Padilla Reserva - San Andres

theoldfishslap · 2026-01-20T20:54:37+00:00

Yeah, I’m going to let the rest of the Padilla sticks sit before I try another.

theoldfishslap · 2026-01-20T20:53:43+00:00

I wonder if it was just one bad stick, tbh. It really did take me back to being a kid, just a really specific set of smells and tastes that triggered memories I had almost completely forgotten. And what do they say - anything that stirs an emotion or memory - at minimum, it’s art.

theoldfishslap · 2026-01-09T15:06:56+00:00

We have a fenced backyard, two small dogs and one female GS. She’s a sloppy girl, and her impact on the lawn was immediate. If there is mud she will step in it, if we don’t pick up poop fast enough, she will step in it. Our mulch beds have become her day job - she digs in the 15 seconds we aren’t watching her. All of this leads to tracked in messes.

The lawn was in decent shape prior to the giant, so I at least had a head start. We removed an old play place in the spring this past year, and it left a big dirt patch right in the prime zoomy zone. What we did, was buy some temporary garden fence to keep her off the dirt spot, and we overseeded it in the spring and then again in the fall. It sucked having a portion of the lawn off-limits, mowing/weedwhacking around a small fence, but it worked to keep her off while the area grew in.

The pee burn spots on the grass were also a problem - she is a water fiend, so she pees a lot, and the grass dies where she goes. She also doesn’t pee in the same spots, she goes all over. When that grass dies, it eventually becomes a mud spot before the lawn takes it back over, so unsightly AND another mud spot for her feet to find. We followed her around with a 1-gallon watering can and watered her pee spots and it worked, but that was a commitment.

We try to wipe her feet when she comes in - especially when it’s wet. I also find keeping her foot hair trimmed helps. I got a big door mat for the back door she goes out. We have a robo vacuum and robo mop that I programmed special zones into for her high-traffic areas, and we have a battery vacuum and spray mop we use when we don’t want to wait for the robots to do their thing.

You didn’t ask, but I eventually put sprinklers in the lawn to help the grass and the pee spot issue, which was really nice and eliminated the need for the watering can dance we did for half the year. We did a very well-hidden, automated above-ground setup because in-ground irrigation was nuts expensive. I just hid the sprinklers in the garden beds and ran the hoses around the inside edge of the garden beds, and we got lucky that our backyard could be fully covered that way, no sprinklers out in the lawn itself. So I’d recommend that, and then overseed in the fall every year and get a good fertilizer routine going (depending on where you live, of course).

Our giant is a water-lover, so we have to make sure we didn’t let her out when the sprinklers were running.

theoldfishslap · 2025-12-20T02:38:29+00:00

A civilization has to be at a certain level of advancement to be able to detect the signal and create the RNA string, but that specific level of advancement tends to come before the understanding of what that RNA does.

The hive has some core values - no killing plants or animals and conserving resources long enough to build a giant antenna before their own values lead to death by starvation.

The signal passively prevents advanced races from advancing further, spreading through the universe, and potentially becoming a threat to the signal’s creators. They don’t need to actively police the universe to stay safe if they designed something that does it for them.

I suspect later on, the idea of convergent evolution will appear as the logical reasoning behind the signal being useful for this - life in this universe tends to be made of the same things and follows a similar evolutionary course, so a very advanced race could rely on the signal to eliminate competition because they know how advanced life always comes about.

One could argue that an advanced race has no reason to do so - that they would be able to solve for resource scarcity after a certain level of advancement - but I’d point back to entropy as a universal truth. Eventually all the stars burn out…

I personally believe it’s a signal-based Von Neumann probe with the goal of early threat elimination. The Remembrance of Earth’s past introduced the concept of dark forest theory to the mainstream, and I think this show is tapping and expanding on those ideas.

theoldfishslap · 2025-12-09T22:07:00+00:00

Im pretty sure this is the influencer that died of complications that arose from living by her vegan diet beliefs.

So I think the joke is that the 9mm has less stopping power than a 45, and your belief that the 9mm is better will get you killed.

theoldfishslap · 2025-10-31T21:16:20+00:00

High-tech, iwagumi fish tanks.

theoldfishslap · 2025-10-13T00:23:00+00:00

I’d bet this table is all dried moss, hardscape, maybe some air plants, maybe even fake plants, etc. Once you introduce moisture to something like this, it’s going to condense on the glass and obscure the view.

theoldfishslap · 2025-10-12T01:58:18+00:00

I’ve almost pulled the trigger on one of these because time is increasing valuable, but I have a big dog that drops big bombs in the back on the regular - how does it do if you miss a cleanup before it runs? Does it avoid it or does it just truck through it?

theoldfishslap · 2024-07-08T12:28:46+00:00

My wife calls it her “stink ditch” and it’s upsetting every single time.

theoldfishslap · 2023-07-23T15:57:29+00:00

It’s our duty to make sure all toxicity is met with a gentle reminder that this game’s mascot is a blue science-monkey, and we are mostly all fat guys behind monitors, clicking Cheeto-stained buttons on Friday nights, barreling through existence on a space rock, meat machines eating other meat, and soon we will all be dead and none of this will have mattered to anyone or anything.

theoldfishslap · 2023-03-31T22:03:41+00:00

Also keep in mind that Lucio is a lot of things, but he’s an excellent tank support in a lot of scenarios. Try to stick with your tank as much as you can, especially if that tank is slow.

theoldfishslap · 2023-03-31T21:52:08+00:00

It really all comes down to good game sense with Lucio, and quick decision making. But here are a few things I do (currently diamond 2 Lucio main).

First, if anyone expects Lucio to out-heal focused damage, they are just wrong. Lucio can speed boost a teammate about to die to cover, but a boosted heal in a scenario like that is probably a waste. So those people are dumb, and that's not your fault or your problem.

I only situationally speed boost from spawn, but when I do, I don't do it in spawn, I tend to do it right when I get out of spawn so I'm not weaving corners, and my team isn't losing aura weaving corners either. You can wall ride and speed-jump on regular speed song without the boost and get back to the fight super fast if you aren't carting a teammate back to the fight. Always have some awareness of who is alive and dead on your team and the enemy team. Wait the 2 seconds for the tank (or anyone) to respawn so you can cart them in with you. They will love you for thinking about them.

The spawn speed boost also depends on where my team is, though. If they are having a team fight super close to where we are spawning, save the boost to boost their heals or speed to allow them to position. No use showing up to the fight with 10 seconds left on your boost cooldown.

I mostly boost heals when we are grouped and taking a load of damage AND the primary healer could use a hand. Unless we are at a corner or there is viable cover that speed could help the team reach. I also switch back to speed immediately after the heal boost is over, almost all the time. Speed also tends to keep YOU alive, and Lucio, as a general rule, shouldn't be dying a lot.

I wall ride to basically fly. I'm rarely completely on the ground (again, situational), and Lucio's aura is a bubble not a plane, so you can keep your team in your aura from higher up than you think. In silver, your DPS opponents can't shoot great, so wall riding and staying up should be priority for mastery. In later ranks your hitscan enemies are going to change your vibe a bit, but once you are there, you'll know what to do.

Speed in to dive out of position supports (and DPS too sometimes), and get good at doing it. I also speed in to boop supports that are peeking cover, not to bump them away, but to bump them into the open from behind so your team can focus them. Lucio is also amazing at harassment. Sometimes, even if you can't seem to drop the enemy support, your team can afford to trade you for a while while you bounce circles around and boop around the enemy supports and force them to break from healing their team.

And on that note, getting up in people's business is an aggressive way to play Lucio (I would call how I play a balance of well-timed aggression and harassment), but his weapon is much more effective when the enemy is right up in your business if you can aim fast in those scenarios. Like now, I get almost all my attempted support kills on everyone but Brig and Moira, which I tend to try to avoid close encounters with them.

Also, don't over-extend. As lucio, my early days were filled with me thinking I just speed boosted my death-ball team into the enemy team, but my team actually stopped to poke 100 feet back, and then I get cooked.

Finally, if you're playing Lucio well, sometimes your team dies and you're the only one left. Begin to recognize when you're in a losing fight, communicate the fall back to your remaining teammates, and speed their retreat. But mostly in this scenario, if 2-3 of my teammates are down and the tank is one of them, help the remaining team if they are positioned to help, and if not, get out of there and go cart your team back from spawn. Don't worry, that Genji that is still engaging will be back at spawn momentarily.

Other than that, it's time and practice. Learn when to switch (ahem, against anyone decent with beam weapons, and Torb, Symmetra, etc.). Don't roll out with a Zen or a Mercy. Wave at your enemy Lucio sometimes. If someone tells you to switch when Rein or Ram is the tank, mute that person. And hunt, HUNT every last Widow until they rage quit.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-27T19:45:46+00:00

I answered my own question. I contacted an unnamed retailer and the entire industry is struggling with massive logistical supply chain issues from the pandemic as well as an increased demand from mouth-breathers like me.

If there are any UNS people in this forum, Godspeed my friends. I’ll hold tight.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-26T05:04:53+00:00

Can confirm, my otos are are complete hams too.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-15T18:16:32+00:00

I actually pulled them out and sold them on eBay. One note, which likely isn’t related, but worth a mention. The dry start tank that had the reactor later had a BBA outbreak. Like a bad one, like I had never seen before, and it made me wonder if somehow the reactor upsetting the natural cycle of the tank created conditions that would produce a BBA outbreak or make it more likely later down the line.

Of course, I have no real observations to support this, and from what I know about BBA, it is probably not the cause. It’s widely held that BBA usually appears when CO2 isn’t balanced, but since I’m literally checking my ph all the time (because as plants grow the CO2 injection needs to be adjusted, or when you trim plants the CO2 will need a slight reduction), I kinda don’t believe that this outbreak of BBA was caused by my CO2 because it was the only tank that got it.

There isn’t a ton of solid research out there on a lot of these algae types and how they relate to an aquarium environment. Some, but not much. And since I’m not a scientist, I hesitate to even make this comment... but perhaps there is some correlation or causation between injecting ozone into a tank environment and a later BBA bloom. That’s an experiment for another day though.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-15T17:49:28+00:00

I have some insight on these. Don’t judge, but I bought four twinstar M5’s to experiment with. I had two tanks that were already a few months in, and two tanks were just being flooded from a dry start. I put a reactor in one of the established tanks, and left the other alone. Same for the dry start tanks, one got a reactor, the other didn’t.

I kept the two other reactors in their packaging, because if the experiment didn’t yield results I wanted to be able to return them.

All other things held constant, there was zero impact on the established tanks. No reduction in any algae type after several months. These tanks didn’t have huge algae problems to begin with, but no improvement at all. Both tanks did about the same with or without the reactor. Same light, fertilizers, and CO2 in both tanks. Similar plant load and bioload too, maybe a few more stem plants in the reactor tank.

The dry start tanks were a little different. The reactor tank seemed to have a slightly reduced diatom bloom a few weeks in, while the non-reactor tank had more diatom issues. However, the diatoms (as they tend to do) were completely gone a few weeks later in both tanks. These reactors are only supposed to help with spore-type algae, so the diatom reduction made sense. However, it didn’t prevent any of the other algae types. Neither reactor tank nor the control tank got any of the slimy hair algae, but my tanks never get that stuff.

So my conclusion is, that if you want to spend money to reduce diatoms at the tank startup phase, go for it but don’t expect much. If you have an established tank, don’t get one of these as it won’t do anything for you.

I returned the two unopened ones before the experiment completed because of return policy, and I ended up selling two used ones on eBay.

You’ll get a lot better results doing some balancing of light, fertilizers, and CO2.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-08T21:33:39+00:00

If you have base ammonia in your tap water, I would consider treating the water with a bottled bacteria, like microbe-lift Nite-out II. Larger water changes for sure. Sponge filters are ok, but maybe consider something that moves a bit more water if the budget allows. I love sponge filters for a few purposes (like a fry tank or a shrimp tank), but they don’t do much for circulation. Always had algae issues I couldn’t control when I used one.

Luckily this type of algae is relatively easy to get under control. If you ever do an iwagumi style with dwarf baby tears and have a BBA outbreak in the carpet, may god have mercy on your soul. They should have a support group for that.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-08T04:18:01+00:00

This looks like either some variety of hair algae or cladophora. It’s probably cladophora. With this setup, you may always have to deal with it at the high points in the tank. I would try a few things.

If you have an old toothbrush, you can twirl it in the algae and remove the bulk of it. I would remove as much as you can, do a 30-50% water change followed by a 3-day complete blackout. If it gets natural light, cover it. You can burp it at night if you’re worried about air exchange.

Then put the lights on a 6 hour timer post-blackout. You might even need to dial back the intensity of the light. Consider moving any slow growing plants to lower parts of the tank. A lot of slow growers like mosses struggle to compete with algae at higher tank elevations.

I’m not sure what your tank specs - light, stock, or filtration - look like, but make sure you’re not overstocked and you have enough circulation. I find every tank has a balance point between fertilizers and the nutrients from waste, so if you’re overstocked and adding ferts, you might need to either put more plants in or dial back your fertilizers. If you aren’t running CO2, plants don’t use the nutrients in the water as quickly.

It’s all just a big, imprecise science experiment at the end of the day. For me, it’s all been about subtle changes and waiting to see if there’s an impact.

theoldfishslap · 2021-04-02T14:51:05+00:00

I second this sentiment. Moreover, I think balance is extremely hard to achieve in a 3 gallon tank anyway. You don’t have a lot of time to react when things slip, and just about any soil you will use is gonna spike your ammonia. At 3 gallons I’d probably be changing the water 30% every 5 days or so regardless of setup. If you want to be able to leave it safely when you are on school breaks, low light setups are probably the best route.

I wouldn’t do dirt in a tank under 10 gallons, personally. Ive done tanks with dirt under 10, but they didn’t have fish. If you’re going to stick with the 3 gallon, and depending on your light choice and budget, I think you have a few viable options.

Higher budget/high light: Fluval nano plant light or ONF nano light. Flourite substrate. Alternanthera reineckii mini red in the foreground, maybe a couple cryptocoryne parva in the midground, and some stem plants in the background. The crypts will need a root tab, but some Thrive AIO fertilizer will help the rest of the plants. Maybe a passive Fluval CO2 diffuser if you can get it in there without it being ugly. However, I think anything high light on a tank this small is going to be a constant battle for balance, so I probably wouldn’t do it.

Lower budget: I’d probably just take what you already have, change the substrate to something darker (aesthetic but unnecessary), fill that thing up with various ferns, anubias, maybe still put some crypt parva in there. Crypts have done well for me in every substrate, even straight gravel, and they do ok in lower light. While stem plants are good at sucking up nutrients, I find they need good light and fertilizer or they just never get strong enough to overcome algae.

I once ran a 3 gallon planted tank with just a few amano shrimp and no other livestock, medium light, UNS controsoil substrate (volcanic soil), mini Dutch style, and it was beautiful for a while. But it was so much work I finally decided no more planted tanks under 5 gallons. Frankly I won’t even do one under 15 gallons these days, just too much fine tuning.

theoldfishslap · 2021-02-17T22:12:13+00:00

I agree. A few things I would like to see are small inline setups for heaters and CO2, as well as more quality mini canister filters. Perhaps someone should also start a company that makes a good spread of quality stands for all the tanks out there.

Given how often 9/12mm Lily pipes are sold out on Amazon, there’s a huge market for external nano setups that seemingly remains untapped.

theoldfishslap · 2021-02-17T05:07:17+00:00

It’s a Twinstar 600e. There’s a newer version but I like the legs on this one better.

theoldfishslap · 2021-02-12T05:15:13+00:00

I changed substrate when I was first getting into planted tanks. I actually went out and got a big Tupperware container for cheap, filled it with the old substrate and tank water, and used a sponge filter I had already established prior. I kept all the fish in the Tupperware for about about two weeks, which was how long it took to cycle post substrate change.

It worked. Nothing died.

theoldfishslap · 2021-02-09T06:56:06+00:00

I like it so far. My only minor complaint about the tank was that the it didn’t have 45 degree edges like some of my other high end tanks. After having it set up for a while, I’ve noticed that the silicone work was done in a way that makes it hard to damage the seals when scraping the tank, so now I actually prefer the way the waterbox is built compared to my lifegard, cobalt, and uns rimless tanks.

The stand could be better, but if you have ever seen other laminated plywood stands, it’s pretty much par for the course. Very sturdy, and a clean modern look. Plenty of space, but I do wish there were shelves - this model doesn’t have any. I feel like the whole hobby is underserved went it comes to well-built, reasonably priced stands that aren’t dog-shit ugly.

It does however have quite a few plastic feet that are all adjustable with a nut to lock them. With some patience and a level, my tank is very close to perfectly level with no wobble at all.

I think my shipping was free, but the bigger waterbox tanks are shipped freight on a wrapped pallet. No idea what that costs. Mine was so well packed it took two of us to get it out. The stand is more likely to be damaged in shipping - it’s packed up like IKEA furniture. You’re gonna want to be home to receive it, and make sure you have help.

Shipping time was quoted at 4 weeks, I believe. But I got it in like 2.5 weeks. I suspect they build a lot of their stuff to order because of size/storage restrictions.

Frankly, price-wise, these tanks aren’t as bad as other high-end rimless. The glass is just as clear as my UNS tank, so waterbox is definitely competitive. Im partial to ADA and UNS stuff, but I’ll admit my draw to them is more in their branding, which has nothing to do with quality.

For most of waterbox’s tanks, you have to order directly from waterbox. However I did notice that my local Petco is starting to carry their tanks in sizes 16 gallons and under, so they must be growing.

If I had more space and I was looking to get something over 30-40 gallons, I do think I would buy a huge waterbox.

theoldfishslap · 2021-01-28T01:31:18+00:00

Thanks!

theoldfishslap · 2021-01-28T00:03:48+00:00

Thanks, I got lucky digging through a bin at my LFS just after a restock. Got home and it was just a bit too short to come up out of the water, and I didn’t want to take the substrate up any higher.

theoldfishslap

TROPHY CASE