Saturday, December 31, 2011

Movie review: "Midnight in Paris"

Movie: Midnight in Paris (2011)  Comedy, Romance, Fantasy



Studio:  Sony Pictures Classics

Rating: PG-13

Cast:  Owen Wilson, Rachael McAdams, Kathy Bates

DVD: Redbox rental contains widescreen movie and two trailers

Director: Woody Allen

This movie centers around the main character (Owen Wilson) coming on vacation to Paris with his fiance and fantasizing  about being a novelist in the 1920's, as apposed to his real writing job as a script writer in Hollywood.  As he takes midnight strolls through Paris he finds out that the roaring 20's writers wanted to live in another time also.  This realization makes him reevaluate his own writing worth. The movie is filmed mostly in Paris and the cinematography is quite good.  Although I am not a big fan of Woody Allen, the story line was interesting enough to keep a viewer engaged throughout.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars



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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Movie review: "The Family Stone"

Movie: The Family Stone (2005)



Studio: Fox

Rating: PG-13

Cast: Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson

DVD: Retail Widescreen edition, contains movie and supplemental material

Supplemental material: two audio commentary's,  deleted scenes, casting, behind the scenes, gag reel and Family Stone recipes

Set in the Family Stone New England colonial home at Christmas this movie is a story of an uptight conservative new yorker spending Christmas with her boyfriends zany family.  A great cast gives this movie life and once the couple make it to the house the antics begin.  This is a good holiday date movie.  Acted and directed well this is a entertaining movie worth at least a rental.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Movie review: "Margin Call"

Movie: Margin Call (2011)




Studio: Before the Door Pictures

Rating: R

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucchi, Demi Moore, Jeremy Irons

DVD:  Rental from Redbox contains movie and supplemental material

This movie is inspired by the true story of the financial crisis of 2008.  I was skeptical about this movie going in, wondering how this story could be told to the average person who does not know about the market and the history of the crisis.  The story was very entertaining and interesting, told from the viewpoint of the insiders who lived it.  From the discovery of devalued positions all the way to the final fire sale.  This was good cast and a good movie.

Rating:  3.5 stars out of 5
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Monday, December 19, 2011

10 gallon living reef history

I will post new pics and update aquarium specs soon.

water change and fish dead
January 24th, 16:29
Did a water change along with quite a few other things to get the nano tank right. I was having quite an issue with green algae. I was having to clean glass everyday because I had created an environment that the algae did quite well in. I have been dosing with PH control and calcium control every day to get the KH up to eight as this would limit nutrients to the algae and control its out of control nature. After about a week of continued dosing the KH slowly came up to about 7dKH and once I had it on the rise I took all the algae I could out of the tank by sucking it up with a turkey baster. With most of the algae out of the tank I did a water change and kept dosing PH control and calcium. A day after the water change my neon goby did not want to eat which was strange but I touched him with the glass cleaner to make sure he was still alive. He did respond but would still not eat. The next day I came to the tank the neon goby was gone .
Tank is doing well and I took a water sample into Preuss to test and water was very good.

Test readings

NO3 <5

KH 8

Ca 450

Salinity 1.025
Water change
November 27th, 2010
Current Mood:
awake
I did a water change and water tests. Kenyan tree coral getting very large and Euphyllia is growing very well also. Green button polyps are almost all dead because of the Aiptasia anemones that have come out of the live rock. I bought two peppermint shrimp which feed on the Aiptasia anemones. The Aiptasia is a pest anemone and can easily take over the tank if not controlled. The peppermint shrimp are doing ok but have not completely taken care of the Aiptasia.

Water test results.

Nitrates 20 ppm

Alkalinity 6 dkh

Calcium 320
did I say sooner... I meant later
October 15th, 2010
Wow!! It has been a long time since my last update. So many things have changed in my mini reef since I last posted. Everything is still living, I haven't had one casualty yet. I am going to post new pics as soon as I get my camera back. (lent it to a friend)

Water stats

Salinity 1.027

NO3 15ppm

KH 6 dKH

Ca 420

More pics soon
long time no update, lots of new stuff
June 4th, 2010
Sorry,  long time no update.  Many things have happened in the tank since my last update.  First I have some new water tests and buffer materials so I can check the water and adjust it with chemicals if I need to.  I bought a Calcium test, alkalinity buffer and calcium buffer.  Basically these buffers increase calcium and alkalinity if it gets to low.  In a natural environment these levels would be maintained by the huge amounts of water flowing through the reef.  I have done a few water changes and everything in the tank seems very healthy.  The algae in the tank is growing rapidly and I am scraping algae off of the front glass almost every day.  I also have a few new inhabitants that I did not purchase but have grown from the live rock.  I have one Asterina starfish that I know of, but I think the small white specs on the glass are baby Asterinas.  I also have a Polychaete bristle worm living in my live rock which is getting quite large (about 3 inches now).  I have seen traps in the fish store for these and I may have to get him out of the aquarium.  Next update much sooner.

Water test done by me yesterday.

Nitrates:  0

Alkalinity:  8

Salinity:  1.027  ( a little high but topping off with fresh water should bring it down)

Calcium:  370 ppm
water change and pics
April 28th, 2010
Current Mood:
awake
I did a water change yesterday.  I took about 2 1/2 gallons of water out.  I wanted to wait a day to take pics because after I did the water change the tank was very cloudy.  So tonight I did water testing and took pics of my reef.  I think the only thing I am really lacking now is a timer for my lights.  I think that would really help the corals grow better.  Since I purchased the coral, I have not seen any real growth, but it only has been a week so hopefully the light timing will encourage it to grow more.  I have been feeding frozen mysis shrimp for the fish and my pistol shrimp twice a day and phytoplankton (phyto feast) for my live rock and corals.  Today I also saw some sort of worm like looking creature that must have come in the live rock.  I will try to get a pic.  It could be some sort of worm or just an arm to something bigger.

Water testing done by me.

Salinity:  1.025

KH: 7dKH

Nitrate:  2ppm



a shot of the whole aquarium



Kenyan coral and striped mushroom coral



Watchman Goby and Tiger Pistol Shrimp

more new inhabitants
April 20th, 2010
Current Mood:
anxious anxious
Went to Preuss today to buy more fish.

Tested water for nitrates and alkalinity.

Test done by me since now I have the test kits to do them

Salinity:  1.025

KH:  8.5 dKH

Nitrate:  2ppm

When I added the Tiger Pistol Shrimp( Alpheus bellulus) and the Yellow Watchman Goby (Cryptocentrus cinctus)  they proceeded to rearrange my tank.  I have an all sand substrate so it was a dig party to see if the Pistol Shrimp could find the bottom of the tank, and he did.  The tank was cloudy for two days with all the sand movement and on the second day part of the reef collapsed.  I guess it wasn't quite resting on the bottom of the tank and the Pistol Shrimp moved it. I reconstructed the reef and after about two days the Pistol Shrimp and Watchman Goby are not settled in to there new home.

Today I bought two more fish an Ocellaris Anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) and a Neon Goby (Gobiasoma oceanops).  Once they get comfortable in the tank I will take some pics and post.
up to date pics
April 17th, 2010
Current Mood:
awake
Took these pics before I went to Preuss, just for an update.

Went to Preuss to have water tested and buy some new inhabitants for the tank.  Water tested by Steve at Preuss

Nitrate:  2ppm

KH:  7dKH

Calcium:  450ppm

Salinity:  1.023

Topped off with salt water to try and bring up salinity.  Dosed with aquavitro eight.four which is going to raise KH.  KH should be from 8-11 dKH.  I will continue to dose until dKH comes to at least 8 dKH.

Added Tiger pistol shrimp, watchman goby, 10 shells, mushroom coral, some sort of small starfish and bush coral.  Pics of all new stuff coming soon.






chemi-pure
April 13th, 2010
Tonight I added the Chemi-pure that I bought last time I was at preuss.  My red algae is getting real bad now and Josh at Preuss told me this would help get rid of it.  I am also starting to see some green algae on the live rock.  My new coral (Zoanthias) seem to be doing quite well, they open up every day and appear to be growing already.  I did my first water test tonight for Nitrates and it appears that my reading is about 10 ppm.  I hope I can figure out a way to control the nitrates without buying a skimmer.  I have never had the Nitrates at  zero where they should be but hopefully I can figure this out.

The chemi-pure did not fit into my filter very easy.  It is a bag full of some sort of  stuff the resembles the carbon in my carbon filter but seems like a finer consistency. I had to really be patient with it to get it to fit in the bio wheel filter that hangs on the back of the tank.  Hopefully there is enough water left in the filter to do some good.  The filter appears to be running well even though it is stuffed with the carbon filter and the chemi-pure.
water change before new inhabitants
April 10th, 2010
Current Mood:
anxious anxious
Lots of new stuff for this update.

First, I did a water change on Friday night, so the tank would have time before I took a sample today to Preuss for testing.

Test results today done by Josh at Preuss

PH:  8.1

Nitrate:  2 ppm

KH:  10 dKH

Calcium:  340

Salinity:  1.023

I new my salinity would be low since I did not have enough salt water to complete the water change and had to top off last half gallon with RO water.

I picked a few things up today at Preuss.  I now have some of my own water testing equipment so I won't have to go to Preuss to get water tested all the time.

Nitrate test kit, KH test kit and a filter product that I put in my bio wheel filter called chemi-pure that should help to get rid of the red algae (cynobacteria)

In a previous post I believe I miss identified my copepods.  I picked up an invertebrates book that said the little white micoscopic guys I have on my glass are probably munnid isopods.

I also bought some Button Polyps soft coral today (Zoanthus spp.).  These are the pics I took after I did a 1 hour drip acclimatization and added them to my tank.  Still need to get a microscope so I can look at some of the very small animals that I cannot identify living on my glass.



red algae
April 6th, 2010
Current Mood:
curious curious
Last night my Turbo pump stopped working, I took it into preuss and Steve took it apart, messed with it and it started working again.  I put it back in my tank and now it is working.  Lots of red algae on the sand and the rocks.  Here is a close up and a wide shot of the current tank.  I am still going to try and get water more stable before I put coral and fish.  This cynobacteria (red algae) is bad.  I also fed two drops of phytoplankton today since I forgot yesterday.




lots of cynobacteria in this corner of tank


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