Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[art13]

If it makes you feel any better, i used to work on industrial generators for caterpillar. One day i was sitting on the frame twisting a/c wires together for the fuel pump, i never wore gloves before this day, and i should add it was a hot day. Well.. theres no easy way to put this but the power ran through my hand and found a ground through my beanbag and into the frame. I wore gloves after that... We all do some stupid things.

 

[saltkreep88]

I got a full 120 last week from a quietone pump. It is now in the trash.

 

[Paul B]

I will get back to my tank when this is all over. If I still have a tank because I am ignoring it for now. I am having some issues now because my Wife's Mom is on the verge of dying in a nursing home and it should be any time or any day now so we are spending all our time doing that.

 

[Paul B]

I will probably go collecting on this beautiful Father's day after we visit my Mother N Law who is near the end of her life and in a nursing home.
My tank has been without fresh mud all winter and I think it needs a new infusion. I will also collect amphipods, worms, mussels, snails and anything else that looks muddy, dirty or full of life. I realize many people cringe at the thought of putting that type of stuff in their tank, but the majority of those sterile tanks have fish with a very weak, or missing immune system which is the reason for all the disease and getting out of the hobby threads. It is the bacteria, specifically the gut bacteria that keeps our fish (and us) disease free.
The "inside the box" thinking is to try to keep fish away from disease. My thinking is to encourage these bacteria and parasites to live in my tank so the fishes immune system can recognize them and destroy, or at least ignore these things. I don't think most aquarists will ever fully grasp this theory so we will keep having disease threads suck as :My fish have ich, what can I do"? We all know that is the most posted question and IMO there is no need for it.
Soon I will be gone and I fear that this theory will also diminish leaving all those fish prone to un necessary diseases.
Just my opinion of course.

https://www.army.mil/article/161643/Army_s_Research_Institute_conducts_MRE_study_to_improve_gut_health/

 

[Paul B]

I changed one of my seawater circulating pumps this morning. Now it is nice and quiet again. This of course is the engine with the pump removed. It covers those two holes in the block.
Now I can get on with some collecting again.

 

[Paul B]

Today I finally got a chance to take care of my tank. I cleaned the glass and immediately noticed one of my newer gorgonians fell on top of a large mushroom and most of the gorg croaked. That is not a big deal as it happens all the time. Gorgonians are tall and top heavy so if you don't glue them (and your fish don't like the place you put them) they fall down.
I am sure my fireclown picked it up and toppled it. That is a big problem with spawning fish or fish in excellent health, they think they are the boss of you and feel their way of aquascaping is better.

I reached in to move that gorgonian and he bit me, causing me to pull back my hand breaking off a large piece of montipora. This also happens all the time and I was going to break that piece off anyway because it was growing to close to the front glass. So I glued that piece of monti back and while I was doing that, the other fireclown, who must have seen my pain when her mate bit me, also bit me also causing me to pull away breaking off a piece of slimmer coral. Now I got smart. It takes me a while. I removed the broken piece of slimmer with a "grabber" while both fireclowns were scowling at me. Then I glued it back on the other side of the tank. A place where the clowns never visit and probably have never seen. I then decided to give up on maintenance for a while.

I glued back the monti just below the bottle neck and a piece of the SPS near the top a little to the left. (Those monti's always break)

 

[Paul B]

I soaked the tiny pump for my worms in bleach and I noticed that the hole in the magnet is large and egg shaped. This happens all the time with those cheap pumps and it can be fixed, at least for a while by putting shrink tubing over the shaft. That takes up the space and the pump will run for may be another year. Then you just put on another piece of shrink tubing. I have a few pumps running with tubing on them now.
I am also going to slightly add something to my worm tank. I need more eggcrate to put in the trough of the thing. For some reason the worms love to congregate in the holes and it makes a convenient place to suck them out in the correct amounts for my tank. I have some in there now, but not enough.
I am also mixing up some water for a water change as it has been a while and I have been over feeding for a long time.
I was also thinking now that I only have one clown gobi I may again add some acropora. They always do well and grow fast and now that my clown gobies won't spawn all over them, they stand a chance.
Those stupid gobies spawn almost every week and kill over an inch of coral each time. They also always pick a new, live place on the coral to deposit their eggs. I was always more excited that the gobies were spawning than keeping those corals.
They are in this video which I took to show the possum wrasse.
Video by Paul Baldassano

 

[Mark_C]

I changed one of my seawater circulating pumps this morning. Now it is nice and quiet again. This of course is the engine with the pump removed. It covers those two holes in the block.
Now I can get on with some collecting again.

80,000gph? How high do you have it mounted? Must have a hell of an overflow box.

 

[Paul B]

Yes, that engine runs my nano

 

[Paul B]

This morning I helped my Sicilian neighbor, (who was born in Sicily) to put up his 20' flagpole and put the American Flag on it.
Many Americans don't even have a flagpole so I am truly honored to have such good American neighbors.

 

[Paul B]

Today I am making a typhoon in my tank using a diatom filter. I do this once or twice a year to stir up the gravel as much as I can right down to the UG filter plates. The fish seem to like it but the corals always look mad, they will get over it.
In my tank this needs to be done as I run water in reverse through the gravel and if I didn't occasionally do this, the gravel would clog.

This is from an older typhoon a few years ago as I see I had my old lights then. Today I am only using one diatom filter but in my reef, two are really needed. I just don't have the time today.

 

[Paul B]

I just bot back from a great day of boating. Those are my favorite kind of days. It was low tide so of course I went collecting. Amphipods are much more numerous last month but I got a nice haul. Maybe a few hundred but I didn't count them. I also collected some mud (for the bacteria) and some mud snails (by accident) My fish are smiling and all is good.

 

[jose7878]

Hey Paul you should make a video of how you collect your amphipods. And show us what you use to collect them.

 

[Paul B]

Your wish is my command.
First my Grand Daughter points to where the amphipods are.


Then I go there and collect. Video, turn up the sound as these were taken with an underwater camera.

 

[Paul B]

You take those amphipod covered rocks and swish them in a bucket of water. The amphipods get dizzy and fall off. Then you find a nice beach to relax on and have a beer. (or coffee)

 

[redfishbluefish]

Paul, I don't get what you do with the "mud". If I were to put the "mud" from Raritan Bay in my tank, I'd have brown water????

 

[Paul B]

If I put much of it from the Long Island Sound in the reef I would also have brown water. I pour off the loose stuff that floats in the water column a few times, then just use the heavier stuff with the larger particles that sinks and doesn't float around. See that stuff under the mussels above? That would turn the water brown so I rinse it as I said. You don't see any of it in my tank as I am only adding maybe a shot. Much of it I put in my UG filter so it infuses through the gravel. I feel that bacteria runs out tanks and we are here just to make problems. It is the bacteria from mud but mostly from what is in the guts of the food I feed that keeps my fish immune.

 

[Paul B]

While doing some cleaning up in my workshop I came across my fish tank logs from 1974 until the 90s. I listed what I paid for fish, how much they cost, where I bought them and how long they lived. When I get time I will scan some of it and post some of it. This was way before computers so it is mostly hand written until we got an Apple 2 computer in the 90s. I can't scan it all as it is to long but I will look for the more interesting stuff.
I also noticed my tank had some diseases like HLLE and how I cured it.



On another topic, I installed this thing on my boat that tells you how much fuel each engine is using. I wanted to do this for a long time, so a week ago it came in and I went to the marina to install it. It took a couple of hours to install because the cables have to be snaked from the engines to the dashboard and these sensors have to be cut into the gas lines. When I turned it on I got nothing. I checked all my connections, tested the power a few times (the thing needs to be fed power from 3 different locations) Nothing. So I called the company that makes the thing and this technician talks me through all the steps. It is all hooked up correctly. He tells me to take home the chip and update it.

The next day I go there with the updated chip, turn it on and ........Nothing.

So I call again and go through the same thing with another technician. He decides my unit is defective and tells me they are sending me an entirely new unit. It arrived yesterday and today I go there and install the new unit. Turn it on and I get......Nothing.

I call back and this time I get a female. She was very nice and I knew she must be a Supermodel. But I didn't think this Supermodel would know how to fix my problem. Well, I was wrong. I love this girl. I explained the problem to her and we went through the same steps I have done four or five times. Now I am in the engine compartment checking the power connections. She asks if the red wire goes to power? I say yes. Then she asks if the striped wire goes to ground? I say, No. She says, Why not? I say, because in your instructions, it clearly states that if you are not using this to tell you how much gas you have left in your tank, "do not connect the striped wire, instead, connect the brown wire to ground".

She says, Oh yeah, that's a mistake in the instructions........"A WHAT, in the WHAT?" . A mistake in the instructions! And when exactly was I supposed to know about that? I spent the better part of 3 days trying to fix this thing.

But the Supermodel was very nice and talked me through it. She is going to tell someone to change the instructions. So a Supermodel saved my day and all is well.

 

[Paul B]

I was just on my deck feeding my tomato plants when I noticed a wasp nest in my air conditioner. I didn't know if it was an old nest as I didn't see any wasps. So I (smartly) banged on the air conditioner and immediately got my answer. One of them, the meanest one I assume because he seemed to have a tattoo on his ankle, made a "Beeline" or more accurately a "Waspline" for my face. He was to quick for me and got me between my eyes. It feels like I got hit with a hammer. A small hammer but a hammer none the less. Not to worry. I got even with him and he won't be siring any more babies. The rest of his family also better have better insurance than Obamacare because they are going to need it.

 

[Paul B]

I had this guy in my tank for quite a while and he got pretty big. But he always looked sad so a few weeks ago I went on E Harmony/Crab.com and found him a date.
When I first put her in I thought it was love at first sight because he "ran" right over to her. But it was really love at first bite as he quickly got her into a Ricky Nelson.
(Headlock for you kids) I quickly removed the both of them from the water until he got the idea and let her go. Then I released them on opposite sides of the tank so they could be properly introduced gradually.
Now I am happy to report that they spend quality time together and sometimes hold hands, or claws.
I hope to mate them but I think they are way ahead of me. I have not had arrow crabs spawn in my reef in many years and I am excited for it to happen. I know I won't be able to raise them but that's not the point.
They hang in the dark in the back of the tank but if I can get a shot of the both of them, I will try to get it. In the meantime, this is just him, handsome devil that he is.