Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

While I was trying to grow hair, I built a large pipe filled with gravel that the water slowly went through. I added Vodka to it every day to grow bacteria and the Vodka was supposed to be used up in the pipe but I think I overdosed it. I first noticed a large (14") sponge died but I didn't think much of it because I was thinking of removing it anyway to put something else there. Then a 3" band on one of my large montipora's bleached, but the top and bottom of that same piece are fine. The larger monti also seems fine. I also lost two fairly large (and new) staghorn corals and another unknown coral I got last week. I changed some water and added Chemi Pure and the dying seems to have stopped. Everything else looks OK except my favorite torch coral which is half dead. After it stabilizes, I will replace that piece.

 

[Paul B]

I am to busy this week but soon I want to replace those staghorns. The rest of my montipora's are fine and in a few months I am sure they will re grow over the dead part. Only part of one died, I am not quite sure why. The other corals look fine, even better than they did. I am also not sure why but whatever I did, if I didn't do it so much probably would have been a good thing. The dunkins especially look like they want to grow up the walls.
Today we are going to my Grand Daughter's school (preschool) she is not quite 3. My wife and I are giving a SCUBA and underwater demonstration. We have a live lobster, some SCUBA stuff and underwater pictures as well as her Mother (out Daughter) SCUBA diving. We also did this when our daughter was about 4 or 5 so she was a little older. These 2 and 3 year olds will not understand and will just pick their nose, and maybe take a nap but it is fun and I am looking forward to it. We hope to do it again in a few years when they understand.

 

[mrehfeld]

She is precious.

 

[Paul B]

Yes she is, Thank you.

 

[Paul B]

Today I did something with my tank that I rarely do. I took some water to get tested for calcium and alkinity. I did that because many times people ask me those readings and al I can do is stutter and make up a story. But today I had it tested and the calcium is like 525, which is a little high, but no one is complaining. The alk is about 12. Not to bad for using driveway ice melter and baking soda for dosing. Those were almost the same readings I got by a lab about 10 years ago when they tested my water. Now it is just a little higher so I will stop dosing for a month or until I remember again. Dance

 

[Paul B]

I spent about an hour on my tank today which is much more then I ever do. I decided to remove half of the screen in the algae trough because there was no algae growing just tubeworms and corals which completely filled the trough almost preventing the water from getting through. I had to pry up the screen with a large screwdriver because it was completely cemented to the bottom with coral and coralline algae. Underneath the thing looked like a bristle worm farm. I removed those as they were large and I am sure on the side I didn't touch there are dozens more. The stuff I removed would have made a great starter culture for a new tank. I threw it behind the rocks in my tank because I didn't have the heart to dump all those tube worms and brittle stars.
The part I cleaned I replaced the screen with a new one but this time I placed a cotton cloth on top of it. I have been experimenting with cotton cloths for a few months by draping a cloth over the side of the trough so that just a little water gets wicked up into the cloth and drips into the tank. That experiment was a huge success and that cloth is covered almost 1/2" thick with algae.
When I get time, probably in the winter I plan on taking advantage of that experiment and completely removing my algae trough and re-designing it so that the algae is not submerged. I just want water spraying on it but I want it to be exposed to the air. I think this is going to have a fantastic outcome.
Just my opinion of course.

 

[Paul B]

Today my wife and I did a little boating as we always do in the summer and I took the dinghy to shore to do a little collecting just before the storm rolled in. We just made it back in time but I managed to get a bucket full of amphipods. This is the first collecting of the year and I hope to go again this week depending on the weather. I like to dump thousands of amphipods along with some mud in the early summer. My tank depends on it.

 

[Paul B]

After about 16 years one of my fireclowns feels he must bond with an anemone. I don't have any anemones so he is using a very large (and expensive) Duncan for a host. The Duncan is not amused and has not opened in a couple of weeks. I would like to spear the fireclown but probably would miss and make a hole in the bottom of the tank. Her 24 year old mate just looks at her and laughs. I am glad he doesn't need an anemone and just stays in his cognac bottle.

 

[Paul B]

I posted this someplace else and decided to put it here, because I like it. If you don't want to read it, I think Oprah is giving away free Cadillac's to homeless cats.
I have killed so many fish that I probably have helped with the extinction. Why do you think we thought Coelacanth's were almost extinct? It was me. When the hobby started (and I have written extensively on it and dedicated a chapter in my book about it) aquarium keeping was a challenge, but it was a challenge that was good for the hobby as that was when much of the critical knowledge was gained as there was no internet, so no wrong information. No information at all as a matter of fact but what we did know, we learned from trial and mostly error. Very early in the hobby, so early that it was in my fresh water phase, or "bait" as I like to call fresh water fish, I learned the biggest secret of the hobby. The secret that overshadows all other things in the hobby. Much bigger than Obama's college records or where Brian Williams gets these stories. The secret (which I have also written about ad nausea) is still helping me today and it is the one thing that is so important that everything else in this hobby falls by the wayside. No one wants to use my secret so I stopped mentioning it. People would rather take a fish from the sea, put it in a small, bare quarantine tank for 72 days. Try sitting for 72 days in a small room with no friends and not even a Supermodel or reality show to look at. So in 72 days the fish is so stressed that it is thrilled that now it is put in a tank of creatures it has never met and we feel it is just going to forget what we did to him and go about his business of living a happy healthy life.
Unfortunately that fish in many cases will be fed a diet of flakes, pellets and frozen whatever that is supposed to keep him healthy. Of course many times, in spite of all that quarantine time it comes down with parasites and we read:
OMG, I quarantined everything including my Old Aunt Ester, put my quarantine tank 157 yards away from my reef so the ich didn't get in from osmosis and the fish are still dropping dead from the disease. You know I am right as you can easily search and find dozens of those threads right on reef Central. Now why is that? Maybe 72 days isn't long enough, maybe we should quarantine for 3 years. Maybe we shouldn't have reef tanks, just large quarantine tanks. Would that stop the dreaded ich?
DSBs, SSBs, no sand bed, reverse UG filter, starboard, Dutch Mini Reef, Jaubert system, the fish don't care and it doesn't matter what type of substrate we have. There are all sorts of successful tanks and it has nothing to do with substrate. Yes, I do joke around (a little) because, to me, this is a hobby and supposed to be fun. But all we hear is problems. Why is that?
It's because many people don't use my secret. No, I am not lucky. My fish don't live long enough to get social security because they are lucky. It's not even because of my UG filter although I would like it to be. It is not because of quarantining or not quarantining (but that does have something to do with keeping fish healthy and not because of what you think, just the opposite)
I don't go on so many threads on here any more because of the arguments and I am old and tired. It is so simple but people refuse to take the time to do it.
The secret is live worms.

That's it. Live worms every day will keep the fishes immune system so fine tuned that you could put the fish in a meat grinder and he will come out fine. OK, maybe not. Now I realize many, or most, OK, "all" of you think it can't be worms. The old guy is nuts. He is senile. Maybe so. But I am right now looking at my tank. I am watching the 24 year old fireclowns playing with each other and the other 15 or 20 fish that have never been quarantined, have no DSB, have never even had a headache but all of them eat some live worms every day with their regular meal of mostly clam. They also know I don't have test kits or a hospital tank and they are not worried. They know that if they are in my tank, most of them will die of old age.
I bought them all and after a little acclimation, threw them in my tank (gently). Even if they had parasites because they are a non issue. Even in spite of the mud, amphipods, flounders, worms, crabs, shrimp and seaweed I collect from a bay and dump in with no fanfare.
I wrote an article about slime and the fishes immune system but I am not allowed to link it here. It is in my book that is not out yet but I probably can't link anything from it here either. But the main thing is live worms. Not bloodworms, not freeze dried worms, not mealworms but blackworms (or earthworms). If you remember your fresh water days, if you wanted to spawn fish the first thing you read was to feed live food. Many of us forgot that bit of advice. We prefer to read the ingredients on a can of flakes and see all the wonderful things they put in it (before it was processed, baked, dried and canned) Live worms have one ingredient, worms. That's the secret. Take it or leave it.

 

[myrjon]

finally , The secret !!!!!

 

[Paul B]

It's not Victoria's secret, but a secret none the less

 

[Paul B]

Last night we again took my boat to the Statue of Liberty as we do a couple of times every year. I still get teery when I get near her. It was a nice trip and we stopped for dinner at a sea side restaurant in Queens. These pictures are from last year but it is the same scene so just make believe I took them last night.

 

[myrjon]

very nice pictures.

 

[Paul B]

I couldn't find my male bluestripe pipefish or my male ruby red dragonette for a week. I am not sure if they went on vacation together or just out for a bite to eat. But now their back, and with no explanation. They won't let me know where they were and I am sure I will never know.

 

[Paul B]

Today I went down to my boat to do some important stuff (relax).
I noticed plenty of grass shrimp around the boat and I collected a bunch. After looking at the expression on their faces I could tell that they would rather stay in the marina than my tank so I said good bye and set them free. They are happy.
So I had a beer, and read the newspaper before going in the cabin, turning on the air conditioner and pondered the universe (took a nap).
Tomorrow, if it doesn't rain I will take my Grand Kids to my favorite tide pool to do a little collecting.

 

[Paul B]

My montipora's are growing back nicely along with everything else.

A good friend of mine is getting married so he took his tank down and gave me 4 wrasses including these beauties.

 

[saltkreep88]

Looks great Paul

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Saltkreep88.
I added this marine Betta today. I took his picture while I was acclimating him because now that he is in my tank, I doubt I will ever see the entire fish again as they are hiders.

 

[Paul B]

I just came back from collecting 30 gallons of NSW and I would swear this stuff gets heavier every time I collect it. Normally I don't do much to it except heat it and add a little ASW because the salinity here in New York is low for some reason but it is very turbid with all sorts of black particles in it so I had to diatom filter it. I only had a very little bit of diatom powder on hand so I didn't do as good a job as I would have liked but now it is crystal clear and I am just waiting for it to heat up before I dump it in. I even checked the nitrates and they are zero, calcium is 440.
I took it from the Coast Guard Station near Jones Beach. Near here.

 

[Paul B]

Last night was the best fireworks display for me personally (since the By Centinial)


We were anchored out in a bay in the Long Island Sound about 100 yards from the fireworks barge so they exploded over our heads. Our closest, life long friends were with us, But the best part is that from there, we could see Manhattan, Queens the Bronx, Connecticut and Long island so we were completely surrounded by fireworks besides the ones over our heads. At the end I blasted "God Bless America" and all the boats blow their horns. There were quite a few boats and thousands of spectators on the shores. Of course I got stopped by the Coast Guard on my way beck because one of my navigation lights went out, but I replaced the bulb in a few minutes and all is well. I hope everyone had a great time.