen, run wild. 

DK likes the concept of self-landscaping wilderness. Sorta like the inside of her mind, really.

For those of you who forgot, this was a tank she "emptied" to prepare to re-set, and then she got busy doing other projects and sorta forgot about it, except to toss some food in there when she feeds tanks. The microbabies she missed grew up and went forth and multiplied, as did the green. 

Yeah. Green. Whatever it is. 

The stuff that photosynthesizes, makes oxygen bubbles, and causes itself to float up toward the water-free "heavens" making an underwater volcano type landscape.

The shrimp seem to like it. So it's OK with DK.

____

Black tigers have been dancing for 4 hours, now.


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## Loachutus

Shrimplantis needs a theme song. Track 4 of QoW?

***********************************************************************










Glad to see Mr. Flop Ear, wanted no part of his brother's goofy antics.
***********************************************************************

In an effort to get back to the CJDS and jump ahead, what is to become of the CO2?


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## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> Glad to see Mr. Flop Ear, wanted no part of his brother's goofy antics.
> ***********************************************************************
> 
> In an effort to get back to the CJDS and jump ahead, what is to become of the CO2?


Flop ear was trying to be incognito, holding his ears back so they wouldn't be recognizable, whereas his Bro was stylin' wit' 'tude, loud-like and in-yo-face.

Without finishing the CJDS posts, which one of these days I will, I'll skip ahead to say the CO2 ends up liberated into the room air.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Dem black tigers were dancing the better part of the day. So long that DK finally took a look into that tank a while and saw _this_ coo-el freak-o.

What is so coo-el freak-o about this black tiger variant, besides the pigment deficits on the skirt on both sides, is the fact that this guy has two front black legs with claws, AND THEN ALL THE PAIRS OF LEGS BEHIND THEM ARE WITHOUT PIGMENT. Totally coo-el.

She's gonna name that one "Bronco" - cause since the back legs are sorta not noticeable and the front legs are, it gives a sort of appearance of a rearing horse.

DK loves it when a shrimp has _unique_ fashion sense.

******

Also coo-el, she found two more berried papayas she didn't know she had.

.


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## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> Shrimplantis needs a theme song. Track 4 of QoW?


"Welcome to the temple... welcome to the pyramid..."

Perfect.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Apparently, the LED lens steampunk goggles have gone viral...


Anyone else's dog show up sporting our LED lens steampunk goggles? Put yer pictures in here! Hint: here's the raw material to work from. 

.


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## wicca27

lol those are so awsome moose has a pair of doggles that have flames on the the sides i will have to get a pic of him with them on and post here for you but i think those would looks just awsome on him lol


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## DKShrimporium

Um hmmm...


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## DKShrimporium

UM hmmmmmmmm.

BTW, those Mermaids are lookin' the best they've ever looked. Lots of other really great things happening with tweaks in the Shrimporium. DK is trying not to squeal with excitement. This morning, she went live with the nitrate injections, too. An act of faith, as her nitrate test is aged out and useless, so let's hope her calculations are correct!


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## DKShrimporium

DK's reading a novel about fox hunting. She just picked the book randomly off the library shelf. She doesn't like the sport, and was going to return the book, but it has caused her squirrely brain to think... (actually, to remind her of a good bit of fox-hunting thinking she did years ago...)

We try to use every piece of noise, or at least a lot of them, that enter the squirrely brain.

For example, DK does a lot of DIY stuff, as you know. She tends to apply this to as many areas as possible, as her philosophy is to avoid... enslavement. Such as to a proprietary product, monthly payment, or something of that nature.

She loves dogs, has had many over the years. Vet costs have gone up unbelievably over this period. A good chunk of this is that the pharmaceutical industry has learned to successfully mine the wallets of not only human subjects, but human subjects with animal companions. How many of you are paying much more now than years ago, spending on heartworm medication, worming, vaccinations, topical flea products, etc.? DK does all these, but cheaper than the standard model. Read the fox hunting forums if you want to learn more, she isn't going to give veterinary advice here. But it's out there, how to do these things, in places one might not think to look. _She loves the question: Who needs to do the same thing she's trying to do, cheaply, and what do they do? Where do I find what they do?_ Other Geek has this motto: It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep.

One of the things she has learned is that if you want to know how to do health care for a dog efficiently and cheaply, read the fox hunting forums.

Because fox hunters keep huge numbers of hounds, and they need them in top condition to hunt. So there is a lot of health care going on, but it has to be cheap or they can't afford it.

Hmmmm, where is she GOING with THIS tangent?? She did start off with a shrimp-related point in all this.

Oh, yeah. Economy of scale. (Or, perhaps, she should state it: scale forces economy.)

Right now, she's squeezing her Shrimporium system for better energy efficiency. She's been doodling and fooling around with LED ideas, tweaking heaters, doing all sorts of stuff to squeeze the same or better performance from less energy input. But she runs into sort of the opposite of economy of scale. Some solutions, while they may be more energy efficient, are NOT more time or space efficient when applied to a Shrimporium, because she has to multiply it 20-30 times for the different tanks. This concept has already arisen in the idea of using strip LEDs over tanks, which would aid her in COOLER light (uh, that would be thermally, not spectrally), but would have the side effect of causing all sorts of real estate and practical problems, due to how the strips would need to be hung, and then access into the tanks by moving the low-hung strips. So, a more energy friendly solution using LED strips turns out to be a net loser, at least so far.

_Disgruntled_ by this, she spent the past two days determined to win SOMETHING in this battle of energy efficiency. She has this motto that swims in the swirls of her squirrely brain: any progress, however small, as long as it's FORWARD progress, we'll take.

So, yesterday and the day before, between over-eating, she did a little project.

She made her nemesis her friend, turned around a net negative energy problem hopefully into a net positive solution. Using stuff she already had around, 'cause the stores were closed anyway, plus, she's cheap.

Stay tuned... pictures to follow later.

____________

IN OTHER NEWS:

Under the greenery for the holidays, DK discovered brand new black tiger babies and also brand new Mermaid babies she didn't know she had. This little shrimplet is about 2-3 mm size and looks to be a future broke-black with comic book eyes, although it's a bit hard to tell at this age how they will mature out.


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## wicca27

that is a cool little shrimpy


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## DKShrimporium

AND... by the way...

This whole discussion of energy efficiency and the yet-_another_-interruption from the alleged "present topic" of the CJDS project post series is related, in a rather beautiful way. (DK was onto this everything-is-eventually-related thing long before the Kevin Bacon fame - oops, she just dated herself.)

Perhaps that is why she is stringing out the CJDS posts so long. 

No, actually, it's because she's been too lazy to set up the very simple last two demonstrations of the rest of the CJDS concepts, and then write out the concluding posts. 

Yeah, I need to get on that.

After I talk about this latest two day bender.

Tomorrow. 

Er. Later today, actually, now.

We'll start with this picture, to ponder, as those of you who read the thread will recognize. If she weren't overdue to become unconscious for the day, she'd dig up the link to this project, but, she's going to bed, now:


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## Loachutus

> We'll start with this picture, to ponder, as those of you who read the thread will recognize.


I'm having visions of pulleys, rope, counter weights, and LED's. Hope it's not just bad holiday food.


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## DKShrimporium

We, once again, interrupt all the interruptions, for this:

HOT OFF THE PRESSES, or at least out of the camera.


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## DKShrimporium

Big sibling of recent vintage. This one's approaching 8 mm or so.


.


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## wicca27

mermaids are so pretty maybe one day i will get some right now im saving money for spring shipping hehe you already know what i want lol


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## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> I'm having visions of pulleys, rope, counter weights, and LED's. Hope it's not just bad holiday food.


Yes, you are correct that this picture is the lid levitation tank project. 

However, the point of choosing this picture is because it illustrates something else similiar to over the Sulawesi bank of tanks, which I can get a better angle to photograph over the BSC tank than I can over the Sulawesi tanks. 

There are a few rivulets that converge into the stream of puzzle-solving that is the Shrimporium. For now, we will address a few concepts using this picture: 

The first is that we need *light* over a tank, which uses power, but also puts out light _and_ heat.
The second is that due to the number of tanks, we need *vapor control*, which means lids. 
The third is that we need *measured heat into the tank*, because we need warm water for our livestock, but not TOO warm. A biproduct of this, and lids, is that we often have condensation on the undersurface of the lid, which decreases light transmission efficiency but helps with thermal efficiency as the heat of water vapor is trapped in the tank and doesn't escape, cooling the tanks further. But in warmer weather they ALSO hold in the heat, causing tank temps to become higher than ideal, usually.

So, the big picture to DK's latest project bender had to do with these spiral fluorescent fixtures she made over the Broke Student Crystals 65 gallon tank and also over the bank of Mermaid (Sulawesi) tanks. The fixtures accomplished one goal which was to increase the light into the tanks. 

However, it turns out they produce more heat than the previous fixtures, quite a bit more heat.

This past summer, those two compact fluorescent fixtures added enough heat to the Shrimporium that even with the Shrimporium climate control A/C auto-set, the tanks were still basically too hot all summer.

EXCEPT.

EXCEPT, the Sulawesi bank.

So, to make a long story short about the two day bender, DK decided to capture that heat, at least from the compact fluorescent fixtures over the Sulawesi bank, and prevent it from heating the room, and instead use that heat to heat the Sulawesi tanks, and in the process warm the lids, to get rid of the condensation and improve light transmission into the Sulawesi tanks, to grow more biofilms, to grow more Mermaids.

So, instead of those lights over the Sulawesi bank heating up the room, DK encased them over the tanks, trapping that heat, and adding a reflector in the process, to maximize light and heat going BACK into the Sulawesi tanks.

While this does not wholly solve the heat problem in the Shrimporium, it does ratchet the control in the right direction, decreasing the amount of light fixture heat that is heating the general room air, and re-directing that heat into the Sulawesi tanks.

Here are a few shots.

DK installed above the tanks/fixtures a sheet of mirrorized mylar, to bounce heat and light back down into the tanks. Above the mylar, rigid foam board. To the sides, also rigid foam board. Fitted bubble wrap curtain along the backside. Front is temporary right now, with a felt curtain holding in the heat that can be flipped up for access.

Being geeky, DK then had to see if she could discern and measure any results. She relocated her thermometer/humidity guage unit into the trapped space and measured a temperature increase of about 8 degrees F from previous levels, that is now baking down onto the tank lids like tropical sunshine, instead of diffusing into the general room air, heating up the room at large non-specifically.

And hopefully, this weekend, she will set up the last two demos for completion of the CJDS posts, and wrap it all up with a most lovely surprise conclusion!


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## wicca27

that is too cool . . . er warm?


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## DKShrimporium

OK... finally... back to the CJDS posts.

We are talking about degassing DK's carbonated well tap water, using a degassing reactor/chamber in-line with DK's Water Factory III. DK's well water comes from the well chock full of CO2 gas, which results in very acidic tap water, acidic enough to eat through brass and also acidic enough to make Mermaids very unhappy.

Before this post, we talked about things that contribute to degassing:

*The rough conceptual equation for degassing is: 
RESIDENCE TIME x degassing rate x increase in temperature 
= amount of degassing that occurs. *



*Henry's Law*

The solubility of a gas in a liquid depends on temperature, 
the partial pressure of the gas over the liquid, 
the nature of the solvent 
and the nature of the gas.​
We talked about RESIDENCE TIME, the time a solution sits around - the longer it sits, the more degassing happens over time.

We talked about MATRIX (ice cubes, and in the CJDS case the orange scrubby net), and how MATRIX provides SURFACE AREA for degassing to occur, and the higher the SURFACE AREA, the faster the degassing rate.

**************

Today, we finish up with the last two practical parts of the CJDS degassing rate. One thing we DO NOT include, but which is related to degassing rate, is the pressure of gasses over the liquid (in lay terms, the pressure of the different air molecules in air on the surface of the water). We don't get into this because in our CJDS system we are basically not ever changing the pressure of the system, so that variable doesn't matter so much in our CJDS system, even though in physics it does.

Today, we illustrate two more aspects that DO relate to the CJDS system: temperature, and agitation.

First, temperature.

DK took two identical cashew jars, put in the same amount of matrix, filled with freshly run DK well carbonated tap water, and set one on the kitchen counter at room temperature, and put the other in the fridge at cold temperature.

After 24 hours, she put the jars side by side and took pics of the degassing.

You will see that the room temperature jar has had a significant amount of degassing happen on the matrix surface, whereas the refrigerated jar shows no visible bubbles. 

Much more degassing is in progress in the warmer jar, because there is more heat energy for the gas molecules to bump around and mingle, and stick together, forming bubbles that snowball in growth over time. Much, much less bumping around and mingling the colder you go, so less forming bubbles.

In other words, more degassing takes place over a set amount of time if the temperature is warmer, than if the temperature is colder.

The top pictures shows the jars at the beginning, each treated the same, before separating them for temperature.

The bottom picture is 24 hours later, with the left jar held at room temperature and the right jar in the fridge. You can see the difference in rate of degassing easily.


.


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## DKShrimporium

And second, agitation. 

This time, I took two identical jars, and in the one on the left I put a air bubbler for an hour, then let them sit overnight, both on the counter.

Agitation via air bubbling bumps the molecules around, even more than mild heat, plus it interrupts the surface tension on the water surface when the air bubbles rise to the top and break across the water surface, enabling CO2 gas molecules to escape at the surface easier.

So, agitation increases CO2 degassing rate.

Here's a picture of that demo.

While it looks like there was MORE degassing in the non-agitated one because you see bubbles on the matrix, actually the one on the left had too little gas left to form bubbles, most of the gas had already escaped from the water, across the surface of the water and is gone into the air, so there is too little C02 gas left in the water to even form bubbles on the matrix. (Remember, eventually the bubbles snowball in size and rise to the top and escape the water across the water surface.) _So, the same looking picture means the opposite._ Of course this entertains DK, that the same picture means the opposite, depending what you did to it to get it. In the above temperature trial, if I let both jars sit another day, but BOTH at room temperature the originally chilled jar would have more and larger bubbles than the countertop jar after the second day, because after day one the countertop jar has lost some bubbles across the surface but the chilled jar is still holding most the gas in solution, not in bubbles about to escape. Then the second 24 hours, all that held gas in the originally chilled jar starts to degas on the matrix, making more degassing bubbles on the matrix than the other jar, because the other jar has already lost some of its gas in the first 24 hours.


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## wicca27

i love mad dk science where were you when i was in school hehe


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> i love mad dk science where were you when i was in school hehe


Probably geeking around, or scavenging for her hoard. Possibly eating.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS: DK's SEEING RED

And, it's not pretty. At least, coming out of her tap, in her well water.

Just the latest mole to whack, in her game of whack-a-mole.

So, she's got her work cut out for her. For the time being, she's pumping phosphates into her WFIII.


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## wicca27

cool lookin shrimp and is that nitrates that high?


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> cool lookin shrimp and is that nitrates that high?


Yeah, nitrates. The color card on the left is from my expired test kit, the color card on the right is from the brand new test kit, and the test tube was done using the new test on water from the tap.

Obviously, the test lies, but not completely. There is some amount of nitrates in my tap, as running a nitrate test on my tap results in this picture, and running the same test on distilled water I keep around did test out bright yellow (zero).

But according to the new color card, my TAP nitrates are pushing 80, which cannot be true. Because the shrimp tell me so.

I have to get a fresh gallon of distilled water (almost out of it) and make up some standard solutions and find out what the colors really mean. I suspect my tap is running 20-30 ppm nitrates.

And then, I'm a gonna start thinking a lot more about that DIY spectrophotometer, and LaMotte tests, because they are a lot more accurate. Drop tests read by bare eyes are somewhat of a joke, ESPECIALLY nitrate tests. On that new color card on the right, I can't tell the difference in a tube between 10 and 20, and between 40 and 80.

I never thought we'd get nitrate runoff in January! I look for it in peak corn season when they fertilize the cornfields, but didn't expect it in the dead of winter.

The Mermaid tank tested out with significant nitrates, which is extremely interesting to me; they have some level of tolerance apparently. The Sulawesi bank of tanks is higher risk than my other tanks simply because they don't support the biomass of moss that my other tanks do, so any nitrates in the water column will take longer to get metabolized. 

ALTHOUGH...

The CJDS is working for DK, in this respect. That is the most interesting conclusion of all, of that project. I hope to finish the last post with pictures soon.

In the non-Sulawesi tanks, DK's hiked the phosphates into the WFIII to deal with this. 

She already had trace and potassium in the system, but something was growth limiting the moss, so when the nitrates broke out, the moss couldn't explode in growth and take it up. She had recently adjusted the trace and potassium, and the only piece missing was to hike the phosphates. Hopefully that will super-charge the moss and it will eat up the nitrates better, now. 

DK's conceptual equation for plants: 

*N + P + K + T + L = turn on the plant mass metabolism*​
Where:

N = nitrates
P = phosphates
K = potassium
T = trace
L = light

Since we have nitrates pouring into the system through the tap water, we adjust up the rest through injections, and we already have plant mass in the tanks under low-growth conditions that will hopefully now kick into high growth conditions, burning up the nitrates as they enter the system.

Stay tuned...


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## laqu

funny i have well water (with a 3micron carbon filter) and it tests EXACTLY as my cycled tank does same ph and everything... i had to test bottled water to see if the kit worked!

worst part was my ph test strips (science not aquarium) showed a different number... realized the printed card was not 100% accurate on color (like yours) .. figured it out... 

that color card is MESSED UP...


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## wicca27

i have to agree i have a hard time telling the difference between some of the tests. it does come in handy to have a husband that is red green color blind he can see them alot better than i can some times


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## DKShrimporium

Well, this is going to be the second-to-last post on DK's Cashew Jar Department Store project. I had hoped to wrap it up in one more post, but the nitrate drama prevents me from the last post, for a while.

Sorta long post, so hang in there.

The objective of this project was originally single: to degas CO2 from Water Factory III feed into the Sulawesi banks. The problem I was having was that, due to the very acidic nature of my tap well water, due to high dissolved CO2 gas content, when the WFIII ran cycles and input into the Sulawesi tanks, I could not counteract this amount of acidity by neutralizing injections without taking my water out of the TDS range I had set for myself. Their water does receive injections to customize it and partially offset the pH, but within the TDS range I had set for myself for tank feed it was barely touching the pH aspect of incoming water.

To compound this problem, I was only running three 15 gallon tanks for my Sulawesi bank, and I typically set my incoming cycles at nominally 10% volume rate, so for a 15 gallon tank (nominally), I will not exceed an Water Factory rate that puts more than 1.5 gallons per hour flow rate into the tanks during a cycle. This is just something I've worked out over the years and is a whole other thesis to explain.

So at 1.5 gallons flow rate per hour for three tanks with two types of feed lines, I was not running enough water flow past my microinjectors to put them into accurate injection range. I'm running two injectors, and each needs a MINIMUM flow rate of 4 gallons per hour in order to have injection accuracy. I was running a total of 4.5 gallons per hour rate feed, this was split evenly by two water types, making each microinjector only "see" a flow rate of 2.25 gallons per hour, not enough to get the mechanics into accurate injection range.

So what this means is that one way I could have decreased the problems of too-acidic water into my Sulawesi tanks would have been to use a very low flow rate into the tanks, for longer, rather than a higher flow rate, for shorter. Except I could not do this, as I needed to have a higher flow rate going to get the micro-injectors to work properly.

So, I compromised and ran some flush lines off to the side, essentially wasting half my custom made water down the drain, in order to run more flow rate through my injectors to get them into accurate range. But this still put water into the tanks fast enough to dip my tank pH half a point each cycle.

The Mermaids were tolerating it but not thriving. I was barely holding ground with their population, replacing only the same number and not growing.

I discussed this problem with Shrimptern 2.0 and we sort of tossed the idea around, then I let it incubate a few more months, STUBBORNLY insisting that the solution be simple, easy, reliable, predictable, and of course cheap and non-proprietary.

So, DK begins pondering the cycle of degassing, in her head. (OK, if you want to use the accurate word: OBSESSING. Good projects usually involve an incubation period of obsession.) What goes into degassing, what are all the elements? She derives her conceptual equation we've talked about. She begins to build a plan how to use each of those parts of the conceptual equation, to solve her problem. (She does leave out the PRESSURE part of Henry's law, as to deal with that to increase degassing rate would mean applying vacuum to the system, which fit none of the criteria: easy, simple, cheap, etc., so she abandons that one aspect in her design.) Next, she begins to hunt around the house for ways, for parts, to do it. She ends up in the pantry one day, with the munchies, staring at the giant Costco jar of cashews, and the idea begins to form...

From that, with a lotta pondering, she evolved the CJDS project.

First, she needed to buy time, for degassing. This meant retention chambers, carefully manipulated so the water is forced to stay in them the longest time before it hits the tank input.

Next, she needed all the help she could get, to get that gas out of the water DURING that residence time. She builds into the plan: MATRIX (via the orange net stuff), AGITATION (via airstones tied into a timer, that turn on an hour before until an hour after each cycle), ADDED HEAT.

So today, she sort of wraps up, talking about the ADDED HEAT.

What she did was to place the CJDS units, in their secondary containment trays, just above the tanks, and therefore just above those spiral fluorescent fixtures.

When she recently encased that space to trap the heat, she left the space above for the CJDS trays, so they'd get direct access to that heat below them.

In doing this, she solved a second problem that she'd since engineered a solution to: live Water Factory water was hitting her delicate Sulawesi tanks at 60 some degrees, plunging her tank temps and kicking on her heaters, so the Mermaids were "seeing" half a point in pH swing, and a degree or two drop in temperature each Water Factory cycle.

By buying residence time, and adding heat into the degassing chambers, she both increased degassing efficiency AND mediated that temperature, since after a stay in the department store over the heat of the lights, the water NOW entering the tanks was BOTH degassed AND warmed up.

Pretty slick, huh, especially using that light fixure heat.

But there was one more lovely side effect...

We digress here to hop up on the soapbox. You see, DK loves systems. Parts, that make a whole. Pieces, that fit together. Multiple objectives, that come together and dovetail in their solutions.

There is no more efficient designer of integrated systems than Nature. Nature uses everything, re-uses, recycles, overlaps, all these things. They are slowly learning just how complex our DNA is, that it has regions that start instructions, stop instructions, alter or control instructions, provide building plans, and have overlapping sections that do different tasks. That sort of thing. Why DK digs things biological - they are just so freakin' coo-el in their multi-dimensionality.

OK, so back to the CJDS degassing reactors. Using simple principles, and simple mechanics for the most part, DK was able to slow down water to a 24 hour residence time, route the water to control the oldest water entering the tanks, provide matrix and agitation, simply, to maximize degassing, and re-use (wasted, extraneous) heat to speed up the process and mediate temperatures of incoming cycle water, solving a second problem of temperature dips each cycle.

Oh, but it gets even better, thanks to Nature.

DK set up the beta tests, and let it run, to "ripen" over a few months, while she strung y'all out on the posts. She wanted to iron the kinks out of the project, so by the time she wrapped up she could say she made progress on her goals and that it was "working" - which is it, spectacularly. The Mermaids are grinding out the babies and looking the best they have since she's had them, and since the onset of the CJDS, the population has started to grow, not just replace itself.

While she was letting the system settle in and show results, two other aspects arose, which presented problems to solve, for systemic goals:


Mermaids appear to survive primarily off biofilms. They are not so interested in any sort of food. Their natural environment is low TDS and low nutrients in the water. DK struggled with how to grow enough bioslime to run a production tank - high density population eventually - when there is limited bioslime grown off lean water.
True to Murphy, and Whack-a-Mole, the nitrate problem popped up in her tap water, complicating things. Now, she had to watch nitrates.

But while these problems were emerging, Nature was at work.

Up there, above that lots o' leftover BRIGHT LIGHT and "WASTED" HEAT, Nature was evolving solutions to both these problems.

The degassing chambers began to culture biofilms on the matrix, fed by fresh water, nitrates, light, and heat, and CO2 on a regular basis. Our problems became our solutions. 

The matrix has now cultured extensive biofilm, rich in nutrients and thriving with photosynthetic organisms. DK will use this to change out the matrix on a schedule, careful not to remove too much matrix any one time, so enough is left to handle "eating" down the nitrates, and transfer the matrix to the tank, as groceries, while putting a new matrix into the chamber, to culture. She will plunk the slimy matrix down into the Mermaid tank, let 'em gorge until it's mostly cleaned off, then trade that one out into the degassing chamber with the next one, replacing the "eaten" one back into the degassing chamber until it's all slimed up, again. Since there are two chambers to each degassing unit, she will always keep one slimed up, to handle the nitrates, and trade out the other as groceries.

She now has a bio-solution that breaks down the nitrates and uses them to farm slime!

That is the coolest thing.

Here are shots of the CJDS unit above the light and heat, the growth on the matrix, and a shot of the oxygen being put out as a thriving, photsynthetic bioslime puts out oxygen at the bottom of the chambers, where they are seeing the light and heat.

DK just loves a slick solution.

AND... the VERY LAST post on the CJDS project will be, after she gets nitrates mediated correctly, a picture of those Mermaids chowing down on slimy matrix, at the smorgasbord o' slime. But that picture, and therefore the last post, will have to wait.

Such a delicious project. Now, DK bides her time, waiting for piano strings to arrive. We're going to learn how to string our own piano strings, we decided. May as well learn the whole kaboosh. The Geek way.


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimptern 2.0 - This one's for you!*

Shrimptern 2.0: Got a picture of what I was tellin' ya.

Good things are happening... all over the Shrimporium, right now.

_Despite_ our nitrate spike.

********

IN OTHER NEWS, ebay is my friend. Shrimp juice, made faster.


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## Betta Maniac

DKShrimporium said:


> She now has a bio-solution that breaks down the nitrates and uses them to farm slime!


All I can think is this:


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## jone

Here is a picture of my Wattson showing me his new toy..Sorry so late but hopefully more to come...


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## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> Here is a picture of my Wattson showing me his new toy..Sorry so late but *hopefully more to come*...


More. Definitely need more.

Sooooo sleek and shiny, and what a great attitude shot, except on first glance I thought he had killed a cat! What IS that toy?

I sooooooooo want to feel that sleek coat. I just don't think there is any dog more sleek than a beautiful Dobe.

I think Wattson needs his place in the Steampunk Goggles Gallery... hmm...

Thanks for the picture! I wish I could meet these dogs in real life!!

DK

DK keeps wondering what color a Slurm smoothie would be. And what would it taste like??

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK's tap is now running *orange*, down from *red*. Depending on which color card one reads, that could be anywhere from 10-20 ppm nitrates pouring into her tanks twice daily.


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## jone

Thanks for the compliments...Wattson always has to show and share his toys,especially to show me his toys so his greedy brother does not hoard them all..Here is Dozer,,Watty's brother...He is hoarding the 2 new two toys.... ..The toys are a Triceratops dinosaur stuffed animal..I just gave them both bathes for Xmas,,they are extra shiny smooth now....Very smooth and soft to pet them..To meet in person,that would all be toooo great to happen...Pennsylvania is not that of a big state,,never know...These pictures are yours for the taking...


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## wicca27

kentucky isnt to far either lol im mid state and at the top


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## jone

Funny you say that..My better half was just at Lexington,KY right after Xmas with her friends visting some Saddle bred horse farms down there..


wicca27 said:


> kentucky isnt to far either lol im mid state and at the top


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## jone

DK,,,sssshhhhhhh,,please do not say cat,dog,squirrel and most of all "bunny"..Wattson is always nebbing out the windows,,relentlessly..Day after day..I have already accepted defeat in trying to keep up with cleaning wet nose prints off his favorite window...


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> kentucky isnt to far either lol im mid state and at the top


You know C, I have actually googled your distance, as I've thought you need to be a Shrimptern, how much you follow this thread! You are within a day's drive...

DK was excited this weekend as she got a note from Shrimptern 0.0. Yes, folks, the original Shrimptern from YEARS ago!! We hope to have a repeat visit from them soon, to pick up some shreemps.

Plus, you need to see that 75 gallon tank that is now WALL-TO-WALL with bolbitis, there is no room for the poor plecos to swim, it is like a bamboo swamp in density! Need to sell some off. Pics below.



jone said:


> DK,,,sssshhhhhhh,,please do not say cat,dog,squirrel and most of all "bunny"..Wattson is always nebbing out the windows,,relentlessly..Day after day..I have already accepted defeat in trying to keep up with cleaning wet nose prints off his favorite window...


I soooooo get this! We live next door to wooded wilderness FULL of rabbits, deer, and unfortunately skunk!! One of my Germans fancies himself a feral wolf, and each night he TEARS out the door and over to the woods and tries to hunt something. Problem is he was taking my domesticated rescue Mr. Flop Ear with him on adventure, and when the TWO of them go on adventure, they often go much farther and then I have to go after them for hours. So we now have a protocol for last thing at night that only ONE DOG AT A TIME gets to go out, in shifts, it's that bad!

Those boys make me want another Dobie so badly... now, remember you promised me pics of the girls, too! DK doesn't forget, when it comes to dogs. Every where else her memory is like a sieve, but if someone promises her pics of DOGS, she remembers!

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Yesterday, in between piano stringing help, DK quit procrastinating and FINALLY used the Aquavac in its second intended purpose.

She did a tank de-mulming of the 65 gallon Broke Student Crystal tank, and sucked off about a gallon of mulm from the substrate. The bucket, which horrified her as she had her hands in that bacteria-paste, looked alarmingly like her morning Bubba Mug of joe, and she is letting it settle to snap a pic of the sheer bulk of mulm she harvested, will probably need to settle a day or two.

The great news is that the Aquavac did exactly what she imagined it should. She was able to accomplish this task IN A TANK FULL OF SHRIMP and the shrimp are fine. No shrimp were sucked up during this process, or harmed. That is whole reason she designed the aquavac, for this purpose primarily.

One thing she has decided is to get more robust tubing on the input and output, as the long ones she's now using tend to collapse and kink, interfering with pump function. She does need to address this.



.


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## DKShrimporium

AND... because DK is a Geek, she MUST post this.

Here is the restrung string. We had one pop when we tuned, as these strings are 120 years old. 

So, we decided to try our hand at restringing.

The interesting thing is that the string starts up above, goes down the sound board, loops around a peg down there, then returns up top to a different peg. So one string can do two different notes, or two strings of the same note. In the treble range in pianos, each treble note is strung by three strings, so when the piano hammer hits the strings to sound a note, it's hitting three strings tuned to the same frequency.

This particular string goes down as one note, and comes up as the NEXT note.

So interesting.

See how shiny the new string is, compared to the 120 year old original strings... and see how there are two pegs with shiny string, one is going down, the other is that same string coming back up.


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## Betta Maniac

I love all the dog stuff interspersed with the tank stuff and the DIY stuff. My giant beast is VERY interested in the deer when I take him up the mountains. Luckily, he’s such a momma’s boy I don’t think there’s any worry of him actually running off, LOL!


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## wicca27

i really wish i could be a shrimptern but not sure hubby would like it. moose would have such fun if he came too for a visit hehe. maybe one of these days i will be able to come and meet you. even if its just a short visit. distance really isnt to much of a problem we take trips to ny to see hubbys mom and back to oklahoma to see my family a couple times a year. thing is we only have 1 car and he needs it for work. he is in the army and we are at fort knox now lol


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## DKShrimporium

Betta Maniac said:


> I love all the dog stuff interspersed with the tank stuff and the DIY stuff. My giant beast is VERY interested in the deer when I take him up the mountains. Luckily, he’s such a momma’s boy I don’t think there’s any worry of him actually running off, LOL!


The giant beast is a Mastiff, right? A GERMAN Mastiff? We need another pic. Oh, wait, English have Mastiffs, too, don't they. Well, we'll take him enneywheh.



wicca27 said:


> i really wish i could be a shrimptern but not sure hubby would like it. moose would have such fun if he came too for a visit hehe. maybe one of these days i will be able to come and meet you. even if its just a short visit. distance really isnt to much of a problem we take trips to ny to see hubbys mom and back to oklahoma to see my family a couple times a year. thing is we only have 1 car and he needs it for work. he is in the army and we are at fort knox now lol


Hmmmmm. DK drums fingers on chin.... Hmmmmmmm....


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## Betta Maniac

He's actually half Italian and half English (Neapolitan and Bull), but he looks very much like a small OEM. Enough so that many people don't believe me, including a local show judge, LOL!










Next to Joe (who's 6'1") for a bit of size comparison


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## DKShrimporium

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh... brindle. Brindle is as bad for DK as sleek. Along with chocolate, oreos, bugles, Lorna Doone, rice crispy treats, and any number of other things with which she has no compulsion control.

Yes, where do you keep the saddle, and carriage for him? Wow, gorgeous big hunka dog. He would make a very stylish coffee table. Big, blocky, even fur covered, coffee table/ottomans are the rage now, you know. Just tell him to lie down in front of the Sofa, and voila. Or if he were on his side, lying down, he'd make a very stylish sectional.

I see you have a little sleeky along with bug hunka. Italian Greyhound? Whippet?

And, um. I did NOT think it was possible. But I think this head might be larger than my goddog rottie's. Yes, I harvested your picture:! I had to show this head, plus there's a cute little sleeky in it, too!


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## Betta Maniac

Whoops, stuff I couldn't see on the phone! ***That's Roadie, an Italian Greyhound who belongs to Joe and his wife. She was NOT impressed with Clancy (we were in Vegas on a trip and they came by to say hello).*** = the pic I posted. The little bugger in the pic DK put up is my BIL's dog Bukowski (whippet/pit). He's about 12 weeks old in that pic.

I'm not sure about a coffee table, but he does make a quite impressive and comfy body pillow, LOL! He's totally down with being an ottoman though.


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## DKShrimporium

Ahem.

(clears throat)

"OK, OK!! I admit I stole it! There were dog pictures, lots of them. DK had to see them! Lookit this one she found..."


.


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## Betta Maniac

That's Clancy's littermate, Slag, who belongs to my sister. They had destroyed a feather pillow & strewn feathers aaaaaaallllllllll over the house.


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## Betta Maniac

In fact, that photo won a Destructo Dog photo contest, LOL! Not sure that's really one anyone wants to win though...


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## DKShrimporium

*And now... Back to actual shrimporium news>>>*

So yesterday, in between looking at all those lovely dog pictures of Betta Maniac's, DK was on the run.

The leak frogs went off THREE times.

The first time, after the morning cycle, DK was muttering to herself about the immaculate conception, about how the HECK could water be on the floor when nothing above it was wet, and there was no discernable leak??

She mopped up, ran the towels through the wash and dry, and then gathered her flu-ridden assistant to run a dummy cycle and look for the water springing forth. 

Normally, cycles are 16 minutes nowadays, so we ran one for about 10, just to be sure. NO WATER, NO LEAKS.

Uh. Whatever.

Turn the system back on "auto," wait for the next cycle.

Next cycle, frog is chirping, AGAIN.

DK runs down there, and discovers the problem.

Not one she'd EVER have anticipated. She tells all y'all all (WHERE ELSE can y'get such quality prose as "all y'all all"??!!) the time to anticipate and PLAN FOR every failure, but it's the ones that we DON'T anticipate that are buggers.

So... what happened, with frog chirping #2??

The tanks drain by overflow, all of them, into main PVC pipe "sewer" drainage pipes which converge and empty into one of two sump basins, depending on which side of the room the tanks are.

The sewer drainage pipes are large enough bore that they should not EVER clog.


BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT.

Oh, yes. BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT.

One of the sewer pipes, when it enters the sump basin, was directed through some discharge hose, to the bottom of the basin (for the heat exchanger). The discharge hose then had a smaller bore, still not too small, though, and DK had purposely put into the center of the discharge hose a piece of stiff hose, so that the discharge hose (which is flimsy) could not ever be squashed off.

So far, so good.

But here's the thing.

As the discharge hose left the sewer pipe, it took an angle to head toward the bottom of the sump basin. This angle involved folds and bends of the discharge hose. There was still plenty of open space, DK thought. 

There should be NOTHING but water draining from the overflows, she thought, and an occasional shrimp that insists on climbing into the overflow to get swept downstream.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT, she forgot about those pesky MTS.

She found the wrinkles of the discharge hose filled with pebbles, so she thought, until she opened it up and realized it was MTS (malaysian trumpet snails, that is). They had clogged the line enough so that her main sewer pipe drainage rate slowed and began to back up, at about 15 minutes into the cycle. 

Upstream, where the overflow pipes entered the sewer pipe, when the water level backed all the way up there, it came oozing out and dripped down onto the floor, such that you could not see where it came from, only could see the water on the floor.

BUT DK is persistent, and found the problem. Took apart the sump pit assembly and did a little plumbing adjustment and got rid of the problem, so it can't happen again. While she was in there, she visited and greeted her sump pit underground shrimp, but she did not bother to net them out as she was short of time and they are like feral street children, very hard to catch and they manage on their own in their harsh underground world.

All fixed, she thought. 

She gathered the wet towels, ran wash and dry, and sat down to rest.

Later, the frogs chirped AGAIN. This time, the cycle is NOT running.

She looks around for the water, then looks for the source, and this time it was a loose connection to an overflow that had been knocked loose when she was wrangling with the sewer pipe. Tightened that connection back up, and then she declared:


It's time to get serious about the DK Watersnake. 

The parts and plans have been sitting down there a year, and she hasn't installed the thing yet.

But now, it's time. That, and Shrimptern 0.0 is returning in a week or so. Hmmmmmmmmm... a convergence of events that suggests a solution...

Her leak frogs are cute, but annoying when they chirp!

*********

OK, so here's a shot of the culprit, after most of the debris was cleared.

And a shot of her Aquavac harvest from the 65 gallon cleaning, about half gallon of solid mulm paste settled out.


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## wicca27

thank goodness for leak frogs lol.


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## DKShrimporium

While DK stews, and ponders the permanent fix of yesterday's heat exchanger barrel issue, here is the _news du jour_ (that's fancy French, remember this is highbrow prose) on the Mermaids:

NEW BABIES!!

Ever since instituting the CJDS, they have been pumping out the babies. Mermaid babies are THE CUTEST shrimp babies. 

Also shown, a clean, fresh Mermaid molt this morning.


.


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## DKShrimporium

And, on the Black Tiger front, DK has discovered Rolf, Jr., but with GOLDEN COMIC BOOK EYES, her favorite eyes!! 

This little guy is coming up on 1 cm now.


.


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## Betta Maniac

Rolf is a very handsome shrimp.


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## DKShrimporium

Betta Maniac said:


> Rolf is a very handsome shrimp.


Rolf, Jr. is more toward the T-Rex type, but DK's been gettin' some interesting Broke-Blacks lately that have caused her to think about pulling them and breeding toward an Overo line of blacks. She thinks that would be so coo-el.

Mebbe she'll call 'em Overo Ebony or sumpin' like dat.

Bronco, shown below, is a good start for this line - she has a variety of 'em like him.


.


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## Forumsnow

Beautiful shrimp and great information. I have been slowly reading through your posts for the past week haha. I do not have a dog, buuuut I do have a little girl spotted turtle named Speedie! She begs just like a dog and loves to have her belly rub.








She is sitting there begging as I clean my oebt tank above her haha


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## wicca27

i love the new shrimp and im sure you could pull and breed for that pattern. couldnt be to hard.


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## DKShrimporium

Forumsnow said:


> Beautiful shrimp and great information. I have been slowly reading through your posts for the past week haha. I do not have a dog, buuuut I do have a little girl spotted turtle named Speedie! She begs just like a dog and loves to have her belly rub.
> She is sitting there begging as I clean my oebt tank above her haha


Welcome to Speedie. Does she say, "Andele.... arriba!"?

Seriously, she likes having her belly rubbed? Whuda gest.


.


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## Forumsnow

Yes, she does love to have her bellied rubbed and her shell scratched lol. I noticed her rubbing shell on things so I figured I would try rubbing it for her, she loved it! I imagine her shell itches as our skin does when we have a scratch that is healing. I have raised here for a about a year and a half now, she was the size of a nickel when I rescued her. I never thought a turtle could have so much personality and energy. She will follow my finger back and forth along the glass like a dog chasing a stick. Not to mention she has eaten just about any table scrap I give her. She ate kielbasa for the first time the other night haha. 

Back on track, your black tigers look amazing. I just got some oebt yesterday. Hoping I can keep them alive.


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## wicca27

dk has beautiful oebt


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## DKShrimporium

Finally found it... picture of the original Celebrity Shrimp Rolf. Those of you old timers following, today's Rolf, Jr. (Actually, Rolf III) is somewhere between the original Rolf and his comrade Hansel.

Original Rolf - top
Hansel -next
Today's Rolf III - next
Rolf Jr. c. 3/2011 - bottom

.


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## wicca27

looking good keep those shrimp commin


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## jone

Something to put a smile on your face...Pictures of the girls....Abby and Sonny,,they are a sister and a niece to my boys....My sister is pretty good at taking pictures..Even a picture of one of Santa's helpers..Enjoy.........


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## DKShrimporium

OK, so after fully taking in these pictures of sleekies, and pondering them for a full day of sighing enjoyment, fingers twitching, DK counters with this:

TAKE THAT!!!

YOU WANT PRETTY, DK CAN DO PRETTY!!!

.


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## DKShrimporium

(All pictures posted today were shot today. Yeah, they're lousy pictures, but who cares... they are the awesome results of 2 years of tinkering with DKMSJ.)

And, the MUCH UNDER-RATED beauty of the yellow mama with eyed eggs.

And, the delicious citrus-y punch of an orange mama.

Blue Tiger mama, packin'.

Black Tiger mamas, packin'.

SO THERE!


.


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## jone

Those shrimp are very pretty..Really love those shrimp,,but a little gun shy to venture to high end of the water PH column..Those T rex shrimp of yours are something that has been a real object of my desires for my shrimp dreams....Would love get some of those in one my tanks,,really love the black/regular eye version a lot...There is always so much for one to like,but tank space is always the topic...I have set up a shrimp central system and coming very close to things being cycled and have to aquire some stock for some of the tanks on the system....Hoped to put a smile on your face with the female sleekie pictures...


DKShrimporium said:


> OK, so after fully taking in these pictures of sleekies, and pondering them for a full day of sighing enjoyment, fingers twitching, DK counters with this:
> 
> TAKE THAT!!!
> 
> YOU WANT PRETTY, DK CAN DO PRETTY!!!
> 
> .


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## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> Those shrimp are very pretty..Really love those shrimp,,but a little gun shy to venture to high end of the water PH column..Those T rex shrimp of yours are something that has been a real object of my desires for my shrimp dreams....Would love get some of those in one my tanks,,really love the black/regular eye version a lot...There is always so much for one to like,but tank space is always the topic...I have set up a shrimp central system and coming very close to things being cycled and have to aquire some stock for some of the tanks on the system....Hoped to put a smile on your face with the female sleekie pictures...


Whut!

_Are yew bhrabin' me?_


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## jone

Not intentionally,,,aaahh maybe a little bit...Just a little bit..I had to heckel my sister for pictures of the girls,,did not want to break a promise...Only reason she took so long is ,,she has so many pictures ....Pictures and pictures and pictures..Finally she emailed them... The CRS/CBS are doing great,,the main reason for my new central system..Yup,,,to your question...Is it working by chance..(as I look away with a smiley grin hoping it does work).Just kidding,,not my intentions....


DKShrimporium said:


> Whut!
> 
> _Are yew bhrabin' me?_


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## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> Not intentionally,,,aaahh maybe a little bit...Just a little bit..I had to heckel my sister for pictures of the girls,,did not want to break a promise...Only reason she took so long is ,,she has so many pictures ....Pictures and pictures and pictures..Finally she emailed them... The CRS/CBS are doing great,,the main reason for *my new central system*..Yup,,,to your question...Is it working by chance..(as I look away with a smiley grin hoping it does work).Just kidding,,not my intentions....


Sooooooooooooo.

Is there to be a new thread, about how this room (which, I might add, has a SLEEK floor, unlike the soft, furry floor of German Shepherd hair clouds in DK's Shrimporium) came to be "centralized?":

(remember, DK hoards things, even like pictures...)

_And while SOMEBODY is puttin' together a thread about a centralized system (sorta like IDEA COCAINE for DIY junkies like DK), let's go back to our adopted non-shrimp, non-German, not-even-a-dog, not the TPT forum member, not the vintage cartoon mouse, Speedie:_



Forumsnow said:


> Yes, she does love to have her bellied rubbed and her shell scratched lol. I noticed her rubbing shell on things so I figured I would try rubbing it for her, she loved it! I imagine her shell itches as our skin does when we have a scratch that is healing. I have raised here for a about a year and a half now, she was the size of a nickel when I rescued her. I never thought a turtle could have so much personality and energy. She will follow my finger back and forth along the glass like a dog chasing a stick. Not to mention she has eaten just about any table scrap I give her. She ate kielbasa for the first time the other night haha.
> 
> Back on track, your black tigers look amazing. I just got some oebt yesterday. Hoping I can keep them alive.


DK, who has an inquiring mind, really wants to know the story of finding a NICKEL-SIZED little itty bitty cutie turtle, and how in the heck you figured out how to feed the nickel. That must have been so cute, seeing a nickel eat, whatever a nickel eats. Pray, *do* tell.

******

And finally, NOT to be out-done by a NON-GERMAN mastiff, DK's goddog Rottie sent this picture:


.


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## wicca27

that is a nice set up one of these days i will have something like it.


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## jone

Let me define central system..From my picture here,,there are only 6-20gal. tanks on a 40 gal sump with my prototype shrimp baby catchers on the sump....Far from being proven but getting close to finish cycling now.. I am hopefully going to consolidate 3 separate tanks into the system..Sure there are going to be some up and coming hickups along the way after I put shrimp into their tanks..looking to empty some tanks after the shrimp are moved...This little central system took me since late spring 2012 to mid Nov 2012 to get up and running ..Not a lot of time to do personal things when the construction season is going..


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## sayurasem

Nice rack!


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## DKShrimporium

Early this morning, DK fixed the drainpipe to the heat exchanger, but was too in a hurry to snap pictures.

Lots o' activity in the Shrimporium, today. 

DK stared at the Black Tigers a bit and thought more on this Overy Ebony idea.

She finds pigment variations incredibly beautiful, and loves the way they individuate, so you can tell each shrimp as unique.

When she gets enough, she's gonna do it. Mebbe by next fall

(Photo credit for drop dead gorgeous Overo Paint horse: http://colourfulequines.tumblr.com/page/3)


.


.


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## sbarbee54

Maybe we can swap some btoe I have some that are like yours and I see more and more like that with each batch of new ones maturing. Maybe my splotchy ones for your good ones?


Sent from my iPad 3 using Tapatalk HD


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## DKShrimporium

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!​
DK just found a classic T-Rex baby! Her all time favorite!!


.


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## DKShrimporium

sbarbee54 said:


> Maybe we can swap some btoe I have some that are like yours and I see more and more like that with each batch of new ones maturing. Maybe my splotchy ones for your good ones?


DK files this away, in the squirrely brain, for later. For one thing, it's the dead of winter. But mainly, her Black Tiger tank is currently in the Nitrate study and she doesn't ever mess with a tank in a study.

She has executive rules, she does...


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## sbarbee54

Lol well store it for a nice spring day. My tigers are finally thriving and dropping babies like rain drops during a storm


Sent from my iPad 3 using Tapatalk HD


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## DKShrimporium

Back to Rolf III. Here's another shot from today.

I think Rolf III is going to finish out a lot like the second picture.

The black/blue/vintage tiger blend makes such interesting stuff. DK thinks they are juuuuuust gorgeous.


.


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## wicca27

i love those shrimp, one of these days i will have some lol. i need a better set up with more room for them. all my shrimp are in 5 gal tanks


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## Betta Maniac

Clancy thinks I'm insane trying to take a picture of the top of his head. He keeps shrugging out of the way. Across the top of the skull he's 8 1/2-9 inches. 

And I totally agree about the shrimp! I love these. They're just beautiful.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Betta Maniac said:


> Clancy thinks I'm insane trying to take a picture of the top of his head. He keeps shrugging out of the way. Across the top of the skull he's 8 1/2-9 inches.
> 
> And I totally agree about the shrimp! I love these. They're just beautiful.


OK, so... took me two days to do it, but I finally dug out a tape measure. This is LARGER than DK's corelle salad plate. The same size as a toddler basketball. The length of a standard box of Kleenex. I feel so sorry for those puppies' mother. How large was the litter?

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK is (see the space between these two dots: ..) this close to finalizing the schedule when Shrimptern 0.0 will be coming back to help with the DK Watersnake install, hopefully this weekend... stay tuned.

--------

And finally, for your viewing pleasure, more variety outta that Black Tiger tank. Today, we feature a poison blue and a monochrome. Oh, yeah, and she found a red-eye Rolfette. Tried to take a pic, and another fame-seeker narcissist shrimp got in the frame...


.


----------



## Betta Maniac

DKShrimporium said:


> OK, so... took me two days to do it, but I finally dug out a tape measure. This is LARGER than DK's corelle salad plate. The same size as a toddler basketball. The length of a standard box of Kleenex. I feel so sorry for those puppies' mother. How large was the litter?


It was a litter of 12 (the poor owner was traumatized by the time they were 8 weeks old and roughly 20lbs). They were around 1lb each at birth though. Tiny little things.


----------



## speedie408

Great stuff Donna. Love the Royal blue, or what you call Poison blue?


----------



## DKShrimporium

speedie408 said:


> Great stuff Donna. Love the Royal blue, or what you call Poison blue?


That wasn't my term; it came from a former purveyor of shrimp who is no longer around. DK chuckles here at the supreme irony. Said purveyor basically poisoned them-self away, 'nuff said.


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so DK has just FINALIZED the DK Watersnake install schedule with Shrimptern 0.0 - this weekend, heh heh heh... oh, crap, I hafta get to Lowes!!

And also FINALLY, the very last post I'm a gonna dooooo on DK's Cashew Jar Department Store project, a.k.a. degassing chamber.

Here, we have the nicely cultured orange matrix material that is in one of the degassing chambers, soaking up allat light and heat from the spirals, below, making a lovely green velvet salad bar for the Mermaids.

And here, in the second picture, we have our first very shy patrons of the salad bar. They were actually more of them and closer, but as soon as they see DK's big scary head and that black camera, they scoot away. They all do this funny thing, scanning for predators, and back up to the net, searching the sky, then finally climb onto the net. So, alas, this is the best picture she a'got. DK's sure them Mermaids will be all over that salad bar in the dark of night...


.


----------



## Forumsnow

DKShrimporium said:


> Sooooooooooooo.
> 
> Is there to be a new thread, about how this room (which, I might add, has a SLEEK floor, unlike the soft, furry floor of German Shepherd hair clouds in DK's Shrimporium) came to be "centralized?":
> 
> (remember, DK hoards things, even like pictures...)
> 
> _And while SOMEBODY is puttin' together a thread about a centralized system (sorta like IDEA COCAINE for DIY junkies like DK), let's go back to our adopted non-shrimp, non-German, not-even-a-dog, not the TPT forum member, not the vintage cartoon mouse, Speedie:_
> 
> 
> DK, who has an inquiring mind, really wants to know the story of finding a NICKEL-SIZED little itty bitty cutie turtle, and how in the heck you figured out how to feed the nickel. That must have been so cute, seeing a nickel eat, whatever a nickel eats. Pray, *do* tell.
> 
> ******
> 
> And finally, NOT to be out-done by a NON-GERMAN mastiff, DK's goddog Rottie sent this picture:
> 
> 
> .


Sorry just seen this. It was just after Hurricane Sandy I want to say. I was in a front end loader at work loading a truck with gravel. Not to brag but I have amazing vision(only good thing I was born with haha) and I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. So I jumped down and saw it was a teeny tiny turtle. I kept her in a cardboard box for the rest of the day. When she was small I would just find worms and cut them into bite size pieces. We still feed her night crawlers cut up, turtle pellets, and her favorite freeze dried shrimp. We also feed her scrambled eggs, all kinds of lunch meat, tuna, basically anything I eat she will. 

Love her to death, like a really small dog. I think we got her young enough that all the wild is gone from her. Hope this information puts your mind at ease. Any more questions feel free to ask. Ill have to go on my computer this weekend and find some of the pictures from when we first got her.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Forumsnow said:


> Sorry just seen this. It was just after Hurricane Sandy I want to say. I was in a front end loader at work loading a truck with gravel. Not to brag but I have amazing vision(only good thing I was born with haha) and I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. So I jumped down and saw it was a teeny tiny turtle. I kept her in a cardboard box for the rest of the day. When she was small I would just find worms and cut them into bite size pieces. We still feed her night crawlers cut up, turtle pellets, and her favorite freeze dried shrimp. We also feed her scrambled eggs, all kinds of lunch meat, tuna, basically anything I eat she will.
> 
> Love her to death, like a really small dog. I think we got her young enough that all the wild is gone from her. Hope this information puts your mind at ease. Any more questions feel free to ask. Ill have to go on my computer this weekend and find some of the pictures from when we first got her.


See, I just KNEW it would be a great tale. Earth rumbling, stones falling, and out of the corner of the eye... a teeny tiny movement, a life.

Can't wait to see the nickel. Bite sized pieces of worm, for a nickel, are pretty small, I should think.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

She COULDN'T STAND IT. 

DK had to sneak down to the Shrimporium with a flashlight and see if the svelt Mermaids were gorging on the salad bar.

Yep. Tons of shiny eyes, throughout the netting. 

And I bet tomorrow morning, it will be shrimpless come lights on, and they will be acting like no-way-no-how are they going over to THAT thing.

Hypocrites.

Oh, and DK mighta lied (she's SUCH A LIAR!!!) about that being the last post on the CJDS project. OK, so she MEANT it to be, but after some beta testing, she's decided to do some tweaking for some pertinent reasons. Time to shop for some large marbles...


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK has a squirrely brain. It tends to run wild. It can roar to a start, even before waking. Today, she awoke to the thought:

_Mebbe it isn't LYING. 
Mebbe it's REVISITING REALITY from another view.
Yeah, that's it._​
And then, she went digging, through her front closet. Not the bins & barrels of parts 'n' pieces, mind you, but the front closet. And got herself this, to finalize the CJDS project, and THEN do the LAST post on that project. 

See, she REVISITED REALITY, that's all. She din't really lie, at least this time.

What is it? Why, it's a floor buffing pad. Doesn't everyone have a box of these in their front closet? I think she's used them about six times, and only one was actually used for its intended purpose. (Notice how just about every non-tank picture she takes has German Shepherd body parts in it...)

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

Last night, she was (once again, in a FUTILE effort) trying to take pics, because for once she's cleaned her glass, and there was this gorgeous Overo sitting really still for her. DK HATES taking pictures of shrimp, because it frustrates her. The squirrely brain knows just what it wants, and cannot ever achieve it. There has to be this perfect storm of picture-taking-willingness, clean glass, charged batteries, known location of the camera, and an actual subject somewhere near the glass, for her to take pictures. Oh yeah, and the camera on macro or super macro mode, the right one. Last night, she had all these lined up, and was snapping this picture of this gal, when RIGHT AFTER the picture, some male hit on her!!

Why, of course, she was sitting still because she just molted, and is about to start the OVERO EBONY line!!! 

Just look at that half-hemispheric map of partially drifting Pangea illustrated on her side. I swear there's a continent that looks like sideways Africa, and then upside-down Australia, but maybe it's a fantasy world, DK's not sure. At any rate, she stared at this picture, and those unique EVE-ian (as in, Adam and Eve, the origins of a race) markings all night, on her screen.


.


----------



## wicca27

nice a new line just waiting for you thats awsome. they are so pretty dk cant wait to try them one day lol. any who nice pic of the shrimp she is pretty and soon to be preggers. good luck with the new adventure


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK is easily amused. As a matter of fact, she pretty much amuses herself all day long off various flying thoughts.

One amusement is to look in a tank and tell herself stories, based on what she sees, the phenotypes of the shrimp. Here is a glorious example in pictorial form. Here, you see three sets of eye genes (that would be three genotypes) that DISPLAY as three different looking eyes (that would be phenotypes). 

On the left, the dark eye.
In the middle, the famed golden eye.
On the right, DK's personal favorite, the comic book eye, which can come in various colors but is characterized by a comical pupil.

But, it doesn't end there.

Three phenotypes in pigment styles.

On the left, the reddish matte overlay derived from Blue Tiger shrimp.
In the middle, poison blue, characterized by a thinner layer of pigment that shows blackish down to blue, depending on the density.
On the right, dense black pigment derived from extending the stripes of wild tiger shrimp.

Oh, and one more.

Three phenotypes in leg pigment.

On the left, DK's personal favorite, the spider banded leg.
In the middle, the mono-pigment coverage.
On the right, pigment free legs.

*****

When DK looks around in her Black Tiger tank, she sees all these things, this incredible array of genetic diversity, and all the still frames of the story of how BTOE were derived. Sort of like the evolution of man pictures, she has this swimming around live, in her tank.

She LOVES to see this diversity.

And she LOVES to see what all those genes will make, when re-mixed, every generation.

Can't wait until I can re-shoot a pic like this also including a classic T-Rex. Have a few coming up, now. 


.


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## wicca27

your getting good at taking pics hehe now there is not excuse for not taking them lol. as always love the shrimp and keep up the good work


----------



## DKShrimporium

When this gene pool re-mixes and spits out something retro, DK just loves it. Here is a retro style, showing a lot of vintage line influence.

First, we have the copper tinted rostrum.
Comic book eyes, although DK likes 'em a tad lighter than this so you can really see that goofy pupil.
The spider banded legs. With cream stippling!!!
The cream tipped tail.
And the glorious lateral line and plate stippling, and this one EVEN has a plate edge in cream, too.

This is one of DK's favorite type shrimp (thus her graphic at the bottom of her messages).

From the black tiger line.

.


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## wicca27

i love that one too. now if only i was a millionaire lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

UP NEXT:

DK Watersnake


THREE TIMES last night, DK went down to the Shrimporium to get the box of Watersnake parts and begin to ponder her approach. THREE TIMES, she got completely diverted, trying to take pictures (IN VAIN) of coo-el stuff in the black tiger tank. She is soooooo distractable.

Finally, early this morning, she went down and gathered her box. 

*Shrimptern 0.0* will be here this weekend to help with *Phase I* of the DK Watersnake install, so she has to get her act together.

She ponders the following, while assembling a short list of stuff needed from Lowes, which so far includes stainless screws and washers, possibly a couple switches.

What else... what else.

Hey, doesn't everybody have a mongo bag of leftover screw anchors from some previous project?...


.


----------



## Maechael

*3 days*

The time it took me to read through this entire thread was about 3 hours, the time I have spent since then, reviewing, and rethinking what you've shown, done and said.


I must admit, I've got a tiny Crush on your workings here.

Everything looks amazing, in both apparent complexity and then inherent simplicity. And Vice versa for the math portions.

Wish I could see more of the Shrimporium in work.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> The time it took me to read through this entire thread was about 3 hours, the time I have spent since then, reviewing, and rethinking what you've shown, done and said.
> 
> 
> I must admit, I've got a tiny Crush on your workings here.
> 
> Everything looks amazing, in both apparent complexity and then inherent simplicity. And Vice versa for the math portions.
> 
> Wish I could see more of the Shrimporium in work.


Well. Well. Well.

Wel...come, to the madness. Plenty of that, here. 

I hope all those hours were worth your lifespan.

*************

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK made the trek to Lowes today. One of her Lowes "guys" was in. You should have seen his face light up when he came to respond to his "help needed on the wire cutting aisle" page, and he saw me standing there. DK mostly knows Lowes, but she wanted to ask about switch options.

So, about twenty bucks and a diet Pepsi - overpriced out of their impulse aisle coolers - later, she had the loot.

Came home, snapped a pic, and dug out a few other things.

First two pictures, courtesy her friends e.bay and amazon.

Third picture, her shopping at Lowes.

And finally, the funkiest thing she did, today, last picture.


.


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## DKShrimporium

And *Shrimptern 2.0*, this one's for you:

DK went to dis-assemble something today, to modify it for her needs, and it had funky screws. Wouldn't ya know, DK had the right tool, to get into it...

heh...heh...heh...

To you other folks: when *Shrimptern 2.0* came, DK put in an order for a special tool with *Shrimptern 2.0* - who happens to have a lotta tools - because DK wanted to get into her microwave the week *Shrimptern 2.0* was here and the microwave had different, funky screws.


.


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## plamski

water detector?roud:
Let me see how you will modify sound to shut down the switch. I have some ideas including baby toys.


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## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> water detector?roud:
> Let me see how you will modify sound to shut down the switch. I have some ideas including baby toys.


Hi Plamen,

I'm assuming what you mean is how to use the impulse that sounds the alarm to shut down the water valve? At any rate, that is exactly my plan.

As to how it will be accomplished, here DK has a little confession:

Yesterday, she was reading an article about a thing called dyscalculia. Very interesting article, the gist of which is that there appear to be discreet pathways in the brain that enable calculation ability, and in some folks, who may be highly intelligent otherwise, this ability to calculate just ain't working efficiently.

So. Um. Yes.

DK's brain, while not affected by dyscalculia, does rather glaze over and go into seizures in the realms of, say, electronics, physics, and more abstract types of chemistry. 

Basically, if it's too abstract for DK to draw some sort of cartoon in her mind (OK, so now you know what goes on in there), she sorta loses focus and her mind just...wanders...offffff...duty.

Which brings us back to the topic of how to take the electrical impulse sent out by the detector to the alarm, and use that impulse to tell my water main valve to shut off, and stay shut off.

So, she admits, she was just gonna dump this on Other Geek, assuming he'd wiggle his twitchy fingers on the keyboard and order up some sort of relay.

For now, it's conceptual, and she has no actual plan. Well, the plan is: present the objective, and dump it on Other Geek. That's why this is Phase I, which entails putting in a perimeter sensor, and a screamer when it "feels" wet, and ditch battery dependency. If the power goes out, her master valve defaults shut, anyway. It's when the power is ON that the Watersnake must tell the valve to shut if there is water detected.

So, y'all hit me with your ideas. Go ahead. Make my day. Make it cheap, tho. And non-proprietary. And modular. And easily re-configurable. And reversible. And...


----------



## plamski

Well, I saw the switch with the ring. If you make spring of the switch softer, then you can go in Toys"R"us and buy /they use to have those toys/little like ball doll which start to shake and jump when baby start to cry. If you attach it to the switch it will bounce and switch it off under alarm stress. Kind of MacGyver thing which is not the best for protection.
I'm working in high end digital cameras company where products are invented. I have all equipment, parts, engineers for free and I still bought ready product/you remember my 4 tanks rack/there is a link $70 total.
With 2 words. You have very low voltage , amp etc signal from the alarm .In order to shut down valve you will need a lot more power. Then you have to buy power supplies, electrical relays-$15-30 each, resistors, some diodes, etc. Just too expensive if you like to make it right
It can be done cheap but then we can’t rely on it.


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## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> Well, I saw the switch with the ring. If you make spring of the switch softer, then you can go in Toys"R"us and buy /they use to have those toys/little like ball doll which start to shake and jump when baby start to cry. If you attach it to the switch it will bounce and switch it off under alarm stress. Kind of MacGyver thing which is not the best for protection.
> I'm working in high end digital cameras company where products are invented. I have all equipment, parts, engineers for free and I still bought ready product/you remember my 4 tanks rack/there is a link $70 total.
> With 2 words. You have very low voltage , amp etc signal from the alarm .In order to shut down valve you will need a lot more power. Then you have to buy power supplies, electrical relays-$15-30 each, resistors, some diodes, etc. Just too expensive if you like to make it right
> It can be done cheap but then we can’t rely on it.


Hm. But then, the baby bouncing toy no doubt is battery powered, yes? So when the battery in it dies...

Actually this funky switch is for another purpose, anyway.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Let's take an aside here, for an EXECUTIVE VIEW of the DK Watersnake project. 

DK likes to think in levels (if you can call what she does "thinking," that is). She has what she calls the EXECUTIVE level, which is like a bird's eye view of something, the large picture. She first tries to look at this level, and make EXECUTIVE RULES and EXECUTIVE OBJECTIVES, from which the projects flow. 

So what is the executive view of the watersnake project?

In a past life, DK had pounded into her brain that when planning a project or solving a problem, you should work two parts of your brain simultaneously while thinking about it: 1) What is the MOST COMMON thing that could go wrong, and 2) What is the MOST DRASTIC thing that could go wrong. So you keep a dialogue about these two ends of the problem in mind when approaching a project.

In the case of the watersnake project, there are two basic scenarios. The most common is some small sort of water on the floor, due to some annoying thing that needs adjustment, but is not major. However, we want to know about the water so we can identify the thing needing adjustment, and fix it, and so we don't have small amounts of water constantly, feeding the humidity level in the room.

An example of this would be the recent drain pipe backup from the sump basin. This problem wasn't going to flood the room, but would have put a small puddle on the floor at regular frequency.

AND THEN

And then, we have the big problem. This would be any breach of DK's water system while the master valve is open and the system is pressurized, which would result in massive amounts of water accumulating on the floor until such time as the water system is shut down by closing the master valve. In this case, we could have hundreds of gallons or more of water on the floor, basically we're talking like a pipe breaking loose type of scenario.

This is particularly important because unfortunately her basement does not have a floor drainage system, so lots o' water has nowhere to go if it accumulates. This flaw is an EXECUTIVE PLANNING FAIL, but at the time we built this house DK had no idea she would be building a Shrimporium in the basement. You just never know what she will end up into!

Her objectives in the DK Watersnake project are on a few levels.


The first level is *local notification*. If there is water on the floor, she wants a screamer to tell her so.
The second level is *valve control*. If there is water on the floor, she wants the master valve turned OFF, so water can't ACCUMULATE.
The third level is *REMOTE notification*. If there is water on the floor, and the screamer is going off, but there is nobody home to hear it... here, we're talking about a remote dialer scenario.

+++++++++++

Right now, we focus on the first level, and put off the others until they have more time to stew and ripen. But her basis for comparison is not this (waterwatcher product - first pic below), but rather this (continuous perimeter monitoring system - second pic below).

So, she is not trying to DIY a $xx-$xxx system, but rather a $xxxx-$xxxxx system. Functionally. And at an order of magnitude or more less cost, and *without proprietary componentry*. (Although a future auto-dialer likely would be.)

What she wants is CONTINUOUS PERIMETER sensoring, not SPOT sensoring. Because, in the Shrimporium, she has the main plumbing input and output of the entire house, the well tank, the hot water heater, a utility sink, and then entire rack system of her tanks, including the DK Water Factory.

Any one of which could be a source of water on the floor, needing fast attention. Anywhere in that room.

She doesn't want to wait until there is a whole layer of water in the room before a spot sensor "sees" it. The earlier a water source is detected, the better, so she wants a continuous perimeter sensor.

OK, long enough post, and I think we'll wait until the rough install is done and we have some beta testing, before we stick our neck out any further here.

(Oh GEEZE, after this post, she hopes it works. Usually she beta tests something before spouting off about it in her thread, but sometimes she is prone to shooting from the hip - well, actually she is often prone to this, BUT has learned to hide it and delay displaying it until she has a damage control plan already in place!!! You have to understand that a lot of her projects are entertainment value, and not necessarily a claim to a better re-invention of the wheel. She just wants to fool around with stuff. Yeah.)


----------



## DKShrimporium

And Plamen, thank you.

After 24 hours of staring at this post, DK has figured out Phase II. She just gets a WaterWatcher and patches it into the circuit, plugs her master valve solenoid into it, and voila.

She was sipping joe from the Bubba Mug, and achieving alpha wave status just now, and it hit her.

While it is a proprietary component, it will likely be nearly as cost effective as buying parts & pieces (relay, power supply, outlet, project box, etc.), and it will definitely be more time efficient and space efficient to go with ready made in this case.

Probably could have just used WaterWatcher as the main detector and alarm unit, too, but we already have ones so will just patch it in. Need to see sensitivity on it to see if it can read the circuit properly...


----------



## plamski

Hi Donna .You are welcome. This is one tiny info help in return to your great support to our shrimps-lowers community
You will be happy with it. I did some tests. It is very good .5sec response time with water TDS 130 and up. With RO is kind of slow but still work. There are plastic screws on the sensor legs-3mm thick .Firs I decided to take them out in order sensor to react on minimal water leak but when I left it on the tiles under the tanks on the second day he shut down the pumps. He was triggered form condense on the ceramic tiles. Now it is with plastic screw on it and work just fine for a month.


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## DKShrimporium

So, Shrimptern 0.0 spent the better part of the day down in the depths of the Shrimporium, yesterday. We had a lot of fun!

It was really a trip, because Shrimptern 0.0 had their first trip here years ago, when DK still had plastic drawers from the dollar store for tanks and was monkeying around with the origins of Water Factory 1.0.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Take a look at the ravaged salad bar. Don't let those svelte Mermaids let you think they are refined. Behind the scenes, they are reality show material. Here's the cultured netting before I put it into their tank, and then after just a few days in the tank. Not a leaf of lettuce, a shred of cheese, a crouton, an alfalfa sprout, or a bacon bit left anywhere.


.


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## wicca27

time for more cashew jars? lol


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## pKaz

DKShrimporium said:


> So, Shrimptern 0.0 spent the better part of the day down in the depths of the Shrimporium, yesterday. We had a lot of fun!
> 
> It was really a trip, because Shrimptern 0.0 had their first trip here years ago, when DK still had plastic drawers from the dollar store for tanks and was monkeying around with the origins of Water Factory 1.0.


It's true, While I can't say that I'm the first person to help out DK with some kind of "Shrimpy Project", I was one of the first. Plus Shrimptern 0.0 has such a cool sound to it. I saw the Shrimporium before it even had actual tanks as part of the shrimp rack, when the Waterfactory was just an idea. And speaking of the Waterfactory I can confirm its awesomeness as I got to see it whirling and clicking about yesterday draining and filling tanks without any human intervention. 

I helped DK run and install the wires for the water on the floor alarm. It was good to be back! I had to scale down my aquarium situation while I was in search of finding a new house. Now that is all over and done with, and I'm moved in, I plan to expand my immersion into shrimp keeping. The shrimp I picked up from DK are doing really well so far!


----------



## Mrturritos

While trying to get good pictures of the shrimp tank, (which kinda failed). I did manage to get a good macro shot of the chameleon a while back. Link should have the picture nice and big. Enjoy

http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o702/mrturritos/fish/DSC00610_zps86b99ad0.jpg


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## Mrturritos

I did manage to get a decent picture of a berried shrimp today, one of the very few clear pictures I was able to take. I can't claim I screamed like a man when I saw my first berried shrimp. 
http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o702/mrturritos/fish/Photo0388_zpsc65dcdf3.jpg


----------



## DKShrimporium

pKaz said:


> It's true, While I can't say that I'm the first person to help out DK with some kind of "Shrimpy Project", I was one of the first. Plus Shrimptern 0.0 has such a cool sound to it. I saw the Shrimporium before it even had actual tanks as part of the shrimp rack, when the Waterfactory was just an idea. And speaking of the Waterfactory I can confirm its awesomeness as I got to see it whirling and clicking about yesterday draining and filling tanks without any human intervention.
> 
> I helped DK run and install the wires for the water on the floor alarm. It was good to be back! I had to scale down my aquarium situation while I was in search of finding a new house. Now that is all over and done with, and I'm moved in, I plan to expand my immersion into shrimp keeping. The shrimp I picked up from DK are doing really well so far!


Thanks for the post, PKaz.

PKaz got to use a Maserati, see the lid levitation, view Papaya pigment in real life, of course - eat -, and then help out with the project-du-jour (pronounced PROH-jay-doo-jure). And, of course, see the whacky, wild, wonka madness of the WFIII.

**********



Mrturritos said:


> While trying to get good pictures of the shrimp tank, (which kinda failed). I did manage to get a good macro shot of the chameleon a while back. Link should have the picture nice and big. Enjoy


DK gotta new tech toy for the latest holiday. So after procrastinating using it the better part of a month, because it involves a learning curve, she was forced today to try it out. Much easier to draw curlicues with a pen than a mouse, she must admit. Doesn't seem to improve her artistic talent, although our model's striking beauty speaks for itself:

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK is EXCEEDINGLY proud of herself. Last night, she managed to completely scale BOTH Germans' teeth in their entirety. She did not think our feral wolf child would approve, but surprisingly he held still enough. Definitely helps to have alpha status, when attempting such a feat.


.


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## pKaz

^ The chameleon picture above is awesome!


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## DKShrimporium

pKaz said:


> ^ The chameleon picture above is awesome!


Does that neon pinky color remind you of anything? Hmmmmm?

And how did the Other like yellow? I should think it would look very nice.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

New record, today, a dozen at once in the backyard. Naturally, by the time DK found the camera, zoomed, and the dogs were going haywire, she only managed to shoot one pic, before they all bounded off, and her pic only shows nine of 'em. 


.


----------



## wicca27

thats one good/ bad thing about living on military posts. they are all wild life refuges. we have fox, deer, all kinds of birds (huge turkey) and even coyotes. was not thrilled when a coyote ran down the fence line a bit behind the house but nothin i could do. and the silly deer will walk down the road. even had one stand in the drive way and not move for 5 min so we could pull in one night lol. at Ft Sill in oklahoma they have such awsome huge elk that is a heck of a sight on a frosty morning with them walking though the feilds there.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> thats one good/ bad thing about living on military posts. they are all wild life refuges. we have fox, deer, all kinds of birds (huge turkey) and even coyotes. was not thrilled when a coyote ran down the fence line a bit behind the house but nothin i could do. and the silly deer will walk down the road. even had one stand in the drive way and not move for 5 min so we could pull in one night lol. at Ft Sill in oklahoma they have such awsome huge elk that is a heck of a sight on a frosty morning with them walking though the feilds there.


And moose, you have moose, one, anyway!

Y'know, when I think OK, I would not think elk. I might think antelope, but not elk.

*********

Today, we feature some more blacks. First, one that shows the Blue Tiger and Vintage influences - the rusty matte overlay from the Blue Tiger influence; and the buff-tipped tail fins, the micro-stippling along the lateral line, and one buff dash along the rear edge of a body plate mid-line from the vintage line influence. The vintage line was developed from PLAIN tigers, with stripe pigment extended. That line was then blended with blue tiger and the extended stripes but gold eyes were again selected for, resulting in the modern monochrome (BTOE) line.

Second, a plain-jane monochrome with gold eyes. But hey, she's packin', so that's interesting. :icon_eek:

Reason I have MORE black pictures is that Ms. Pangea (someday in history to be called the Eve of Overos) came front and center, showing me her new load, and by the time I ran to get the camera... yeah, she climbed deep into the weeds, but then Ms. Monochrome ambled right along the glass, slow-like for dufus photog like me to capture. 
.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And C - this one's for you. Some Blue Tiger ladies today. Just coming up to adulthood, soon to pop.

Naturally, DK got the rocks in focus, and not a-one of the ladies. Sigh. 


.


----------



## wicca27

hehe your so mean i want more so bad. cant wait till spring lol.


----------



## Mrturritos

Hopefully that works, college student who barely knows how to connect a printer...


----------



## Mrturritos

ugh them came out side ways =(. I thought I fixed that in photo bucket....


----------



## Mrturritos

I think I fixed it














it:

and I cross my fingers I did it correctly this time...


----------



## wicca27

hehe that is a hairy shepherd funny looking but so cute too


----------



## Mrturritos

Thought you might enjoy DK. Yup, pure bred german long coat.


----------



## wicca27

lol that bottom pic makes me thing of alf lol


----------



## Mrturritos

She is thinking, you goon let me in it's cold!


----------



## wicca27

hey dk here a pic i found of a bull elk on ft sill.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Mrturritos said:


> Thought you might enjoy DK. Yup, pure bred german long coat.


What an endearing face! She looks young, like maybe 7 months?


----------



## Mrturritos

something like a year and 4 months


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK Takes on Big Ag - well, sort of*

So, yesterday, DK set up a hydroponic floaters farm, in the Shrimporium. She generally doesn't like floaters in her tanks, as they shield the light from her moss, and get in the way when she's netting, etc. They also pose problems for her overflows in each tank, as potential cloggers. But, she wanted an instant supply of them on hand, in those times when she needs to deploy them strategically.

She believes in the power and efficiency of biology, and whenever possible tries to engineer a _biological_ solution to any problem in a _biological_ system. The beauty of a biological solution is that it is _self-regulating_ and _self-reporting_. By this I mean that when my nitrates increase in my well water, so ALSO will the growth of the floaters and their metabolic rate, effectively matching the challenge. When the nitrates are depleted, the floaters wane and may yellow, reporting to me on quick inspection that I may need to start nitrate injections. We let biology do the work for us, whenever possible. Biology is the ultimate automation.

She had an extra tank hanging around that was not ideal for shrimp, so she pulled the substrate, made it a clear-bottom tank, and dedicated it to farming floaters.

The tank is automated, so will receive her carbonated well water at greater than normal flush fraction, twice daily, this should give the floaters a nice diet of CO2. She elevated the tank up on stilts just under the lights, so the floaters should receive decent light. The stilts are parts 'n' pieces also on their third iteration of use. And the flush water has micros, potassium, and phosphate dosed. Her well water often runs a few ppm nitrates, and if it starts to be too low, she can inject nitrates into the water source, or throw a root tab in the farm tank.

Now, she feels a bit more secure, come next corn growing season. It isn't every year, but some years the fertilizers move through the soil as a thin layer and hit her well all at once, resulting in tap that's in the red zone for shrimp. 

Fortunately, even if it's toxic levels of nitrates for shrimp, when it enters the automated tanks it is only a fraction of tank volume each cycle, effectively diluting the nitrates quite a bit. If I have any sort of metabolically active nitrate-sucker in the tank, the tanks can suck up the nitrates as they arrive, and the shrimp are none the wiser.

Many thanks to some of you out there who came running when DK put out a call for help, with floaters. In the DEAD of winter. In an arctic front. These guys put out priority boxes for me within 24 hours of my asking for help. Lesson is, build bridges, don't burn them, in case of fire, someday, right? You know who you are...

She used the gizmo below as part of her plan. This is its third use as a _piece or part_, recycled. Anyone know what it ACTUALLY is? I'll bet the dobie man knows.

No fair telling, Shrimptern 0.0. - we also used some chunks of this in the Watersnake install.

.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Looks like a corner for walls.


----------



## wicca27

or a corner guard for walls.


----------



## jone

Plastic /PVC corner bead for drywall...Great for bending arcs or curved corners...Staple or nail in place and mud it in..


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Looks like a corner for walls.





wicca27 said:


> or a corner guard for walls.





jone said:


> Plastic /PVC corner bead for drywall...Great for bending arcs or curved corners...Staple or nail in place and mud it in..


Yep.

What DK likes most about it is its workability for projects. It is made from PVC so can be PVC cemented. It sports 90 degrees, which is often useful. It has holes, which is also often useful. It is easy to cut, bend, melt into a shape, etc. Just all around good stuff. And super cheap, too.

Now Dobie man, I need a consult:

_Such a product was used on INSIDE corners of a gambrel ceiling in the DK domicile, but apparently only mudded into place. The piece has a material memory of 90 degrees but the gambrel angles are greater than 90. Over the years, this corner stuff has begun to pull loose, out of the drywall mudded joint, to try to return to its 90 degrees. So now DK has a gambrel ceiling with inside corner seams pulling loose all along the joint. WHAT DO I DO? Can I get up there and staple the heck out of it, re-mud, then paint again? I don't want to be fixing this every few years, always fighting that 90 degrees that was stretched to greater than 90 degrees.

Or, am I better off ripping out the seams - although NOT in January, mind you - on those inside gambrel corners and totally using a different product?

Inquiring minds need to know._​


----------



## jone

The concept for the PVC corner bead (as your picture shown)....is to be used on an outside corner..Who would of thought to try and use it on an inside corner..Not good to use it for inside corners and especially your situation being the worst to even try this PVC bead there....Also being made out of pVC material,,it is subject to exspansion/contraction with temperature changes..Making your problem just a little more complicated..There are many other products for inside corners ,not this corner bead though..The memory/or design of it is to be used only use on outside corner...The corner bead you show is actually less than 90 degrees ,,it is designed to be installed with a little bit of pressure/force a little bit onto the OUTSIDE unfinished drywall corner and be stapled or nail and then it will simply be under pressure to eliminate any rippling on the edges... Unfortunately you are going to have this reocurring problem..As the seasons change with temperature and humidity levels...."Vaulted" ceilings are very nice,,,never fails to crack right where the top of the wall meets the ceiling on the sloped sides of the room..The best thing to do when framing a ceiling like this is to consider deflection (live /dead load anticipated)pre engineered scissor trusses would have been made to have zero deflection or conventional framing to have an overbuilt calculated load bearing ridge beam framed in the roof... but we are far beyond that option now..Unfortunately the best advise would be to remove these wrongful placed corner beads and use a paper/fiber mesh tape made for drywall applications..If your walls/ceilings are real plaster or hardcoat,,then you would a different product for the inside corner.. A picture would speak a thousand words about this problem..


----------



## DKShrimporium

jone said:


> The concept for the PVC corner bead (as your picture shown)....is to be used on an outside corner..Who would of thought to try and use it on an inside corner..Not good to use it for inside corners and especially your situation being the worst to even try this PVC bead there....Also being made out of pVC material,,it is subject to exspansion/contraction with temperature changes..Making your problem just a little more complicated..There are many other products for inside corners ,not this corner bead though..The memory/or design of it is to be used only use on outside corner...The corner bead you show is actually less than 90 degrees ,,it is designed to be installed with a little bit of pressure/force a little bit onto the OUTSIDE unfinished drywall corner and be stapled or nail and then it will simply be under pressure to eliminate any rippling on the edges... Unfortunately you are going to have this reocurring problem..As the seasons change with temperature and humidity levels...."Vaulted" ceilings are very nice,,,never fails to crack right where the top of the wall meets the ceiling on the sloped sides of the room..The best thing to do when framing a ceiling like this is to consider deflection (live /dead load anticipated)pre engineered scissor trusses would have been made to have zero deflection or conventional framing to have an overbuilt calculated load bearing ridge beam framed in the roof... but we are far beyond that option now..Unfortunately the best advise would be to remove these wrongful placed corner beads and use a paper/fiber mesh tape made for drywall applications..If your walls/ceilings are real plaster or hardcoat,,then you would a different product for the inside corner.. A picture would speak a thousand words about this problem..


PM me an email addy and I'll send you some full rez pics. It's getting much worse, now that I look at the pics and it's time to make a plan.

Time to sick the Dobermans on it. Figuratively speaking, that is.

In between hoarding parts, DK loves to pick the brains of peeps who know things. 'Cause she hardly knows anything.

An aside here, while the rest of all y'all voyeurs take an intermission break. Did you know that Antique White paint is perfect camouflage for cobwebs? 'Cause DK did not know she had corners full of cobwebs until just now when she shot those pics, and she's TOO EMBARRASSED to post 'em showing COBWEBS. Sheesh!!!

Below is a very cropped, sanitized view of the basic problem. You can see it's not exactly that product, but appears to be some sort of product with an angle memory that is trying to revert back and pull off the wider angle.


.


----------



## mordalphus

Man, that looks like a bummer. 

Sorry to see that! 

How ya doing, dk?


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## wicca27

looks like the vinyl type that goes on the outer corners. its alot softer and easier to bend but dont think it would have even the same amount of suport the one in your tank has


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## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Man, that looks like a bummer.
> 
> Sorry to see that!
> 
> How ya doing, dk?


Well, hello, Liam!

I can't say the past year has been challenge free, but nonetheless I've tried to make lemons from lemonade a number of times, and drink it down! I know there are lots o' folks with even more challenges, so for me it's one day at a time and find something to enjoy and be grateful for, right?

I noticed today that Costco now has their OWN line of roasted seaweed! But I mostly gave that up months ago primarily because I was having guilty pangs over the amount of non-biodegradable packaging for mere grams of snack, and I was filling the landfills with the stuff to get my seaweed fix. (Well, OK, so mebbe a NORMAL person can eat one pack of that stuff in a day, but I had to have at least 3 packs a day, and that's a LOT of plastic trash over a week.) Doing much better on that addiction than on the diet coke one. I've stopped buying diet cokes, but smartie Jr. Geek has learned that there's an entrepreneurial opportunity to buy cases of diet coke at Costco on his dime and then he extorts me with them, one at a time, in my moments of weakness, which happen nearly daily. I have taken to calling him my Coke dealer. He should do well in life, based on this!

D.


----------



## wicca27

lol you are too funny. im a pepsi person and i found out long ago it was not the caffeen in it cause i could drink the caffeen free kind and still get my fix. to me diet pop just does not tast the same though. so i try to limit myself. i will have to go back to cans again soon since i noticed i can go though a 2 liter in 2 days.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> lol you are too funny. im a pepsi person and i found out long ago it was not the caffeen in it cause i could drink the caffeen free kind and still get my fix. to me diet pop just does not tast the same though. so i try to limit myself. i will have to go back to cans again soon since i noticed i can go though a 2 liter in 2 days.


Yeah, well, I simply _cannot_ seem to do much in _moderation_. Shrinks call this disorders of compulsion. Or mebbe an impulse control disorder. This is the whole reason behind the bubba mug. It was to quit a several liter a day diet Dr. Pepper problem I had developed. Thing is, the phosphoric acid in sodas is not good for women with tiny bones like me and I was afraid I was a gonna dissolve my bones into a walking pile of fractures at that rate. So I came up with the whole latte idea - hey, it's caffeine PLUS milk with calcium, right?

I'm down to one diet coke a day, when I can get one from my dealer. But I'm jonesing all the time, truth be told...


----------



## DKShrimporium

Take a Chance on Me. Make sure to get past :20

What's your favorite part? Mine's the _formerly_ lonely geezer lip syncing, the kitty who licks on cue, and the 3-legged pug who also licks on cue. And the acapella and expression at the end.


----------



## mordalphus

Glad to hear you're getting over that nasty coke habit, haha. 

I've been spending my Friday nights on a pier with a fishing pole and a very bright light. That's my recent addiction, and the only hope there is for me is when squid season is over... 

I'm trying to stay away from the lfs here, been wanting to convert a 50 gallon planted aquarium into a mermaid lagoon, and I'm afraid I won't be able to do it for less than 100 dollars. *sniff *
But my 20 gallon lagoon is jam packed with mermaids and they require a larger receptacle.


----------



## wicca27

dk need an update a week is way to long to be away lol. some good things must be going on with the shrimpkies


----------



## Maechael

DK Hope all is well, and that you're doing well.

Having said that, I have an addiction to a thread that needs some attention here!
I love reading your ramblings, and the very, very good information that comes from it.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> dk need an update a week is way to long to be away lol. some good things must be going on with the shrimpkies





Maechael said:


> DK Hope all is well, and that you're doing well.
> 
> Having said that, I have an addiction to a thread that needs some attention here!
> I love reading your ramblings, and the very, very good information that comes from it.


DK's like a toddler; when she goes quiet, she's either out cold, or UP to something...

++++++

We are interrupting the _quiet_ for a two day full detox; primarily it was the "everything" pizza, nacho cheese doritos, and oreos. The latter two for which DK has no food brakes, and we had jumbo packages of for a superbowl food-fest.

But BEFORE she nearly ate herself into a junk-food coma, she was busy, doin' thangs.

She's contemplating how the HECK to post a politically correct series on polygamy, at the moment.

Oh, and that reminds her, she needs to look up the solubility of baking soda.

Hmmmm. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, she has been doing some reorganizing in the Shrimporium and re-setting some tanks, for the - ahem - polygamy projects. 

February in particular is a very _dangerous_ time of year for her, in the dead of grey winter, because the squirrely brain ignites and burns, and she gets all manner of hairbrained ideas which she must act upon. She's been trying to subdue this effect by doing a lot of metrics studies, now that she has finished her water factory work and the tanks are all pulling back into production modes. So she can busy herself with berry counts, baby counts, and metrics tracking relative sizes of young in a given tank.

She has also distracted herself going through her piles of extra stuff, weeding out things that cannot be salvaged for parts 'n' pieces, in particular the pile of via aqua heaters that she had hoped she could salvage the temperature probes and controllers from if the heaters themselves were dead, but most were no dice, unfortunately.

The remaining stuff, she has started to creatively use 3-dimensional space, real estate in the sky:

Oh, and she also had this extra gigantic (16 inch) clock that she decided to hang in the Shrimporium; she has this way of going down that rabbit hole and getting lost for hours, and just loses track of time. She enters a twilight zone on the right side of the brain down there, where the space-time continuum dissolves away and there is nothing left but squirrely thots.

Oh, yeah, and the floater farm is flying.


.


----------



## crazydog64

Whoa that's a lot of heaters just chilling, get it chilling, annnnd I'll see myself out.


----------



## wicca27

ha ha chillin. hey dk i have some old filters and what not i dont use if i box it up and send it to you would you want them to see if there are any parts you can use? trade in for dk shrimp credit lol. not really im savin pennies for shrimpkies still so i want at the top of the list lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

crazydog64 said:


> Whoa that's a lot of *heaters* just *chilling*, get it chilling, annnnd I'll see myself out.





wicca27 said:


> ha ha *chillin*. hey dk i have some old filters and what not i dont use if i box it up and send it to you would you want them to see if there are any parts you can use? trade in for dk shrimp credit lol. not really im savin pennies for shrimpkies still so i want at the top of the list lol


_What would be the literary term for this? Reverse pun? Irony? That we speak of heaters chilling? Oxymoron, perhaps?_

*********

Went to sign off the computer, and was in the process of closing out things, and had a picture file open and saw this. Immediately, the squirrely brain launches, first thinking, "Dang, I forgot I have a WHOLE BOX of those things. They're pretty coo-el - wonder what I could do with them..." As faithful readers may recall, DK ordered a PAIR, and they sent a CASE of them. They were, of course, ordered for this project, but DK only needed ONE PAIR, not a CASE!!

And the ideas start rolling in. Where the heck did I put them...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.


.


----------



## mordalphus

Make some short distance roller skates. Handy for traveling 16 inches quickly.


----------



## wicca27

i know what i would do with them light mounts lol. extend them and mount the light on the end so when i needed to do something in the tank i could just "push it back" out of the way but still have some light over the tank. im sure dk has alot more ideas for them though lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Make some short distance roller skates. Handy for traveling 16 inches quickly.


But - think outside the box. If I installed them _in series_ rather than _in parallel_, I could get quite a long commute going. Sort of like the unicycle of roller skates, if you want a mixed metaphor.



wicca27 said:


> i know what i would do with them light mounts lol. extend them and mount the light on the end so when i needed to do something in the tank i could just "push it back" out of the way but still have some light over the tank. im sure dk has alot more ideas for them though lol.


Something along this flavor is definitely on DK's list. She originally was a gonna do-it with a rail system but the drawer slides are so much more slick, although take up more real estate. The question is: can we find unimpeded real estate? And, can we find where we put that case of drawer slides...

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

Last night, DK spent half an hour sorta arguing with the hardware guy in Lowes. She marched in there with junior feral wolf at her side, looking for a particular part, see below. Mr. Hardware swore they didn't sell it, but DK had bought it there before and KNEW it haddabee there. We got the Windows guy involved, and he looked up the part on the Computer (capitalized because it's all knowing, doncha know) and the Computer said, "There be 13 in stock," afterwhich the Mr. Hardware got hisself one of those stair climbing rigs and looked up in outer space in the racks and lo and behold, the Computer was RIGHT!

DK bought herself a few, as they are handy for fixing the syrup problem. Mebbe she will post on that later. Last night she made a teeny tiny tweak to her system, which involved increasing the concentration of sodium bicarbonate in her vat, and then she ran some tests and got some veeeeeeeeeery funny results. That is, assuming the TDS meter was working the way she thought it should work...

The thing about the whacky Shrimporium is: it keeps her squirrely brain worked out. She constantly has to ask herself, "Is it doing what I THINK it should be doing, or doing something ELSE?" 

Because, if it's doing something ELSE, then how to fix the problem will never become apparent, until DK gets her head straight about how the thing is ACTUALLY working.

And she has found that a lot of times sales literature LIES. Yes, LIES.

Shocking.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

You might ask yersef, what keeps DK going?

Other than the sock monkey pillowcase, that is.

Well, it's my thread and I can post whatever I want, within politically correct limits and space limits, and time limits, and technological limits... and

well, this is what is keeping her going, lately.

Whole wheat wrap, layer of roasted red peppers, boca burger fried in herbed sun-dried tomato oil, layer of said sun dried tomatos, homemade feta garlic spread, jumbo black olive chunks, and, of course, the ubiquitous rooster sauce, a.k.a. Sriracha.

Everything but the rooster sauce from Costco. Who knew you could live offa Costco groceries?

And, it wouldn't keep her going the same, not served on vintage Corelle.


.


----------



## wicca27

now that looks good...... ok back the the orange thingy ( had to get technical there hehe) u use that to mix water with or help remove the gas from the well water? (thinks i missed part of the thread some where in the 93 pages lol) i am wondering if the whole syringe type thing would work for the mermaid water? go in let airline feed to the bottom of the jar and continue down the line?


----------



## mordalphus

Dk have you noticed a change to the sriracha recently? (and by recently I mean in the last 6-8 months)


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Dk have you noticed a change to the sriracha recently? (and by recently I mean in the last 6-8 months)


Y'know, I can't say I have. However, there is a caveat to this. I'm the only one in the domicile that eats the stuff, and I'm a hoarder. Plus, I got a few bottles at my Amish scratch 'n' dent warehouse. All those put together mean that the current bottles may predate your timeframe.

I will say I was very worried as soon as it became the "it" sauce, and doubly so once I discovered it on Walmart shelves. Both portend a bad omen in cost reduction, countefeiting, etc. I've been eating the stuff for, I dunno, a couple decades at least. Well before it was discovered.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has located the case of drawer slides. Fortunately, they are just the right size at 24 inches. Now, she has to fool with modifying them for her - ahem - needs...

It's gonna involve a mess, with all those greasy ball bearings, but heck, it's the dead of winter and it's _unbelievably boring_ in the Shrimporium nowadays, now that she has finished all her studies and there's nothing to do but sit around and watch the shrimp multiply, and make DKMSJ every couple months. It's like sittin' around, watchin' the grass grow.


.


----------



## Betta Maniac

mordalphus said:


> Dk have you noticed a change to the sriracha recently? (and by recently I mean in the last 6-8 months)


Yes. It's nowhere NEAR the same strength. My bottle at home is is still HOT HOT HOT, but in restaurants, where they really go through it, I'm using a ton more than I used to.


----------



## mordalphus

Betta Maniac said:


> Yes. It's nowhere NEAR the same strength. My bottle at home is is still HOT HOT HOT, but in restaurants, where they really go through it, I'm using a ton more than I used to.


Yeah, I go through a big bottle a month and it's ridiculous how weak it is now... It's more like a garlic sauce than a hot sauce now... Now I find myself going through almost 2 bottles a month. 

At first I was like, dang my tongue finally died... But then my wife started using more of it and then I knew for sure something was up. Sad. That was my favorite sauce  hopefully it has something to do with their recent crop of jalapeños and not a change in their recipe.


----------



## wicca27

contact the company and complain hey they might even send you a new bottle for free lol.


----------



## mordalphus

wicca27 said:


> contact the company and complain hey they might even send you a new bottle for free lol.


Hey, thanks for the suggestion, I just emailed them asking about it.

So many times I feel like large companies are unreachable so I never even try. Hopefully these guys are!


----------



## sbarbee54

i am like DK and I bought a 2 flats about 2 years back of the large bottles. I have about 12 bottles left. I think I spent 190$ for 96 of them. So I have not notice a difference, but I would imagine they probably have toned it down


----------



## mordalphus

> Dear Liam,
> 
> Thank you for your interest in our products![censored] We strive to produce the
> best sauces using quality ingredients in every bottle.
> 
> We are sorry to hear that you find our product less than satisfactory.
> We value the opinions of our customers, and appreciate your comments.
> We would like to note that because we use fresh chili peppers in all
> of our sauces, there will occasionally be variations on our final
> products.[censored] The heat and color may vary.
> 
> Again, thank you for your comments.[censored] If you have any further questions
> or comments please do not hesitate to e-mail us.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Customer Service


Whew, just a bad batch of peppers, thank god. Looking forward to next year!


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Whew, just a bad batch of peppers, thank god. Looking forward to next year!


Ya gotta give 'em credit for responding so fast to a customer note. They gotta know we are more a religion than a customer base. I can't tell you how many hot sauces I've tried and I always drift back to my rooster sauce. 

I know mustard and wasabi lose heat potency over time, the chemical that makes them hot oxidizes or something. Not sure about capsaicin in peppers.\

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

While Liam et. al. finish calibrating the hotness of their Sriracha sauce, DK has been pondering (...and mebbe a leetle more...) the four sliding layers of her drawer slides. 

You can see the inner "rail" layer.
Then the layer with the ball bearings.
Then the outer "rail" layer.
Then the outer casing/mount.

All three inner layers slide out of the outer casing, sequentially.

Ponder on this, peeps:


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> now that looks good...... ok back the the orange thingy ( had to get technical there hehe) u use that to mix water with or help remove the gas from the well water? (thinks i missed part of the thread some where in the 93 pages lol) i am wondering if the whole syringe type thing would work for the mermaid water? go in let airline feed to the bottom of the jar and continue down the line?


OK, so. We interrupt the drawer slide thing to go back to the syrup discussion.

And how sales literature LIES.

The blue thing in the picture is called a proportional injector. Tap water comes in from the left (1) and enters the "mixing chamber" of the blue body. As tap water flows in, it turns some magical geared machinery that runs an injection piston, which causes injection concentrate from a vat to be sucked up and injected into the inflowing tap water (2). The amount of injection is proportional to the amount of tap water flow.

And then, it's SUPPOSED to get thoroughly mixed together in the blue body and exit the injector homogeneous (3) and go on to feed perfectly even solution to both (4) and (5) as it travels along its merry way.

But.

The LIES, oh the LIES.

What was actually happening was that proportional injection was taking place but MIXING WAS NOT, so what was exiting the injector was a thick syrupy stream of concentrate that traveled along the BOTTOM of the exit pipe, and fell into the first hole (4). So measuring the outputs, DK found a too high concentration coming from her flush line (4) and a basically non-injected stream emerging from her tank feed (5).

She hadda get out of the box to realize that the TDS meter was NOT LYING but that the injector literature was. 

She then ran to Lowes, got hersef more of the fancy red syringe things (a couple to spare for future projects as this product Lowes is selling out of and not going to actively carry any longer...), did a surgical extraction via needlenose of the critical magical red spirally thing, and inserted it inline into the exit stream.

Now, when the syrup and water exit the injector, they are forced by turbulent flow mixing to ACTUALLY mix, and what (4) sees is identical to what (5) sees, according to her handy-dandy-trusty TDS meter and crude drop tests.

Just another day in the Shrimporium, tuning thangs...

P.S., so you might ask, hasn't this problem been happening all along, so there has been no mixing to the tank feed all along?

Well, the answer is if I had been running the WF with BOTH the flush line (4) and the tank feed lines (5) open all the time, yes, this would have caused a BIG problem.

But, the normal operation of the WFIII is to only open the flush line when I'm doing a change to the global system and need to draw a side sample for testing. When the flush line was not open, the laminar flow must have eventually mixed the syrup into the line down toward the tanks, and they would be fine. 

But now, I can take accurate samples from my flush line and know this is what the tank feed will also be getting, not something different!


.


----------



## wicca27

lol i love your art work so need to frame some of it hehe. thanks for explaining keep up the good work maam


----------



## mordalphus

How did you attach it inside? Seems like it would fly down the pipe, or is that 1/2 inch pvc and you could just cement it in? 

I use magical mixers like that at work for injecting 2 part silicone. They're not quite that large though. What would need a mixing tip that huge if you don't mind me asking? (the intended use, not the dk use)


----------



## Betta Maniac

I love watching your mind work. That is all.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> lol i love your art work so need to frame some of it hehe. thanks for explaining keep up the good work maam


Ohhhhhhhhhh... just you wait.  DK gotter a Bamboo drawing pad recently but hasn't yet learned how to train it to her GIMP. It's coming soon, though, and then her arteest-ment is going to be... 



mordalphus said:


> How did you attach it inside? Seems like it would fly down the pipe, or is that 1/2 inch pvc and you could just cement it in?
> 
> I use magical mixers like that at work for injecting 2 part silicone. They're not quite that large though. What would need a mixing tip that huge if you don't mind me asking? (the intended use, not the dk use)


Well, there is a whole other story to your question, actually.

First, it's half inch SCH40 line.

Second, the product (ACTUAL USE) is this. (pic below) It's manly stuff, used to anchor rebar into concrete and other he-man construction type extra-heavy duty uses. DK is attracted to such.

Third, 

um... it actually _did_ fly down the line, and DK tested this by trying to close that-there valve you see on the right with the black lever, and it din't wanna close, so she knew she had migration issues.

BUT.

Yes. But.

DK is anal, at times. You will see that just proximal to that valve is a half inch plug, sideways. This plug covers an access port for a someday second CIC-152 TDS probe to monitor and control this stream. So what DK did was to open up that plug, scoot back that red thing toward the injector, and then cut a piece of yonder toilet feed pipe to fit inside the plug and go across the pipe pathway, blocking the migration of the red spiral. The toilet pipe is small enough to allow enough flow around it, still.

I would not cement it in, because that would break one of DK's executive rules: _Make it reversible, if possible, and re-configurable._




Betta Maniac said:


> I love watching your mind work. That is all.


WAAAAAAAAAAAAT? My mind _works_???


.


----------



## mordalphus

Whoa gnarly! 

Once again, thanks for the lesson. I've learned my 3 things for the day.


----------



## wicca27

liam you only learn 3 things a day what a waist when it comes to maddoings lol. way more than 3 things a day going on wish i could be part of them hehe


----------



## mordalphus

I learn more than that, I only remember 3.


----------



## wicca27

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT......... lol
had to share with you dk moose turned 3 on 1-29-13 he was not a big fan of his hat but what kid is lol

















and a moose in doggles lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT......... lol
> had to share with you dk moose turned 3 on 1-29-13 he was not a big fan of his hat but what kid is lol
> 
> and a moose in doggles lol


Ohhhhhhhhhh...........I'm SO GLAD you shared, 'cause DK loves her some Moose! Especially on a Friday afternoon!

Happy birthday Moose!


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, C. Farbeit from me to get into ennywons bizness. Unless it's Shrimptern 1.0's, which I did get into.

But, here I go again.

Ya need to take this here graphic of my Moose, and make it your avatar.

Right click on the image and save it to your computer, then click on "User CP" and under the options choose "edit avatar" use this graphic as yer avatar.

That way, with EVERY ONE of your posts, I get to see Moose in all his doggled glory. I mean, what could be better...

May The Force be with you.


.


----------



## wicca27

hehe force must be strong cause it worked lol...... hmmmmm not showing on mine guess i will have to mess with it a bit till i get it to work ill keep trying


----------



## DKShrimporium

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Moose. On EVERY post. What could be better. 

Moose with doggles.

Truly, The Force was with you.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Hot off the presses, DK's GDR (God Dog Rottie) sends his latest portrait. Who could not love that face??? And not wanna squeeze that chunk-head???

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has done the beta project with the drawer slides. Itza pretty good. Pretty good. Now, she contemplates whether to use the rest of the drawer slides doing this, or if there might be a better use for them, someday, that she doesn't want to use 'em up. (The latter is her hoarder voice whispering.) I think she will use 'em. But she's still deciding. 

We'll call this project the ASA project, for Artificial Solar Axis.

Stay tuned...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

ASAslider Project 01

Of course, the FIRST thing DK does is take something apart. She's very monkey-like in that respect. All projects must involve using something for OTHER than its_ intended_ purpose, or some degree of dismantling, for the project to be interesting. Or, preferably, _both_. Otherwise, it wouldn't be _sporting_...

********

So, here we have a full view of the heavy duty drawer slides. These are 24 inches long when NOT extended in any way, so large ones.

We see the slider side view, which shows (1) anchoring casing that you are supposed to anchor the unit to the (stable) surface such as a cabinet base, (2) outer sliding rail, (3) ball bearing unit, and 4) inner sliding rail, that you in theory anchor to the moveable surface, such as the actual drawer.

We see the anchor side view, what it looks like.

Middle picture: We pull out the slider all the way, and on the back side see this release lever. This is how, if you attached the inner rail to the drawer and the rest of the drawer slide to the cabinet, you can get the pieces apart to mount them on their respective part, then put them back together.

Third picture, I've actuated the release lever and pulled the inner rail loose from the rest of the drawer slider unit.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Buuuut... I might use it... Someday!!!*

*The hoarder's mantra: "But... I might use it someday!"*

This post is dedicated to Shrimptern 2.0. The week they were here, I think we musta gone to Lowes about every day.

In one of the aisles at Lowes, there was one of these impulse bins, y'know those upright boxes with a tray of goodies on top full of USEFUL crap. 

This particular bin had sets of punches, three punches for a mere $2.

The first time I saw them I wanted them, but told Shrimptern 2.0 I was trying to learn not to get every dang thing, how to PASS THINGS UP. So, I passed them up.

It was, I think, later that SAME DAY when they would have come in handy. 

Next trip to Lowes, we were looking for something else, and I forgot to get them.

Wasn't until the third or more trip to Lowes that I actually bought them.

And have been using them regularly, ever since.

********

So.

Last time I went to Lowes (to get the red spirally thing), lo and behold, another bin of impulse items. These teeny tiny cute vice grips. 

Two measly bucks, and small to stash or store.

"_I might use them someday_," whispered the hoarder voice. DK succumbed, the first time.

And used them later that day. They were JUST the thing.

See their day-biyoo, next post....

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

The annual Gem and Mineral show is a-comin' up in a couple weeks. This is where DK sourced that oh-yeah petrified wood for the Mermaid bank of tanks.

She's pondering if she should go again, and getter summore.


.


----------



## wicca27

those could be used for so many things need to get several more mini grips dk no tellin when you will need to have more than one hehe


----------



## mordalphus

Dk, I was talking to a friend today about seaweed addiction and they are a smarty pants biologist full of useless information. 

Guess what, only Japanese people have the enzymes to digest seaweed. Apparently us gaijin just let it pass through as fiber. And here I thought maybe I was actually using those 40 calories.  makes me feel even more frivolous like, 'yes, I eat things just for fun, I don't even bother digesting them'.


----------



## wicca27

ha, so my questions is does it takes like nori does? im not a fan of nori like in sushi to strong but does the pacages you 2 get tast like that or is it different flavors


----------



## mordalphus

It tastes different than japanese nori even though it's the same species. This seaweed is roasted, oiled and salted (which sushi nori is none of those) . I am a fan of very many types of seaweed. Favorites are hibiki, wakame, nori (including the Korean roasted seaweed we talking about here) , and what I call rotini, then kelp. Yummmmmm.


----------



## DKShrimporium

I think we have an unfortunate theme of the day here, folks:

ENABLING!!!​
Wicca is encouraging a HOARDER to _GET MORE_.

Mordalphus is notifying DK - A COMPULSIVE EATER - that now there is _the perfect addictive meal_: all taste and CALORIE FREE. By that I mean roasted seaweed washed down by diet coke, of course.

Sheesh. All I need now is someone to dump off a box of puppies at my front door.


*********
(Takes a deep breath...)

IN OTHER NEWS:

ASAslider project, 02

You may notice that the handwriting has not improved, but the arrows definitely have! This is because last night we married the Bamboo to GIMP. After the excitement wears off, mebbe DK will tone down the tacky some.


.


----------



## wicca27

haha na not enabling just helping you to enjoy the things you like lol and no moose stays with me hehe cant have him lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> haha na not enabling just *helping you to enjoy the things you like* lol and no moose stays with me hehe cant have him lol


THAT'S the ENABLER'S MANTRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Loachutus

> Sheesh. All I need now is someone to dump off a box of puppies at my front door.


Ahhh, crap! Now I gotta turn around and go home.


----------



## wicca27

lol


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

How are you going to stop it from going off the end?


----------



## wicca27

ha i love it now more awsome pics hehe looks like football replays lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

ASAslider project 03

We slide the ball bearing unit right off the end of the outer rail. Right off. And then all the balls fall out, and make a greasy mess.

Ennywon wanna guess how the HECK we get the balls back in?

Let's see if ennywon had a more cleverer solution than what DK came up with.

That was DK's favorite step of the whole processs - gettin' the balls back in.


.


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## mordalphus

I made a mess like that with my wives ikea dresser. I used a magnet to hold them in place while I shimmied them back together.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> I made a mess like that with my wives ikea dresser. I used a magnet to hold them in place while I shimmied them back together.


(DK taps fingers on chin...)

Hmmmmm. DK thinks her solution is better.

**********

NOW, DK NEEDS TO PICK YER BRAINS, FOLKS.

She needs the equivalent of a "C" shaped gear (smooth outer edge, though, no notches or teeth), that, say, goes on an axle of 3/4 inch diameter or so (this dimension is not critical but must be in the range of 3/4-1 1/2 inches. The outside diameter is 4 inches. Like a miniature circular saw blade minus teeth, but with the inner hole extended to the edge in one place on one radius.

Preferably steel, with some strength, but no thicker than 1/8 inch, flat on both sides.

Imagine she's going to apply force to this just like it's a gear she's pulling off an axle, using a gear puller, it needs to have some strength for that force.

Now, go fill up on caffeine, or sugar, or fat, or exercise, or whatever you need, and then close your eyes and seek alpha waves, outside-the-box thinking.

Where can she get or make such a part?

I dare ya.


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## Soothing Shrimp

Something like this? http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...illating+saw+blade&storeId=10051#.URqQHzcftSE


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## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Something like this? http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...illating+saw+blade&storeId=10051#.URqQHzcftSE


Close, but I need a smaller opening to the edge, see green in picture in previous post. If the hole is 3/4 inch diameter, then the opening at the outside edge is the same.

Imagine the "C" is stuck on the axle, and she's going to use that very gear puller in the picture in the above post (3 point) to pull it off the axle. But it has to have the opening to the edge.


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## Soothing Shrimp

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...illating+saw+blade&storeId=10051#.URqVgTcftSE and grind a path to the axle hole?


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## amberoze

Soothing Shrimp said:


> http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...illating+saw+blade&storeId=10051#.URqVgTcftSE and grind a path to the axle hole?


It needs a narrower opening, all the way to the center.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## DKShrimporium

amberoze said:


> It needs a narrower opening, all the way to the center.
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


Yes. I need the three points of support on the external edge for the three gear puller feet (or whatever they are called). Even thirds.


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## DKShrimporium

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Just looked more closely and I can go down to just over quarter inch diameter on the inside hole. So I could start with this and the knockout hole.


.


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## DKShrimporium

So... last night, she dug through her bins 'n' barrels of parts 'n' pieces, and found these.

Close, but no dice.

A trip to Lowes is warranted.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

ASAslider project 04

After we get the ball bearing unit free from the outer rail, we line up the INNER rail and ball bearing unit, and note some geometry.

Then, we cut some segments, using a hack saw and tin snips.

UP NEXT: HOW DK GOT THE BALL BEARINGS BACK IN... HER FAVORITE STEP IN THIS PROJECT... It's a solution that reminds her of many of the aspects of her favorite puzzle - the solution is simple, fast, robust.


.


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## wicca27

did you and the shrimps have a happy valentine's day? hope mad doings are doing well lol


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> did you and the shrimps have a happy valentine's day? hope mad doings are doing well lol


DK ate her way through a very delicious box of dark chocolates, which was happy. But now, DK is paying for the pudge factor, which is less happy! Time to order some sushi goods... mmmmmmmmmm..........

*************

IN OTHER NEWS:

ASAslider project 05

I fergot to finish my posts... got bizzy doin' stuff.

How did DK get tham balls back in?

She held it up sideways, and loaded balls on one side. Then, she took a piece of the bag the drawer slide came in and used it to wrap that side, while she flipped it 180 and loaded the other side. 

Then, holding the wrapper tight, she slid the whole kaboodle into the outer rail track. 

Once all the balls were into the outer rail track, she held the wrapper and kept sliding the ball bearing unit past the wrapper, then she pulled the wrapper out of the track.

Here ya go. Happy Friday, all y'all.


.


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## wicca27

nice idea i will have to try that some time im always takeing things apart lol


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## DKShrimporium

ASAslider project 06

Now, we take the smaller bits we sawed earlier, and put them together, making a sort of mini-rail-car on the outer rail:


.


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## wicca27

thats a nifty little thing there so many uses


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## amberoze

I've been stalking this thread for a while now, and this particular development has me intrigued. I keep wondering where this particular development with the tracks is going.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## DKShrimporium

Amberoze, wha-chu growin' in that there blue pot... 'cause, it looks like a fun project.


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## amberoze

That five gallon bucket contains the fruit of my loins.lol.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## DKShrimporium

amberoze said:


> That five gallon bucket contains the fruit of my loins.lol.


That's five gallons of very cute fruit.

**********

ASAslider project 07

Next, we look at a problem, and solve it.

Our mini-rail-car slides all along the outer rail. But the outer rail can also slide along the outer casing, and if it does, the mini-rail-car could get derailed and lose its bearings (literally!!).



.


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## DKShrimporium

So... after two years of development work on hardware and recipes, DK has over the winter been pulling all her tanks back into production mode. She's had them there before, so she can look at a tank and tell "when it's not right." The tank _whispers_ to her...

And lately, one tank has not been "right." And she's been banging her head against the wall, testing, testing, pondering, etc.

She does a lot of benchmark testing on her system, to make sure it's running smoothly and putting out consistency. Good thing, because she's running nitrate injections and noticed her injection was not "putting out" the level of nitrates her calculations told her should be a-happenin'.

So, she backed up and tested her nitrate concentrate vat... nada. Now, red flags are a-flyin', 'cause she KNOWS what she put into that vat, and she tested the injector yesterday and it's injecting as specified, she knows this. What the heck is going on? She just replaced and tested a brand new nitrate test only a month or so, ago. 

She climbs her squirrely brain into the internets, into cyberspace, and stalks around. And she learns about honey. Well, sort of.

She posts this to warn all y'all, what she learned, about honey. Well, sort of.

Most commercial nitrate tests involve a later step (step two or three, depending on the brand) that uses a super-concentrated solution of reagent. The reagent is supposed to be in saturated concentration in the solution, but in reality what happens is if a single crystal forms within the bottle, then rapidly a crystallization takes place of the active reagent, taking most of the reagent out of solution and into the crystal. This can happen relatively rapidly once any crystal structure happens within the bottle. 

Naturally, the manufacturers, in their great wisdom, don't see fit to provide this solution in see-thru bottles, so one could see this phenomenon!

So, in a nitrate test kit, there is usually one bottle that the instructions say "shake before use" and what they really mean is "bang that sucker on the table enough to break up the larger crystal, then shake that dude about five minutes to put that crystal back into solution until the solution is saturated again or your results will be false and useless." And dangerously under reported, in the case of nitrate ppms.

A mere 30 seconds of kinda-paying-attention-shaking DOESN'T do it iffen y'all got a crystal in that non-see-thru bottle. (Hmmmmmmm... at this point, DK's mind thinks to her ultrasonic cleaner... hmmmmmm.... hmmmmmm.)

So, recently, when DK gotter new nitrate test (see above), she discovered nitrates in her tap, then they _seemed_ to wane over the next weeks. 

But yesterday, she found out that the nitrates have been there all along, and the crystal has been growing in her "Nitrate Solution Two" bottle.

So beware, folks. That Nitrate Solution Two is like a bottle of honey, inside. Once you start to get the crystals, you gotta stop and reverse the process, or the test is useless. Just like one little crystal in your honey jar turns your honey to a solid mass.

Time to deploy the floater farm. And switch out the nitrate/phosphate injection vat for high phosphate...

An interesting aside, here. DK meets a lotta peeps, from various places. In one place, she met a guy who farms honeybees, and produces honey. Of course, she hadda pick his brain, about this process. What she learned is that honey is a super concentrated sugar solution, and commerical honey has to have a specific range of moisture to be approved for sale. Too little moisture, and the shelf life is shot, as the honey rapidly crystallizes and is not appealing to buyers. Too high a moisture content, and you run the risk of mold in the honey, plus it's runny. She then had to collect extensive free samples from said peep, and concluded that honey is sweet and delicious. As a matter of fact, said peep surprised her with a few jars of "unacceptably wet" honey that was just over the moisture content allowable. "Take the lid off and let it dry out a few days in the winter when the air is dry," says HoneyFarmer, "and there's no problem with it." So, she did.

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

ASAslider project 08

We want to prevent, for this project, the outer rail from sliding along inside the mounting casing.

So, we see there is a plastic part on the end of the outer rail, and a hole on the end of the mounting casing.

We drill a hole in the plastic part, corresponding to the hole location in the casing when lined up.

Select a suitable pop rivet.

Pop away.

Voila.

No more sliding.


.


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## wicca27

thanks for that wonderful nitrate info ..... note to self shake bottles daily....


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> thanks for that wonderful nitrate info ..... note to self shake bottles daily....


I WAS shaking them daily. But I wasn't banging them on the table, to do so.

************

IN OTHER NEWS:

Things that make DK smile. She didn't even see the second one until she previewed it, blown up. Taken yesterday.


.


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## wicca27

woohoo mermaids lol. i want to see more shrimps hehe maybe tiger types lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

I need to clean some glass slime in most tanks to take pics. Here are some shots from packin' Mermaid mamas, today.

The CJDS project really helped the Mermaids. Now, I'm training them to come to the buffet, and eat.


.


----------



## mordalphus

Isn't it amazing how many eggs they hold on to? I've noticed they're really good at holding onto them. With neos they get bulging like that, but by the time they hatch there's just a normal size clutch, but my cardinals stay bulging like that until they hatch, it's great! So easy to tell when they're berried, haha


----------



## Bananariot

DKShrimporium said:


> I need to clean some glass slime in most tanks to take pics. Here are some shots from packin' Mermaid mamas, today.
> 
> The CJDS project really helped the Mermaids. Now, I'm training them to come to the buffet, and eat.
> 
> 
> .


Is that cement in their tanks? haha clearly not but I'm curious as to what it is.


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Isn't it amazing how many eggs they hold on to? I've noticed they're really good at holding onto them. With neos they get bulging like that, but by the time they hatch there's just a normal size clutch, but my cardinals stay bulging like that until they hatch, it's great! So easy to tell when they're berried, haha


I think it's like a petite pregnant woman - her baby weighs the same as a tall woman's but she looks so much larger at 9 months because she's small so the baby bump looks bigger. They are definitely more notable when berried for me, visually. 

BTW Liam, I need a consult. What is a good bulk choice for sushi nori full size wrappers? There are so many sources and apparently quite a range of quality. I'm a thinkin' mebbe yer other half would have some scoop, here...

And, I went to replenish my Sriracha and my store quit carrying my sauce!!! So thank goodness for mail order groceries, nowadays. They had kikkoman sriracha on the shelf which makes me nervous; it's like when Sears bought out Lands' End, iffen y'know what I mean...



Bananariot said:


> Is that cement in their tanks? haha clearly not but I'm curious as to what it is.


They do look like cement, I admit. They are fired clay feeding dishes I had made by a pottery person.


******

IN OTHER NEWS:

ASAslider project, conclusion 

Next, we flip the unit over and bend up a couple of the tabs on the mounting casing, for hanging.

Hang them up, and attach our light fixtures to them.

Now, DK feels Omniscient - she can adjust the "solar" axis at will, and, more importantly, move those fixtures out of the way to get to stuff, or move them closer up front when she has a decent photo opportunity. She needs all the help she can get, with a camera...


.


----------



## mordalphus

I'll ask my better half, to be honest we usually bring back artisan nori whenever we go to Japan (whic. Happens to be 113 days from now!) 

Oh, and I am happy to announce, my newest bottle of huy fong sriracha is back to being spicy! Seems it was just a wimpy batch for my last few bottles. I sent them an email to let them know, haha.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Thanks for the consult-in-waiting, Liam. What I'm mostly concerned about is not filling myself with product that was grown in toxic effluent. I just bought a batch that purports to be grown in a "biological preserve" in hopes that I'm not eating factory runoff taken up by seaweed!

"Made in Shinan-gun, Korea which has been designated by UNESCO as a biological preserve."

I know, at that price it's probably crap. Mostly, I need not to poison myself, but if I can eat better quality I would, too. Yeah, that's my priority list. First, poison-less. Yeah. Preferably, no poisons. None.


----------



## oblongshrimp

So what is it that you do to put them into "production" mode? What are you changing?


----------



## mordalphus

AHh, ok DK, for KOREAN seaweed, we usually get this stuff made by choripdong in the bulk full sized sheets

















EDIT: annnnnd, you'll be able to see them when TPT stop being broken.


----------



## mordalphus

There ya go dk


----------



## DKShrimporium

oblongshrimp said:


> So what is it that you do to put them into "production" mode? What are you changing?


Well, first I induce berrying by bouncing their water in a controlled fashion (altering the water's mineral/ion profile). Anyone who's introduced shrimp into their tanks with plop-n-drop knows that a change in water can induce molting, which can induce berrying. The trick is to do this but not overly stress the shrimp. Of course, you can just put them into stable water and they will eventually breed, but you can actually manipulate the timing by doing a controlled water bounce.

Then, I set up the tanks such that there is a lot of cultured biofilm, which is why lately I haven't been posting too many pictures of shrimp as all my tanks are slimy and I want to keep them that way for the time being.



mordalphus said:


> AHh, ok DK, for KOREAN seaweed, we usually get this stuff made by choripdong in the bulk full sized sheets


Yes, I do realize my product is KOREAN, but I couldn't find any JAPANESE products that said anything about, well, basically, quality control. Which is why I would like an educated opinion about which JAPANESE products are good. roud:



mordalphus said:


> There ya go dk


Oh, great. How do I google that? There's no english except roasted with grapeseed oil.


----------



## mordalphus

Ahh, well there is a difference in taste and texture between japanese and Korean nori, I'll get you her preferred japanese brand


----------



## mordalphus

Here are the brands my wife suggests :


> Nagatanien or yamamotoyama


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> Here are the brands my wife suggests :


Please thank her kindly for the consult!

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

General service announcement. Costco now carries BLACK RICE! WHOO-HOOO!!!


----------



## mordalphus

DKShrimporium said:


> Please thank her kindly for the consult!
> 
> ***********
> 
> IN OTHER NEWS:
> 
> General service announcement. Costco now carries BLACK RICE! WHOO-HOOO!!!


We mix black rice 1 part to 10 of white rice, makes it nice and purple!


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> We mix black rice 1 part to 10 of white rice, makes it nice and purple!


Well, DK eats it _straight_, murky as it looks, almost scary. She loves to use black rice or red rice in soups. She also likes to use black sweet rice in her sushi rolls, which gives them an interesting look. She's not known for moderation, you know. I mean, she started out with a few cheapie cherry shrimp, and look where it's gone...

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

This morning, DK witnessed the aftermath of a massive Mermaid kegger, last night. Ever since she opened the Cashew Jar Department Store and the Mermaid Buffet Services and the O'Shrimporium Bar, I swear, those Mermaids have turned rogue on her and become... well... promiscuous. Look what she had to deal with, this morning. She's left to deal with all the abandoned shrimplets in the gravel cracks, as there are no Shrimp Protective Services in her sector....


.


----------



## Stillstudying

*New Member*

Hi, I've been lurking around here for about four months and today I stumbled across your thread. Wow! It is wonderful, your style of writing is very refreshing. Thank you. I even joined and subscribed (I'd seen that before but didn't know what it meant, know I do). So, I started reading this thread from the very beginning, I'm on 'page' 4 or so at this point. I noticed you've edited to remove your pictures. Will they show up later? Also, do you have any shrimp that get to be about the same size as Amano shrimp? But, thank you, thank you for such a wonderful thread. I'll keep reading but it will take me some time to get to the end ...
Michelle


----------



## wicca27

ha dk i laughed so hard reading your new post i scared moose he was asleep beside me lol. i got the " what the heck was that for" look lol. hehe i will be the leader of the Shrimp Protective Services, hehe you can scoop them up and send them my way and i will find a good home for the little ones lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Stillstudying said:


> Hi, I've been lurking around here for about four months and today I stumbled across your thread. Wow! It is wonderful, your style of writing is very refreshing. Thank you. I even joined and subscribed (I'd seen that before but didn't know what it meant, know I do). So, I started reading this thread from the very beginning, I'm on 'page' 4 or so at this point. I noticed you've edited to remove your pictures. Will they show up later? Also, do you have any shrimp that get to be about the same size as Amano shrimp? But, thank you, thank you for such a wonderful thread. I'll keep reading but it will take me some time to get to the end ...
> Michelle


Well. 

Welcome, Michelle. 

May you catch the addiction, and I'm an enabler as well as co-addict. What an honor to receive your very first TPT post.

As you read through the thread, you will learn about DK's "squirrely brain" which needs to have regular pressure releases or else she goes insane, thus, this thread. Mostly, it's like yelling out into a big ol' echo chamber, my posts here, but sometimes a body chimes in and that, in the lyrics of the sound of music song _Edelweiss_, causes her ego to "bloom and grow, forever," so perhaps it's best that she preaches mostly to the silent masses. Or whoever the heck reads this. She has no idea who they are, 'cause most of them don't say anything...

The pictures... ah... yes. Well, when she started this thread, she had NO IDEA how long it would get. She has 90 MB of picture space allotted to her on TPT and has used it all up, mostly in this thread. So she wipes the beginning pictures as she needs space. You will also learn, reading this thread, that she's a hoarder, so this is an exercise against hoarding, wiping her earlier pictures, teaching herself that _she cannot keep everything indefinitely_. Yeah, that's it. She's working on her hoarding.

Um. Actually, I've never kept Amanos, so don't know what size they get. The biggest muthuz I have are Super Tigers, Black Tigers and Camo Tigers. But if you're asking because you want to put a LARGER shrimp in with FISH that will pester or eat them, re-think your model, from the shrimp's point of view. It's a level of Dantes Inferno, to do that to a shrimp, and try to "cure" the problem by using a larger shrimp. Like, if I asked you to move to North Korea, as a peasant.



wicca27 said:


> ha dk i laughed so hard reading your new post i scared moose he was asleep beside me lol. i got the " what the heck was that for" look lol. hehe i will be the leader of the Shrimp Protective Services, hehe you can scoop them up and send them my way and i will find a good home for the little ones lol


For you, C. Today's pathetic attempts at photography, through slimy glass and all. But DK is just enamored with broke blacks. They are so coo-el, and every one is different.

There are a few awesome T-Rex's in there right now (they are produced in very small numbers) but DK's efforts to get any decent pictures were in vain, this morning, they move too fast and are always blurry, grrrrrrrrrrrr! So these are not the coolest specimens, but the ones that held still. Up close to the glass.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK waits for Liam (_C'mon Liam, I'm counting on you to do the puzzle!!_ - or any other daring soul out there in the silent masses, who dares to solve her broke-black word puzzle).

If you need a hint, I can provide one...!!! 

What does it spell, that is on DK's broke-black tiger, built into the unique markings in the picture in the post, above???

acchhorrs​
******

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK ponders the next project, which has been forced upon her.

It isn't something she wants to do, but her well is forcing her, and, well (is that a pun??), I guess it's a challenge, so we do it. Time to dig through the bins & barrels of parts 'n' pieces. She already knows what she's looking for, it's just a matter of how she's gonna do it.

Probably will involve some plastics fabrication in her convection oven...

Stay tuned... for more m..a..d.. d..o..i..n..g..s.. to come.

Sigh. 


.


----------



## mordalphus

I think I know

And I saw it on the shrimp before I even read the riddle, ha. Classic shape. 


I was exposed to this testing as a child, maybe that's why it came to my mind instantly


----------



## DKShrimporium

mordalphus said:


> I think I know
> 
> And I saw it on the shrimp before I even read the riddle, ha. Classic shape.
> 
> 
> I was exposed to this testing as a child, maybe that's why it came to my mind instantly


I LOVE IT!!! _You saw it too!!!!_


Coo-el, huh.


DK sees things, in her shrimp. Actually, not limited to shrimp. She cannot have florals or woodgrains around her, as they make her crazy. She sees scenes in them. All her friends think she's dumpy, 'cause she wears only solids and stripes, never patterns or florals. 


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

On the shrimp they look like angels to me. The Rorschach one looks like a blob. heh


----------



## pKaz

In the first shrimp picture, isn't the "backwards south america" another way of saying there is a tiger tooth on your black tigers?


----------



## DKShrimporium

pKaz said:


> In the first shrimp picture, isn't the "backwards south america" another way of saying there is a tiger tooth on your black tigers?



Um. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. The classic Tiger Tooth is a set of fangs, though, only two in the flank. This pattern is more jagged sawtooth all along the skirt.

********

We interrupt the Rorschach discussion to announce that the overall model for the next project has come to DK in a _Eureka_ moment. She wasn't even seeking alpha waves, but rather thinking amusedly about the Rorschach discussion. And, it just POPPED into her head, how to do it, from the sidelines it popped in.

The concept is:

Overalls.

Y'know, like farmers used to wear. 

She ponders, further... hmmm.....


.


----------



## Maechael

*You Madam are*

A tease, you Miss DKshrimporium are a tease of the highest order!

All of these homemade, incredible DIY and Genius miss use of materials!
No schemata? Haha.


I would love to hear and more so see, more of your workings.




I love the madness to your method.

And I'm still reading, and rereading almost everything, to make sure I'm not missing anything you say that may be vital later on.



P.s. I'd love to buy shrimp from you after I've started my modest path with some Cherries of my own.


----------



## wicca27

ok what is up with the plastic canvas want to see moooorrrreeee


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> I would love to hear and more so see, more of your workings.


Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Ninety-nine pages of thread isn't enough for you? To get the OD, you need to be an onsite Shrimptern.



wicca27 said:


> ok what is up with the plastic canvas want to see moooorrrreeee


DK's bizzy Googling like mad, trying to find a critical part. She thinks she's found one, needs to confirm the source availability. Unfortunately, none local that she can verify, at least on a Sunday.


----------



## mordalphus

DKShrimporium said:


> I LOVE IT!!! _You saw it too!!!!_
> 
> 
> Coo-el, huh.
> 
> 
> DK sees things, in her shrimp. Actually, not limited to shrimp. She cannot have florals or woodgrains around her, as they make her crazy. She sees scenes in them. All her friends think she's dumpy, 'cause she wears only solids and stripes, never patterns or florals.
> 
> 
> .


DK, I guess we're both a little crazy then, I get severely distracted even by orange peel texturing on a plain white wall. My favorite one is in the bathroom at work, there are gorillas warring on the wall next to the toilet.


----------



## wicca27

lol liam, i see stuff in the walls too. when i was growing up there was a unicorn on one section of panel and a gnome on another lol. took mom years to see it. one day i went to see her and she just HAD to show me lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, after a few hours cruising the internet, hanging with the Oscar forum peeps, DK plans a trip to the local Amish establishment, to continue her "overalls" procurement. She has a feeling the Amish will have JUST what she wants. And no, it's not overalls. Amish don't wear overalls.

What started out as dismay, has grown into excitement, at the new project. Because it's coo-el. The data so far suggest it's gonna work.

We'll see... stay tuned.


.


----------



## wicca27

wooo hooo cant wait to see more, on an up note hey DK i started a new tank hehe will need something for it soon lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And... remember these? DK has a use for them, in the overalls project.

They won't come into the picture for a while, though.

Oh, man, a year from now, this is gonna be THE COOLEST thing, ever.

If you want to gestalt it, program the last two images below into your memory, and we'll pull 'em out in a year, and you'll see where DK was going, with it. She can see it in her mind's eye, now, so clearly.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK is bizzy, chanting her mantras (and sipping her Bubba Mug of Joe), seeking the alpha waves, on the overalls project:


Keep it Simple, but Stellar (oh, the irony)
Make it cheap, and readily available
Make it easily reversible, re-configurable, removable
Make it low maintenance and low energy consumption
Seek non-proprietary componentry whenever possible
Design it so there is system feedback
Reduce, re-use, re-cycle
Somewhere in the project, we have to use something for other-than-its-_intended_-purpose, to get us out of the box and into creative problem solving via *lateral thinking*.


----------



## wicca27

ha rotating shrimp tank shelves lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Hm. Post got duplicated when I went to edit it. Flush dis one and see below.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, rather surprisingly, it was a total strike-out with the Amish supplier, although, just as surprising, the grocery store did the trick. She never thought, but the person with her at the time said, "just go in there and see if they have them!" and so, being amenable to NEW IDEAS, she did, and lo-and-behold, voila, there they were on the shelves. Modern grocery stores, so much more than bins of flour and pickles and dried beef.

DK set up some initial trials, after modifying her grocery store buy, yesterday.

She also spent some time with her friends Google, Amazon, and cyberspace, and ordered two more critical parts.

So now, we wait.

DK does a lotta waiting, lately.

And while she's been a-waitin', Shrimpterns 0.0, 1.0, and 2.0, I'm a speakin' to all y'all: she bit the bullet and paid the $ for this. She's gonna get serious about that ugly floor.

So here, you see the problem. Well, actually, the problem is about six feet tall and not in the picture. You see, years, many years ago, when the concrete floor was new, DK declared we needed to seal it and the walls with sealer, but Other Geek thought better. Of course, until it became obvious that... it needed to be sealed. So one day, while DK was out, Other Geek took it to seal the basement floor. But the problem was that instead of using a suitable product for a smooth finish, a rough nap paint roller was used, resulting in the equivalent of a popcorn finish in concrete-like hardness. That you cannot mop - it's like trying to mop sandpaper.

So over the years of all sortsa projects down there, that floor has gotten dirtier and dirtier, cause there are a couple of things DK just WILL NOT do. One is manual water changes on tanks. Another is hands-and-knees scrub the floor with a stiff scrub brush in hand. Sorry, that just ain't happenin'.

If you've been payin' attention, you figgered she has a floor buffer, an Oreck Orbiter (craigslist is her friend). So now, she's finally spent the money for the heavy duty scrub brush, to try THAT on her dirty floor. She hated to buy a proprietary part, but she needed a semi-industrial strength solution. She can't bear the thought of a Shrimptern 3.0 ALSO seeing this floor.

An' she guesses while she continues to wait, she can dig up that monga ah-loo-MIN-ee-um wire, and start to fabricate the parts she needs, from it.

Hmmm-hm-hm-hm.

.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

At least it's non slip. 

SO you won't scrub the floor, but you'll lay down on the floor to get a good pic of it? LOL


----------



## pKaz

Soothing Shrimp said:


> SO you won't scrub the floor, but you'll lay down on the floor to get a good pic of it? LOL


I thought the same thing......


DK, I know we briefly touched on the subject of the floor last time I was at the shrimp lab. I might be able to help out with that project.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK din't get down on the floor, she just put the camera there. Besides, DK has this theory - yer immune system either _works_, or it _doesn't_. Those of y'all that read scientific stuff know that the too-clean modern domicile is being credited with the explosion of allergies and asthma, because developing immune systems aren't properly challenged in modern domiciles and become hyper responsive to less important challenge molecules. Turns out, dirty is good, to a point. Yeah, that's it.

So, DK's not really a germ freak (ha ha ha, all the Shrimpterns know this...), but she's tired of _ugly_. That mulm-y floor is _ugly_. It's mostly this color due to the Aquavac trials she and Shrimptern 1.0 did that week, and re-setting a buncha tanks with lots of drippy mess.

And P, I'm all ears for any help getting my floor back to sky blue. Although the money is already spent on the Oreck brush...

One consideration I have in that room is aerosols. I do not want to have any untoward effects of cleaning my floor in my tanks, due to toxic aerosols generated during the cleaning process.


----------



## wicca27

if it was me i would rent a floor refinisher and sand that puppy down and reseal it. or use a big floor scraper the kind with long handle and work at it over long time to get all the texture gone. air pumps can be turned of and tanks covered with a damp sheet to keep any dust from sanding out of them. oh how i wish i could be a shrimpturn! but alas im gettin ready for ankle surgery in a month and have to be totally off my foot for 2 months so going to bite since it will be summer by the time i can start putting weight on my foot again. but any who. hope the scrubber works for you dk


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> ...but alas im gettin ready for ankle surgery in a month and have to be totally off my foot for 2 months so going to bite since it will be summer by the time i can start putting weight on my foot again. but any who. hope the scrubber works for you dk


Been there, done that. Times three.


.


----------



## wicca27

yeah i have all kinds of braces and used to have a boot and even 3 sets of cruches lol. the bad part about this is i wont be able to have any weight on my foot for 2 months the dr said. but that is ok ill make it since i got my new mini laptop lol. i just might go reread this whole thread lol. and i got a moose for company lol hook a harness to him and sit in the computer chair with wheels so go for walks out side lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Today, a few supplies are tracking to arrive.

Yesterday, DK gotter on the horn and contacted some World Experts with some questions. She had to leave a long voicemail, because, of course, World Experts don't actually answer their own phone, they are too bizzy behind the scenes _Doing Things_ with their Expertise. Then, she followed up with email to them using her famous scribbly pictures using zany colors of notations. She hopes that will getter a response from the World Experts. She's secretly hoping they will get interested in what she wrote, and offer her some... goods. To prove that their Expertise is valid, y'know. The thing is, these here Experts happen to have access to things that are exceedingly hard to source, and DK wants to see if she can break the barrier there, if there are some goods that fit the bill for her criteria.

This is just the sort of approach she used last year, hunting for suitable large chunks of petrified wood, so look how that turned out..., although those were more local experts.

And so... more waiting. And observing the beta testing...


----------



## wicca27

oooo cant wait to see what you get. some times all you have to do is ask hehe.


----------



## DKShrimporium

A PARENTHETICAL PROJECT:

DK has the: "OK, that's *it*, _I'm fixing this problem_!!!" moment, today.

So, the anticipated goods came in. DK spent some time dismantling some of them into pieces, for the overalls project. The other, she used, and it resulted in AGAIN this problem that has been like drip torture. 

So, today, she decided on a little side project, to solve the drip torture.

Driptorture 01

She dug through her bins & barrels of parts & pieces, and started with this, as a foundation piece. Lexan.

What IZ she a'gonna do wittit? Hmmmmmmmm.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Oh-la-la. She almost forgot to tell ya. One of the polygamous tanks she set up... well, as of today, one of the wives finally consumated! DK has been waiting and waiting on this tank, and now... finally... progress. She'd move that handy-dandy Adjustable Solar Axis and take a nice picture of her and her monga load... except in that particular tank there is a SIDE project hanging off that tank, preventing her from moving that light forward. Oh the complications, here in the Shrimporium. It is good news, though.

Will, iffen yer readin' this - it was the potassium spike that diddit.

------

And now, she goes back to pondering: how to use blue-green, to get rid of red. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

.


----------



## wicca27

i so miss my red tigers....... one of these days i will have some more. cant wait to see how it works. i would get lots of berries but not many babies. and when i finaly got babies after moving them to higher ph they got bacterial infection due to temps to high. i wish you luck dk she looks nice cant wait to see little ones


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> i so miss my red tigers....... one of these days i will have some more. cant wait to see how it works. i would get lots of berries but not many babies. and when i finaly got babies after moving them to higher ph they got bacterial infection due to temps to high. i wish you luck dk she looks nice cant wait to see little ones


DK can't wait to see the babies, either!

Because...

Mama is a _Capulet_, and Daddy a _Montague_.

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Driptorture project 02

DK stares at the strip of Lexan. Squirrely brain starts a-whirring. _What other parts? Hmmmmmmmmmm._

First, she's a-thinkin' wood. She goes to her stash of wood trim scraps, which is also the stash real estate for other strip-like pieces. 

Therein, she finds something else, useful (stay tuned). This reminds her to think of her first love: PVC.

She brushes the idea aside, quickly. But it comes back, like gum stuck to the bottom of her Louboutins. (Yeah, REALLY. Like DK is a gonna wear Louboutins. What folly.)

And she realizes that her subconscious brain is smarter than her conscious brain. She heads to the PVC stash, which is in a different area of the house (like a squirrel, she has stashes all over).

She stares at the PVC stash, zoning out, allowing the alphas to approach while she apprises the inventory for suitable parts.

Ah, there. She grabs some parts, and heads toward the chop saw...


.


----------



## sayurasem

DK I love your posts it's so cool!


----------



## Bananariot

I remember winning an AQbid for your red tigers......I got 3 babies out of them and they kicked the can from disease over 6 months........my water wasn't good :frown::frown:


----------



## oblongshrimp

Very cool!! What was the father of that pair?


----------



## wicca27

bananariot i dont thing it was a prob with your water as i had the same prob but my red tigers came from speedie (sorry dk for another seller in your post lol). i think they are just verry touchy. i hope dk has a break though with them cause i have seen pics how they are housed and i think it will be of great help.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Driptorture project 03

What it was that DK found in her pile o' strip-type-scraps, that made her think: PVC

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

No word, YET, from the World Experts. DK has not given up hope, however. She can be persistent, at times. Tenacious.

OK, OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE! _ARE YOU HAPPY_??!!


.


----------



## wicca27

lol not every one dk but you yes i bet you have wonderful bits,parts, and pieces laying around to use for evething under the sun.


----------



## DKShrimporium

While DK does weekend errands and STUFF, and then FINISHES SCOURING HER FLOOR, ponder this:

Driptorture project 04

This project, 
brought to you by the letter U. 
In all three axes.​

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

We are now down to our third level interruption from the overalls project. That's pretty much OK, 'cause we are still waiting to hear from the World Experts and also undergoing a rather lengthy beta testing of componentry which will take several weeks.

First, we interrupted to fix an annoying problem, with the driptorture project - more on that later today. 

Then, the orbiter scrub brush arrived and DK's going after that nasty mulmy floor in the Shrimporium.

But when Geek Junior came to me with this one, I just had to take a break and see if I COULD. Geek Junior cannibalized the scope off a Daisy air pellet gun to use on the new Airsoft rifle, - "Can you get the scope onto the Airsoft rifle for me," was the request. 

So, we interrupt the interruptions to present our latest project from Stuff From DK's Bins & Barrels of Parts & Pieces, _an exercise in re-purposing goods_.

The "new" scope mounting does not interfere with function. It is reversible and adjustable. It was entirely done from stuff around here, already.

And today, Geek Junior is doing ALL the laundry. Folding included.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And now, back to _the interruption to_ our regularly scheduled program.

*Driptorture project 05*

We make a structure of a "U" in each axis.

_Whatever on earth is it??_

You tell me. I dare ya.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Whilst DK awaits word back from the World Experts, she in the twitchy cabin-y-fever-y month of March spent a chunk of time researching some things _prehistoric_, for the Overalls project. A bit of searching in cyberspace, and we hope to have samples on the way soon.


.


----------



## wicca27

contraption to remove unwanted duck weed lol thats what i would use it for any way lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> contraption to remove unwanted duck weed lol thats what i would use it for any way lol.


Buuuuuuuuuuut... we already did a duckweed detonator.


----------



## wicca27

good point. plant coral lol easy way to move them from one end of the tank to other hehe. im probably way off though so hmmmmmmm this will be good


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

DKShrimporium said:


> Buuuuuuuuuuut... we already did a duckweed detonator.


Do you have a vid of it in action?


----------



## mordalphus

is it something to block the output of a spray bar?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Do you have a vid of it in action?


Hakuna (that's in Swahili). Thassa why I needa tech-o-geek Shrimptern 3.0. Plus, after the first day, the duckweed was all gone, so I dismantled it and put the parts back in the bins & barrels!



mordalphus said:


> is it something to block the output of a spray bar?


Hakuna.

*********

OK, so, back to English.

*Driptorture project 06*

Here ya go. Whacha think? 

DK was knocking them things over every time she'd reach for one. 

It was driving her more nuts. 

Now, problem solved. Although, for the first few days, she couldn't find her tests, until she got used to looking RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE instead of on her work surface.


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

It's nice, but I'd be afraid the weight would cause the shelf to fall since it is friction fit at the bottom.


----------



## Bananariot

Yeah I have a box. But I have no motivation to test them until they are in front of my face!


----------



## wicca27

yes i do want one thats is nifty, i also want one of those nifty square shrimp nets that is hanging next to the tests hehe


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> It's nice, but I'd be afraid the weight would cause the shelf to fall since it is friction fit at the bottom.


It's not a friction fit - it's attached to the grid on the upside, but the U channels in back keep if from hinging outward and the bottles dropping down the crack if so.


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Ah. That makes much more sense now.


----------



## shrimpnmoss

....*MANUAL* test bottles in the Shrimporium?...I thought DK didn't believe in repetitive manual labor?....that's a nice rack for your test reagents to sit....until you figure a way to *AUTOMATE*water testing...


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Oh! The gauntlet is thrown!


----------



## DKShrimporium

shrimpnmoss said:


> ....*MANUAL* test bottles in the Shrimporium?...I thought DK didn't believe in repetitive manual labor?....that's a nice rack for your test reagents to sit....until you figure a way to *AUTOMATE*water testing...





Soothing Shrimp said:


> Oh! The gauntlet is thrown!


DK's already doing live, inline _monitoring _of the Water Factory III. The testing she does on a case-by-case basis to see effects of things she's trying, or changes she's made. Such things aren't by nature to be automated as they aren't steady state. Remember, using the WFIII she can set any individual tank to unique water, so she can try a lot of things when her curiosity calls.

And besides, remember that DK uses a sort of algebra when it comes to how she approaches something. Yes, she loves to automate; yes, she avoids tedious repetitious tasks manually. But she also factors in weights toward costs, proprietary nature, consumables, etc. It is for these reasons that many functions are still via drop bottle tests. They don't merit the costs involved to automate them, or aren't needed at the frequency to support automation.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

The prehistoric samplings for the Overalls project have just arrived and will be entered into beta testing this weekend.

__________

At present, DK is tied up surgically removing an SUV center console and installing an after-market one. Y'know, better drink holders more suitable for 34 ounce Bubba Mugs, etc. Of course, she can't just plop it in; she has to cannibalize the ports (aux headphone jack and power plug) off the original one and fit them onto the the aftermarket one, so some alteration is in order.


----------



## wicca27

very interesting... i want to see pics of the new mug holder hehe. and check your pm's silly woman lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 01*

Hmmmmm...mmm....hmmm...hmmm.

DK's been busy with the chop saw, harvesting parts from Water Factory II. It feels a bit macabre.

She's preparing for a big ol' wedding, of sorts.

Diggin' around in her bins & barrels, assembling something big.

You KNOW she's consumed with a project (upcoming project) when she forgets to eat all day for days at a time, and her dreams in her sleep are populated with problem solving, assembling lists of parts, and mentally assembling schematics, testing things out...

She's been on the horn, arguing and conferencing with tech support from a variety of places, trying to find someone whose scope of knowledge will result in the right set of parts and design for this marriage to actually WORK!

Because, of course, amongst them, none have heard of this being done.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has just about mastered snacking with chopsticks using her non-dominant hand. She's a whiz with them with her dominant hand, can do things like pick up dry rice grains no problem. She's ALMOST that good now, with her non-dominant hand.

You'll never guess what she eats all the time with chopsticks, and how it started, as a habit...


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 02*

A picture's worth a thousand words...

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK heard back from the World Experts!!! She is definitely on the right track, and she got one bit of data that was really useful to know.

However, it may turn out that Wetwedding supercedes Overalls. Overalls is still gonna happen, but its importance will be _dwarfed_ by Wetwedding.

And so, DK waits for the parts to roll in, and a gigantic freight delivery in about a week...

This morning, she was on the horn, again, talking to tech support. They are so interested in what she's doing that they gave her their direct number and asked her to call back in a few weeks to let them know how the system works in the different configurations we discussed. 

Stay tuned.


.


----------



## wicca27

this will be interseting, new mad water since department going up? i sooooo wish i could be a shrimpturn


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> this will be interseting, new mad water since department going up? i sooooo wish i could be a shrimpturn


YEAH!! I really, _really_ need a Shrimptern next week, too, as there's a-gonna be a WHOLE lotta activity here, whatwith the wedding preps an' all...


*********

*Wetwedding project 03*

OF COURSE, DK needs a part that doesn't exist. She really, _really_ needs this part, because it's going to solve a few problems.

So, she ponders, and figures out how to make it.

Here's the start:


.


----------



## wicca27

with gettin ready for disability on the 4th and surgery on the 17 im stuck here lol. and then was talking with hubby and found out will be moving some time between august and september so tryin to figure out how to tear down tanks its going to be a mess. any who i cant wait to see all the goings on will be more good reading lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> with gettin ready for disability on the 4th and surgery on the 17 im stuck here lol. and then was talking with hubby and found out will be moving some time between august and september so tryin to figure out how to tear down tanks its going to be a mess. any who i cant wait to see all the goings on will be more good reading lol


Well, at least you will have several months between surgery and moving...!

I do not envy anyone who has tanks and wants to move them!

*******

*Wetwedding project 04*

While it might seem odd that DK focuses on this part, you will see at the conclusion of Wetwedding whyso. That is, if it works the way she hopes it will...

As for most weddings, which are consuming affairs in more ways than one, DK has had to bend many of her rules and abandon the usual.

She has shipments coming in over the coming days from all over the country, including the keystone piece for the Ultimate Shrimp Kegger tracking to arrive Monday, although the last of her five shipments won't be here until mid-week so the install can't happen until then.

DK is focusing on thishere (do you like how DK's taken to making wedded words??) homemade part, because it is a culmination (she hopes it will be) of many "married" elements, when Wetwedding concludes. So stick in there with her, and you'll see, at the end, why she has focused on this particular part... (There is a favorite coo-el aspect to every project she does, and in Wetwedding, she thinks this will end up being it.)


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

While we wait for the parts to roll in, we continue the fabrication of our special part.

*Wetwedding project 05*


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

A side note.

The Stenner Pump tube I used is an OLD STYLE tube, with the METAL COLLAR at the fitting ends. These OLD STYLE tubes had fitting ends made of PVC, colored DARK GREY like schedule 80 PVC.

There are now NEW STYLE tubes, with BLACK fitting ends and NO METAL COLLARS. The fitting ends on these NEW STYLE tubes are made of polypropylene or polyethylene or some other plastic than PVC that will NOT bond with PVC cement.

This is key to know, if you do not want to flood your home.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...


----------



## DKShrimporium

OK, so, back to the special fabricated part.

*Wetwedding project 06*

The part itself isn't that remarkable. But, what it enables in the end is system optimization from a few different variables. So stick with us, and when we get to the end of Wetwedding, you will see why DK likes this part.

The objective of the part is to tie into a house main pipe, a drain. The location of the tie in is very tight access with only a few inches clearance above the main pipe. There is no room to get a drill in there or many other tools, so DK had to make up a method to get the tie in done.

She wants a hole exactly the size of the LLDPE tubing into the main pipe, located toward the top of the main pipe as much as possible, or at least more than halfway up the main pipe.

To get the hole into the main pipe, she starts with a self-tapping hex-head sheet metal screw.

To get the screw started into the pipe, she melts the tip into the PVC.

She then uses the socket to screw the sheet metal screw all the way in, then over-screws it, stripping the PVC where the screw threads went.


.


----------



## wicca27

looks like its a bit higher than the mark so maybe a little better position on the pipe? i so cant wait to see all this come together


----------



## DKShrimporium

Exactly one year ago, DK was doing this massive upgrade on the Water Factory. Little did she know that she would be doing an equally challenging project, now.

DK feels like she has brain freeze. She has literally been waking up in the wees with the brain whirling through diagrams, configuring and re-configuring, trying to figure out what SHE HASN'T THOUGHT ABOUT. 

Aye, there's the rub. It's the one aspect you forget to think about that will come back to haunt you.

The parts have been rolling in, the money sucking down a hole of what feels like black hole proportions.

The freight arrived yesterday, minimally damaged, thankfully - DK was worried about delays if it arrived damaged, but it's useable.

One critical part DID arrive damaged, alas, so the schedule for install is delayed until replacement can be sent.

After DAYS of searching through cyberspace, looking, looking, looking for someone who has tried what she's about to do, DK FINALLY found a reference, and, of course, it was from the Germans. Leave it to the Germans, to have done it. Thank goodness for translation services.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Wetwedding project 07*

Ah, yes. The special part. Continued, while we wait for the rest of supplies to arrive, and DK's mind to settle down and derive the final configuration.


***AND***

Those of you in the corporate world, who have had the dubious experience of having management consultants come in with their dog and pony shows, will laugh at the schematic going on inside DK's head, like a pinball machine, bouncing from point to point to point to point... (see star diagram below)


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Heh, heh, heh....

Yesterday, DK was on the horn again, to tech support at _another_ company. _But the switchboard messed up and she got sent to a private line, instead, which happened to be one of the company engineers...._

So, she had a good half hour conversation with said engineer, about her plans, asking, "_What about this component, what are its limitations, will it be able to keep up, will it function over-capacity for the system and blow anything out? What if I tweak it like this and do it this way? What are the effects of doing it this way, or that way? Is this equipment able to do x, or y, or z?..._"

She managed to stump the engineer a couple of times, but did get most of her technical questions answered to her satisfaction, enough that it has helped gel the final configuration to about 95% completion, as of now.

There are still a few more shipments to arrive, and while she waits she will work on that last 5% in her head, whilst her mental pinball bounces around the star (see last picture, post, above). Ping ping ping ping ping ping ping...

She sat down with Other Geek last night with half a dozen spec sheets and went through the schematic, to see if we can put a front-end control on the process using a part in her bins. 

And so it goes. It's rather like making hollandaise sauce. Hafta be patient and not rush it, for the best end result, and let the process thicken SLOWLY and THOROUGHLY. This, of course, is EXCEEEDINGLY difficult for DK during her twitchiest month of the year. Her whole being is just twitching in anticipation, wanting to plow through this and get it up and running, to see if it will, indeed, work the way she hopes.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Our next installment of the special part.

*Wetwedding project 08*

Using a place-holder tubing (the green one, this time), DK places the place-holder tube into the hole, then slides the custom saddle tee over the tube, to ensure perfect alignment of the holes. She then seats the saddle properly, and draws around its perimeter to know where it will sit, so she knows where to prime and glue.

Then, replacing the place-holder tubing with a piece of LLDPE (that stands for linear low density polyethylene, by the way) tubing inserted into the saddle. She primes and glues the saddle in place, with the LLDPE tubing in place during the process. 

The custom saddle tee is now installed.

She finishes off the install with a temporary plug, just in case. Far overkill is the whole saddle and plug, but she likes to practice best practices when doing infrastructure mods like in plumbing, in her home. Next time she needs a custom saddle on a PRESSURIZED line, she will have this to fall back on, to think about.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 09*

DK borrowed these yesterday. She didn't think she'd be using them until next week, but she JUST GOT WORD THE REST OF HER PARTS WILL BE ARRIVING TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Good thing she did the main tie-in last night, and did the pressure testing.


.


----------



## Idrankwhat

DKShrimporium said:


> It's not a friction fit - it's attached to the grid on the upside, but the U channels in back keep if from hinging outward and the bottles dropping down the crack if so.
> 
> 
> .


Fill the PVC with beer, put in a straw, and you can have refreshments while doing tank maintenance.


----------



## Bolsen27

Hey DK. I just got caught up on this thread yesterday.. I read all 102 pages (at the time) yesterday. Wow! 

On another note next time you are working in tight spaces and a drill could help but you don't have room look into the right angle attachments for them. They are great! With an attachment like that you could have easily gotten a screw gun up to the pipe and drilled it out. I use them at work all the time, I am amazed at times at the places I can get to now that I have one. BORG should have them readily available, they cost around $20.

Brian


----------



## DKShrimporium

Idrankwhat said:


> Fill the PVC with beer, put in a straw, and you can have refreshments while doing tank maintenance.


Kegger ahead... stay tuned.



Bolsen27 said:


> Hey DK. I just got caught up on this thread yesterday.. I read all 102 pages (at the time) yesterday. Wow!
> 
> On another note next time you are working in tight spaces and a drill could help but you don't have room look into the right angle attachments for them. They are great! With an attachment like that you could have easily gotten a screw gun up to the pipe and drilled it out. I use them at work all the time, I am amazed at times at the places I can get to now that I have one. BORG should have them readily available, they cost around $20.
> 
> Brian


Mmmmmmmmm. Another convert/addict. Very good.

Yeah, DK would love to have a right angle drill attachment. She is forcing herself to use what she has right now, though, because this project has soaked up a lot of money.


***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Wetwedding project 10*

The goods arrived. Heh heh heh.

DK is quite tired at the moment, between hefting that 15 lb. wrench to do its job and moving around 50 lb. cinderblocks. 

For some reason, she feels as though she should be displaying a crack...


.


----------



## wicca27

did you have a barrel on those blocks i see a circle shape on them


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> did you have a barrel on those blocks i see a circle shape on them


Yes. Well. As it happens, I took the pictures out of order. Here is the circle. The cinder blocks were wet when I brought them in from the back yard, and put the circle on top.

*Wetwedding project 11*

Here is the circle.

Since we're having a wetwedding, we need a dance floor. DK's thinking maybe we'll build a little white-columned gazebo over it, and have the dance floor in the center. That would make for some great wedding photos.


.


----------



## Bolsen27

DKShrimporium said:


> Mmmmmmmmm. Another convert/addict. Very good.
> 
> Yeah, DK would love to have a right angle drill attachment. She is forcing herself to use what she has right now, though, because this project has soaked up a lot of money.


DK PM me your address and then maybe the tool fairy will mail you a right angle attachment. Rumor has it that he has a few brand new ones laying around unused.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Bolsen27 said:


> DK PM me your address and then maybe the tool fairy will mail you a right angle attachment. Rumor has it that he has a few brand new ones laying around unused.


_There's a TOOL FAIRY??? Why didn't anyone tell me all these years????_

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Wetwedding project 12*

While DK was Friday lunching, paging through issues of _Brides_ magazine in preparation for a wedding, unbeknownst to her the hussy Mermaids came in and took over her ballroom floor with a GIANT KEG!

She was imagining a nice, cultured string quartet, at the reception, not Sam Ronson!


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Bolsen27 said:


> DK PM me your address and then maybe the tool fairy will mail you a right angle attachment. Rumor has it that he has a few brand new ones laying around unused.


Oh, and, by the way. DK's careful about giving out information into cyberspace, _because weird things happen_. 

Like, JUST TODAY.

Box shows up. Addressed to the Germans. From Amazon. Seems the Germans have a fan, or perhaps have learned my password to logon.

Time to open the box.

---------

Yep. Very, very creepy. The Germans either have a stalker fan, or have infiltrated my Amazon account, making their wishes known. WHO ELSE would know that they WANT TO PLAY BALL???!!!!!!

_Thank you, to the sender_, assuming the Germans can't type. Never know, with them.


.


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## wicca27

very interesting box for the germans.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So... last night DK was trying not to blow her capillaries, because she had the highest blood pressure, ever, doing a beta test.

She's not very easily intimidated by projects but this one had her sweating. 

Been beta testing ALL day, today, playing the _"How does it REALLY work; is it doing what I THINK it's doing, or something else??"_

We are 95% successful on the first round of beta testing, which DK is very pleased at that level. There are a few tweakings, that will take a few days to implement.

Due to the tweakings, the system is manual as of now, but will be fully automated within a week.

And, it will be the coolest thing, ever. Well, until DK's next hair-brained project.

DK's very, very tired.


----------



## wicca27

congrats on the beta test going so well. cant wait to see the wetwedding in all its glory


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> congrats on the beta test going so well. cant wait to see the wetwedding in all its glory



Why, thank you. Think of now as the rehearsal dinner, for about a week, until I get the new parts in and have the system globally recalibrated.

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

Today, a picture of Cashew Jar Department Store progress in Mermaid world. DK's glass is very slimy, and she's keeping it that way for the time being, because, as you can see, all her babies are snackin' on the slime. She's running her tank rich, which means she's a-growin' some other things in there at the moment, as seen also on the glass.

This here picture shows the pipeline of babies going on in there, since the CJDS project was installed. There are actually a lot more sizes and tons of shrimp in this tank, now, but there is a sort of funny phenomenon that happens.

They are STILL quite shy. You can see a glare on the glass in this picture, coming from a rack of tanks behind me as I take the picture.

What this means is that any time I want to see the Mermaids, I get up on a step (because their tank is high) and as I do my head blocks the light to them from that rack of tanks behind me.

So to the Mermaids, it looks like a giant predator shadow, and they all scoot for the shadows - notice you don't see any of them EXCEPT the ones on the glass, whose eyes are on the TOP of their faces and therefore they can't see the BIG BAD PREDATOR SHADOW from their angle. So I shoot the picture I am ABLE to get, right now, which is a few of them on the slimy glass, to illustrate my point.

We see in that sampling at least five sizes of juvies, which is great.

This means the hussy mommas are pumping out the babies in a pipeline fashion in there, which I can confirm by my sighting lots of pregger waifs every time I look in there (but can't photograph right now due to the slimy-baby-snack-bar-glass).

But this photo makes DK very happy! That tank is taking off, now.


.


----------



## wicca27

awsome dk so happy they are finaly doing well for you. pretty good pic though the snack bar lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Global recalibrations ongoing, a couple days.

Ebirah the groom awaits his bride, whom we shall need to name.

Her bridal colors have been determined thusly:

*****

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Wetwedding project 13*

Oh, la la. DK just found the wedding dress fabric. Next, she hits up a couple of her sewing type peeps. This is gonna be awesome. Oh yeah. Let's just say it's a gonna be an ek-lek-tek wedding.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 14*

Did some stress testing, and system measuring, today. Things are pulling into place, DK thinks. She is going to await the wedding dress, before showing the bride. The dress "material" is in transit. Or, rather, "dress" "material."

She also awaits a few more parts, for her tweakings.

She spent some time today chasing some pneumatic parts (y'know, like as in pneumatics and hydraulics), hoping to use them for... well... an alternate purpose. As usual, she casts the die, and hopes it works.

In the meantime, we divert, a bit.

*******

*The Kirkland Peanut Can, a Two Act Play*

*Act I:*

A conversation, between DK and Other Geek, not atypical.

*Other Geek:* _What is this?_

*DK:* _Um, that is the can from the Costco peanuts._

*Other Geek:* _Nice can. But why is it here on the counter? Throw it away._

*DK:* _Um. Well, I kept it, 'cause it might come in useful, someday. It's a nice can. Cans like that are rather rare, anymore._

*Other Geek:* _Do you have a use for it? Get rid of it if not._

*DK:* _Um. Well, not exactly. I was thinking maybe it would make a nice scooper._

*Other Geek:* _See that edge on the inside, it would get in the way. This would not make a good scooper, because stuff would hang up on that edge that is too thick._

*DK:* _Um. Well, but it's such a nice can! I'm sure I will find a use for it!_

*Other Geek:* _Throw it away! If you think of a use for it, then you can save the next one!_

*DK:* _Um. HMmmmmmmm. Well..... OK._ _Secretly, she has already stashed the can BEFORE this one, in hiding, because it might come in handy._

------

*Act II*

DK sits at her desk, staring at a spiral fluorescent bulb sitting on her desktop, which has been removed from her desk lamp and replaced with an LED bulb. She rolls the spiral fluorescent around in her palm, zoning out.

She isn't even trying, but is kinda fuzzy-brained because she's getting less and less sleep at night, due to the birthday present her best friend gave her, a Nook, which she wakes up and reads by at night, sucking from her sleep hours.

In her fuzzy brain state, she slips seamlessly into alpha waves. The spiral bulb in her hand all of a sudden comes to life, speaking to her.

She jolts back out of the alpha waves, realizing she's going to try something...

...using the peanut can, and the spiral bulb.

Oh, yeah. 

She's nuts. 

First, it was the Cashews. 

Now, the Peanuts.

_Well, look how successful the Cashews were..._

Curtain is drawn.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 15*

So what is it? A steampunk Peter Cottontail?

Don't put it past DK. She does whacky-wonka-ish things.

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

Global recalibration is basically complete. The tanks are responding with a vengeance, let me tell you. There are about ten tweaks to the system upcoming, all at once because to do any of them I have to empty and depressurize the system, and I'm waiting for a certain shipment that has been stuck THREE DAYS in San Diego... grrrrrrrrr.

The "fabric" for the "wedding" "dress" is tracking to arrive today, so since we want to get this show on the road, we will try to rope in a seamstress tomorrow and get the thing made by this weekend. It is so perfect, or will be, DK thinks. Can't wait to show all y'alls.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's critical part is STILL tracking in SAN DIEGO, grrrrrrrrrr.

But, another box arrives, from Fedex.

DK is thinking... I don't have any tracking from Fedex, whuuut? All her boxes she awaits are usps, right now.

She rips in.

The Tool Fairy!
It was from the Tool Fairy!


_Did you know that the tool fairy uses Fedex? Whodathot._


Coo-el. Thanks. That is HOT. An heir and a spare, even.

Someday, when the tool fairy visits, the shrimp fairy may meet them.


.


----------



## Bolsen27

Glad the package got to you! Hopefully they come in handy.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

That is one sweet tool, gal!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> That is one sweet tool, gal!


Yeah. Suh-weeeeeeeeeet. I dunno why, but people send me stuff.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Wetwedding project 16*

For some reason, DK's mind is stuck on Totoro. Those of you who've read the entire thread AND have a memory worth a darn know that DK loves Howl's Moving Castle and all things Ghibli.

Must influence her thinking...


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Are you making a UV sterilizer?


----------



## wicca27

that is kinda cool


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 17*

Ahem.

Ahem.


.


----------



## sayurasem

Yay tool fairy!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Are you making a UV sterilizer?


Fergot to answer thissun.

Nyet.

DK doesn't believe in UV sterilizers for aquariums, anyway.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 18*

DK was up really early, today.

Because, today, she goes in for the kill. Plus, she's relapsed very, very badly on diet coke for this project and has been sucking down PRODIGIOUS amounts of it, enough to rob 34-ounce-bubba-mug-latte-DK of sleep due to caffeine overload. When DK has caffeine overload, that's WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much caffeine consumption. She must try to get back on the wagon, after this project is launched successfully.

She's been sweating out one leetle teeny problem, though. She awaits the pneumatic parts, but doesn't know if, when they arrive, they will work.

She needed a RELIABLE part for this segment of the process, and didn't have one. Teeny, itty bitty plug, she needed, to plug a high pressure port for when it's not in use. John guest sells the perfect plug, but DK was loathe to spend ten bucks to get one and wait a week for it (only place she could find them cheapest was five bucks for a pack of ten and five bucks shipping, but she only needs ONE and they are a 50 cent piece - on principle she cannot spend the ten bucks, then.)

She had a fake, but it was deemed UN-reliable by her, and this segment needs reliable.

She pondered.

And stewed.

And, well, obsessed.

And then, it came to her.

Oh, yes, this will do, perfectly. See, she KNEW she'd eventually have a use for it!

Stay tuned...


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

How did you cut it DK? Is that cold rolled steel rod?


----------



## wicca27

i think dk used a lightsaber lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> How did you cut it DK? Is that cold rolled steel rod?


Well, actually, it's PVC quarter inch rod. So I used a tubing cutter. I'd like to say it is Kryptonite, but I'd be lying.

*Wetwedding project 19*

And it's a good thing I did, because that little PVC rod was the backup plan for a high pressure joint, and I tried the pneumatic fitting (which arrived today) and it popped at 100 psi, geysering DK's basement temporarily! Do you have any idea how much water mess even ten seconds of 100 psi makes?? 100 psi sprays!! SPRAYS!! The fitting was fine, it's that I was trying to use it for an unrelated temperature probe that was not quite the right diameter.

So, I had to plug the port with said PVC rod, and it worked just fine.

System is COMPLETELY installed, now, except for a GFCI outlet that DK is gonna terrorize Other Geek to install. Doing a beta run as I type this, and possibly will transition over to full automation this weekend. I'm watching a few joints and stress points on the first few runs, and fixing a few oozes.


----------



## wicca27

cant wait to see a full pic of it.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 20*

AARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!​
DK's been planning this wedding.

She had hired a _modestly priced_ dressmaker and wedding planner. She gave them the fabric for the dress, and EXPLICIT instructions that she wanted a _small, intimate affair, tasteful, understated, classic undertones_.

The dress was to be plain ivory chiffon overlay over a simple expertly fitted silk satin bodice and gored skirt, 6 foot train. _No floof, lacy overlays, holes, or fancy stuff_. Simple, modest, classic, TASTEFUL.

The reception, she told the planner, she wanted understated natural accents, such as English ivy with an occasional cluster of naturally fragrant gardenia blooms and the odd spray of freesia. Just a touch of greenery, here and there. That's all.

She then went back to work, on her beta testing, thinking she had handed it off to PROFESSIONALS. And then she went to sleep last night, tired.

This morning, she goes down the the Shrimporium and the Mermaids have RUINED EVERYTHING!!!!!

*BEHIND MY BACK*, the Mermaids got to the dressmaker and wedding planner, _bribed them off_ (can you say EXTORTION??) and sent the bride and groom off _on a BENDER to elope_, last night.

AND THEN, this morning, I discover that _instead of a wedding and tasteful, intimate reception to celebrate_, the Mermaids have turned the Shrimporium into a TAVERN and are planning serial keggers! They have dressed DK's bride in a BARMAID'S cocktail apron for the party!!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.............

The loops that those shrimp throw DK for. WHAT is DK to do, with those bad, bad, _bad_ Mermaids? It's like a reality TV come to life, for her, in the Shrimporium.

How would you feel, finding a GIANT KEG advertising "Shrimp Cocktails" available in BULK, in YOUR shrimp room?

Time to consume MORE caffeine...

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Y'know how people count sheep to get asleep? Well, this morning, DK counted water joints, to lower her blood pressure toward the naughty Mermaids. Not including any glued joints (which should have no leak potential), DK's new bride has 104 joints! No way!


.


----------



## wicca27

lol thats awsome where can i get one of those fliers hehehehe.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 21*

Here's a shot with the feral-wolf-wannabe, to give an idea of scale.

----------
BTW - that whole tank covering is functional, not vanity. The tank is so big, and situated with the plumbing fixtures to the back to protect them from being banged, since they are PVC and not metal, that the tank sits out in the room a bit. The tank has taken half the parking spot that was used for my mobile chop saw table, so now the table will have to go end-on against the wall next to the tank, instead of sideways against the wall.

The upshot of these things is that the tank is somewhat vulnerable to being banged, particularly by the mobile chop saw table as it's moved in and out for use. 

That tank covering is made from gore-tex (DK had a peep who used to work there and brought home samples of products) underneath the shrimp flag. But underneath the gore-tex is an old cotton dhurrie rug as padding against knocks.

So now, if the tank gets banged up against, it will have a good layer of protection.


.


----------



## wicca27

i love wolf wannabe's colors sooooo pretty. hehe what color would he be with a buzz cut lol. moose is almost red/brown right not after he gets shaved for summer he goes grey hehe.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 22*

Here we have a view of the back-wall-side plumbing of the tank. After much deliberation (and a problem with real estate availability to do it), I opted NOT to plumb in a pressure release valve on the tank, as I have two safety mechanisms elsewhere for emergency pressure amelioration and it's highly unlikely the system would be able to generate rupture pressure on the tank.

The tank is pop-n-go with a union valve at the outset, in case I need to move it fast or shut off the tank contents from the rest of the plumbing. Shutting off the tank from the plumbing is useful if the plumbing springs a leak, or in the case of doing maintenance then starting the system back up - as the air bubble entered into the system from the maintenance passes through, it does NOT go into the tank but can bypass it, thereby not adding an air mass into the valuable bladder space. Otherwise, if a bubble is added, the only way to purge it is to empty the tank down to nothing and start the refill from zero. 

Distal to the union valve is a very tight sequence of fittings. The only pipe showing is a quarter inch, which I needed for release of the John Guest collets. 

You can see how this foot-plus sequence would be vulnerable to banging if mounted on the room-interior-side of the tank rather than behind the tank toward the wall, especially with all the activity in the shrimporium with ladders, mobile chop saw carts, and a feral-wolf-wannabe that MUST see what you are doing, always, at close range.

I could have made the sequence a bit more space-efficient, but the cost would have been to lose my rotational ajustability. I always want to keep options in a system, so I chose to use about 3 more inches of real estate and get that important rotational adjustability at the tank and at the wall fittings. At the tank, this allows me to tighten the threads if there is a problem. At the wall, this allows me to adjust the angle of tubing to provide the most joint stress relief. Or change the angles if I use the components for something else, or in some other location that requires different angles, someday, as I am wont to do. I like to do an install not only with THIS project in mind, but thinking of how I could re-use the components in a FUTURE project, as well. So I keep my options open.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Bribed with a steak dinner, Other Geek installed not only the GFCI outlet box, but gave DK's new system its own circuit on the panel. 

DK spent the weekend beta testing the circuit, and so far, so good.


.


----------



## pKaz

Whew...finally caught back up on this this thread, as always DK has been hard at work. 

Do you still need a shrimptern?

While I was in the process of conjuring a plan for my own potential automation system, I had one question for DK. Where do you dump the waste water for the tanks each day? Does it get plumbed back into the sewer line for the house? Or maybe into a sump pump style system that vents to outside of the house? Just curious.


----------



## DKShrimporium

pKaz said:


> Whew...finally caught back up on this this thread, as always DK has been hard at work.
> 
> Do you still need a shrimptern?
> 
> While I was in the process of conjuring a plan for my own potential automation system, I had one question for DK. Where do you dump the waste water for the tanks each day? Does it get plumbed back into the sewer line for the house? Or maybe into a sump pump style system that vents to outside of the house? Just curious.


Well hello, welcome back.

Yes. *YES!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!* Never enough Shrimpterns, in this life. So many things to do, so few Shrimpterns...


I like that: "conjuring," "my own potential AUTOMATION SYSTEM," this is good speak.

Y'know, _that question_ couldn't be more apropos to this *Wetwedding project*! Stay tuned for near-future discussion of this very issue.

But in short, to answer your question, the tank flush outgoing water is collected in a sump, pumped into the main drain line, and goes out to our septic tank/ drain field.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

**********

*Wetwedding project 23, what it's all about.*

A picture tells a story, we all know. Well this here picture tells a tale of a vastly changed groundwater that feeds DK's well system. She held off believing it was going to be a permanent problem for about a year, and then decided to pluck her head from the sand and execute some executive decisions.

Whilst y'all ponder the *UGLY* picture, DK will ponder just how much of a dissertation she should write, about this whole project...



.


----------



## wicca27

my best guess is the 40 ppm. i always have hubby look at my nitrate test cause with him being red/green color blind he can see the color better than i. some times he gets the task of reading my ph too lol. im so happy you have come up with a better solution to the nitrate prob. i was wondering if this is what it was all about hehe.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 24*

So, we start with the thesis of toxic water via nitrate contamination. We know the source: cornfields. We now assume this will be an ongoing problem.

DK has extensive meetings with her friends Google and Cyberspace, and then meets with the bigwigs for their opinions: *Siemens*, and *GE*.

From them, she learns this little, important fact:

Nitrates are very soluble and _do not bind to soils_, therefore, they have a _high potential to migrate to groundwater sources_.​
DK assessment: her well could get slammed with nitrates at any time, which apparently is happening with increased frequency.

*******

So, what to do, what are her options?


Live with it, watch the livestock die.
Import non-toxic water, do manual maintenance on 20-some tanks.
Find a way to remediate the nitrates out of the water.

She rules out (1) and (2), and focuses on (3).

She studies the Big Boys: *Siemens* and *GE*. What do they do?

The options on a commercial scale are:


Ion Exchange using strong base anion resins regenerated with NaCl
Biological Denitrification using Methanol or Ethanol addition
Electrodialysys or Electrodialysis Reversal
Reverse Osmosis

Since her background is biology and therefore her philosophical bent is to try biological solutions first, her first attempt is (2) above, bioremediation. This was the Overalls project, which is still under beta, but now basically unimportant, although very interesting. People need carbohydrates, as well as proteins, as do plants. For plants, the proteins (nitrogen) derive from nitrates, and carbohydrates from carbon. Carbon can be supplied via hydrocarbons such as ethanol or methanol, but DK's water is chock full of carbon via CO2, so the Mermaids were SORELY disappointed that they weren't about to get soused twice daily.

DK met, again, with Google and Cyberspace. She drew up a target list of bioremediators with certain characteristics (water hyacinth, water lettuce, peace lily, chinese evergreen, pothos, frogbit, horsetail), then went to some experts for their input: *DuPont*. For those of you who don't know, DuPont was an extreme hobbyist with nearly unlimited funds. His primary passion was horticulture. Longwood Gardens was just ONE of his horticultural forays, and was developed into one of the world's most advanced centers for horticulture. As it happens, it's local to DK, so DK was able to play the "I'm a local" card with them to get in the back door for consultation. She presented her quandary and list of specifications, and asked about hydroculture related to this. 

From this, she learned that it is possible to get water hyacinths into hydroculture, under glass lids, in domestic tanks. They are by far the most efficient bioremediators of nitrates.

HOWEVER, to do so, one must lower the tank volume by 1/3, and supply high powered light. Think of plant remediation of nitrates like adding a bilge pump. Yes, you can pump out. But you have to power the pump. Hyacinths can pump out a lot of nitrates (i.e., are a strong pump), but need strong sunlight to do so. When they are chugging along full steam under sunlight, they are an extreme metabolism plant. This means that while they are sucking nitrates out of the water, they are ALSO sucking other things: calcium, magnesium, micronutrients, etc. 

This doesn't work for DK, as that consumes too much power and adds too much heat to her equation. It also removes half her tank volume from shrimp space into hyacinth space. It becomes a real estate and power consumption nightmare, and becomes a water chemistry balance nightmare, this approach. Hyacinths were the only plant with a hope of keeping up with the nitrate load in terms of CAPACITY to remove nitrates.

She is forced into defeat, with bioremediation efforts, even though she has amassed and started each of the above species in her beta testing. They simply don't make a dent in the nitrate levels, she has learned from the beta testing.

She moves on, in her war on nitrates. TBC.


----------



## wicca27

i never thought about sticking a peace lily into a tank. thanks for the awsome idea lol. also on a side not what is the white and dark green plant in the first pic i really like it? it looks like you are getting nitrates down so what every you are doing is working. on a side note though with that much nitrate in your water im guessing you drink bottled water correct? what would all those nitrates do to the human body? sorry for getting sidetracked but your post often make me wonder odd things like this so i figured i would ask hehe


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

pics not showing up.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> i love wolf wannabe's colors sooooo pretty. hehe what color would he be with a buzz cut lol. moose is almost red/brown right not after he gets shaved for summer he goes grey hehe.


I checked, and it looks like a pinkish white underneath there. He would be VERY weird looking shaved! I didn't think Moose had a long enough coat to shave.



wicca27 said:


> i never thought about sticking a peace lily into a tank. thanks for the awsome idea lol. also on a side not what is the white and dark green plant in the first pic i really like it? it looks like you are getting nitrates down so what every you are doing is working. on a side note though with that much nitrate in your water im guessing you drink bottled water correct? what would all those nitrates do to the human body? sorry for getting sidetracked but your post often make me wonder odd things like this so i figured i would ask hehe


Peace lily and Chinese evergreen both habor some toxicity in their plant juices, just FYI.

That neat green/white plant is a rather new cultivar of pothos called n'joy. 

High nitrates are known to be risky to infants, but it's more debatable for adults. Some argue that we EAT more nitrates in food than drink in water by far. And they come in surprising places like super foods Swiss Chard and spinach. We've been drinking the water, but who knows...



Soothing Shrimp said:


> pics not showing up.


Hmm. I see 'em. Ennyone else not seeing 'em?

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK thought she was done with the bridal install. It's been running totally automated a couple days, now. But then today, she gets this idea...

More parts on the way.

She's incorrigible.

Prolly it's the nitrates, she consumes.


----------



## wicca27

lol cant wait to see more pics.

as for moose his fur isnt long but not slick short either. im prob going to shave him tomorrow with clippers. he is just so dark colored and likes to spend alot of time out side he gets way to hot not to buzz cut him. most the time i end up not using any of the guards for the clippers. i got a $20 pair of human hair clippers and use those


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

pics showing up now for me. weird...

Did you plant the n'joy in the substrate?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> pics showing up now for me. weird...
> 
> Did you plant the n'joy in the substrate?


No. The whole point was to develop _hydroponic_ plants. So they are all bare except for the equisetum (horsetail rush), which, after more reading, DK learned needs silicates and therefore substrate. She also nearly killed the horsetail when it first arrived, putting it aside, busy with other things, and it dried out a few days before she remembered it!

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Wetwedding project 25*

We continue our discussion, in review:

The options on a commercial scale are:


Ion Exchange using strong base anion resins regenerated with NaCl
Biological Denitrification using Methanol or Ethanol addition
Electrodialysis or Electrodialysis Reversal
Reverse Osmosis

We've ruled out (2) above on the basis of _capacity_ and _logistics_.

Now, we look at (1).

There would be two approaches to this. One would be to put resin pouches into filters. The second approach would be a centralized system with a treatment canister of resin.

In the first case, it's labor intensive, expensive, and wasteful, as the pouches would then be disposable upon exhaustion, or it would be a pain to manually regenerate and repackage them. It's also probably not even feasible as the pouches would exhaust quickly in an automated system (DK does water changes TWICE DAILY, not ONCE WEEKLY - that's a LOT more nitrates to soak up) and not all at the same time, causing a logistical nightmare.

In the second case, it's somewhat less labor intensive, as there is only one canister to babysit, but it would still need periodic refilling and then a system to backflush it with salt solution in between refillings, to regenerate the resin.

Nitrate specific resin is on the order of $400 per cubic foot. To run DK's waterworld, she'd want a canister with a few cubic feet (which would probably need to be replaced every quarter or six months), and an automated flush/regeneration system. This system is very expensive and also _heavily reliant on proprietary product_. Not only that, it pumps more salt into DK's septic system, which references pKaz's question. She is already pumping salt into her water for the whole house treatment method - her well water is so acidic it ate through her plumbing, forcing her to both re-plumb her mains in the house, and also put the whole house on an acid-treatment system for all the water. This whole house water treatment system adds a heavy sodium (salt) load to ALL her water that ends up in her septic tank. So therefore, she has an outside constraint that discourages her from putting too much water or too much salt into her drains, as it sucks up the capacity of her septic drainfield and isn't good for it. DK nixes anion binding resin, due to these reasons.

She next looks into (3) - Electrodialysis. It's a cool concept, and would work, but is too new a technology to have any products available on a non-commercial scale or price range.

OK, so some of you who fancy yourself clever had honed in on (4) days ago.

Yeah, big deal. So DK plunks down a B. Franklin or two or three or.... and gets herself an RO system.

Or, did she?...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 26*

Well. 

OK. Now.

She has arrived, and she is *fine*.

Has the aura of stepping back in time, to the age of Marvel Comic Books. You feel like you should be riding a rocket ship, wearing a glass bubble on your head with big clompy boots and puffy gloves, exploring space. And she is part of your ship.

Lots and lots of different things this momma can do, for DK. Very versatile.

The install, as soon as I have the wiring harness made.

Soon. Very soon.


.


----------



## wicca27

cant wait to see all the goodness this part brings


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 27
*
It's all done, except for the tie-in to the powered circuit (one leg of it is getting hard-wired), which Other Geek will do in the morning.

DK is now slightly geekier. Before tonight, she had no clue what this picture meant. Now, she does. She looks at it now, and it seems so obvious. It's like one of those pictures that contains hidden pictures. You stare and stare and can't see anything, then all of a sudden you see one of the hidden pictures, and from then on you can't help but see it. 

Tired. Very tired. Ready to be done with this wetwedding...


.


----------



## Loachutus

Nitrates=







?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> Nitrates=
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ?


_IS THAT MY BRIDE???_​
*Oh. Wait.*

That's that sleazy chick that _WANTED_ to marry my groom.

Buy MY bride _pushed her out_. Sorta like a mud match, it was. Clawing, scratching, shrieking, jiggling. 

Picture of MY bride, later tonight, for the REAL geeks out there who are sitting at home on the internet, on a Saturday night, reading forums.

Unlike this chick, MY bride is *geek eye candy*.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 28*

MY bride is much more attractive than that sleazy chick, once you learn how to view her.

Her name is:

_RO-DKstyle_

And those of you with the mettle to read the upcoming posts will see, she is a complexity. _It's not just WHAT she does... it's HOW she does it._ When her groom says, "_Baby... I need me some.._." -- this girl puts out. And. She is in control.

Tonight, just a mugshot:


.


----------



## pKaz

Very Cool!

And yes I'm reading the forums on a Saturday night. ​


----------



## Bolsen27

For now all that I can say is WoW!


----------



## wicca27

wet wedding was very complex, cant wait for the total break down in steps


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 29*

First, an executive summary. Here, we begin to weed out the lookieloos from the hardcore geeks, especially since in today's post there are NUMBERS and NO PICTURES.

What are the global goals of this project, and global landscape to accomplish it?

*The first is simple:* pull down the nitrates level in the water that enters Water Factory III to under 10 ppm. I didn't want it completely cleared of nitrates, as I want a small amount of nitrates for my plant mass in the tanks.

The second (global landscape) is where's the beef, in this project. Where it gets worse, our landscape.

Because, DK is on a well. And on a septic system. She lives in the boonies with the skunk and deer and even a possum the other night, and raccoon and foxes, you get the picture.

And now, a bit of very local geology. The soil surrounding her septic drain field is heavy clay.

So what this means is that you put the least amount of stuff into your septic tank, because your drainfield drains slowly, due to clay. Even water, although water is a bit negotiable.

Now, DK is ALREADY loading her septic drain field with quite a bit of extra water volume, due to twice daily water infusions into twenty-something tanks.

To add an RO system to this multiplies the water, because you typically waste 4 gallons of waste "brine" water to PRODUCE a gallon of RO water. 4:1 ratio

But, it gets worse.

When you have low water pressure going into an RO membrane (such as when you are on a well and not pressurized city water), your ratio increases.

But, it gets worse.

When you are trying to push that RO water into a pressurized storage tank rather than into an open vat with no back pressure, your ratio VASTLY increases, up to 100:1 toward the end, when you are pushing that product water into a nearly full, very pressurized bladder.

But, it gets worse. Those stats are for pushing RO water into a standard RO tank, which holds an initial back pressure of 5-10 psi.

DK is using a full-blown well tank, with much higher back pressure from the starting pressure to the finish pressure.

So let's see the vital stats, of what DK's Bride, RO-DKstyle has accomplished. Any of you RO reefers out there especially might appreciate these numbers.

_ACTUAL_ AVERAGE PERFORMANCE, _NOT_ PEAK PERFORMANCE, OF RO-DKstyle:

*Product output rate:* 135 gallons per day ACTUAL output

*Waste brine to product RO water ratio:* 1.6:1 - incredible

*Time interval to fill well tank draw-down:* 2:34 

*RO stream quality:* 6 ppm (which is comprised of about 5 ppm nitrates - on target) 

How DID DK do this? Lotsa caffeine, sweat, blood pressure, and hours seeking the alphas. Stay tuned...


.


----------



## wicca27

dk that is awsome!!!!! so happy you accomplished so much.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 30*

We discuss the essence of this "marriage." Our "groom," being DK's Water Factory III, (which takes raw water and makes many different water profiles, depending on the tank it goes into) was being fed toxic, nitrate-laden water.

DK needed a cleaned-up water source, _but she ALSO then needed the ability to feed that source INTO WFIII. This meant full automation and pressurization._

So today, an executive summary of how this all works. 

DK thinks it's pretty coo-el. One of these days she's gonna have a techie shrimptern who can make some clips of this in action and youtube it. hint hint June is open peeps...


Twice a day, WFIII initiates, opening its master valve and beginning the watermaking wonderment.


With our new "bride," RO-DKstyle, we now have a pressurized well tank full of cleaned water goodness. The pressurized tank feeds WFIII for the infusion cycle.


This is precisely timed and measured, such that at the last 10% of the cycle, the well tank is drawn down enough to trigger the pressure switch on our bride.


The pressure switch is spliced into our master power supply that controls the entire RO system. The master power supply is 24 vac.


Once the pressure drops enough in our well tank and the pressure switch is triggered, it closes the circuit to our master power supply, enabling the power supply to put out power to the system.


When the power supply puts out power to the system, that power triggers some relays.


One relay closes a circuit that enables powering of a 120 VAC power bank of outlets. This initiates powering anything that is plugged into those outlets, at the SAME time that our master power supply powers up.


The master power supply feeds into the pressure booster pump, powering it.


The relay 120 VAC bank powers two solenoid valves. 


Valve one is the master water feed valve to the system. It is configured such that it is open exactly the same time the pump is operational, and closes exactly as the pump stops. This is important because our pump has a bypass circuit that enables water to flow past it even if the pump is not powered. This would cause low pressure leaking all the time the pump is not powered, wasting a lot of water. So we only allow water to the pump when the pump is powered.


The second valve is tied into a SECOND relay, the Macromatic. The Macromatic is an interval timing relay. The Macromatic is powered by the 120 VAC bank. So when the master power supply turns on, and turns the pressure booster pump on and opens the master water feed valve, the Macromatic is also powered at the same time.


The Macromatic is tied into the second solenoid valve, which is plumbed into a flush bypass loop for the RO membranes. The Macromatic is fully adjustable for time, so DK can assign it any time she wants.


When the Macromatic is powered, it starts its time interval. During its time interval, it powers the second solenoid valve, which opens it for that interval.


After the prescribed time interval, the Macromatic closes the second solenoid valve.


So, EACH time the RO system is activated, DK's RO membranes get a high pressure high flow power washing before they start their work. DK can control the length of time of this power washing by the twist of a shiny knob and the flip of a few switches on the Macromatic. She likes that, muchly.


After the second (flush) solenoid closes, the water is then re-channeled to cross the RO membranes.


The system then runs, producing product RO water, filling the well tank, building more pressure in the tank as it gets more full, until the pressure switch reads the end pressure and tells the master power supply to shut down.


When the master power supply shuts down, it shuts down the pressure booster pump, the master water valve, and the Macromatic. The system is now quiescent and tight as a drum.


The system is now re-set for the next draw-down, to be triggered again next time the pressure switch reads the lower threshold pressure.


_Fully automated, gotta love it._
Stay tuned for details...


----------



## Bolsen27

That is amazing!


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

...my brain hurts...


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 31*

Here, it gets murky. Not sure how much detail all y'all want, whether DK's mumbling her way into TMI. But here goes, for today.

At first glance, this is a boring picture with nothing in it. But, it represents a global design thought centered around safety.

RO-DKstyle is a mixture of *water*, *electricity*, and *high pressure*. All three of these are to be vastly respected individually, and the COMBINATION of them is to be nearly feared, by an intelligent person.

Therefore, RO-DKstyle was designed with ONE SINGLE power source that distributes to the whole apparatus via the relays. That ONE SINGLE power source is plugged into a dedicated circuit that is GFCI protected. 

What this means is that anywhere downstream from our master plug, if there is current leakage outside of the system, the GFCI will (hopefully) pop, rending ALL electricity to the system cut off.

The white plug is the plug to the master power supply, the 24 VAC transformer.

The grey plug is the POWER to the outlet bank that is triggered by the relay inside the bank when it receives a 24 VAC signal from the master power supply. When that relay receives the 24 VAC signal, it closes a circuit that THEN draws 120 VAC power from its grey plug. So while the grey plug is plugged into the "master GFCI outlet," it is ONLY sending that power out to the outlet bank WHEN the 24 VAC power supply is active (which is when the pressure switch calls for power). So if anything interrupts the pressure switch or 24 VAC current circuit, that grey plug is not drawing power, even though it is plugged into that outlet.

So, in summary, ONE POINT OF CONTROL, for electricity, in this system. This is designed this way for easier safety measures, through our GFCI protected circuit.

Also, if DK wants to work on the system and needs to make sure EVERYTHING in the system is de-energized, she has only to pull the white plug from its outlet.


.


----------



## wicca27

things working better with the shrimp now i take it. are plants still getting all they need nitrate wise?


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> things working better with the shrimp now i take it. are plants still getting all they need nitrate wise?


Oh, definitely so. The plants are showing much slower, but yet steady growth (now that they are not showered in nitrate pudding each meal), you can see this by all the fresh growth tips on the moss. 

Your question brings us back to our bridal theme colors, below.

The system is now running a nice balance of micronutrients and macronutrients (for plants, that is). It's running tank feed water at nominally 5 ppm nitrates (left, in picture) and 0.5 ppm phosphates (right, in picture), as our colors show, a good ratio for plant growth and yet algae control.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

I keep forgetting to update. Our Red Tiger female, who had her a fling NOT with a Red Tiger (she wanted to "find herself" and said she couldn't do that within the "cloistered feeling of her OWN community," so she went outside her circles and found herself a boyfriend elsewhere - well, OK, mebbe DK was an enabler, here), dropped her young several days ago and immediately reberried. I have seen two microbabies at once in there, and continue to look for them, but I do know they are in there and surviving.

I have a berried pumpkin rili - she is so pretty with her orange and clear body and neon yellow berries!

A couple months ago I split out the black tigers - upper tank to drive the population into various broke-blacks types (T-Rex, Overo, etc.), lower tank to drive the population toward solid blacks. While I was running around firestomping and head-banging trying to figure out all the details of RO-DKstyle, they've been busy gettin' busy in there, I discovered yesterday. Apparently they have some sort of floozie competition going with the Mermaids, to see who can be the most promiscuous. 

Ever since I finished the WFIII DKMSJ work, everyone has been pumping out the babies, but the capture rate was affected by the nitrates. Now that's being corrected...


.


----------



## wicca27

that is so awsome you are gettin all the babies. cant wait to see pics of new shrimp. can you tell if the red tiger babies are red tiger or other color or is it way to soon to tell?


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> that is so awsome you are gettin all the babies. cant wait to see pics of new shrimp. can you tell if the red tiger babies are red tiger or other color or is it way to soon to tell?


Too early to tell. They are about 3 mm size as of today.

************

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...


.


----------



## wicca27

mermaid factory it looks like lol.


----------



## Loachutus

It's gotta be wicked cool to see all those white arm's movin.

So with the flushing of the RO membranes, will you ever have to replace them?


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> mermaid factory it looks like lol.


Yeah, they are pumping them out lately. This picture was taken just after I cleaned the glass and removed most of their moss mass (to expose more of the rock surface to the light, as that's where they graze), which scared most of them under the rock. If you look carefully you will see the ones on top exactly fit under the shadow of the remaining moss.



Loachutus said:


> It's gotta be wicked cool to see all those white arm's movin.
> 
> So with the flushing of the RO membranes, will you ever have to replace them?


The interesting thing about this specie that I don't see in any other specie is that they align themselves like cows do. They all try to face the direction of the guy next to them. This of course makes the white claw action all that MORE mesmerizing. Remember that video I sent you? I hope to be there within a year.... heh heh heh...

Flushing the membranes will prolong their lifespan and increase their efficiency during their lifespan, but they will eventually need to be replaced.

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

B: These pics are for you:



.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK thinks this is even _more_ interesting than the pumpkin rili. 

Is this female some sort of chimera? (Google is your friend)

Click on the picture to see it larger.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

And this guy. The picture doesn't show it, but in real life you can see it when he's under light as the orange glows differently than the red pigment under light.


Chimera _and_ rili?? (click to enlarge)

The cat is real, and is a chimera.


.


----------



## wicca27

tooo coool dk. keep up the good work


----------



## GreenBliss

Those Orange Rillis are awesome. So pretty.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Thanks for posting pics of the orange rilis. I love the look!

In all cases of Chimera that I am aware of, the split happens vertically from head to tail. So, I doubt those are Chimera, however they may be some of the first "calico" I've seen. Would be interesting to try to selectively breed for a strain where the colors are more prominent.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

BTW Here's a post I had on gynandromorphs a while back: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=174423&highlight=

Always an intellectual discussion on what makes a gynandromorphs different from Chimera, but in almost all cases it comes down to gynandromorphs having both sex organs, while Chimeras do not.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's a chimeric mouse that doesn't show the lateral definition. There is also a precedent for crustaceans that does show lateral definition and does NOT, see second picture (I presume left lobster is chimeric, non lateral, middle lobster is a whole body pigment mutation, right lobster is a lateral split chimera - the chimerism depends on when the source cells split/blend I guess):


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's another one I found: See this page for more, this guy's a lateral split, but all messed up!


----------



## DKShrimporium

Hmmm. But do lobsters have pigment sexual dimorphism? Is that a gynandomorph?

At any rate, I think our pumpkin spotter is probably not a chimera. I think it's more likely craptastic leaky co-dominant pigment genes at work, the more I think about it. 

I put "red-spot-orangey" in with "chimera-rili" male into a separate tank yesterday, and this morning she was berried! I also put a two-toned other male in there, so don't know who knocked her up, though. At any rate, that should become an interesting tank. I put momma pumpkin rili in there, too.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

The lobster on the left of the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources pic is considered a yellow mutation. So not a chimeric.

The mouse looks more mosaic to me (I used to breed mice), but may be a chimera if created in a lab. (?)
Never seen a Harley like that though in a crustacean. Waaaaay cool!

Will be very interested to see what comes of the experimental shrimp breeding tank.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Are the clusters of red perhaps higher density of pigments?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> The lobster on the left of the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources pic is considered a yellow mutation. So not a chimeric.
> 
> The mouse looks more mosaic to me (I used to breed mice), but may be a chimera if created in a lab. (?)
> Never seen a Harley like that though in a crustacean. Waaaaay cool!
> 
> Will be very interested to see what comes of the experimental shrimp breeding tank.


Yeah, look at the pigment splits on his tail and legs - and those big claws - ...like he got all jumbled up as an embryo, early on.



Soothing Shrimp said:


> Are the clusters of red perhaps higher density of pigments?


Could be. One thing that suggests against cell blending (chimerism, mosaicism, etc.) is that in red-spot-orangey and chimera-rili the pigments blend rather than show defined edges. Not to mention the distribution.

I find it really interesting, the apparent linkage of these events:

"Painted" versions of pigment arise, with a sort of thicker pigment with a fluorescent characteristic to it. At very near the same time, "rili" versions pop on the scene, and from what I can tell, the "rili" is linked to those fluorescent type pigments. The "rili" is unstable in nature. From what I've read, it tends to pop up (sport) out of painted type populations.

I believe pumpkin to be a version, derivative or something, of painted red pigment. The behavior in a population is recessive under painted red, this much I can tell you. 

So it was just yesterday that I even noticed the dual pigments (in a single individual) in that population, when digging around for Ms. Pumpkin Rili. That tank has been totally abandoned for months, behind slimy glass, and I had not even looked in there. But I recently did some adjustments and was watching the painted tanks color up in response, so decided to clean the glass and take a look in there.

And, we have more fun to play with. Now that we have decent water!


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

Sweet. Definitely keep us updated on these as mutations and selective breeding is my interest.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 32*

So, we continue looking at the details. A reference key to the master photograph:


Master manual water input valve.
Quick connect fittings and joints, throughout. Every element can be isolated and removed (and replaced if needed) within a few moments, so downtime isn't significant.
5 micron prefilter.
1 micron prefilter. There is no carbon prefilter as it was not necessary since this is a well and also it would have added a good bit of resistance to the system and has to be placed AFTER the pressure booster pump if included (to exclude the possibility of carbon particles migrating into the pump and damaging the pump). There is also no DI canister as I did not want the product water polished to that extent, I wanted a small amount of residual nitrate left. The product water is pretty much devoid of anything else. RO membranes remove nitrates at slightly lower efficiency than other things.
Master solenoid valve for system water input.
Series 8800 pump, this is the beefiest one of the entire series made. This pump is a pressure booster pump that drives water through the system.
Ah, yes. Totoro. We'll do a whole post on Totoro, later.
The RO membrane housings and membranes.
Membrane flush cycle solenoid valve.
Permeate pump. This pump is an energy capture device that channels energy in the pressure of the outgoing WASTE stream into the force to push the PRODUCT stream against the well tank pressure and into the tank.
Pressure switch.
Macromatic interval timing relay.
Wiring distribution box, this is where the signal from the 24 VAC gets distributed to the pump, the 120 VAC relay, and the Macromatic relay.
In-line TDS monitor, I have it reading the product output lines from housing 1 and housing 2.
Master power supply - 24 VAC.
Pressure gauge, reading line pressure entering first RO membrane housing.
Pressure gauge, reading line pressure entering well tank.
Side valve and access that goes to my Shrimporium utility sink, so I have RO on tap there when wanted.
Relay and outlet box - this contains the relay that takes the 24 VAC signal to close the circuit to the gray plug, which then powers the outlets in this box. The master solenoid valve, Macromatic, and Totoro are powered here.
Master power GFCI, 120 VAC, we already had a post on this.
System documents, including manuals, specifications, research, etc.
44 gallon pressurized well tank.


.


----------



## wicca27

always leaves me speechless dk


----------



## oblongshrimp

DK why do you use a pressurized tank to store RO water instead of just a regular storage tank with a float valve?


----------



## DKShrimporium

oblongshrimp said:


> DK why do you use a pressurized tank to store RO water instead of just a regular storage tank with a float valve?


Well, you've hit the nail on the head.

The whole challenge of this project was not to get an RO system. 
You can plunk down a B. Franklin or two or three for that.

_The challenge was to engineer a METHOD 
to have *pressurized* RO *inline* 
to feed WFIII any time WFIII called for water._​

WFIII needs certain things. It needs a minimal flow rate and line pressure in order for the pulse water meter to read flow accurately, to send signals to the Stenner pumps. It needs a minimal flow rate for the injectors to work accurately. To get that flow rate, you need line pressure to push the water through the system fast enough.

This means when WFIII opens up for a cycle, it wants to "see" water as though it's coming from a pressurized line.

_That's the whole significance of this being a "Wetwedding" 
- the bride and the groom must interact together properly for the entire system to work._​

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Today's eye candy (to DK). 

In the first, one of the upcoming projects, some new coo-el parts DK just scored.

In the second, DK saw her crystal-momma up against the glass and thought to herself, "Man, that momma looks fully cooked." By the time she ran to get the camera, momma _was_ dropping babies, popping out of their eggs and swimming off! Coo-el!


.


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## wicca27

awsome shrimp pic congrats on the babies


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 01*

Sometimes (often, actually), DK sits around pondering questions.

Like, say, for example: DK has cut into her home's main water line, main drain line, and main electrical panel box for the sake of her Shrimporium.

All that seems left is her home's main ventilation line.

Does she have the guts to do it?

She ponders...

...In between reading about how to design zones for HVAC systems, and comparing the qualities of backdraft dampers versus pressure compensating dampers. She's pretty sure pressure compensating are the way to go, because they are ADJUSTABLE.

She is, of course, pondering something that uses components for other than their _intended_ purpose...

Ennyone out there an HVAC tech? Speak to me...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 02*

OK, so.

DK's taken a couple of days to ponder The Syndicate, and how that will apply to this project. 

She's also spent a lot of time pondering avoidance of whistles.

She's pondered the ramifications of essentially patching in a stent directly onto the aorta with zero practical length, which amounts to punching a hole into the aorta, metaphorically speaking.

She's thought about flow versus velocity versus volume. And cubic feet balance.

And how to do it, without whistling, and without causing blackout due to lack of "blood flow to the brain." Therein lies the key. Flow balance, without whistling.

She's dug around in her ceiling, looking for an escape route, and has located what she thinks is a suitable one.

And, she's decided to do this project in phases, because no matter how much studying she did, there were still some hefty unknowns, so instead she went forward on principles and designed into her approach reversibility, flexibility, and modularity. Sound familiar?

In the meantime, her critical parts (phase I, that is) have arrived, and she also went on a field trip to Lowes and discovered these lovely, lovely useful things that she didn't know existed until today!

And, digging around in her bins & barrels of parts & pieces, she harvested some reclaimed 1/4 inch lexan sheet scrap, formerly tank lids before the twinwall took over.

She's trying to do a $1500 zone job on about $50. And the only way to do it that she could think of was to follow The Syndicate, in their ways.

Stay tuned, more pics later when her Gorilla glue has set up.

.


----------



## wicca27

automated air flow to the shrimp hmmmmmm i think this will be fun to watch come together............


----------



## Maechael

So one of these Days I'm going to check in on this Thread and DK is going to have built a MegaMechaGargant and it will Fire missiles filled with Shrimp into peoples homes, and then Fire off tractor beams to reclaim the unused missile portions and the homeowners wallet as well.

Lady you, while truly an inspiration in DIY, are also a prime candidate for a trip to the loony bin, which you will then turn into a shrimp farm that produces more babies in a month than The Asian subcontinent.

In the end, DK as always, Please keep us hooked on DIY design, theory and insanity.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> So one of these Days I'm going to check in on this Thread and DK is going to have built a MegaMechaGargant and it will Fire missiles filled with Shrimp into peoples homes, and then Fire off tractor beams to reclaim the unused missile portions and the homeowners wallet as well.
> 
> Lady you, while truly an inspiration in DIY, are also a prime candidate for a trip to the loony bin, which you will then turn into a shrimp farm that produces more babies in a month than The Asian subcontinent.
> 
> In the end, DK as always, Please keep us hooked on DIY design, theory and insanity.


With writing skill like this, you needa make yer own thread, and DK would read it!

Only thing: you fergot _ultra_. *Ultra*MegaMechaGargant. Carry on.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Shrimpzone project 03*

While those of you in the trades BANG your heads against the wall, gnashing yer teeth and swearing under yer breath about "lay" people, DK will show ya this. Her access hole to the system. Site of the aortic stent. Y'all take two aspirin and call me in the mornin'.



.


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## wicca27

was i wrong is this going to be a DK chiller in the making? i know you said its gets warm in shrimpy land. you always keep me guessing lol. ps on a side note i will get pics this week i get a cast tomorrow woo hoo


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> was i wrong is this going to be a DK chiller in the making? i know you said its gets warm in shrimpy land. you always keep me guessing lol. ps on a side note i will get pics this week i get a cast tomorrow woo hoo


Ooooo, post a pic here, then DK can do cyber graffiti on it! Heh heh heh...

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Shrimpzone project 04*


We begin, making our template from the re-purposed Lexan tank lid. Thank goodness DK has a good chop saw, 'cause doing that manually in quarter inch lexan would have been tedious. With a chop saw... piece o' cake, if done carefully. DK just loves "her" chop saw...



.


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## DKShrimporium

We interrupt Shrimpzone posts for *DK's trip down humility lane: the awfulest gallery of today's T-Rex crop imaginable*. Those buggers zip around! I want to pull my hair out trying to photograph them!

And of course, of about a hundred shots, the ONLY one in focus is nearly identical to a previous favorite shrimp of mine, except honest I just took this.

And, of course, I DID clean my glass, but apparently missed the BOTTOM QUARTER INCH which is where all the shrimp are when they are up close to the glass for photos. 

Sigh. Y'all hafta use yer imagination to "see" how beautiful they are!


.


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## wicca27

i love the last pic awsome clear body and beautiful black. so want some of these darn the move. keep up the good shrimp work cast pics come later


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## sayurasem

Nice shrimp!


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## DKShrimporium

Here's the previous favorite shrimp of mine. I guess they really don't look identical. This is what I LOVE about broke-blacks. They are each unique, like a gypsy vanner horse.


.


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## wicca27

ok draw away lol


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## DKShrimporium

...


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## Soothing Shrimp

So that's a claw foot. Ooooooohhhhhhhhh....


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## wicca27

ha ha


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## Maechael

So I vote that we start pooling Money, and have DK come by and Wonka us all some Shrimporiums of our very own? I know If I had 5 grand, I'd be going DIY and leaning on this lady for all the knowledge I could Glean before I spent a penny on something I didn't need, or even really want.

Thanks again for the inspiration DK, and the Laughs, Clawfoot.


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## wicca27

one of these day ill have dk come help me with a shrimp room lol i still want one of her nifty nets lol


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## DKShrimporium

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program:

*Shrimpzone project 05:*

So next, DK does some custom fitting of her lexan template, using a file and elbow grease.

Lexan is a good material for her purpose because it is heat and impact resistant, doesn't tend to distort, and is quite strong and durable. Plus, it was in her bins, ready for re-purposing.

The louvers, DK selected because of geometry. With them, she can use one or both, and they are square shaped, maximizing air flow per perimeter, minimizing the likelihood of whistling. She chose rather small, because she's coming right off the aorta, and there will be a lot of thrust there and little resistance, so more air flow even though the orifice is kinda small. It was a bit of a crap shoot, really, because she's doing this The Syndicate way, not the Standard way. More on that later.

Plus, they look coo-el. DK has a weakness for shiny. And _"industrial suave"_ styling.


.


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## assasin6547

Woah woah woah I just now noticed the light gray text!


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## wicca27

ha ha yeah alot is said in light grey time to reread her thread to catch it all lol


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## Soothing Shrimp

Personally I prefer hot pink text with a lime green background, but to each their own.


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## DKShrimporium

Light grey text, hot pink text... what *ARE* y'all talking about??? I swear, y'all make it sound like there are _secret conversations_ going on that I do not know about.

They're not really secret, we're just the other voices in your head, quietly commenting.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

These have arrived, from Thailand. Still waiting for more.


.


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## wicca27

diodes interesting.......... hmmmmmm wonder what this could be the makings of. ps dk tell your voices they gave me a nice chuckle i needed today hehehe


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## Maechael

Transistors? and resistors from the looks of it.
Could be wrong happens all the time.

Is DK making some sort of light control LED board?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Liam... oooooooooooooooooooo LIAM!!!!! This one's for you to ponder. Easy, really.

We back up a bit and mix things up. Back to wetwedding.

*Wetwedding project 33*

Today, we ponder the relationship (metaphorically, that is) of these three pictures. The sequence has to do with this question:

What is Totoro?

OK, Liam, have at it. Or, ennyone else who wants to chime in.


.


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## DKShrimporium

While we've been sitting around waiting for Liam to chime in with his answers, these have arrived.

DK's now a big three bux, including international shipping, into this project...

...she still has a bit more shopping to do, however...


.


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## wicca27

hehe i was early saying diodes lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, apparently Liam's not up to the challenge, this time.

So, we feature a few more pictures, freshly shot, of the Broke-Blacks, T-Rexes. These are sorta mediocre examples, but the ones that held still and were in focus. Sorta in focus. Pretend.

I have a buncha them with golden eyes, but that gene must be linked to the shrimp ADD gene, because those dudes never hold still and are impossible to get in focus! Or maybe it's the foodie gene, because they are generally in the weeds until I feed, THEN they are zippin' around like mad. 


.


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## wicca27

i love the broken black with orange eyes that is so cool looking. i love the look of them in general though. i like the odd things thats for sure


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## GreenBliss

Cool shrimp! Love those colors.


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## DKShrimporium

GreenBliss said:


> Cool shrimp! Love those colors.


Well, check out red momma's colors. Fluorescent habanero red. This was taken across the water surface, looking down. I was trying to get a picture showing two things (epic fail on both accounts, but it does show the pigment) - that she is sporting a massive saddle, and that she is about to drop a full load. The tigers right now are cycling again within a day or two of dropping young, I am really pushing them to catch up from the winter nitrate crash. 

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

*Shrimpzone project 06
*

A look at the back of our louver unit, showing how the clips hold the louvers flush to the panel mount.

Next step is to pop-rivet a series of small hinges to the panel.

And then Lexan plates to the hinges.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Got her!

These images courtesy of DK's Adjustable Solar Axis lighting, freshly cleaned glass, and the camera on super macro when I needed it! HA!!!


.


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## wicca27

darn you dk i cant have shrimp and you keep showing tigers... grrrrr.... almost as bad as gsd lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> darn you dk i cant have shrimp and you keep showing tigers... grrrrr.... almost as bad as gsd lol


I'm going to torture you until you become a Shrimptern.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's a shot showing the babies from her LAST batch... how close she's cycling. (Click this one to see it bigger.)


.


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## wicca27

that is too cool. i have not been lucky enough to see one release babies. thanks for the shot. i really wish i could come be a shrimptern. hopefully one of these days


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## DKShrimporium

The work in the Shrimporium forces DK to learn so many new things.

Like today. Today, she learned that you can use PVC cement to glue styrene. While today she used it to glue PVC to styrene, you can bet DK filed this little gem away for someday when she wants to use PVC cement to glue some EPS for something handy. (EPS = expanded polystyrene = styrofoam)

The squirrely brain has _all sorts_ of floating images of styrofoam sculptures going on, right now. Mebbe made out of foam coffee cups, from Costco in weird, 3-D configurations, accented with clusters of packing peanuts.

She's been working on a buncha micro-projects, having to do with FINALLY getting vapor CONTROL, this summer. While she waits for all her international electronics parts to come in.

Tomorrow: Totoro.


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## picotank

DKShrimporium said:


> Here's a shot showing the babies from her LAST batch... how close she's cycling. (Click this one to see it bigger.)
> 
> 
> .


That's a great shot... Never seen babies come out before.
Thanks


----------



## DKShrimporium

Totoro

*Wetwedding project 34*

Sometimes (not infrequently, in DK's case), you get an idea that you just have to pursue. If this is enabled by useable parts lying about, more so.

Totoro sprang from DK's fascination with the usefulness of that fat lip, on the edge of the can. When she saw that lip, she filed it away to swim and bob about in the tossing waters of the squirrely brain, to ripen.

And then, by mistake, she ordered the wrong size tubing, for her plans.

She stared at the lovely peanut can, with that fat lip, and pondered her stupidity of wasting money on the wrong, non-returnable product, and fumed.

This was happening at the same time she was piecing together wetwedding plans, and pondering - obsessing, day-and-night - on how to optimize the system. Optimization for less maintenance time and cost, more fluid operation, and system longevity, which don't necessarily track together in the real world as parameters.

Reverse Osmosis membrane efficiency is a function of a few things. First, by _quality of the membrane itself_, so DK bought the gold standard, the Dow filmtec.

Second, by increasing the _pressure differential across the membrane_. You can do this by pushing harder on the front end, pulling harder on the back end, or both. DK has done both, using a pressure boosting pump on the front end and a permeate pump on the back end.

Sorta like our pictures last post, of raspberries in the jello, and the collander. If you want pure jello juice and want to ditch the raspberries, you push the jello mixture against the collander to squeeze out the jello and leave the raspberries in the waste stream. The harder you smash the jello into the collander, the faster you get jello juice and the more of it you get as the raspberry jello stream flows by. 

But another way to increase efficiency is to _increase the temperature of the feed water_ toward the ideal temperature for the membrane penetrance. Since DK's water is getting sucked out of the ground from a well deep down, it's pretty cool coming up into the sytem. Since DK's system is large capacity RO system, the water doesn't sit too long in the system before it's presented to the membrane, so it's not had time to warm up to room temperature.

Now, let's say we warm that raspberry jello up, to soupy. Imagine how much easier it is to squeeze the jello juice across that collander.

So, DK wanted to play around with warming the feed stream, to increase her reverse osmosis efficiency, and the peanut can and tubing were just the start.

What she made, Totoro, is a very crude heat exchanger, just to explore an idea. It's not by any means a very efficient one, due to the properties of pex tubing that conducts heat poorly. But it was enough to try an idea, get some data, see how it panned out.

And here, you see how she did it, with stuff from the barrels and bins. Down below, you can't see, but she made a clear Lexan plate to hold in the heat, but also allow out light to light her system during the run time, as a visual indicator it's running, and also to light her TDS monitor when needed.

She was able to change out the light bulb to different wattages, to see the effect, in fill time of the system. She originally wanted to track before and after exchanger heat using a temperature probe, but the ports for the probe wouldn't hold the system pressure without leaking, so she abandoned that method.

Without any bulb, system time to refill was 2 hours 36 minutes. An 18 watt spiral fluorescent bulb improved fill time by 4 minutes. She worked her way up to a 100 watt incandescent bulb, which took nearly half hour off her fill time! Crude, but she could definitely quantify the effects using fill times.

And, I think that's a-gonna be the end of *Wetwedding* posts.


.


----------



## wicca27

interesting bit of info


----------



## Jahn

Haha, my kids were going to make a Totoro out if Marimo balls, that's what I thought this would be!


----------



## oblongshrimp

Wouldn't it transfer heat faster and more efficently to submerge the pipe underwater and then use a small aquarium heater to heat the water?


----------



## amberoze

Why not get a higher wattage bulb socket, and a light designed specifically to produce heat. Might improve fill times even more. Oh, and switch out the tubing with something that is more heat conducive.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Wetwedding project 35*



oblongshrimp said:


> Wouldn't it transfer heat faster and more efficently to submerge the pipe underwater and then use a small aquarium heater to heat the water?


The transfer I'm guessing would be a lot more efficient using water instead of air. (Water's greater heat capacity) On the other hand, the amount of energy needed to heat the water first, to heat the tubing, is much greater than the energy needed to heat air. (Water's heat capacity, again) But the reason I didn't pursue a more efficient transfer is that this was a lark, and I didn't want to put too much in between my pressure booster pump and my RO membranes, which is where it has to happen. The more infrastructure you put in between those two points to raise temperature, the more chance you are at the same time causing a drop in pressure, which is counter-productive (for example, by adding extra length of tubing to route the line off to a heated bath and through the bath and back again, which cannot be done in the peanut can location using water). The peanut can takes up little space exactly between them, to route tubing into water would have used a lot more real estate and added a lot more complexity. 



amberoze said:


> Why not get a higher wattage bulb socket, and a light designed specifically to produce heat. Might improve fill times even more. Oh, and switch out the tubing with something that is more heat conducive.


That little peanut can and a 100 watt bulb are surprisingly good at doing this job. (They didn't change the product TDS at all, but they DID cut down the system time by 20% or so. DK has really, really pushed membrane efficiency using her pressure gradient, running the system at 80 psi, but if she was running it at 60 psi then working with system TEMPERATURE might make a big difference in the product stream TDS.) It's rather like a tiny car sitting in the sun - you know how much heat it can trap and hold in that car. The can forces the tubing close in proximity to the heat source, and allows very little heat to escape, except via transfer into the water.

Basically, DK has a database of geekiness she collects each project, and then she tries to play with ideas. In this case, she found this graph and her squirrely brain immediately said, "I wonder if I could move the dot..."

The objective in this case wasn't truly to optimize using temperature, because the system was already fairly optimized from the pressure differential and squeezing out the last bit of optimization using heat would be energy expensive for the return. 

The objective was to play with the concept, as DK is wont to do, and see if she could get some real data to prove she "moved the dot."


Image source: http://www.get-inc.com/TCF.jpg


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well.

Well, well, well.

DK had a Happy Mother's Day.

See below.


.


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## wicca27

ha ha happy mothers day grandma lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> ha ha happy mothers day grandma lol


Thanks -- while the red tiger tank is cooking along nicely, she is not in it. She is part of my multi-ethnic neighborhood project. 

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Yesterday, we celebrated the one week mark of a new establishment, DK's foray into the franchise world. You see, the Mermaid Bar and Grille had become such a draw and the neighborhood has filled out so much that she decided to add the Upper Plateau Mermaid Bar and Grille to her portfolio, encouraging her Mermaids to split the population between the lowlanders and the uplanders. In the week since we busted the champagne bottle across the bar counter, both in her franchise had had booming business a-goin' on. The Mermaids quite like the pub scene, and I must say it enables their hooking up lifestyle, we shan't draw any moralizing lessons thereof, however.

---

And finally, this is DK's project of last week. She didn't want to do it, it was tedious all around to think through, but she HAD to get it done, as part of her vapor control program this year, which dovetails (or will) with her Shrimpzone project, which is in progress (DK is pondering quite a bit on some executive level decisions in that project, at the moment).

BTW, the rubber balls are temporary, until DK finds just the right thing for plugs (she's thinking shot glasses will do the trick if she can find some the right size locally). The balls are somewhat problematic, as every time a certain 4 legged semi-feral hairy beast comes into the Shrimporium they are fodder for theft...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 07*

OK, so DK's sometimes kinda anal. This never applies when considering dirty floors with dog hair, however.

But when she's doing a project that melds energy, shrimp production, cost, and fun, she can get anal.

She's been sitting, stewing, on the Shrimpzone project a couple weeks, now. She did Plan A, which would have worked, and she might use pieces of still. But the idea of MORE CONTROL, and BEST ENERGY USAGE just, well, nagged her.

So, she pondered.

She came up with her solution.

But first, we finish up Plan A for you, while we wait for her to finish Plan B and get it beta tested fully.

Back to Plan A, based upon The Syndicate principle. We shall explain that later, when the whole system is up and working, which will probably be within a few days.

After we pop-riveted on the Lexan plates, using small hinges, we then gave each opening a frame of weatherstripping. Now, when we close either plate, we can fully seal it off. 

To close a plate, we swing the Lexan closed, then fasten using our handy newest thingys, which were installed with a bit of Gorilla glue.

So, here we see our Plan A louver, which is now fully mounted onto the main air trunk to the house, so it gets air before ANYTHING else does. 

It's configured to be quite variable, or totally sealed off. We can open one or both of the halves, and adjust the vanes of either half as well. 


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 08*

So, over the weekend, DK finished the Shrimpzone install/modifications (that would be Plan B, after we evolved past Plan A). There was about half an hour of panic when, no matter what control she tried, the system was DOA. She's working with a zoned system and it requires you to create a "call" from the master zone before any of the other zones will kick in to do their job.

Turns out, DK, being safety-conscious, but also a bonehead, had flipped the breaker to the master air handling system before she did some wiring adjustments, and she - uh - forgot to turn the breaker back on. So of course, the system was DOA in every which way. It was doing what it was told to (not) do!

After that, it was a matter of beta testing.

Everything works peachy. :icon_cool We have to do some minor adjustments on air flow directing, but air balance and air temp controls are all in order.

So, for under a George Washington, DK was able to make the Shrimporium into its own zone, fully controlled by a zone damper and thermostat. 

Here are some initial pics, overall schematic to follow, after she draws it out ferya.


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## wicca27

wow......


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## DKShrimporium

DK's god dog rottie contemplates. He's thinking about taking up doga. That'd be yoga, for dogs.

Fer now, he's practicing meditation. I think.


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## wicca27

lol


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## mountaindew

Great idea for warming water supply going into r.o. filter.
My ro/di filter system can be painfully slow in winter time, I will have to add similar tech. to my treatment plant.
Your thread is always fun to check and see what your up to!
MD


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## DKShrimporium

mountaindew said:


> Great idea for warming water supply going into r.o. filter.
> My ro/di filter system can be painfully slow in winter time, I will have to add similar tech. to my treatment plant.
> Your thread is always fun to check and see what your up to!
> MD


Keep in mind that in my setup the light bulb can only be lit when the water is flowing through the tubing; it is electronically controlled and tied to this.

Design your system so that you can't accidentally overheat your tubing, or a piece of your tubing, resulting in rupture.

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK's tied up in a crash course in vintage toilet-ology, which includes anatomy and physiology of the vintage one-piece commode. Vintage being in this case circa 1955. Said commode is marked "Standard" because apparently this is BEFORE the company was called AMERICAN Standard. More on this later. 

Let's just say that over the weekend, as DK was touring the Shrimporium to inspect her Shrimpzone workings, her bare feet came upon WATER ON THE FLOOR, which was COMING FROM THE FLOOR UP ABOVE, which was traced to the dog water fountain, which had malfunctioned in a wet way. On the way, the water managed to infiltrate the batting surrounding her air handling trunks, soaking the insulation. Never a dull moment, around here. And then today, she played portrait photographer, did pretty well.

So, a mess.

The good news is, it had nothing to do with the Shrimporium workings, or her recent alterations to the HVAC duct work.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

She met up with her friend Craigslist and gotter a really coo-el vintage dog fountain, which she's re-gutting. A lovely vintage shade of buttercream, from back in the days when butter was yellow due to the cows eating real plants, not due to food dyes. Or so we romanticize. The good ol' post-war fifties. Time of drive throughs, poodle skirts, roller skates. Scandal was rolling a pack of cigarettes into your t-shirt sleeve...

Or so I've heard. I wasn't actually there, then.


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 09*

So, we'll take this in steps, so you can better understand what DK did, and why she thinks it was a clever approach.

Here is the basic footprint of the basement, two large spaces. One is basic basement space, the other utility space that holds the furnace/air handling system, well system, electrical system, etc.\

The "living" space has its own controlled zone of climate, on a powered damper and tied into its own thermostatic control. The "living" space has a false hung ceiling (ceiling tiles in a grid).

The "utility" space has nothing. No air into or out of the space, no climate control. It has an open joist ceiling. As you can imagine, this poses problems in thermal control, due to the tank lights adding heat to the space. It also poses problems with vapor control, as the tanks add humidity to the air.

Um hm. Oops, I meant SHRIMP tanks, not shimp tanks.


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## wicca27

so does this trump the ac in the door from last summer?


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> so does this trump the ac in the door from last summer?


Basically, yeah. The door A/C has two limitations that made me re-think that approach. First, it didn't seem able to keep up with the heat load. Whether that's because the BTU rating wasn't beefy enough, or because on the OTHER side of that door is abnormally hot during hot weather (so the heat gradient it's trying to pump heat against is steeper than normal), it was not cooling the room enough. The second issue was air dispersal. The door A/C unit wasn't beefy enough in the fan department to move that cold air across the room, and it sort of cooled a segment of the room and thought it was "done" with its work. I could have fudged the settings, forcing it to run all the time, but this is very energy inefficient, and, in the end, I decided to pursue the most energy efficient means, which was to use the big house unit and air handling system. 

I'm just sitting on the A/C unit for now, until it strikes me what do do with it. I suspect Junior Geek will be lobbying for it any day. 

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Remember this? Well, DK finally figured out the ball replacements. She ended up using color-coded easter eggs filled with glass bits for weight. She had both, and the fact that she was able to color-code them is boss.

What, you may be wondering, IS that thing?

Well, it belongs to Water Factory III. Water Factory III creates a number of unique water streams which are then blended at the tanks to make custom water for a tank. While the CIC-152 monitor gives a bird's eye view of system performance, it really only monitors one stream in the making.

It's critical that DK know if EACH stream is made correctly (i.e. that the injector for that stream is functioning within parameters). So what DK did was to create in WFIII a side/flush branch of each stream of the WF. This unit takes live output from its respective stream into a small (1 pint or so) chamber), a small proportion of the output from that cycle. We need to use a chamber, rather than just a point monitor, because the nature of injections is that they sine-wave over time, so you need an average of what the output is rather than a sample at one exact point in time, or you will not be accurate.

So, each cycle, a small proportion of each stream is diverted to these chambers for the duration of the cycle. They fill from the bottom and overflow out the side spouts, and collectively drain into the sump pit. But at any time, DK can pick up an egg, plunk in a TDS meter or draw a sample for testing, and it will reflect the latest cycle's functioning for that stream. This is critically important to be able to do, so that I don't have a malfunction happening blindly that I don't know about until it starts killing shrimp in the tanks. 

For example, a month or so ago my check valve on one of the injectors developed crystals at the valve, causing a leaky valve, causing the injection solution not to be drawn up properly, so the stream was under-injected severely, depleting the tanks of that stream's contents. Fortunately, DK noticed some subtle changes in the shrimp coloring and tested her streams manually, finding the problem. At that time, she decided to fix her a better live system to draw samples, always. She has to have the side streams and "waste" a proportion of her streams, anyway, to get up to the flow volume she needs, for accurate injections, so she didn't waste anything by setting this system up. 

The lids are very lightweight, and the tubings going into them tend to torque on the lids, causing them not to seat sealed and shut, without a good weight on them, thus the need for WEIGHTED plugs. The balls worked, but a certain half-feral wolf-wannabe kept coveting them, and they had to go.

It's an awesome system, now, and now it's very easy at any time to check a stream without having to turn on the system or divert a stream, etc. I just go to the respective pot and test away. It's basically automated and needs no maintenance, too. DK fantasizes about one day getting live monitors like the CIC-152 on EACH stream, but the individual monitors are still too pricey for her blood for this. And she can't be bothered with cheap battery operated "monitors" - for now she uses her hand held TDS unit and drop tests as needed.


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## Lexinverts

Do you have a Sulawesi stream as well? I know from experience that it can be difficult to get the Sulawesi mineral products to dissolve in RO water. I'm betting that would cause problems in an automated system.


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## wicca27

dk's cardinals (mermaids) are doing awsome hehehe look back a couple pages. she had to split the colony up between a couple tanks.


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## Lexinverts

wicca27 said:


> dk's cardinals (mermaids) are doing awsome hehehe look back a couple pages. she had to split the colony up between a couple tanks.


I'm not doubting that. I'm just asking if she has them hooked up to the automated system, and, if so, how does she deal with re-mineralizing the Sulawesi water. I have to age mine for a few days before I use it.


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## DKShrimporium

Lexinverts said:


> I'm not doubting that. I'm just asking if she has them hooked up to the automated system, and, if so, how does she deal with re-mineralizing the Sulawesi water. I have to age mine for a few days before I use it.


Yes, Sulawesi tanks are fully automated. What I do is different from other folks and not applicable, but try this (you read it here first, folks):

Chill a liter of seltzer water overnight in your refrigerator. Overnight. Next day, open it carefully, not jostling it so you save as much carbonation as possible. Dump in your product and quickly reseal the lid tight. Shake and see if it fully dissolves. May take up to 10 min with repeat shakings and solution should be water clear if so. No cloudy or powdered residue should remain. If it does fully dissolve, then let the bottle outgas and add RO up to the total volume you need. You can do this by dumping the bottle into a clean bucket and adding the RO water then stirring or bubbling until your pH is in range.

Post back what happens!


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## Lexinverts

DKShrimporium said:


> Yes, Sulawesi tanks are fully automated. What I do is different from other folks and not applicable, but try this (you read it here first, folks):
> 
> Chill a liter of seltzer water overnight in your refrigerator. Overnight. Next day, open it carefully, not jostling it so you save as much carbonation as possible. Dump in your product and quickly reseal the lid tight. Shake and see if it fully dissolves. May take up to 10 min with repeat shakings and solution should be water clear if so. No cloudy or powdered residue should remain. If it does fully dissolve, then let the bottle outgas and add RO up to the total volume you need. You can do this by dumping the bottle into a clean bucket and adding the RO water then stirring or bubbling until your pH is in range.
> 
> Post back what happens!


LOL. That's just way more work than what I do and have success with. The Logemann brothers (Salty Shrimp brand products) do suggest using CO2 to help get the minerals from the Salty Shrimp 8.5 mix into solution, so I'm betting that your idea would work.


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 10*

More background, before we explain what DK did.

Here, we see a general schematic of a zoned HVAC (HVAC = Heating/Ventilation/Air Conditioning) system.

Here is the chapter and verse to memorize, today:

*"Whatsoever be the output in volume, 
so be the input back to the system."*​
So, what we have here is the general furnace/air handler to the whole house. The air handler pushes air through the house whether it be heated air, or cooled air, depending on whether the furnace, or air conditioner, is being called upon to act.

The Zone Controller is sorta the master brain. Whenever one of the zone's thermostats tells the Zone Controller it needs heat or air to get to the right temperature, the Zone controller tells the air handler/furnace/AC to do a job, and which zone needs the job, and to open the damper for that zone while the job is being done. But if MORE than one zone is calling for help, the Zone Controller acts as master of ceremonies and gives each zone their needs, in turns. Only one zone gets action at a time.

The reason for this is that each zone approximately takes the air volume capacity of the air handler. If you were to split this into sending to two zones at once, you lose half the air flow to each zone, and with it half the delivery pressure, so your air distribution will not happen as it is designed to do, at a given pressure, in order to DISTRIBUTE the air throughout the space.

OK, so, the air handler, when called upon to supply hot or cold air to a zone, has one delivery rate, whatever it is. The fan runs, supplies xx cubic feet per minute. As in any circulatory system that is closed, what ever volume that is put out by the air handler must then be returned TO the air handler, as "used" air. It's basically a circuit, where it goes around, and comes back.

OK, so ponder on this, until the next post.


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## wicca27

your doodles help so much. how is this project going? or are you on to something new?


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## DKShrimporium

Had what felt like 20 different projects with loose ends this week, none of which seemed to want to come to resolution. The Dog Toilet guts were mysteriously shipped cross country to TWO completely different locations than where I yam (one went to Washington State, the other to South Carolina, while I am on the East Coast... go figure). It wasn't until today I was able to get our lovely vintage low-boy-one-piece-grand-capacity-dog-fountain back online, after a two week wait. 

Had an incoming shipment of shrimp I'll be shrimpsitting until fall, a whole tank of 'em, had to get them acclimated and settled. Their human is going out the the country, and then, upon return, is moving cross country.

Testing on the Shrimpzone workings ongoing this week as it was hot enough to run the A/C. It's working, but needs tuning on DIRECTING the air throughout the Shrimporium.

My last surviving original Shrimporium 1.0 plastic dollar store drawer tank sprung a leak and I had to tear it down and move its little guys elsewhere.

In the process, I moved down a ten gallon tank on the shelf above it to take up the now available real estate where the plastic drawer used to be, to give that small ten-er a cooler piece of real estate than a top shelf location where it had been.

I don't write anything about wetwedding or the cashew jar department store, because they are both fully automated systems and working perfectly... so perfectly that it's BORING to even think about them.

The last of the electronics components arrived and all the parts are sitting on a tray, awaiting attention.

Stuff like that.

Will try to post more on Shrimpzone this weekend.


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## DKShrimporium

Well, DK can't seem to force herself to finish her *Shrimpzone* posts, but they are coming.

Today, she made a prototype of her next project, and wants to post an intro about that! Sorta like those "Save the Date" postcards people send out BEFORE they send out wedding invites, nowadays...

While that prototype is beta testing, here are the ingredients:



binding covers
marker
scissors
soldering iron

I must say, she is quite pleased with the prototype...

*******

T-Rex packin' momma, taken today:


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## wicca27

you and your shrimp pics lol and i cant have any till next spring lol


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## DKShrimporium

Scenes from the Broke Blacks, today:


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## wicca27

beautiful like always dk.... you and your taunts lol


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## DKShrimporium

OK, so I FORCE myself to continue the Shrimpzone posts.

*Shrimpzone project 11*

We review about how climate control works in the basement. There are basically two large rooms in the basement, one that is climate controlled as a zone, automated, with sensor and thermostat and appropriate air inputs via registers and air exit via an air return duct.

The other room, now the Shrimporium, was originally a utility room in concept, that was divided off the whole basement after the fact. This space has NO air registers putting climate controlled air into the space, and NO return ducts for air to exit the space. Up until this point in time, DK just left the door open between the two basement rooms so there was air exchange. 

The problem is twofold, and not inconsequential.

First, since there is no mechanism to efficiently exchange air in the Shrimporium, there is a static nature in there. Adding racks of shrimp tanks with their filters, heaters, and lighting adds all sorts of heat into the room, which cannot leave the room efficiently so accumulates, particularly during hot weather.

Second, due to the same, there is humidity added into the room that is not removed. In climate controlled air, the air is dehumidified when air conditioned. So enabling the air in the shrimporium to be air conditioned would solve two problems at once.

The challenge was to design a solution that would exchange air throughout the Shrimporium space, and climate control it. For cheap, that is. For cheap.

To do this, we need *AIR INPUT*, *AIR EXIT*, *AIR SENSING AND CONTROL* (thermostat) and *THAT AIR TO BE RUN THROUGH THE CLIMATE CONTOL SYSTEM AND CIRCULATED*, _in that room_.

So, the first step is to punch a hole in the air supply chain somewhere IN THAT ROOM, to provide AIR INPUT.

This is not rocket science, but it's also not mudpies. We need a hole in the supply trunk somewhere, but we have to keep in mind that what we rob from the supply trunk to feed into the Shrimporium space is then NOT supplied elsewhere, and we need VOLUME BALANCE so the other area we robbed supply from gets enough and is balanced with what happens in the Shrimporium. In other words, we need balanced climate control in the basement zone WHILE we get supply into the Shrimporium. We don't want to cool the Shrimporium and leave the basement either inadequately cooled or super-cooled relative to what is happening in the Shrimporium. And we need enough air flow to both zones to get the job done. This means effectively longer run time for the system, with balanced volumes to the two rooms as needed, to get the same effect in the basement as we had previously, since now we are robbing a good chunk of its previous input stream, say one third or so.

Just to clarify something that isn't apparent in the picture below: The air supply trunk to the basement main room is then split up via ducting to run to the various basement air registers. This isn't shown in the picture. The air then enters the room via the registers and does its thing. Then, the air is pushed out of the room via air pressure, into the air return. The air return looks in this picture as though it feeds air into the Shrimporium room, but what happens is the air enters a DUCT in that wall, that duct leads back to the air handler. There is no air that gets to the Shrimporium room itself from that return in the wall shown.

OK, this post is long enough, ponder away, and Happy Friday, all y'all.


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 12*

OK, so here, again, a sad attempt atta sorta 3D view of the setup. 

We have the main air handler that moves heated or cooled air throughout the house. Off it comes a main ventilation trunk. Off the main ventilation trunk come three sub-trunks to each of the three house zones; I've called them Zone 1, Zone 2, and Basement Zone.

Each zone trunk is kept closed off EXCEPT when the zone controller calls for action, and THEN the respective zone trunk damper is opened so that zone will receive air.

So now, let's talk about *the syndicate*.

DK's first approach to the Shrimpzone was primarily based on *the syndicate* thinking, due to her inability to make an actual fourth zone properly. Her zone controller will only do 3 zones which she already has, and she a'-don't wanna buy another zone controller to add a zone. 

So her first approach was to mimic *the syndicate*. Cue The Godfather theme music, here. And imagine Marlon Brando with a cigar hanging out of his mouth, as he narrates this.

What does *the syndicate* do?

Simple. _WHEREVER, WHENEVER there is action, *the syndicate* takes a cut_.

DK reasoned that she'd divert some conditioned air off the MAIN TRUNK any time there was need to have conditioned air anywhere in the house. She reasoned that a need anywhere in the house meant that it was too hot or too cold in general SOMEWHERE in the house, so the air would be adjusted and sent out to the respective zone, and in the process a cut of that air would ALSO be sent through the Shrimporium.

This approach worked, but was - well - not as specific, as CONTROLLED, as DK likes things. DK can be quite a control freak. No, really. It was also less efficient, energy-wise, as it just works off the principle that we need hotter or colder air and we get some down in the Shrimporium, but it may only alter the climate in there in general, not specifically to a given temperature.

So picture two below shows her first approach, *the syndicate* louver, which she mounted onto the MAIN TRUNK (purple number 1 in the picture). (BTW, there was ALREADY a big ol' hole in the trunk where a previous humdifier had been mounted and removed and patched. DK simply removed the patch and put in the syndicate louver at that location.) Any time a portion of this louver is open to a degree, then ANY time the air handler moves air ANYWHERE in the house, the Shrimporium gets a cut of that air.

Yeah, it worked, but DK is anal for control. She pondered, and pondered, and pondered, how to get a fake "real" zone in there that was thermostatically controlled.

It was when she went to do the RETURN portion of air handling for *the syndicate *approach that her second technique dawned upon her.

As you recall, there are no return registers in the Shrimporium, but there is one in the basement general room. 

Now, she has air INPUT into the Shrimporium, but air EXIT has to happen in a balanced manner.

The easiest way to do this is to leave the door open, air that enters the Shrimporium from the syndicate louver makes its way across the room and exits the door, into the general basement room, and is eventually pushed back into the return duct in there.

But what if she wants the door closed??

Ahhhh. Yes. That was the key, that led her to the final approach.

Stay tuned.

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK now has a Ph.D. in toilet-ology. Who knew there was so much interesting stuff to know about the physics of a flush. 


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 13*

So, let's divert just a bit, today, and talk about exactly what DK _would have needed_ to build a true, _bona fide_ zone into the Shrimporium.


First, she'd need to add a fourth air zone trunk off of her main air handling trunk.

Then, she'd need to buy another motorized zone control damper, to install in that fourth trunk.

Then, she'd need to make, off this trunk, air registers to feed air from that trunk into the Shrimporium room.

Then, she'd need to make a trunk off her RETURN trunk, back to the system, in the Shrimporium.

Then, she'd need to make, off the RETURN trunk, a return air register to remove air from the Shrimporium and feed it back into air handling system.

Then, she'd need to balance the air VOLUME input with output, in the Shrimporium room.

THEN, she'd need to integrate her new zone to the existing BYPASS damper to take the excess air handler air flow and divert it to other zones. Feeding the Shrimporium room would not take the entire output of the air handler, which is a fixed flow rate, so the excess output has to go somewhere or you fry your air handler fan against too much resistance. Zoned systems have, for each zone, a master bypass damper that re-routes excess air to other zones and dissipates the extra flow this way.

Then, she'd need to buy a whole new FOUR zone controller, and re-wire every dad-gum zone to the controller, then wire the fourth zone into the air handler.

****

She didn't get an estimate for this, but guesses it would be well into the four digit cost zone. (Deca-Bens to do, as in tens of Ben Franklin notes.)

****

And yet, the dream persisted, in her mind, of a thermostatically controlled zone, within the Shrimporium, to remove heat QUANTITATIVELY from that space, as it is produced by her lights and heaters and filters. Using her master air handler for the house.

Sometimes, she gets stubborn, and just won't let go a goal, no matter how impossible it seems.


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## wicca27

ha ha ha love the last cartoon. please tell me you did not just mess up the air flow for the whole basement. i wish you luck you have way more balls than i do for things like this. and have taught me so much.


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## DKShrimporium

Shreeeeeeeeeemps were without power for several hours. It gave DK the first test of what happens to the Wetwedding system when there's a power failure. She had to bleed down the well tank to initiate the RO system to turn on, to finish filling the tank, as the tank was only partially filled when the power went out. (Once it turns off, due to power failure, it will not re-initiate making RO water until the RO tank pressure drops to the trigger point and the pressure switch tells tells the solenoid then to open and to turn on the pressure boosting pump, running the system. I need to have a FULL RO tank of water for each flush cycle, as the cycle uses that much water. If the tank is only partially full when the cycle initiates, it will run out of water part way through and then scream when it's not happy and shut down at the CIC-152, causing the need for a manual re-start to re-set the CIC-152) Not too much excitement, really.

*********

ON THE OTHER HAND:

Out front, about 100 yards from the house, lightning struck one of our trees. This is about a two-foot diameter, mature tree.

The power of the lightning exploded the tree trunk from the center, outward, pushing layers of tree trunk outward and sending huge chunks of bark and outer tree layer flying as far as 50 yards away.

Poor tree. It's going to die, now. How anyone survives being struck by lightning is a mystery to me, after seeing the power exhibited here.


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## wicca27

wow, glad you and the shrimp are well. and awesome the system worked.


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## DKShrimporium

Hey, C, this one's for you. How's your foot doing? I love how in the second one the panda just melts into the shadow, except for the white. 


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## wicca27

beautiful. foot is doing great been walking around the house in the boot with out crutches only been putting weight on it since may 29th, so just over 2 weeks. wed the 19 i get to take the boot off and go to a lace up brace woo hoo. i will still prob use crutches for a while just cause im getting out of the boot. ortho was kinda stunned i was walking already lol. i just want my freedom back hehehe. keep up the nice pics and thanks for posting they are great


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 14*

I keep forgetting to finish these posts. Too much going on here.

So, what DK did was to create some of the elements of a _bona fide_ zone, in her Shrimporium.

To do this, she:


Cut an air input (input INTO the Shrimporium room, that is) access in the trunk feeding the basement zone, BEFORE it enters the basement general room (but while it is still in the Shrimporium room proper), but AFTER the motorized zone damper. _This way, what happens to that zone also happens in the Shrimporium_. This was the next iteration of *The Syndicate* thinking. (Purple number 2 in the picture)

Then, she did some fancy "_There I Fixed It_" stuff. Those of you with noses in the air better quit reading, now, as we are entering the equivalent of Honey Boo Boo land in fixes. DK needed an air EXIT from the Shrimporium. She had two choices. One was to install a branch with pressure-balanced damper in the Shrimporium, onto the RETURN main duct. This was complicated, expensive, and really tedious to do, as the access is right over a 65 gallon tank full of crystals, and DK doesn't relish messy construction OVER any tanks. Asking for a catastrophe. So, she needed a work-around. The second approach was to somehow get Shrimporium conditioned-air moved from the Shrimporium room into the basement general room. Yes, we can do this merely by leaving the door open, which we often do. But sometimes we want that door shut...

So DK looked around. The wall between the Shrimporium and the basement general room has a false ceiling. It is unfinished ceiling in the Shrimporium space and a hung-tile ceiling in the basement general room. Mostly, there is no air transfer, even up in that ceiling space, due to insulation placement. But DK was able to make a large route of airflow from the Shrimporium to the general room by selectively removing some insulation and then replacing a ceiling tile with a handy-dandy piece of fluorescent light waffle grid (which she had to rob and re-purpose from her mobile shrimp cart/drying rack featured earlier in this thread). 

Now, conditioned air under pressure moves ACROSS the Shrimporium room, conditioning the space, and THEN can exit the room through this secret channel, going up above the wall, into the joist space, and then down through the waffle grid, into the general room, where it eventually makes its way into the return duct in the general room.

So now, we have AIR SUPPLY and AIR RETURN of conditioned air, into the Shrimporium. The AIR SUPPLY and AIR RETURN is now tied into a particular zone, and is tied into the thermostatic control of that zone, unlike our first iteration of *The Syndicate* thinking, which just gave the Shrimporium a cut of conditioned air, whenever, and wherever in the house there was conditioned air action. _NOW, we can tie what happens in the Shrimporium TO A THERMOSTATIC CONTROL, specific to a zone._

This post is long enough, so chew on that, for today.


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 15*

OK, so let's go back and review what we WOULD HAVE NEEDED for a REAL ZONE (aside from a four-digit pile o' cash, that is), and where we've faked it to, up until this post. The highlighted items are what DK has accomplished so far (functionally) with her work-arounds.


First, she'd need to add a fourth air zone trunk off of her main air handling trunk.

Then, she'd need to buy another motorized zone control damper, to install in that fourth trunk.

Then, she'd need to make, off this trunk, air registers to feed air from that trunk into the Shrimporium room.

Then, she'd need to make a trunk off her RETURN trunk, back to the system, in the Shrimporium.

Then, she'd need to make, off the RETURN trunk, a return air register to remove air from the Shrimporium and feed it back into air handling system.

Then, she'd need to balance the air VOLUME input with output, in the Shrimporium room.

THEN, she'd need to integrate her new zone to the existing BYPASS damper to take the excess air handler air flow and divert it to other zones. Feeding the Shrimporium room would not take the entire output of the air handler, which is a fixed flow rate, so the excess output has to go somewhere or you fry your air handler fan against too much resistance. Zoned systems have, for each zone, a master bypass damper that re-routes excess air to other zones and dissipates the extra flow this way.

Then, she'd need to buy a whole new FOUR zone controller, and re-wire every dad-gum zone to the controller, then wire the fourth zone into the air handler.

So, this brings us up to AIR INPUT vs. AIR RETURN balance, in that zone, and in the Shrimporium specifically. We want balance two ways.

First, we need the same volume of air to ENTER the Shrimporium as to EXIT the Shrimporium when the conditioned air is flowing through the zone. In the early beta testing, this was easily accomplished by just leaving the door open between the rooms.

Second, we need the volume split of AIR SENT TO THE SHRIMPORIUM vs. THE REST OF THE AIR, SENT TO THE BASEMENT GENERAL ZONE to be balanced such that, as the air handler cools down the Shrimporium by, say, two degrees, it ALSO cools down the basement general zone by approximately the same amount, or slightly less.

DK really doesn't care if the general zone gets slightly less, because the nature of that space is that it is VERY well insulated, being in the ground, and it's also not a hot space, being in the ground. While the Shrimporium is similarly insulated and in the ground, it has MANY heat sources generating heat that the basement general zone does not have. Generally, the basement general zone is habitable even with minimal conditioning. So the name of the game here is to send the resources to the Shrimporium, mostly, and not waste a lot of energy conditioning the general zone, which, honestly, doesn't need much of anything. What it DOES need, however, is adequate air circulation to help remove humidity when the air conditioner is running, so we DO need SOME conditioned air flow to the general space whenever that zone is active. The basement in general tends to accumulate some humidity, which needs to be removed. It is removed WHEN the air handling system is active, either by being fed warmed, dryer air in winter, or by being fed air-conditioned air in summer. When air is passed through the air handler for air conditioning, it is ALSO de-humidified at the air handler, and the humidity condensate is pumped from the air handler out a special channel to the house drainage system, removing that water.

The proportion of VOLUME (that would be: volume of space of the actual room) between the Shrimporium room and the general space is about 1/4 Shrimporium and 3/4 general space. HOWEVER, due to the above heat loads, the conditioning needs (that would be: the AIR volume needs) of the Shrimporium space are probably 1/2 to 2/3 of the air flow of the zone. 

Make sense?

So, next in line are the balance equations.

DK would love to tell you she came up with some sleek, elegant solution to the balance issues. She has solved them, but the solutions are more Honey Boo Boo, There I Fixed It, than elegant. The solutions were cheap, however, and if you'd see the Shrimporium space with the Water Factory III and other stuff, the space itself is - well - a DIY, eclectic, utilitarian decor, shall we say. So it's not like DK Honey Boo Boo'ed her living room, OK?

Next up: the cringeworthy DIY fix DK did, to achieve her balances equation. But, hey, it was under a hamilton, to do. She used two scrap sheets of acrylic from her bins, and a former storage bin/cheapo first generation shrimp tank a la Rubbermaid.

The first thing she did was fabricate a cheat piece. This was made from one of the acrylic sheets, heat fabricated to make an angle. This was installed up into the hole in the zone trunk, to force a GREATER proportion of the trunk flow out the Shrimporium hole than would go past this hole and onto the basement general zone. Because the hole to the Shrimporium space is perpendicular to the fast air flow, it was fed mainly by pressure release of the air flow, and not by direct air flow, directionally. So DK made a physical plate to catch the oncoming airflow and redivert about half of it in the trunk to exit at the Shrimporium hole. 

So, with the acrylic sheet diverter mounted INSIDE the zone trunk, she can adjust the square inches of diverter surface area to achieve the balance BETWEEN the fraction of zone air that goes into the Shrimporium versus the fraction that goes into the general space.

See pictures, below.


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## wicca27

ok that one me little brain could not wrap around lol. you have a far better technical understanding than i. so glad you can figure this stuff out cause i never could.


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## AdamC13

DK, I have read probably 75-80% of this thread and all I can say is WOW. . . . You are a genius/mad scientist in every sense of the word.


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## DKShrimporium

AdamC13 said:


> DK, I have read probably 75-80% of this thread and all I can say is WOW. . . . You are a genius/mad scientist in every sense of the word.


Why...uh...thank you. I'm trying not to let my brain blow up. 

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK spent today like this (see picture, below). She's hot on the trail of another kooky project, trying to make a silk purse of a sow's ear. Specifically, she's trying to functionally and cheaply arrive at an air suspension seat for, um, say, somewhere under a Ben Franklin. 

Can she do it? She thinks she just might. Really, really, fun, this is. Springboarding her from her air-shock research she did for the Lid Levitation.

Just another iteration of the all-things-eventually-relate-to-each-other theme.


.


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## AdamC13

what state do you live in?


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## DKShrimporium

AdamC13 said:


> what state do you live in?


The state of denial. Of course.


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## DKShrimporium

Well, the greasy hands went through a lot of Gojo, today.

DK got her shopping done and ordered, after meandering through truck sites, Harley sites, and the old standards of Amazon and eBay.

So far, she's under a Ben.

Can't wait to try this. Had to take the whole darned thing apart today, to really understand the geometry, to see if I could possibly pull this off. Real estate issues, you know.

I think I need a T-shirt or cap that says, "I hope this works"

Shrimptern 2.0 would be proud of DK.

Let's just say, this is the key:

(And, OK. DK succumbed to a bit of fashion. There were practical reasons why, though.)


.


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## DKShrimporium

Plamen, here they are, what do you think?


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## plamski

Youp, those are the “magic” plans.
My Grandmother were very good herbologist/naturopath
Those ones were second best herb after stinging nettle for immune system support, bacterial infections and Iron, Calcium deficiency.


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## wicca27

thats good to know cause there are alot of them out here the plant that is.

and dk more german pics please and thank you. hehehe i like the fuzzys as much as i do the shrimpkies hehehehe


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## DKShrimporium

Ahem.


.


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## plamski

I didn't try them yet, so if somebody wants to try they have to give it to some cheap shrimps. It is very good for us, rabbits like it but shrimps who knows.


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## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> I didn't try them yet, so if somebody wants to try they have to give it to some cheap shrimps. It is very good for us, rabbits like it but shrimps who knows.


I'm gonna try 'em this weekend on a ghetto tank. Got too much going on the rest of this week.


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## DKShrimporium

They got here before the tracking number was even active.

DK cannot WAIT to try this out. Still waiting on some parts, though.

**********

DK has a favorite part of every project. It might be an idea, a concept, an approach, or a part. I think these coo-el rocket ships might be my favorite part of this upcoming project.


.


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## wicca27

ha ha thanks for the picks dk, yeah they look mean when playing and i bet sound it too some times but its all in fun lol moose is the same way. if i ever make it to be a shrimptern i would have to bring him too lol


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## DKShrimporium

*Shrimpzone project 16 - CONCLUSION*

I'm a-gonna finish the posts on this project if it killzme. Too lazy to draw another graphic, so I'll just close this project's posts with the final details.

Up until now, we have air input, air exit of conditioned air in the Shrimporium space. DK's been working on tweaking the balance, by adjusting two things. First the square inches of acrylic sheet diverter plate space, to adjust the proportion of zone air that goes into the Shrimporium versus the proportion of zone air that goes into the basement general zone. She has this balanced, finally, and due to the amazing heat load and insulated properties of the Shrimporium she ended up diverting a good 90% of the zone air into the Shrimporium. But now it's balanced.

To balance this extra VOLUME of air input, she then adjusted the amount of exposed secret opening up in the ceiling, to allow the same amount of air to easily flow across her secret space and back into the basement general zone. BTW, up in that false ceiling, she had to build a box-in for the airflow, so when it crossed the wall it didn't just pump up into plenum space. The air leaving the Shrimporium is forced down the waffle grid into the basement general room, and cannot go into the ceiling plenum space.

And now, we close with the piece de resistance. Thermostatic control of the Shrimporium.

What did DK do?

She took the thermostat/sensor that was located in the basement general room, re-routed the wiring up into the false ceiling, across the false ceiling, across her secret air portal into the Shrimporium, and down into the back wall of the Shrimporium (the wall farthest from the air handler). She then mounted the thermostat/sensor on this wall. 

Now, the zone is controlled by the temperature in the SHRIMPORIUM, not the temperature in the basement general room. My thermostat/sensor holds the Shrimporium at a constant temperature, thus keeping the tanks also at a constant temperature (DK concluded she needs the temperature 2 degrees lower air temperature than the target tank temperature, in order to balance the heat load.) 

And, DK is happy. And not too much poorer.

Her shrimp tanks are REALLY much happier, as they are now down at the temps they want to be.

AND>>>>>>>>> I'm tired of this story, so this is the end of it. Tomorrow, I have an appointment with my favorite local machinist, to get some holes drilled...

*********

NEXT UP:

DK's father's day gift. (Uh, that would be her father's day gift to her Father In Law, actually. He just had retinal surgery, anna DK is doing a little sumpin toward that.) Yeah. It's late. But worth it. Nothing to do with shrimp, but someday what I learned doing it I will use in the hobby. It always happens.


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## DKShrimporium

*FD2013 project 01*

Let's start with the backstory, with this project.

DK tries very hard to appreciate good people, in her life. And not just focus on herself. Very high up her list is her father-in-law, who happens to be a grown-up Pennsylvania farm boy. Mebbe it's 'cause we're two of a kind, we both MUST do projects, and keep active.

Well, recently, FIL had retinal surgery. They plastered back down his retina to the back of his eyeball, pushed against it while it healed with a bubble of nitrogen (I'm guessing), and sent him home to heal, admonishing him NO JOLTS. Jolting could tear loose the retina, causing permanent blindness.

He's an OUTDOOR project junkie. Gardening, mowing, landscaping, that sort of thing. He does a lot of mowing, on a riding mower.

Said mower used to have a suspension system in the seat, which had worn out. The suspension system consisted of a scissors frame, connected to a single air piston and two heavy duty tension springs. Aside from the piston wearing out, the mounting piece within the mechanism for the springs was inexplicably made of aluminum. Over time, the springs pulled clear through their mounting holes, like a grabby infant ripping a big hoop earring from a momma's pierced ear, tearing the earlobe. There was no salvaging the part, and DK saw no point in buying a replacement as there was a design flaw in her mind that would simply repeat history.

DK wanted a replacement suspension system that would mimic a high-end air suspension seat, but not at the four digit cost. She wanted to get to a solution for about a Ben Franklin note.

She dug back in her cob-webby squirrely brain and thought about all the stuff she learned about air pistons when she researched them for the BSCC Lid Levitation project. As in that project, mounting considerations were a bear, in the lawn tractor seat real estate. There was no place to mount a pair of air shocks where they would not be in the way, have impossible mounting positions, and furthermore, due to the nature of mowing, the pistons would be exposed to a lot of dirt, aging the seals easily. They were just a lot of technical hurdles, to use.

She cruised high and low, searching for a solution, and came upon these things that are secondary suspension tools, called air bags. Yes, air bags. Also called air springs. But they are not air cylinder pistons, they are more like balloons made of fiber-reinforced structural rubber polymer material. They are designed to provide secondary suspension cushion to back up struts or air pistons in cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc.

A cruise through trucking, motorcycling, and car parts places in cyberspace eventually led her to some with specifications that she thought might work.

She spent a week taking apart the mower and seat, studying the real estate and geometries and mechanical relationships. The real estate was very tightly engineered, and it would be a challenge, but there was one site she thought might work for mounting.

Since said mower is a five-digit piece of equipment (that would be: $$,$$$.$$) and _not hers_, she was very conservative in her approach to alterations, insisting any she did would be reversible and not alter the engineering too much. The machine is well engineered, meaning all the parts are integrated and the spaces, too, so it's always a bugger to upset that and try to keep the original efficiencies.

So here is the project array, which came in just under a Ben. Her work on WetWedding took her to some pneumatics works, and a pneumatics parts vendor, which she used for these parts. Yes, shrimp became related to this project.

Another example of airbags in bikes. Good pics.

And another.

And here the air springs are used in some dude's thesis, in an air suspension design for a wheelchair. Advanced geeks only on this link.

Both the motorcycle dudes and the thesis dude speak of pressure accumulators inline with these airsprings to get really controlled air suspension function. DK has a sense of pressure accumulators, since basically a well tank is a large one, and she was forced to learn all about them in her install of WetWedding! So of course, now DK is obsessing on gettin' her an accumulator in her pneumatic system.


.


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## DKShrimporium

*FD2013 project 02*

So, here we have the scene of the crime. The view is from the rear of the mower, looking toward the front, with the seat flipped up (the seat/rear hood assembly is on a hinge that raises the back of the hood/seat up for access to the engine, underneath.

The only available real estate is the plate on which the hood/seat frame rests, shown here. The weight of the assembly is borne on the two rubber bumpers on the rear side, and on the large hinge front side. The big "V" in the center of the picture is the brace that holds the seat/hood assembly up when access to the engine is needed, like the prop that holds a car hood up when you are checking the oil. Since the engine is in the rear of this mower, the hood is in the rear, not the front. In the center of the top of the "V" in the top photo, you can see the monga hinge that the assembly rotates upon, that is the front point of attachment of the hood/seat assembly.

These are the two pictures I shot to send to the machine shop, to show what I needed, so I'm just using them here for a bird's eye view of the landscape.

The plan is to mount the air bags where the bumpers are. To do this, I needed larger mounting holes than the bumpers used. I got lucky and had my holes drilled for a mere $5 at my local machine shop. Every DIYer should have a local machine shop, if there isn't one in their garage or outbuilding, DK thinks. Useful, they are, those machine shops.

Oh, yeah, in case you're wondering. The hammer is in the picture because I was trying to show the machine shop the size of the part I needed drilled, and I put a hammer into the frame for size reference.


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## DKShrimporium

*FD2013 project 03*

Here, the part is pulled and the rubber bumpers removed. Views before and after the new holes. The five dollar shot.


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## DKShrimporium

*FD2013 project 04*

Here, we have the underside view of the pneumatics shown, after the air bags are mounted. The air bags are hooked to quarter inch pneumatic line with pneumatic fittings and then linked together at a tee fitting, so the air is mobile to distribute evenly to both bags at any time. The tee fitting points through a hole in the mounting plate and emerges on the other side, where it ends in a Schrader valve covered by the lovely rocket ship cap.

The rocket ship cap was selected for a few reasons. First, it is much easier to twist due to the fins, than a plain cap. Second, it is longer and fully covers the threads on the Schrader valve, keeping them clean. Third, it is bright, metallic, shiny orange, easier to see if it falls off, especially in grass. Fourth, it's coo-el. 

The third picture is a close-up of the real estate. From it, you can appreciate the EXACT placement of the air bag. It was fortunate that the existing holes were perfect, because the placement had to be exactly there, there is no real estate to shift placement even a quarter inch front to back or side to side. The tolerances are VERY tight. The specifications for the air bags call for FULL support of the under plate, and 3/4 inch diameter minimum coverage on center of the upper plate, so you can see I have BARELY fulfilled the upper plate coverage. But since the bags are engineered to hold much more weight than here, it should be fine.

If you look closely at the under-the-hood wide shot, you will also notice that the tolerances for the pneumatics stems and tubing were also very tight under that plate - I had to make sure that nothing in the engine would take out my tubing or overheat it. I had JUST enough room underneath that plate.

This is the initial install, which merely needs inflation to a suitable PSI. If I decide to fine tune it with a pressure accumulator, I will later add one inline. For now, we'll beta test this configuration with Mr. Mower. 

I am very seriously considering an accumulator, though, and have searches looking for a suitable one in progress. They're not hard to find, but DK is cheap.

The accumulator would smooth out the ride from a stiff water-balloon like suspension to a smoother suspension. More importantly, an accumulator expands the system air volume, so when there are temperature swings, there is less chance a cooler day would cause the system to contract enough for the air bags to bottom out - this is a matter of convenience as the fix to that is to add a bit more air to the system if the weather is cool enough to do this, but DK is all into system robustness and would prefer not to have to mess with fine tuning due to temps. The flip side to the equation is that to install a pressure accumulator, she needs to find suitable real estate - not a simple puzzle.

*********

What does this project have to do with shrimp? I dunno... yet. Keep reading long enough, and this technology WILL be relevant, to something shrimp-y I do, I assure you. Just you wait.


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## DKShrimporium

So, yesterday, on July 4th, yes, we had mowing action. The reviews were very positive. It's a winner.

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

Sometimes, DK sitz around pondering deep questions. 

_"What does this go to??" _ 

OK, mebbe that's not one of them. But it's a question that comes up.

Recently, DK stumbled upon these, and is pondering them. 

She has a lot of cord action in the Shrimporium (see pictures, each of these is a DIFFERENT cord scene, and this is not all of them, either!!!), and it drives her nuts to try to trace a cord when she has to unplug a certain heater or filter, as she has it seems hundreds of plugs. 

These are too pricey, but the idea is brewing...

She likes the shiny colors. And the little pictures. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

AND... as she's thinkin' about this, she's thinkin' about Plamen's pigeons.


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## Soothing Shrimp

electrical tape and duct tape come in different colors. Just wrap a small strip around each, and have a small strip on your equipment.


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## matti2uude

Different colored bread tags work too.


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## Soothing Shrimp

As far as labeling with words, I found cloth medical tape works well.


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## DKShrimporium

My criteria are:


Color coding so I know what TYPE of appliance the plug goes to.
Pictures or numbering on both ends so I know the plug on this end goes to the heater in tank xx at a glance. Therefore the heater end must be durable for underwater exposure, etc.
Sleek and not cluttery; there is ALREADY a big mess from just the cords themselves. I prefer not to have strings, tape, or tags hanging off if possible. That's why those buttons appealed to me so much; they are very streamlined.
Easily removable and yet hard to dislodge accidentally; re-useable and reposition-able (if a heater burns out I want to take them and put them on the new heater, etc.)
Sorta cheap.

So far, DK has solved the color coding, using split pieces of colored tubing. It is quite secure on the cord:


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## Soothing Shrimp

If that's the case, pencil grips may work well for you, too.


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## wicca27

i am going to use bread tags. can always buy can of spray paint (krylon makes one for plastics) and color code them to heaters, lights, filters each with their own color


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## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> If that's the case, pencil grips may work well for you, too.


Well, I'm happy with the split tubing, and it's already here and "free" from my bins & barrels.



matti2uude said:


> Different colored bread tags work too.





wicca27 said:


> i am going to use bread tags. can always buy can of spray paint (krylon makes one for plastics) and color code them to heaters, lights, filters each with their own color


Thems would fall off around here, and get lost. And besides, I don't buy bread, so haven't a source of bread tags.

DK's solution is en route.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

This past month, DK has had not one, but two out of town parties come visit the Shrimporium. I cannot begin to tell you how fun that was, because both parties were in construction trades and DK absolutely loves to pick the brains of those types. So much so that, well, I need them to come back. I think there's a good chance of that happening, fortunately.

Oh, mannnnnnnnnnn... party #2 gave DK a description of their shop and EXTENSIVE bins and barrels of parts 'n' pieces that made DK's mouth water. She simply MUST go see this someday.

And here's DK's God Dog Rottie and his mini-me: OK, so mebbe DK did a little photoshopping...


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## DKShrimporium

Mini project, this week:

*Heinzerator project 01*

Sometimes, DK just gets fed up with something and decides to _fix it_. Today, she grabbed the ketchup bottle and a-got to thinkin'.

She's gonna fix them Taiwan bees, make 'em a bit happier.

The Mermaids are so happy with the Upper and Lowland Mermaid Bar and Grilles, so now the Taiwans are grumbling that they don't get enny perks. 

INGRATES!!

So, DK a-gonna give them a li'l sumpin'.

It all started here. Y'know, since DK is a very food-oriented person, she gets a lot of inspiration in the fridge and pantry, 'cause she's staring in those spaces a lot.


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## DKShrimporium

Mermaidenettes, from today. DK luvs dem babies.


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## DKShrimporium

*Heinzerator project 02*

Actually, back up from the ketchup bottle. 

It really started with this. 

Been in my bins & barrels over a year now, calling to me. Anyone know what it actually is?

Ever since I ran across it, I wanted to do something with it.


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## wicca27

that has so many ideas in my head what it could be used for lol


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## Soothing Shrimp

Looks like a tank heater protector


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## Shrimpshack

DK, Does it float?


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## DKShrimporium

Shrimpshack said:


> DK, Does it float?


Hmmmmmm.

Is the question: "Did the part in its original form float?"

or

Is the question: "Does the part, now in the Heinzerator, float?"


**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK. Is. Just. Tired.

Today, she finished a sorta marathon project - yes - shrimp related. Not the Heinzerator, although that IS in progress. Right now it's de-fuming.

This project DK just finished, she shoulda really done three years ago. But at least it's done as of today, and the beta testing and initial data should come rolling in shortly.

DK's gonna take a rest, now.


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## wicca27

cant wait to hear about this one. always something shrimpy going on at your place isnt there lol. oh on a side note, boot off, brace off most of the time unless i leave the house. did have to get my appendix out on the 1st (dont you just love random thing like that) and just about healed from all that. only to be moving on the 5 ggrrrr. but on that note i am keeping one small shrimp tank lol. what would i do with out the shrimp to keep me sane?


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## wicca27

dk you are quiet again so that must mean alot of mad doings around there. so come on spill the beans lol


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## Alyssa

Looks like a long uncut hair roller. LOL.



DKShrimporium said:


> *Heinzerator project 02*
> 
> Actually, back up from the ketchup bottle.
> 
> It really started with this.
> 
> Been in my bins & barrels over a year now, calling to me. Anyone know what it actually is?
> 
> Ever since I ran across it, I wanted to do something with it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


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## DKShrimporium

OK, so, I'm back... after hurling this carcass through about 10,000 miles of space over the period of a month. Top of the U.S. of A. Bottom of U.S. of A. Middle of U.S. of A. Returned to the east coast last night. Only missed the west coast. Yeah, it was pretty much epic.

The interesting thing is that DK did not think of shrimp at all. I mean, that is VERY interesting to her. Because what it means is that she had confidence in her automated systems to WORK while she was away. And they did.

The large freezer did blow out, unfortunately, losing its entire load, causing her to buy a new one. She is contemplating what she is a-gonna cannibalize off the expired one. 

She's gotter eye on the compressor tank. And the sensor and switches for the high temperature alert alarm.

She already helped herself to the shelves.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.


.


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## wicca27

welcome back i have got moved well for the most part any way. we are now looking for a rental. sounds like you had a fun time. cant wait to see what will be in the works now lol


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## plamski

Welcome back!!!. 
Hopefully the trip was recreational for you. Which part of the US of A you like the best-why?
Did you auto feed the shrimps or auto is only for water factory?


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> welcome back i have got moved well for the most part any way. we are now looking for a rental. sounds like you had a fun time. cant wait to see what will be in the works now lol





plamski said:


> Welcome back!!!.
> Hopefully the trip was recreational for you. Which part of the US of A you like the best-why?
> Did you auto feed the shrimps or auto is only for water factory?


Why, thank you.

The shrimp system was on auto, but I did have a shrimp sitter feed daily and check the systems, a five minute job. As you can imagine, I can't hire just anyone to shrimp sit, as they must know what to look for, and then what to do, if a system isn't performing properly.

_Which part of the US of A you like the best-why?_

Wow, a difficult question. My best answer is that this depends on the filter used. If we are talking landscapes, DK loves both the wide open plains of the west with the gorgeous endless sky, but also regions with verdant rolling hills and colorful autumn hardwoods (such as the east coast), as her two favorite landscapes. In terms of food, those heart-stopping southerners make some mean, mean cuisines, but DK would be _looooooong_ dead if those foods were an everyday thing. When she does go south, however, her peeps know she will eat her way through, and they prepare. She was snickering at the food hoards awaiting her, prepared by her peeps in anticipation of her arrival. In terms of peeps, she has to say she just has had the best time with Texans. Some of the grittiest, most down to earth, toughest, most loyal peeps she's experienced throughout the US. In terms of recreation, she likes the Mountains - hiking, horseback riding, picnicking by a stream, sitting reading a book with a majestic backdrop, camping in a dirty, greasy, dusty, smokey body that is STARVING for camp food and will snarf anything down due to the camping appetite.


Below are some landscapes she recently enjoyed. The second one is the track worn by the settlers in a mountainside as part of the Oregon Trail.


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## plamski

Wow, those pictures make me think about free soul, proud people, big ideas....


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## pKaz

Thanks for posting the pictures.......and welcome back!


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## DKShrimporium

Soooooooooooo... wherewazzeye...

The shrimp are cooking along very nicely... it's stunningly boring in the Shrimporium at the moment as all the automation does all the work, and all there is left is to pop a shrimp food into a tank once a day and stare across the slimy glass, counting babies.

One of the things DK did this past winter was to initiate a plant fert program into her automation. It took several months of tinkering, but it's pretty good at the moment, feeding her mosses and keeping the water column balanced to hold off algae out of control.

She's running it rich enough to grow some nice biofilms on the glasses, which she needs for the babies.

She's pretty happy with the fert program as of now.

-----------

During the terrible nitrate well spike (actually, should be HIKE, as the nitrate levels are STILL in the water) of '012, she lost huge swaths of populations in her tanks, and she has quietly been re-building her populations, after selectively bringing in new livestock to re-diversify her genetics. After that, it was a matter of getting all her automations calibrated properly for each thing, and letting the tanks cook.

To cheer herself up during this time of darkness, she started a few experimental breeding tanks. Right now, they are just popping F2s, so DK can't wait to see what those li'l buggers become. She's not sure if she'll hit paydirt by F2, or whether she'll have to run them out one or more generations to get there, so it's a time of anticipation...

-----------

And now, back (waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back) to the Heinzerator.

*Heinzerator project 03*

Let's just take a day to review the parts we scrounged:


a fancy-dancy lattice tube thingy
a juice bottle
the leftovers of a silicone funnel DK used for the aquavac
some of the wedding ribbon she uses for the Maseratis
and some goop glue and the cap from a Costco milk jug (not pictured)

Oh, and BTW, one of the "peeps" DK recently visited is the full sister to her feral wolf wannabe, pic below.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Heinzerator project 04*

First, DK takes the weird tube and wraps it in the wedding ribbon, securing it temporarily on both ends using those handy-dandy two-sided velcro tie things she loves so much.

Then, she glues the ribbon to each end, using a smear of Goop. Goop is such useful stuff, like 3-D duct tape, it is. It also happens to be water proof when done curing. Then, she trims the ribbon neatly at the ends.

Next, she cuts the threaded end off the Minute Maid juice bottle and glues it to one end of the ribboned tube. Let's make a new verb from the proper noun "Goop." She _Goops_ it onto the end of the tube.

We digress here to state that the Minute Maid cap is black, and the Costco milk cap is white, and they both happen to fit the threads to the Minute Maid bottle. This is important to note, or you may get confused shortly.


.


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## wicca27

ok post a pic of this goop you use. i need to get me some


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> ok post a pic of this goop you use. i need to get me some


How's yer foot, C?

Here's goop: You can get it at Lowes, etc.


.


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## wicca27

foot is almost totally fix. no boot, brace, or cane. only time i need a brace is if im off solid ground ie like for mowing or walking in the park. other than that good as can be. thanks for the pic i will have to look for that stuff


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## DKShrimporium

*The Heinzerator project 05*

So now, DK takes the Minute Maid juice bottle lid and fools with it. It is a nice thick lid with a supporting extra ring underneath. She uses this to her benefit.

She drills a hole just inside the supporting ring.

Then, she cuts a circle of silicone from the silicone funnel leftover scrap, to fit inside the lid snugly.

Next, she marks an "X" and cuts it.

Now, she has made a giant version of the Heinze bottle valve....


**************


wicca27 said:


> foot is almost totally fix. no boot, brace, or cane. only time i need a brace is if im off solid ground ie like for mowing or walking in the park. other than that good as can be. thanks for the pic i will have to look for that stuff


That's great to hear, C!



.


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## DKShrimporium

*The Heinzerator project, part 6*

Now, DK glues (_goops_, that is) the BLACK super-sized-valve lid onto the BOTTOM of the gizmo. And then screws the WHITE Costco milk jug lid onto the top where the Minute Maid threads reside. She should get residuals for product placements, like in the movies, she says.

So, hereitiz.

*********

In other news, DK was starting to think about other hobbies, as her Shrimporium has been DEAD BORING the past month, all automated and all. That is, until this week, when a few good dramas unfolded!

_First_, she kept staring at the broke-black tank and all its many, many juvies, wondering why those dudes are taking so long to grow. She opened up two more feeding stations in that tank and voila, she needed to double feeds in there - they were not getting enough to eat as there are now so many of them. She's having to re-adjust all her feed ratios now that most tanks are pulling into production.

_Second_, her Mermaid tank tried to crash on her. One of the injection solutions for her secret Mermaid cocktail seems to be time-sensitive and will precipitate out of solution after about a month. Normally, this is not an issue as she makes a bit each week and fills the vat. But recently, as y'all recall, she went on vacay for... oh... about a month... and made her an extra large batch of the stuff for the duration. She noticed the crystals in the vat and by the time she re-did the vat the Mermaids were a bit uhappy, a few VBD in there (VBD is DK's slang for voted by death, meaning they display their supreme unhappiness in a kamikazi mannner). Once she had the new juice in the system, the problems abated immediately and they are back to their immoral, partying ways in there, dancing up on the plateau and all.

_Third_.

Yes, things come in thirds, it seems. Well, let's just say DK had a BIG OL' GRIN on her face yesterday when she unequivocally demonstrated proof of concept in one of her experimental breeding tanks in her F2s. She won't say more until she gets them grown, hoping she doesn't manage to crash a tank before then! But she is super, super excited at what she made!

OK. Carry on.


.


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## wicca27

cant wait to see what you created.


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## DKShrimporium

*The Heinzerator project, part 7*

And so, here it is. What did DK do with it, and why? She stuffs it with peat pellets on the screw cap end, and as they age, she puts more in that end each week, extruding out the used stuff on the Heinzerator valve end as needed (into the trash, not into the tank, she extrudes, that is). To push the pH down in her Taiwan tank. Here's a shot of it in use in beta testing.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

It seems all the rage to flaunt one's pregnancy, showing off ones embryo(s), which is what DK caught this Mermaid doing, today.

Also some shots of her Popsicle Rili she is working on. The right ones have three color tones, which remind her of - what - um, popsicles. Food, always food, with her. Hmmmmmph!

Popsicle image credit: http://cookingstoned.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mango-Lassi-Popsicles-Main-790x591.jpg



.


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## infamouz23

Amazing thread. I really like the look of your popsicle rili, all patterns.


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## wicca27

love the rili they look cool. cant wait to see how well the peat holder works


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## DKShrimporium

Scenes around the place, today. Brought to you courtesy of the caffeine in a McD's iced coffee. Without it, these wouldn't have happened, trust me. DK stinks at taking pictures and pretty much hates to do so, 'cause it frustrates her.


.


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## wicca27

looks to me like your good at it. i cant wait till i can get shrimp again this move cost me the few i had left and was planning on keeping grrrrrr. i think they cooked on the way here cause it was so hot. but love your pics keep them comming


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## DKShrimporium

*The Heizerator project, conclusion*

It's been a several week period since DK made the Heinzerator; she began the beta testing BEFORE she went on the epic western tour.

Over the weekend, we finally had proof of concept. See what DK spied on the glass!


*******

And, a pic over the weekend of one of her Papaya crystals. 


.


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## wicca27

love the papaya crystal so cool. and congrats on the baby bkk. looks good. keep the pics comming they are awesome


----------



## DKShrimporium

Before we meander our way into the next project, here are some interesting shrimp oddities. DK's into "interesting." DK's into shrimp. DK's into "oddities." 

First up, a picture of a ninja shrimp, taken recently. What is interesting about said shrimp is that she's been in that tank for oh, um, about AT LEAST four years. She is the only ninja, and they do not breed in fresh water, so I know it's the same shrimp.

Second, yesterday DK was a-foolin' around with stuff. She is inducing breeding now in her Taiwan tank, which means molting. She has noticed previously that their molts can carry leftover pigment; she's had blue-tint molts and red-tint molts where most molts are basically colorless.

Normally when a shrimp molts, within minutes there are microscopic organisms that magically appear and start to eat off the slime coating on the interior of the molt. This can easily be seen under a microscope, which DK has in her shrimp lab. Normally, these buggers are clear.

But, in the case of a Taiwan molt, they will pick up the pigment in the slime coat and turn bright royal blue.

DK finally figured a way (******* tho-it-iz) to get pictures of what she sees in her scope. She DID buy a scope camera, but it's junk, and she hates it. These pics, she took by setting her normal camera on super macro and taking the pic down the eye piece. Crude, I know.

The camera doesn't read light or color quite right under these circumstances, but you can see the general idea, and the dark color of the microbes, although the blue doesn't show in the photo. These guys are poppin' around in there like lotto balls before a drawing.

Enjoy. Nerd on.


.


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## wicca27

thats some cool stuff. i believe you when you say the ninja is 4. i had a propinqua for almost 3 years. cool pics keep them comming i love seeing them


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## oblongshrimp

Those pictures of the molt are awesome!!


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## DKShrimporium

Found a red tiger molt yesterday, so here are Taiwan vs. Red Tiger molt shots, you can see the dark microbes in the Taiwan molt and that they are difficult to see in the Red Tiger molt because they are not stained dark blue from pigment. Under a live scope, the microbes are at approximately the same density between the two molts.


.


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## wicca27

that is to cool. yeah i really couldnt see them untill i looked good at the close up of the red tiger molt.


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## DKShrimporium

One more. 

Here's a rostrum shot of a molt. Next time I fish out a molt, there is something I just discovered about molting I will try to illustrate, pretty rad. I never realized it until I started staring at these pictures!

Click on the image to see it bigger, iff'n y'want.

Kinda reminds me of the next world's tallest building, in Dubai or Kuala Lumpur or some such place where tall buildings sprout up.


.


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## wicca27

that is too cool


----------



## DKShrimporium

Yep. DK's pretty much LAZY today. She was going to post some updates, but, alas, she's too lazy. So instead, here is some eye candy she shot this week, to tide y'all over.

Part of it is that Jr. Geek here is wanting to make her a website, so she has all this chatter in her mind going on, composing essays on how shrimp can count, read, and measure. Stuff like that. The other thing is she has to paint some windows over the weekend. Just the thought of that is sucking up all her energy.

She's not a very good photographer, so, well, you get whacha get. But DK enjoys staring at them, so she thought y'all might, too.

What she loves is that they are pictures of stuff she has done. She loves to grow things.


.


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## wicca27

keep posting tigers lol. im so tempted to stick with them once i find a place to buy. and maybe tb lol. nice pics keep it up and cant wait to see the new site when its made


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## Loachutus

Great shrimp pics! Enjoyed! 

WHAT!? Painting windows on Labor Day weekend? I think that's illegal. 

Diggin the molt pics! If time and opportunity present itself, could you do the same with black tiger and dark blue tiger?

How's the solar power handling the summer?

That's gonna be one boss website!


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> keep posting tigers lol. im so tempted to stick with them once i find a place to buy. and maybe tb lol. nice pics keep it up and cant wait to see the new site when its made



Just for you, C. (see below)




Loachutus said:


> Great shrimp pics! Enjoyed!
> 
> WHAT!? Painting windows on Labor Day weekend? I think that's illegal.
> 
> Diggin the molt pics! If time and opportunity present itself, could you do the same with black tiger and dark blue tiger?
> 
> How's the solar power handling the summer?
> 
> That's gonna be one boss website!



Well, so far, oil-based primed. Maybe painting tomorrow. I'll keep an eye out for molts in those tanks, but I often miss them because those buggers are on them the moment they are shed, and devour them in very short order unless I happen to see it happen.

Solar is rockin', although the Shrimpzone runs a startling amount of time to remove tank heat.

Yeah, well, we'll see how Jr. Geek does. It's going to be low-maintenance design as DK just can't see diverting focus to things like that, and Facebook, and Instagram, and such. She's busy GROWING SHRIMP.



.


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## DKShrimporium

And. I call this entry, "NextGen Papayas." Watercolor.


.


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## wicca27

that is so awesome the black and white pic. i soo want some of the papayas they rock


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## plamski

Papayas are much colorful than exiting red bolts .Multiply them fast. We are waiting for them. :icon_smil


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## DKShrimporium

*Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!*

This picture represents the parts that are left of a failed unit, this week, that resulted in a DISASTROUS EMERGENCY for DK. Two bits of silicone tubing and hose clamps.

As you may recall, she was to be painting windows over the holiday weekend, which she did. They were not re-installed, however, one night when one of those *RED* weather cells moved right over her house, thundering and lightning-ing and sending water into her plastic-covered screens where the windows were not installed. She got busy attending to that, and the next morning discovered that the GFCIs throughout the house had popped, and the power surge that did it apparently fried a very vital piece of equipment.

She had to drop everything this week and research buying a beefed up replacement unit, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and yet USPS shows NO DATA on tracking, yet!

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!


.


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## DKShrimporium

Sometimes, three-word groupings are _everything_.

_I love you.

Marry me, please._



NO... NOT THOSE THREE WORDS!!!

DK's talkin' about:

"_*Out for delivery*_"

"_*It has arrived*_"

and 

"_*Under beta testing*_"

I can tell you I think there's a gonna be very little sleep, tonight, in DK's world.


.


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## DKShrimporium

....Back.

I can tell you this: I learn ten times as much from failures as from successes. And I'm learning a lot lately, and it's all good.

It's amazing how fast life can spin when it gets going.

So, to back up, DK had a lightning surge blow out her....

coffee maker.

Yeah, that is an EMERGENCY. For someone who has a Bubba Mug surgically attached to her at all times, yes. See Exhibit A.

She got the new one in (see Exhibit B, below), beta tested all its different modes for a week, engaging in WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY too much coffee consumption. (A good deal of it was tar, actually). Culiminated with her whipping out her handy-dandy thermometer that she bought to do shipping heat pack studies, to learn that her new brewer is running water at 205F, a good temp. She pondered Bunns a long while, but opted for a more disposable appliance, as it just seems appliances are disposable nowadays. And also, she liked the ability to slow down the drip as needed, so she can match grind size to brew speed. Bunns blow the water through the grounds and you have no control of that speed in a Bunn. (Because she's a geek and has her own grinder, and she's cheap and doesn't like to waste beans under-extracting them.) But she digresses...

For those of you who were wondering, the Shrimporium is basically fine. The surge did cause some problems, though, that took about a week and a half to sort through, and a few - ahem - anomalies.

It took every bit of DK's understanding of the system to finally figure it out. Here is what happened:

For whatever reason, the power surge gave DK's master pressure switch on Wetwedding a seizure. It caused the switch to malfunction, either _reading_ pressures incorrectly, or _responding to_ pressures incorrectly. At any rate, the switch was turning on the RO system at too high a pressure, then shutting it down at too low a pressure, an error on both ends. At the same time, the surge, or maybe the malfunctioning pressure switch (which resulted in different pressures in the system than is normal), caused the solenoid valve to malfunction. This is the valve that is open at the beginning of each RO cycle to allow flushing of the membranes before the real work begins. It was not shutting properly when it was supposed to shut, after a clean cycle for the RO membranes, so water wasn't back-pressured from the flow restrictor and was blowing past the solenoid valve. This caused the RO system to run at much lower pressures, which means it made water at much less efficiency, leaking a lot more stuff into the water, which in DK's case turned out to be nitrates. Her tap is still running the color of strawberry syrup on nitrate tests. So the nitrates spiked in the tanks and she had a few anomalies, until she figured out the problem and re-set everything. Stuff is back to normal, now.

OK, so DK was running off a lot of the new caffeine, and during this time she discovered a little treasure and had to divert to some minor restoration, and then a chain reaction of moving stuff around to make the right real estate for her new throne. See Exhibit C.

This fired up a solid week of caffeine-toxicity-induced other research into such things as spandrels and brackets and corbels, for another future project.

Today, she is off and running, very mad at herself for bringing home a Craigslist find that, when home, began reeking of smoke, a no-no in DK's house. She is frantically researching chlorine dioxide at the moment...

Um. Yeah. You should see the upper plateau in the Mermaid tank. Getting crowded. She'd show ya, except the glass is slimy, and she's busy in chlorine dioxide mode until further notice...


.


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## wicca27

beautiful hall tree you have there dk.


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> beautiful hall tree you have there dk.


THRONE, C, it's a *THRONE*!!! DK has a RIPPIN' addiction to tiger oak. She hasn't indulged in decades, though.


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## plamski

The throne:
Long live the shrimps & DIY queen!!!:smile:

It is very good news that surge didn't produce more troubles.
Probably you should put all your control equipment on UPS battery backup. Now those backups are pretty affordable.


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## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> The throne:
> Long live the shrimps & DIY queen!!!:smile:
> 
> It is very good news that surge didn't produce more troubles.
> Probably you should put all your control equipment on UPS battery backup. Now those backups are pretty affordable.


Yeah, nerd-ville here has UPS units all over the house. I guess one more won't make any difference.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

While DK licks her wounds, with Kenny Rogers' song playing in her head, _"...You gotta know when to hold... know when to fold.... know when to walk away... know when to run..."_ and awaiting the chlorine dioxide to arrive, she was cheered by the following shipment which arrived, today. How many of YOU have *PURPLE* tubing? Yeah, I thought so.

It's just about the only color DK doesn't have. She has a new project she's about to embark upon. More on that later. It'll make a nice addition to her eclectic, steampunk, DIY crazy-whacky decor, in the Shrimporium.


.


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## Soothing Shrimp

Where did you find the different colored tubing?


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## wicca27

ooooo purple i need me some of that. new projects sound fun.


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## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> Where did you find the different colored tubing?





wicca27 said:


> ooooo purple i need me some of that. new projects sound fun.


Let's make it a challenge... see if you can find it. Google is your friend. Took me about a year.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS: 

Yeah, DK's a bit manic, at the moment.

DK is _ever_ amazed at how seemingly TOTALLY unrelated things eventually lead to her Shrimporium. It's like the Kevin Bacon thing.

For example, this week, she's been bashing her head against the wall in self-immolation for her UTTER STUPIDITY at buying a sofa off Craigslist (for a man-cave) from a sweet little old lady who smoked, but swore only outside. Now, ennyone who knows DK well knows that she has the sense of smell of a rock, and on top of that she was a-comin' down with the flu that day, and SHE couldn't smell anything... until she got that **** thing home and it started letting out its fumes.

She RUNS to her buddy Google, and screams for help. Starts to see if it's hopeful, or it there's some sort of magic bullet. OK, she was hoping.

Now, she DOES have a decent science background. And a Rug Doctor. Both are critical, for any hope, here.

She contemplates just flipping the stupid thing, and telling the next person they'd better have a smoking household. 

But then, she starts reading about this very interesting chemistry of *chlorine dioxide*.

Now, cigarette smoke is some 4000 different nasty things, floating aerosolized through nano-spaces to land upon, coat, and gum up all surfaces in all directions. (INCLUDING YOUR LUNGS, PEOPLE!!!) It is utter fallacy to think one can put a product in vicinity of a smoky-something, and think one will "absorb" the odor. The ONLY hope is something that reaches, _and breaks down_, all those chemicals as it TOUCHES them.

She reads google furiously, pondering chlorine dioxide, travelling to the far reaches of links to reverse-engineer a solution (she's cheap, you see, and hates to buy proprietary products, but the thing is, this chlorine dioxide has one leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetle thing about its perfectness... ok, so it's explosive under certain conditions. Important to know.) Still, she is not intimidated. She is mad. In both senses. Mad at herself, for buying this thing. Mad as a hatter, for contemplating DIY chlorine dioxide fumigation. She can't resist a challenge, though, and this is DEFINITELY a challenge. 

She's thinking a buncha fancy words. *Surfactant. Penetration. Extraction. Dessication. Concentration. Oxidation. Stoichiometry. Denaros.*

Enter chlorine dioxide fumigation. Yes, it shows promise, if done correctly.

OK, so, step one. The worst of smelly smoke is dealt with by OXIDATION (oxidation is the specialty of chlorine dioxide). She doesn't think it will work, but first she coats said sofa in oxy-clean. She figures if it does nothing, at least later when she extracts it it will help clean the DIRT from said sofa. But more importantly, the oxy-clean that she used is infused with SURFACTANT. 

Surfactant reduces water tension, and helps water coat things. Think of those beautiful pictures of spider webs with sparkling, diamond-like dew drops upon them. They do this because water has a high surface tension and tends to make beads, rather than tending to coat things such as -- oh -- fibers. 

So if ya wanna get the gummy nicotine residue off fibers, ya gotta use a surfactant to get your cleaning solution to coat the fibers and not just bead up on them.

So, the oxy-clean is on over night. Nyet. Next, DK douses the couch in vinegar, knowing that the residual surfactant from last night's oxy-clean endeavor is in place, ready to SPREAD that acid throughout, and COAT those fibers, thus allowing the vinegar to break down the gummy-goop. SURFACTANT enables PENETRATION.

So first, DK begins the battle of the gum. The gummy nicotine-y residue. She begins with a vinegar bath, yes, a near total immersion in 50% vinegar, using the sprayer and upholstery hose of Mr. Rug Doctor. 

The acid in vinegar is capable of breaking down many of the compounds in smoke, and especially in de-gumming the nicotine gum residue. This is necessary if you want extract as much of the foul pollutant as possible. 

So, vinegar sits several hours, doin' its thing. It hasn't removed the noxious odor but definitely has cut it down a lot.

Next, EXTRACTION.

DK takes the hottest water she can get, adds a touch of detergent, and goes after extracting the dirt, and loosened gummy-goop from said sofa. The results in the wastewater container are promising, as is the smell level.

So now, said sofa gets a sun bath until such time as we are ready for a surgical chlorine dioxide fumigation strike.

Oh, yeah. Nearly forgot why the heck I am writing all this.

So, in all her voluminous, obsessive writhing through cyberspace, in search of all things chlorine dioxide, DK runs across a VERY INTERESTING TIDBIT.

One of the uses being considered commercially is to treat the aquarium water of rare commercial species during transport. So, for example, say the Baltimore Aquarium has some hoo-haw specimen comin' in, and they want it to get there in good shape. They treat the transport water with a low level of chlorine dioxide, and it's basically non-toxic to fish but toxic to bacteria, so fish gets a disinfectant bath while travelling...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

Welcome, to DK's wild chlorine dioxide adventure. More to come. 


.


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## wicca27

that is an interesting tid bit of info for shipping fish. ill be a shipping guinea pig hehehe. hope the sofa smells good soon. im not a smoker and its killing me living with my mom again till we find a place cause both her and hubby smoke ewwwww.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, yesterday we worked on DESSICATION, a-gettin' that sofa good and dry for today's fumigation.

You may recognize the PVC drywall corners DK cut up here for spacers; they are on their about fourth iteration of use. She hated to cut them up, but they are cheap, non-reactive, and were the perfect thing. They enable both DESSICATION and then later PENETRATION when fumigating.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Some fun and interesting trivia about Chlorine Dioxide.


Chlorine dioxide is a funky coo-el neon yellow-greeny gas that dissolves well in water but is also very volatile so tends to come out of water easily into the air.
If the concentration of chlorine dioxide becomes too high, it is explosive. Neat-o. At about 10% volume and above in air, she blows.
Chlorine dioxide fumigation is what was used to fumigate Congress after the Anthrax contamination.
Chlorine dioxide fumigation can be used to nuke bedbug infestations.
Chlorine dioxide treatment of food and water is used widely commercially to control bacterial contamination.
Chlorine dioxide is used in wound care, as a topical antiseptic.
Some people even drink chlorine dioxide, thinking it will cleanse them and cure things. 
Oh, yeah. Chlorine dioxide is used by survivalists as a water purification system.

.


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## wicca27

that is some nifty info for sure. im sure your brain is swirling with ideas for it. cant wait to see what comes of this new chemical lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, today, _whilst the fumigation is in progress_ (no, DK did not blow up anything last night, but she was successful in making that coo-el neon yellow-greeny gas), and DK's twitchiness needs to be assuaged while she eagerly awaits the results, we'll ponder these pictures, and these concepts. 

Naturally, she uses a food example. Who knew one could liken the nasty tar and nicotine coating of stinky cigarette smoke to gourmet pretzels? 

Who knew. 


OPTIMIZATION

EXTRACTION

CONCENTRATION

OXIDATION

DENAROS

What's the pretzel thing about? Well, _if you're going to do a thing, do it well._ Make it work. Optimize it.

The goal here is to detoxify and de-stink a cigarette smoke infused sofa. We have a hopeful technology to chemically eat the smoke components: chlorine dioxide fumigation.

However, we want to use the LEAST amount of it and get the BEST results. That part is the DENAROS part. More costs more.

So to OPTIMIZE our approach, we first engage in EXTRACTION of the bulk of the crap. Just plain get rid of it. AND THEN, oxidize what's left.

We want to fumigate the salted-only pretzels (acid bath de-gummed fibers), not the candy-coated ones (tar/nicotine gum coated fibers). We'll get closer to plain pretzels, that way. It would take a whole lot more oxidation to oxidize our way through that layered, bulky candy coating than to just oxidize the salt away, in our analogy. That would mean a lot more chlorine dioxide gas and exposure time. And then, you would still have an oxidized coating left on the fibers. We don't a-wanna be sitting on all that crap. We want clean, we want RID of the toxins.

So, we first broke down the gummy coating with an acid bath and hot water/detergent EXTRACTION, using our handy-dandy Mr. Rug Doctor, wearing his upholstery hose accessory. This got us from the candy coating (fibers coated in tar/nicotine residue) to the salted-only pretzel (leftover particles). 

Next, we used an adequate, but not too-high CONCENTRATION of chlorine dioxide in our fumigation tent. This is critically important because too-high of concentrations are explosive in air. Another reason to minimize the amount of chlorine dioxide one uses.

Next, we do the fumigation, optimizing the OXIDATION reaction parameters. Temperature in the 60-75 F range, circulated air to push those tiny oxidizing molecules into all the spaces, gas-tight tent, no UV light exposure (UV light breaks down chlorine dioxide on contact, a useful property we will use post-fumigation).

And then, we wait, 24 hours of exposure, then 24 hours of quality out-gassing post-fumigation. :bounce:


(Picture credits: http://www.ftd.com/golden-edibles-belgian-chocolate-covered-pretzel-rods-12-piece-prd/ge66 and https://www.weavernut.com/product/product.php?prodid=231)


.


----------



## wicca27

i want some of those lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

Wanna get smarter today? Read this (not just the premise in the first paragraph), and go off and ponder.

Meanwhile, DK's planning her mad science. How to set up the chlorine dioxide experiments, all the things she plans to try. Really, really fun. Like learning, while playing.


----------



## wicca27

DKShrimporium said:


> Let's make it a challenge... see if you can find it. Google is your friend. Took me about a year.


hey DK so i thought i would try and take the challenge and figured google was my friend hehe. is your purple hose any of these (took me a couple min)

http://www.hiperformancestore.com/hosebyfoot.htm


as for your last link i have to agree children dont get enough play and i have a lot of other ideas that most have called me sexist for even though im a woman. so much has changed and to be honest i feel like if things went back to the way it was in the 50's we might not have some of the problems we do now.


----------



## plamski

DKShrimporium said:


> Wanna get smarter today? Read this (not just the premise in the first paragraph), and go off and ponder.
> 
> Meanwhile, DK's planning her mad science. How to set up the chlorine dioxide experiments, all the things she plans to try. Really, really fun. Like learning, while playing.


I'm coming from Europe. Situation there is identical. Our generation 1970-75 was one of the last one playing outside till 10-11pm every night with friends and animals. No allergies, no diabetes, no overweight, no stress.....no loneliness.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> hey DK so i thought i would try and take the challenge and figured google was my friend hehe. is your purple hose any of these (took me a couple min)
> 
> http://www.hiperformancestore.com/hosebyfoot.htm
> 
> 
> as for your last link i have to agree children dont get enough play and i have a lot of other ideas that most have called me sexist for even though im a woman. so much has changed and to be honest i feel like if things went back to the way it was in the 50's we might not have some of the problems we do now.


Hey C, not ignoring you; I've been sick.

That is not my tubing, although you DID FIND purple tubing!! Mine is not vacuum tubing.

************



plamski said:


> I'm coming from Europe. Situation there is identical. Our generation 1970-75 was one of the last one playing outside till 10-11pm every night with friends and animals. No allergies, no diabetes, no overweight, no stress.....no loneliness.


The thing we don't seem to GET anymore is that for creativity and innovation to thrive, we need white space. When we fill every space, time, and thought up, there is no white space. 

Boredom is a useful state, 
as is frustration.​For those of you wondering, yes the chlorine dioxide did knock back the smoke a waaaaaaay lot (like my grammar??). I'm going to do a second treatment, when I get able to. 

I've been busy behind the scenes doing other stuff, like researching Ascophyllum nodosum and hexametaphosphate, and doing some reverse engineering of products, for the Germans. They have something in common...

D.


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## wicca27

hope your feeling better in finally just about over this stupid cough thing. i cant wait to hear about the new goings on when you get a few to share


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## wicca27

ok ive found a few more lol. with not knowing exactly what your specifications are here is what i have been finding lol.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/407634595/purple_dipped_natural_latex_tubing.html
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/857827353/purple_silicone_tubings_red_silicone_hoses.html
SharkBite U870P300 3/4-Inch 300-Feet Coil Reclaimed Water PEX Tubing - Amazon.com


----------



## Da Plant Man

Hey there! I love this thread. 

Any chance we can get some FTS's of your shrimp tanks? How about a view of that shrimp room??


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> ok ive found a few more lol. with not knowing exactly what your specifications are here is what i have been finding lol.
> 
> http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/407634595/purple_dipped_natural_latex_tubing.html
> http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/857827353/purple_silicone_tubings_red_silicone_hoses.html
> SharkBite U870P300 3/4-Inch 300-Feet Coil Reclaimed Water PEX Tubing - Amazon.com


My tubing moves water. It's not silicone. 

And alibaba really doesn't count in our challenge, because it has to be a place where an _individual_ could actually _buy a small amount of the product_. 

I have seen reference to purple PEX tubing for greywater color coding; I had forgotten that. But that tubing is 3/4 inch PEX, and mine is smaller. One could nearly plumb a main in a small house with 3/4 inch size!



Da Plant Man said:


> Hey there! I love this thread.
> 
> Any chance we can get some FTS's of your shrimp tanks? How about a view of that shrimp room??


Why, thank you.

I'll see what I can do in the next days. I have a few other projects that are priority, first, but I'll get to it eventually. I used to have pics earlier in this thread, but I keep running out of storage space so have to delete the earlier pics to make room for the present ones. Yes, I know, I could get a host, but DK's basically too lazy.

She also practicing GETTING RID of stuff. This is hard for a hoarder-type. So she is using her need to delete earlier pics as a sort of treatment. She definitely needs treatment - lots and lots of treatment. Really, they could do a special edition SERIES of reality TV on hoarders, just featuring DK. 

Yeah, that's it.

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

As we type, the fumigation number two is going on. The first one, she used a commercial product, because she needed one example to finish reverse engineering the technology. Using that, she did a few beta tests to make sure she's a-not gonna blow up the place, and so now she's doing her second round of chlorine dioxide fumigation using her own setup, and double the dose as last time. (Ya can't go _too_ high on the dose or you'll blow up the place, you see, but the commercially sold products are under powered as most products are, so you are forced to buy twice or more of the product to get the originally promised results. Ya know how that goes.)

As all y'all know, ennytyme she does a project, plumbing parts are the first thing she tends to think of. Usually, it's PVC parts. But this time, it was leftover PEX tubing. 

Take a look, how she used it.


.


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## wicca27

do you have the blow up gas running in the tubes? 
as for the purple tubing i was just bored so i thought i would see what i could come up with really fast lol. who knows what else is out there i have not found yet hehehehe


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> *do you have the blow up gas running in the tubes*?
> as for the purple tubing i was just bored so i thought i would see what i could come up with really fast lol. who knows what else is out there i have not found yet hehehehe


That would truly be mad, crazy "science," to do that. No. 

The potentially explosive (chlorine dioxide) gas is being very well controlled at LOW concentration in air so as not to reach the explosive concentration range. And... DK's not so interested in pumping this through her house. It's a bit tricky as you can't do it outside as the chlorine dioxide is inactivated by UV light (sunshine), so she's doing it in a semi-closed garage with ventilation. Although, the fumigation chamber itself is basically sealed.

It was wild, crazy fun to do the reactions yesterday, and watch innocuous looking clear solution start to react and produce this absolutely sinister mustardy-ochre-yellow-neon-y-green stuff in solution, then watch the color fade throughout the day back to clear as the volatile gas came out of solution into the air in the fumigation chamber.

*******



Da Plant Man said:


> Hey there! I love this thread.
> 
> Any chance we can get some FTS's of your shrimp tanks? How about a view of that shrimp room??


DK decided it's gonna be a while until the tanks are photo-ready as she has a major plumbing project underway and they are all slimy glass right now. So here are older shots to tide y'all over. They would look pretty much exactly the same today, if the glass were clean, though. There's really not that much to see. Buncha tanks on racks, each full of moss. The shrimp generally hang out under the moss for the most part.

You can see in the two shots how DK's Water Factory has evolved, between shots!! And also one of her original plastic drawer tanks from the dollar store - all these tanks have now been retired. Not sure why I had the post-it notes on all the tanks the day I took those pictures. Can't remember.


.


----------



## Merth

Rofl I have got to stop reading this thread! Couple days ago I rounded up two bags full of **** I collected from leftover parts at work. I have absolutely no idea what I will do with any of it other than take up space. I kept thinking what can I make out of this.


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## DKShrimporium

Merth said:


> Rofl I have got to stop reading this thread! Couple days ago I rounded up two bags full of **** I collected from leftover parts at work. I have absolutely no idea what I will do with any of it other than take up space. I kept thinking what can I make out of this.


Hmmmmmmmmm.

You have the makings of a Shrimptern...


----------



## wicca27

dk what shelves are those? can you post a link for them or tell where you got them. i want to get a couple new shelves when we buy a house and want to get something that will stand up to the water volume and not bow like the make shift one i had did.


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> dk what shelves are those? can you post a link for them or tell where you got them. i want to get a couple new shelves when we buy a house and want to get something that will stand up to the water volume and not bow like the make shift one i had did.


http://www.globalindustrial.com/g/storage/shelving/boltless/boltless-steel-shelving-wire-deck-6 WELDED WIRE DECKS ONLY, for me!

I wouldn't use anything else, at this point. These are industrial strength, easy to assemble/disassemble, you can get every extra part imaginable (extra support deck pieces to use as protective rails, etc. I use them as protective rails against German damage on my lower tanks. On my upper tanks, I use them as extra places to hang things and store things.)

If you look at the last picture in my post above, you will see I've used an extra deck piece on the bottom level, securing the 75 gallon tank from marauding dogs and stray ladder legs. It's a sort of safety bar right across the front of the tank, at that level.

Costco has some pretty decent heavy duty shelves, but the decks are no good in my opinion, and you can't get any other parts for them. So while they are cheaper for about similar strength, you lose in the long run with flexibility if you decide you want a different configuration. I'm really big on flexible and reversible configurations, as you know!


----------



## Da Plant Man

Very nice! You're making me drool over your shrimptastic room! I'm planning my 210g for shrimp only... But thats nothing compared to your room.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, just because DK is a geek, and NEEDS to post this. Here are shots of the chlorine dioxide reaction as it gets going. The last one was taken at under a minute, probably about 30 seconds. 

Today was the unveiling of the second-time fumigated smoked-sofa. Wow, that stuff works.

DK made a few alterations, the second time around. First, she tripled the dose and doubled the fumigation time. Second, she increased the relative humidity in the fumigation chamber to > 70%. She had read an article where this technology was used to fumigate the New Bolton Veterinary Center against a pathogen, and the discussion in the article said they needed high relative humidity for the reaction to be most efficient. Aha.

Anyway, right now the smoked-sofa is airing out from the fumigation. You can cram your face deep into that puffy upholstery and not smell ANY smoke. This is the same sofa that, three weeks ago, STUNK up a space the size of 24x36 floor, 10 foot high ceilings, even with ventilation.

Science is so coo-el.


.


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## wicca27

that is tooooo cool


----------



## DKShrimporium

*"Out For Delivery"*

"Out for delivery"


Good stuff, coming in today, for a rather significant Shrimporium project. Kicking the ante up a bit. She did a little shoppin' at a hydroponics place, ordered her up a few things. Guess it's off to Lowes, in the near future, for a few more parts to complete what she's a-gonna need.


----------



## DKShrimporium

May I introduce you to... the Shrimporium's new Jet Engine. 

Whoa, she's bigger than I was expecting. Too big for the space, actually, so DK's gonna have to do some creative mounting. A quick foray into the plenum, and she's determined that it most likely can be done, though.

This is gonna be fun.

_Repeat our Shrimporium mantra after me: "I hope this works... I hope this works... I hope this works..."_


Let the fun begin. Well, stay tuned. Gotta get to Lowes, still. And some a-diggin' through her bins & barrels of parts & pieces. Lookin' fer some rubber.


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

What the heck are ya going to do with a jet engine?


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## wicca27

she is going to power all the sponges with that lol. super blower hehehehehe its going to blow big time lol


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

LOL Fan across the tank to lower temperature.


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## DKShrimporium

The operative words (DK thinks, that is) are _laminar flow_. Yeah, look 'em up.

Fer now, she has to do the project, and see if it works.

She'll be blasting Queen of the Wave while working, and mebbe she's makin' her a surfing shark, jet powered. Never know.

.


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## Loachutus

Might this be a better album cover to go along with the laminar flow?










Unless you really are making a jet powered surfing shark.


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## pKaz

We use similar fans like that "jet engine" at work, you are ducting something.......?


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## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> Might this be a better album cover to go along with the laminar flow?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you really are making a jet powered surfing shark.


Why, THERE IT IS!!! - see below.



pKaz said:


> We use similar fans like that "jet engine" at work, you are ducting something.......?


Well, yes. We are marrying a merry-go-round air circuit in DK's basement to dilute the Shrimporium heat out into the general air volume, and at the same time disperse humidity and low level chlorine dioxide as part of her vapor control program.

DK is still bushed from the marathon install over the weekend and is, well, too lazy to do the posts properly at the moment, so for now here she is in short form. The mounting was the favorite part of the project; DK did a floating closed-cell foam mount that is pop-and-go for maintenance.


.


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## Da Plant Man

Well, now I know who your biggest fan is... 

I just wasn't expecting it to be meant literally....


----------



## Rony11

DK I enjoy reading yr thread.


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## DKShrimporium

Rony11 said:


> DK I enjoy reading yr thread.


Why, thank you. There is so much madness in DK's brain that she has to let it out, to vent.



Da Plant Man said:


> Well, now I know who your biggest fan is...
> 
> I just wasn't expecting it to be meant literally....


Oh, no. THIS (below) is DK's biggest fan. All however-many horsepower of it. This thing will slam doors shut three stories below. Fortunately, no German Shepherd tails have been lost and we now know to prop every door open that is open while this monster is running.

It's actually where DK learned the floating closed-cell foam mounting thing. (Yes she and Other Geek mounted this monster, DIY.) We did not want to turn our house into a giant reverberating guitar.

Bit of an interesting back story on this monster. We DID pay for it, but ended up getting it for free. TWICE, yes, TWO TIMES they delivered this monster in nothing but a cardboard box, and not even a heavy duty cardboard at that. I mean, NO crate, No extra cardboard angles, even. Can you imagine?? The factory sends them out packed thusly?? This thing weighs a lot, the frame is plate steel for stability.

Of course, it was busted through the box both times. DK sent pictures to the vendor after the first delivery, and they ordered a replacement. The second, same thing. DK sent pictures again, and vendor was so terrified for us to try to use one if they had been knocked off blade balance they told us to throw both away and refunded us our money. Including the monster louver. Naturally, DK just went to work balancing the blades and the rest is history. It's attached every which way -- to a timer, to a thermostat, to a power controller -- so it's a lot of fun, homemade wind.


.


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## DKShrimporium

While DK's fans have been breaking some serious wind lately, DK has been very diverted in a number of other projects.

For one, this morning (what a bonehead!!!) she discovered charity shopping on yeebey (if I spell it correctly it gets flushed) while buying parts for, uh, a project.

Did you know that there are charity sellers on yeebey that people donate goods to, and when they are sold by the charity on yeebey the funds then go to the charity? It's called yeebey Giving Works. Fer all the stuff DK buys off yeebey, you'da thot she'd know this by now!!!

So this morning, DK bought some goods for a project from a Habitat for Humanity seller. More on that later.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. DK's been messing with her own, and her shrimps' habitat.

*********

OK, so here are the first shots of the ends of the system, DK's Shrimporium Jet Engine circulation circuit.


.


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## wicca27

when i get a house i need you to come help me fix it dk lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

So, when DK's quiet, it usually means she's up to something. This past weekend, she sold her Broke Students Crystals 65 gallon tank to a hobbyist. She's doing some executive re-planning of her shrimporium, in the background of her mind. 

In the process, she managed to BLOW OUT her shoulder with, she thinks, bursitis. It has involved consumption of copious amounts of motrin and one night even a few desperate shots of Jack Daniels (yep, did the trick - however this only works well when one is a teetotaler otherwise, or the potency is lost).

Now, she is in the thick of trying one of her most challenging projects, not shrimp related, yet. Too hard to do any shrimporium projects, one-armed. Impossible, really. It's a challenge because she's sorta trying to re-arrange reality, stylistically. Trying to fake arts & crafts/mission/art nouveau from contemporary, and blend it harmoniously. Not an easy task.

She's been searching the world for cheap and suitable parts. If she was made of money, she would just dump a few truckloads here - *GORGEOUS!!!* Here are some of her make it look like more money than it really was parts so far:


.


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## wicca27

are you redoing a bathroom? i hear you on the bursitis probs. ive got osteoarthritis in both shoulders already and it flares some times. and then my keens have issues on their own. feel better chick. have you tried aleve. i found it helped more the motrin


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## pKaz

I always liked that 65 gallon, Did you include all of the crystals too? I'm sure you already have a grand plan for that space. I have found that Lowe's or Amazon is good for cheap tile, but the cheap tile isn't as fancy as the attachments you included. Rest up, injuries are never fun.


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> are you redoing a bathroom? i hear you on the bursitis probs. ive got osteoarthritis in both shoulders already and it flares some times. and then my keens have issues on their own. feel better chick. have you tried aleve. i found it helped more the motrin


Keeshin. Doin' a leetle keeshin project. I'll post as I get it going. Waiting for parts to arrive, to do the layout.

I do have a bathroom re-do project, though. We had some bathroom drama last week, just before the shoulder went out. Mebbe that's part of what happened to my shoulder, actually.

DK loves old stuff - good thing, 'cause she herself feels like she's gettin' old. So when we built this house, we collected parts a few years ahead of time. DK found this really great antique dresser mirror in the upstairs of an antique barn and snagged it for $25. It's been the powder room mirror, over a retro pedestal sink.

Well, you know how one thing leads to another. Recently, she got the throne. She did some finish re-conditioning on the throne, which started off a whole slew of "let's go through the house and recondition any antique that needs it" activity.

The powder room mirror got re-conditioned. 

OK.

So, we go to re-hang it. The thing is 1/4 inch plate glass, beveled, in a 2 inch + oak frame - OK, so it's HEAVY for it size. They don't make stuff like they used to... It has been hanging from a cable, all these years.

We re-hang it, DK notices a strand has sprung from the cable. She thinks in the back of her mind, "hm, mebbe I should replace the cable..." but then, being lazy, thinks, "hm, nope, most of the cable looks ok."

Well, she's standing there looking at that mirror, JUST after we re-hung it, and - YEP, YOU GUESSED IT - that darned cable snaps. Down crashes the mirror, hitting a GLASS shelf below it, then the porcelain toothbrush dish off to the side that is wall-mounted. Then, it lands on the faucet, bending the faucet, and then it bounces off the pedestal sink basin, breaking the porcelain of the pedestal base. 

DK just manages to catch the mirror, before it bounces off the basin and lands on the floor, shattering. So, we avoid the shattering. The mirror is saved.

The mirror has ripped the wall anchors clear out of the wall for the glass shelf and toothbrush holder. The sink pedestal is busted and faucet spout bent.

NOW, her shoulder completely blows out. 

So, the mirror is sitting on the floor, still, because she cannot even screw in the new heavy duty picture hanger hardware, one-armed.

So, all she can do is shop yeebey for tile parts, using one hand on the keyboard. The powder room has to wait.



pKaz said:


> I always liked that 65 gallon, Did you include all of the crystals too? I'm sure you already have a grand plan for that space. I have found that Lowe's or Amazon is good for cheap tile, but the cheap tile isn't as fancy as the attachments you included. Rest up, injuries are never fun.


No, DK had turned off breeding in that tank months ago, getting ready to move them. They are currently - STILL - in a 5 gallon bucket. She just doesn't feel like doing anything down there with one arm, and the other hurtin' like ****.

How're the yellows doing?


****

NOTE: The German Shepherd nose smears on the mirror. Sheesh!

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Oops, it double posted.


----------



## wicca27

wow that is one heave mirror. beautiful though. guess i was kinda right about the bathroom lol


----------



## TankYouVeryMuch

I dont know whats going on here.. but I like it. lol. ive seen some random things thrown about haha.

I will have to jump around some more before further commenting, but at least now I will be able to find myself in here...


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's now got about 25 degrees range of movement in her shoulder. Not enough to do anything useful. So, she's studying. That takes only fingers, and eyes, not so much arms.

She's studious.

Here's what she's studying.

While she plans a beeeg new project. For when her arm works, and after she finishes cleaning up the Shrimporium from shedding the BSC 65 lid levitation tank. 

She's thinkin' about eatin' off the floor.

Does she have the gnarlies to take a circular saw to her kitchen bar? Hm.


----------



## DKShrimporium

One wouldn't think a blown out shoulder would also take out the brain, but it seems it does.

DK's hot on the trail of her project, went to Lowes for parts, and for some reason when she needed 12, she bought 10. Got home, short. Durn.

Too lazy to go back to Lowes and get two more, for 44 cents. So, being classy like she is, she made her own fix.

See.

But not to worry, it's hidden behind the sorta new coffee maker.

She never watches TV, but imagine how much MORE classy she could make things, if she watched some of those reality shows like Honey Boo Boo. Or the swamp or hunting guys. Or maybe the survivalists, she has seen one of those shows, in between the commercials. 

Nice. It really matches the busted pedestal sink well, don't you think?

And to show you what a really classy upgrade it is, the last picture is the before pic. Yeah. Nice.


.


----------



## pKaz

DKShrimporium said:


> How're the yellows doing?
> 
> 
> .


Well, I must deliver bad news about the yellows. I tired to keep the colony going but I don't have a fancy water-change system like yourself. And maybe I could have done a few more water changes but the colony slowly petered out. The last Shrimp, a female, who was one of the first babies to survive perished around mid Sept. The tank sat empty for a while till I tried to put some fish in there, a few weeks ago. I lost a few Cardinals and a Betta pretty quick. I thought the tank was toxic. So I ran the tests, and everything was fine, even low nitrates! The good news is that the Bolbitis you gave me is doing very well, and is taking over. You are the only person I know who can keep shrimp alive in a bucket.


----------



## Forumsnow

pKaz said:


> Well, I must deliver bad news about the yellows. I tired to keep the colony going but I don't have a fancy water-change system like yourself. And maybe I could have done a few more water changes but the colony slowly petered out. The last Shrimp, a female, who was one of the first babies to survive perished around mid Sept. The tank sat empty for a while till I tried to put some fish in there, a few weeks ago. I lost a few Cardinals and a Betta pretty quick. I thought the tank was toxic. So I ran the tests, and everything was fine, even low nitrates! The good news is that the Bolbitis you gave me is doing very well, and is taking over. You are the only person I know who can keep shrimp alive in a bucket.


I kept 7(2 berried) royal blue tigers and about 60-70 oebt alive in a 5 gallon bucket for 2 weeks. Then flew them across the country and put them all into a totally uncycled 10 gallon. Didnt lose a one and have probably 40 royal blue babies.


----------



## DKShrimporium

It's seems off topic, but, really DK's shrimp work is having a lot of influence on this project. More on that later. For now, DK ran across this picture, on yeebey. 

Now, if you were the vendor selling them thar's tiles in the backsplash (note: the vendor sells the rooster mural SEPARATE from all those vintage coffee tiles), would you use _this_ customer photo as promotional? Aside from the fact that it's blurry, and has other technical issues such as a strange light source imparting pinkish light onto the frame (DK's guessing there's a skylight above with a craigslist stained glass window mounted in it, imparting the pinkish light, whaddya think??), I mean, just LOOK at what's in this picture!

Just sayin'.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Shrimp help DK remodel her kitchen. 

DK's wondering whether she should post the kitchen remodel here, as an example of what shrimp keeping has taught her over the years. There's a whole long essay in the stewing, about how keeping shrimp has re-trained DK's thinking, illustrated beautifully by the upcoming project, and planning thereof.

D'y'all want the re-model posts, or shall she just go off and re-do her kitchen, and leave this thread for "shrimp only" projects (she puts it in quotes, because DK believes all projects end up relating to each other, in the end, so there is no such thing in her mind as an unrelated topic).

At any rate, it's gonna be a really fun project, over a decade in the making.

If'n ya wanna see the project, then she'll post the "before" pictures next, with a list of the problems she's a-tryin' to fix, on the cheap and using DIY.

Place yer vote.


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## wicca27

cant wait to see the kitchen now


----------



## plamski

Little bit more knowledge won’t hurt.:icon_idea:icon_smil


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, DK took a look at a few "before" shots, and sorta had a panic attack. So, she was a-gonna clean up her kitchen and RE-SHOOT them, but - _hey, what's that over there?_

Yeah, she got sidetracked into de-bulking one cabinet in particular (a major sub-project within this overall project, it is), and then _more_ sidetracked painting some transom windows, to see the paint color. 

So then she thought long and hard whether she wanted to subject you to her messy photos that were not planned for public consumption. 

But, heck, she's trying to problem solve and plan and construct about twenty things in her mind right now, and cleaning up a space JUST for a pretty photo is just not floating to the top of the priority list. Especially since she started pinging contractors and ordering custom parts, already. She's ready to roll on her project. (Don't get too excited about the contractors and custom parts bit, this project is NOT going to conclude with a magazine-grade kitchen; this is more of a salvage project than dream kitchen project. However, DK is grinding ALL the gears in her brain to make the most of what she has to work with, including a pretty modest budget.)

Now, we have to take some philosophy into account here to understand this project in context.

DK and Other Geek built (as in _with their own two hands_) this house as young adults, in their 20s. We did have a general contractor, but anything we possibly could do ourselves, we did. Which brought our house cost down by nearly half of what it would have been. We both quit our jobs, moved in with Other Geek's parents, and commuted nearly an hour, dragging a 16 foot flatbed trailer full of tools and supplies, out to our land, to work on our house, full time, until it was done, every day. Here, I must again remember with amazing gratitude Other Geek's amazing mom, who had a full hot dinner awaiting us every night, when we stumbled back to their house dog tired, dirty, full bladdered, and starving.  For the months and months we did this. I will add here that DK believes in balance in relationships, so the payback here was that directly after we moved into our brand new house, THEY moved in with US, and began construction on THEIR new home, although they didn't build it themselves, but rather needed a place to live until it was built as they had to sell their former home to pay for the construction of the new one. We were very happy to do it, and today we all live in our respective houses, happy with our projects.

Well, mostly happy. When you are in your 20s you don't know much. DK pored over books on home design, kitchen design, space allocation, architectural styles, all that sort of stuff. Unfortunately, she fixated on ONE design concept in kitchen design, which is to try to build a tight work triangle, the three sides of which are hot cooking (oven/range), cold storage (refrigerator), and sink/dishes station. She was SO fixated on this concept that, well, she planned her kitchen all wrong. If she had it to do over, she would make an ENTIRELY different kitchen design.

However, she is grateful to have what she has. She has a philosophy of trying to buy things only once. To make things last. To work with what she has. To learn to be content.

The original kitchen she designed had a fatal flaw. There was ONE decent chunk of counter space in a useful position, next to the sink. (The other side of the sink was allocated for dish drying real estate.) This ONE chunk of counter space was doubling for food prep and for dirty dish dump. Because DK is sorta a slob, the dirty dish dump was always in the way of clear real estate for food prep. It made DK nuts. So, she re-arranged her kitchen, to open up a large chunk of counter space for food prep, and to have TWO SEPARATE counter chunks, one for food prep, one for dish dump, as the two functions really should be separated within kitchen real estate. Live and learn.

So, this is gettin' way too long of a post, only for the true readers out there, and philosophers.

This picture is the ORIGINAL kitchen, just before DK went out somewhere with her sister in law for the day - they were visiting from out of state, only to return to those two guys having ripped out cabinets while she was out. That was quite a day. One of them is her brother, the other is Other Geek. They thought they were so clever, dismantling DK's kitchen WITHOUT TELLING HER that day. What a surprise, when she and her sister in law returned. This is the only picture of the original kitchen she has been able to find, so far, for you.

Note the chunk of wall behind them. It holds the fridge, a dish cabinet set down on the counter level (rendering the counter useless due to door swing and lack of counter depth), higher cabinets, and off to the right you see another chunk of wall with the cooktop and hood.

Note that the cooktop is black, and the hood white. Note that the (pocket) door behind them is to a walk in pantry. The cabinet doors are open in this photo, probably because the guys were trying to see the attachment points to the wall, before they removed said cabinets. Behind the fridge, the wall is hollow, due to a (different, not pantry) pocket door recess, so cabinet attachment to the walls was slightly different, due to this, and needed to be studied. The counter depth that Smiley one is leaning back upon is the standard 25 inches.

OK. Digest this and soon we will show a blueprint and the problems thereof, in the original kitchen.

That DK is trying to salvage. She can't fix wrong executive decisions such as space, at this time, without a major remodel, which she's not going to do, because she just doesn't want to. So she's working with what she has, tuning it the best she can. She wants to own her stuff, not have her stuff own her. And if she did a correct and total kitchen re-model, the anal perfectionist in her would not allow her to do anything less than correct, which would put her in the 50 thou plus range, and she's just not going to be owned in that way. She'd rather be free.

_The main lesson here is: When you make the wrong Executive Decisions up front, you will pay for them all the way down the line, and often cannot correct all the way back to ideal, you will lose something. This lesson has impacted how DK grows shrimp. When she got into shrimp seriously, she looked at the landscape from a global perspective and decided she was going to GROW SHRIMP. So the priority, the focus, was SOLELY to GROW SHRIMP. Thus, she abandoned the pretense of keeping planted tanks per se, and she made the executive decision not to mix livestock, such as shrimp and fish. In this case, her kitchen taught her how to take a global perspective on growing shrimp, and first of all make the correct Executive Decisions, up front. Later in this series, we will see how growing shrimp has affected her project planning in the kitchen salvage project.

She's coming up on ten years of growing shrimp. She cannot tell you in those years how many folks have come to her, decided to "do what she does" and make a buncha shrimp tanks, breed oodles of shrimp, sell them and make a fortune (she tries not to snort as they explain their lofty goals, and would she tell them everything she knows?) then in about exactly two years or less, they disappear from the shrimp scene, altogether. Why? Because they made the wrong executive decisions concerning their shrimp keeping, up front. Their basic model was wrong._


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## pKaz

Forumsnow said:


> I kept 7(2 berried) royal blue tigers and about 60-70 oebt alive in a 5 gallon bucket for 2 weeks. Then flew them across the country and put them all into a totally uncycled 10 gallon. Didnt lose a one and have probably 40 royal blue babies.


That's what I'm talking about, good job! As DK says my basic model was wrong, I sort of knew that but believed it could make it work. I could get shrimp to berry up and I would see micro babies for a day or so after the females dropped, but then nothing. Babies vanished. 



DKShrimporium said:


> D'y'all want the re-model posts, or shall she just go off and re-do her kitchen, and leave this thread for "shrimp only" projects (she puts it in quotes, because DK believes all projects end up relating to each other, in the end, so there is no such thing in her mind as an unrelated topic).
> 
> Place yer vote.


Of course we always want to hear about your projects, because they are interesting!


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## DKShrimporium

Today, a big, a HUGE lesson shrimp have taught me well.

I call it:

ORDER OF OPERATIONS

When planning a project, the FIRST thing to do is clarify UNIVERSAL or GLOBAL level goals. DK has this really bad habit of falling in love with an idea, running to implement it, and then later having this oddball-out-of-context leftover sidelined thing, because even though the idea was boss, it fit poorly or not at all into the global landscape.

OK, so one example is at one point she wanted to take a 75 gallon tank and plant it with weird things and make it a themed Dr. Seuss tank. Stuff like crinum calimistratum, downoi, etc. Some L144 blue eyed yellow bristlenose longfin plecos. Cat-in-the-hat crystal red shrimp. Coo-el idea.

But she got it half implemented and realized what a HUGE distraction and waste of resources that idea turned out to be, in the context of keeping lots of shrimp varieties. The idea was great, but it didn't fit into DK's model.

What this means for shrimp folks is you don't fall in love with a shrimp, buy some, hope your tank gets cycled as they are in the mail, stick 'em in the tank only to watch them die, AND THEN start to learn about how to set up a shrimp tank, and what you actually need to know, to grow shrimp, such as water chemistry, plant husbandry, and filter sytems. Many, many noob hobbyists get the ORDER OF OPERATIONS backwards, and suffer the results, and their shrimp die, because of this, often very uncomfortably. Those of you who have dealt with me know that if I know your order of operations is wrong, I will not send you shrimp. Because I respect them as living things. And I will help you to correct your order of operations, FIRST, because my model is not profit-making, but rather advanced animal husbandry.

***********

So the latest kitchen project started with Other Geek needling DK about reforming her cluttery, hoard-y ways. She did see the reasoning behind this, so has begun to reform, and streamline things. 

One of the first things to go was a rather ugly rooster platter which had hung above her cooktop as part of a backsplash. It was a gift, so she used it, but she never really liked it. It was time for it to go.

OHO. But, removing it left EMPTY REAL ESTATE and a BORING SPACE. DK's ADHD mind immediately launched off on a project to make a tile backsplash, something permanent, durable, and classier than the ugly rooster platter.

She's been through an EMBARASSING variety of themes, trying to get the **** backsplash hole treated, from a tile picture, to a tile "Amish quilt" design, to tile murals, then it grew to a universal backsplash from just a patch over the cooktop, and at that point DK knew she was out of control. She had to STOP and think about the globals, in order to design this project in context.

She had to pull back, think about the house in general, its style, colors, goals.

This COMPLETELY changed her pathway toward the tile job.

Over the past month, what she has evolved to realize is that she had the ORDER OF OPERATIONS going full-tilt, _backwards and out of order_.

The house is due for a new interior paint job. This has to be settled, first, to know what the color palette is going to be. 

Then, since we are re-painting the interior, there are certain opportunities that arise, that must be dealt with IN ORDER. 

For example, just this morning, DK had a eureka moment, and decided that the outdated glazing on the lower portions of her walls had to go, but because it's a grime zone due to the Germans, she had to come up with something other than straight paint. This led to the eureka moment that she will now install some verticals between her baseboard and chair rail and paint that zone as wainscoting. It doesn't cost that much to add the verticals, and the paint was coming anyway, so now we must design and add the verticals BEFORE the paint job. And by now treating what WAS plain wall that is now going to be visually wainscot, that affects which color may be used.

Yesterday at this time, DK was in absolute despair that she COULD NOT pull this project together, it was just a visual train wreck. She nearly cancelled the posts. She stewed, stared, and stubbornly persisted, until she hit the alphas, and she had a rolling domino EUREKA moment this morning that is going to enable her to do this and tie it all together. 

It was a lot like this. At first, you see nothing but visual cacophony. You must cross your eyes, focus on one element, then slowly uncross your eyes, until your brain sees the 3-D image. You can never see it without crossing your eyes, first, and then relaxing them. 

So you see, things snowball, and the only way to get structure so that the END product is all related together and harmonious is to have the correct...

ORDER OF OPERATIONS.

********

So, ponder that.

And here is the blueprint of the kitchen space, half of it really as there is another half where the table and chairs go. Bird's eye view.

The two windows on the right wall are transoms, way up high, and don't affect the kitchen stuff due to this.

Key:
A-Cabinet behind Smiley 1, see previous post
B-Refrigerator
C-Microwave real estate on counter
D-Cooktop real estate on counter
E-Kitchen sink
F-Elevated, narrow bar top on half wall in front of Kitchen sink counter
G-A 42 inch piece of counter space with base cabinet below and wall cabinet above, used for phone station and junk dump
H-Wall ovens, no counter space here
I-Symmetrical 42 inch piece of counter space with base cabinet below and wall cabinet above. It had various uses but was kinda useless as it was disconnected from everything else.

To the left of the sink is the dish drying zone. To the right of the sink was the only logical place to dump dirty dishes AND to do food prep. It's only 3 feet of counter, so not enough room for two zones like this.


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## DKShrimporium

So, DK just loves a good laugh, and it takes something pretty good to make her laugh. She's not one to laugh at stupidity (most of what's on TV and in stand up routines).

But she is still laughing at this. This week, she's been working with some folks on a few custom parts for her keeshin project. 

She ordered the following antique can label (circa 1920s).

Reading the label makes her laugh. How times have changed.

First off, the can is full of ELDERBERRIES. How often have you eaten those, in your lifespan? Me? Not once. I can only assume they are "delicious."

The label PROUDLY proclaims the fruit is "packed with sugar." But more than that, over to the side is a "Recipe" for two pies.

OK, so first off, in the "recipe" is says to ADD MORE SUGAR to taste.

Secondly, look at the "recipe." It is a recipe only one who ALREADY KNOWS HOW TO COOK could use. It does not give any indication how to make the pie crust, or that pie crust is needed. It assumes you know how to thicken with corn starch properly, and how much corn starch to use. It assumes you know HOW to heat slowly, and how hot. Those of you who make pies like this know that you can't just do it any old way...

Oh, and, back in the day... there was a thing proprietors used called "baker's dozen." They would give their customers a little MORE than the customer actually bought, in hopes of pleasing the customer and making them regulars. So a dozen rolls became 13, a "baker's" dozen. Here, we have OVER a pound of fruit. Contrast that with, say, ice cream. Used to be gallons. Then half gallons. Then Quart and three quarters. Now it's down to quart and a half as a "big" container. DK laughs how they shrink paper towel rolls down until they can't possibly sell skimpier ones, then re-market the original size as "jumbo, double rolls."

HA HA!!


(click the pic to see bigger)

P.S. While the two canids flanking the label are foxes, she imagines they are Old Tyme Germans.
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## plamski

*Elder Berry*

Because we don't have Elder berry here+ no time for pie crust with jam. I substitute them with this one. It is great for immune system. Especially in early winter months+ no ingredients from modern society in it.
I’d like to wish you luck with remodeling. Hopefully you will have some time for srimplets too.


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## DKShrimporium

Dang, Plamen, I just need to pick your brain about all this botanicals stuff, someday.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Action, on the project, today. Called in my personal electrician and got started. Need to find a hood, now, as Other Geek declared ol' ****** is history. DK didn't cry about it. The reason she a-din't have a new one ready is she was planning on reusing ol' ******. 

Notice that DK put a thick towel over glass cooktop. And then a double layer of gym mat. And then a plank. She didn't want to have to buy a new cooktop, if something fell down on it! But the boys got the cabinet out no issues. BTW, there is a sliding cover that hides that big ol' trash, but it's not slid shut right now!

And so the first big steps are underway. No guts, no glory.


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## DKShrimporium

*The Snowball Effect*

Of course, it's worse when you love industrial-strength and are geeky and anal retentive.

Those of you who watched WetWedding unfold last winter saw first hand where starting with one shrimp tank and deciding to "expand" can take a person.

So, in the keeshin project, Other Geek decided he didn't want to see 15+ years of greasy buildup on Ol' ******. No problemo for DK.

Hee hee. Time to get another range hood, this time in BLACK. The original cooktop was in WHITE, and it was some hoo haw Jennair super powered gas unit with enameled cast iron grates, that sort of thing. Yes, she knows of Vikings and Wolfs and Dacors and those sorts, and laughs herself silly at how many go into homes that barely boil water. You'd better be a real cook and have a real ventilation system with a return air system, to merit such. But she digresses, sort-of. 

DK HATED it. Why? Because it showed EVERYTHING, even water splatter, just plain water, would mist onto the grates and turn into black spots (the cast iron grates were enameled in a dove grey). There were (DK in a _fume_, counted them one day) no less than 25 separate parts that had to be dis-assembled and then cleaned INDIVIDUALLY to get the **** cooktop looking good. Five burners: Five heavy, slippery cast iron grills. Five burner caps. Five burner trays under the burners. Five gas heads with leeeetle orifices to keep clean. Five pull off knobs.

DK learned that getting the coo-el semi-upscale appliances is very often a cascading snowball of money and maintenance. She sold the almost brand new cooktop on ebay and bought her a much less sexy flat top cooktop. Know what? That heave-ho halogen burner heats her stockpot as fast as the gas superburner did. 

ONE FLAT, SMOOTH SURFACE to clean. In BLACK.

That is why she had the WHITE range hood, originally. To go with the white hoo-haw Jennaire. 

So, she knew that someday, when Ol' ****** died, she'd get her a BLACK range hood. She does not like stainless, shows everything too.

OK, so we go to replace a range hood. Been an accelerated education in range hood technologies, price ranges, and - oh. A whole other subject:

Make-up air.

Because, well. She found her a new range hood, and it has the potential to move, oh, about five times as much air as Ol' ******. 

Now, the first thing is WHAT DOES SHE NEED. FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. Or, rather, specifications follow use needs.

She does not need a wind tunnel, as she does not do a lot of grease-fog style cooking. However, she likes QUIET. She also likes RESERVE CAPACITY.

So, she couldn't help herself. She found a closeout deal on a 850 cfm hood. But this will only work if the air circuit is designed for FLOW. Gotta have unimpeded flow to push all that air out, and free air source to get all that air into the system.

Anyway, now, after a make-up air design with co-ordinated power damper and backdraft control, and a re-design of the outgoing ducting to handle the capacity, she is awaiting her two gale-force-wind-teflon-coated wind turbines to arrive, tomorrow. In the meantime, she's been playing around with the "delicious pie fruit" graphic and also the worksheet she found, below, that gives resistance equivalents in various ducting options. 25 feet of ducting is not... 25 feet of ducting, it turns out. Not when two gale-force-wind-teflon-coated wind turbines are pushing air.

Oh, and, those of you who are thinking, "this has nothing to do with shrimp..." - guess what a leading maker of this same type of range hood technology is branded?

SAKURA

DK's range hood is not this brand, but whilst learning about the technology over the weekend, immersing herself in the Asian chat boards up in Canada, she learned of this brand. She chuckled, at the name.

Stay tuned.


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## DKShrimporium

DK was forewarned that she'd be a monster. And she is, all two teflon coated wind turbines and about 50 pounds of epoxy coated, SIXTEEN GAUGE, 430 stainless steel. The review said she's monstrously powerful, and a monster - a _hellish_ monster - to install. They were absolutely right.

That there's a two liter bottle.

DK's more than a little bummed that she hasn't the proper duct run to do it justice. All that wasted capacity, due to her ducting woes. But just knowing the power is THERE... feels good.


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## DKShrimporium

So, let's back up a bit, and get some perspective. 

Working with shrimp systems has taught me this:

_Whenever possible, do the proper engineering from a global perspective, throughout. Because whenever this is NOT the case, you end up with band-aids. Band-aids are like lies. Once you start with one, then you almost always end up making up a whole web of them to create a more coherent picture. This just snowballs in complexity your problems, and then their fixes.

The caveat to this is: You may not be able to get to total global engineering. However, whenever you are able to REMOVE a band-aid from a flawed system, it will often improve MORE THAN ONE problem, just by the removal of a bandaid. So when doing a salvage job, it's worth the effort to remove any band-aid possible, and re-engineer toward total global engineering, even if it's just one step._​
We see the setup. Ol' ******, a starter-level range hood. Very less than ideal ducting, with an inverted loop right off the bat. The reason for this is a pretty long story. Basically, when you get two twenty-something Geeks planning and building their own house, you end up with an UNBELIEVABLE number of unusual things put into the infrastructure that ends up taking up space in the walls, behind the scenes. Let's just keep it at that... This doesn't make that much difference with such a poor performance hood - the air is moving slowly with a low-end hood and air turbulence is proportionately less important at low velocities. What you can't see is that up in the attic, this weak hood and bummer ducting had some help with an in-line fan tied into the hood controls, so that when the hood was turned on, the attic in-line fan also turned on. 

Other Geek complained of visibility problems with Ol' ****** being in his face. Part of this was the actual height of Ol' ******, but another part was due to the fact that the central cabinet is a non-standard depth. It is a 15 inch deep cabinet when normal wall cabinets are 12 inches deep. This was done for architectural reasons in that cabinet grouping. The result was that to look OK the range hood had to be moved out another 3 inches to the front of the cabinet, placing it more into one's face. DK laughs, because Other Geek simply doesn't stand in front of the cooktop, that often, and when he does, it's to boil water. But Other Geek wanted a new range hood, so, well, DK picked one out, and the decision was made to get the hood out of Other Geek's face. This meant elevation of the range hood.

This meant elevation of the central cabinet, which meant removal of the central cabinet.

This meant that the ducting run was now accessible.

So DK took the opportunity to cut the run farther up the wall for the tie-in, to get rid of the inverted loop. Working with ducting is one of DK's least favorite things, because it's so easy to cut oneself, and when one's hands are in fish tanks a lot one doesn't want cuts on one's hands. But she digresses...

Also note that the first thing DK did was to not tempt Mr. Murphy. She looked around and found a piece of decking from an old 75 gallon tank stand and made a platform that fit over the glass cooktop. Access to the cabinet and range hood mounting space was ALL pretty much right where that glass cooktop was.

Three problems with this.

First, we could not stand on the cooktop, where we really needed to stand for ergonomics' sake when re-mounting things on that wall. Second, we ALSO could not stand to the right of the cooktop, on the counter, because there is no weight support under DK's trash cubby. Third, it was JUST GOING TO HAPPEN that we'd drop something big and heavy and break that cooktop, turning DK's three digit project easily into a four digit project: $$$ ---> $$$$.

The platform fixed these issues, vastly simplifying a lot of things.

The platform was a piece of global engineering, in this side-project.


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## DKShrimporium

So, DK spent the day waiting for her damper. But when it arrived, she was up on the catwalk in the attic, doing a surgical removal of the in-line fan from Ol' ******.

Between standing on the catwalk and joists in her Dansko clogs (if she had hard soled hiking boots they would have been much more stable, but when standing on joists and the like she likes HARD soled shoes and Danskos are the only hard ones she has) removing, cutting, fitting, and replacing ductwork, she is tired.

But not too tired to nerd around, with the first try-out.

On HALF power, see what she did. The Stainless bowl (that is a 12 inch heavy walled stainless bowl) is fairly impressive on half-power fan, but the next...

Corningware French White full size glass pie plate. 

Now, can YOUR range hood hold one of those up in the air?

Imagine what wide open ducting and full power could do with this monster.

This is with the ducting at the equivalent of 120 feet or more, due to bends (including six - SIX - nineties), length, two dampers, and a slew of size adapters (3x10 to 7 round, 7 round to 3x10, 3x10 to 6 round, 6 round to 8 round, 8 round to 6 round -- the attic run is 6 inch round which is undersized for this fan, expecially with the tortuous duct. So when she added the damper, she kicked it up to 8 inch so she could put in an 8 inch damper and not constrict the 6 round down to 4/5 round due to the damper). Yes, the duct run is a nightmare, but the hood still works! The top three speeds are off limits, though, bummer.

Oh, yeah, and this is BEFORE I've installed the damper for return air, so it's sucking against a tight, tight house right now.


P.S. - Don't mind the ugly backsplash area. Workin' on that. The range hood was just a diversion from the main project.

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## wicca27

looking good and kinda space like hehehe, is that the mother ship lol. but no it really looks nice and stream line im sure it works better than it looks also


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## DKShrimporium

So... back to actual shrimp stuff, while the keeshin project marinates.

DK discovered an entire series of posts she forgot to post, on her Vapor Control Program. She's a bonehead.

It all has to do with the dials.


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## DKShrimporium

DK Vapor Control Program VCP 01

So, here are the recipe ingredients:


Binder covers, from the office supply store
Sharpie
Scissors
Paper
Handy-dandy soldering iron with pointy tip


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## wicca27

hey DK did you get busy with kitchen, shrimp, or the holidays? hehe or all the above? hope you had a good one and cant wait to read more


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## DKShrimporium

OH, yeah. DK completely forgot she was about to post on the vapor control program. 

DK's been RATHER preoccupied with lots o' other things. She has, count 'em, TWO, yes, TWO shrimpterns coming in, one at the end of this month, and one in February, weather permitting each as both are out of state. Heh heh heh

She's been doing a lot of stuff toward the house refresher project, principally the keeshin, but also other rooms, in prep for a lot of activity. There are a whole lot of issues she's trying to, um, well, fix is too strong a word, but rather _adjust_ in her keeshin, to improve a buncha problems. Trying to pull a bunch of elements into alignment on the cheap but sorta classy. Not an easy feat. Been working with a paint consultant, whom I met through shrimp. Getting some custom work designed and built. And a lotta thinkin' how to pull it all together, and pull it all off, and not pull my hair out..

On the shrimp front, DK made new juice a few weeks ago and it's been auto-pilot ever since, she barely remembers to get down there to feed 'em right now, every few days. She is pulling the tanks back into breeding after spending about 4-6 months doing magnesium studies. 

Back to the vapor control project, tomorrow. Gotta run for today, now.


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## DKShrimporium

DK is full of lies. She did NOT go on to continue posting on the vapor control project, because, well, she got busy doin' sumpin' else.

So many projects going on here!

Yesterday, she did this, 3528 warm white LED strips above her cabinets. She did the final install on the strips, but the wiring still needs to be run for the... automation, so you still see the ugly wires as they are mocked up at this point. The effect in real life doesn't show such hot spots as it looks like in the picture - it's really nice gentle glow, just enough to light up that back corner.

Today, DELIVERIES of EQUIPMENT. Yes, it's gonna be a good day.

DK


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## pKaz

That looks really cool!


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## sbarbee54

Looks nice dk, I wonder sometimes if you sleep, and if you do I think you sleep work.


Sent from my iPad 3 using Tapatalk HD


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## DKShrimporium

sbarbee54 said:


> Looks nice dk, I wonder sometimes if you sleep, and if you do I think you sleep work.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad 3 using Tapatalk HD


I do sleep. 

But before, and after, the old brain is a whirring away, planning stuff. (Insert sound effects here at the brain activity, something like those kids' fireworks that spin sparks and fly off when you light them, "VZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETE...VZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEETE...) Right now it's doing different iterations of how to build and hang a barn door. And what tile pattern to lay. And how to remove countertops someday if there is tile in the way. And where to place the wire run and how to automate the new LED strips. And how to configure the third wall of them, from leftover scraps.

And in the middle, usually around 2, 3 or 4 AM, I awake and read my Nook for a while, until I get sleepy again and drift off.

*****

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK's Vapor Control Project VCP 02:

She takes the binder covers and cuts them with the scissors, bends them, to fit her pattern.

----

Last picture, her future barn door handle, courtesy yeebey.

****

And finally, the leather (not _bonded_ "leather") sectional she just scored from CL for $200. Most excellent Geek/Jr. Geek/Man Cave material. Two recliners and a queen pullout. Pics are from the ad. (Here, she has to admit partial defeat, as after several weeks the smokesofa started smelling again, not exactly like cigarette smoke, but musta been the byproducts of breakdown by the chlorine dioxide. So she ditched it to a smoker and moved on...)


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## DKShrimporium

C .... oh... C - you know who you are. I have a couple a fun missions for you if wanta mission or two. Ping me by PM if so!


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## wicca27

looking good dk cant wait to see what else your up to hehehehe


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## DKShrimporium

*Vapor Control Project VCP 03:*

She makes more pieces of her contraption, cutting, folding, and then spot welding using her handy-dandy Weller soldering iron that she bought for the Maserati net project.


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## DKShrimporium

DK's been bizzy - very, very bizzy - lately. She's been slinging crowbars and chop saws and took a jigsaw to her kitchen counter the other day - see the precarious state of her cooktop as of today, below. It woulda been a lot faster using the circular saw, but the jigsaw was already in the kitchen and she was too lazy to go get the circular saw... 

So far, she has pulled and done some customizing work on three of the four runs of kitchen base cabinets, which necessitated her removal of the cabinets for the customizations, and re-placement back into position.

Today she re-plumbs her kitchen sink unit.

She amused herself in Lowes the other day in the plumbing section, totally flooring the plumbing floor manager. He said, "Where did you learn all this??" and she was thinking to herself, "Shrimp. Shrimp taught me plumbing." Now, this guy was a grey-haired dude with German or Austrian accent. She figures he is a retired tradesman, based on this and also the lightning speed with which he GOT what she was trying to do, and why, and found her the exact right parts (of course, it was a non-standard approach, due to her wanting to make it re-configurable and pop-n-go) So she was extra tickled that she had floored that guy. Those dudes know their stuff.

In between this she made herself a custom pot rack from cheap parts she got from a store fixtures place. It could double as a high bar in gymnastics, it's so strong.

She called in Other Geek, and together they pulled her cooktop and converted it from hard wired to a 220 plug, so she can pop-n-go.

Today, she converts her kitchen sink plumbing to pop-n-go.

**********

Tomorrow, weather permitting, Shrimptern 1.0 arrives. There has been some scheduling adjustment to their visit.

*********

And now, more pictures of DK's Vapor Control Project.

With the enclosures, and polycarbonate lids, now her tanks are totally enclosed for vapor.


.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp

To minimize evaporation?


----------



## wicca27

either that or to hold temp more constant i would guess. lots of heat loss do to it being open. i would think maybe mermaid tank?


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## mordalphus

Help keep the humidity down in the house, we had the same problem, my solution wasn't quite as classy, I seran wrapped my tanks.


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## DKShrimporium

Yep, it was to control the humidity levels in the house. We have the basement down to 50%, which is in target range.

*********

DK is pretty much exhausted. But she's really happy about her red lines. Nice.


.


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## wicca27

thats awesome. looks like things are comming together


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## DKShrimporium

DK is tired. So. So. Tired. From about a month's construction. So... deep into it the other day, while her keeshin is torn apart and at a critical stage, what izza to happen but WetWedding decides to burst an 80 PSI hose, causing an untimely interruption in the kitchen construction.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Shrimptern 1.0 is due in for their third visit (DK's acting furiously trying to get her keeshin back together into a working room, for the visit), coming in on a 12 hour cross-country drive, driving trying to beat the Snowmageddon 2014 front. DK was more than a little nervous if they hit the storm and had to travel in it. They hit the edge of it in whiteout conditions only the last hour or so, and got VERY lucky to arrive thusly. BARELY beat the storm front here.

We had a lotta fun, but too short due to scheduling problems, weather problems, and a week's visit that got shortened down to a mere 48 hours! So in that 48 hours, we worked on fixing WetWedding. We did a workaround due to some equipment problems, and had her up and running by the time Shrimptern left, and then today in a streak of eureka, DK realized a method to fix the real residual problem, and got her totally fixed and purring like a kitten, back to full automation.

Today, the last of the heavy construction went down in the keeshin project, at least for two weeks, then another phase starts.

*******

BUT

*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

After Shrimptern left, DK was taking a few breather moments to stare at her tanks, which she has hardly done for months.

AND

What should come crawling out of the weeds..

BUT

something INCREDIBLE. 

In one of DK's development tanks.

She is SO excited, but will wait a bit more to make sure said INCREDIBLE specimen makes it to breeding age and hopefully makes MORE INCREDIBLE.

******

Below: the source of the interruption, and drama.


.


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## wicca27

i cant believe your going to leave me hanging on a note like that lol!.


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## Maechael

DK you know we need more info, we're half starved on shockers like a NEW development from you.

I barely get on here anymore due to work, and yet I seem to find the time at least 3-5 times a month to check your thread.


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## pKaz

I'm guessing you created another new strain of cool shrimp????


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> thats awesome. looks like things are comming together


See below, C.



Maechael said:


> DK you know we need more info, we're half starved on shockers like a NEW development from you.
> 
> I barely get on here anymore due to work, and yet I seem to find the time at least 3-5 times a month to check your thread.


Well, shrimp have taught me two things WELL. Patience. And humility. We are trying to practice both, at the moment. I kinda shoulda kept my mouth shut until said specimen reaches maturity - DK just lost her head and spouted off in excitement the other day.

This particular shrimp needs to mature out, so DK is sure what she got. She'll explain later when she shows said shrimp, someday. She thinks there are some co-dominant genetics at work, but maturity will sorta clarify that, hopefully.

She WILL say that for the past two days she's been watching that tank, waiting for INCREDIBLE to appear, again, and thinking she imagined it, because she saw something else not quite as good but still pretty coo-el cooking in that tank, and she WILL tell you what these SECOND TIER COOL new guys are:

golden eyed blue tigers with RED stripes and blue bodies



pKaz said:


> I'm guessing you created another new strain of cool shrimp????


Not sure on the semantics of "new strain" but a new color combination for DK, or a few of them, actually.


*******

DK does NOT terrorize tanks in breeding mode, particularly concept or development tanks, so she has to wait for these guys to grow out and get big enough for up-front-by-the-glass pictures, and they hafta be sorta big for her as she's a totally lousy photographer.

So you'll have to take her word on it.

*******

Below, her latest keeshin progress. Her retail-store-fixtures pot rack with a whopping TWENTY FOUR industrial-strength hooks. She's still beta testing it and may put it higher. You can do that when you make it yersef. You can do anything you want, when you make it yersef.

And the past two days her new power strips came in and she installed them. They look deceptively simple. But take a look at that LEETLE inch or so of yellow Romex going into the wall, behind that tile. She had to fish that feed up through an INSULATED wall and come out in a teeny hole she made in the tile wall. The jury's still out on whether she'll rip those cheapo fluorescent fixtures out that she got on clearance somewhere years ago and put in LED strips, but that is on the back burner for now. She's kinda tired, and the fluorescents work just fine, they are just not as coo-el as LEDs.

Tonight, she once again pops the cooktop and kitchen sink (which currently is packaging-taped into place on the counter top deck, however the plumbing below it has had an elegant upgrade) for THE CREW. 


.


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## DKShrimporium

Oh, yes, and last night Other Geek was laughing at DK, saying, "How many people do you know who will have a chromed alternator bracket in their kitchen, let alone TWO of them??!"

DK's a-gonna have two of them, in her new keeshin.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's a bone for you, Maechael.

right now about 1 cm so color's still coming in.

For comparison, the other picture is of a normal red tiger shrimp at about the same age. You can see at this age/size the pigment density of the stripes is still underdevelopment, and you can clearly see the blue pigment and gold eyes but red stripes on Tier Two Coo-el-ie.


.


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## wicca27

that is a cool cross dk, cant wait to see what comes of those shrimp.

im guessing you found your paper towel holder huh lol. auto parts work wonders for things other than auto's hehehe. so do clothes racks lol


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## Maechael

DK those look Amazing, Can't wait to see the full line if they hold true and breed for you. It seems like the shrimp you keep are just amazing compared to anything I see around me.

I see nice in my area, and I see amazing in this thread.


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## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> that is a cool cross dk, cant wait to see what comes of those shrimp.
> 
> im guessing you found your paper towel holder huh lol. auto parts work wonders for things other than auto's hehehe. so do clothes racks lol


Actually, no, they are part of the plumbing schematic (Can you find them in the pic, below?? heh heh. Don't mind the rough looking bar counter, DK has made a recent trip to a certain Amish shop where she is a-gettin' sumpin' fabricated by the Amish.). Still need the paper towel holder, although I do have something I am considering using - an old pair of ice tongs I have.



Maechael said:


> DK those look Amazing, Can't wait to see the full line if they hold true and breed for you. It seems like the shrimp you keep are just amazing compared to anything I see around me.
> 
> I see nice in my area, and I see amazing in this thread.


Yeah, it's a fun project. DK's been running a number of mad projects the past year or two that she hasn't published much about. She was wanting to focus on the fundamentals of her automation system, and they (the breeding projects, that is) were just background stuff going on at the time. Now, she has her system dialed in pretty well and can increase the focus on the projects. Well, after she gets the household projects better underway, that is. She is in the THICK of them for the next month or two (the household projects, that is):

Yesterday she became an inadvertent cooktop technician. She was trying to remove and replace the gasket on her cooktop and had it upside down and was goo-be-gone-ing the gasket. 

Problem was, the tempered glass cooktop surface is DIMPLED on the bottom, where the gasket is attached.

So, that **** glass sucked the goo-be-gone across those dimples, into the cooktop itself.

DK was not wanting goo-be-gone residue inside her cooktop box, as it contains some solvents. Solvents and a heat source inside a closed container are not such a good idea, she believes.

So, she went to take the cooktop lid off, upside down due to the goo be gone, and when she lifted the box...

...well, all sorts of parts came apart in the upside down configuration.

So, she hadda learn cooktop anatomy and physiology on the fly.

In the process, she cleaned a haze off the inside of her tempered glass, too, and then put all back in order.

And then, she did a full kitchen sink plumb job, from mounting new drains onto the sink, mounting the new sink into the counter, and plumbing up the MOTHER of all faucets, two soap dispensers, and a hot water dispenser into the deck. (That ain't no big box knock off faucet, she's custom made of all professional componentry and stands nearly three feet up from the deck, and BLASTS out water from the pre-rinse head - you just gotta feel her to appreciate the difference.)

She is really, really tired, today.

But has a kickin' new kitchen sink setup.


----------



## plamski

Looks like we never know enough there are always so many new things to be learned.:icon_sad::smile::smile:


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## DKShrimporium

Plamen! I was just thinking of you this morning, as I was staring at these:

(PM me your questions, I'll see what I can answer, in response to your PM.)

.


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## wicca27

what are you doing with hanger markers lol. yes i worked in retail for a few years hehe. love the idea of ice tongs its awesome. and love the sink looks really good


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## Loachutus

I have kitchen sink envy!! You need one of these, http://www.autochlor.net/ , and you're set.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK is barely remembering to feed her tanks, lately. So busy doing construction projects, flipping back and forth between being a finish carpenter, plumber, electrician, tile setter, and grunt.

This past week, she dug out from her hoarding stores an old cabinet that had been taken out of her keeshin about ten years ago. She couldn't bear to get rid of it, _because it matched her cabinets_, and... well... ya just never know when you might need sumpin' _matching_, someday. And also 'cause she's a hoarder. Hoarders don't get rid of stuff that might be useful, someday.

Good thing.

She robbed the doors off the cabinet, and a-went to her local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, for the first time.

Dangerous. Like dropping a crack addict off at a drug den.

She unhinged her lower jaw and started drooling, shuffling through the re-store, hoping to find a cabinet from some picky chick who HAD to rip out her "eighties golden oak" cabinets in favor of a kitchen re-do in ALL WHITE.

But, alas, not a single suitable golden oak cabinet was to be found. 

DK then resigned herself just to the fun of sifting through the store, when she turned a bend, and


.... lo, and behold...


... there it was.


A whole aisle. No TWO whole aisles of now formerly dormitory desks.

Solid, and she means SOLID oak builds. Not a wafer of veneer on them. Solid 3/4 inch plank oak, they were.

_In the EXACT golden oak finish she was searching for._

The Holy Grail.

For a mere thirty bucks.

She put in an emergency call to one of her peeps with a truck, and got herself a desk. Said peep later was so impressed they RETURNED with the truck and got themself TWO of these solid oak desks.

So, here is a picture of one of them.

She HATED to dismantle it. But she HAD to. But it was worth the dismantling job, and as a side bonus, she took the three-drawer unit and used the side leg wall to the left of the desk as a new top for just the drawer unit, to make her a sheet music cabinet. That was a total bonus.

But for the parts she needed, for her primary project, she took the pencil drawer and the desk top.

And it was good.

What DID she do with the desk parts? Hmmm.


.


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## wicca27

cutting board or island top hehehe. great to hear from you again cant wait to see the keeshin


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## DKShrimporium

Loachutus said:


> I have kitchen sink envy!! You need one of these, http://www.autochlor.net/ , and you're set.


Yeah, I do, but not a-gonna get one. What I DID get is a new dish draining system, see below, you might recognize it.



wicca27 said:


> cutting board or island top hehehe. great to hear from you again cant wait to see the keeshin


Good ideas, but what I actually did make, see pics: (Ya might recognize the drawer slide, left over from DK's ASAslider shrimp project.)


*******

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK is in discussions with Shrimptern 3.0 about a visit this month. Heh heh heh...


.


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## wicca27

i wish i had your brain dk, looks great


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## DKShrimporium

Heh heh heh. So today is ANOTHER snow day. DK's been feverishly working on the central control system for her above-cabinet LED strips, running wires down three of her keeshin walls and making a control bank where a programmable timer will reside once it arrives.

But today, she and Jr. Geek did a bit of an upgrade to Man-Cave-Land. 

Oh yeah.

Flashes, fades, strobes, blinks, running color changes, all programmable. All for the bargain price of under $40.

Next, we need the mirror ball. We already have a colored light ball down there but no mirror ball.


.


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## Soothing Shrimp

What? No red velvet wall paper?


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## wicca27

nifty dk. do the shrimpies get mood lighting too hehehehehe


----------



## DKShrimporium

Soothing Shrimp said:


> What? No red velvet wall paper?


I was thinkin' more like foil. A Studio 54 type ambiance.



wicca27 said:


> nifty dk. do the shrimpies get mood lighting too hehehehehe


I will not lie. I did stop and fantasize about how totally coo-el my tank racks would look, outlined in flashing, strobing, neon-y colored tracks of LED lighting...


***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

While DK awaits Mr. Amish's woodshop to provide a critical piece of her keeshin project (Mr. Amish reports being about 1-2 month stacked on orders at this time, unfortunately), she is slowly reeling in Shrimptern 3.0 (a brand new one) for sometime this month.

And while these events unfold, here is a DK challenge for ya:

Any time you retrofit something into a landscape, especially when you have very specific and tight tolerances, there will always be a fly in the ointment.

DK's new keeshin trash pull-out has presented her with such a fly, and she's been pondering whatta do about it a few days. She has come up with her solution, but before she implements it, she thought she'd throw it out to the silent, unknown readers, out there. She has pretty much NO IDEA who reads this thread, but sometimes folks chime in and have ideas.

OK, so she's mostly happy with her trash pull-out. First, it's ONE-STEP, HANDS-FREE ACCESS to her trash, iffn she wants, by pulling with her toe from underneath. Second, it matches decently well. Third, it's large enough for her _jumbo_ trash can. Forth, it's robust enough she can climb in and stomp down the trash in said jumbo trash can, iff'n she were so inclined - the pull-out is robust to several hundred pounds force, thanks to some industrial 4 inch rubber wheels under her platform, unlike those lightweight-better-be-careful ready-made-overpriced trash pull out accessories one can buy.

But the COST of having an oversized trash pull-out was that her tolerances shrank to about nothing. She managed to get her reveals even, and a full pull out, a nearly perfect match on the wood and hardware, but...

oh...

...but.

There's always a "but," isn't there?

Now, she has a problem. Two of her drawers won't pull out completely because they hit the new trash pull-out hardware handles. She has already offset the drawers laterally as much as she can without the drawer hole starting to show.

She cannot push the trash pull out IN any further, because it is stopped by a beam that supports the counter top that is non-negotiable - she had thought about a mechanism to push the unit in a couple inches on a spring or something that would recess the pull-out door temporarily while the drawers were being accessed, but then realized she cannot push the trash pull out in farther than flush due to the support beam stopping it at flush.

And Other Geek thought they had a smart-*** solution, suggesting she cut slots in her drawer fronts for the pull-out hardware to run through, but she summarily rejected such a _crude_ solution.

This morning, she came upon her solution, while practicing lateral thinking, and seeking the alpha waves.

But first, she a-wants to know if ennyone out there has a BETTER plan.

FYI - simply removing the drawer fronts doesn't solve anything as the drawer BOX sides also would hit the pull-out handles.

The third picture shows the support beam that stops the pull-out door at flush.

_So, I dare ya._


.


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## plamski

Will you like it,I don't know.At least is simple and easy .


----------



## pKaz

DKShrimporium said:


> _So, I dare ya._
> 
> 
> .


I actually had this same problem in my "Keeshin" at my old condo. The way I solved it was to replace the handles with skinnier ones (the original ones did protrude quite a bit). Plus the kitchen needed new hardware anyway. Your circumstances are a bit different as your tolerances between cabinets is ridiculously small to non-existent. The only thing that would work is some kind of recessed handle. I also can't help but notice that bit of oak on the trash pull-out, I see what that desk was for now.....


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## pKaz

plamski has a good idea as well.


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## wicca27

that was my thinking too. the other idea i had was drop the handle down to the middle of the panels of the trash door so the side drawers would clear


----------



## DKShrimporium

*The Thing About Lateral Thinking*



plamski said:


> Will you like it,I don't know.At least is simple and easy .





pKaz said:


> I actually had this same problem in my "Keeshin" at my old condo. The way I solved it was to replace the handles with skinnier ones (the original ones did protrude quite a bit). Plus the kitchen needed new hardware anyway. Your circumstances are a bit different as your tolerances between cabinets is ridiculously small to non-existent. The only thing that would work is some kind of recessed handle. I also can't help but notice that bit of oak on the trash pull-out, I see what that desk was for now.....





wicca27 said:


> that was my thinking too. the other idea i had was drop the handle down to the middle of the panels of the trash door so the side drawers would clear


The thing about having a Dennis-the-Menace type mind is that it must be kept busy, or it will find ways to entertain itself, often ways that are... ahem... less than optimal, less than useful, that sort of thing.

Like the beautiful, striking black and white Border Collie, left home alone 18 hours a day, who develops a taste for drywall, or sofa cushions.

It happens.

So this is why DK does projects, and she has a twisted affinity for "sporting" projects - ones with... ahem... _additional challenges_, shall we say. _To just plunk down money to solve a project isn't *sporting* in her book. A decent project has to have some creative or lateral thinking challenges._

This project was pretty typical, in that she WANTED WHAT SHE WANTED and didn't want to compromise on a few things, but she was fairly hemmed in with some other considerations.

Her executive objectives in this project were:

Create an _aesthetically-seamless_ (i.e., when you look at the base cabinet run, you do not "notice" it as "not fitting in" or being an "add-on") trash pull-out that _operates smoothly in a one-step, hands-free fashion_.
Size the pull-out to enable RECONFIGURABILITY for different size trash can(s), firstly to fit her favorite jumbo step-on industrial Rubbermaid present vessel, this determined the WIDTH of the platform and therefore the WIDTH of the panel door. But the platform is large enough to use two smaller rectangular vessels, if she decides later to put BOTH her trash AND recycles bins in there. Right now recycles bin is located elsewhere.
Make the pull-out platform ROBUST, such that it can take stomping, not just carry the weight of the trash can.
Make the pull-out MODULAR such that it is POP-N-GO configured, so that she can pop it out and get to that hunka space inside the cubby, that blind corner - space that she wants to be able to access and use for storage for low-frequency access goods.
Once the modular unit is popped out, the remaining space in the cubby is UNIMPEDED by pop-out infrastructure, it is wide open space. She didn't want a bunch of frame in there getting in the way of access to that blind corner space back underneath.

OK, so for DK, FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. The above executive criteria suggested how she go about this project. She didn't state the obvious, above, which is to make it from stuff from her bins 'n' barrels of parts 'n' pieces, and be cheap.

But the criteria also created a set of nearly impossibly tight tolerances. 

How sporting, in DK's project world. A challenge.

First, she wanted to approximate original equipment. The oak had to have a decent enough match to the original cabinetry (nearly 20 years later) that when one looks at the trash pull out, one doesn't say, "that was added recently." Better yet, one doesn't really NOTICE the trash pull-out, because it blends in seamlessly with the original landscape.

So wood matching was the first thing. Luckily she found the Habitat For Humanity Re-Store desk. Solved.

Second, was hardware matching. _You will notice we've done a shift on the pull-out to a larger handle_. There are reasons for this, and it was a compromise in the greater interest:

_Since the panels on the pull-out came from a previous cabinet, they had holes from the previous door knobs. As it happens, the knobs had LARGE holes, like quarter inch size. As it happens, the doors had knife hinges, meaning there are hinge slots showing on the hinge side of the door. This meant that DK had to orient the doors on the panel so the hinge slots would not be visible, so on the BOTTOM surface, now. This left DK with a huge, honkin' quarter inch hole on the RIGHT side of the upper panel, and a huge, honkin' quarter inch hole on the LEFT side of the lower panel.

Luckily for DK, these two holes were eight inches apart if you used them as a set for new hardware, drilling a matching LEFT hole on the upper panel, and matching RIGHT hole on the lower panel.

So, DK searched cyberspace for matching hardware. She knew it existed, but not whether it existed in the size she needed. Fortunately, Restoration Hardware had the exact solid brass hardware in 8" center size, how very lucky. DK bit it and paid for it._​
But the hardware uses four holes each handle. In order to center the handles on the eight inch span, she was able to cover the OLD holes with the hardware, but NOT use them as they were not centered horizontally properly. 

All this to say that NOW there are TEN holes in the two panels, underneath those two lovely matching handles.

So, Plamen, had DK known of her coming problem BEFORE she made those holes in her oak, she likely would have used your excellent solution. That is some nice lateral thinking toward a solution, truly.

But given that NOW this solution would leave her with the unenviable task of camouflaging TEN holes in her front plate, she's good but probably not THAT good, or rather probably too cheap to get the real stuff she'd need to do it. Plus she has certain executive rules (lots and lots of them, in that D-T-Menace type mind, actually). One is that defacing beautiful hardwood is a no-no. Whenever possible, leave hardwood alone in its beauty.

So, she went in search of another solution that would leave the handles in place, covering the TEN holes.

Before we get to her solution, here are some pictures that show some of the crazy tolerances of this project.

The pull out panel has VERY tight clearance of the drawer pulls on the side, but does clear them.

The pull out panel pulls out to full extension, with about half an inch clearance to the towel rack on the sink cabinet.

The pull out panel has exactly FOUR MILLIMETERS clearance, when pulled out full extension, for dis-engaging the slider track, if you want to remove the pull-out unit from the cubby hole. Four millimeters more, and you'd hit the towel bar and be unable to pull it out further.


----------



## wicca27

i am so not good at figuring out pics lol im more of a hands on person wish i was able to be a shrimptern lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Choose yer poison.

DK chose NOT to elect the ten-holes-in-her-faceplate-showing solution, which would have given her a one-step solution.

Her solution's compromise is that it kicked her up to a two-step solution.

She added a couple sliders as a platform ON her platform, so the trash can can be slid completely back if needed.

She altered the far diagonal rail to get it out of the way.

Now, one can pull out the trash pull-out fully, push back the trash can, and then fully pull out the two problem drawers.

It is a lateral thinking type solution, outside the normal paradigm, functional with a compromise. It doesn't qualify for "elegant solution" or anything like that, but it gets the job done, with one extra step. The two steps are only needed on those two problem drawers, and only when one wants visual access to the _back_ half of their contents.

Whaddya think?


.


----------



## plamski

Not bad at all.:thumbsup:


----------



## wicca27

cool idea. you so need to come help when i get a house of my own lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK spent a few moments today wondering what the heck this keeshin topic has to do with shrimp. She doesn't know, _yet_, but is CERTAIN all this will eventually come back around to shrimp projects. Things are always related, to her, and in her world.

And then, she put in a "call" to her electrician (a.k.a. Other Geek), this morning. Yesterday, she pulled the Romex for the LED runs, to the central control. So this morning, she was ready for the patch into the panel box. She messes with a lotta things, but NOT the panel box.

And now, she's got her three walls washed in warm LED strip light, all three walls tied into an automated timer that is presently tied into our latitude and its dawn and dusk times. So the LEDs are programmed to automatically turn on at our dusk time, and off at our dawn time, even though this time is different slightly each day.

Pretty coo-el.

Below is a picture of the new "landscape," although DK thinks her camera light meter is on the fritz because her camera is just producing pictures with light levels and color rendering ALL wrong, lately. The lights are a gentle warm wash, not uber-hot cauldrons of photons as seen here (she even photoshopped down the contrast in this picture, to try to help). Don't be a-bothered by the creative door trim; the color is in transition and there are just test patches painted at this time.

********

And then, after the LED chapter came to resolution, she dug around in her bins 'n' barrels (OK this time it was a chest), and dug out some of her hoard that's been a-waitin' over a decade to see the light of day. Their time has come. She is staring at them and pondering, although she has a pretty good idea what the plan is, already.

********

Um. And. Yeah. DK mighta made a totally unplanned IMPULSE BUY, today, on yeebey. She just hadda have it. Stay tuned...


.


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## wicca27

are those lids to a proofing cabinet? kinda cool


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> are those lids to a proofing cabinet? kinda cool


They are lids to what would have been tin or wooden boxes/bins in a grocery or general store, containing product that the customer could access, to buy. Like the old pickle barrels, where you served yourself. They are on a frame, and then there is a hinged, glass door that swings open off the frame. Then the frame would sit down on the tin or wooden box, seating the lid.

Or perhaps you told the proprietor and they fished out what you wanted to buy, not sure.

At any rate, DK thinks they are a coo-el nostalgic thing of days gone by. She scored a second part of her plan for them this morning, on yeebey. A few more parts to go...


.


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## wicca27

shrimp food storage bin woopie lol i cant wait to see what you do with these.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Fashion, or Function*

Scored two more parts on yeebey for the National Biscuit lids project.

Took some time and made the trek to see Mr. Amish, again. Had an extensive conversation about my project and was really happy to learn I'm finally on the active schedule, so about 2-3 weeks...

One step closer to Shrimptern 3.0, although the schedule is moved back until at least March, rather than this month.

*********

And finally, an illustration, while DK sits and ponders more keeshin details. And awaits YET ANOTHER snow day, or two.

Generally, DK will vote function over fashion, 'cause she's a practical sort. And cheap. And fashion, by design (oh, whatta pun...) seems to mine one's resources, selling a dream, a look-and-feel, a place in the popular line... all at a usually inflated, or WAAAAAAAAAAY inflated cost. To DK, cost translates into lifespan, how much of it you have to spend, to chase that fashion. She likes to keep her lifespan to herself, and not slave herself out, to pay for fashion.

But sometimes, fashion wins. Sometimes.

Here is an _exception_ to her function over fashion tendency.

She wanted a vintage/retro/antique looking clock, fer her keeshin. So she bought this one. Right away, Other Geek complained, saying it is too small. Well, it kinda is. But it still gets the job done, and what was there previously was a giant over-sized clock, so it's hard to tell how much is under-sized and how much is CHANGE from oversized.

For now, it stays. She really likes this clock, but wishes it were 50% larger. She admits she's cruising yeebey, on the stalk. Yeebey has a number of clocks that are EXACTLY kewl for what she wants, but are about 10X the cost of this stylish little faker. So DK awaits a yeebey aberration, she knows they occur. Stay tuned...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Oooooooo. Who knew it would be that fast. Right after the above post, DK scored this un. Fer LESS than she paid for the faker, _and_ free shipping.

Thirteen lovely vintage inches of glass and metal encased timekeeping.

Aberrations abound.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Yeah, DK's been bizzy. FINALLY got the reclaimed chestnut counter from the Amish wood shop, and this weekend installed it (DK LOVES that she now has a piece of American history a-settin' in her keeshin - American Chestnuts used to be a dominant hardwood specie in America, until imported goods brought blight and wiped out the entire American Chestnut population, so any American Chestnut wood available is now vintage reclaimed wood as _there is no new supply_. If you are the type who only looks at _looks_, then this looks just like a plain wood counter, but if you are a cognizant type, you look at this and see a whole history, a product that is no longer, a way of life that is no longer, the remnants of that. This used to be a barn beam, before the American family farm was pushed out by conglomerate corporation farming.). STILL waiting on the clock hands to go with the German movement, for the vintage clock, maybe they will get here today...

BELOW: A picture of DK's American Chestnut barn beam slab, now living in her keeshin. And what she decided to do with the Nabisco lids - she made shadow boxes from them and put National Biscuit Company vintage ephemera in them (click that pic to see larger iffn y'all want to see it better).


_SHRIMPTERN 3.0
ARRIVES TODAY!!!
STAY TUNED...​_


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## wicca27

beautiful counter you got there.


----------



## SmoothSailor

*Hello everyone....I am Shrimptern 3.*

:fish:Hi everyone,
So I am officially Shrimptern 3. I got here yesterday from Bridgeport, WV. (I was born in Pennsylvania!) Took me about 5 hours to drive, but I had to make a few stops along the way so it turned into a 6 hour drive. It was worth it though. I will suck all intelligence from DK's brain for the next few days and share it with all of you.
I have been completely blown away with DK's mad doings! She is super smart and I am so impressed with her shrimp set up downstairs. Her kitchen looks amazing for those that have been following her thread.
Today we did maintenance on her Dosmatic dosing pumps. I learned that routine maintenance of pumps is very important and should be done at least twice a year. DK uses Du Pont Teflon Silicone Lubricant to lubricate the rubber components of her pumps. I was surprised that this substance does not affect the shrimp in her tanks, especially since many are very sensitive. 
I have noticed that shrimp love cooked broccoli. It's important to not over feed your shrimp tanks because water quality is vital. DK uses little clay plates to prevent the food from dropping down into the substrate. Any extra food can easily be removed if not eaten, thus preventing foiling of the water. 
I have included a few photos. I apologize that the quality is poor. I used my phone. I will try to get some better photos for everyone tomorrow. 
Enjoy.


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## DKShrimporium

Yeah, so Shrimptern 3.0 is really tired, and full. Yesterday we ate purple. Purple chicken soup topped off with black raspberry cheesecake over a black chocolate crust. It's hard, being a Shrimptern.

So today we had all these plans. Problem was we were tired, and sluggish, so got moving rather late. The plan was total annual system maintenance of Wetwedding and Waterfactory III.

It was humming along pretty well, lots of work, until the DRAMA HIT.

So, we had pulled two micro-injectors off the wall to open them up, inspect, replace seals, lube, and make adjustments.

Um. Yeah. So DK THOUGHT she had remembered to turn the system from "auto" to "off"...

Suddenly, she hears this weird noise, and realizes it's gushing water. We have a totally open system with injectors removed, now turned on, geisering water over the WFIII control board.

Yeah, so it took a while to mop it up. Had to take down the three stenner pumps which had had a dousing, and put them in the handy-dandy convection oven on "bread raising" mode for a few hours, to dry the pump motors out. Fortunately, it worked.

So, all in all we changed RO filters, the RO permeate pump has been replaced, we took down three injectors and three pumps and did maintenance, lube, and cleaning of all and re-mounted them. 

Then we beta tested on flush mode, checking all the connections and functions.

Good news is it looks like the day, while very long, was very successful.

It was fueled by a batch of DK's chocolate chip cookies; smoked salmon, cream cheese, avocado, water chestnut on black sticky rice and nori sashimi topped by spicy sauce and roasted sesame seeds, and copious amounts of libations.

Tomorrow, we hit the world famous Longwood Gardens, 'cause Shrimptern 3.0 is an orchid freak and as it happens their annual orchid extravaganza is right now a-goin' on. Below is a picture of the orchid Shrimptern 3.0 presented to DK upon arrival.

And, um, Shrimptern 3.0 has crawled off to visit the ijoy massage chair, and DK's nook is a-callin' her, so more later, stay tuned.


.


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## SmoothSailor

*Shrimptern 3 update*

Today was a relaxing day. Cleaned the algae off the tanks so that I could get a better view of the shrimp. DK uses a nylon bath glove to clean the inside of her tanks. Personally I use a flat razor blade, but you run the risk of scratching your tanks. DK stated that she used to use this method too, but after a few scratches she went to using the glove.
Stopped by the local Amish shop where DK had her bar top made. There were some very nice pieces there. I plan on returning tomorrow with my SUV and will purchase a piece for my home. Prices are affordable and have character, which I like very much.
Will post pictures soon.


----------



## SmoothSailor

*pictures*

Because everyone loves pictures


----------



## SmoothSailor

Mr. DK was so kind and brought us some chocolates from Govatos. Delicious. I already ate 25% of the box.


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## DKShrimporium

Yeah, it's a hardship, being a Shrimptern. Assorted handmade chocolates.

As is typical, DK lied. She lies, a lot. We did NOT go see the orchid extravaganza today, because, well, Shrimptern wanted to see the Amish place, and we's wuz lazy again, a-gettin' started late. So we go orchiding ta-morra, and also BACK to the Amish place, to pick up Shimptern's Amish piece.

It's hard to be motivated at the tail end of the ENDLESS winter, and when one is overly full of not-health-food and underly full of sleep hours.

I didn't mention it, because the brain is whirring-out and mis-firing due to sleep deprivation, but yesterday we slightly re-configured Water Factory III in an effort to fine tune the Mermaids' automation. So we eagerly wait in anticipation the results, over the next weeks. Shrimptern did get a nice view of some Mermaid babies today, after she cleaned their tank glass.

Oh yeah, the clock hands for the German movement did finally arrive, so DK assembled her vintage deco-industrial slave clock into her new keeshin time machine. She opted to leave it in all its imperfect, scratched up storied greatness. Kewl. 


.


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## pKaz

Good Stuff....


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## SmoothSailor

*Today was a great day*

Hello everyone,
Today was a fantastic day. I will admit the temperature was extremely cold and the wind was blowing hard. DK and I returned to the Amish store and I purchased a small cabinet. It is made from reclaimed barn wood. I plan on finishing it when I get home. 
After going to the Amish store we went to Longwood Gardens. Due to the time of year, certain sections were closed off. That did not matter since the place is huge. Pierre DuPont was the rich man that started the Conservancy. He built this place so that he could have fresh fruit through out the year. He also collected many different types of rare plants. During this month the Conservancy has its orchid show. I LOVE orchids. There were so many to look at and DK found herself overwhelmed with beauty. I loved looking at the different types of orchids, and wished very much that they would be mine.
After we got home, I helped DK net out some shrimp from one of her tanks. She also let me dip into some of her tanks and get a ton of plants. I hope that her plants do better in my tanks than mine are doing at the moment. I have a bad case of black beard algae.
Here are some photos from today's adventure.
Enjoy.


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## SmoothSailor

*Wolf dog*

DK has to protect her shrimp with wild wolves.


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## DKShrimporium

We started the day fueled by (Shrimptern-made; DK has no problem being a-fed stuff by Shrimpterns and quite happily offers consumption services if needed) pumpkin muffins, washed down by copious volumes of coffee and topped off with a few of those chocolates. Now fully fueled by carb overload, we were ready to take on the orchid extravaganza, all three hours of walking around we did. DK's head nearly exploded, trying to assimilate all the gorgeous visual data entering her retinas.

Shrimptern 3.0 leaves in the morning, unfortunately. Upon arrival, DK had warned that they would be leaving with a head full of - ahem - unconventional ideas.

So tonight DK asked Shrimptern if this would be the case, and was answered in the affirmative. BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!

She showed Shrimptern her notebook on Sulawesi research, all inch and a half of printouts and DK comments thereof, and her scritchy-scratch notes on how to make Mermaid water. She had forgotten the rather lengthy and tortuous process she went through to try to convert completely opposite water into instant Sulawesi water, a process the Malili lake system takes a long time to make, percolating through very unique geology to brew its agua. Tonight in the tank, DK measured the beginnings of the water correction and noticed several new berried Mermaids. It remains to be seen if the correction will overshoot her goals. It's always a bit of a crap shoot, working with hobby level implements, tests, chemistry, and such. But, heck, it wouldn't be sporting if we actually had hard answers on a lot of our data questions, would it?

It was rather nice to be able to explain to Shrimptern why most of the tanks are at the stage they are at, which was affected by the Mermaid project. 

DK had a Mermaid recipe wanting to crystallize out of solution so had shut down the system to save her injectors until she had a game plan to make adjustments. 

This system shut down affected the global flow volume through Water Factory III, which had bumped her operating range slightly below that needed for accurate injections for the OTHER tanks, so while the _Sulawesi_ problem was being worked on and the _Sulawesi tanks were offline_, _all the other tanks were being slightly under-injected and this had bumped nearly all of them out of breeding range water during this time_. 

It was fun to discuss this with Shrimptern because Shrimptern has a bio-engineering degree and has also had a technical career in recent years operating quite sophisticated equipment that utilizes pumps, filtration, and all sorts of biochemistry. So it was a lotta fun to sit around waaaay too late and talk of technical stuff, together.

******

And now, DK's blathering, and a-gonna sign off, 'cause she's waaay tired and the Shrimptern 3.0 adventure is nearly over, until...




_SHRIMPTERN 4.0.......... 
who's it gonna be? 
I have no idea..._​

.


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## wicca27

shrimpterns are so lucky lol. one day DK needs to do a pod cast lol


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## SmoothSailor

*I had to return home today.*

Had a blast working with the master. Came home and immediately directed my attention to my babies. Here is my tank.....so far. :bounce:


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## SmoothSailor

*Thank you.*

Dk. I had a wonderful time in your home. Thank you. Come visit me in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.
PS-I love how you ate all the chocolates but sent the empty box with me. I was so excited to eat just one more piece.....but it was empty. You are a tease.


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## DKShrimporium

SmoothSailor said:


> PS-I love how you ate all the chocolates but sent the empty box with me. I was so excited to eat just one more piece.....but it was empty. You are a tease.


Other Geek is laughing so hard he has tears streaming down.


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## DKShrimporium

So... DK has been a-pluggin' away at her keeshin project. In the recent 48 hours, she repeatedly robbed her Shrimporium Bins & Barrels of Parts 'n' Pieces. She now has an aquarium bulkhead installed in her keeshin. And she FINALLY found a good use for some of those tank heater clips she had hoarded. And she grabbed one of those leftover stainless steel bolts that fell off her roof from the solar install. Pics to come tomorrow when her Amazing Goop is hardened.

Today, she gotter a beeeg box from a restaurant supply place with some of her parts in there...

***********

UP NEXT:

A game of _What Is It, What Did She Use It For_? Of course, those are often two unrelated questions, as DK is known to use things for Other Than The Intended Purpose.


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Friday Fun - what is it, and what is it to DK??*

So, this has been a long, cold, sorta endless winter. Time for some fun. DK loves fun.

This is part one of the riddle. There are two parts, each "does" the same thing for DK, but sorta differently - we'll get into that a bit later.

For now, here is part I. It is the MOBILE version. Part II will be the STATIONARY version (it's arriving later today, according to tracking...). 

What is it?

DK dug around in her bins & barrels of parts 'n' pieces and cut her some "additions" - some LLPDE tubing (the black bits), and then the perfect use for that food-grade silicone tubing (the red bits) she salvaged from a fried coffee maker. (Don't you take apart dead appliances to see what is "good" in there that you might want to keep???)

I will say you can only find this puppy in the far reaches of cyberspace, now, as this is a STAINLESS STEEL one, not a chrome one.

The end purpose (DK's, that is) is to be used in the keeshin project to FIX A PROBLEM that DRIVES DK NUTS.

So, have at it. 

Don't be shy, now.


.


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## wicca27

hmmmmm im betting its to help hold something still so it does not scoot but what i have no clue


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## 35ppt

No clue.
But good tip about pulling appliances apart for salvage. I did that with a dishwasher, and ended up finding the reason it was not working well. Did not think to grab tubing off it , though.


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## DKShrimporium

Part II. OK, so if the above is the MOBILE (i.e., portable) version, here is the STATIONARY version, same function. Just got 'em installed today, still pondering sumpin' clever to do in the hollow bits. Thems mounted about 4 inches apart, and it's hard to see, but there is a strip of neoprene gasket along the two inside edges. Hard to judge this, but they stick out nearly a foot.


.


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## DKShrimporium

Before we get to the problem, and DK's solution, let's see what these things are SUPPOSED to be. Y'know, that's iff'n y'all aren't a lateral thinker, and simply use them AS INTENDED.

Exibit A: DK's mobile solution. Here's its INTENDED purpose.



.


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## wicca27

i thought flower pot holder not ham holder lol


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## pKaz

I didn't see that one coming either, I thought maybe a paper towel holder, but certainly not a ham holder. I didn't know such a thing existed.


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## DKShrimporium

And the STATIONARY version, its intended purpose. Gotta love Ikea for kewl raw materials on the cheap.


.


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## wicca27

this one is driving me nuts i have no clue on it lol. only thing that comes to mind is holder for food scraps for compost. but to me that is a bit to close to intended use.


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## DKShrimporium

And here is the the problem we are solving:


.


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## Maechael

Random shot in the dark here DK, but are you building a sliding shelf and peg arrangement so you can clip lights/fans, etc. I'm guessing this because that looks like a wet floor and I've not been caught up yet on my DK fix.


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## DKShrimporium

And here we have the global view. The problem is the splopping and blurping pot o' sauce, or the grease misting fry daddy with grease coated lid (fer example, when yer browning down a batch o' onions).

You go to access the interior of the pot, pick up the lid, and the lid is full of sauce or grease. If you put the lid down, wherever you put it gets a grease/sauce ring, a mess to clean up. If you try to put it down upside down on the counter, and manage to do so without spilling the sauce or grease, you still have the problem of burning yourself as you try to get your hand back underneath it to pick it back up, once you're done stirring the pot and want to replace the lid.

Yeah, you can use a plate. But often DK has a pot o' sauce AND a pot o' pasta a-cookin' away, with a SEPARATE stirring spoon for each, parked on that plate. So when you go to put the lid on that plate that has one of the spoons, it falls off.

So DK made her some pot lid rests. One MOBILE for when she's checking a dutch oven out of the oven (y'know, like full o' pot roast 'n' potatoes 'n' carrots 'n' onions), and one STATIONARY for when she's working at the cooktop. ('Cause DK's oven is across the room from DK's cooktop, and she also wants to be able to have CLEAR COUNTER SPACE, except when she NEEDS her lid holder, so the stationary one is mounted off the counter, and the mobile one is used and put away in a cabinet afterwards. DK is TIRED OF HAVING CRAP ALL OVER HER COUNTERS!!)

They both hold the lid level and upside down, holding the sauce/grease in the lid and NOT MAKING ANY MESS. The upside down lid can easily be grabbed again from the knob, to then replace the lid onto the pot.

(Stationary version picture is looking up underneath the wall cabinet.)

Voila.


.


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## wicca27

nifty idea. i typically just put the lid on the burner next to me lol (gas stove) but the mobile lid holder is a great idea. and it doubles as a ham older lol.


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## pKaz

This makes soooo much more sense now.


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## larcat

I am totally bumping this thread.

How's things, DK?

-Larcat


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## DKShrimporium

larcat said:


> I am totally bumping this thread.
> 
> How's things, DK?
> 
> -Larcat


Um. Well. Yeah.

DK's been off in other realms, lately. She's kinda been ignoring all those tanks in the Shrimporium days at a time while she does all sorts of other projects, construction principally.

She figures people come here to read about SHRIMP stuff, so she's stopped posting unrelated stuff while she has no shrimp-news.

At the moment, she's pondering the massively upgraded concrete anchors she's about to drill 52 holes for, and install (poor grammar, I know). On the left is the factory spec'd anchor, and on the right, the _glorious_ 410-hardened-stainless 3/8 inch wedge bolt that will withstand hurricane-grade forces that she told the factory she MUST have. Her circular saw blade for non ferrous metals has arrived, and her masonry and reaming bits are en route as she types. She likes to build stuff robust. Y'know, not mess around. Do it once and (over)do it right. Plus, monga-macho is just more fun, when yer doin' a project.

Well, that's the theory, at least.


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## DKShrimporium

The word of the day is: Seven Sixteenths Chucking Reamer


.


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## DKShrimporium

Remember pet rocks? Bottled water? Thigh master? They made somebody very, very rich off ideas that naysayers said were ridiculous.

DK's a werkin' on the Next Big Seller. An overwhelming proportion of at least half the population is going to find this the Next Big Gotta Have Accessory. And then some.

Now, the first ones out will be plain. Then, we start adding embellishments, over the years, as the "new versions" come out. Eventually, we'll add electronics. Then the fun will really take off. But we start plain, to get the idea out there, into the consciousness of the folks, until our name becomes like "Xerox" or "Kleenex" - iconic. One just wont be enough, gonna have to have a collection of 'em.

For now, DK just calls 'em: The Man Crate. She's waitin' on her welded door to arrive.

She's still werkin' on makin' them DIY friendly, for assembly. They can be rather awkward, to assemble.


.


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## wicca27

glad to see all is still well with you DK. i was even thinking about emailing ya to know your still alive and kicking lol. project looking good. 

just a bit or assembly required huh i like that makes things more fun lol


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## DKShrimporium

Well, DK has some ACTUAL SHRIMP NEWS, finally.

Last week she got really, really bizzy a-makin' her the Man Crate, and her juice for the Sulawesi system ran out, so she lazily turned off Wet Wedding and just went on about her werk.

When she went to re-fire the system a few days later, after makin' her another magic batch of Sulawesi juice, she anally checked her TDSes on Wet Wedding. Her second filter shot up from TDS 7 to 50-something. 

Now, she's been wonderin' how long the filter life would be in this system and has stubbornly been waiting for a sign. She didn't just want to replace filters until she had an idea of the lifespan. So she's been checking her TDSes quite often because the shrimps have had proper TDS a few months but at the same time ALL the tanks are a-doin' nuttin' in the breeding department this spring, so she's had a suspicion that her filters were at the end of their usefulness, but being a biggo nerd she had to follow the cycle once.

So, she can now say her filter life is about now minus, say six months. So now she has to back calculate when she put them in and now put her system on a schedule for changing them. The lifespan is pretty darned good, considering Wet Wedding runs 5 hours a day making RO at very high output (150 GPD output on the system).

---

She still hasn't changed them out, as she spent the weekend re-doing a 17 year old shower from a framed, gasketed, triple slider door FULL of nooks and crannies every which way -- which was a mold farm -- to a frameless, VERY SIMPLE extrusions door. Her reverse engineering of silicone caulk removal worked very well (she was waaay too cheap to fork over the $14 a tube for the actual silicone remover product so she did a little research and reverse engineering and made her own system).

Gone are the moldy door frames and extrusions and 17 year old caulk. Installed is the new system, sleek. Now we'll have to re-train ourselves, because the new doors slide so easily you have to hold them to keep them from slamming into the side wall when you push them open!

A couple weeks ago she also built a new tub skirt (from what else, her trusty PVC) to replace an ugly one.

-----

And Man Crate is on hold until more parts arrive, including a welded gate. She's been a-bizzy hammer drilling a lotta monga holes in concrete to make sure that man don't escape.

----

Carry on, now.



.


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## Maechael

Now DK we all like to hear projects and such, but I know I speak for at least 65% of myself when I say I wanna see some shrimps!


Also, I have a theory as to why your shrimpies and shrimpettes no make with the making for you. If you wish I could pm, or post here next time I check in.


Best of luck on all endeavors, and hopefully in the near future I'll be caught up on all your learnin's.


Minor note, took a year but my shrimp finally bred for me enough to not just remain steady but to actually grow in numbers.


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## larcat

Here I am, bumping this thread.

Yo DK, my better half and keeper and I are still waiting on your special sort of OEBT awesome for our two tanks.... Which are down right *mature* at this point.

Hit me up via pm or email:

[email protected]

Hope all is well!

-L


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## Maechael

Is DK all right?


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## larcat

Hope so, and wondering the same thing!



Maechael said:


> Is DK all right?


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## Maechael

Has anyone seen or heard from Dk?


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## DKShrimporium

Well, helloooooooooooo, all y'all.

DK has been far, far away from the shrimp world for a while, and this, unfortunately is going to continue for at least the next 6-12 months, but it has come to her attention that a buncha peeps have been pinging her so this is (sorry! sorry!) a generic response.

Due to a bunch of non-shrimp related - uh - issues, she is not focusing on shrimp until these other things are not so prominent. Not to worry, nothing disastrous or non-fixable is a-happenin' here, EXCEPT...

Um. Yes. The ONE disastrous thing that is not easily fixable is actually related to shrimp.

_DK could really, REALLY use a shrimptern, or two, or three, ASAP. If you are housebroken, a non-smoker, and eat chocolate, you could apply._

DK's well started acting up several months ago, during the summer. Over a two month process there were lots of consults and, to make a long story short, her well pump was over that time slowly frying and in the process of problem solving there were crashes, extended outages of service and decontamination issues, and whatnot. The good news is she has an awesome kickin' new well pump. And she herself put in a kickin' new well system, including a wel-x-trol tank, all stainless fittings, etc. and her water is now good to go, having also undergone an extensive maintenance of Wet Wedding after the new system was in ('cause the fried system fouled Wet Wedding).

DK's shrimp world sustained about 90-95% losses due to water issues. Uh, yeah. DK likes to do a thing up, in spectacular fashion. Turns out she has spectacular failures, too!

Shrimp have made her tough, though, and she WILL prevail. She began a course of correction several weeks ago, and she now has berried in most of her tanks, of the stock she has left. But it's gonna be a year before there are any numbers of note.

So, to those of you pinging me about shrimp, no go. So sorry. And she won't be aiming that direction for a while, due to the overall circumstances.

And, so this is not totally debbie downer, here's a picture of something that crawled out the the weeds today. Mebbe these are already out there in the shrimp world; DK has NOT been following anything shrimp for a looooooong time so has no idea what is a-happenin'.

Golden eyed red-striped blue tiger juvie from one of her project tanks.

Fried well pump. Pretty good trick, BURNING up a well pump that is submerged, but see the burnt band.


----------



## wicca27

so sorry about all the losses you have been though. i could not even start to imagine all the water issues. must have really been a pain. i hope your number on shrimp start to climb soon and your well issues will be good from now on.


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## Maechael

I for one am Glad Dk is alright and well, even after having suffered such heavy losses in the shrimp area.

Wish I could be of use, but not able to shrimptern sadly.

Keep us informed Dk I'm sure there are hundreds of strains and morphs out there because of your gene factory, and I'm sure some will find their way back home.

Best of luck friend.


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## DKShrimporium

Well, we were doing OK, past all the multiple surgeries in the household this year for multiple people! 

And then...

One day...

One of the Germans had THREE seizures in one day. So now we are in the thick of that.

++++++++++++++++

On a more cheerful note, DK is, of course, doing projects. Right now, she's obsessing (because that is her M.O. - to obsess) on a few areas of lighting. She re-did the foyer lights, building herself new fixtures from parts from grandbrass dot com. She rather likes the Victorian flavor overlaid by the vintage deco pressed glass globes.

Now, she's gearing up to restore an awesome polychrome fixture from the 20s she just scored on that auction site.


Nuttin' to do with shrimp, I know.

.


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## DKShrimporium

And here's one version of what a restored polychrome chandelier could look like. It's not historically accurate, but it's definitely aesthetically appealing.

And DK's recent craigslist score - a ceiling medallion she installed.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, as it turns out, the above polychrome fixture actually IS historically accurate, as DK found one in original finish and was SHOCKED! See pic.

Today, she amassed the nail polish and socket bells. She's twitching for a project (her normal state once the trees drop their leaves and she has all winter to do projects) and right now polychrome is her focus, until sepia seeps in, that is.

Of course, in her polychrome project, while she's faking an authentic restoration, she will ALSO be - ahem - making some alterations for alternate purposes, as she ALWAYS seems to do, in her projects. But hey, it's a-gonna increase the functionality greatly! The picture below shows an ORIGINAL FINISH polychrome fixture (with age patina). DK has the same fixture and is a-gonna fake this finish on hers, as she a-likes this particular finish. It's gonna be an OCD challenge, to do this. 'Cause you can't be too OCD and have a good result. Ya have to be sorta impressionistic, and sloppy, for it to finish out properly. It's a-makin' DK twitchier, thinkin' about this.

Yeah. This has nothing do do with shrimp. Yet.

Yet.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Well, DK finally has some actual SHRIMP news. Nothing mind shattering. To her it's totally ho hum, but she documents it here.

She must have shrimp dismorphic disorder, because she simply cannot get a rise, even though upon inspection of her Shrimpmageddon, she now has actual babies in Wild tigers, Red Tigers, Blue Tigers, Black Tigers. Yellows, Reds, Oranges, Blue Bees, and paracaridinas. Crystals and Cardinals are flirting with babies but no actual body count across her slimy tank wall glasses seen, today - both "populations" if you can call their sparse numbers this, are hanging on by a thread.

She should be happy about all these different babies, but she just... is... not.

Stay tuned.

*******

In the meantime, she has her WICKED polychrome project going on. Much fun. Supplies arriving every few days, still, toward that project. She put on her machinist's hat a while back and tapped some screw threads into her bobesches.


Oh, and. Guess who went out after midnight in the pitch black pouring, freezing January rain the other night....


*AND GOT SKUNKED.... AGAIN!!!* (Picture from several skunkings ago.)

He is soooooo _bad_.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's attitude is improving.

First, she found Cardinal babies. 'Bout 6 mm size and multiple of them. This leaves, of all her tanks, only the Papaya crystals not actively breeding. The Papaya crystals were the only crystals to survive Shrimpmageddon, unfortunately. 

Second, she recently tweaked her calcium levels and calcium:magnesium ratio and her berrying rates are increasing; she expects the Papayas to respond within the next month.

So, she cleaned some front glasses off, and started to watch. She only cleans front glass when she thinks the action is a-gettin' good -- fundamentally because sheeze lazy and glass cleaning is like that word "maintenance" _ - unless -_ it's for a show. And it is. There are more babies in there than she originally thot, although she doesn't rate the tanks at "popcorn" level... yet.

But, as of today, Shrimpmageddon is bouncing back. 

Pics, taken today. Of course they hide waaaaaaayyy inside cracks where it's hard to photograph them, plus, DK's a lousy photographer -- not necessarily in that order.


.


----------



## Maechael

Whoah DK, glad to see so much activity again.

Love seeing inside the shrimpfarm any chance I get, and I'm glad shrimpmageddon is nearing recovery status, and in nearly all the tanks at that!


Good luck with the restorations. And the fakeaged patina.


Keep us updated on recovery of shrimpies, and Der Germans.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> Whoah DK, glad to see so much activity again.
> 
> Love seeing inside the shrimpfarm any chance I get, and I'm glad shrimpmageddon is nearing recovery status, and in nearly all the tanks at that!
> 
> 
> Good luck with the restorations. And the fakeaged patina.
> 
> 
> Keep us updated on recovery of shrimpies, and Der Germans.


Why, thank you, Maechael.

Yesterday, I had dancing in the Papaya tank. Still waiting for a berried to climb out of the weeds in there, but it appears they are on the move now.

This morning: new molt skin in the Cardinal tank, and I saw five babies at once, previously I had only seen up to three. So I know a sorta recent batch of them (starting from when I started bringing back the Shrimporium from our 2014 Summer Well Shrimpmageddon) has had several grow and survive! Pics below of the molt skin and five Cardinal babies this morning. 

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

As the Shrimporium slowly arises as a phoenix from the ashes, DK simply MUST report on her latest project - the Riddle Polychrome Chandelier from 1924 or thereabouts.

She loves to scour _that_ auction site, most especially in that magical window just before Christmas when sellers are desperate to make some year end cash but buyers are done auction shopping because now it's too late to get delivery for holiday gifts. Makes for some of the best auction shopping of the year, in DK's humble opinion.

This year, she scored a rough Riddle Polychrome that had all the features she was lookin' fer, a wasted finish, and a cheap-o sorta price. Her triumvirate criteria. So, she struck, and scored.

Back in the '20s, America was reeling from WWI and wanting to escape immigrant and poverty roots, as the first generation and laters grew into American citizenship and lifestyle. They really wanted to make it to that middle-class, less-grueling lifestyle. So, of course, the product manufacturers, in American style, were right there with products to feed the up-coming middle class - products that proclaimed loudly, "you have made it." Polychrome fixtures are a great example product of this phenomenon. They were actually super cheap with awful, cheap finishes but they MIMICKED the historical finer fixtures with fancy, stylistic lines and multiple electric light bulbs showcasing the rather new electricity making its way into American middle class homes. They had a sorta charm due to this that is very enduring today as we get these pieces and put them into our 21st century homes as antiques and as stories of America's past.

But, DK can never leave well enough alone, as you know. She loves the story and styles of polychrome fixtures - many of them have GREAT design lines to them. 

However, most of them had fairly _ugly_ finishes done really cheaply and over the years the finishes wore off. Those that didn't, you can see the almost joke-like attempt at spray painting colors onto them in the crudest fashion - not even attempting any sort of adhering to the lines or fine-ness of finish. These pigment sprays were then typically over-sprayed with a gold-tinted lacquer to imitate a bronze piece. But the metal that polychrome fixtures were cast from was NOT quality bronze as the expensive finer fixtures often were, but rather the cheapest pot metal, a cast-able alloy of primarily cheap and easy to cast zinc, mixed with various other metals. So this silver-colored pot metal, also knows as "white" metal, had to be spray coated with gold tinted lacquer to imitate the more expensive bronze. 

And worst of all, they gave ABYSMAL light into a space. They mostly used bare bulbs of low intensity, rendering the rooms they "lit" as dark, dank, cave-like spaces with glaring bare bulbs.

So, DK loves the look of them. The finish has its quirks and charms, even though they were trashy finishes. But the light (actually lack thereof) - DK can't live with it. So, she had to modify.

Below, some cheesey original finishes with colors on these polychrome fixtures. The ones that retained their finishes are definitely worth keeping original, for their crude charm.

Also, a restored Riddle similar to DK's. Image credit: https://rejuvenation.s3.amazonaws.c...images/pdp/4f19cc58e694aa2eda000024/R0070.jpg


++++++++++

UP NEXT: DK's plan for HER polychrome, stay tuned. She will try to give actual shrimp news, too, in her posts.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Ahem*

So, while DK wuz a-waitin' fer a knocked-up Papaya to crawl outta the weeds (which STILL hasn't happened, stubborn girl!!), she cleaned glass on a couple more tanks and took a look.

Now, right now DK's Shrimporium looks a lot like the picture, below. Just sorta... well, unkempt. (SHE NEEDS A SHRIMPTERN THIS YEAR - CONTACT HER IF YOU'S INTERESTED - must not be a craigslist serial killer, not a substance abuse or smoker type, and housebroken - her criteria aren't that selective, honestly!! We feed you, we house you, we entertain you - well if you call work entertainment, heh heh heh, but hey projects are FUN!) So she's gettin' back to action, which encourages her to clean up. But she rather stinks at CLEANING UP so she does the least amount she HAS to, each day. She cleaned 4 inch strips at the bottom of the front glass in two more tanks, so she could take a look at the action.

She found (drumroll)...


A buncha berried black tigers.
BABIE T-REXs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A knocked up Cardinal

Yesirree, action is beginin' to a-happen, down there in the Shrimporium.

Stay tuned...

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Well, actually, there is no polychrome news, today. Waiting for some parts to arrive.

.


----------



## Maechael

DK, since my life is currently in turmoil, I'd love to get a message from you to discuss the requirements of a shrimptern, knowledge needed, abilities helpful and this room _and_ board especially with you and the shrimp ad entertainment. 


Also, yay babies, babies everywhere in the shrimporium!


Wish I had half the success and twice the time.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Thank goodness for frogs and bubbles*



Maechael said:


> DK, since my life is currently in turmoil, I'd love to get a message from you to discuss the requirements of a shrimptern, knowledge needed, abilities helpful and this room _and_ board especially with you and the shrimp ad entertainment.


Hmmmmmmmm. Most excellent. Most excellent.

Kewl.

(Rubs hands together vigorously with wicked grin on face, flicks eyes back and forth, and begins to formulate a Shrimptern Project List... heh heh heh...)

For the resta all y'alls who really _wanna_ be a Shrimptern but are _chicken_ or _intimidated_, here's the deal. You must not be a craigslist killer or sociopath. You must not be a substance abuser or smoker. You must be housebroken. You must get to DK's place and back home on yer own, but she's happy to pick up from an airport or such if needed. You can get here any mode you want, but try not to hitchhike with serial killers. You don't really have to know anything, honest. You will have fun. Every Shrimptern we've had has had fun and wanted to come BACK for more. DK's not scary in real life, well unless you mis-place her Bubba Mug before she's ingested half of its 34 ounces of coffee, in the morning. She will vet you a little bit, to make SURE you are not a craigslist killer or sociopath, but the process is not bad. You can vet her or talk to previous Shrimpterns, she will give you their contact info. As a Shrimptern you remain somewhat anonymous because DK's old school and doesn't believe in just publishing everything into cyberspace for privacy and security reasons. Yeah, she grew up in the days BEFORE facebook. Dinosaur, I know.

What I mean by that is your identity, as far as _this thread_, remains your user ID rather than your real identity, and we don't put pictures up here that are too specific, either. You can TAKE pictures, but specific ones don't make it onto cyberspace, please. Remember, dinosaur era.

Oh, yeah, you must be able to tolerate tripping over two German Shepherds and having one of then snoot you in - ahem - inconvenient places - he is SO BAD!!

If you play electric guitar, it's a plus. If you have video games or awesome recipes to bring, it's a plus. We've had a vegetarian Shrimptern, so we roll with the dietary needs, but always eat too much all week. We especially had chocolate overload during Shrimptern II's reign.

Poor Shrimptern III WANTED chocolate overload, but cruelly got an empty box BY MISTAKE!! IT WAS A MISTAKE!!

============

So today, we have a tale of two failures. OK, so DK saved the day, sorta, but, still, two failures.

First, she's on this campaign to y'know, get the Shrimporium back. But, she's lah-zhee, so she can only do so much in a day. So the other day, she FINALLY decided to clean the front glass of the yellows tank, and do a bit of filter maintenance, etc. In the course of that she removed four water feed lines from their tank and (uh... I dunno... how does this happen...) mysteriously only put THREE of them back. She's a-losin' it.

So, later in the day, when Wet Wedding kicked in, the fourth line was spewing water feed all over the Shrimporium floor during the cycle. Fortunately, she had a trusty Leak Frog stationed in the vicinity that went off shortly and alerted her. Even so, many towels later and a few choice vocabulary words, all was well. Thank you, Prince Charming in your Green Outfit!

Second, while she was actually paying some attention to that neglected tank, she noticed some curious slime upon one of the heaters. Now, again, she's lah-zhee, so she wondered, and went about her business. Next day, she sees it again, but this time it's a-bubblin'. Now, she knows this is NOT normal for slime to put out rather large bubbles. She looks closer.

*AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

It's not slime. The heater has ruptured and its heater entrails, electrified, and heating, are oozing through the rupture, into her tank water!

She pulls the plug and removes the heater, see pics. 

She needs some new heaters. Yeah.

++++++++++

And, as she types this moment, BOTH black tiger tanks AND the Papayas are dancing. Oh, yeah, the Shrimporium is entering popcorn mode.

.


----------



## Maechael

I think DK needs to invest in some steel shell heaters with a serious glass case.
or a clear view style heater so you can see it's whoozits and whatknobs and make sure visibly it's working for you not against you.

Also, dancing shrimps and all aside, DK your followers have gone astray I feel it is my duty as a fanatic to keep this thread fresh in peoples minds and near the top of the new posts page for all to see. 


The fun stuff alone is worth it, but there's also tragedy, and wisdom, and Sriracha stuff and doggies.

Also do you foresee the DK empire making a recovery to seller status by the summer time?


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> I think DK needs to invest in some steel shell heaters with a serious glass case.
> or a clear view style heater so you can see it's whoozits and whatknobs and make sure visibly it's working for you not against you.
> 
> Also, dancing shrimps and all aside, DK your followers have gone astray I feel it is my duty as a fanatic to keep this thread fresh in peoples minds and near the top of the new posts page for all to see.
> 
> 
> The fun stuff alone is worth it, but there's also tragedy, and wisdom, and Sriracha stuff and doggies.
> 
> Also do you foresee the DK empire making a recovery to seller status by the summer time?


Sigh. These heaters replaced some TITANIUM heaters that were _so_ disappointing and died way too early. DK definitely likes a heater with a light indicator showing it's powered up. She does need to buy some new heaters, but is not ready yet. Everything she does down there is in bulk so she has to pick good products. Her critical tanks are on double systems with double thermostatic control, so if a heater welds on or malfunctions, the temp controller will cut power if the tank temp gets too high. But all her systems make for a lot of gobbledy-**** into a tank. 

She has NO IDEA who reads this thread. It's really creepy, most of the time because it's like walking in a dark, echo-ey cave, alone, when she posts. Nobody says much of anything except her, in this thread! DK just soldiers on, though, because she uses this thread to keep records. She forgets what and when she tried stuff, or how she did it, and she just digs it up here!

DK's goal has never been to be a seller. Her goal is to develop systems, and hobbyists. she just sells stuff when she needs to finance something or when the Shrimporium's overpopulated, etc. She will probably get there by summer with some species, even after Shrimpmageddon, but shrimp have taught her WELL not to speculate too far or to loudly, into the future. 

This morning, the red tigers were dancing. Yellows are molting like mad in there. 

DK just LOVES it when she can get crystals and yellows berrying up at the same time, because that's a technical feat on an automated sytem!


----------



## Nuthatch

I don't have any shrimp, although I might like to some day, but I really enjoy reading your updates. You have a unique style of writing.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Nuthatch said:


> I don't have any shrimp, although I might like to some day, but I really enjoy reading your updates. You have a unique style of writing.



AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! LIFE!!! LIFE in the cave!

*********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Today, we have confirmation of at least one berried Papaya. Yup. DK knew it wuzza comin'.

Stay tuned.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK's knocked-up club. Pics taken 10 minutes ago, in the tanks that had a knocked-up lady, up near the glass, in a tank with clean glass, that lousy DK was able to get an in-focus and not moving picture. Lotsa conditions, to get a picture, there.


Papaya (my camera loses the blush color for some reason)
Blue Tiger
Wild Tiger
Black Tiger
Camouflage Tiger (paracaridina meridionalis)

Most of the neos are saddling up right now, pre-berried. They lag because DK's having more issues pushing their calcium levels where they should be, due to hardware limitations. She could work around this by changing some fundamental parameters in Wet Wedding, but she hates to change fundamentals unless absolutely necessary because to do so means lots of follow-up testing and re-calibrations. So she waits and sees if she can get there, but more slowly than the caridinas.


Yellow
Red
.


----------



## pKaz

There is always life in the cave DK. I don't usually post but I do read all the posts in this thread, that's why I subscribed a long time ago. 

Also thanks for the shrimpy pictures they look fantastic, keep up the good work!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Today's lesson: Know Thyself*



pKaz said:


> There is always life in the cave DK. I don't usually post but I do read all the posts in this thread, that's why I subscribed a long time ago.
> 
> Also thanks for the shrimpy pictures they look fantastic, keep up the good work!


Hey pKaz,

Good to hear from ya. Y'should come up sometime; we can finish what we started last time! Ha! I still haven't finished it! Thus the frog! I'm pretty sure that was you that was helping me with that marine stainless cable, wasn't it?

+++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

So, yeah. Behind the scenes, DK is starting to prepare for Shrimptern IV (she's a wishful thinker, she is), realizing that the aftermath of Shrimpmageddon has left a BIG MESS down there in the Shrimporium that she needs to deal with somewhat before having folks down there. I mean, it's embarassing.

She's been forcing herself to do a little each day, in between gasping for air due to the flu settling deep into her lungs and sinuses.

Yesterday, she was straightening up, trying to do ANYTHING to straighten up down there. I mean, it's a war zone right now.

She looks up, high, on one of the shrimp racks, and sees something she sees every day, but now in a different light, today, and an alarm (figurative, that is) goes off. There is a stuffed 5 lb. bag of baking soda up high on that shelf, with the ziploc top wide open. She's cheapo, so she buys baking soda in huge bags from Costco.

Now, every _other_ day this is part of the furniture, part of the scenery, it does not elicit any thought. But lack of oxygen to her lungs, and therefore her brain, must have her brain functioning BETTER, it seems.

So, she says to herself, "What the heck is _that_ doing there? Why would I put a bag of baking soda THERE? I know I wouldn't. And I know, even if I did, that sucker would be zipped shut. Must go investigate."

She getser a step ladder and pulls down the lumpy open bag.

*OH LA LA!*

She has been looking for MONTHS for her MiniDos injector. It began to malfunction and she COULD NOT manage to get into the part of the machinery that was malfunctioning. She remembers, in a fit of rage and using some choice vocabulary words, tossing the disgusting thing into the trash in _contempt_.

But then.

She THOUGHT she remembered fishing it out of the trash, being a hoarder, and not really being able to get rid of anything THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL SOMEDAY. So for months, she's been second guessing herself if she ACTUALLY threw the thing away, or not, because shortly after she did, she ran across a youtube that showed her how to get into the part of the machinery that was malfunctioning. She CLEARLY remembers cursing to Murphy the day she saw that video, now that she THOUGHT she threw this injector away. Many MORE choice vocabulary words followed.

But in the months after, niggling doubts ate her. SHE KNOWS HERSELF. _She is too cheap to throw away a piece of equipment costing hundreds of denaros, until she is SURE she cannot fix it._ Heck, she kept a couple permeate pumps a year, convinced she'd eventually figure out a way to get into them, until she realized they were heat welded shut on manufacture. THEN she finally tossed them.

BTW, she DID throw away the eviscerated heater, the other day. She briefly held it, thinking about taking it apart for parts such as the cord and thermostat, but then the oxygen to her brain returned momentarily.

So there is was. The missing MiniDos injector.

It all came flooding back. She tossed it into the bag one day, thinking she was going to fill the bag with DI water and store it until she figured out how to crack the code. (Storing in DI water so the seals don't dry rot as it was largely taken apart at the time). But she got busy that day and didn't put the DI water in (due to a long debate on the process whether she should make a dilute bleach solution or not to store it in so biofilms wouldn't colonize the parts). You can see how complicated things get inside her head, when she tries to do a simple thing, yes?

OK, now. She has been fuming about the lost injector, because she realized it was the solution to a few issues she was having. Stay tuned on this prime-time-soap, for more chapters.

+++++++++

Here's another Camo Tiger that crawled out of the weeds yesterday. Check out the load she's carrying! There are a few berried in that tank right now and they are rapid cycling, too. DK's tweaks have apparently hit the sweet spot with them.


.


----------



## Maechael

Wow DK just wow. Your shrimp appear to be bouncing back like a superball after shrimpageddon. Lots of berried mamas, and hopefully next generation shrimpies and shrimpettes.


Nice trick hiding stuff in plain sight for yourself later on by the way.

Also, I think everyone is hopeful for your next shrimptern, because it means more photos, and more time inside the shrimporium, and a little more light in this cave of a wonderful thread.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> Wow DK just wow. Your shrimp appear to be bouncing back like a superball after shrimpageddon. Lots of berried mamas, and hopefully next generation shrimpies and shrimpettes.
> 
> 
> Nice trick hiding stuff in plain sight for yourself later on by the way.
> 
> Also, I think everyone is hopeful for your next shrimptern, because it means more photos, and more time inside the shrimporium, and a little more light in this cave of a wonderful thread.


I gotta say, things ARE happenin' down there, right now, in a big way. 

So much so that DK dropped some denaro on a crate of new commercial strength daylight bulbs. DK lurves commercial strength things.... heh heh heh... 

She needs more slime growth on her glass for all the microbabies showing up, now! And she needs to turbo charge the moss growth in the tanks, to catch up from the losses during Shrimpmageddon - wet wedding was totally down a long time due to well issues, so the plants suffered equally, not getting their CO2 or ferts for a long time. She's trying to balance everything coming back, now: water infusions, filter function, power feedings, leaf loading, plant growth. All these things have to be in balance to get to production mode in a tank.

++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

First pictures, camo babies.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

So... the commercial daylight bulbs are tracking to arrive tomorrow. DK couldn't remember how long the existing bulbs had been in the fixtures so she went hunting through her picture files for when the various phases of expansion happened.

She ran across this picture of Water Factory 1.0. It's almost laughable, now. (circa 2009)

And today's version. (circa 2012)

+++++++++

IN RELATED NEWS:

The REASON DK's replacing the bulbs is to grow more slime on her glass for the influx of microbabies.

This morning, down there, she spied a Blue Tiger mama poppin' babies. Here she is squeezing the eggs to hatch, a new baby, and some of the current crops on the glass.

Wish ya coulda been there!
.


----------



## plamski

Great!!!!
Very happy to see those tanks full with babies.


----------



## DKShrimporium

plamski said:


> Great!!!!
> Very happy to see those tanks full with babies.


Hi Plamen!

Here are a few more baby shots I just took for you.


.


----------



## Maechael

Oh wow even more babies in the shrimporium!

So in the realm of pet keeping, I think I just setup a shrimpcube in my living room last night. Also, whoo hoo being unemployed leads to things getting done around the house.


Is the DK feeling better yet? 
Hoping pharmaceutical haze has worn off, and fluish symptoms are disappating for you.


And I really hope the shrimps keep working the mojo and making the babies.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> Oh wow even more babies in the shrimporium!
> 
> So in the realm of pet keeping, I think I just setup a shrimpcube in my living room last night. Also, whoo hoo being unemployed leads to things getting done around the house.
> 
> 
> Is the DK feeling better yet?
> Hoping pharmaceutical haze has worn off, and fluish symptoms are disappating for you.
> 
> 
> And I really hope the shrimps keep working the mojo and making the babies.


This calls for pictures, you know.


Quite to the contrary, DK went to the MD today and _expanded_ her cache of phamaceuticals because overnight the flu _expanded_ into a sinus infection on a Friday, and last time that happened it _expanded_ to pneumonia by Monday. In the bizarro world of modern pharmacetical accounting, somehow the price on them was over $100, until a certain plastic member card was proffered, at which time the price mysteriously dropped to $4. It wasn't that another party paid all except the $4, it was that the price structure changed.

I need more of those types of plastic cards, methinks.

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

FINALLY, more polychrome parts have arrived. DK managed to score an unbelievable set of five of these turn-of-the-century (?) glass globes for a _stunning_ ten bucks on THAT auction site, but shipping was delayed because just when she bought them the poor seller dude was hospitalized. DK's been on pins and needles, wondering if she'd actually GET them, or if said dude might expire, leaving her antique globeless. Dude prolly had what she's got, only even worse, and needing HOSPITAL grade pharmaceuticals. I hope he had a plastic member card.

DK saw the SAME globe, a single one, on that same site for $50.


.


----------



## plamski

Hi Donna.
Corresponding the flu and other low immune system sickness and because you know me a little bit, I'll give you some hints just to kill you free time in research?:hihi::icon_twis:hihi:

Look for Wheatgrass juice, Barley juice and sunflower shoots.
I’m growing them for our family/next to the shrimps racks / 2 years already. We forgot what is flu or cold. They give so much pure energy I can sleep only 4h per day and still work more than my coworkers and fill great.

I'm talking about 4 trays on the back wall next to the door.


----------



## Maechael

Wheat grass, barley......... Shrimp tanks! So very many tanks, awesome looking tanks. 

I think the illness stay away because you're in a beautiful room surrounded by that stuff. Pretty cool on the health aspect though.



DK unsure when, but pics will be coming eventually.

Bump: Also DK, did that trick with the polychrome project work?

Glad to see you are moving forward with health concerns and a project or two.


----------



## Maechael

http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/maechael1988/slideshow/Unemployment activity


Newest update, the cube next to the reef is what I'm hoping has shrimps eventually.
not my call but, fingers crossed.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Plamen,

Y'know, I have actually thought about setting up a hydroponic tray or two down in the Shrimporium, using tank flush water twice daily for ferts. Hmmmmmm. Don't think I'd want to use this method on anything I planned to juice, though, due to the bacteria load. I had originally been thinking herb garden, where the bits you'd eat never touch the wash at the roots.

***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK's case of commercial bulbs (_lamps_, technically) arrived in the sub-freezing temps, today. She had only enough oxygen to install two. Just two.

No new progress on the polychrome project, although virtual planning continues to spin inside DK's oxygen-starved brain. She needs enough oxygen for a trip to Lowes to get nuts, to work on the red brass pipe. It's a fine, pretty piece of pipe (_nipple_, technically), though.


.



Maechael said:


> http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/maechael1988/slideshow/Unemployment activity
> 
> 
> Newest update, the cube next to the reef is what I'm hoping has shrimps eventually.
> not my call but, fingers crossed.


Ooooooooo. Tanks. Mmmmmmmm.

You should do blue bees in the cube.

HA, DK spent many an afternoon squatting in creeks. She once passed out doing this and awoke lying in the middle of the creek! Orthostatic hypotension. Add that to yer vocabillary.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Today's episode: DK Grows Things*

First, she'zah growing a whole lotta sumpin' in her sinuses. Thus, the kleenex in the floaters.

But then, today, she went after a certain VERY neglected 75 gallon tank run amok. *And ah main, uh muuuuuuuk.* Said tank had a 3-4 inch layer of floaters, _then_ a 2 inch layer of cambomba. It wasn't pretty. Well, maybe it was, to, say, a hippopotamus.

DK gotter out the scoop and removed about 3 gallons of plant mass. Half a trash can, it wuz. Then she gotter out the Duckweed Detonator and let it go to work about an hour, as a first whack. That thing should be patented.

And finally, DK enticed the schreeeemps outta the weeds in her schreeeemp tanks with green beans, today. She counted at least 20 berried Blue Tigers - that tank popped like popcorn.

And another loaded Camo Tiger, those ladies are poppin', too.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's new Favorite*

Well, DK was a-gonna write her astonishing tale of tenacity today, but she's short on energy. 

Instead, she presents her new favorite shrimp, from the T-Rex tank. She's dubbed him *Catahoula Merle*. 

Catahoula Leopard Dogs have some really interesting genetics, to get to that Merle color. It's a gene that dilutes pigment. Some Catahoula Leopard Dogs have what are called "cracked" eyes, meaning the pigment in the iris is split between different sets of cells, causing two iris colors in one eye, looking like a cracked marble I suppose. Sometimes, they have an eye one color and the other eye a different color. The lighter color of the eye is the darker color that has been diluted. This can cause blue eyes from a brown eye. There are two genes in dogs that can cause blue eyes in this manner, the Merle gene, and the Piebald gene. Now, here's a very interesting tidbit: since the Merle gene causes dilution of pigment, it ALSO causes dilution of pigment in the RETINA of the eye as well as the IRIS of the eye. Therefore, this gene, and blue eyes have been linked with vision impairment or blindness, because the retina needs pigment in order to see properly. Kewl bit of science, there. 

Now, as if that weren't nerdy enough. Here's ANOTHER kewl bit of science. Most dog breeds that display Merle genes have a strong linkage between full Merle and eye problems and deafness. However, it is now thought that the Catahoula Leopard dog has a MODIFIED Merle gene, because they have diminished problems with vision and hearing EVEN WHILE carrying and expressing the Merle gene.

So, the Merle gene is a MODIFIED pigment gene. The Catahoula Leopard Dog Merle gene is thought to be a MODIFIED MODIFIED pigment gene.

Somehow, all this splitting, whicky-whacky pigment play just resonates with DK. She likes. Somebody make a Catahoula German, please.

Image credits: 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Catahoula,_Cracked_glass_eyes.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b9/52/52/b95252f311a5c714cc75cc575fed38c7.jpg

http://blog.bestbullysticks.com/bbs-breed-spotlight-catahoula-leopard-dog/

********

COMING UP NEXT:

DK's astonishing tale of how shrimp have taught her toughness and tenacity. She has to sit around awaiting the arrival of her THERMAL IMAGING CAMERA so may as well write it while she sits around, tomorrow.

Stay tuned.


.


----------



## Maechael

So I awwed at the shrimps and the puppies. 
Also, Catahoula merle nice tito meet 


DK with no alterior motives, I hope You're feeling a little bit better if nothing else.

Your floater pics make me jealous, duckweed and water hyacinth is all I've managed to keep flourishing since my frogbit and water lettuce was eaten by pond snails.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Shrimp teach DK to be tough*

Yeah, well, this is gonna be long.

So, DK has this compulsion to explore things, try things. She's also cosmically lah-zhee when it comes to tedious, repetitive, maintenance type tasks. She just doesn't have the gene that encodes for maintenance tasks.

She likes to grow things, except the flu virus, but that seems to have a mind of its own and she seems to be the perfect host. But I diverge in my tale.

She gotter interested in planted tanks, and then shrimp. She got tired of all the water changes and fert schedules. She wanted ALL the pretty colors of shrimp, like a greedy fool.

True to form, she dives off the deep end, into a project that in her mind is kewl. She chases kewl. Grow lotsa different shrimp, but AUTOMATE it all. Yeah, that's it.

And thus, started the Shrimporium. 

Now, she has this committee up inside her head that is always discussing things and making a lot of demands. The committee demands that things be _SPORTING_, meaning _she can never seem to do any project the standard, simple way_. That darned committee makes all these rules to challenge her, layering on rule after rule in a given project, so it's worthy of a go - enough of a challenge to occupy her.

SO: She wanted to grow shrimp.

Lots shrimp, as in production levels, not just a few.
Lotsa different species of shrimp from different biomes.
It all had to be automated, fully, 'cause she's lah-zhee and KNOWS it.
It had to be run off her own water source, 'cause she's lah-zhee and can't be bothered to run around getting bottled water, etc.
It has to use stuff available at big box stores, the local grocery, Amazon, e bay. Easily sourced, cheap parts and NON-PROPRIETARY whenever possible.
Use the FEWEST concentrate feeds possible, for the system. The system is based on injections of concentrates into a global water system (DK's Water Factory) that in turn makes all different sorts of water, for the different species of shrimp. Of course DK wanted ONE global Shrimp Juice concentrate, but the chemistry dictated this was not to be, so she had to seek the fewest juice concentrates possible to accomplish all her water making tasks, including pH control, GH, KH, micronutrients and minerals, and macronutrients, for the growth of shrimp and plants.
The tanks had to be LONG-TERM sustainable. In other words, none of this changing out substrate every year or two. Nope, she's too lah-zhee for that.
Oh, and, this all has to pay for itself, somehow. The Shrimp get no free rent.
Oh, and, this all has to be lean and mean for energy consumption, the Shrimp have to pay for their power consumption, too.

OK, so the list goes on and on, you get the idea. That committee is really sumpin', up there in all that cacophony.

She starts out with a cheapo shelf unit and a buncha dollar store plastic bins as her tanks.

Grows her enough shrimp to buy more equipment.

She upgrades, adds on, works on her technology.

She learns how to grow caridina coming out her ears. Neos give her all sorts of headaches, because her native water doesn't agree with them, and it's a lot of chemistry to convert it to water they like. 

She plugs on. She learns how to grow Neos. But she can't get the system to grow BOTH caridina AND neos at the same time, simply, on automation, on one water source, with few shrimp juice concentrates. She is forced to buy a few pieces of proprietary equipment - her injectors. 

She fools around with things for a few years, always learning more, having a pretty good time, in her project.

Just when she thinks she's FINALLY on the verge of something, shrimp start dying. Onesies. Here and there. Soon, they are not fluorishing. Months later they are just holding, but not breeding, dropping every now and then.

She bangs her head on the wall several months. Despair sets in.

Finally, one day, she RE-tests her water source, which she knows like the back of her hand. Well it's changed. 

She's been pumping 40+ ppm nitrate water into the tanks, twice a day. Water that used to be free of nitrates. She finally tracks it down to the local corn fields, leaching nitrates from their ferts into her well. She's screwed.

But stubborn. 

She spends three months researching technologies to remove nitrates, starting with bio systems including a whole host of plants that are powerful nitrate removers. She finds candidates that work, but the problem is the plant denitrifying engines are fueled by sunlight, so in order to get the levels of denitrification needed she needs light at the strength of sunlight. Not gonna happen, too energy intensive. The other problem is plant mass, and humidity levels inside her house. The plant mass needed to denitrify, using plants, requires the plants to be emersed below, and open out of the tanks, above. They then require open-top tanks, cranking humidity levels in her house, and they also take up too much vertical real estate, interfering with the light fixtures. Just a big mess.

She plugs on.

In the meantime, her crystals are being decimated, and everyone else is sickly.

She then turns to process, non-biological. She researches industrial methods and parts. There is nothing remotely affordable and available for denitrification that is available from industrial processes, except reverse osmosis.

Thus, Wet Wedding project was born.

She spends months researching, designing, shopping, assembling, and beta testing this monster, then figuring out how to control it and marry it to the Water Factory, such that it is FULLY AUTOMATED. Aye, there's the rub. RO system, not hard. RO system FULLY AUTOMATED, FULLY INTEGRATED into Water Factory, hard.

She finally gets past that hurdle.

Now, she enters this VERY painful phase of having to completely re-design her Shrimp Juice recipes based on the new system. Because she's dealing with Wonka-esque equipment and not an analytical chemistry lab that can give her REAL data, she has to think her way around all the possibilities of what is happening, rather than knowing exactly what is happening. Like trying to paint the Mona Lisa, but in the pitch black, by feel, rather than by sight. Not easy, or for the faint of heart.

She begins to bring the tanks back into alignment. They are not in breeding mode but are surviving and healthy. It's a matter of plugging away until she has enough trials in the dark to finally get to the sweet spots for the various formulas of Shrimp Juice. 

She plugs on, making small increments of progress. 

She is really tired, and wanting to quit. Just tired of messing around in Wonka land with sorta data and kinda answers and maybe progress toward her many goals. 

But she plugs on, and the shrimp hold steady, the ones that are left.

She's closing in on the Shrimp Juice recipes when it all starts to go bad, again. Shrimp dropping onesies. Breeding stopped, shrimp not thriving. 

What is going on.

A few more months of head-beating and wailing and despair as shrimp die.

Trouble shooting here, there, everywhere.

All of a sudden, the house water supply starts to QUIT, mid-shower, twice in a week in two different bathrooms, on the poor shower victims.

A clue.

About a month more troubleshooting. 

Finally traced to a malfunctioning well pump.

Well, you have to really know the Wet Wedding/Water Factory system to understand how this wreaked havoc over months. 

You see, a faltering well pump put wavering water pressure into the house system, and stirred up muck in the well, sending it upstream, fouling Wet Wedding's membranes, and all sorts of other problems.

Two months of fixing. DK plumbs in an all new well system - tank, lines, valves, etc. All now stainless instead of brass fittings, as her well water is incredibly acidic and has eaten the brass until copper stains are in her bathtub. This same copper of course runs into her shrimp system.

Still problems. Finally the well pump failure is diagnosed. The well pump gets replaced.

Start over.

_By now, the shrimp tanks are decimated. DK has lost ALL her hundreds of crystals, except about six Papaya that she's worked on 3 years to develop. All her other crystals and taiwans - gone. All her other shrimp are down to a handful per tank, and some surviving juvies or babies. She lost all her cardinals except about six, and a few juvies._

She's NOT a cryer, but she wants to cry. She just doesn't want to do it, anymore. She's got folks pinging her, wanting shrimp, and she just doesn't want to think about the state of annihilation going on, and the crawl out of the hole it would take to even get her breeding populations back, let alone breeding up to production levels where she can provide shrimp out.

She really, really wants to get on Craigslist and just sell the whole setup turnkey, and quit. She considers it, very seriously. _She is tired of messing with it._

But, she's lah-zhee. She imagines how on earth it would be sold and dismantled and moved for the new owner, and she's tired just thinking about that. 

She stops posting for long times. But now and then, a cave-dweller pops up and lights a spark, in the cave. She wonders if she could get it back.

*AND THAT, IS THE MAGIC.*

_Whenever DK's mind says to her, "I wonder if..." - she launches._

So, she systematically begins a program to bring recovery from Shrimpmageddon. 

Today, she's really happy with the metrics of all her tanks. Everything is moving in the right direction, more each day.

She looks in them, studies her metrics, and feels good, that she didn't give up.

*Shrimp made her tough*.

_But you think this is an interesting tale? 
Well, lesson TWO in shrimp teaching toughness, 
something that happened this week 
that ASTONISHED DK, up next._​Stay tuned.

+++++++++

And what timing. Not three minutes ago, her THERMAL IMAGING CAMERA arrived.


.


----------



## xenxes

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other!

Keep it up DK, we're all cheering for you


----------



## Maechael

That was a long one DK, but worth it.
Peeking into the shrimporium is awesome, and peeking into the mind of the person behind them can be quite interesting.

There seems to be a bit of magic back in the cave.


Also I may have been in the cave clacking rocks together making sparks trying to revive interest in it. These Pages are very interesting and quite informative.

Also, thermal gun for the well to see if it's burning up again without needing manual inspection?



Also astonishment? Me likey where this is going.


----------



## Nuthatch

I have to ask- does the thermal imaging camera have anything to do with the shrimp? Or is this another hobby?? I have the feeling you explained this before but its nearly 11:30pm and I'm too tired to root through the log... LOL


----------



## DKShrimporium

*The Astonishing Tale: Shrimp teach toughness part II*

Well, I hope you can appreciate this tale as DK did. To truly appreciate it, you must _take it into context_, so, again, this will be kinda long.

Several years ago, DK set up a 75 gallon tank on one of her racks in anticipation of making it some sort of monster crystal tank. But her water system and failures kept beating her down, especially where crystals were involved, due to nitrates in her well water coming and going silently.

She got very discouraged, and just abandoned the idea, for the time being. So discouraged was she with crystals that she even bought fish for the tank, to put something in it. She had a group of L144 blue-eyed yellow bristlenose plecos, and a group of very hungry bumble bee cats. Now, the bumble bees are hunters and meat eaters, so after they went into the tank DK abandoned _any_ idea of that 75 being a shrimp tank.

She kept having issues with the plants growing too much in there and just packing the tank out with plant mass. DK got lah-zhee and tired of messing with that tank and was just gonna tear it all down, so she found some homes for the plecos and bumbles. So now it was just plants. But DK was even lah-zhee-er and never finished taking down the tank. So, again, the plant mass took over and it was, and AH MAIN, it was *packed* with bolbitis plant mass. Sumpin' like the density of an underwater bamboo stand, iff'n ya know whut AH MAIN.

So one day a few months ago, those bolbitis were so packed in there that the filters were going haywire, making all sorts of ruckus. DK was in a hurry so she just unplugged them, thinking she'd get to that tank later.

Um. Yeah. DK fergot all about it.

SO, um, months go by. The fragments of floaters and cabomba in there took over, multiplying like mad, until, as we mentioned the other day, there was a 3-4 inch thick mat of floaters, covering a 2 inch mat of cabomba, all over a tank FULL of bolbitis, which, by now, was growing up into the filter casings and out of the tank, in search of light. 

Now, that tank is down almost on the floor, and DK just ignores it because there's no action, and no shrimp. This is her habit.

So, she ignored it for months, while it was cooking away.

The problem was, it was getting plenty of light and nutrients with the water flushes, but the water wasn't circulating, due to the filter pumps being TURNED OFF!!

Still, she is a bonehead, and doesn't notice. It's normal, by now, for that tank to look completely black, under the top layer, so she doesn't see it, any more. She doesn't really care what's happening in that tank, as there is no livestock in it to harm.

NOW

Last week, she was in the THICK of the flu, WITH a sinus infection, to boot. _Under good circumstances in which she had no impediments, she has a lousy sense of smell._ This is why she likes really strong, and spicy foods, cause her smell ain't too good. 

Now, in the middle of the flu _and_ sinus infection, you can't smell diddley. You also can't lean over, because you're already completely congested and any leaning over causes all the blood to rush to your lung and nasopharynx and sinus membranes and totally close off the tiny airways you have. So you remain upright, in order to live.

EVEN SO, last week, DK caught a whiff of sumpin'. Like sumpin' a-rotting away. That sulfur-y smell of a pit-o-slime gone bad. Sewer gasses, flammable, toxic fumes - that sort of thing.

Now, Other Geek has a very GOOD sense of smell, so DK's a-thinkin', "Um, hey, better figger out this stench before Other Geek catches wind of it and starts yellin' at me."

She starts to look around, between blows of her runny nose and gasps of breath, seeking oxygen in her blood, and brain.

She glances down, and sees that this 75 gallon tank is MILKY WHITE on the exact bottom half. *All the bolbitis has rotted, melted, liquified, inside the milky white.* Then, on top of the milky white bottom layer, is a *black layer*. And then this super-thick layer of solid plant mass mat, on top. 

She opens a tank lid and the smell, even through her congested, dripping membranes, _nearly knocks her out_.

*THIS is why, even in the middle of the flu, DK was messing with that tank, last week, scooping out 3 gallons of plant mass.* She had to remove the organic matter, 'cause it was feeding the rotting machinery fodder.

So, she scoops out half a 30 gallon trash bag of plant layer, then gets her a long stick and stirs up the substrate, and notices the filters aren't running AT ALL. She checks the plugs - UNPLUGGED. 

_Oh, well, duh._

She plugs them back in, stirring the substrate more until the goo layer seal is broken.

She contemplates emptying the tank and re-filling it with clean water, but, again, she is exhausted from the flu, so she decides to see if nature will take over, converting anaerobic populations into aerobic populations, to take on this *stenchy-cess-pit*.

_Now, anyone who can imagine a dead carcass out on a road in the hot sun knows how fast biology can work. _ Biology is a powerful force when unleashed. It was powerfully rotting her 75 gallons of bolbitis, but now she's changed the equation and added CIRCULATION, and with it, OXYGEN into the set-up.

She gingerly puts the tank lids back on to seal in the sulfur smell from Other Geek's sensibility, and coughs and hacks her way back upstairs, to collapse and rest.

Next day, she goes down there to see if anything's turning around, in that tank.

She is absolutely amazed at the power of biology. In 24 mere hours, the circulation and oxygen have fed up a nice population of AEROBIC bacteria that have come in like the cavalry and taken over the vat-o-rotten-goo. The water is CRYSTAL CLEAR, and NO SMELL. (Remember, yesterday, she removed all the rotting organic matter from the tank.)

WOW. DK is amazed, at the _power of biology_.

She stands there, admiring the work of millions or billions of aerobes in a mere day.

While she is standing there, staring, pondering, gasping for a breath between nose blows, she catches a movement, a flash of white.

She looks.

And there, in that tank, is a _giant_ double hino crystal red shrimp, swimming around.

Now, DK is ASTONISHED at the toughness of that single shrimp. _*How* the HECK did that shrimp live in that rotting vat-o-goo??? *How* did it escape the bumbles?_

She wishes she had taken pictures of the layered goo, especially that horrifying, scary bottom half-tank of milky white, opaque toxicity - to show you. She wishes you could have smelled the toxic fumes coming out of that lid, once un-sealed.

++++++++++

DK has NO IDEA how that shrimp got into that tank. She NEVER put any shrimp into that tank, and the only thing she can think is she might have put a chunk of overgrown java moss in there from a shrimp tank to debulk the shrimp tank, and a micro-baby crystal hitched a ride. 

None of the tanks above that tank house crystals. She hasn't even HAD any crystals for several months, since Shrimpmageddon wiped them all out when the well pump fried last summer.

Just _astonishing_. 
Talk about _toughness_.​
*****************



xenxes said:


> Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other!
> 
> Keep it up DK, we're all cheering for you


Why, thank you. I could use cheerleaders, in my quest.



Maechael said:


> That was a long one DK, but worth it.
> Peeking into the shrimporium is awesome, and peeking into the mind of the person behind them can be quite interesting.
> 
> There seems to be a bit of magic back in the cave.
> 
> 
> Also I may have been in the cave clacking rocks together making sparks trying to revive interest in it. These Pages are very interesting and quite informative.
> 
> Also, thermal gun for the well to see if it's burning up again without needing manual inspection?
> 
> 
> 
> Also astonishment? Me likey where this is going.


No, the well pump is now brand new and should be good to go for years and years to come! Besides, you can't see down there with a thermal camera, anyway, as the only route is straight down a pipe, onto the top of the pump some tens of feet below, under water.



Nuthatch said:


> I have to ask- does the thermal imaging camera have anything to do with the shrimp? Or is this another hobby?? I have the feeling you explained this before but its nearly 11:30pm and I'm too tired to root through the log... LOL


Well... in DK's world, all things are eventually useful in all areas, and related. Strictly speaking, she rented the camera to solve some issues with rain in her attic.

But yesterday, of course, she had to fool around with it, and in doing so, she saw on it a hot spot in one of her filters. It actually alerted her to a filter issue that she was then able to solve and fix!

She really, really wishes she could keep it. It is a very, very fun toy.

She even used it to take her ONE AND EVER ONLY selfie, as she's NOT the selfie type. So fer those of ya that ever wondered what DK looks like, here's all yer gonna get, unless you become a Shrimptern.

SHHHHHHHHHHHH...don't tell...


.


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## fornax

Wow. Maybe the biology worked _so well_ that it evolved all the bad bacteria into a _fully-grown shrimp_.

(Seriously, though... that's a fascinating mystery.)


----------



## Nuthatch

Wait a minute. You have a super-sized Toxic Avenger shrimp and you didn't show us a picture?!? How is that fair??


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## DKShrimporium

fornax said:


> Wow. Maybe the biology worked _so well_ that it evolved all the bad bacteria into a _fully-grown shrimp_. (Seriously, though... that's a fascinating mystery.)


Hmmmmmmmmm. We don't _REALLY_ know............ do we? Mebbe all the anaerobes morphed together on their way out and made Astonishing Crystal. In a superhero comic book sorta move. Like that silver villian bad cop dude in Terminator.

+++++++



Nuthatch said:


> Wait a minute. You have a super-sized Toxic Avenger shrimp and you didn't show us a picture?!? How is that fair??


Took a while to get a picture, because after I discovered said stowaway and started up the Duckweed Detonator, I realized I didn't want the survivor to get blasted in the vortex of two full out filters and the Duckweed Detonator's powerhead, so I caught 'er and put her into her own tank, and due to all the stress she promptly climbed deep into the weeds not to surface for a few days due to too many changes. AH MAIN... she went from cesspool to penthouse in a condo across town in a 48 hour span. I enticed her out today with some barley straw pellet and fresh pea.

She is the size shrimp that takes me a good year to grow, under good growth conditions. Which means she was in the 75 a LONG time.

++++++++

Scenes around the place, today:


Astonishing Crystal
T-Rex baby
Blue Bee (whoever named them was drunk that day)
Berried Orange
Berried Wild Tiger



.


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## DKShrimporium

*From astonished, to GOBSMACKED*

So, DK thought the Astonishing Tale was done. She did.

(BTW, Astonishing Crystal is a male - a big one. Sorta like Jordan, or Cameron, or Dylan, or one of those both-gender names.)

BUT, the other day, she was down there messing with the Duckweed Detonator, checking its progress in that 75.

And she was GOBSMACKED (took her a while to think up a word stronger than "astonished").

Out of nowhere, this was swimming around, in the bottom of that tank. Poor, poor thing is skin and bones, haven't seen one in the tank for OVER a year, so haven't fed that tank anything all that time. She thought they got them all when we netted them out and gave the bumbles away to a new home.

Those of you who know bumbles may know that they are like flounder - they will disappear into - as in burrow UNDER - the gravel, perfectly camouflaged. You can not see them for months at a time as they are normally sub-substrate, and totally nocturnal.

So, all that time, Astonishing Crystal was co-habiting with a bumble, in the rotting cesspool. Tough guy, and apparently quite wiley. Mebbe I should re-name him Wiley.

.


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## xenxes

Ever think about leveraging that power of biology to stabilize your water parameters? Planting heavily inside the production tank isn't a very good idea since you can't see anything.

Maybe an auxilliary overflow circulation system that feeds the water through a large tray of emersed plant mass? All you need are some large containers or maybe just one giant tray with some kind of porous and/or high CEC media (crushed charcoal, expanded shale, or clay pebbles), some cheap LED lights (i.e. flood lights), at least one pump. This should solve your nitrate fluctuations from farm runoff. Even with the new filter system, you will have to replace filters cartridges, and if you forget, more fluctuations. Redundancy is good! And the power of biology is amazing.


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## DKShrimporium

xenxes said:


> Ever think about leveraging that power of biology to stabilize your water parameters? Planting heavily inside the production tank isn't a very good idea since you can't see anything.
> 
> Maybe an auxilliary overflow circulation system that feeds the water through a large tray of emersed plant mass? All you need are some large containers or maybe just one giant tray with some kind of porous and/or high CEC media (crushed charcoal, expanded shale, or clay pebbles), some cheap LED lights (i.e. flood lights), at least one pump. This should solve your nitrate fluctuations from farm runoff. Even with the new filter system, you will have to replace filters cartridges, and if you forget, more fluctuations. Redundancy is good! And the power of biology is amazing.


Well, one of the foundations of DK's system planning is KISS whenever possible. However, each of her tanks is separate - separate water supply, separate drain, NO crossover whatsoever. This is for bio-security reasons.

It would be totally impractical to do individual overflows into denitrifying planted refugiums for each tank, not to mention the extreme humidity this would pump into her house - that is an expensive mistake. Also expensive would be the multiple high intensity light fixtures needed to drive this, and the extra air conditioning to remove their heat produced. Plant denitrification is fueled by photosynthetic metabolism of the plant. Therefore, to maximize denitrifying activity, you have to blast the plant with high intensity light. That is why all the super denitrifying plants are SURFACE FLOATERS, because physics dictates that, for aquatic plants, they get the best sunlight to fuel their high metabolisms.

DK solved her nitrate fluctuation problems _but good_ with Wet Wedding; perhaps you picked up the thread after that. Wet Wedding is a high output (150 gallons/day), high pressure (80 PSI) RO system that feeds into the Water Factory. She has total control of nitrate levels now, and extremely stable tank parameters in each tank, too. She can set, and hold, two tanks to run within 10 TDS units of each other - essentially identical water. 

A great illustration of this happened today, as a matter of fact. She's been moving the Blue Bees water, trying to pull their tanks into the sweet spot. She hasn't seen a berried female in those tanks for months, and never sees any dancing. She knew she had to move their water, now that she has the system up and running properly, again. When she moves water, she sets her hardware to the new settings, but the water will then move for about 2-3 weeks as it transitions to the new settings.

Today, after weeks of no berried, and no dancing, BOTH blue bee tanks went off like fire alarms. Just like popcorn. Both were dance fests all day long. She has reached a critical inflexion point in their water, and both tanks reached it the exact same day, due to the consistency of her system.

She expects her Blue Bee females to start popping like popcorn from here, out.

Stay tuned...

********

IN OTHER NEWS:

A bit of eye candy. Finally got a decent shot of this guy _in situ_ in decent light. He is drop dead gorgeous. Naturally, the day he decides to crawl out of the weeds and pose for DK just the other side of the glass is RIGHT AFTER DK had mucked about with that tank's filter, causing turbid, snowy water for a while. You can see the turbid water in the picture.


.


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## cgorges

What kind of shrimp is that sexy beast?


----------



## DKShrimporium

cgorges said:


> What kind of shrimp is that sexy beast?


One of the lines DK is developing. WYSIWYG, she hasn't really named it anything. (Mebbe she should have a naming contest...)

Here's a few more:

Smoke Tigers - smoky body with enhanced coloring, one in black pigments and one in red.

Purple/lilac tiger - this is genetically a blend of red and blue pigment genes, although the resulting purple is a bit muddy.

All these pictures taken under identical light at 90 cri (DK's new commercial grade lamps), and NO color alterations done to pictures.

For comparison, at the bottom are pictures of normal black Super Tiger and Red Tiger.


.


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## Maechael

DK, these are the pics that keep interest alive in this thread even without the fun antics in between.


----------



## cgorges

Those are awesome shrimp. My gf just started a 10 gal shrimp tank in our apt. She is taking schooling which involves some genetics and she finds it fascinating. Her plans are to try to combine shrimp for different colors. Right now she has carbon rili neos and wants to get some blue in there. In order to get those shrimp colors are you line breeding them or mixing to get hybrids?

Sorry, im not trying to threadjack but what you are doing is amazing. Best of luck DK.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> DK, these are the pics that keep interest alive in this thread even without the fun antics in between.


It's cabin fever time of year. DK needs more fun antics. Lots more.



cgorges said:


> Those are awesome shrimp. My gf just started a 10 gal shrimp tank in our apt. She is taking schooling which involves some genetics and she finds it fascinating. Her plans are to try to combine shrimp for different colors. Right now she has carbon rili neos and wants to get some blue in there. In order to get those shrimp colors are you line breeding them or mixing to get hybrids?
> 
> Sorry, im not trying to threadjack but what you are doing is amazing. Best of luck DK.


In order to get any sort of guessable results, one must first have a fundamental idea of the underlying genetics and how they work. So, do your homework - forum information, hobbyists, and Google are your friend. You can't just take any two things that are pretty, mix them together, and hope you'll get some designer result. You have to have a working theory what sorts of genes are involved, how they work, and then do test breedings and monitor the results, and go from there. Whether you outcross or line breed is determined by how the genes behave (dominant/recessive, sex-linked/autosomal, pigment alteration/dilution/mutation, etc.), and where you are trying to get.

Here's a not-very-good photo DK took but one that shows interesting stuff. Here you see four expressions of color genes for tiger shrimp stripes.

(Click on any of the "thumbnail" pictures so you see it full-sized.)

1 - Basic black pigment
2 - Brownish black pigment
3 - Purple pigment
4 - Red pigment

Now, stripe pigment genes may be linked to, related to, or unrelated to body tint, or a combination, depending on the color of the tint. Super tigers normally have a beigy-sometimes grey-sometimes olive tint. They can flush up to bright blue under excitement or duress. The females tend to darken toward smoky grey when reproducing. But _aside_ from these wild-type fluctuations, DK has been working with genes that enhance body tint. Some tend toward brown. Some toward charcoal grey. Some toward blue. 

In a previous post, we saw the smoky grey and lavendar body tints. Below is a picture of a smoky red striped tiger and a wild type one. These are juvies, about 1/2 inch size. The normal fluctuating tints toward grey don't happen in juvies, so there is pigment expressed here beyond wild-type on the left red striped juvie.

Next, we see brown and blue. 



.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*This just in... forget about "Lyin' Bryan!..."*

NEWS UPDATE: (Insert typing sounds or music crescendo, or imagine high drama sounds here...)

As we reported a few days ago, the Blue Bees tank was a-gettin' ready to pop. Here, we report that the a-poppin' has begun.

Also, another view of tinted tigers. Of course, these adolescent girls did not want to co-operate and pose together; each wanted to hog the spotlight and get the other out of the frame, so DK had to get clever to show them. On the left, we feature a possibly lavendar tinted female. On the right, we see normal wild type Red Tiger. (Click the pictures to see full size to see the pigment better.) 

These ladies, and more, were just put into a tank with Mr. Orange-Eye-Red-Stripe-Cobalt-Tint gigolo. In less than 24 hours, see what happened to one of his wives. _Shameless_.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Meanwhile, back at the ranch...*

While the Red Tiger hussies are busy flaunting themselves, the more _modest_ reds, the Mermaids (aka Cardinals), have been flying under the radar.

These gals don't believe in the new selfie culture. They stay hidden whenever possible, and just generally don't like attention.

DK's been watching their tank, hoping to resurrect it from the ashes. It was one of the hardest hit tanks in Shrimpmageddon last summer, because Cardinals aren't real forgiving when you jack with their water, suddenly.

Well!

Last night, she FINALLY spied new babies! They're actually probably a week or two old at about 4 mm size, but this is the first sighting, as new babies live down in the chunky substrate and are near impossible to see in her slimy tank unless they happen to be in the substrate against the front glass. It takes a week or two for them to come up out of the substrate and start life above ground, so to speak. And even then they like dark, crack-like spaces.

It's gonna take her forever to populate up that tank, again, but, hey, at least she's moving in the right direction.


.


----------



## plamski

That blue tiger with red stripes is gorgeous !!
Nice Tiger collection DK.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Into the Woods... no... Outta the Weeds.*



plamski said:


> That blue tiger with red stripes is gorgeous !!
> Nice Tiger collection DK.


Here's another one, pee wee age. Not sure if this one will finish out sky blue, cobalt, smoky, lavender, or what, yet. But the red stripes and golden eyes, and some sort of blue-based tint, are definite.

Some super interesting stuff brewing in DK's cauldron o' tiger genes. She's been cooking that cauldron coming up on two years, now. She lost some progress due to the nitrate and Shrimpmageddon crashes and is just now recovering that project tank.

All y'alls do a ritual and wish this one grows up a FEMALE, now!!!


.


----------



## plamski

Be female ,Be female,Be female!!!!


----------



## Maechael

Thinking feminine thoughts, thinking feminine thoughts.
Be a girl ok?

Glad to see progress, and so many babies and berried mamas in there.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hide your daughters*

Three days into the new tank, and Mr. Lothario, our golden (eye) red-striped-cobalt-tint gigolo has knocked-up three red gals. He imagines himself the New Hugh, and his new bachelor crib the NextGen Mansion, if ya know what I mean.

The picture looks almost identical to the last gal; he has a type. But it only _looks_ like the same gal, she is not. _(Ironically, she thought she was unique as he sweet talked her; turns out, he was playing her with the same lines he's well-practiced in with the ladies.)_ DK has to take the pictures from that location because it's the spot where her glass is clean! And this gal has more pronounced white stippling. The third gal is very young and hides - she has a small batch and almost looks like she may drop her eggs, but we shall see.


.


----------



## harp

you were wondering who reads your adventures? I'm one. I've always wanted a fish room but your Shrimporium is quite amazingly beyond what I ever imagined.

I will think feminine thoughts for you. My shrimp I always want to "stay male" turn into girls so hopefully that karma will carry over to your breeding project!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*It's my party an' I'll cry if I want to...*



plamski said:


> Be female ,Be female,Be female!!!!





Maechael said:


> Thinking feminine thoughts, thinking feminine thoughts.
> Be a girl ok?
> 
> Glad to see progress, and so many babies and berried mamas in there.





harp said:


> you were wondering who reads your adventures? I'm one. I've always wanted a fish room but your Shrimporium is quite amazingly beyond what I ever imagined.
> 
> I will think feminine thoughts for you. My shrimp I always want to "stay male" turn into girls so hopefully that karma will carry over to your breeding project!


Oh, man, the cave is scintillating, lately! Thanks for the good thoughts. DK needs lotsa good thoughts.

+++++++++

Hey, It's MY thread and I can post what I WANNA. So, here is a picture of Ultimate Rocker Hair posted for... you know who you are.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Make that *four*. He's now knocked-up *four*, in *four* days. Mr. Lothario. Whatta guy.

AND,

DK has taken to staring down onto the top of the weeds, in the Tiger Cauldron. This is THE most FUN tank she's ever done. You just can't imagine the stuff crawling around in there, that crawls up outta the weeds. Today she found this (baby pic, below), so she netted it out and put it in the tank with Mr. Lothario and wives. About 5 mm size.

Now, her vision isn't THAT good, to see her (we are hoping, again, for a HER) with the nekkid eye. The thing is, DK has two microscopes in her shrimp lab, custom bought to view shrimp at optimal magnifications, so she can pull a baby shrimp and see it really well, to tell what it shows.

And there are a LOT more interesting babies, coming up in the Cauldron, at the moment. Can't wait to see how they grow, so DK can sort them.


.


----------



## Maechael

DK you should see my rocker doo at the moment, very Rob Halford post 80's.


Shrimps looking good, Lothario working the mojo on the breeding tanks.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Post yer Rocker 'Dos here. Let's see if anyone beats DK's Rocker 'Do.

I dare ya.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hmph. Apparently everyone with a rocker 'do is chicken.*

DK moves on, then. BTW, that is _NOT_ DK in the rocker 'do picture. She only WISHES she had that thick, curly hair, barely controlled in a 'tail.

*Today's episode is titled, "We are Family...I've got all my sistahs and me..."*

++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Much as she HATES to spend money, DK bit the bullet and ordered her a little sumpin'. She thinks the vendor messed up, so she'll wait to report until she actually GETS it, 'cause she has her doubts. 

If'n she DOES gettit, then she's fixin' t'expand the Water Factory into another branch, to solve the last major hurdle...

.


----------



## Maechael

Here's the current doo, will have to hunt down an older pic, since this is a very fresh change.

Love the rabbit snails, have a few myself, hoping they start to up their numbers instead of just breaking even.

Those shrimps are quite glorious looking.


Day 2 of working at the LFS, just picked up an extra shift as well.
enjoying It a lot.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*PURPLE project: on the horizon. Mebbe a few hundred gallons' worth.*



Maechael said:


> Here's the current doo, will have to hunt down an older pic, since this is a very fresh change.
> 
> Love the rabbit snails, have a few myself, hoping they start to up their numbers instead of just breaking even.
> 
> Those shrimps are quite glorious looking.
> 
> 
> Day 2 of working at the LFS, just picked up an extra shift as well.
> enjoying It a lot.


Hm. At least one Rocker 'Do-er isn't chicken.

Well, if DK hadn't Googled *Rob Halford*, she would have said the new 'do is an _UN_-do, rather than a _Rocker_ 'Do. But, there _is_ evidence from Google images that this _is_ a Rocker 'Do _of record_.

So... we clearing the field for artwork, or what sort of motivation causes a person to shave their head smack during one of the coldest winters of record? Inquiring minds want to know. DK has an inquiring mind, most of the time.


++++++++


IN OTHER NEWS:

Since DK's got rainbow colors on the mind lately, and since the vendor's status went from "hold" on her money to "took" her money, she thinks she's gonna GET her new piece of equipment.

Therefore, down to one section of her _Bins 'N' Barrels of Parts 'N' Pieces_, to pull parts in anticipation of her new project (well, one of them, that is - there is never just ONE project going on, here).

Time for *PURPLE*. She knew someday, *PURPLE* would be pulled from the shelves to be implemented into the Water Factory landscape. She has been waiting for that day, and it will be soon...

All the other colors have already been implemented.

++++++

The new commercial full-spectrum lamps are doing swell. Her plants are definitely perking up, as are her biofilms in the tanks. The timing is great, because DK is innundated with microbabies in most of her tanks already, and the other tanks aren't far behind. She liked the lamps so well she ordered another case of them, to replace lamps throughout the house.

++++++

Oh, and, DK's really excited. Yesterday, she got pinged from her friend who is a master carpenter - his custom business outfits multi-million dollar homes with fancy-dancy stuff. He needs help with a whole-house RO system, which is right down DK's alley, now that she spent 6 months researching and implementing Wet Wedding.

Soon, DK will go over there and install them a system. This means brownie points in the bank, for her. They've been trading points for going on 20 years now. Having some points in the bank with _this_ guy is very, very good currency.


++++++


Yep, and... good thing she rented that thermal imaging camera, earlier. This *COLD* winter would have lost a LOT of heat, throughout the house. She now knows exactly where to do the fixes, and has done the major ones, already. The six dollar can of squirt foam has already paid for itself big time. Her attic is no longer raining, which means her attic insulation is DRY, which makes a HUGE difference in heat loss.


++++++


DANG. If only they offered JADEITE tubing. Such an awesome, vintage color, it is. Hm. Come to think of it, they don't have CHOCOLATE tubing, either, she doesn't think.

Carry on, then.


.


----------



## wicca27

im soooo happy to see you DK ! i have not been getting email updates that people have been posting to this thread again. guess its time to start checking in every day now that your back at it. shoot me an email when you get a chance i know your busy


----------



## Maechael

DK direct answer, employment.

Long answer my hair was 18-24 inches also it was malachite green mixed with methylene blue in tribute to a friend. Normally it was long and brown, or brownish blonde, and ponytailed for work.

I guess a little insanity on my part was in there, as the beard went with it too.


Interested in this new waterworks working.

Also, smart usage of the borrowed thermal camera for finding hotspots in your homes exterior.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*More bubbles up from the Cauldron*



wicca27 said:


> im soooo happy to see you DK ! i have not been getting email updates that people have been posting to this thread again. guess its time to start checking in every day now that your back at it. shoot me an email when you get a chance i know your busy


Hi, C! :fish:



Maechael said:


> DK direct answer, employment.
> 
> Long answer my hair was 18-24 inches also it was malachite green mixed with methylene blue in tribute to a friend. Normally it was long and brown, or brownish blonde, and ponytailed for work.
> 
> I guess a little insanity on my part was in there, as the beard went with it too.
> 
> 
> Interested in this new waterworks working.
> 
> Also, smart usage of the borrowed thermal camera for finding hotspots in your homes exterior.


Congrats on the LFS job!

We need a picture of the previous rocker 'do. It sounds cauldron-like.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has been assembling parts and pieces for the new Water Factory expansion. She has figured a few things out that were bugging her about the design, too.

Somehow, she needs to find about two square feet of real estate on her mounting board.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

++++++++

And, she's a bit hesitant to post this, but decided to go ahead. She thinks she has made a red-striped purple tiger. She needs to wait to see how this shrimp finishes out, but the red will stay red, and the background may be purple or smoke when finished. But this youth does not LOOK like the others that finished red-striped-smoked. 

From a DISTANCE, these purple tigers look... purple. They do not look smoke, or blue, or brown, or beige. Stand across the room and look at your monitor to get a better effect.

She has some freaky coo-el stuff bubbling in the cauldron. It's taken two years for the initial gene sets to break apart and start mixing well. About 4-5 generations, she figgers.

ALL the pictures below taken under the new full-spectrum lamps. NO color alterations or photoediting other than cropping has been done to them.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hey, it's a Siberian front; DK has nothing to do but shrimp watch!*

So, DK cleaned the glass, and took more pics.

Another view of the lovely Ms. Jadeite Chocolate.

AND...

DK found a FOREST green with red stripes! The picture doesn't show it very well, but from normal viewing this one looks forest green.

Velly coo-el.


.


----------



## Maechael

Here's an older one, still looking for a green haired picture.


----------



## wicca27

DK you have me drooling over tigers again. so not fair.... all the colors are cool to. i love the forest green and red stripe


----------



## Maechael

*Yeah what She said.*



wicca27 said:


> DK you have me drooling over tigers again. so not fair.... all the colors are cool to. i love the forest green and red stripe




Ditto. Also all the shrimp in the shrimporium, the room, water works and all make me a bit jealous.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK has a major MAJOR eureka moment*

So, for any of you in the cave who aren't brain dead (presumably - hopefully - a high percentage), this thread is more about _philosophy_ than _shrimp_, actually.

Today, we hit on that, first.

For a solid year, plus, now, DK has been stymied on a project in her Kitchen, trying to figure out how she wanted to do something. (Note the symantics, here: not _how to do something_, but rather _how DK wants to do it_.) She's going to build a surround for her fridge that is a bit oversized, and needs a cantilevered platform about 2 foot by 4 foot as the roof structure of this surround.

But, of course, she doesn't do anything the _standard_ way. There are ALWAYS factors that complicate her projects, exponentially. 

In the case of the fridge surround, she wants a sliding wall to the side, so she can slide that sucker forward and vacuum out all the German hair whenever the mood hits her. Philosophy: she believes in access, in her designs.

How does this relate to shrimp? Well... she's a-gonna use a leftover slide from her ASA (uh, that would be: Adjustable Solar Axis) project, to make that side panel slide forward. Ahem.

But ON TOP of that, she wants the least amount of goo on her hardwood floor, both for the future homeowners and for the sake of giving German hair no place to drift against/into. Philosophy: she believes in the sleekest/simplest/most efficient design that will accomplish the set of criteria.

This is important functionally, because _her counter-depth fridge has all the heat dissipating happening at the bottom_, where German hair is MOST likely to collect and clog, and cause - ahem - the insulating effect, trapping her fridge heat against the fridge. See her lovely thermal image. So handy, those cameras.

So, she wants a smooth floor (i.e., no track, no cleat, etc.), a hanging, sliding side panel, and _a HUGE wooden canopy above, somehow not falling off the wall and also holding up the hanging, sliding side panel_.

Yeah, yeah, there are a number of ways to do this. But, as always, DK needs to be _sporting_, which, in this case, means _cheap_. She doesn't want a million denaro solution to her physics. She wants to use cheap, readily available stuff, preferably stuff she already has, to do things, whenever possible. Uh. Back up, there. There was philosophy just there.

Those of you who have been in the cave a while may remember the Habitat Re-Store desk she bought and pulled apart. She used the desk top (writing surface, that is) to make a plate for a new kitchen trash pull-out. (Those of you who are especially enterprising and go to the links, and especially observant and note details, will also note that DK used another leftover slider from the ASA project for the trash pull-out.) 

She's had the top shelf piece sitting, left over, from the desk, for the past year. Clogging up her office, taking up real estate. 

This morning, she was looking at it, like EVERY morning, and - wait... here comes the philosophy... her _recent-years habit of sitting with a problem and letting it fully ripen before acting_... she had her a major eureka moment. _The desktop shelf unit is mortised and tenon-ed, hardwood doweled together - built for gymnastics_.

IT IS ALSO THE PERFECT SIZE FOR HER CANTILEVERED FRIDGE ROOF.

Due to the mortise/tenon/doweled construction, she had not pulled the parts apart to make something else from it, yet.

Due to the mortise/tenon/doweled construction, THIS MORNING, she realized it's the perfect construction for her cantilevered roof. That sucker is NOT going to warp or rack under stress.

OK. OK. Lotsa words. All this to say:

_If you ponder a problem long enough, 
the solution will usually arise. 
If you let it RIPEN, 
the BEST solution will come._​
- end philosophy, for today -

+++++++++




wicca27 said:


> DK you have me drooling over tigers again. so not fair.... all the colors are cool to. i love the forest green and red stripe





Maechael said:


> Ditto. Also all the shrimp in the shrimporium, the room, water works and all make me a bit jealous.


OK, so DK has used up her word quotient for the day, above. And also her philosophy quotient. She has a whole essay on tiger shrimp, and philosophy, but --- not today.

Instead, she does her own version of throw-back Monday: a picture of her humble beginnings. DK did not start out where she is at. She started with plastic dollar store bins, cheapo parts, and lots of research and elbow grease. She then learned through mistakes how to grow shrimp, then used the shrimp she grew to pay for her upgrades. Work. It was all work that got her here. And a LOT of failures, lessons in tenacity and also what shrimp want.

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

She has a lovely young male, in his prime, who is between Jadeite and Emerald, with BRIGHT red stripes. Handsome, he is. He is also EXTREMELY active, never still, so she stinks at getting pictures of him. And I mean stinks.

After shooting about 200 pictures of hyper boy, she still only managed TWO that are remotely illustrative of this specimen. She's pondering naming him Nicholas.

Here are the less-than-ideal pics she was able to produce.


.


----------



## larcat

DKShrimporium said:


> So, for any of you in the cave who aren't brain dead (presumably - hopefully - a high percentage), this thread is more about _philosophy_ than _shrimp_, actually.


Confirming that I am brain dead. Confirming, also, that I studied philosophy (which is something people do, I swear.) Pretty sure the above is correlation, not causation...

Glad you are well!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Which brings up the philosophical question...*



larcat said:


> Confirming that I am brain dead. Confirming, also, that I studied philosophy (which is something people do, I swear.) Pretty sure the above is correlation, not causation...
> 
> Glad you are well!


*Today's philosophy - ponder this:*

_...If one is confirmed brain dead, is one capable of confirming this?_

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Hard, hard partying in the sister wives tank with Mr. Lothario, last night. This morning, evidence that at least three had disrobed during the festivities. Since there were so many hangovers, it was hard to entice them out of the weeds, but DK did find Mr. Lothario's first knocked-up brunette hanging around. Up until now, he had been after the redheads.

+++++++++

More views from the cauldron.

Our purple/red juvie. Just GORGEOUS, now at about half inch size. Shows plum colored with subtle red stripes, to the nekkid eye.

And another gorgeous shrimp. This female is charcoal grey with florid red stripes. Really beautiful.

DK is in love with the cauldron.

++++++++

Finally, yesterday she mounted the shelf unit above her fridge successfully. Now, she ponders how she wants to do the front plate, trim, and side door. (The corbels are placed to view the spacing proportions, and she has a temporary corner support installed until her sliding door is made.)

++++++++

OK she lied. (DK lies _a lot_. However, she DOES NOT JUICE HER PICTURES in any way. Just to be clear.) THIS is finally. Today, her new piece of equipment is tracking to arrive!!! Whoo hoo!!


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Behind the scenes jostling*

DK's a-werkin' on several fronts at once, lately.

Shopping:

Motorcycle ramp - check
Parts: Water Factory final expansion - check
Parts: Kitchen fridge enclosure - in progress
Parts: polychrome fixture - in progress

Shrimporium upgrades:

Water Factory expansion - in progress
Shrimporium audio - check. She just ran wire to be able to play spotify from her computer down to speakers in the Shrimporium. Nice.
Lighting - check - all new full spectrum lamps, commercial grade
Housekeeping - uhhhhhh... whut? DK needs a Shrimptern to kick her around until she cleans up her spaces and get 'em organized. Please contact her if you think you could do this magical thing. Because, it would be magical if she ever got it cleaned up and organized. Totally magical.
Workbench pegboard - comin' up soon

So, shopping scheduled for tomorrow.


***********

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has confirmed Mr. Lothario has knocked up six Sister Wives, so far - five redheads and one brunette. One of the redheads was a teen pregnancy and dropped her eggs. But everyone else is holding, and decent loads, too. Several other Sister Wives are sporting large saddles and are biding their time until the next blow-out party.

Talk about partying hard. The Blue Bees have more than half their wimmen in the family way. When that tank pops, it pops. It's probably more like 80% but DK is too lah-zhee to count wriggling bodies and see for sure. 

DK has confirmed a new batch of young in the Cardinal tank. Pretty soon, she's a-gonna clean their glass again and take a look. Their glass has grown slimy, and prohibited good viewing, since the new lights went in. She did not want to terrorize her berried females in there until they dropped their young, cleaning glass.

Papaya crystals are drivin' DK nuts. They really got wiped out last summer. She has one, maybe two females left. One has been carrying eggs she SWEARS for about six weeks, so what the heck is the deal? They are just taunting her.

Wiley Boy crystal has molted TWICE since his separation from Bumble's tank. That dude measured in at 1.5 inches this morning, and he's eating well in his bachelor pad. Bumble is about to get evicted as his tank will be the focus of the Water Factory expansion and beta testing.

Everyone else is cooking along briskly.

++++++

Today's eye candy: more Cauldron pics (hey, it's the only tank with clean glass at the moment)

Another shot of charcoal hot momma.

And a random shot showing what DK LOVES about the cauldron: body tints from mint to jadeite to emerald to forest to turquoise to cobalt to navy to tan to brown to smoke to charcoal. Stripes in black, chocolate, purple, dusky red, fiery red. And the body tints wax and wane according to excitement or hormones. So it's like a living kaleidoscope of tiger shrimp, in there.

Be sure to click the kaleidoscope picture to see it full size!

.


----------



## wicca27

beautiful as always


----------



## DKShrimporium

Blue Bees


.


----------



## wicca27

i have never understood why they call them blue bee's when 95% of the time they are shades of brown!. 
and who they are loverly DK some healthy looking shrimpies you got there and nice eggs as well


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Well, apparently, DK's going steady with Murphy*

DK's got problems every which way, right now. 

Beginning with the need to cut a chunk of drywall out of her kitchen ceiling the other day, to DRAIN THE WATER. Ugh. 

After extensive diagnostics, it appears there is a leak on the drain line to the master shower. But of course the water has its own mind, and decides to drain across the ceiling to ANOTHER location. So the giant hole in her kitchen ceiling is just the water sink (i.e., the low spot where the water has come to rest, and seek a drainage path), NOT the location under the actual leak. So that means at least one more huge hole, under the actual leak. She had to cut out the water sink location because the drywall has soaked and sagged, and the insulation was sopping wet, needing to be drained, at that location. She also wasn't sure if the plumbing bits at that location were the problem, as it happens there is a buncha plumbing right above the sink location. Turns out they aren't.

Drywall patches are bad enough, but it so happens she had a high end, smooth drywall job, and the kitchen ceiling is flooded with light from transom windows, right across the ceiling surface. This means that ceiling is absolutely unforgiving for anything other than a perfect fix.

But, DK makes lemonade out of lemons. She's thinking maybe it's the perfect excuse to get those vintage-tin-look ceiling tiles...

+++++

Her new injector arrived. But it is defective. Grrrrrrrrrrr. She ran diagnostics and re-configured it every which way, but it simply won't perform to specs. This morning, she finally called the manufacturer and explained the dilemma. To their credit, they believed her, and are sending a new one. But, they FIRST have to custom build it, so there will be a rather long delay. They don't actually keep these items in stock, they custom build then test them when an order comes in. Sigh.

+++++

DK is having issues with one of her tanks. Metrics are off, and she thinks there is something wee-ard with the filter. Something like the filter is beating the water too much, outgassing it. Today she did some filter adjustments, to see if the wee-ard-ness stops. Because some of the wee-ard-ness includes unexplained croakings, and this has to stop, in this tank.

Most of the tanks are churning along, though. She really can't complain. Cross yer fingers, though, because, due to the injector issue, her Sulawesi bank of tanks is now offline from the Water Factory for an extended time, AGAIN. She was just barely climbing out the the hole with them from Shrimpmageddon.

+++++

Tomorrow, the last of the parts for the Water Factory expansion are tracking to arrive. She was all pumped to get it installed and start beta testing, except now she has to wait A LONG TIME for another injector to get here, so that is a big bust, until then.

++++++

Finally, the motorcycle ramp has arrived. Should be just perfect, except at the moment last night's half inch coating of ice melted and the yard is liquid mud.

++++++

DK has to go ponder her house plumbing leak, now. And decide where to cut the second hole in her kitchen ceiling.

Note to all y'alls: iff'n ya ever build yerself a house, take pictures every which way before drywall, so you know what's behind the walls. DK did, and boy have those pictures come in handy, and saved her skin, many times.

DK is very stubborn, and will prevail. But she might be very grumpy, for a while.

She did clean the glass on the monochrome Black Tiger tank recently, but doesn't have time to take pics until she fire-stomps all these other issues. That tank is really doing well.

.


----------



## Maechael

DK glad you're doing better, and seem to be in a decent place.

Sorry that things went south with drainages.
hope the shrimpies keep up with the recovery.


Oh and I hope to let you know soon some fun and cool info, kind of off topic (what isn't here)
but very, very interesting information.


Side note, going to ask around about some used RO equipment, and a few dosing pumps and try to get the basics of a portable water factory, for when I move out.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's seeing RED. Literal. Figurative. Chemical.*



Maechael said:


> Oh and I hope to let you know soon some fun and cool info, kind of off topic (what isn't here)
> but very, very interesting information.
> 
> 
> Side note, going to ask around about some used RO equipment, and a few dosing pumps and try to get the basics of a portable water factory, for when I move out.


What we say is that it's "distantly ON topic," as DK believes everything will EVENTUTALLY be related to "shrimp" if she waits long enough for it to manifest the related-ness. Yeah, that's it.

She's all for _fun and cool info, very, very interesting information_, and awaits this eagerly.

She has not been able to replicate the dripping since last we reported, and without the dripping, she cannot source the leak. So as it stands, there is still one gaping drywall hole in her ceiling, and... stuck. She wonders if it was condensation of moist air into a cold metal heat duct. At the moment, due to weather, her heat ducts are CONSTANTLY in use, and therefore hot metal. And her home air is a low 40% humidity due to CONSTANT heater running. It's been a *cold* winter for her locale.

Being stuck, she had time to research fake antique ceiling tiles, and she ordered a test batch to do her powder room before committing to the idea of a huge swath of them to fix the kitchen/nook/den common ceiling.

Or, she could fix her ceiling hole thusly.

+++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

RED. DK's seeing RED, every which way.

----------

Figurative:

First, the Shrimpmityville Horror tank. Very, _very_ unfortunately, this was the tank in which she had set up her Mr. Lothario project. This tank had previously eaten a population of wild tigers; DK cleared it out and re-set it and let it sit a year. It supported some test shrimp. But something in there is amiss, and it kills with a vengeance. Problem is, she cannot figure out what is killing her shrimp, in there. It has identical feed streams, feed rates, TDS, water chemistry tests (GH, KH, pH, TDS, nitrates) to the tank next to it that houses the Cauldron with no problems. It has identical filtration system, plant mass, substrate. And yet, it kills with a vengeance. Her theories are that 1) an accumulation of silt below the filter plate has cultured something bad (although, it doesn't really have more silt than the Cauldron, and she's well stirred up both tanks and de-bulked them of silt the same way), or 2) her filter or heater have some sort of electricity leak that zaps shrimp - the shrimp die when in soft shell phase after molting, but not always right after molting, from what she can tell. It seems to be a toxicity/exposure/sensitivity issue, but not an _infection_ issue. She trades shrimp back and forth to the cauldron all the time and they never get bothered in Cauldron. If it were infection, it would spread to the Cauldron shrimp, but it doesn't. 

It took out Mr. Lothario and half his tank, one by one. So DK aborted that project and quickly moved all the survivors back into the Cauldron, next door. She saved several red berried females, the two gold eyed red tigers, and some miscellaneous other brood females, but she lost Mr. Lothario and a few berried and non-berried brood females. Bummer. And mystery. The survivors seem to be doing fine back in the Cauldron and the first of Mr. Lothario's babies are due in a week, if all goes well. But the population will be mixed back into the Cauldron, meaning it will take longer to develop out homozygous strains, due to this set-back. She has no idea, other than something biological and microscopic, or chemical, or electrical, that must make the difference between the Shrimpmityville Horror killing tank, and the Just-Fine-Thank-You-Cauldron tanks. She scratches her head, nearly until it bleeds.

DK's bummed, but not devastated, as shrimp have made her tough, and given her tenacity. She nearly celebrates the consistency and absolutely penetrating force of Mr. Murphy, so neatly taking out Mr. Lothario FIRST. Murphy is such a _powerful_ force. She knows if she holds the Cauldron steady that it will bubble up more Mr. Lotharios and kewl stuff in the coming months. And particularly in one more generation. She's edited the population in there and put the extras into her caridina ghetto tank, so what's left in the Cauldron are the most interesting genes, concentrated, and brewing.

------

Figurative:

Second, her Water Factory expansion is on hold until she FINALLY gets her parts in. She awaits her replacement injector. She ordered fittings and parts to make a mixing chamber, and while the amazon description CLEARLY stated it was a _pack of ten_ fittings, and the descriptive text CLEARLY stated it was a _pack of ten_ fittings, they sent only ONE fitting, then acted like it was a big problem that another vendor had changed the global description. Well, DK bought according to _what the sales page SAID_, and expects TEN fittings when it SAYS ten. It took them two days to determine they better send her the rest, and now it's another week shipping before they get here. But in the meantime, she's worked out what she thinks will be the (very crowded) real estate on the Water Factory mounting board for her mixing chamber, bought another coo-el Japanese shrimp Furoshiki to make a cover for it, and awaits the rest of the parts to continue.

---------

Literal. Chemical.


Third, DK's well nitrates are sky high, again. She would think this might happen late spring or summer when corn fertilizing season is a-happenin', but it happens at random times as the layer of ground nitrates filters through the bedrock and into her well. Sigh. Bright, deep, red on the nitrate test. She's not even sure what it reads -- at least 40 ppm. The picture looks a lot less red than the tube does in real life. 

---------

Literal:

Now, lest you be dragged down by the above, here is another red, to cheer you up. DK finally cleaned the front glass of the Mermaid tank (Cardinals) and to do so she had to move the feeding dish to get to the glass surface. She was very pleased to discover AT LEAST THREE batches of baby cardinals are growin' in there! 

AND...!

She has some berried females in there, too. 

So if she can hold them steady until the new injector arrives AND works, then this tank is doing very well in recovery from Shrimpmageddon 2014.

------

OK, that's enough words for today.


.


----------



## wicca27

DK if it were me i would get a new tank to replace the Shrimpmityville Horror tank. i have heard in the past of have "cursed" tanks. i have had one myself. no matter what went in nothing came out alive. be if fish or invert. i would start with a replaced heater and work from there. if you are still loosing shrimp the replace the tank. that would be my advice on said matter


----------



## Maechael

Copper based medicine leeching from the silicone or substrate?


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> DK if it were me i would get a new tank to replace the Shrimpmityville Horror tank. i have heard in the past of have "cursed" tanks. i have had one myself. no matter what went in nothing came out alive. be if fish or invert. i would start with a replaced heater and work from there. if you are still loosing shrimp the replace the tank. that would be my advice on said matter


DK WILL get it re-balanced and back healthy. She's had this happen before and she's convinced it's a function of silt. Probably pockets of silt that are underfiltered so become anaerobic pockets. I have pulled tanks out of this nose-dive before, but you have to remove the shrimp until the tank is back in balance.



Maechael said:


> Copper based medicine leeching from the silicone or substrate?


If it were happening in this tank due to this, it would be happening in others as well. 

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

The errant fittings and replacement injector have arrived. 

DK installed the fittings into the new mixing chamber and found a mounting spot for it on her board. It's far from ideal real estate, but will probably work fine. 

Next, she has to find real estate for the new injector on the board.

Uh. Yeah. Good luck with that.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Bonehead engineers - phth!*

DK decided to quit procrastinating, and get the new injector mounted.

Now, the first step to any project is to elucidate your criteria.

Oh. Wait. No, no. DK lies, always.

The first step is to _know thyself_.

+++++

DK is lah-zhee. And impatient. And cheap. But also stubborn, and creative.

+++++

So, it follows that she wants a fast, easy, simple way to mount her new injector to the mounting board -- so the injector is pop-and-go if she wants to take it down and access it for adjustment or maintenance.

AND

The mounting has to be reversible, in case someday she needs that real estate for other purposes.

AND

She wants to use stuff from her bins-and-barrels-of-parts-and-pieces to do it, so she can prove to the world that hoarding is a GOOD thing. And so she can save time and gas and money from running around to stores getting stuff she has to PAY for.

SO...

She dug around, and came up with the following parts:


An odd leftover hinge with no mate
Screws
Washers
A leftover piece of extrusion from when she cut down her weatherstripping from a door install (when Shrimptern III was here, as a matter of fact, for those of you who REALLY follow this thread)
A piece of light socket, left over from when DK made the fixture for the Sulawesi bank of tanks.

Now, mounting this thing was _supposed_ to be *much* simpler. It comes with a bracket that you screw to the wall with two screws, that has two arms with locking bits that grab and hold the injector and from which you SHOULD be able to pop the injector off in a moment, for access.

HOWEVER, the BONEHEAD engineers placed the loops that hold the arms in such a manner that when you put the fittings onto the injector in and out ports they lock the arms onto the injector and you cannot get the bracket dis-engaged. So to get the injector off the wall, you either have to undo the fittings from the ports, or unscrew the bracket from the wall.

Yeah. Right.

BONEHEADS!!!

So, DK made herself a mounting solution.

But before we get to what she did, here are pictures of the problem that the BONEHEAD ENGINEERS created.


First, we see the mounting bracket. You see the two holes for the two mounting screws. And the two side arms that snap/lock into the loops on the injector. 

And a view of the loop on the side of the injector body, that the bracket arm locks into. 

And then a view of a bracket side arm locked into its loop. 

And then a view of how when locked on and the fitting applied, it will become impossible to detach the side arms

HMPH!!!!!

Stay tuned.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hoarders unite and celebrate!*

And here is the mounting scheme DK's parts came up with. 


First, a view of the real estate on the mounting board, and how the injector fits into the space. (Uh, yeah... that would be... JUST BARELY.)

Second, a view of the type of socket used in her Sulawesi bank of lights, from which she scavenged the tiny right angle brackets for future use, because they were in the way for the Sulawesi light fixture and had to be removed from the sockets. (So, like any hoarder, she saved them, stashed them away.)

Third, a shot of her mounting board with the parts-n-pieces from her bins-n-barrels installed. The hinge is installed with spacers up top, using washers, to create a gap. The piece of weatherstripping extrusion is installed with a spacer to make a gap, and is configured to swing from the left side. The tiny right angle bracket hoarded from the light socket is installed to swing, also, and act as a lock for the extrusion swing arm. (Think of this as hoarder's art.)

Fourth, a view of the bracket in the mounting apparatus. The bracket is sandwiched against the mounting board into the the gaps, then locked into place with the light socket right angle. 

Fifth, a view of the injector, mounted. Seconds to mount, seconds to un-mount.




.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's side beta test project*

So...

While the gaping hole in her kitchen ceiling makes mockery of her, as she awaits more dripping to source her water problem, DK has not been quiescent.

She decided to do a beta test of her proposed fix. She bought a test batch of tiles and did her powder room. She's considering using these tiles to do the finish in the kitchen after she gets the leak sourced and the drywall back intact on her kitchen ceiling. But it's a big ceiling, so she wanted to test her hypothesis on something more manageable.

Whaddya think?

..........

NEXT UP: The Polychrome

The endless, cold winter has broken and the temps are finally getting into range for her to continue the polychrome project. To that end, she recently ordered MORE supplies and now is ready to begin her finish make-over. Here are the two sets of parts soon to undergo make-over:

While she's working on this step of the polychrome fixture, she ponders the plumbing run for the new injector in the shrimporium.

.........

She's found that blasting swing band from Spotify helps her work chug along.


.


----------



## Maechael

Did the nut and bolt idea come into play on the polychrome?

Also, work in the hypothetical water system "should" start either tomorrow or Thursday.
Thinking of a much more modest variant of this inspiration system.

Single stream, specific to a single species or bank of tanks.

Darn you nonleaking leak, leak already so you can be fixed!



Also, happy St. Patrick's day!


----------



## wicca27

i love the tin tiles.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Lateral thinking - makes the unsolvable solvable. Possibly.*



Maechael said:


> Did the nut and bolt idea come into play on the polychrome?
> 
> Also, work in the hypothetical water system "should" start either tomorrow or Thursday.
> Thinking of a much more modest variant of this inspiration system.
> 
> Single stream, specific to a single species or bank of tanks.
> 
> Darn you nonleaking leak, leak already so you can be fixed!
> 
> 
> 
> Also, happy St. Patrick's day!


Celebrated with a junk-food shamrock shake! Not sure there was anything authentic in it; mostly synthetic - green dye, synthetic sugars, synthetic whipped cream, synthetic milk product. MMMmmmmmmmm.

So far, haven't sourced any 3/8 IPS nuts that would work that I'm willing to pay for. I can get them for a scandalous $6+ per nut, but am unwilling. The home store wouldn't touch the nipple for re-threading as apparently it's too short for their machine and wouldn't be held safely. So, no progress there.

Are you gonna write and tell me your plans on this new system? I'd love to see what you are up to.



wicca27 said:


> i love the tin tiles.


Thanks, C! They look much better in person than in the pictures, even. They add a whole lot of interest and character to the space.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

First, DK keeps forgetting to say that the Papaya female dropped her young quite a while ago. They are now about 7 mm size and are beginning to come out of the weeds. 

Second, March is a very, _very_ dangerous month for DK. Because it's the tail end month of winter, with lots of cabin fever accumulated, and this causes twitchiness on DK's part. So, during March, she often embarks on highly ambitious projects, just to ease the twitchiness.

To this end, she bought the new injector and planned a new phase of Water Factory III.

Since last she posted, she installed the new injector, ran the plumbing runs and installed the mixing chamber, then did some initial test runs.

Well, the _new_, new injector (i.e., the replacement one) STILL doesn't activate properly, or operate within their given specifications. She knows that this injector has undergone some revisions in design over the years, and she's now convinced the present design does NOT operate within the old specifications (which are also the present specifications). She has three of these injectors, and two of them operate just fine under her conditions. She has tested the new one every which way, including trading places with the old ones, and the old ones continue to work just fine, and the new one continues not to activate under the present conditions. So, she has concluded that the spring assembly inside the new version is stiffer than the old ones and actually does NOT actuate under her conditions, contrary to their outdated specifications claiming it will. 

She finally decided to declare the injector a failure, and that left her with a functional conundrum, as this is the ONLY injector on the market that allegedly works under her conditions. Naturally. Yep, Murphy RULES.

Time for some heavy duty lateral thinking, to solve this seemingly unsolvable dilemma.

The new injector had two purposes. First, it was to replace one of the old injectors, as the new injector had a range of 2-5%, to replace the old one with a range of 0.5-2%. The new injector was supposed to allow a stronger calcium stream into the water factory, as the old one had been maxed out at 2%. She did not want to change her stock solutions strength, as it takes a LONG time to get calibrations done and changing the stock solution then rocks everything down the line for calibrations for the system as a whole, so she wanted to boost the calcium stream using injector percentage, holding all other factors constant.

Then, she was going to use the 0.2-5% injector in the new arm of the Water Factory, to do injections aimed at crystals tanks. That is the new plumbing run and mixing chamber recently installed.

She has the crystals wing installed and working properly, so will leave that alone.

That leaves going back to the calcium stream, and how to fix that. This particular calcium stream is aimed at the Sulawesi bank of tanks, dedicated to them only.

So, what she is now trying is to borrow the general calcium stream, which serendipitously is at a useable strength, but slightly different in composition than was the Sulawesi calcium stream, and she's now piped THAT calcium stream into the Sulawesi run. The difference is the calcium ratio to the Sulawesi tanks will be slightly lower, the mag ratio slightly higher, and instead of lean water, the Sulawesi tanks will now receive micronutrient stream in their calcium stream. This will introduce to their tanks some minerals that they previously did not have, such as iron. We do not know how they will tolerate this, so cross yer fingers, folks. If it works, problem solved.

NOW, in order to DO this, she needed better control of the granularity of the calcium injections. Her pump controller on the non-sulawesi calcium stream has been driving her nuts ever since she's used it. It is supposed to be continuous granularity in the adjustment, but in reality it has discreet jumps of about 20% - and this is pretty huge when talking shrimp water.

So for the past two years, DK has pondered how to win this battle, without a four digit investment.

Yesterday, while seeking the alphas, it came to her.

And so, yesterday, she ordered a dry-contact 120 volt relay, bargain priced at $20 including shipping, and another of her favorite Macromatic "interval on" relays, also bargain priced at $20, and a relay socket base. The Macromatic has excellent and reliable granularity - she's been using one to man the auto flush cycle on Wet Wedding since Wet Wedding launched, and it's performed flawlessly. But it takes a signal that is voltage-driven. The current pump controller takes its signal from the pulse water meter, which gives off a "dry contact, no-voltage" signal to activate the controller. 

She needed a way to translate the dry-contact, no-voltage signal into a voltage-driven signal, and yesterday it dawned on her to link two relays to accomplish this. (Musta been the shamrock shake.)

So, the dry contact relay takes a dry contact input, and uses this to close and energize a 120 volt circuit, for the duration of the pulse input. Now, we have a 120 volt pulse!

The macromatic is then married to the output from the dry contact relay, taking in that 120 volt pulse as its input. It uses that pulse to actuate the adjustable "interval on" operation that it controls.

She's kinda dull and slow, so it took her two years to figger this out. Two years, and a synthetic shamrock shake.

She thinks it's gonna work.

Stay tuned.

++++++++

The polychrome received its first finish coat Monday, a hammered copper finish that will then be polychromed then antiqued. It won't be an authentic restored finish, but rather an re-interpretation of a fixture. DK has changed the character of the original fixture so much, so far, anyway, to include halogen up-light, that it was never going to be anywhere near authentic at the end, anyway. Hopefully it will look somewhat presentable at the end. Right now, not so much, so DK does not include pictures of the ruination at present.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Sometimes, DK gets fed up and FIXES things*

So, to do all her whacky projects, DK uses a lotta equipment, parts, and pieces.

She has this kickin' aluminum ladder (thanks, Costco) that is super handy and lightweight.

But alas, the platform developed a split. (too many shamrock shakes)

She's been playing roulette on it, but decided she's done gambling.

So, she fixed it.

+++++++++++

The polychrome WAS coming along nicely, she added the pigments last night. She still needs to do the antiquing glaze. The antiquing glaze is where it's at for the finish too look halfway good. But now, the weather has reverted from spring back to winter, and she cannot continue until the weather is spring, again. Sigh. 

+++++++++++

She's trying to get up the gumption to call the injector people, and tell 'em she sending it back.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Oh, WOW, the polychrome is doing fahbulous dahling*

DK put the glaze coat on this morning. 

It's rather fun, doing polychromes. Because everything you do, you sorta hafta slop it on, for it to look best. Too perfect, and it's ruined. That's why she wasn't so sure after the hammered finish went on - it was too perfect and soul-less.

Whooda thot slopping on diluted nail "lacquer" and leftover kitchen cabinet gel stain would make sucha difference! 

Here are some progression pics:

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK spent about an hour on the phone yesterday chatting with the injector guy. Not sure why that conversation was so long, as the business end of it was done in under five minutes. They guy had no way to argue, once DK sent pictures of the Water Factory, and why she knew the injector was not operating within the stated specifications.

The upshot of it is the injector is going back, because it doesn't work under her parameters, which are SUPPOSED to be within the injector's specs, alas. DK gets her refund.


======

The socket for the Macromatic has arrived.

DK realized, too late, that she could have skipped the dry contact relay and used her pump controller _as_ the dry contact relay, using the pump controller's output to drive the Macromatic. Very, very expensive dry contact relay, that makes it.

So, DK ponders whether either dry contact relay can be used in her still-to-be-done Water Snake project. She has been stuck two years on this, due to sensor-to-alarm translational issues.

While she has the new arm of the Water Factory up and injecting properly, she hasn't actually started injecting magic juice. To her knowledge, nobody in the shrimp world has tried this, so she waits to see how it works before she says much. Magic powder in the mystery bag... mebbe it's black cocoa processed with alkali, from a local Amish bulk food market. But then again, mebbe it's something else.

She needs a shrimptern, for all these projects.


.


----------



## wicca27

i love the light it looks really good DK


----------



## Maechael

Wish I could make it out to you DK haha, would love to jump in headfirst.

To the function of the dosing pump, couldn't 2 of the old injectors increase the load level of calcium to nearer the desired levels?


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's livin' in 1924, today*



wicca27 said:


> i love the light it looks really good DK


Check out below, C!



Maechael said:


> Wish I could make it out to you DK haha, would love to jump in headfirst.
> 
> To the function of the dosing pump, couldn't 2 of the old injectors increase the load level of calcium to nearer the desired levels?


Well, in theory, yeah. But I don't HAVE two of the old ones (to dedicate to this purpose), and the NEW ones don't work! It also goes backwards from the KISS principle.

I'm trying another lateral move that I think is simpler and will possibly work.

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK couldn't stand it. She simply had to get that polychrome hung, so she could see what she ended up with. This project has been going on (with interruptions) since before Christmas.

She can definitely live with the results.

When you dim this puppy down, you feel like you just stepped back into 1924.

Ahem. And, it turns out the polychrome project used some shrimp airline tubing. DK's not gonna tell you how, though.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's twitchy*

It's hard to believe the ENDLESS polychrome project is... over. The parts and pieces were sprawled on various surfaces for months, ever reminding DK of a project not completed.

DK's back to being twitchy. Her relays haven't arrived yet, and it's still too cold for her to resume work on the kitchen.

Inexplicably, according to tracking data (see below) the one relay _left_ Blanchester, Ohio on March 19th. It showed up in Cincinnati, Ohio _four days_ later on the 23. _It is a 54 minute trip according to Google maps_. Where was it those four days?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Good ol' USPS.

++++

What DID arrive was DK's new test kit. It was one of the few she could find that would do the job she's after. She finds a lot of very useful stuff from the hydroponics world. 

Guess she has no excuse, now. Time to get cooking on the new shrimp juice recipe.

Stay tuned.

drip.... drip.... drip... goes the cave....


.


----------



## Maechael

Ooh shiny new lighting fixture.


----------



## wicca27

i love it hung up and light up. awesome job as always. so you will have to tell more about this new ph test liquid.....


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's STILL twitchy, but getting closer to the next project*

The RIB dry-contact, "no"-voltage relay has arrived, after a scenic tour of the country. The Macromatic relay is still out on Spring Break, apparently.

In the meantime, DK's been digging through her bins 'n' barrels of parts 'n' pieces for the stuff she'll need to try the next whacky thang.

++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

So far, so good. The beta test (live) of the global calcium stream in use for the Sulawesi bank (before the injector problems, they used to have their own dedicated calcium stream that has a different shrimp juice recipe) seems to have had no ill effects! It will take about two months of running this to know for sure the compatibility, as mineral levels build in there over time. DK is concerned about iron levels affecting Sulawesi, as in their natural biome there is NO available iron in the water column. Oddly, they are unfazed by nitrates, as they sailed through Shrimpmageddon toxicity and were only crashed when DK took their tanks OFFLINE to FIX Shrimpmageddon! 


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*The Twelve Days of... WAITING*

OK, so TWELVE DAYS later, the Macromatic has finally arrived.

===

DK's been moving the water quite a bit in the Sulawesi bank, so yesterday there was a fresh large molt! Those Mermaids seem to be rolling with the new water, although it's moving more than DK wanted it to because the MACROMATIC HADN'T ARRIVED,yet.

DK needs the Macromatic to get to the in between settings she needs.

Install in the next day or so, when her sluggishness subsides.


.


----------



## Maechael

Pretty bits and pieces.
Seems like DK is regularly reaching outside the bits and pieces bins and such as of late.

Glad to see activity here regularly again!

Water projects water projects!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*It has happened: polychrome project cross-pollinates water factory*

After a few days of quiescence - DK's been focused on something else in the background - DK looked around for the stuff she needs to beta test the new system.

The idea of this new system is to fix the granularity problem with the water factory's Stenner Pump Control Module. The way the PCM is SUPPOSED to work is to take in dry contact signals from a pulse water meter and then put out control intervals to a Stenner pump. There is a range adjustment on the PCM that is SUPPOSED to have continuous granularity. 

In reality, it takes jumps of about 20%.

Naturally, Murphy being so diligent, the setting DK wants is ALWAYS somewhere between those 20% jumps.

Drives her nuts.

Enter the Macromatic.

Macromatic takes a 120 volt pulse signal as its input signal and then uses that signal to start a time interval during which it closes a circuit and powers that circuit with 120 volt power. DK used this on the Wet Wedding controls, for timing the RO membrane flush interval. From this, she knows that the old-fashioned Macromatic truly IS continuous granularity in adjustment.

Now the problem is that the macromatic cannot "read" the signal coming from the pulse water meter, as those signals are "no-voltage" and the Macromatic needs a 120 volt signal as input.

So, DK needed something that reads a "no-voltage" signal and puts out a 120 volt powered circuit in response. 

Enter the RIB relay. The RIB reads a no-voltage signal.

So the idea was to dump the PCM and hook the RIB dry contact relay up to the pulse water meter. Then, when the pulse water meter gave off a pulse, the RIB dry contact no voltage relay can "read" that "signal" (no-voltage signal = circuit closing but no energy in the circuit, so "no-voltage" signal) as an instruction to close an ENERGIZED circuit. 

So, when the RIB sees the closed circuit from the pulse water meter, it takes that signal and closes a different, 120 volt energized circuit, for 1.8 seconds. When it does this, the energy flowing through the energized circuit is tapped at the same time to power the lovely, shiny red LED light for the same amount of time. DK loves shiny, colorful, blinky things, especially on her control gizmos.

SO, DK rigged up the pulse water meter output wires to the RIB, and powered the RIB. She then ran the water until the pulse water meter made a pulse, and watched to see if the RIB lit up for 1.8 seconds. To do this, she had to put water factory on bypass and unpower the Stenner pumps.

In order to do this beta test, she had to rig the RIB to the 120 volt power.

So, she borrowed a tool she had made to test the polychrome chandelier - a lopped off extension cord.

Yep. It worked.

The plan was to then take the energized 120 volt pulse coming OUT of the RIB whenever it saw a pulse from the pulse water meter, and use that output as the INPUT into the Macromatic, which needs an ENERGIZED pulse signal input of 120 volts. Then, the macromatic closes its own circuit for a (controllable, adjustable) time interval, energizing its output circuit for the desired set time, with 120 volt power. Then, this power drives the Stenner pumps for that interval, each water meter pulse.

Yeah, it was a good plan. 

BUT then DK got to thinkin'....


.


----------



## wicca27

nice. i really wish i would have paid more attention in applied science back in 9th grade now lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Nine hurdles down, one remains*

DK got the Macromatic installed. To do so, she had to do another relay-ectomy elsewhere and fool with the circuit layout, but she prevailed.

She did NOT install the RIB relay.

Why?

She decided she has other plans for it.

She realized that the existing Stenner Pump Control Module is already capable of taking in a dry contact input and putting out a 120 volt output, which is what she needed the RIB relay for. And since the PCM is a not-very-well functioning timer, she can just use it at a short setting, doesn't matter which, to pulse the Macromatic.

So, it's all working:

Dry contact pulse from pulse water meter enters PCM
PCM reads dry contact pulse and responds with energized circuit with 120 volts for a short time
This 120 output from the PCM is then used as the 120 input pulse into the Macromatic.
Macromatic reads its 120 v input pulse and begins its interval, powering a separate 120 v circuit.

Until, we hit the wall.

Um. The Macromatic they sent DK is defective. No matter the switch or knob settings, it runs the SAME time interval.

Back it goes.

DK is feeling cursed.

But stubborn.

New one ordered, different vendor.

She will prevail.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*The missing link*



wicca27 said:


> nice. i really wish i would have paid more attention in applied science back in 9th grade now lol


Here's the deal. _DK knows almost nothing._ But she _does_ know how to type (slowly), and read, and think.

With only three tools, she and her friend Google have schemed her way into these nutso projects.

One of the reasons she runs this thread is to illustrate that you only need three tools, a computer or smart phone, and hookup to the 'net, and you can go places.

It doesn't matter what you did, or didn't, do in 9th grade. What matters is today. Anyone can do it. 

DK's has had just about every possible screw-up and failure. (She doesn't publish most of them because some of them are pretty darned embarrassing like not realizing her PCM is already doing the job of the RIB.) She learns from them. Sometimes, she has success after a failure or a string of failures. She figures if she hasn't had success yet, that she just hasn't pushed through the failures enough, yet.

On the other hand, if she had not had the PCM functional deficiency, and made the mistake of buying the RIB when she really didn't need it, she would not have had the internal discussion about exactly what the RIB does, and exactly what the PCM does. It was this internal discussion that gave her the eureka moment that changed her plans for the RIB relay.

============

Below, she beta tested her new idea. Um. Yeah. Try to screen out the miscellaneous stuff in the picture. Just focus on the RIB, plugged in, and it's sensing contacts. The other stuff in the picture is just stuff that happens to be in the background.

First picture, you see the RIB is hooked up to power, but the input pulse contacts haven't' seen a "dry-contact, no-voltage" pulse to activate the RIB (They are just hanging in the air - these wires are completely isolated from the power wires and they see no electricity even though the relay itself is now powered with 120 volts. Even when they close a circuit, that circuit is NOT ENERGIZED, that is why DK does not have them capped off in this picture, there is no danger. These wires are NEVER running electricity in this type of relay.).

The realization that a "dry-contact, no-voltage" pulse is merely a non-energized _closed circuit_ - after much drooling head pounding trying to learn NEW electronics terminology - gave DK the missing link she's been wanting.

Second picture, she applies the contact leads to a wet towel (and relishes the supreme irony that in this solution she's waited to discover for two years her "dry contact" is WET!!! - BWAHAHAHA!!!) and take a look at the RIB's LED.

Now, mebbe all y'alls are smarter than she is and coulda figgerd this out sooner. But it took her a couple of years of stewing for the eureka moment on this.

But now, she's good to go!

Shrimptern Zero, are you reading??

======

And with this, she leaves the cave to drip, a few days.




.


----------



## Maechael

DK would it benefit you to keep a record of any and all defective parts you order?

I guess that would minimize reordering of poor quality parts, or at least let you know to buy more than one of any trouble parts.


Good luck, my projects are currently all on hold, except breeding projects.


The Zen of planted tank breeding is becoming very relaxing to me.


----------



## pKaz

Shrimpterm zero here, took me over a day to get caught back up with this thread. 

Does this mean that DK will now get the flood alarm that she has always dreamed about? 

As I was reading your plan to use the Macromatic and the RIB together the design seemed overcomplicated but I saw where you were going, glad to see there was a simpler approach. 

Also the finished polychrome looks great.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK is frantic...FRANTIC!*

_She is running around, desperately looking for a hard hat... a bicycle or motorcycle helmet... heck... a steel box._

Because, the new Macromatic install has resulted in a fine-ness of granularity, a level of _heretofore unobtainable precision of control_...

...that is making her feel God-like, and her brain is swelling in response.

She can now dial a 5 tds unit change in her globals, with the twist of a knob. This means reliable dial-a-molt. She can dial in breeding seasons, at will, with fine control.

Before, it was about a 100 unit jump.

*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!*

OK, so she's a drama queen, this morning.

Let's just say: 
It was worth the wait.​
===========



Maechael said:


> DK would it benefit you to keep a record of any and all defective parts you order?
> 
> I guess that would minimize reordering of poor quality parts, or at least let you know to buy more than one of any trouble parts.
> 
> 
> Good luck, my projects are currently all on hold, except breeding projects.
> 
> 
> The Zen of planted tank breeding is becoming very relaxing to me.


If DK tried in any manifestation to keep records of parts... um. Nope. Nothing would get done. She really doesn't have that many defectives, anyway. The heaters just go out. She has a system to put a heater on watch. Other parts, it's rare to get a lemon. Plus, yeah, remember, she's lah-zhee. Parts inventories... too much like that thing called "maintenance" 'cause it's tedious. She has a sort of very cluttered database of stuff rambling around in her head that is surprisingly effective. 



pKaz said:


> Shrimpterm zero here, took me over a day to get caught back up with this thread.
> 
> Does this mean that DK will now get the flood alarm that she has always dreamed about?
> 
> As I was reading your plan to use the Macromatic and the RIB together the design seemed overcomplicated but I saw where you were going, glad to see there was a simpler approach.
> 
> Also the finished polychrome looks great.


There are probably some arduino fans out there, scratching their heads at dino-DK. But she wants systems that are not computer dependent, for the most part. She has her reasons, for this...

Yep, embarrassing as it is, that project has stayed exactly as it was the moment you left, until now! Yeah, what has it been, 2 -- 3 years of quiescence? Can't remember. Now, she ponders whether she wants a bullhorn, autodialer, or what, as the end result. Or maybe a global solenoid shut-off response. More pondering.

++++++++++

And here, we have the source of her frantic-ness. The now-existence of 

*The GodKnob*​

.


----------



## Maechael

DK is it blasphemous to wish for possesion of one's own automated water factory with a mint condition "God knob"? If so, Blasphemer 1, reporting.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> DK is it blasphemous to wish for possesion of one's own automated water factory with a mint condition "God knob"? If so, Blasphemer 1, reporting.


Let's remember this is a very public venue. There was no disrespect meant in any way to folks of faith or their beliefs, by my attempt at generic humor. So, there was NO intention to blaspheme, and this is not something DK even jokes around, about.

She merely meant that this knob sure gives the illusion of being in control, and that that feeling is generally counter to the human experience.

And it can be purchased twenty something bucks. Not bad, really.


----------



## Maechael

Sorry if I offended anyone with my attempt at humor, DK included.

No harm intended.


----------



## DKShrimporium

DK wasn't offended.

She probably should never have led us down that path.

But she just got so carried away, with the adrenaline surge, and the assonance. She is a word nerd.

Sometimes, posting here reminds her of "The Mark of Gideon," and she's ever mindful of the view out the window.

Google is your friend.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK just scored a set of drums for twenty bucks, compliments the local Goodwill store.

For the rocker with that amazing hair, in her domicile.


.


----------



## Maechael

Nice score! DK you'd love my goodwill, they sell the occasional RO/DI unit, and tons of pool supply hoses and clamp work.

I saw the pathway open and as a fool wandered, but new paths can be exciting, some due to how treacherous they are.

Water system alpha is currently in the design stage with a friend from new work, alpha is going to be portable and with any luck, suitcase or smaller sized.


----------



## wicca27

DK its a sad day at my house  ... i lost my last tb yesterday. im chalking it up to age. as i have had them a full year now and i know they were a few months old when i got them. not sure how i want to go from here though.


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> DK its a sad day at my house  ... i lost my last tb yesterday. im chalking it up to age. as i have had them a full year now and i know they were a few months old when i got them. not sure how i want to go from here though.


Aw, C, sorry I just logged on and saw this. Sorry it took me so long to respond.

++++++

DK's been off in other realms, lately. Shrimp have been boring her to death, and on autopilot.

She can report that the macromatic is working flawlessly and now DK can much better dial in the tanks. She thinks she's now closing in on the Mermaid tank settings, using the alternate calcium stream.

The Mermaids are breeding and have stair-stepped young in there, but DK has this nagging feeling her capture rate could be better. It's hard to tell with them because the babies hang out in the gravel, so she can't see how many per batch there are. But, her rates are definitely improving, and her population is slowly growing in there, which is VERY good news, as they dang near got wiped out last summer in Shrimpmaggedon.

Everyone else, minus crystals, are cooking along, but DK has this nagging feeling nobody's quite in their sweet spot, so DK's moving the tanks just a tad.

In the meantime, she's been tearing out her basement walls and trying to hire a structural engineer...'nuff said. Headache city.

++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Today, she's off to pick up a couple auction items. About to launch another big project that will be very fun. Here's a preview:


.


----------



## Maechael

That looks like an awesome base for a chandelier, or at least a very cool hanging lamp.

DK, for your mermaids, do you have a control tank?
as in a tank to compare, breeding, growth, color to while fidgeting with the main tank.

Redundancy seems to be an evermore important lesson I learn in the cave of Shrimpy knowledge.

Also, I might be ordering shrimp in the near future for an awesome tank I just setup last week, once it has matured a bit more.


Wicca, sorry to hear you lost the last, I also apologize for late condolences.
Will you continue to try with a new batch?


----------



## wicca27

im not sure what shrimp i want to keep now. honestly i like easy. mixing water was a pain lol. probably wont do tb for a while any way.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> DK, for your mermaids, do you have a control tank?
> as in a tank to compare, breeding, growth, color to while fidgeting with the main tank.


Not really. If I had a control tank for every tweak I did, they'd fill a stadium. What I do have is a sort of database up in the cluttered brain that roughly tracks changes and their effects. 



wicca27 said:


> mixing water was a pain lol.


Oh. Yeah. This is why DK has this automated system.

********

OK, so she took a better look into the Mermaid tank, and things are cooking along in there quite nicely with stair-step multi-youth. This means the breeding and capture rates are decent in the new water. The population is steadily growing in there.

They are tolerating well the "extra stuff" coming into their water column with the calcium stream. The bonus is that the "extra stuff" contains stuff that encourages algae and biofilm growth better in their tank, hopefully giving them better nutrition.

*******

DK's order of high-end lamp parts is tracking to arrive, today. She will be re-habbing the antique bridge arm lamps with good U.L. listed new guts. More on that later, after she catches up with her other projects.

*******

DK is, as her Brit friend says, "shattered" the past coupla days, after stripping and refinishing 4/5 of her hardwood floors in her house. They have taken a beating over the years and under German claws and grit. This is a Darwinian environs, around here, household finishes included. 

Before and after pics. She is going to tweak the color a bit toward grey/green and add some _micronized polymeric aggregate_ (say that ten times really fast!) to the final layer of floor coating, so she's been dating Google once again, picking her date's brain for info.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK needs yer vote*

Which one? Red, or clear? See the wire pic, too.


----------



## Maechael

I like the color of the red, but the shape and refraction of clear.

DK, how long till we see a video of the shrimp side of the cave?
Even if just hyper edited quicktakes of just the tanks themselves.


----------



## Nuthatch

Clear! To me it is a better fit for the age & style of the lamp.

And count me in as one who would like to see pictures of your shrimp.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> I like the color of the red, but the shape and refraction of clear.
> 
> DK, how long till we see a video of the shrimp side of the cave?
> Even if just hyper edited quicktakes of just the tanks themselves.





Nuthatch said:


> Clear! To me it is a better fit for the age & style of the lamp.
> 
> And count me in as one who would like to see pictures of your shrimp.



Thank you for the vote, and, well, non-vote. Other than y'all, that cave is one resounding echo, dripping away.

Um. On the pictures. OK, here are a few, lousy as they are, to placate.


As you recall, coming up on a year ago, we experienced Shrimpmageddon, wiping out most of DK's shrimp populations, down to a handful per tank.

As if that weren't bad enough, she had technical issues with the system, necessitating the install of the Macromatic.

DK also did a global light change, bringing in higher intensity, full-spectrum lighting.

This year, DK has also been hit with some significant non-shrimp related issues, such as a dog developing seizure disorder (to the tune of three seizures in one day, at its worst), her basement developing standing wetness, and a certain Rock Star wanna-be developing unacceptable grades.

All this to say, the tanks have nearly been forgotten, on autopilot, and recovering from disaster and changes. _DK SO needs a shrimptern..._

DK has let them cook, adjusted her calibrations, and allowed the biofilms to take over while the plants grew back some.

SO

Most of her tanks are OOOO-GLEEE, right now. They look like a long-vacant weed-filled lot in the inner city, ooo-glee. And she cannot photograph across the biofilms, and she's not cleaning most of them because she's busy, and letting the biofilms feed the babies that are recovering her populations.

Here is a shot of one of the black tiger tanks. As you can see, it's doing well, recovering the population. But oooo-gleee, and the glass is pure bio-film, and the plant mass is not there, yet.

Another couple shots of some knocked-up Mermaids. They are doing very well, and their loads in pregnancy are appreciably larger, now. She can see at least half a dozen big preggo females in there, right now. DK is not sure whether it's the calcium adjustment she was able to make, or the increased nutrition the shrimp are getting from the nutrient-richer water coming into the tank WITH the calcium stream. As you can see from the snail shot in the Mermaid tank, the tank is abundant with food source, now!!!


.


----------



## wicca27

so that is how slinkies are made huh lol. DK if i was closer (back in oklahoma now) i would come help but alas not doable right not. glad things are slowly getting back on track and love the new project. i say forget red and clear go blue or aqua lol. if had to pic i would say clear. red is nice but i think clear would fit more options in what ever area this project will go


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's eye candy may be different than yours*

DK supposes she likes shrimp eye candy as well as the next hobbyist: crisp macro shots of colorful shrimp, juiced saturation, lush surroundings, crystal clear water. 

That sort of thing.

But _her_ real version of eye candy is rather different.

_Because she is NOT focused on eye candy. She is focused on SYSTEMS._ 


First, ecosystems, that are close to the natural biomes of the species, and

Second, automation systems, to simulate those ecosystems. Because she likes to try new things, and is lah-zhee, and

Third, system design that enables _continuous operation_ rather than _batch processing_, because that is how nature generally operates.

So while some of you will yawn and wander off, silently complaining about redundancy lately in her shots, and lack of spectacular scenery, THIS is her version of eye candy, because of what it _represents_:

She doesn't know of any other hobbyists who run fully-automated systems. There are a lot of them that have spectacular eye candy shots, but they buy proprietary products, run manual systems, and reap the results of _someone else's innovation_. That is an entirely different game than what she's playing.

Her tanks are all run off _full automation_. 

She has vastly different species, all running off _a single automation system_, and _all are breeding_. 

Using ingredients from Wally world, Costco, the local Hardware store, and her one nod to specialty shopping - Aquariumfertilizer dot com - she makes _her own_ magic shrimp juice concentrate.

She has not done a manual water change in years, nor has she changed substrates in her tanks. (She is currently pondering a new project: a sub-substrate vacuum system to de-mulm substrates. She has a central idea but now is pondering the specifics of exactly what parts to use and how to put it together. Stay tuned.) Her goal is to create biomes mimicking those in nature that are sustainable long-term and do not need to be re-set every year or two because some designer substrate coating has worn off and they need another cash infusion (and tank tear-down, re-cycling, and re-maturation) to make it work, again.

So with the above in mind, here is HER eye candy shot.

Using a SINGLE calcium feed stream for ALL her species, and on full automation, this shot shows a pipe-lining of Cardinals growing in her Sulawesi tanks. She's got the heavily pregnant female, a half grown youth, and a pee wee in one shot. She makes, and automates, her own water in these tanks. What is remarkable is that the tap water she starts with could not be more opposite what these shrimp like. She's pretty happy with this progress.

And, another shot of a different animal from this same biome - now heading toward 4 inches in length, her snails are doing great, as well.

********

HEY PLAMEN -- YOU OUT THERE?? See my third pic. Is this the plant we talked about? I'm finally doing a test feeding as I type!


.


----------



## Maechael

Beautiful shrimp line up, amazing orange poso, and ground plantain?

Healing salve and happy medicine.


My non vote has changed, clear it does fit better with the equipment.



Such jealousy of the shrimps, and the poso when they breed it makes you feel good.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Hey Plamen*



Maechael said:


> Beautiful shrimp line up, amazing orange poso, and ground plantain?
> 
> Healing salve and happy medicine.
> 
> 
> My non vote has changed, clear it does fit better with the equipment.
> 
> 
> 
> Such jealousy of the shrimps, and the poso when they breed it makes you feel good.


Is that what it is? All I know is Plamen said it was packed with nutrition. The Blue Bees sure like it, see pic. (Their glass is full of biofilm so I had to take the pic across the top of the water surface and this is the best I could manage.)

What's going on with your project?

Here's another shot of the Orange Poso, next to more usual sized ones. 


.


----------



## Maechael

Beautiful creatures.
I believe the vegetation picture to be plantain.

My posos are breeding well, my shrimps sadly crashed and burned during a switch up.p


For over head quality pictures, use a specimen cup set just under the water.


----------



## wicca27

i miss my orange poso's i lost them a year and a half ago when i moved back to oklahoma. man have i had my downs since i have moved lol. oh well one of these years i will get back in when dk starts selling again lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*More of DK's version of eye candy*

Camouflage Tiger shrimp, also known as _Paracaridina meridionalis_.

It took DK 5 years of cultivating a relationship to get her hands on a population of these guys. Then, she struggled with parameters several more years, because NOBODY really knew what they wanted.

They're like yellow neos - they will survive in a very broad range of parameters, but only hit breeding production mode where they breed well AND have high survival/growth rates of young in a rather narrow range. So one can mess around a LONG time with them, without hitting the sweet spot, because they will survive, but do nothing. 

DK FINALLY has the beginning of a breeding population of them. That's what this picture represents. It doesn't show that her tank is now crawling with them, but it is. She will try to get a better picture in future days showing that.

Yah, mebbe not such a big deal to the cave, but to _her_, it _is_. She doesn't know of any other folks with a breeding population of these guys this side of the ocean. 

Anybody know of them being grown by North American hobbyists?

She still thinks she doesn't have them in their sweet spot, because they color up better at times. She wonders if they prefer a dark substrate for color.


.


----------



## wicca27

that is awesome DK. i am just a lover of tiger shrimp and yours make me drool lol. what i ended up doing was getting a small bag of black aquarium sand and just sprinkling a thin layer over the pool filter sand i had. the shrimp mixed it in and i added a bit more till the top was for the most part dark colored. made the shrimp really pop and color up nice but was still light enough to be able to see them and not loose them


----------



## treyLcham

why do you talk in third person? Just wondering =). Great looking shrimp!!!


----------



## wicca27

its her alter ego doing the talking hehehe


----------



## treyLcham

Lol =') I guess it can be a book knowing how many posts on this thread their are


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## DKShrimporium

*Wow, more than dripping*

Such a rare event! More than s...l...o...w... dripping, there is nearly a _conversation_ in the cave!

******

Why does DK speak in the third person? Hm. Dunno. Mebbe she's khrah-zhee as well as lah-zhee. Or mebbe she doesn't want to own all her failures, so she uses third person, along her treks. Or mebbe she cannot stand first person in an (apparently, if you watch page view numbers) very public place, in this present age of narcissim. Mebbe she finds it distasteful to write all those "I"s. Who knows WHAT goes on up there, with all those voices and conversations (arguments, quite often, if you must know the truth), in DK's mind. It's a bizzy, cluttery, chaos-ey place. Full of steampunk-y fixtures to trip over and konk one's head upon when wandering around in the hazy dimness.

******

IN OTHER NEWS:

Yesterday, she spent her shrimp time doing a surgical excision and re-implantation of ballast into one of her fixtures, that had gone bad. Patient survived and is doing well, back to functioning.

******

More of DK's dreadful eye candy. It's more on par with a Twix bar than a fine Belgian hand-formed chocolate. Barely in focus, that sort of thing.

After Shrimpmageddon, she had only a HANDFUL of stock left. This morning, here's a shot of some Black Tigers. 

Coming along.


.


----------



## AoxomoxoA

treyLcham said:


> why do you talk in third person?


Likely to keep the inhabitants of Gideon off her trail. In addition to the aforementioned reasons of course...


----------



## DKShrimporium

AoxomoxoA said:


> Likely to keep the inhabitants of Gideon off her trail. In addition to the aforementioned reasons of course...


*SHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!*

+++++++++

Today's candy, mebbe an upgrade from Twix to Snickers. Thing is, you can't make fine French cuisine with only a crockpot, if'n YKWIM. DK doesn't have the camera, the macro lens, the lighting in her tanks, or the skill to make kweez-zeen.

One shot shows (future) bebbees, the other is just better focus. Hey. We'll take what we can get.

One shot of... yellow. Pretty color. Water is murky because DK just cleaned the biofilm off the front glass (thus why she HAS a picture of yellow) and while in there she rototilled the substrate, so it will take a few days to clear.


.


----------



## wicca27

really looking good DK. hey any new pics of the GSD? its been a while for them as well. here is a shot of my new girl in the house. we have had her right at 10 months now and happy to say she is finally up to weight. she will go first of the week for a weight check but she is over 60 lbs now and no longer can you feel any bones. when we got her you could feel them all, i cried


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> really looking good DK. hey any new pics of the GSD? its been a while for them as well. here is a shot of my new girl in the house. we have had her right at 10 months now and happy to say she is finally up to weight. she will go first of the week for a weight check but she is over 60 lbs now and no longer can you feel any bones. when we got her you could feel them all, i cried


She looks SO happy and content, C! Great job!

I took some more shots of the Germans for you. DK's version of eye candy! 

LOL, you can see where The Germans lie wait, looking out the front door sidelite, their toenails scratching off the surface of DK's baseboard. She has a re-paint job of the house trim due, but doesn't want to do it until AFTER she's finished (refinished) her hardwood floors. She has the first stage done, but the second stage needs 3 days of no traffic and she can't figure out how to swing that! 

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*So, when Gremlins get into the system, time to think.*

DK's Wet Wedding has had Gremlins, lately. 

The system is set to turn on at about 23 PSI, when tank pressure dips to that level. Then, it runs a film wash cycle for about 2 minutes, blasting clean her RO mother membranes. Then some valves close, ending the wash blast, and the real RO work begins for a couple hours. At the end of the couple hours, the tank is refilled with RO water and reaches its other control pressure of about 40 PSI, which signals the system to stop.

Most of these phases have a distinct sound, usually a sort of click, associated with the change of phase.

The system has been in hiccup mode, clicking and clicking until the phase change happens. The phase changes were happening at wrong pressures and were taking a LOT of clicks to finish the phase.

So DK was thinking her pressure switch, the thing that is the brains of the thing, was going bad on its calibrations, sorta wonky.

But then she forced herself to think of the _system as a whole_, and _how it all works together_, and she came up with a theory.

The system is contingent upon a free flow of water into the pressure pump. If the flow were not able to keep up with the need for volume, to maintain the pressure output from the pump, then the pressures would be all over the place, despite the pump's trying to boost pressure. 

If the pressures are all over the place, the pressure switch iz a gonna go bonkers, as will every transition relying on input FROM the pressure switch.

SO, DK got to lookin' at that pre-filter run, and saw it was looking rather clogged in the 5 micron pre-filter, although the 1 micron pre-filter still looked good to go.

She decided it was time to change them.


Pictures:




The view of the pre-filters. You can see the left 5 micron one is asking to be changed, but the right 1 micron one looks pretty good.
5 micron filter, much dirtier than she even thought
1 micron filter, probably clogged!!
The super-duper special lube DK uses on all her stuff
One of the MANY tricks she has learned, in all her failures. Remove the O-ring, clean it, and lube beneath it in the groove.
Then, re-seat the O-ring and lube it on top, as well. This prevents the need for excessive force to re-open the filter in the future, and prevents the tearing of the O-ring if it gets stuck and shear force upon re-opening the filter housing tears the O-ring. This solves that problem, if you use the right lube.
System back assembled, slowly filled, air bled out, re-pressurized fully and leak checked. Now, DK uses labels on the filter housings. First, the position of the lable tells her how much to tighten the housing, where to stop. Next, the labels remind her not to switch the filters order by mistake (DK makes a lotta mistakes). And finally, the labels tell her when the filters were last changed.
And then, she scheduled the next due change into her electronic calendar, so this doesn't happen, again! 
Visual inspection is not good enough! Filters will now be on a fixed schedule so they don't get this clogged.

Wet Wedding was screaming at her with all the clicks, and she wuzzn't listening very well!

Yes, once she did change the pre-filters, the system is back to purring like a kitten, with sharp transition phases.

+++++++++++

And a Friday eye candy shot, DK's version of eye candy. This is a shot of a 3 mm Mermaid baby. What is eye candy to DK is the fact that this baby is _up on the moss_ in the _front_ of the tank. This only happens when the population is rising in that tank, and the shrimp see other shrimp and get more bold up and front in position of the tank. WHERE you see shrimp in that tank is an excellent indicator of the population, DK had learned. 

So she started looking around much more patiently, and sure enough, there are a buncha tiny bah-bees in there poking up from the substrate in the front half of the tank.

.


----------



## wicca27

thanks for the gsd pics good looking dogs they are. yes mine is happy and pretty well behaved now that she has settled in.

its so good to see babies. and mermaid babies are even better. your getting pretty good with pics DK keep it up lol

Bump: thanks for the gsd pics good looking dogs they are. yes mine is happy and pretty well behaved now that she has settled in.

its so good to see babies. and mermaid babies are even better. your getting pretty good with pics DK keep it up lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*From Snickers to... Ferrero Rocher*

These are for you, C. Just taken in the last 24 hours.

They are SO SMALL you have to _know_ to look for them to even _see_ them. 

First composite picture, I have used the same picture in 3 magnifications to try to show just how tiny these new babies are (these guys are BRAND NEW and probably from the female shown a few posts ago, and are a different batch from the 3 mm picture shown last post). These guys are 2 mm length. They are all over the front of that tank. The upper right inset tries to show my finger actual size, so you can see the baby actual size.

The eye candy part of this is that the females won't drop their young up front in that tank until the population is large enough that they feel either crowded toward the front, or comfortable with enough "friends" around that they venture more front-ward.

The three arrow picture is on the left front of the tank, while the ruler picture is on the right front of the tank. 

Mermaid babies of this size pick a "territory" and stick within a few cm of it for the first week or two. They do not move around the tank until they get 5-6 mm size.

++++++++++

NEXT UP:

With the macromatic in and the Mermaids successfully switched over to the global calcium stream, DK now focuses on adjusting her carbonates for the Neos. She has had technical hurdles to getting her water blend correct for them and the other day realized she now has the minidos injector not in use and she can switch out the dosmatic injector for the minidos and get her injection ratio up in this way.


.


----------



## wicca27

thats awesome thanks DK that made my day. i cant wait to have shrimp again i miss seeing the babies


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> thats awesome thanks DK that made my day. i cant wait to have shrimp again i miss seeing the babies


Oh, yeah. Mermaid newborns are the ultimate "Where's Waldo" hunt, in a tank. Almost as fun as puppies.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK, once again, lied. She is only about a quarter of the way through her 34 ounce Bubba mug of joe this morning, NOT enough to energize her up to the point of switching out an injector. At least _yet_, today. And, she's kinda conserving her energy this morning, 'cause later she's gonna burn a lot of it masticating, and undergoing peristalsis.

So, to stall time, here are some shots of one of the least appreciated beautiful shrimp, the Blue Bees. The three ladies are about to pop! Pics taken 2 days ago.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*So, ja, DK ended up spending the past few days...*

Doing the below.

Yep, she ended up where she started. Except fatter.

After doing a full injector workshop (take apart, service, lube, etc.) and switch out (she was attempting to switch out the Dosatron and put in the Minidos), she could _not_ get the Minidos to actuate under that stream's conditions, so she had to take it BACK out, and put the Dosatron BACK in. Eerily similar to the problems she had recently with the Microdos that she sent back. Under higher flow conditions, both would actuate, but they would not actuate under lower flow conditions, even though all the parameters were within specs.

At any rate, the first approach ended up in _failure_. DK hates failure, so she battled on. 

She has designed multiple duplicities into her systems, so if one approach fails, she has about 4-5 other ways to accomplish making water. She has the ability to make custom, unique water for each tank in her racks - hundreds of combinations.

Here's how she makes water:


She starts with RO, which is empty water - her blank slate. She uses RO to mix with shrimp juice concentrates, to make feed streams.
Shrimp juice concentrate recipes. Y'know "pinch of salt, eye of newt, two shakes of a lamb's tail, three spits into the vat" - that sort of thing. By changing her recipe, she can change what feed stream she makes from it, after it is mixed into RO.
Injector dilution fraction - each shrimp juice concentrate is then sent through an injector and is proportionally diluted into a feed stream. The injectors are generally adjustable, EXCEPT for the dosatron, which is a fixed ratio injector only. The problem DK had run into was that her shrimp juice recipe going through the dosatron was at full saturation, so she couldn't make it any richer. Her Dosatron injector was fixed ratio, so she could not increase the injection fraction. She needed a higher feed stream concentration coming out of the injector, but couldn't get any higher because her juice was at highest concentration and her injector couldn't be adjusted higher. So she tried switching to the Minidos, which in theory has the ability to run a higher injection fraction than the Dosmatic. Except it would not actuate under the parameters.
Now, once DK has a feed stream to her liking, then she blends several of these DIFFERENT feed streams in different proportions at each tank, to make custom water. She can make stronger water, weaker water, water with a higher mag ratio or lower pH, etc. by choosing how to blend her feed streams. Like making a cocktail: three parts coke, one part rum. If you want a stronger one, then two parts coke, two parts rum. Then you can get fancier with three or four or five ingredient blends. Problem with this is that whenever you change the proportion of one, you change the proportion of the others also, so you have to be careful.
In the end, she got her higher carbonates into the neo tanks by changing her blends at the tank rather than increasing her injection fraction into the carbonate feed stream. This messed with the calcium and other feeds a bit, so she also had to adjust them. But in only two cycles of water, her neos are looking markedly better.

So today, she took herself and Other Geek off to a day off, and had a gourmet ice cream at Maplehofe dairy store. 

*Raspberry cashew over triple chocolate. *

She is quite good at ice cream, so when she says that was good stuff, she means not twix or snickers, but *hand dipped Belgians*.

At Maplehofe dairy, you can sit on their porch rockers out front and stare at the Amish farm across the street. Today the draft horses were out plowing with Dad Amish driving next to Teen Son Amish. Little sis and brothers Amish followed behind in their bare feet, bending over every so often. We guessed they were picking rocks from the dirt that the plowing dug up.

Maplehofe has a network of local dairy farms from which they get their milk. You can buy milk in the old fashioned bottles there, and return the bottles for your deposit. 

The ice creams are made from their milk and local produce, such as raspberries or strawberries, etc. 

So DK's raspberry cashew scoop was unbelievable. And it had whole cashews every bite, none of these tiny ground up bits. The triple chocolate was amazing, too, and should be named something much more exotic to do it justice.

If you become a Shrimptern, DK will take you there, and buy you ice cream, so you can see for yourself.


.


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## wicca27

oh DK i dream of being a shrimpturn. one of these years it will happen for sure. it will some some big buck a roos since im back in oklahoma now but i will make it.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Scenes around the place*

Smoke and mirrors. These are pics to divert the readers, 'cause DK is too bizzy staring at all the action and changes in her tanks to take DECENT pics. She has actually cleaned the front glass of three neo tanks recently. She ONLY does this when there is some great action a-happenin'.

Now, she waits for the adjustments to take hold and settle in. In a couple weeks, she'll know if she overshot her settings or not, but for now things are lookin' pretty darned good.

Last picture is her latest batch of Mermaid cocktails. Those are some partying girls.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK knows when a project makes her REALLY NERVOUS...*

...It's either gonna be a _gangbuster_ fun project, 

*or*

a _disaster_.

-------------------

She's been contemplating this project for WELL over a year, now, stymied about various geometries.

She has decided to take the plunge, and just start out with SOME of the geometry thought out, then see if she can wing the rest of the geometries. Normally, she solves ALL the stuff, at least up in her brain, before she embarks. 

This project has given her SUCH a brain belch that, in order to relieve the pressure, she's now going to work on ANOTHER project, while her brain whirs away solving the nerve wracking project.

So, as a diversion and pressure release, she has decided she's going to re-vamp the lighting system over the Sulawesi bank, switching out her spiral fluorescents with the lovely full spectrum T8s she has over all her other tanks.

The spiral fixture is working just fine, but the spiral bulbs come in rather limited phosphor coatings. Because the Mermaids are doing so well, DK wants to give their tank full spectrum lighting, so that it has the optimal chance for biofilm growth. Because as far as she can tell, those Mermaids only like to snack on biofilms. She has yet to feed them a shrimp food that they show interest in.

To do this, she's going to make a weird setup of floating tubes, with no real fixture. The tubes will float underneath the shelf above them, which is lined with mirror mylar, so will act as a total ceiling reflector.

Here is the beginning of her stuff. The first picture shows the results of her picking through her bins 'n' barrels of parts 'n' pieces.

The second picture was the stuff she was forced to buy. She really didn't want to have to BUY anything, but she got stuck.


.


----------



## loach guy

Cool setup and beautiful shrimp. Without fully understanding what the system is doing, it seems as though a positive displacement setup with a controller (whether it's PLC or Raspberry Pi etc.) would be more expensive at start-up but save money and a whole lot of time in the long run. I have designed and built this type of equipment. PM me if you want to know more.


----------



## Maechael

What has my interest is the water bottles.

Sodawater, ice bottles for temp controls, DK being healthy it's a mystery.


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## DKShrimporium

loach guy said:


> Cool setup and beautiful shrimp. Without fully understanding what the system is doing, it seems as though a positive displacement setup with a controller (whether it's PLC or Raspberry Pi etc.) would be more expensive at start-up but save money and a whole lot of time in the long run. I have designed and built this type of equipment. PM me if you want to know more.


Why, thank you.

I understand the concept of PLC and RP, but - mebbe 'cause I'm not through my 34 ounce Bubba Mug yet - what positive displacement would I need?



Maechael said:


> What has my interest is the water bottles.
> 
> Sodawater, ice bottles for temp controls, DK being healthy it's a mystery.


Oh, yes, grasshopper, you show a lot of promise for your attention to detail and inquisitiveness. Good qualities.

As it happens, the icy quality of the bottles is KEY.

DK loves it when a person SEES a thing, and ASKS questions, and THINKS and WONDERS WHY. These are good qualities.

She's like Disney. She puts a lot of hidden secrets in her postings that people RARELY catch. This is partly how she entertains her fidgety self - throwing out a hook, fishing.

**********

IN OTHER NEWS:

Yesterday, DK FINALLY had the structural engineer out, to survey the landscape. The results of that free her to continue on with a SLEW of projects that were contingent upon that report. 

Also, yesterday, amidst multiple brain tornadoes, she figured out some pretty cool ideas she can't wait to try. The key now is to find the right parts.

And.

Back to our regularly scheduled program, the diversion project:

DK has all these constraints she uses when she does a project. (It wouldn't be properly sporting, otherwise.) Because she does _a lot_ of projects, and often UN-does them for a LATER project. So, she tries to use standard parts. She tries to do the least alterations in original parts, especially if it changes the structural integrity. She tries to make MODULAR, alterable or de-constructible set-ups. 

So with that in mind, she took a look at what she was trying to do here, and here is the first step. 

Using the fluorescent end caps, she installed some mounting screws through an existing channel. The screws are apparently leftovers from one of her antique projects since they are blackened brass, but they fit, and she had the nuts to fit them, so she used them.

Stay tuned for more adventures in whacky lighting, coming up...

.


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## alpha1172

i unfortunately havnt gotten to look through this whole thread but will asap. 

But beautiful setup!!
Im all about automation as i work out of town for months at a time, i went with a apex setup. right now only controlling 2 tanks and the RO system, Does a great job but not having any analog inputs really sucks .

Those injectors seem like the exact solution to issues im having right now can i get a link to them if possible?


----------



## wicca27

i am sooooo watching this new "sun" project hehehe. one of my lights died on my 29 and i really hate to spend $40+ for a strip light plus shipping. im just a huge pansy when it comes to electrical. im afraid i will either short out the house or send myself to the hospital lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

alpha1172 said:


> i unfortunately havnt gotten to look through this whole thread but will asap.
> 
> But beautiful setup!!
> Im all about automation as i work out of town for months at a time, i went with a apex setup. right now only controlling 2 tanks and the RO system, Does a great job but not having any analog inputs really sucks .
> 
> Those injectors seem like the exact solution to issues im having right now can i get a link to them if possible?


Yeah, well, this thread is like the old cartoons with disappearing ink. DK keeps running out of attachment room so has to flush earlier pictures (mostly because DK's too lazy to set up a remote photo location of her own). It's sorta a shame, because the story is getting lost, and it's whacky in its beginnings and twists and turns.

There are, um, at least three injector technologies going on here. If you share what you are trying to do, she can point you toward the one that suits your application best. She now knows the ins and outs of each one's benefits and achille's heels, having experienced every snafu (knock wood).



wicca27 said:


> i am sooooo watching this new "sun" project hehehe. one of my lights died on my 29 and i really hate to spend $40+ for a strip light plus shipping. im just a huge pansy when it comes to electrical. im afraid i will either short out the house or send myself to the hospital lol


Hey C. Well, don't get too excited, because DK never posts the ENTIRE details of any electrical or plumbing project. The reason for this is she doesn't want enough information for someone to try to copy and then have (um, possibly catastrophic) failure if it doesn't goes as imagined.

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has made significant initial progress in her sweat-inducing sleep-loss project. She is careening toward the point of no return. If she gets to a point where she realizes it's not a hideous failure, she'll post it here for the project junkie nerds. (Hey, are any of you out there, in the cave?)

For now, she has achieved mounting of the moving platform, level and plumb, and lateral and warp stability, with weight transmission down a moving column. She wishes the movement of the platform were more elegant, though. Right now it's bothering her because it's too crude and rough. But, hey, when you're doing projects on the cheap and with parts you already have, sometimes crude and rough is what you get. Of course DK could do elegant if she lifted some of her project constraints, but that wouldn't be sporting.

++++++++++

*Meanwhile, back at the ranch...*

Next she had to drill some mounting holes in her end rails. Followed by mounting the steel angles to the rails. The mount job isn't elegant, but it is modular, reversible, and provides the correct spacing she'll need, later when the bulbs slip in.

As in any proper DK project, it involves, particularly early on, either the use of PVC, or pop rivets. In this case, pop rivets.

DK just loves pop rivets.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*So, while we continue on dribbling forth the light fixture assembly...*

DK has been FURIOUSLY head-banging behind the scenes, on her nerve-wracking project. She has been brain-spinning, twisting imagery around in her mind, pondering the critical order of operations. 

Today, she passed the point of no return, on that project. A figurative jumping off the cliff, hoping the parachute is folded correctly and will deploy.

She took her chop saw to a critical part, and now it's cut and it's front and center, and there is NO GOING BACK.

She thinks it's all gonna work, but it's AGONIZINGLY slow, TEDIOUSLY detail-oriented, to get it all right, the FIRST and ONLY time.

Nerve wracking. 

DK pushes through the fear.

++++++++++

Now, back to the smoke-and-mirrors diversion project:

Next, she uses the existing geometry and structures to mount the end caps to the end rails, using lock washers and bolts. This provides a mechanical means of fastening that is reversible, and provides the correct spacing.


.


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## Maechael

1st off, I like the Ring DK, don't know if I missed it before or if it's new but it is nice lookin'.

Second, Light project seems interesting, water system being almost tuned sounds pretty good.

Thirdly, it seems this cave has recently sparked a revival in spelunking, and I for one am very excited to see where it may go from here. More activity seems to be more interesting in my experience, hope this holds true here.

Lastly, I hope to be more active here myself, starting with the suggestion that DK start herself a genuine mad doings photobucket account, as it would allow all followers new and old a full picture journey through this thread.


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## wicca27

yes i know you do not post full details but it gives me motivation to see it work as you work though it.


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## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> 1st off, I like the Ring DK, don't know if I missed it before or if it's new but it is nice lookin'.
> 
> Second, Light project seems interesting, water system being almost tuned sounds pretty good.
> 
> Thirdly, it seems this cave has recently sparked a revival in spelunking, and I for one am very excited to see where it may go from here. More activity seems to be more interesting in my experience, hope this holds true here.
> 
> Lastly, I hope to be more active here myself, starting with the suggestion that DK start herself a genuine mad doings photobucket account, as it would allow all followers new and old a full picture journey through this thread.


BWA HA HA - that ring was eleven bucks on one of those cardboard displays with slits in it holding rings, at a flea markety type place! She has a nicer ring, but actually likes this modest one much better, so wears it!

Ja, ja. DK KNOWs she should set up a photo account. Problem is, on any given day she has a priority list, and it never makes it up into the active zone.



wicca27 said:


> yes i know you do not post full details but it gives me motivation to see it work as you work though it.


Well, DK _is_ a project junkie. She hopes to inspire other project junkies. The whackier, the better. She is rather Wonka-esque.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK's messing with the magnesium in her system. She's always messing with stuff, can't leave well enough alone, because she gets these questions, and HAS to answer them. She's not sure whether the shrimp like it, or not. Will be another week until she has good indicators.

DK's been in the THICK of that OTHER project, this week. It's a battle of wills, and geometry. There are a few things still stymying her, such as the picture below, which is messing with her aesthetics. It can be daunting when a project REQUIRES of one to take a chop saw to a highly prominent facet of a major appliance.

She will likely be "thin" around here for another week until THAT project is under control. Right now, it's _marginally_ under control. Teetering-like. 

But she DOES think she's gonna win this one, eventually. Right now, she's pondering all the different ways hinges can be configured to move a plate...

==============

Oh. Yeah. The next episode, of our present program:

Now, we have three end caps mounted on each end rail. Of course, the plan is to have three linear bulbs over the bank of tanks.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK surfaces, briefly, from that OTHER project*

DK has been in the thick of that OTHER project, each day battling wits with the gremlins of the project. Geometry, spatial relationships, transmission of forces, lightest & cheapest methods, order of operations - all swimming day and night in her noisy brain, until she prevails. She is s.l.o.w.l.y. winning, each step. Today's step involved a lot of push pins.

++++++++

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program:

The system is responding well so far to the magnesium tweak. The two most exciting parts for DK with this tweak are that the Mermaids are rolling with the move and doing great, although it remains to be seen if this affects their berrying rate, and the Camouflage tigers are perking up in their color - DK has been chasing their color for years now. At the present moment she has decently good color AND a high berrying rate.

----

Next step in the Mermaid light project: DK mounts the ballast to an end rail.

Using pop rivets, what else.

The resulting "fixture" will have a distinctly steam-punk-ish vibe with all the entrails visible as functional art.

.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK has project fatigue, but soldiers on*

So yesterday, DK was SO burned out on THAT OTHER project, that her only respite was to stop working on it, and finish this crazy steampunk floating light "fixture" for the Mermaid ladies.

Today, a few shots of wire management.

The ballast has longer wires to span the length inside a fixture, but since DK is having an open construction, she has opted to pull only one wire from the far end of the fixture to the ballast end, and use all other ballast wires as close to the ballast as possible. 

She could have cropped the ballast wires to length, but she has this anal thing about making things re-useable in the future, in case she wants to morph this project's parts into some future project. So she retained the ballast wires original length, and simply bundled them for steampunkish stylish beauty.

She hunted around and found one of many electrical cord tails, this one with a three prong plug, and used that. Anything she makes in the shrimporium, she makes with a grounded construct, due to a room full of water!

The hot and neutral wires from the ballast were tied into the plug using first a crimp connection, followed by an overwrap of shrink wrap. The cord's neutral was tied into the metal structure of the "fixture."

Because she envisions the occasion where she'll need to adjust or move this "fixture" that has no chassis, this means the "fixture" consists of two end rails and in her case a single wire between them. It would be cumbersome to remove this "fixture" for servicing with two ends and a four foot wire between them, so she made the four foot wire with a quick disconnect so she can deal with the "fixture" ends separately if needed, in the future.


.


----------



## loach guy

Positive displacement is dispensing an exact known amount. The idea is that if you filled a cup with water perfectly to the very top and put your finger in that cup, the amount of water that comes out is the exact volume of your finger. This can be accomplished with a piston. With an adjustable stroke length, you can hit any "shot" size you are looking for. I have designed these systems, and have also incorporated LRT's so that you can program any shot size on the fly. You can also use something more mechanical like a limit switch or a proximity switch if you are going to only be using one shot size.


----------



## DKShrimporium

loach guy said:


> Positive displacement is dispensing an exact known amount. The idea is that if you filled a cup with water perfectly to the very top and put your finger in that cup, the amount of water that comes out is the exact volume of your finger. This can be accomplished with a piston. With an adjustable stroke length, you can hit any "shot" size you are looking for. I have designed these systems, and have also incorporated LRT's so that you can program any shot size on the fly. You can also use something more mechanical like a limit switch or a proximity switch if you are going to only be using one shot size.


Hm. So, apparently, DK's already using about three such technologies. She has metered peristaltic pumps, and then two piston type injectors.

++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK was so burned out on that OTHER project, that she took herself back to Maplehofe Dairy store. 

For another double ice cream waffle cone. 

It was a hot day so the ice cream was melting fast, as she sat out on the porch, so she did not take any pictures of her ice cream. 

Instead, she shows y'all the view from the Maplehofe porch, across the street to the Amish farm.

So here's a riddle for ya:

What do you think that small tan building is halfway down the Amish driveway? (Note the buggy seen between the garage doors in the distance.)

Inquiring minds want to know if you have any ideas.


.


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## wicca27

pretty fancy looking house. as for the tan building maybe it hides a porta potty. i would say out house but that would be on the ground not elevated


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Now... about THAT OTHER project...*

Today, THAT OTHER project was re-assembled and for the most part finished. There are a few niggling details to finish up with parts waiting to arrive, but the bulk of it is finis.

It all started with a bargain desk from the local Habitat Re-Store. Thirty bucks. Solid oak. Whatta bargain.

In the course of DK messing with her kitchen, she dismantled the desk and used the writing surface plank to make her a trash pull out for her kitchen.

Then, she got tired of tripping over leftover desk parts and decided to hike the bookshelf portion up into the sky, above her fridge, in preparation for a fridge makeover. That was back in February of this year. 'Cause, being a hoarder, she can never get rid of anything and must figure out a way to use it.

DK spent the next months pondering the geometry and physics of the fridge project while she messed around with the polychrome and macromatic.

Then, she re-finished her hardwood floors.

So now, it was time to get around to that fridge project.

Anyway, to make a long story short, she turned an aging white behemoth fridge into a rather coo-el looking "built-in" - using leftover parts and some new stuff, too, and a variety of whacko techniques.

It has some coo-el features, like a removable side wall, leaving a floating crown portion. And the front flips up so you can store stuff on top of the fridge, but out of sight. Oh yeah. And, of course, if need be, it's easy to disassemble and re-size, if DK gets her another fridge, sometime in the future.

Uh. Yeah. Just ignore that hole in DK's kitchen ceiling. She hasn't dealt with that one, yet. She also is getting ready to finish painting her trim the new, darker blue, which is why the trim behind the fridge is lighter than the trim on the fridge side wall. Although the transom above the fridge is already painted the new, darker blue.

.


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## wicca27

that is pretty spiffy DK and i love the floors and new blue looks great


----------



## Scipio

_"What do you think that small tan building is halfway down the Amish driveway? (Note the buggy seen between the garage doors in the distance.)"_

I'm guessing thats where they might keep their landline for emergency calls.


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## DKShrimporium

Scipio said:


> _"What do you think that small tan building is halfway down the Amish driveway? (Note the buggy seen between the garage doors in the distance.)"_
> 
> I'm guessing thats where they might keep their landline for emergency calls.


Yes, you're right! They are not allowed telephones in their homes (or on their persons with cells), but are allowed remote phones, primarily due to business reasons as they conduct business with English (non-Amish). The compromise in their culture is an inconvenient but serviceable remote dedicated "Amish phone booth."

+++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Finally the tie-up pictures of the Mermaid tank floating full spectrum "fixture."

All done, in, and functional.

------

Today, the custom iron handles for the fridge are tracking to arrive.


.


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## wicca27

looks great DK. i am going to try my first light fix soon. not nearly as awesome as yours but still a first for me woo lol.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Sometimes, DK fixates on things...*

It's almost like a programming ritual. A part or piece comes up, and sparks DK's interest. She studies it -- fixates on it -- for quite a while, before she tosses it to the _bins 'n' barrels of parts 'n' pieces_. 

Until someday... she has the perfect use for it.

Well, two such things came up, this week.

The first were offered to her by Other Geek, leftover from a gas grill parts kit. You gotta admire a person who would know to present these to DK as an offering.

The second was one of those serendipitous events. 

In the course of working on that OTHER PROJECT, DK tried a product she hadn't tried before: Loctite Proline Premium Construction Adhesive. She got busy and some squoze out of her caulking gun onto her paper towel catch. But the fascinating thing is it hardened just like it came out, like a soft-serve plastic extruded from a tube, that holds its shape, then hardens. 

DK's brain is having fits, thinking of all the ways these properties of Loctite PPCA would or could be useful in projects.

.


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## wicca27

im glad your light project worked. Mine...... not so much. i bet im the only person in the world who can blow a breaker switch by TURNING OFF a light. no clue how it happened but i have to unplug my light now. if i flip the switch to turn it of it trips a breaker. oh well at least it works. and at this point i am thinking about buying a switch to install inline in the wire to turn it on and off lol. getting in the floor under the tank to turn it off at night is not nice on bad knees


----------



## DKShrimporium

wicca27 said:


> im glad your light project worked. Mine...... not so much. i bet im the only person in the world who can blow a breaker switch by TURNING OFF a light. no clue how it happened but i have to unplug my light now. if i flip the switch to turn it of it trips a breaker. oh well at least it works. and at this point i am thinking about buying a switch to install inline in the wire to turn it on and off lol. getting in the floor under the tank to turn it off at night is not nice on bad knees


Hey C...

... stay safe.

+++++++++

DK never works on electrical work when alone - always has a responsible secondary party in the building... in case. She also has an expert electrician type on consult at all times. She knows her way around a multi-meter.

DK also never starts a plumbing project just before a weekend or holiday...

+++++++++

She realized she didn't post the finished pics of THAT OTHER project, with the wrought iron handles. Made by a blacksmith, both handles priced less than a single commercial appliance handle, including shipping (which the single commercial appliance handle would not include at this price point).

She used a mini trench drain grate as her replacement fridge grill, since she wanted black and hated the uber-ugly original white one. It worked out fah-buel-ussss. It disappears under the fridge not to be thought about, covers the fridge-guts, and allows the needed air flow for heat management. And, oh, yeah, it was cheaper than any replacement real fridge grill, even used ones. DK had to do a little magic with some aluminum angle, pop rivets, and a lexan plate to pull the grill together. It removes in a wink for easy access to the coils for cleaning - no pesky screws to undo down there.

The new fridge surround has a removable side panel that allows easy moving of the fridge (as its upper portion floats with no post on the left side when side panel is removed), or slides forward for easy access to behind the fridge, without removal. This is crucial when you have a bottom coiled unit and two hairy Germans in the same house. The center panel on top lifts and holds now for storage of items above fridge. There is a narrow closet between fridge and oven stack, behind a cute skinny door, with holders for brooms, fly swatters, etc.

In order to make the beadboard frame proportional, DK had to chop the sides off her fridge control panel, but this left some annoying leftover partial text on the left edge of the panel. DK camouflaged this using some automotive vinyl wrap in matte metallic champagne.

DK thinks it looks much better than the hulking white box formerly dominating her kitchen skyline. 

Plus, it was fun to do.

--------

She's contemplating her next project. Probably she needs to finish the bridge lamps that have been sitting around.

=====

Shrimp are doing fine. She has the highest number of camo tigers she's ever had, now. The Mermaids are doing swell - their tank is growing slime to feed them at an accelerated rate since the install of the full-spectrum lighting. One of these days she's gonna seed the middle Sulawesi tank with them to start a second population in that tank. She has all slimy glass again, so no new shrimp pics until she cleans some glass.


.


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## wicca27

DK that looks great. 

i had people here with me. we are all safe. not sure what the issue is but the light is fine as long as it is unplugged and plugged in something about the on off switch (built into the light) is the issue. as long as the switch stays on all is good so that is why it is plugged in now to turn it on.


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## DKShrimporium

*So, the idea took hold, and...*

...DK abducted a few juvie mermaiden and plopped them into the virgin Sulawesi tank. There they will cook until they go forth and multiply, in theory. This was the beta test to see if they can survive in that tank ok. If they do, then she will snatch a few every so often from the other tank and continue to seed the new tank, for a few months.

Today she was able to find a few of them, so she knows at least some survived the move, and overnight.

She's not sure, but she thinks she moved more than 4. She knows at least 4, but there were probably one or two more than that. She picked up a feeding tray that had a buncha babies in there and moved it over to the other tank and let them swim off, but she was unable to see them well enough to count them accurately.

A few hours later, she took these pics of them. Of course, the first thing they do is establish defensive positions - smart buggers. These are not the same pair of shrimp - these are two different locations in the tank, and the one pair is about quarter inch size while the ones on top of the rock are half that size. Interesting that they sorted themselves according to size, and where their preferred defensive geography would be.

++++++

Oh, and yesterday she noticed this curvaceous lady in the black tiger tank. Lookin' like she was about to pop a batch. She saw a mermaid in the same way, but was unable to get her picture, as when she approached with the camera the slippery little lady scooted around the edge of the cliff outta sight.

.


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## wicca27

one of these days i will get back into shrimps and kinda thinking i want tigers again. not sure what color/type but pretty sure tigers lol. keep up the great work dk love all the new pics shrimp seem to be bouncing back well for you now


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## Maechael

I missed so, so very much here.
Liking the refrigerator rehash, looks gorgeous to me, though beige is not my colour haha.

Wicca, sort that switch issue out pronto, you are the other staple in this thread, no leaving just me holding candles in the cave!

DK, I got a house! I also got bit by a brown recluse during the move and waited till after the move to go to the hospital, my bosses made me go.

Collapsed so many tanks down to 2, might need my own intern soon haha.


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## wicca27

in order to figure out the switch on my light i have a feeling i will need to pull my other strip light apart lol. see how they have it wired together to see what i did wrong on the one i replaced the ballast on. just not had the umph lately to do that


----------



## Maechael

Understandable Wicca, definitely understandable. Even DK had the goop thing way back when that silenced us cavedwellers for a bit.

But we all recover eventually, and find the extra oomph, or hire it haha.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Huh?*

Goop? What goop?

---------------

OK, so DK's been bizzy. She got the bridge lamps done, after not-a-little-cursing during the wiring phase. 

The other day, she helped one of her favorite peeps make this retaining wall, in a day. She's still a bit stiff.

She thot things were a-gonna settle down a bit so today she might clean some glass and show some pics, but, alas, it was not to be.

Last night, one of the leak frogs was a-goin' off.

Now, it's taken YEARS. DECADES, if truth be told. But now when she says sumpin' to Other Geek, she's taken pretty seriously. Last summer when she swore it was NOT her Shrimporium causing the high humidity in the basement, then she did the Vapor Control Project to prove it to herself, she inched up her credibility some.

So last night, when Other Geek heard ol' frog a-goin' off, then she went down to see why, then came up to report she did NOT think it was her system, Other Geek listened.

Yeah, I know. Miracle.

Ennyway, together, the Nerd Pair went downstairs, took a look at the very suspicious growing puddle underneath the furnace unit, threw the breaker, then broke into said furnace unit.

Inside, was an inch of standing water, and water streaming down the internal walls.

It was like a CSI episode, looking at the water splatter pattern where the squirrel cage fan had taken that inch of water in the base and thrown it all over the inside side wall.

This was NOT related to Wet Wedding, being INSIDE the furnace unit.

Now, for most homeowners, not the Geek Dynamic Duo, this would have meant an emergency several-hundred-buck service call.

To the Geeks, it was a few minutes with a flashlight, some thoughts about how the system works (OK, here we stop and say that the whole Shrimporium Project has been an in-depth lesson to DK about the importance of SYSTEMS, and UNDERSTANDING SOMETHING AS AN ENTIRE SYSTEM... in case you twitchy one-thot types cannot stand DK waxing forth "not about shrimp, in a shrimp forum"), a few minutes with a hacksaw, a trip to Lowes, ten bucks, and a good mood due to PVC (CPVC, actually) glue fumes.

$10. (And a buck in gas money to get to Lowes, and a buck for the necessary Diet Coke bought from the impulse coolers at the Lowes checkout aisle.)

All fixed.

Other Geek made DK do it, saying, "You're the master plumber in the house... that's your thing..." so, she did.

She woulda taken pics, but she was bizzy, and all.

+++++++++++++

OH, and actual shrimp news:

All the transplanted (abducted, really) Mermaiden have survived and seem to be thriving in the second Sulawesi tank. DK didn't want to report until she was sure they not only liked the water, but also had enough bio film to eat in there. Oddly, that tank, even though it has identical feeds, has a different bio-slime and algae profile than the tank right next to it. Of course, it doesn't get the same nutrients as it doesn't get fed, and it has an almost non-existent snail population, whereas the Mermaid tank has a buncha snails adding to the mix.

Need to do some more abductions...

___________

OH, and DK's new wet grinder is tracking to arrive today. THAT'S gonna be a BIG project. She's prolly gonna hire her some Amish guys to do it.


.


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## pKaz

Great Story DK, and the wall looks awesome!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Geeky DK is fascinated by weird things*



pKaz said:


> Great Story DK, and the wall looks awesome!


Why, thank you. Come visit again, except at the moment it's a war zone down there, truly!

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK's new wet grinder ("stone polisher," technically) has arrived, along with the diamabrush. DK is, of course, procrastinating starting THAT project, because it makes the fridge project seem like a _little_ thang. Truth be told, she is _DREADING_ this upcoming _monster_ of a project. 

So, she distracted herself shooting a few awful photos, instead. Across slimy glass. So don't expect too much.

***********
******************
***********

She is completely fascinated with the concept of *biological indicators*. _By this, she means like the *canary in the coal mine*_.

She can track whether her waters are on track based on a number of biological indicators, such as presence or absence of snails and their sizes and which ones (ramshorns shells look ratty when her calcium levels dip, whereas pondsnail populations soar when her chloride levels dip, MTS shells turn pinkish with calcium sulfate source but are grey with calcium chloride source, etc.), movement of copepods on the glass biofilm (thick masses of them on the front glass indicate a clogged substrate layer toward the tank front), the presence of black beard algae (indicates low perfusion of tank water such that the new water is not getting mixed adequately into the whole tank), migration of substrate nematodes (they will emerge from the substrate when oxygen levels dip). In case you have trouble extracting the abstract concept from examples, here she digresses to state: _she believes in biodiversity in a biome_.

OK, so she's gone off on a tangent, here, to get to her point.

She is fascinated by small bio-differences in her tanks, because if you pay attention, you can learn to "read" them - they speak to you.

So, she is very fascinated by two adjacent Sulawesi tanks. In theory, they should be identical. They receive identical water feeds. They share the exact same light source. They have adjacent location, geographically. Their hardscapes are the same rock (petrified wood from a particular source and location).

However, the tank on the right has a TINY difference in biomass: a small population of Mermaids. The tank on the left, until recently, had no shrimp. The (right) Mermaid tank gets TINY amounts of food fed into it, so trace nitrogen and nutrients that the other tank does not get. The food feeds not only the shrimp, but the snails, too. So now you have shrimp and snail by-products, moreso than in the tank to the left.

You can see that the profiles of the tanks today are quite different. The left tank (until last week the Mermaid-LESS tank) shows much more diatom growth and much less carpet (green spot looking) algae on the glass surfaces. However, it is culturing green "fur" algae on the top of the main rock that the tank on the right has never shown. The tank on the right shows dark brown growth of something on the rock surface, and a carpet of green-spot-like algae on the rock surface. 


First, a picture of the tanks when they were first set up, with very little biofilm growth, yet. 

Then, a picture of them today, showing the vast differences left to right in the two tanks.

Next, a closer look at the substrates. The left tank has little visible bio-coating on the substrate particles, whereas the right tank has a heavy dark green coating. (The white patch of substrate in the right tank slightly back is an area DK recently stirred up - until then it was uniform green as the front substrate shows.)

Next, a closer look at the rock top surface growth, left tank first, then right tank. 

Finally, and VERY INTERESTING, the left tank has this population of amorphous floaty dark green unattached fluff that sits on the substrate layer in the back of the tank (but it does not coat the substrate particles). DK thinks this is a novel form of algae never seen in any of her other tanks. It's green. It came out of "nowhere." It doesn't go away. It must be some sort of algae culture.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

DK is fascinated, watching for biological indicators in her Sulawesi tanks.

DK is reminded of goggle-eyed Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, talking about Chaos Theory, when she looks at these two tanks.


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Schmuck says,*

"I'm still hairy. Just not AS hairy." (after a comb-out session today)

++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

Sometimes, we learn things only by time and experience, and track record.

This week, DK learned the lifespan of her pressure boosting pump on Wet Wedding. She's pretty sure it's a-aging out, 'cause it's makin' some awful noises. She's ordered and received a replacement, before the original has a chance to implode while working.

She considers it a fair lifespan - the thing boosts system pressure to 80 PSI against significant load, and works 5 hours a day 24/7/365. The original was installed 3/2013, so that's, um , 2.33 years at 365 days per year and 5 hours a day... 4252 hours of operational time. Replacement cost $90 so that's 2.1 cents an hour equipment cost, not including the power to run it.

She's been so bizzy working on some other important projects that the shreemps have been tossed some food now and then and left alone to populate back up from last summer's Shrimpmageddon. You can see the yellows, through their dirty glass, are coming along.

Oh, and. She abducted 5 more Mermaids into the second tank. 


.


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## wicca27

ha ha ha that is what my house looks like in a week if i dont sweep or vacuum every day lol. them GSD are hairy huh lol


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Simple lessons the Shrimporium has taught DK*

So, while DK is *scrambling* in the background to attempt some _other_ major projects, and the shrimp are getting the shaft behind their murky glass walls, DK will dance a smoke and mirrors show using pictures from her recent pump replacement, to divert all y'all.

_She's pretty excited, because later in this series she harvests a part off her REFRIGERATOR to use to solve an issue here. See, she has now related the fridge project to the Shrimporium. Ahem._

The pump replacement process illustrates a lot of lessons DK has learned (the hard way, I might add), during her tenure at the Shrimporium.

Let's look at a few of those lessons:


Design things MODULAR, so parts can be switched in and out *easily*.
NEVER, and ah-main NEVER take apart something without first owning a digital camera, learning how to use the macro function, having CHARGED batteries, and shooting pics from several angles of whacha aboot to take apart.
If'n sumpin's notable, BEFORE you take it apart, note it, mark it, draw a map, or sumpin'. So's you can put it back together the SAME WAY. Bad things can happen when ya don't. Especially at 80 PSI and with a water system.

Citing the above scripture, DK notes that she cleverly designed Wet Wedding with a MASTER GFCI, which, when tripped, de-powers anything in the whole Wet Wedding system. She pops the GFCI button, making further steps less fun but a whole lot safer.

So, DK's Wet Wedding pressure booster pump 1.0 is retiring. He's _just tired_ of the daily backstabbing and BS at the office, ready to take his red stapler and sip margaritas in stemware while in a lounge chair down south at a tropical beach. (Who can chime in here and tell the audience where that comes from... ennyone??)

The cocky, fresh, young replacement, just newly hatched with a degree, has arrived, naive smile on his overly-groomed face, first day on the job. (In the future, the scent of aftershave will fade first, followed by the smooth, shiny skin, followed by the emergence of the grizzled look, and then BO.)

DK surveys the landscape. Most importantly, with her camera.

She notes the points of attachment of outgoing pump. ALL OF THEM. Mechanical. Electrical. Plumbing. Obstructing other objects.

But first, pump is in-line with all sorts of water from both sides. So, DK turns off the water, IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. She doesn't want spewing water as she tries to un-wire a pump from the orgy-glob. She then removes the in-going and out-going plumbing connections.

The pump is powered by two wires emerging from the bottom of the pump. DK, being the Nerd that she is, notes that one of the wires has writing, whilst the other does not. She notes this and photographs this. But equally importantly, she notes that the two wires that those wires connect to BOTH have writing.

Hm. How to distinguish them.

DK grabs a permanent marker and, like *Banksy*, _leaves her mark_.

She NOW undoes the wires, so when she removes the mounting, she's not left with a heavy pump in one hand, the tools across the room, and the dang thing still attached at the wires. Now, when she removes the mounting, the pump will be free. Free to wander off with the red stapler. 

Stay tuned for more raucous and thrilling adventure, up next.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Our recruit shows up first thing Monday morning...*

...the product of helicopter parents, he's used to the silver platter. He's expecting the same experience at the "new place" as he's had in the past.

The difference, this time, is that, in the past, his parents were PAYING FOR THE EXPERIENCE. This time, he is getting paid.

In the past, orientations consisted of a warm welcome by a hand-picked staff member with a smiley face and just the right handshake. There would be a shiny glass conference room with a conference table spiffed out with libations and breakfast foods. The staff would fall over the recruits, tending to their every breath. They WANTED you.

This morning, reality hits. Life _OUT THERE, IN THE REAL WORLD OF *WORK*_.

Our recruit, still naive, has *expectations*. He expects this same warm welcome into a modern, clean space. A nice hour of orientation, followed by a Starbuck's quality brew in hand as he's toured around to meet his new peers. Finally, he expects to be introduced to his admin, where he can offload his carry bag and jacket, and be ushered into his windowed office and taught the phone system and intercom system. How the window blinds work. That sort of thing. Then left alone as the tour guide asks if he'd like his door pulled shut as she leaves.

Instead, we hate to tell you this.

Our recruit is taken to the back room, and neutered. _Chop, chop, we remove your parts, because we can use you better, without them._

He's in shock.


_WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES AHEAD_


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Wobbling and throbbing, our recruit shows up for day 2...*

He's in too much pain to think straight. Instead, his mind is spinning on some of the stuff the tour guide "shared" with him, yesterday.

"_We're a very dynamic organization_," she said, "_Our employees are integrated team members with high-level adaptability skills_."

(Not today, but later, he realizes this is code-speak for, "_We do re-orgs nearly every Friday, and if you don't passively lay your head on the chopping block, you WILL develop tension headaches from trying to raise your head up off the block to see what's coming. May as well relax, and if the blade comes, it comes. Oh, by the way, you're number one on the list, as you are the newest meat."_)

After the procedure, yesterday, in the back room, he was taken to the break room, a filthy little hovel showered in stale processed food crumbs with a few sticky chairs surrounding a wobbly break table. On the way there, he saw the "bullpen" where his cohorts work.

"_We're doing some space management in the employee zone and are managing our space more effectively, so at this moment we are in flux and cannot place you longterm while the space management is happening. I'm going to put you in an alternate, nearby space, for now_." 

(Codespeak for, "_The corporate goals are to shrink effective employee space by a square foot per month on average. We do this by shrinking cubes and using previously 'sub-optimal' office real estate that has evolved into 'standard' office real estate for our low-levels._")

Over on the back wall of the break "room" there is a tiny bar table and rickety stool, used to post crap snacks until they disintegrate into a pile of crumbs after the herd has grazed upon them. The bar table is crammed between a humming water cooler next to the photocopier, and the employee refrigerator with its grimy handle zone.

The guide goes on, "_You can use this space until something opens up on the floor. I'll call IT for you and see if they can goose Facilities to see about getting you some sort of power_."

(Codespeak: "_SUCKER!! - first we see if you even last long enough to get assigned bull pen space_!)

Our recruit stands and stares at his rickety stool, nestled in the 18 inch niche.

.


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## DKShrimporium

*Coming from an era when everybody...*

...played balloon and parachute games in "teams" as toddlers, junior league soccer as grade-schoolers, league sports thereafter --where the conclusion of each session was that EVERYBODY got a ribbon or certificate or plaque or trophy or special recognition (and a free pizza party), whether one WON or not, or whether one displayed any ACTUAL _exemplary skill_ or _character_, or not, he THINKS he understands teamwork.

But he's about to switch eras, to a couple decades prior.

He's about to be initiated into...

...*THE BORG*.

"_Our corporate mission is to provide a 360 degree interaction for each team member_," his guide said. "_While you will receive input from a directly responsible team member on a regular basis, we also utilize what we think is an innovative corporate strategy of 360 degree feedback._"

What our recruit doesn't realize is that "teamwork" in corporate speak is another thing, altogether. The Corporation will plug you into your "team," essentially welding you into your space in the BORG matrix. You can check in, but you never check out (OK, so DK's mixed metaphor jumps again a few years even earlier. She can do what she wants. It's HER thread.). From there, the Corporate tentacles take hold and grow in every direction, invasive, parasitic, paralyzing. Like _Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga_.

What he doesn't know is that this initial melding into the Corporate Machine isn't a dawn in "career mobility." It's the ultimate freeze out, the beginning of systematic paralysis. The Corporation will immobilize the parts of you it doesn't want functioning, and suck you dry from the rest, as you toil, ensnared in the matrix. If you try to innovate, or escape, you are surrounded by 360 degrees of of betrayal nets, in the form of all that "feedback" from others who do not want you to make them look less than you.

The BORG matrix wants you on call 24/7/365 on cheap salary with no overtime, and it takes control.

"_You are a direct report to Ms. Pressure Switch_," the guide informed, "_However, Ms. Pressure Switch receives input based on every team member's role and the team's process of production, or completing production, so she in a sense reports to the whole team. See how our 360 degree teamwork is so efficient?_" she had concluded.

Our recruit thought he'd been honored with the job offer because he had shown something _special_. That he was platformed to become something notable, move vast strides of progress, bring novel ideas and create great things.

Turns out, they hired him because he was the first guy who fit the specs and took their paltry offer. 

He wasn't any better, or different, than the last schmuck. Just fresher, and a whole lot more naive.

He fit the stool in the 18 inch niche, without overflowing into their fridge zone. _They hate it when they have to move around flesh, to get their fridge door open_.


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Small things, made big.*

The outside world wouldn't notice. They wouldn't care. (What they care about is if they missed any free snacks in the break room, and whether the coffee machine is loaded and if they can get into the fridge... without _flesh_, in the way of the door swing.)

But, to our recruit, today is a _triumph_.

*Why?*

_He's made it past his first Wednesday, "hump day," alive._ To the other side. He's made it, to the other side of hump day.

His jelly legs and turbo gut have begun to settle. The spinning has slowed. His double vision is clearing, into single, and the focus is sharpening.

"_Let's start out on the right path_," Ms. Pressure Switch had said, in a smooth, saccharine tone laced with covert malice, lips pulled back showing her teeth, eyes glinting, "_When I say, you *work*. When I say, you *stop work*. *Your job is that simple*. Disregard what anyone else on the team is doing - you are ONLY to listen to me. Sometimes you will feel as though your load is very tough, and at others you will work and feel as though there is no load. Doesn't matter. *Here, you do not think. You work*. When I say. And stop. When I say. Are we clear?_"​
Eons of evolution kick in, filtered down through countless generations of his DNA. All of a sudden, the survival instinct is front and center, vaporizing decades of coddling and self-esteem building. 

Our recruit has a moment of clarity: _survival is the only thing_.

He is hemmed in from every side. But even so, our recruit has some wiles. He looks about, starts a strategy of laying low, for now. 

Yes. Lay low. Stay quiet, and invisible, work so that nobody takes notice, as you learn this jungle.

He takes his first quiet steps toward survival.

Insulation. Perched on substantial rubber bumper mountings, he is now nearly silent of noise and vibration. 

Good. Very good.

He takes his second quiet step. He has noticed his predecessor has left some abrasion on a nearby team member - much more of this and the team would be compromised.

_Off stuck to a kitchen tile, where she had removed this useful bit from her fridge when she re-did the bottom grill, a piece of heavy-duty "pressure sensitive" velcro fuzz lay dormant, waiting for the opportunity to be re-used. It wasn't stuck to the tile more than a few days, before our recruit quietly whispered to DK that he could use that, if she could spare it.

In a moment of generosity, and also because she's enjoying his narrative, she relented, and gave it up. _​
_For those of you whose caffeine jolt has not hit, yet, this is where DK has tidily related her fridge project into the Shrimporium thread. So you can rest your OCD controlling voices that have been complaining about her "unrelated posts, in a shrimp forum."_​
Clever boy. He took the sticky velcro fuzz and created a layer of insulation over his mounting screws, to keep from abrading the red tube team member any more.

Now, he lurks and works. He's hunkered down, insulated, quiet, _and looking around_. 

*He's learning the ropes*. 

Surviving.


.


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## DKShrimporium

*Our recruit has settled in, now...*

Holding steady, at 80 PSI, which enables Wet Wedding to produce sub-10 TDS RO water.


+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK may be scarce, coming up. She's behind the scenes working on a few much, much, much bigger projects. Like, arguing with contractors and structural engineers, and masons. That sort of thing. She has very definite ideas conceptually about how she wants to accomplish something...

She's applying her standard Shrimporium algorithm to the projects. It's an adventure in lateral thinking:


What are the goals of the project?
What are the TYPICAL methods used to achieve those goals?
Where does DK differ from the TYPICAL methods, in what she wants?
What are the parts and pieces used to achieve the results?
What UNRELATED parts and pieces are capable of performing those same functions?
What is the most cost effective method to use those parts and pieces to achieve her stable of goals?


.


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## Maechael

DK, back again. The red text pic looks like short grown cladophora algae.
Blue text looks like green spot, over a very solid biofilm layer.

Last 2 the green fluffy stuff looks like a moss that has been light starved and is trying to recover now.


Let me know how close I am.
Also as for the goop from previous comment the upper respiratory issue from way back when.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK has been lurking in the background, but not silently or quiescently*

As a matter of fact, she's been downright _chatty_. She's been talkin' and hangin' with the likes of industrial sandblasters, basement waterproofers, general contractors, masons, handymen, and HVAC folks.

It was the latter that has inspired her latest _not-for-the-intended-purpose_ project, which she has not YET connected to the goings-on within the shrimporium, but nevertheless posts here to quell the crickets and dripping, as interesting filler/fodder.

She has two aging Germans. One has seizure disorder, the other is 11 + years old. Both are having significant hip issues. (She expected this of her rescue, American-lines German, but did not from her German lines one, alas, and in 25 years of Germans, these are the first she's had with hip issues.)

She wants to continue using the back door for - ahem - trips to the backyard, especially in winter, because other points of egress in the domicile have issues with that function.

The back door empties onto the back porch, which has steps that have never been "finalized." Um. Yeah. Sometimes she throws together a solution and if it's cheap enough and works pretty well, it never floats to the top of the priority list again for "finalization" for a long time.

But the Germans are having problems using her present un-finalized steps off the back porch, because there are two steps when there should be three, leaving two levels of oversize height for them to climb.

So she talked to a couple folks, got some numbers. One mason wanted $700 to pour a pad, due to the small nature of the project and cost to hire a concrete truck, the price-per-unit of product was way high.

So, being cheap, DK deferred, and stewed.

Has to be a better solution, and cheaper.

Now, nothing is EVER simple in DK's world.

The wall against which these steps rest is going to need some remedial work, sometime down the road.

So DK especially didn't want to soak $700 into a poured pad, only to have to pay MORE in a few years to jackhammer it out of the way to fix the wall, and then pay AGAIN to have it poured.

But she needs a solution to the steps, before this winter.

SO, what she needs is the functional equivalent of a third step that is stable but TEMPORARY. And cheap. And hopefully not too - ahem - temporary _looking_.

Now, by now all y'all should know that DK's mind is basically in overdrive whenever she's conscious. So in talking to all these handy, skilled, useful folks, getting ideas and numbers and such, she a-gotter to thinkin'...

Hmmmmmmm.

She needs the _equivalent_ of a 7 inch step with the added constraints that is has to also act as a pad to hold the 2 step unit, which is hollow underneath and behind. So she needs the EQUIVALENT of a 7 inch thick poured pad.

That's temporary.

And cheap.

Time for some lateral thinking. What would do that JOB, be that SIZE, and be handle-able by a ninny weakling DK. And be cheap. Did she say that? 'Cause she has to save denaros for the OTHER projects for which she's a-talkin' to all these folks.

It has to withstand on-grade conditions, not be toxic (as in treated wood), be UV proof, weatherproof, heave proof.

Yeah, yeah, she could build a pavestone pad under there. But she has this THING about shifting bits and pieces, joints, and failure rates. She has the same issue with tiled showers. Not gonna happen at DK's house, as she's *categorically* into _low maintenance_. She wants a one piece platform onto which she can set her (ever so classy) 2 step precast stairs. And she doesn't want a sharp front "step" edge, which is also a problem with the pavestone platform.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

**************



Maechael said:


> DK, back again. The red text pic looks like short grown cladophora algae.
> Blue text looks like green spot, over a very solid biofilm layer.
> 
> Last 2 the green fluffy stuff looks like a moss that has been light starved and is trying to recover now.
> 
> 
> Let me know how close I am.
> Also as for the goop from previous comment the upper respiratory issue from way back when.


The only one of those she thinks she's gotta handle on is the second - pretty sure that is green spot. The other is NOT apparently cladophora as it's not wiry in texture, and the fluffy stuff is definitely not moss but some sort of smaller cellular colony, not an organized cell plant structure. I guess she should pull some and look at it under a microscope, one of these days.




.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Enter our HVAC solution on the cheap*

DK discovered these "condenser mounting pads" in the world of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning). _They are made to hold really heavy, vibrating things for decades, out in the elements._

Someone she knows just had their home system re-done and their new condenser sits upon a very nice plastic pad. 

But DK didn't really like the plastic look, and searched on to discover these very nifty fiber cement pads.

They come in a lot of sizes and DK was able to score one just the right size at 4 feet by 3 feet. It showed up two days later, totally nekkid except for a shipping sticker, but was undamaged.

You gotta love the engineered characteristics (other than cheap price for the amount of function you get) built into these pads. From the diversitech website on this product: (geek alert, coming up...)


UltraLite® pads are durable, fiber reinforced cement pads that flex instead of cracking or breaking and are unaffected by environmental conditions.

$64, delivered, to DK's door (albeit nekkid)
Since UltraLite® is a lightweight product, it is easy for handling tasks on site. (fer, example, ninny weakling DK to be able to handle) It is one of the lightest equipment mounting products available today.
DK's size pad rolls in at just under 40 lbs. with a 125 lb per square inch load capability and a total load capability of 2023 lbs.
Water vapor evaporates through the UltraLite®, preventing the expansion of cracks.
Textured surface prevents equipment sliding (and, more importantly, German paws)
The Ultralite® pad performs extraordinarily well under strict testing criteria. It does not craze, soften, or delaminate. Ultralite® has a proven resistance against R22 and R134a, compressor oil, salt solution, and _synthetic canine urine_. (gotta love the _synthetic canine urine_ bit)
The UltraLite is resistant to heating caused by the compressor. (or, hey, the beating down sun)
Additionally, the surface is resistant to heat from incidental torch flame during site installation. (DK has no plans to have a torch near this pad, but hey, nice to know she _could_.)
The Ultralite® lightweight concrete pad is specifically engineered to have long-term exterior weather resistance.


Yep. That'll do, donkey. 


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*We interrupt our series to speak briefly of politics, as in...*

Joe Biden.

He's from Delaware.

OK, enough on politics. _We had research, to conduct_.

Speaking of Delaware, today DK was in said state, visiting upon the University of Delaware campus. This university has its roots in agriculture, although it has grown vastly beyond that.

However, the roots remain, as do university agricultural programs and facilities.

One such facility on campus, believe it or not, on the Ag section of campus, is a dairy farm.

Really. 

Live dairy cows, with huge full udders of creamy milk.

And about 200 yards from said barn, there is a little ice cream joint where they take the cream from said cows, and make a daily smorgasbord of flavors of ultra-premium ice cream, and offer it up to the likes of DK and other "public" for consumption.

Now, look at the picture, and notice how the sign has *UD* in it, for _Univeristy of Delaware_, and the U makes a Dairy cow face.

Today, DK had her maiden consumption of the goods. (All in the name of research, remember.) She forgot to take pictures until -- well -- you see the picture. Post-spoon-excavation-view.

She had (she forgot the flavor names, but they both had "night" in them) two scoops inna waffle cone.

One scoop was espresso ice cream with cookie dough chunks, chunks of oreo, ribbons of fudgy stuff.

The second scoop was chocolate ice cream with blackberry ribbons and chunks of cheesecake.

Not for the faint of heart.

It held up well against the gold standard of Maplehofe Dairy. Just about the same, but with more complicated flavors.

DK thinks she does better with fewer flavor streams, probably because she has a busy mind.

It was really good, though, and DK is having trouble typing this up as she's sleepy from the now-blood-fat-load.

Just thought all y'all aughta know. Yes, she did go on to eat the waffle cone. She's a pig.

Y'know. Keep current, in the research world.

If'n you are a Shrimptern, DK will show YOU how to do such research.


.


----------



## pKaz

Hi DK, I agree with you about the UD Creamery, good stuff! I have only sampled from their mobile creamery, yes they have an ice cream truck. I have yet to visit the actual creamery, even though I went to school there, since the creamery was built a few years after I graduated. 

When I was reading the post about your stairway dilemma, I was thinking about those concrete pads for AC compressors as a solution, and then, bam next post DK has the same idea.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...*



pKaz said:


> Hi DK, I agree with you about the UD Creamery, good stuff! I have only sampled from their mobile creamery, yes they have an ice cream truck. I have yet to visit the actual creamery, even though I went to school there, since the creamery was built a few years after I graduated.
> 
> When I was reading the post about your stairway dilemma, I was thinking about those concrete pads for AC compressors as a solution, and then, bam next post DK has the same idea.


Hm. Maybe DK could get the mobile creamery to park in her driveway...

----------

Wow. What are the chances of someone thinking of cement condenser pads? I'd think pretty slim.

Here's the end result. Now, it ain't Houzz material, but it's also not seen by anyone on the "outside" world, ever, as we have an ultra-private back yard. DK also _laughs her head off_ at the Houzz style SNOBS who have 29.5 years of mortgage payments yet to go. It is easily reversible (minutes) and the parts are re-useable for other useful things if we ever dismantle it. Imagine the edges cleaned up and planted. Right now it's still rather bald and gravely from the excavation and moving around of the stone.

DK got to USE one of her hoarded pieces of junk (she's a hoarder): a piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting pulled last summer from her mud room re-do. She used the rug, upside down, over her handy dandy piano ramps to slide the heavy steps up onto the platform. Rock Star Jr. helped her, but between us we were able to do it. They must be a couple hundred pounds - that's 4 feet length of concrete.

HUGE difference to the dogs. Huge. The extra wide first step really helps them get going upward, too. It's like a mini landing.

It's very freaky to step down them barefoot and feel that last step as concrete, and yet it flexes. It's kinda coo-el, actually.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Well. We have a Friday announcement.*

DK's been having a vibe that it wuz a-comin'. She's been lookin' thru the slimy glass, tryin' to a-getter confirmation.

Today... confirmation.

(At least) One of her Mermaid _abductees_... is in the family way. It feels like she has colonized the moon, today. What was for a couple years an empty tank is now on the precipice of population... growth.

BTW, there are a buncha them post-party girls in the _first_ Mermaid tank, right now. And new babies on the glass, too. - pic of one of these 4 mm bah-beez below.

Stay tuned...


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Two Eves, in Eden*

Two Eves, in Eden...

OK, so mebbe that's a bit of metaphorical hyperbole, but, hey.

What it means is that DK has confirmed that a _second_ Mermaid abductee is heavy with future yung-uns.

Sorry, no pictures yet because the glass is too slimy and DK doesn't want to freak them out invading their space with a huge hand-like scary monster.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

DK has been stewing for months how to have three days in her house without touching the hardwood floors, and she finally figured it out. 

It involves six bucks worth of cheapo 2x3 lumber, her aluminum motorcycle ramp, some luxury vinyl tile floor samples, and an expanding scaffold.

Yep, that'll do, donkey.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK bets you've never eaten THIS...*

Last night, DK went out to eat.

What did she eat?

Pope pizza. Ever had it?

+++++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

There is a TOTO revolution a-happenin' in DK land. She just scored three of them at a really good price. She installed the first one today in all its Sanagloss glory.

Yeah, I know. Nuttin' to do with shrimp. 

But it _was_ plumbing. Most of the plumbing she knows, shrimp forced DK to master.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK bubbles up from the muck, with some pictures*

Finally had a convergence of events:


Cleaned glass
Charged camera batteries
DK down in Shrimporium
Shrimp in positions for pictures

These are three different post-partyin'-knocked-up abductee Mermaids in different regions of the abductee tank, this morning:


.


----------



## hachi

Echos from the cave! Hello! I'm still pretty new to the aquarium hobby, just a couple months in. I just read about half of this thread, and you're an inspiration! I love the tigers coming out of the Cauldron. So cool.

Random question, if you don't mind: why do you call your cardinal shrimp mermaids?


----------



## DKShrimporium

hachi said:


> Echos from the cave! Hello! I'm still pretty new to the aquarium hobby, just a couple months in. I just read about half of this thread, and you're an inspiration! I love the tigers coming out of the Cauldron. So cool.
> 
> Random question, if you don't mind: why do you call your cardinal shrimp mermaids?


Hello Hachi!

It's so nice to hear something other than echoing cave drips!

Um. _Mermaids_. DK doesn't actually recall. She thinks it had to do with them hanging out on the petrified wood top, reminding her of the typical scene of a few mermaids sunning themselves on a rock up out of the sea. The Sulawesi tanks are set up differently than her other tanks. 

Most her other tanks are just huge masses of moss with some pottery tubes underneath. 

The Sulawesi bank of tanks are set up to mimick their natural habitat, but enable viewing. So they have these huge chunks of suspended petrified wood in them, but no masses of moss. The Mermaids love to hang out in hideouts, such as under the rocks, so in order to _see_ them one has to position the rocks up pretty high. 

When they get more daring, or at night, they come up to the top surface of the rocks and graze. This is also a function of population - when there are enough of them that they feel secure, they will also come up top during the "sunlight" hours.

Here's a pic DK took yesterday of the original (not the abductee) Mermaid tank. You can see the glass is grown over with lovely slime, which is why there haven't been any pictures of that tank lately. But DK's been twitchy lately, thinking things were a bit off balance in the chemistry of her Sulawesi tanks, so she's been on the lookout for new babies. Yesterday on her inspection she was able to see two of them because they were up on the glass, so this is an indicator the chemistry is pretty good in those tanks. She knew she wasn't that far off, because she has berried females.

+++++++++

IN OTHER NEWS:

After nearly two months of negotiations, DK et al signed a contract, this morning!! Soon to be jackhammering, major excavation, and all sorts of fun stuff around here!


.


----------



## hachi

Thanks for the pictures! I am limited by space (not to mention knowledge!) to keep the fancy shrimp you have, so it's awesome to see what you are doing with yours. Thanks for all the amazing photos and info!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK has small big news!*

So yesterday, DK went tank staring. She was contemplating new vats of shrimp juice, going over her calculations, because she KNEW there was something amiss since the last batch was made.

Fortunately, she found the error in her calculations, last batch, which DID mean that her calcium ratio had changed. She's been looking at the state of the tanks, just knowing her calcium:magnesium ratio was not correct, due to how the populations were behaving.

But anyway, she digresses.

She looked into the Mermaid abductee tank to check on her partyin' mommas, and look what she found!!

The first bah-beeze!!

.


----------



## hachi

So tiny! Hope I get some babies from my handful of carbon rili.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Here's the context picture, so you can see why DK's pics are so dark and bad. The new bah-beeze are in the far back of the tank in the rock cracks.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Not sure what this has to do with shrimp...YET*

So, delayed by the flu, DK had some makin' up to do. Her weather window was runnin' out. 

*Oh, DK knows what this has do do with shrimp, now.* Doing this forced her to replenish the shrimp juice vats. Replenishing the juice vats forced her to get off her duff and find where the bum calculation was hidden.

So Tuesday, DK had slated to finally put the finish coat on her hardwood floors. She was delayed in this due to the flu. She needed to do this in a weather window with no rain forecast and temps below 85 day and above 55 nights. She needed a 3 day window.

Why? Because she was a-gonna apply an oil-based commercial/gymnasium grade polyurethane top coat to her previously re-conditioned floors. She don't mess around.

In the process of doing this, she was a-gonna fix the slip sliding problem her Germans were having on the hardwood, causing them to run claws extended like cartoons, which was doing a number on her floor finish.

So, DK decided she was a-gonna integrate polymer micro beads into the "hand-rubbed" floor finish, to give it a permanently non-slip finish. Oh yeah. She don't mess around.

But let's back up. In order to apply this final coat, she needed to clear all the furniture - including the half ton 1896 upright grand piano made from Old Wood beams in the sound board. Then, she needed to screen the re-condition coat throughout for adhesion. Then, she need to de-dust, using the central vac. Then, she needed to design and install a catwalk so that once the floor coat was applied, we could get to the stairs without walking on the floor. Once the coating was applied, a large swathe of the house would be unavailable during curing time.

This included easy travel down into the Shrimporium. 

Shrimp juice vats were nearly empty, and DK had to assume the worst that the dry time might be 3 days and she might for some reason not be able to get down there. 

So she had to replenish the vats.

This FORCED her to finally go through months of calculations to find the flaw in her last batch of vats. She KNEW her calcium levels had dropped relative to her mag levels because the tank populations were telling her this with her metrics. So she KNEW she had made a screw-up in her last vats. She had adjusted her machinery to compensate, but the compensation wasn't in the sweet spot and the real goal is always to fix the underlying problem, yes?

Well, to make a long story short, she found her mis-calculation, had to back calculate several vat batches of concentrations, come up with her target, and re-mix the new vats. 

This is not as simple as it sounds.

Because when she adds to the vats, there is always some vat juice still in there, at whatever concentration. So when she adds the new batches of vat juice, which she KNOWS the concentration, it blends with the remaining vat juice to make the new, overall vat concentration.

She knew when the tanks were last in their sweet spot, last January or so. SO she had to back calculate, based on discovery of her mistake, what the concentrations were THEN, and then forward calculate where the vat concentration ended up, and formulate the new recipe to correct the OVERALL new vat concentration to the goal.

Your eyes are probably glazed over.

So, BEFORE she could apply the floor top coat, she had to do all this, make the new vat juice, and re-load the system settings and test them, to ensure they weren't pumping death into the Shrimporium tanks for three days while her floors cured.

She is delighted to report the floors are done and nearly cured, and the tanks are already showing signs of heading back toward sweet-spot correctness.

So, today's pictures aren't shrimp, although shrimp are tied into the floor story.

Below, we see a shot of the film DK applied with the micro beads embedded. She used a silicone spatula to keep the solution stirred each application, and when done the leftover stuff coated the spatula and dried. Then, DK peeled a layer off and took a shot with the super-macro function of her camera, because she is a geek/nerd and just had to see it, and then share it.

And a shot of the catwalk she designed, from her motorcycle ramp, six bucks of cheapo 2x3s, and a scaffolding plank. With this setup, the inhabitants were able to avoid the hardwood yet access the upstairs, key.

And, the finished -- FINISHED -- floor. Finally. Lovely "hand-rubbed" finish (low sheen) with embedded micro-beads.

The Germans can't believe their good fortune, that they don't slip all over the floor anymore.

Life is good.

BECAUSE OF this floor finish, DK was forced to correct her tanks. This means in about a month, lotsa shrimp baby pictures for all y'all.

Stay tuned...


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK forced herself to clean the Mermaid glass*

Now that the Water Factory is on re-set with the corrected recipe, DK expects a lotta action coming up. 

It takes about 2 weeks transition to correct water in the tanks following a water factory adjustment, due to the gradual changeover. 

But often times, shrimp will "read" the water conditions changing TOWARD more correct water, and respond. DK is ever fascinated how shrimp bodies "read" water chemistry and get in gear, even before water conditions are optimized. If water has been non-optimal, and the ion ratios begin to move TOWARD breeding ratios, shrimp will often jump the gun and molt, so when water conditions are ripe, they are ahead of the curve to drop young in survivable water.

Ennnyway, DK digresses.

She knew her calcium ratios were off, due to her tank metrics. When ratios are correct for a species, the population shows a pyramidal structure, with more tinies at the base, and a relative few full adults at the peak. When breeding conditions are so-so, you see an even spread. When conditions aren't breeding conditions, you see only older juvies and adults, finishing out growth from last time the water was good for breeding.

So, she had been watching metrics in the Mermaid tank, behind slimy glass, and hadn't seen much of anything except adults. She has been juggling some technical problems getting the pH stabilized in there, and when she juggles pH, it throws her calcium ratio, because pH is adjusted via mag carbonate in that tank, and when DK needs higher pH, she dials in higher mag carbonate, which decreases her calcium to mag ratio.

She thought the water was more messed up than it turned out to be. She knew it was improving, based on berried females, but she didn't see babies much, until the other day when she posted. 

So she finally decided to get off her duff and clean the glass in that tank to see what was going on in there.

Well!

Here's a lesson learned: just 'cause you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

She thot she could see well enough across the slime-glass to determine that there were almost no babies in there.

But she just couldn't see them.

Here's a shot taken this morning in the front couple inches of the tank. That tank has already started to ramp up. It's not pyramidal yet, but headed that way, hopefully.

One reason she believed there weren't going to be many babies is that one of her biological indicators she uses - pond snails - were tracking high. When pond snail populations spike, it often means chloride levels have fallen, because when chloride levels reach a certain level, it inhibits pond snail breeding and growth. 

All of her tanks were showing too many pond snails, so DK knew her chloride levels were dipping, which is an indicator that calcium levels are too low, as calcium tracks with chloride in her system.

The good news is that things are correcting, and as of this morning, there is a good indicator things are doing ok and heading toward better breeding conditions.

These are about 6 mm bah-beez (except the tiny one upper left), and DK couldn't see them across the slime-glass!


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*More Mermaid Bah-Beeze shots from yesterday*

Pictures aren't award winning, but bah-beeze are cute!

Behind the slimy glass, the tank is actually crawling with bah-beeze.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*Never a dull moment, here*

Tolja there would be jack hammering.

Also... SOMEBODY might have fallen through the ceiling the other day. Just sayin'. _It WASN'T DK_. Nobody was (seriously) injured, and now there is a LOT more bathroom ventilation, even on top of the Mother-Of-All-Ventilation-Fans that DK and Other Geek just installed.

We've added to our collection of ceiling drywall holes. First there was the chunk in the kitchen ceiling. Next the den, where the yellow jackets' MONSTROUS nest in the bay roof ate completely through the drywall, leaving only a paper skin between house inhabitants and thousands of venomous stingers, this summer. And now, we add the lovely statement of bathroom ventilation.

Drywall work is in our future. But first, we install the second Mother-Of-All-Bathroom-Fans, and make sure there aren't any MORE holes in the ceiling.

===========

IN OTHER NEWS:

Equipment malfunctions, in the Shrimporium.

First, it was a light timer gone bad.

The good news is after a prolonged period of darkness, where the Mermaids REALLY came out to graze, DK discovered more of the batch of youth in the Abductee tank than she had ever seen. Up until then, she had only ever seen one of that batch at any given time, which led her to wonder if there were what she calls "capture" issues in that tank. "Capture" to her means, if you have a batch of ten babies hatched, how many survive to grow into juvies, what is the "capture" rate of that batch.

So the capture rate was greater than she had seen, fortunately. 

Next, in the original Mermaid tank, a heat controller went out. So DK had to throw in an alternate heater. It's still a temp solution in there, but both Mermaid tanks are doing well. She hasn't seen the microbabies from the new batch of knocked up females in the Abductee tank, yet.

Other than that, DK has barely looked at the Shrimporium for weeks, bizzy doing - ahem - other things.


.


----------



## DKShrimporium

*So... ja. Found 'em.*

Yesterday, after other stuff, DK forced herself to study the abductee tank, because those microbabies were due, and overdue. 

And...

She did find them! 2-3 mm size in there. 

A couple pictures from the ones she saw up on the front glass.

As you can see, the glasses have slimed over again, bad for taking pictures.

But great for Mermaids, as they pretty much dine on slime.


.


----------



## Maechael

DK long time no chat.

How goes it? Hoping to be on the site more frequently in the near future.

Missed so much here from working haha. 


About to start a new job/old job and buy myself back into the hobby big time.


----------



## Maechael

Whoah boy, has it ever been a while since I posted here, and after stating that I was going to try and be on more frequently.

Well I have been on, more or less stalking the threads looking for beautiful shrimps, awesome rockwork, interesting ideas and strange concepts.


All of which I'd normally just come to this thread for.


Hope all is well with the D.K. And that we shall have an update and a ton of pics, and like a video tour of the shrimporium, perhaps some glamour shots of those pesky mermaidens you've been breeding.


----------



## DKShrimporium

Maechael said:


> Whoah boy, has it ever been a while since I posted here, and after stating that I was going to try and be on more frequently.
> 
> Well I have been on, more or less stalking the threads looking for beautiful shrimps, awesome rockwork, interesting ideas and strange concepts.
> 
> 
> All of which I'd normally just come to this thread for.
> 
> 
> Hope all is well with the D.K. And that we shall have an update and a ton of pics, and like a video tour of the shrimporium, perhaps some glamour shots of those pesky mermaidens you've been breeding.


Thanks for the post - DK's been off in other realms a while, now. Since she hasn't really been doing much with the Shrimporium (that's how fully automated it is - make shrimp juice concentrate every 3-12 months - depending which flavor of sauce - and it's good to go!) and she's not sure how many posts to make about (not-yet) related projects she's been up to, she's been AWOL here.

She's doing fine. 

The mermaids have populated the second tank to where both tanks have the same populations, now!

She's just ordered some industrial equipment for her latest venture - pics when it arrives.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Unfortunately, Angus the German went over the rainbow bridge recently, so that's a sad time.

RIP Angus - no, actually, play ball and run and play over there with the other Germans!


----------



## DKShrimporium

*DK's latest*

Ennyone else out there LOVE stir-fry and wish they could make GOOD stir-fry at home? SEND DK YER RECIPES. SEND. SEND.

DK's latest is just this project. Here is the lunch she made over her smokin' hot stir fry pan:

These are handfuls of Costco veggies tossed into her new technology to sear and slightly carbonize in a mix of peanut and sesame oil (see pea pod in lower left corner - how it's sligtly carbonized from the smokin' searing heat?). Then mixed into a delightful cheater lazy bones sauce of a dollop of Costco organic peanut butter, spash of oyster sauce, splash of Rooster sauce (Sriracha), handful of minced ginger root, and splash of soy sauce. 

Oh boy. Bliss. And this is only the maiden trial of her new setup. It will get exponentially better as she learns it.

She asked for this near-commercial induction cooker (a true commercial unit would be 220 volt but this one is 110 so she can use it as a homeowner) for her birthday. Don't let the price or ugly looks fool ya. This thing is a one knob easy to clean jet fueled workhorse on the cheap. Remember: DK likes industrial strenght but she also likes cheap. Score for both.

Recently, she treated herself to this MONSTER induction ready clad pan which is basically ten cents on the dollar for something like this. There it is in the picture, next to a Costco gallon jug of milk, for scale. This thing is HUGE 11 inch diameter and sports a half inch thick induction plate with aluminum core at the base.

Marry the burner to the pot, and you have a PORTABLE stir fry setup. The beauty of which is she takes it out on the back porch and there is NO GREASE MIST MESS TO CLEAN UP afterward. Park that baby on the side wing of the gas grill and you are good to go.

The burner is surprisingly light weight and stows away easily on her 15 buck Costco pull out cabinet shelf. Gotta love Costco.

So, here's the drill: (this is important for lah-zhee folks, this part) 


Put the burner out on the grill and plug in.
Put monster pot on burner with a few drops sesame oil and some peanut oil to coat the bottom. Fire her up on high.
In a large bowl set out earlier to thaw are yer handfuls of frozen Costco veggies. In DK's case, these are green beans, stir fry mix, and broccoli florets.
Dump thawed veggies into smokin' hot pan and put the lid on.
Quickly take now emptied bowl and put in your sauce ingredients in the bottom.
Return to the outdoors to tend the stir fry. Now you have steamed the veggies a minute or so or just enough to finish thawing them. 
Take the lid off and now stir fry until desired done-ness. DK likes em charred on the outside and crunchy on the inside, if'n ya KWIM.
Dump finished veggies back into bowl and toss with saucy ingredients until coated.
Eat straight out of the bowl, with chopsticks.
Afterward, you have only one large bowl to wash, one huge pan, and you spritz the burner with windex and wipe down with a paper towel.
Easy peasy, fast, lah-zhee, and tasty. 



And with that, she now goes off to open the box with her new piece of industrial strength equipment...

Stay tuned. The Industrial Strength Equipment does actually have to do with shrimp.


----------



## Maechael

Dk, have you ever put leeks into bacon grease for a stir fry?

On of my favorites, is leeky bacon.
Cook a pound of preferred bacon, chop to size 2 whole leek stalks, separate into bowl, toss pre steamed or boiled rice into greasy pan, brown to flavor, generously dousing with soy sauce and or other flavors, add 2 whisked eggs on high heat, add bacon and leeks back into pan, toss and serve.



As for shrimpies, The time approaches for me to perhaps invest in some of DK's shrimps, as I will soon have my 110 community tank setup and cycled in anticipation of the raise that will allow a healthy population of shrimpettes and shrimpies.


I need to break the habit of only viewing this site on my phone as it is quite limiting compared to a laptop for this view of the critters contained herein.


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## Nuthatch

I'm sorry about Angus. The difficult part about having pets is that we love them so much, but they leave us too soon. 

A question came up on another board, and I wonder if you might know the answer. There was a discussion about the right temperature for neos to be kept, and that spawned 2 other questions! If the temp is warm, say about 82 degrees, does this affect the sex of baby shrimp? Also, do the shrimp (in general) benefit from a warm temp (82ish) or a cooler temp (72ish)? From what I understand the shrimp grow faster but have shorter lives at higher temps. They apparently live longer at cooler temps but grow to maturity slower? Folks claim that they breed like rabbits no matter what the temperature! LOL

I understand that the 'right' temperature to keep the shrimp at can be open to interpretation; the question that I am really curious about is the affect of temperature on the sex of baby shrimp.  If you have any experience that you would be willing to share I would love to hear about it! 

Nuthatch


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## Maechael

This looks like a good time for me to monitor this thread closely.

I have heard rumors to temp control affecting spawns, but not with shrimps so interested.


I don't think I have come across anyone who intentionally keeps their shrimp up in the 82 degree region. Most people I know aim for the mid to low seventies, and one breeder I have seen in person keeps his tanks closer to 68 whenever he can, with temporary gradual heat spikes.


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## Maechael

DK you there? This cave is awful quiet lately.


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## DKShrimporium

OOp. Yeah, it's been so long that I by accident just found my notification for this post in my server spam folder!

DK's been insanely busy doing insane projects... just none of them shrimp related.

If ya wanna know about those projects, lemme know. I hate to clog up my thread with non-shrimp stuff if nobody cares!

DK

PS I now have two tanks pretty full of Mermaids. I guess the trick is to totally ignore them, then they get real bizzy partyin'.


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## Maechael

DK this thread is as to you what a blank page was to Shakespeare.

No line nor dot is wasted when it is laid with passion, intelligence and wit.

A bit of humor never killed a Danish royal family either.


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## Loachutus

Catching up on some reading. :wink2:

Theme music for this thread, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkvvcN6rt-I ?



> No line nor dot is wasted when it is laid with passion, intelligence and wit.


Yes, yes!! So let's hear about some of those projects! :grin2:


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