Test post from phone
Spring has sprung the grass has ris I wonder where the froggies is
February 25th, 2012One year to the day (check out the gallery for 25th February 2011) they are at it again.
Hard to believe two lil froggies made all this!
Tank Update
February 16th, 2012Added a new pump (Hydor Koralia Nano 900) to improve circulation, sure seems to work, may even be a tad too powerful :/
This will hopefully improve the live rocks filtration and its nice to see that even with all the muck stirred up it still cleared in under 15mins.
Next up will be to move some coral fragments and secure them allowing room for more additions.
Xmas painting framed
January 29th, 2012Just got the xmas painting back from framers, John of Art&Home in Holywood has outdone himself with this one! Its huge though, will struggle to find a spot now :/
It does show off nicely where dad painted on the edges of the canvas and still keep it protected which is what I wanted
We found him!
January 20th, 2012After a water check and finding only an elevated phosphate (promotes algae, so chemically removed). The shop declared the tank safe for a couple of fish.
So 2 common clowns later and a slightly cleaner tank, here’s the latest update (from a few days ago as a plugin seemed to be broken).
Surprise guest in marine tank
January 16th, 2012I did notice when I added the coral that it appeared to be attached to a closed oyster and thought nothing more of it. A few times the coral (a sun coral) fell over and required me to move rocks and wedge it in tighter.
today I spotted why it was falling over!
the Oyster was alive 
now it couldn’t open as it was wedged under the live rock, hopefully after a swift move it can now function as it should. A quick call to the shop and it appears it is a bonus member of my cleanup crew, a filter feeder.
As always click on the image above to see a few more images.
Many things, good things!
January 12th, 2012Been a busy week, started with guests arriving from NL in the shape of Matthijs and Leonie. Along with the usual walks we moved the home network to a new router, a xen box. After a few initial hiccups that now appears to be working well with 3 vhosts handling needs (thanks to Matthijs for the final configuration and wouer for the earlier work).
Today we went to visit the distillery in Kilbeggan, you can see the image gallery by clicking on the image below.
A few purchases had to be made
and
Matthijs and Leonie also bought a few bottles
Tomorrow I collect the new car in the morning, probably a visit to Bushmills afterwards and also the fish shop to get the new tanks water checked. Roll on the weekend
First Sunday walk of 2012
January 1st, 2012The moral high ground was hard earned today, thankfully umbrellas shielded the Da and I from the worst of it although our legs were well and truly soaked.
Our dedication earned us a lovely sunset and its associated rainbow and two new ships passing close by.
if you click on the image you can see two panoramas taken at the beginning and end of the walk. Sadly the one with the sunset and rainbow messed up a little :/
Still it was a lovely start to the year.
Roasting peruvian Mountain Heights coffee beans
December 30th, 2011In a strangely pre emptive move I decided to roast a fresh batch of coffee beans before stock ran out. The second bag Da and gail got me for my birthday was Peruvian Mountain Heights from S.D. Bells so this was the logical choice. I took some photographs and a couple of videos to show the process and results in a bit more detail than previous attempts.
Some points of interest, the roast was for 1lb or 16ozs, and after the roast the beans weighed 12.5ozs, also the beans expand as they lose moisture, this can be seen in the two images below.
as always clicking on either image will load the full gallery showing the process in more detail.
Three videos below show the stages:
beginning the roast:
first crack:
second crack:
You can hear the difference in the sound of first and second crack, once you hear second crack it is not that long until the beans will catch fire so timing is critical at this point.
Finally the beans are placed in sealed bags to degas and will stay there for 24hrs.
Early xmas pressie
December 22nd, 2011Just a quick note to show off a cunning present,
Whisky stones, ice cubes that don’t water down the whiskey! wooohoo. Plus some whiskey to taste with it’s good to be me .
As always click on the image to see the full gallery
