Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

I just had to do it today. I had to glue some corals back. I had 5 large pieces of montipora laying on the gravel and every hour, a crab or fish would turn them over so they were in the dark. For a couple of weeks I would just turn them over so they had light but I got tired of that and I had a few minutes so I glued them all back on. Now I have to look for a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from the clownfish tearing pieces of flesh off of my arm.

 

[Paul B]

It seems that some of my fish are living longer than they are supposed to, at least longer than I thought they were supposed to live.
I don't keep records or remember most of the birthdays of the Supermodels but I seem to have my male pipefish for quite a long time. I think he outlived 2 or 3 females. He may be 5 or 6 years old but I lost his birth certificate. That is long, I think for a blue stripe pipefish.

My yellow clown gobi may be even older and he also went through a couple of females. It could be the other way around because I am not sure which ones are the females of clown gobies as their eyelashes are the same size and they smell alike. I had breeding pairs of those but you really don't want that as they only lay their eggs on live acropora and kill it which is the reason I don't have any more acropora. They lay eggs every week and in a short time will kill a piece as large as a cantaloupe, Trust me. If you only keep one, they don't kill or even annoy anything and are perfect pets.

Two of my hermit crabs died a few years ago and they reached 12 years old. I don't know if that is old for a hermit crab or just teenagers. The few I have now are reaching that age but I don't keep track.
One of my bangai cardinals is past his supposed age by a year or two and my breeding pair of watchman gobies died at about 12 years old.


I am not sure how old my male mandarin is but he also went through 2 or 3 females. I killed my last one at about 10 years old so I know they can get at least that old. I am guessing maybe 15.





I don't have a lot of luck with these guys.


Here is the little devil with her eggs just above her killing an acropora.


These things I can keep anywhere from one hour to one day.



Forget clownfish, they are all on social security


Of course these guys are the easiest and never get ich.

 

[Paul B]

Tomorrow I am going for acupuncture. I have a very Manly degenerative disk and if you live long enough and do more than carry protest signs and text, you may also get these old people things. Anyway almost all of your nerves go right next to your disks which were actually a mistake when they designed us because those disks are not really built too well. They are alright for the first 50 years but not so much after that.
I think pressure treated wood would have been better.

Our nerves should have been designed to go through aluminum tubes outside our body away from those disks. But I wasn't there when Al Gore invented nervous systems.
Anyway, when disks start to bulge or corrode they give you all sorts of problems depending on which nerves they press on. If it's your ear lobe nerve, you can get your ears pierced without any pain, but I don't do earrings.
It's not the end of the world and I can still do backflips. But only once.

I really don't believe in acupuncture, chiropractors, faith healers, witch doctors, herbalists, etc. I also don't have a lot of trust in real doctors unless you have an arrow sticking out of your head. If that is the case, they will know immediately what code to put on the form to send to your insurance company.
But my wife goes to this acupuncturist and she is kind of a Supermodel so I will try it. If nothing else at least I will be a little more porous, and poor as insurance companies frown on acupuncture.

 

[Paul B]

Happy Birthday America.

 

[Ruth C Lewis]

What is the one 3rd pic from the bottom. Its different

 

[Paul B]

That's a garden eel.

 

[Paul B]

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July.
We celebrated America's birthday from our boat as we usually do with good friends that we have had since high school.
Anchored in Port Washington we could see the fireworks from New York Harbor, The Bronx and Connecticut as well as over our heads in the harbor. Great weather and great night.

 

[Paul B]

I collected a bunch more amphipods and mud yesterday as I was exploring the muddy tide pool. There are thousands of baby horseshoe crabs but the mud there is shoe sucking mud and you sink up to your knees and lose your shoes. I am surprised the crabs like it.
It's places like that which keeps horseshoe crabs abundant in the Long Island Sound but unfortunately, the horseshoe crabs are less every year. I used to see dozens of adults hanging around or mating. This year so far I have seen one adult.
Their muddy habitats are slowly disappearing to condo's and parking lots. The place I go is a wildlife preserve but it is only about 200 yards long which isn't real big and the part the crabs spawn in is not much larger than a medium size home.
Even the fiddler crabs are disappearing. I still find maybe a hundred or two there, but I used to see thousands.
I also have not seen a hermit crab there in a few years and they used to be very common.
I still collect mud there for the bacteria and I am sure that will always be available.

 

[Paul B]

This morning I came downstairs and looked at my tank and all of a sudden, the tank lights went out. I walked around the back of the tank in the closet, and the lights came back on. I stated looking at the fish and the lights went out. 15 seconds later, they came back on and I walked around the back, and they went off. Every 10 or 15 seconds the lights would go out.
It is easy to fix a problem if it stays a problem but much harder to fix something that keeps fixing itself.
But in this case, I figured it out easily. I touched the copper tubing that the LEDs are mounted on and it was hot. Then I touched the "radiator" I built that is supposed to cool the water running through the tube that ther LEDs are mounted on and it was cold. That means the water is not circulating and the LEDs were getting too hot.
I didn't even think the pump was needed but now I know it is.
The tiny pump was very hot so I knew it was getting power but it was not pumping. Luckily, I have a spare.
I drained the water out of the water cooled lighting system and installed the new pump. The old one does not come apart so I will just buy another spare. This one lasted a couple of years and they are not that expensive.

 

[diana a]

I collected a bunch more amphipods and mud yesterday as I was exploring the muddy tide pool. There are thousands of baby horseshoe crabs but the mud there is shoe sucking mud and you sink up to your knees and lose your shoes. I am surprised the crabs like it......

I still collect mud there for the bacteria and I am sure that will always be available.

Hi Paul

I have a question...What exactly do you do with the mud you collect for bacteria? Reason I ask is that I live near Sandy Hook and this is available there. Thank you. BTW your tank is stunning!

 

[Paul B]

Diana, I take a little of the mud, maybe a few tablespoons and "shoot" it around my tank with a baster. I also shoot some into my UG filter and behind the rocks. Sometimes I just take a cup of it and put it in a small container on my gravel for a few days then remove it as I just want the bacteria and not so much the mud.
Sandy Hook mud should be perfect.

 

[Paul B]

I know I keep saying my bangai cardinal is dying of old age but he is still with me. As a matter of fact, his cataracts cleared up and he is livelier than ever and he eats much more than he ever did. I think he is having a mid life, or end of life crisis as he looks like a teenager. I can't make heads or tails out of it as he didn't hardly eat anything for a couple of months and he is making up for it now. Very weird.
On another note one of my flasher wrasses jumped out. I wish it was my much to big blue wrasse. Soon I will catch that guy and give him away because he is about 7" and much to big for my tank. He also jumped out once and it was so quick that he jumped into my hands and I threw him back. I should have thrown him in a bucket but I didn't think fast enough. At my age thinking is much slower than it used to be. I am still waiting for the results of the last Presidential election.

 

[diana a]

Paul

I just realized who you are! I have read so many of your threads on RC. I posted a question from an old thread about collecting seawater and storing it....

I purchased from my LFS (6) 5-gallon water containers. When storing seawater in them, do I leave the cap on tightly or do I need to place an air-stone in each container? I want to use my 40g with NSW as a test. Just need to know how long and how to store the NSW.

 

[Paul B]

I would leave them open but I don't think it matters. If you want to use NSW right away, the same day, just check the temp and salinity and dump it in. If you want to store it, you may see stuff settling. That is normal and is dead bacteria and possibly plankton. The water may get cloudy for a few days. That is also normal as those things will decompose. Wait until it clears and dump it in.

 

[diana a]

Thank you!

 

[Paul B]

Some thoughts about the hobby. Now it is boating season so I have little time for my tank. Sometimes I get home after the tank lights go out so the fish go to sleep without dinner. They get over it. Sometimes I can't change water for 3, 4 or 5 months, I never got a bad text from my fish as they understand. My algae screen is so full it put up a sign that reads "Produce Stand". My fish know me and forgive me.
I think we think too much into this, especially with those stupid test kits where many people believe the numbers have to be exactly in the blue area of that little paper that comes with that $5.00 chart.
If the fish are smiling and the corals are living and opening up, forget those kits and go out for a nice Merlot, watch the sunset, have a chocolate covered strawberry. The fish are fine.
But too many times we go nuts and get all stressed. If you want to get stressed, tell your wife she looks fat in those shorts or after she spends $175.00 on a hair cut, tell her she looks like she combed her hair with an egg beater.
If you get stressed about anything in this hobby, sell everything and get out, maybe sell canoe's.
It's a hobby and everything about it is supposed to be either fun, interesting or at least make girls like you. (If you are a man of course)
My wife is a little mad at me right now because a few days ago our Daughter invited us to a dinner at a very expensive restaurant in Manhattan for a party.
I hate Manhattan and tell people all the time that if not for my Grand Kids you would have to give me at least $5,000.00 to go there for anything. If you offer me $4,999.00, I won't go. I worked there for 40 years and that's how I feel. If course if you offer me $5,000.05. Then I may go.
Anyway. My wife has always been GaGa over Tom Sellic.
We didn't go.
Guess who was sitting in the next seat that my wife was supposed to sit in? Yep. Tom Sellic.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

Some thoughts about the hobby. Now it is boating season so I have little time for my tank. Sometimes I get home after the tank lights go out so the fish go to sleep without dinner. They get over it. Sometimes I can't change water for 3, 4 or 5 months, I never got a bad text from my fish as they understand. My algae screen is so full it put up a sign that reads "Produce Stand". My fish know me and forgive me.
I think we think too much into this, especially with those stupid test kits where many people believe the numbers have to be exactly in the blue area of that little paper that comes with that $5.00 chart.
If the fish are smiling and the corals are living and opening up, forget those kits and go out for a nice Merlot, watch the sunset, have a chocolate covered strawberry. The fish are fine.
But too many times we go nuts and get all stressed. If you want to get stressed, tell your wife she looks fat in those shorts or after she spends $175.00 on a hair cut, tell her she looks like she combed her hair with an egg beater.
If you get stressed about anything in this hobby, sell everything and get out, maybe sell canoe's.
It's a hobby and everything about it is supposed to be either fun, interesting or at least make girls like you. (If you are a man of course)
My wife is a little mad at me right now because a few days ago our Daughter invited us to a dinner at a very expensive restaurant in Manhattan for a party.
I hate Manhattan and tell people all the time that if not for my Grand Kids you would have to give me at least $5,000.00 to go there for anything. If you offer me $4,999.00, I won't go. I worked there for 40 years and that's how I feel. If course if you offer me $5,000.05. Then I may go.
Anyway. My wife has always been GaGa over Tom Sellic.
We didn't go.
Guess who was sitting in the next seat that my wife was supposed to sit in? Yep. Tom Sellic.

Paul couldn't agree with you more. Manhattan isn't for me and I never worked there (only been maybe twice) I am not a city person at all give me the back woods any day.

I don't test much. In fact with my current tank I just tested for the first month or so to check the cycle but since then my kit is sitting in the cabinet doing nothing but collecting dust. I have always said that as long as your fish and corals are happy and healthy then your doing it right. There days I don't feed my fish but they are still there. Now I do keep up on my maintenance but if I miss a week I don't stress over it. I do the maintenance because I use that time as a break from life going around me. During the maintenance I am just focusing on the tank, the fish, and the corals. I'm not thinking about work, the kids screaming the wife nagging, bills being paid, or anything else like that. Its just me and the hobby.

Sorry your life missed Tom Sellic. You will need to find a way to make that up with her before you end up inside your tank as fish food lol.

 

[Paul B]

Njtiget, thanks for posting. You are correct she can see Tom Sellic on TV but she can look at me every day.
My test kits are so old they came in wooden boxes. Wood is the stuff we make trees out of. The instructions read to keep in a cool chariot.
I can't get some of the reagents out of the bottle, which is made out of Bakelite and the rest I can't get the cork out.

 

[Paul B]

So I go to my boat today because for some reason, there is always water in the bilge and it drives me nuts. For 10 years I have been cramming myself in the bilge with a rag and a bottle of Lestoil so I can get the grease off of everything especially those white bilge pump hoses in between the engines. You can barely make out the red bilge pump all the way in the back. There is always grease in there because even a drop of oil in a bilge will coat everything if there is water in there.

Years ago I installed that bilge pump on a 24" piece of 1/4" plexiglass and secured the plexiglass in a place in the bilge where I can easily remove a screw and take out the bilge pump that is in a place that you can't get to.



Today I brought my camera there which has a 6' flexible hose in it so I can get the camera all the way under the engines to look for the leak.



So I removed all the water in the bilge and cleaned it nice and white. I also cleaned those corrugated hoses. I then did something else for 10 minutes and when I came back, there was water in the bilge.

I again sucked out the water with a vacuum and dried it nice and clean. I went and did something else and when I came back, there was water in the bilge.

OMG, I am going crazy, there should not be water going in there but it is a very tight spot and I can't see where the water is coming from.

It didn't help that it is 90 degrees and the sweat coming off of me is also filling the bilge.



I stick my feet up in the air and get my head all the way down there wondering how I am going to get out and I see it.

A little waterspout of water is coming into the boat from a tiny hole in the middle of the bilge, under where I have that plexiglass bracket that I made to hold the pump.



Then I figured it out. When they built the boat, the Jiboni that installed the bilge pump must have drilled the hole for the screw all the way through the hull into the sea. That must have been tough because the hull is probably 2" thick there.

He probably put in a screw he got in Home Depot because it was not stainless steel and it rotted out leaving this nice little hole where water comes in.

I got a real stainless steel screw and screwed it into the hole.

Problem solved and it only took me 10 years to find it.

I would never have found it if I didn't take the pump. bracket and hoses out to clean.

The water was probably filling the bilge about 2" deep and the bilge pump would come on pumping out most of the water until it filled again.

 

[diana a]

Wow! Glad you finally got it fixed