Bleah Tuesdays [work]
Feb. 2nd, 2022 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterI'm getting better at orchestrating these labs, but they are still exhausting. Up and out of the house by 6:30 am, long, involved labs that require being "on" for 8 hours, then clean up and home again. By the end of the day I was so tired I had to rest before I had enough energy to go home. Fell asleep by 8 pm; woke up slightly at 9 pm when my "go to bed" alarm went off.
In case any of you have ideas: I need to come up with a method to make dividers/partitions between crayfish. I have a couple of giant sweater boxes, but I want to put physical barriers in them so the crayfish are less likely to attack and eat each other. We have this white plastic grid-like material in the lab, but it floats. The idea would be something that lets water flow freely, but cages in the critters.
While teaching might sound like an amazing job, at some points it's just work, and hard work, at that. I am still hoping that over time I'll manage to get things to a reasonable workload. They're getting incrementally better, but I'm not where I want to be yet, and I don't know how many more years it's going to take to get there (if ever).
...and with that, back to the trenches.
In case any of you have ideas: I need to come up with a method to make dividers/partitions between crayfish. I have a couple of giant sweater boxes, but I want to put physical barriers in them so the crayfish are less likely to attack and eat each other. We have this white plastic grid-like material in the lab, but it floats. The idea would be something that lets water flow freely, but cages in the critters.
While teaching might sound like an amazing job, at some points it's just work, and hard work, at that. I am still hoping that over time I'll manage to get things to a reasonable workload. They're getting incrementally better, but I'm not where I want to be yet, and I don't know how many more years it's going to take to get there (if ever).
...and with that, back to the trenches.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-02 02:27 pm (UTC)I don't know how small a hole a crayfish will fit through, but vent tile is a thing. Might be possible to get something where the holes are small enough to block crayfish?
There's a process rule that success requires not just delivery, but that it become easier to do it next time based on how this time happened. It sounds like you're mostly meeting that but not at a reasonable metabolic cost. I hope there's a way to improve the situation!
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Date: 2022-02-02 02:55 pm (UTC)Thank you for sharing about that process rule - that's a helpful framework to work under. I will say that I'm definitely seeing improvements over what this all required of me in the first year! Part of this is just that the workload is unevenly distributed across the week, with a heavy weighting towards Mondays and Tuesdays. Fridays are a bit intense, too.
Another part of it all is that I'm too much of a perfectionist. It's hard to let go, though.
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Date: 2022-02-02 03:04 pm (UTC)The stuff I'm thinking of as vent tile is ceramic; a thin brick with holes. (Sometimes slots.) There's a fancy grade for fancy bathroom vents and much less fancy grades to provide vents in brick walls, though those are increasingly not-brick and full-depth-of-the-wall these days.
Pretty much a "ask your local tile or builder's supply what they've got thing", especially with the Everything.
Only thing I've ever found to put a dent in the local values of perfectionism is to write out measurable criteria first, and then insist to myself that I have to abide them. (Which means if the criterion has been met, I stop.) Difficult habit to create but it did turn out to be creatable.
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Date: 2022-02-02 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-02 03:18 pm (UTC)I would generally want to use glue, rather than cutting notches; getting acrylic notches to align is nineteen distinct kinds of annoying.
Cut (long strips, spacer squares-or-rectangles), smooth/buff edges, drill (I really hope you have a drill press and can set up stops), strip the covering sheet, assemble in some sort of jig to maintain squareness.
Worries would be fit to the side of the sweater box (if that's got taper, the ends of the strips have to, too, which means an angle gauge is required) and that this is going to be for exactly those sweater boxes, which might well have a shorter lifespan.
Also, the smaller the drilled holes the more of them, so knowing the "no crawfish" size presumably lets you optimise the number of holes you don't have to drill, as it were. :)
I find myself wondering if you could bend U-shapes out of acrylic and set them in the box around the perimeter on the grounds that the crayfish aren't strong enough to move them; saves fitting this box and saves a lot of assembly/gluing/etc. Won't save drilling but at least it's one set of drilling setup, then bend.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-02 10:40 pm (UTC)If you don't mind committing the boxes to this project, just glue the gridwork in with superglue. Otherwise, you'll have to weight it down with something (ceramic or glass?) and attach it at the top. But I'm not convinced the crayfish won't just push it out of the way unless it's solidly attached.
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Date: 2022-02-02 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-03 11:49 pm (UTC)You could use any kind of plastic mesh, or fiberglass door screen even, and just clip it to the sides of the tank to make dividers. Or use fish tank silicone to glue it on. Leave the bottom edge long and weight down with stones or fish tank gravel.
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:24 am (UTC)Thank you. :^)
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:54 am (UTC)Another option is to buy one of those multi-drawer small parts organizers, and keep that submerged. I’ve seen them used in pet stores for the little betta fish, since they have to be kept apart, too. They’re plastic, they’re usually cheap and easy…
For that matter you could just use an array of plastic planter pots. Cover with a screen and weight them down, fill from the top, let them drain out of the bottom. Take out each one as needed individually, or mount them in a tray.
For that matter, you could get a stack of plastic solo cups for cheap. Poke holes in the bottom, weight them down with a screen, and keep them in a plastic tub. The screen will keep the critters contained, and also allow for the water to diffuse across the whole array more evenly, and give you a pretty regulated, even flow of water across the whole matrix.
I feel like there’s one final stage to this, once I figure out how to keep the cups structured within the system… depending on how small the holes are that you drill, you may be able to keep trays of them in a rack, and they’ll all drain down into a tub underneath.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 02:06 am (UTC)Yup, in accordance with the prophesy…
Solo cups with the bottoms cut out, trapped between two window screens. Drill holes through the frames, and use long screws, or chunks of threaded rod to hold it all together.
You can also cut some plastic tube to slide over the threads, to keep the screens a set distance apart. That way you can’t over-tighten, so the cups won’t crush, and the screen won’t come out of the frame.
For the bottom frame, have a nut on the end of each piece of threaded rod, then another after you put the rod through the bottom screen, to sandwich the frame. Then slide the plastic spacers over the rod, set up your cups. Top frame goes on top, and use wing nuts to secure it.
If you’re worried about loose cups, you could probably hot glue them through the bottom screen. Good enough to hold them down, but it shouldn’t be hot enough to actually melt the cups.
If you can’t find a big tub, I think some hardware stores will actually custom build screen frames to fit the tubs you have.
Or, you can challenge Scott to do it. You know, after he’s added a third wheel and a prosthetic bucket to the Jolly Roger.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 02:28 am (UTC)After all that, It occurred to me that there must be any number of pre-partitioned plastic trays and tubs for small parts.
Sure enough. Eventually I hit on googling ‘DIY plastic grid.’
Most of the offerings are from a certain online vendor that launched their CEO into space on a penis rocket. But there’s a lot of pre-fabbed, cut to length, interlocking grid material that slides together like the cardboard dividers in a wine box. And plenty of slots for water flow.