Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

I will be on the radio this friday (4/22/16) at 10:00am. It is the CW Post station on 88.1FM. It's a New York station so probably 6 or 7 people can get it.

It is a Geezer station and I will be interviewed. Not really about fish, it's a station that caters to retired people (Geezers) and being I am retired and have so many interests, they will talk to me about how I spend my time as they want to get seniors interested in doing things after they retire instead of just watching TV and croaking. I am not really sure what we will discuss but I think it will be interesting.

 

[Paul B]

We went to a really nice all inclusive in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. We went there because our Daughter and Son in Law wanted us to come with them (to babysit) and that was the perfect place for us and the kids. They have a kids club with everything a little kid would want like giant hippopotamuses that spouted water and other things like Supermodels for me to look at. ( I particularly liked the Supermodel that was the singer) The place was great but the diving was not worth it at all. I knew diving there was going to be a waste, and it was not worth the effort to get wet. But it was very cheap, I guess that's why.
They came to get me on the beach with their "Dive Boat". Their "dive boat" was basically a 21 foot row boat with an outboard engine. No place to put anything including tanks and equipment that just rolled around in the bilge water of this very bare boat. If you had sun glasses, a camera, fine china or your best crystal it had to live on the bottom of this tiny boat under the tanks. There was no room for your feet so you hung them overboard. There were about 8 of us on the boat including the "driver" and the divemaster/GPS/depthfinder who stood at the front and pointed left or right so the "driver" didn't run over any swimmers near the beach as we were going full speed.
I was a little concerned because I was by far the oldest guy on the boat (as I normally am) and I didn't see any way to climb back on the thing after the dive. The freeboard (part of the boat above the water) was about 3' and there was no way for me to rocket myself out of the sea like a penguin to get back on this "boat". I asked about that and the divemaster ran up on the beach and produced this thing made from electrical tubing that he said would work as a ladder.
So we get to the site and tried to put on the equipment. I have been diving long before any of these guys were born but I need at least 8" around me to put on the equipment. It's not like you could stand up due to the 6' waves that people were surfing on right next to us.
I get on the equipment and happily throw myself into the water very excited to be off the "dive boat". I bob around a while banging my regulator in my hand trying to get it to stop free flowing for fear that I would run out of air before I sunk.
So we go down to the bottom which they told me was 45' deep. It looked much shallower. The first thing I noticed, was,,, well,,,, nothing. There is nothing there. Sea fans, more sea fans, other sea fans behind the first sea fans and an occasional gorgonian. I did manage to see "1" cowfish, "1" sharp nosed puffer and "1" trigger fish. We spent much of the "dive" looking for a place to tie the dive buoy (Clorox Bottle) to the bottom. That was the most exciting part of the both dives.
We got back on the boat by using the "ladder" and sailed about 100 yards to the second dive site. The second dive was a little better and had many more gorgonians. And in places where there were no gorgonians, there were more gorgonians. It was like a gorgonian warehouse. I think I saw a parrotfish but it may have been wishful thinking.
I fell asleep a couple of times and had to be woken up as I was drifting toward the bottom. I could have just walked on the bottom to shore as it would have been easier than climbing up the "ladder".
My GoPro camera croaked after a few shots but that didn't matter because how many sea fan pictures do you really need?
Flying back to the beach full of tourists at top speed was exhilarating because there was one or two of them that we didn't scare to death.
This is me with the "three" fish that we saw. I was clearly calling for someone with a spear gun to shoot me.



And a gorgonian. I took this picture because I have a few of these gorgonians in my tank. Maybe they "escaped" from there.

 

[Paul B]

I spent 8 days in the Caribbean and my tank is fine, maybe even better than when I left. I think my fish like my Supermodel tank sitter better than they like me. (I don't blame them)
She doesn't know anything about fish but I make it very easy for her.
Before I go, I make up individual portions of frozen food and put it in small containers. They are actually film containers but I realize most people on here were born last Tuesday and don't know what film is, but it is like Scotch tape and pictures stich to it.
Anyway, I make up enough food for a feeding every other day. Every day would be better but I don't want to push my luck by asking her to come over every day and I don't want my fish to get to used to looking at her.
In the containers I put some Mysis, clam, and live blackworms.
I built this frozen food feeder/defroster thing in about five minutes and use it every time I go away. It's just a small powerhead that pumps water into a small container with holes in it.
The Supermodel just has to take the frozen food from the refrigerator and dump it into the small container where it defrosts and gets distributed all over the tank. She doesn't have to mix it with water and all that or even wait for it to defrost. Just dump it in and leave.
If she were to just put in the entire lump of frozen food, one or two fish would eat it all. My copperband would get most of it. This way, all the fish get to eat.

That device is fine for most of my fish but I also have mandarins, ruby red dragonettes and pipefish and they don't have any sense of humor and won't eat any of that frozen food so I designed an automatic vacation brine shrimp hatchery/feeder that will dispends eggs, hatch them and feed the tank for that time.
There is a flake food feeder over a funnel that is at the top of the water which dispenses some brine shrimp eggs into the funnel. A small amount of water is also pumped into this funnel so that eventually the eggs sink into the hatchery where they hatch in about 36 hours and are attracted to the mesh on top.
My fish lay on the thing all day and suck out shrimp. I have been using these two devices for a few years and never had any problems.

This is the defroster, dispenser thing.


This is the hatchery/ dispenser thing.



And a video of it working.

 

[Trio91]

I spent 8 days in the Caribbean and my tank is fine, maybe even better than when I left. I think my fish like my Supermodel tank sitter better than they like me. (I don't blame them)
She doesn't know anything about fish but I make it very easy for her.
Before I go, I make up individual portions of frozen food and put it in small containers. They are actually film containers but I realize most people on here were born last Tuesday and don't know what film is, but it is like Scotch tape and pictures stich to it.
Anyway, I make up enough food for a feeding every other day. Every day would be better but I don't want to push my luck by asking her to come over every day and I don't want my fish to get to used to looking at her.
In the containers I put some Mysis, clam, and live blackworms.
I built this frozen food feeder/defroster thing in about five minutes and use it every time I go away. It's just a small powerhead that pumps water into a small container with holes in it.
The Supermodel just has to take the frozen food from the refrigerator and dump it into the small container where it defrosts and gets distributed all over the tank. She doesn't have to mix it with water and all that or even wait for it to defrost. Just dump it in and leave.
If she were to just put in the entire lump of frozen food, one or two fish would eat it all. My copperband would get most of it. This way, all the fish get to eat.

That device is fine for most of my fish but I also have mandarins, ruby red dragonettes and pipefish and they don't have any sense of humor and won't eat any of that frozen food so I designed an automatic vacation brine shrimp hatchery/feeder that will dispends eggs, hatch them and feed the tank for that time.
There is a flake food feeder over a funnel that is at the top of the water which dispenses some brine shrimp eggs into the funnel. A small amount of water is also pumped into this funnel so that eventually the eggs sink into the hatchery where they hatch in about 36 hours and are attracted to the mesh on top.
My fish lay on the thing all day and suck out shrimp. I have been using these two devices for a few years and never had any problems.

This is the defroster, dispenser thing.


This is the hatchery/ dispenser thing.



And a video of it working.

neat idea

 

[Paul B]

This guy stopped eating today which means he will molt in a day or two. Not a minute to soon as he is becoming to be covered in some algae and a little cyano.
After he molts I will look for a female for him to date as I want them to mate.
I have had arrow crabs mate a few times and it just seems right to get him a girlfriend to try to impress. I got him as a baby and I think he is now ready.

 

[David]

My cleaner shrimp molted in the daytime today. First time any of my crustations molted during the day. Ive always found the molts in the morning.

 

[Paul B]

They are usually shy and do it in the dark.

 

[Paul B]

That arrow crab shed as I knew he would and now he is much larger. So much larger that I am afraid to go to sleep at night as he has been looking at me funny lately with those beady little eyes.
I think he is mad that it is taking me so long to find a suitable mate for him but I am looking for a real cute one, sort of like a Crab Supermodel, so it is taking a while. I find that crabs seem to live forever and that the only time one would die is right after they shed and another creature finds them tasty. I am sure the numerous bristleworms I have smell him and chase him around right after he sheds. If he sheds on the gravel, they will surround him and possibly trip him so that when he falls down, they put him in a Ricky Nelson.
(Full Nelson for you young uns)
I also have some large hermit crabs that I got the size of a pea. Those too live forever and I lost a pair a few years ago that were about 12 years old. They died a week apart.


These guys lived to 12 years old. The female is the cute one with the above the knee shell and blue eye stalks.



These local New York rock crabs you can collect here all over the place. They grow to about the size of a baseball in a year so you can't keep them to long.

 

[Paul B]

Sometimes you just can't win.

 

[Paul B]

It seems that my clownfish spawn almost exactly every 30 days that I notice. They may spawn twice as much as that but I don't notice. The bluestripe pipefish are harder to tell because the male always seems to be pregnant. The mandarins sometimes go through spawning every couple of weeks to a month or more. It is very hard to tell because those, and most fish spawn just before the lights go out. Bangai cardinals need a lot of food to spawn and it is hard to feed them enough in a mixed reef tank. Them, like Moorish Idols lose length on their dorsal fin when they don't eat enough and they will stop spawning. The two adults I have can probably eat more by themselves than all 20 of the rest of my fish with the copperband being second. If I fed them as much as I really should, they would spawn every couple of weeks like they are supposed to but I just can't put that much food in the tank every day or I would be changing the water twice a day. Feeding correctly is always hard in a tank full of corals. My nitrates are already way to high but I really want all my fish to spawn so my SPS will just have to get over it. This has always been a problem and as you know, fish grow. And sometimes they grow much larger than we would like.

 

[Paul B]

This was just published (written by me) about the health, or unhealthy of reefs in the world. http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/reefs-in-decline-6570/

 

[Paul B]

Yesterday I had to take my wife to the emergency room of a hospital. Here in New York we are with in walking distance of 3 of some of the best hospitals in the country and one five miles away, Saint Francis that is rated the best. So we went to the closest one because her doctor wanted her to get a Cat Scan and said the hospitals are not crowded this time of the day. 11:00 am. So we go to the emergency room and "13" hours later she has the 3 minute CAT scan. Now it's almost 1:00 am and we go home.
The hospital workers and doctors are working very hard and running all over the place on 12 hour shifts but there are just to many sick people. And al the hospitals around New York are like that. There was this poor WW2 Veteran that they brought in in an ambulance and the guy looked like he went through the windshield. He was bleeding all over his face and on the floor. He was there for 3 hours still on the ambulance gourney and was still in that spot when we left. It is horrible and will hopefully never go there again. If I was there any longer, I would have built my own CAT scan machine because God knows, there are enough stray cats around here.
PS, they couldn't find out what was wrong with my wife other than the fact that she has MS even though she has it for 18 years.

Video about fish for a change of topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wisMeEfLTzI

 

[Paul B]

My largest montipora coral is bleaching. It is only that one and this is the third time this has happened. It seems after they grow huge, they get bored and start to bleach. I have no idea why and the rest of them seem fine. The last time this happened I had a piece that grew from fingernail size to about 10" round. Then in 2 days it turned white and croaked. It is happening again and I find it interesting. I wish I knew what was going through their head as to why they do this.
But it is what makes this hobby so much better than stamp collecting or trying to guess the phone numbers of Supermodels.

 

[Paul B]

My montipora actually looks a little better so maybe it is just teasing me. The fish are all great, but as I said to big and they seem to like being pregnant.

My arrow crab is still scary and I hope he also stops growing. Another molt and he may break the glass. I can't seem to find my clingfish but he shows up every few weeks and also gets bigger. Tomorrow I have to buy more chowder clams as that is my preferred food that they get almost every day along with the worms and new born brine. If it were not for the bluestripe pipes, mandarins and anthius I wouldn't have to hatch those little suckers every day. But if you want to keep such creatures you need to do that. No, you can't have long term, pregnant mandarins and pipefish by feeding pellets even if they will eat them. Your fish will hate you. I just read some older posts on this and other forums and it seems that a lot of people feel they can't use my methods to keep fish immune or pregnant. I am not sure why because for the first 40 years I had my tank I also had a regular job and still had time to properly feed my fish. Maybe like I keep hearing, I am just lucky.

Yesterday I tuned up my boat. I can't remember the last time I put spark plugs in it and I mentioned that to the mechanic at the marina. He told me that after a few years in salt water you can't get the plugs out any more and they have to pull the engines out for $4,500.00 He must have me mixed up with a Jiboni because if I spend $4,500.00 on anything it better involve Christie Brinkley or any one of the Victoria Secret Supermodels, Hawaii or Tahiti. The plugs came right out because the last time I changed them I put some anti seize compound on the threads. If you do your own work you know what you are getting and won't have any problems the next time. The job cost me $36.00 and took an hour. The actual work was probably 20 minutes and the rest of the time was spent trying to straighten myself up after cramming myself in between those engines.

 

[Paul B]

That montipora that was bleaching seems to be almost fully recovered. That is weird but I think I figured out what was making it fail to thrive. I tested my Alk, something I rarely do, and it was high. Higher than my test kit goes which was 13.
So I just dosed calcium maybe 6 or 7 times with no alk and the thing looks much better and almost back to normal. I didn't test the alk again but I assume it came down.
I once lost a very large monti by bleaching and was wondering what the alk was then. I think in a few days it will be as good as new.
My fish don't seem to care and continue to smile, and spawn.
The white parts were very white a week ago and I was sure it would croak.

 

[Paul B]

I found my clingfish today as I was cleaning the sponge that strains the water that goes to my reverse UG filter. He disappeared for a few weeks. He is happily grazing on the "mulm" that grows on the back of my tank. I knew I would find that little sucker.


I think he is much cooler than a boreing clownfish or tang

 

[Paul B]

Today I noticed my tank had only the blue LEDs lit. My new water cooled home made fixture had a problem. It has worked flawless since I built it but I used old LEDs from an old fixture so I figured at some point there would be an issue. I tired to fix it while it was on the tank but that was difficult because it was hard to test each LED while suspended over the tank and I really didn't want to remove it because it is 6' long and connected to a water pump and radiator. Luckily when I built it I installed unions so I could fairly easily remove it and the electrical parts unplugged. So I drained it and removed it from the tank so I could work on it on my workbench. It took over an hour to repair because two LEDs were faulty. If it was only one it is a lot easier because it is just a question of testing each one in series, but when more than one is bad, it adds some technical issues. I replaced the two bad LEDs and re-glued some reflectors that came off. I also cleaned and polished the splash guard which needed to be done anyway so now it is as good as new. Until another one goes out.

This is the fixture under construction when I first tested it.

 

[Paul B]

I am glad that I found a new reliable source for clams to feed my tank. They sell clams all over the place here on Long Island but sometimes the larger ones are hard to find.
I ran out of them for a week and my fish were carving Human Racial Slurs at me on the glass. But now they are happy.

 

[Paul B]

I have been looking for this little pipe for weeks and couldn't find him. I figured he croaked. But he came out all smiling and happy looking. Who would have thought?

 

[Paul B]

Today I needed to remove my algae scrubber to scrape off the algae. To do that I have to reach in to the back of the tank that is in a wall to remove a hose clamp. AS soon as I touched it ZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
I got a shock. Not one of those little Sissy shocks that some people complain about like when they have a cut and feel a tingle. This was one of those throw you across the room while your shoes stay put shocks that real Men get. I know what a shock feels like because I was a construction electrician in Manhattan all my life. I couldn't figure out where the shock came from so I stuck my hand in there again. That was real smart, and this time the lights went out, GFCI tripped and I will be awake for a week and if I had acne, it would have cleared up.
Now I figured it was not my imagination so I got my meter. I can read 70 volts from my water cooled LED system to ground. I should read zero because LEDs are DC current and shouldn't induce any power. I am not sure yet why I am reading 70 volts AC but I will get around to fixing the problem. If I ground the system there is a chance that I will burn out half or more of the LEDs so I don't want to do that. I don't want to remove the fixture to work on it on my workbench (which is what I should do) as I am sure one, or more of my 144 solder connections is touching the copper frame. It will take a little deducing but I am sure I will straighten it out before I electrocute myself. But at least it brought back memories from when I used to get shocked all the time.