Not one of those groovy hippies, I’m more a wannabe hippy who tends to have an opinion on pretty much everything

Well I did a water change last night and my nitrates where still the same. I was hoping that they might have dropped a little but I’ll re test again at the weekend to see if there has been any change.
I don’t have an external filter to stick the socks in so I’ve placed one in between the two media baskets in the internal Jewel filter and the one at the top where the water flows through.

If these Clearmax bags don’t work I’m not too sure what I’m going to do, whether I try changing the bulbs or I try to add another bag only time will tell.

I’d love to setup a Nano (small) tank around 50/90 litres but with my current troubles I’d like to get them sorted a bit better first before I dedicate any more time to another tank.

Well the May bank holiday was bit of a mixed one really, the weather was pretty poor as the sun never really got out, which stopped us from going anywhere nice.

I saw the first trailer for Robin Hood which looks really good, it’s got Ridley Scott writing it and Russell Crowe as Robin Hood. I think it will be one of those films that’s best seen at the cinema for the full effect. I think we’ll have to get a boys outing to go and watch it.

It was water change time again for the fish tank. I’ve bought some Fuval Clearmax aswell because I’m getting a lot of hair algae, it started a few months back with hair algae growing on one rock but its slowly been spreading and even a crab has been unlucky enough to get some growth. There’s a few things that can usually cause an algae bloom.

1. Old light bulbs, sounds silly but the light colour can change with age which in time will aide algae blooms, this is why it’s recommended to change your bulbs every 6 months.

2. In a roundabout way over feeding can cause nitrates to rise which will feed the algae.

These are probably 2 of the most common issues, so I’m hoping that Clearmax will solve my problem.

The other half bought me a t shirt from an online store that offers t shirt printing; she got it made up especially for me. It says “Marine Perfectionist” not sure how often I’ll ware it but I will.

Well my Avatar Blue Ray discs turned up this morning at work and I can’t wait to get home to watch it, I’ll be able to crank the old surround sound, it’s an oldish amp as it doesn’t have HDMI but it certainly gives a good kick for its age. Since my PS3 goes through my TV i have no major need for a new amp as of yet.

I’m hoping for a nice weekend as today’s weather has been a bit lame to say the least it’s fairly warm but it’s nothing compared to how good the past few days have been.

I was a bit worried about my male clown fish last night as he was curled up in a corner of the tank, he seems ok now and is feeling well so I’ll just have to keep my eye on it. How do I know it’s the male, well in the clown fish world things are slightly different. The male clownfish is the smallest of the pair and the female is the larger and more dominant one, it’s taken about 3 months for my Female to be noticeably larger than the male. She’s a lot plumper and visibliliy longer.

There’s a few films out that I’d like to watch at the moment, The Blind Side which will also appeal to the better half, Clash Of The Titans which just looks awesome, but then there’s Up which is done by Disney Pixar. I love Pixar films and always will Finding Nemo is still one of my all-time favourites. I’ve been looking at the trailers on Youtube and it looks so funny. It’s a shame it’s only in 2D though as the few films I’ve seen recently like Avatar and Ice Age 3 where both in 3D.

Betting’s finished for a while as there are no big races on currently. So it allows me to save some cash.

I went to Pets At Home at the weekend and they had some gorgeous baby Regal Tangs they where only the size of a 50p coin head to tailfin, they where £20 which I know is expensive but they look so nice but the down side is that they will grow so big and need a larger tank to swim around in and I just don’t think my 180 litre tank is big enough if it was a 240 I think I might get away with it. I’d love a Regal Tang so much but it’s just not fair on it.

Odds still haven’t dropped much for the Grand National so I don’t know whether it be best using my free bets now or holding off to Saturday the day of the race. There might be a few outsiders swapping around. After a quick thought I’ll probably do my winner now and then look for my outsider on Saturday morning at least when i know what the going is like.

Pool has now finished its Winter League so I only have finals night at the end of this month, luckily where in team knockout so that should be a trophy.

I’d like to go to the cinema on Wednesday nights now since I can use my Orange 2-4-1 offer on cinema.

Well this weekend brings the Grand National and I think I’ll be trying to get a few free bets. I have a few tips for how to pick a Grand National winner

1. Really it wants to be a UK or Irish horse, they are trained all year for this one race, excluding of course Mon Mome last year’s winner.

2. Look for a older horse horses around 9 – 10 years have wiser heads and will often go the distance over younger horses.

3. Weight look around the 11 stone mark don’t go under don’t go over give and take a few pounds and you should be ok.

Well Go Karting was ace, I qualified 3rd and ended up fifth, one of my mates was 4th and I let him through on the second lap as he was bothering me as he was right behind me. After he’d gone past I was pretty much ok and I was taking back markers left right and centre.

I got to a point where there was 3 people in front of me, I soon decided that they were all fighting for a place by the time I’d caught them up, one of them had shot of so I was tailing 2 people. I managed to get one a few corners into the lap but then as I was following the other, i was pretty much inches off his back bumper and he decided to spin and take me out in the process and little did i know that 5th place was behind me and he soon zipped past. That was the last I saw of him, i could never seem to catch him.

I ended up finishing 5th which I didn’t think it was bad at all. We should of taken some bets before the race. If the Karting place offered free bets then that would be so cool, but i suppose then they would need a gambling licence

Not sure what will be happening this week, but I suspect it will be busy !

Well the Smoke 2 Joosey that i got last week has now gone and i have just ordred some more well when i say more i mean 3 packets.

I managed to get one of my yellow tailed damsels out of my tank that was causing me problems, im hoping to get the other 2 out within a few days. I took one to the local pet shop today and they’ve put it into one of there tanks.

I’ve finally got go karting booked for saturday, got five mates going its costs around £50 each, bit steeper than most places but the tracks longer than most circuits and they are twin engined.

Well it’s that time again, where the marine tank wants a water change, I’m hoping to nip to my local fish shop at lunch and get some water as well as getting my hair cut. Time wise it’s going to be tight as getting my hair cut will take around 30 minutes then 20 minutes to get to and from the fish shop. I guess I could save time by not taking the water home to heat up straight away, although I would rather do that as I can then do the water change tonight as the water will be correct temperature. And not have to wait until tomorrow.

The UV unit has been running in my tank for around 4 weeks, but I still don’t want to put any new fish in just yet. I think I’m too worried about losing another fish.

Today the weather is lovely, so I’m kind of hoping that it will stay nice for tomorrow so that I can have a lovely day out. Whether we go to the coast or have a day out in a city somewhere I’m not too sure yet.

I was watching panorama – Are the Net Police Coming for You? Last night about downloading music illegally, the PC Guru was a complete idiot,
Those kids where using U torrent and Bit torrent like he said.

They constantly referenced The Piratebay and most people know that is a .org domain and not the .com like they seemed to show now and again.

Then when they were using other people’s wireless network, the pc guru thought it was hacking when he clearly just used windows to connect to another router.

They then had some right Geek using a Proxy address which hides your IP where as they called it animinity. To be honest when everyone starts using proxies they are really up a creek without a paddle.

They slowed the net connection down for some people which they do by putting all the file sharers on so your usually sharing your pipe with 50 others and its slower than dial up trust me.

Last rant why would those families go on knowing that the kids are downloading illegal music and that they could end up in court?

Today I’ve just seen that The Mirror are offering a £2 free bet in conjunction with William Hill, so i think I’ll be going to the bookies at lunch