NOTE: Perc Clowns from Bawtry + new heater

NOTE: Starry Blenny + 2x Emerald Mithrax crabs from Ecclesfield

NOTE: 10x hermits + 2x blue legs from Thurcroft

won: job lot of marine chems & tests

API Nitrate, API Nitrite, API Ammonia kits

SALIFERT pH, Calcium, Magnesium and Phospate kits

1/2 tub of Rowaphos and 1/2 tub of Purigen.

1/2 box of Milliput (for attaching corals to rocks etc)

Protozin (new/sealed) and Myaxin (5ml used) medications and almost full bottle of Apstasia X.

Almost full container of marine flake and net.

NOTE: bought Blood Shrimp from Viscum + 3x hermits

NOTE: bought pulsing xenia frag

from Viscum. VERY expensive!!!

First 24hrs

We got the tank home late last night and set it up quite crudely to ensure that the live rock was still able to act as a filter.

I removed the crab into a temporary home while I had the chance as I knew he'd disappear into the rocks and we'd never see him again. At least this way, I'd have the choice of re-introducing it when I found out what it was.

When it was all together the water was totally thick with fine sand particles, the live rock was dumped in the middle in a heap and the Humbug was quite crudely dropped in too. It was left overnight to settle and I'd sort it out then. The water level was quite low too, so the rear chambers were dangerously low so I knew I had to go out and get some water ASAP.

So, woke up this morning to find the water had cleared, the Humbug fish was swimming about but every surface was coated in fine grey sand, under that was red coralline algae and green algae.

The only local fish seller (LFS) I know is Viscum, so I toddled off there to get 25l of salt water and a small tub of food for the fish.

Nano marine - the beginnings

Well, I've always wanted a marine reef tank but was always turned off by the extreme expense and difficulty in keeping them.
Thankfully, technology has moved on to the point where it's not ridiculously expensive any more thanks to the new small complete tanks.

Having previously kept tropical discus fish I was aware that it was entirely possible to get a 2nd hand full setup at a massive price saving and also kickstart the whole process to boot avoiding all the tank filter cycling and other stuff.

So, I won and auction for a D&D 24g Nano tank as a complete setup. Below are some pics of it at the sellers house before I brought it home and here's an inventory:

• D-D 24gallon nano marine tank full set up which includes:
• Boyu 310 Skimmer
• Eheim 1000 return pump
• Spare stock return pump
• Koralia Nano powerhead
• Live Sand
• Approx 10kg of LR
• 1 Humbug Damsel fish (Black & White)

When we dismantled the tank it turned out there was a hitch hiker crab too.

Acer Aspire One died! Found a solution :( BIOS corrupted

My Acer Aspire One died this afternoon and refused to startup, it didn't even get to the bios loading screen.

A quick google produced a solution at the link here. Thanks to the original author.

Basically, the BIOS had corrupted and it needed reseting.

Phew!

Mp3 BPM calculation and iTunes

I recently bought an iPod touch and started running for fitness. I have a large collection of MP3s and I wanted to get the BPM field completed for all of my MP3s so that I can choose audio based on it's tempo.


After a *lot* of googling I ended up with the following working solution:
a) use the freeware Mixmeister BPM calculator to batch analyse all of the files. This took hours to do but it's the core of it all. Note that this tool outputs accurate bpms to 2 decimal places, which need fixing with the following step.
b) round all of the BPMs up/down to the nearest integer. This is a more recent requirement as apparently iTunes 8.1 and above ignore decimal points for BPM so you *have* to get them all to integers. e.g., 123.4 won't work, 123 will work.
I do this by running scripts through Mp3tag as written here: http://forums.mp3tag.de/lofiversion/index.php/t8295.html
c) I use ITLU (iTunes Library Updater) to tell iTunes the new BPM files have changed and it needs to refresh. If you don't do this, iTunes won't update it's understanding of the BPM.