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The cover up of the cover up.

I am a know-it-all in the fine tradition of Cliff Clavin. The fact that Sarah doesn’t kill me in my sleep is really a testament to fine parenting and her Quaker heritage. My latest bout of blowharditis was in relation to the substrate in our tank. As I previously mentioned, we started out with a substrate made of a little bit of natural sand (light tan) and a whole lot of fluorite (black).…

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More new fish!

Last Friday, Sarah and I received 2 Brilliant Turquoise discus and 16 cardinal tetras from Discus Hans. The fish arrived in the morning via fedex and were shipped in a styrofoam boxed. They are really beautiful, confident eaters as soon as we let them out of the bag and best of all they have calmed down the overall aggression level in the tank. Obviously, part of the aggression problem was just the fact that we only had four discus in the tank.…

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Our Aquarium Plants

The best way to raise juvenile discus is in what’s called a bare bottom or BB tank. That is, a tank with no substrate and only potted plants or artificial plants. Discus are messy eaters, they need to eat often and they are also very sensitive to water conditions. Gravel or other substrate makes it hard to remove uneaten food and waste. People who are focused on growing their fish as large as possible stick to BB tanks.…

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LLoyd

This is Lloyd, one of our first four discus:    He’s a juvenile red maze pigeon blood discus. His hobbies are eating, pooping and bullying. One of his eyes is deformed, but we love him anyway. Unfortunately, he started to have long stringy poop last week. You can see it if you look closely at the picture. He was still active and eating, but we were concerned because we had read that stringy poop is one of the big signs of poor health in discus.…

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Solved: Cakewalk Sonar export volume is low

Sometime I post things here just so they are web search accessible. This is one of those times! I’ve run into situations where the WAV files I export from Sonar have very low volume on several occasions. I’ve finished my new track, I’ve got everything EQed and compressed to just the right level and my track is peaking at exactly the volume I want. I’m excited to share the new song with the world (i.…

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Tank inhabitants

After a week of having the tank setup with no flora or fauna, we went to Pacific Aquarium in the city to buy plants and fish. The person who initially helped us wasn’t working on the day we returned. That original salesman had approved of our discus and tetras in a lightly planted tank plan. He even suggested the correct lighting and additives that would support the plants we wanted.…

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My band is playing with The Vibrators

We’re incredibly honored to be playing with one of the best all time Punk bands and a legendary songwriter Ian Carnochan.    The show was even listed in New Yorker magazine, although we didn’t merit a mention . This is also James’ last show with the band, so I definitely recommend that you come out. Into the future!…

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Our New Discus Tank

I’ve always enjoyed keeping fish tanks. Mainly goldfish, but I’ve also had other tropical varieties. Unfortunately, a series of die offs soured me on the hobby about ten years ago. Well, about a month ago Sara and I decided on a whim to get a new tank. Our friend Dave sent us a link to a picture of Discus fish and we fell in love instantly. Only later did we read the plethora of articles talking about how the Discus was, in addition to being the “king of aquariums”, one of the most difficult species of fish to care for.…

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Fixing My Samsung 225BW monitor DIY style

About a year or so ago, my here-to-fore perfectly working Samsung 225BW computer monitor started taking a very long time to turn on. At first it was only a few minutes and I could live with it. Eventually, a few minutes became up to a half hour and the situation became unworkable. I was learning about electronics and specifically capacitors at that time. My gut told me that the problem, slow warming up, might have to do with a faulty capacitor.…

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I'd Say Nothing

I yelled instead of singing the other day and it cost me my voice after only four songs. The next day, only a few hours later really, we had another gig at Punk Island. I don’t know how I sang four more songs.   I’d Say Nothing  I heard a distant rumbling and immediately thought of you. If the end came before we had a chance to speak,…

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