Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

If this goes as planned, (not likely) After I empty out my existing tank I will scrape off all the mulm growing on the sides and back to add to my new tank and under my UG filter. I can't wait to see what is growing under there and I will also be bringing whatever that stuff is. I will try to eliminate the larger bristle worms, the 2 foot ones with the antlers and Godzilla larvae. I will have to break off all my montipora and try to get most of the rest of the corals and sponges out. I am sure I will lose some, or maybe even all my corals as the lights may not be functioning correctly for a while as I build stuff. It all depends on if I can keep this house for a few days after I own that house. If I have to move out of here before that place is finished, I don't think the tank can stay running as I will have no place to transfer the livestock and rocks.

 

[Mark_C]

My initial thought was, 'Why doesn't Paul just hire supermodels to move the tank for him'?

So, I went to Google, and typed in, 'Supermodels lifting things'.

I got this...


May be best to move it yourself. Fabio probably doesn't want to chip his nails, they do look quite spectacular.

Wish I were closer to help.

 

[Paul B]

He is a blonde, but not the type of Supermodel I was thinking of.

 

[Paul B]

These little striped cardinals are spawning. I have 3 of them and it seems 2 of them are female and are pregnant to the joy of the one male.

But cardinals are very easy to spawn and they will spawn even if you lay them down on the asphalt of interstate 80 on a hot summer day and a Mack truck runs them over twice. Not a really big Mack truck like a tractor trailer but a smaller dump truck that is only maybe half full of ball bearings or old VCR tape players.

 

[Paul B]

So a few days ago I took 2 other couples and my wife out to dinner on my boat.

On the way to the boat I noticed that the air conditioner started blowing warm air so I looked at the temperature gauge and the car was overheating. Great, just what I want with a car full of people and other people meeting us at the marina in five minutes.

Luckily I was right near a gas station so I quickly went in there and shut the car off.

I open the hood and antifreeze is flying all over the place.

Now I have to wait five minutes for it to cool down and dissipate the smoke. I get a rag and open the radiator cap. Of course by now I need antifreeze so I buy a gallon from the station. I put it in and wait a few minutes for it to cool down further. I start it up and it seems fine so then I drive the ten minutes to my boat to meet the rest of the group.

I figure I will fix it tomorrow and I have the rest of the antifreeze with me in case I get stuck again.

We get on my boat and go to dinner at City Island in the Bronx and it was excellent.

We made it home in my car with no problem and I checked the oil which was a quart and a half low. I figure between that and the antifreeze probably being low, It will be fine now.

"Yeah Right"

The next day we drove about half an hour to my friends boat for a dinner cruise and on the way home, the thing overheats. Great. I cool it down, put in antifreeze and get it home.

Today I checked it out and what do you know, the fan isn't working.

These silly cars with the engine in sideways are always a pain to work on and to change the fan, you have to be Houdini and take half the car apart. This car is a PT Cruiser and is about 4" off the ground. It's like working on a toy. Of course I disconnected the fan wires first and connected them to the battery to make sure the thing was broken and I checked the 3 relays that control it.

I take out the fan and only cut myself 4 or 5 times because I think as they assemble these cars, they purposely sharpen all the ends of any exposed metal to see how much blood they can make you lose as you work on the car.

I go to the auto supply and buy a new fan. (These things come with the entire shroud and fan motor in one assembly because God Forbid you can only change the defective motor and keep the fan and shroud)

I get the thing home and compare it to my fan. Of course the wiring connecter is wrong so I have to go back the auto supply (who is a friend of mine) and after 45 minutes of looking it up, I get the correct part.

I stick the thing in and this time only cut myself 3 or 4 times and I don't need a tourniquet.

The fan is behind the radiator and air conditioner condenser.

I put back the grill, hoses, wires, brackets etc and start the thing up. Success.

(I was a GM Mechanic Many Many years ago when cars had cranks to start them)





I know what your thinking. It's a PT Cruiser, a Nerd car and not exactly a "Chick Magnet". You would be correct if a Snowflake was driving it, But I drive it and I am a real Man and not a snowflake. I love this car but I also have one of these.

 

[Paul B]

Just a video to keep it about fish.

 

[Paul B]

OOOOHHHHhhhh NNNoooooo, My blackworm tank crashed.





I don't remember when I set up my blackworm tank but It doesn't support blackworms any more. It must have a blackworm version of the Flu or chicken pox for worms.





Whenever I put in worms, they croak and turn into Jello.

I am currently bleaching it and I will have to cycle it again.

Normally I can add 4 or 5 portions of worms, but no more.



Tonight, after it bleaches for 10 hours, I will fill it with new water from my goldfish pond along with some scurvy stuff from the bottom and some garden soil. That should move along the cycle from 20 days to 20 minutes. I will let you know how that goes.

I won't run my tank without live worms

 

[Paul B]

So today I washed and waxed my "all" fixed PT Cruiser and went for a spin. All of a sudden, It starts to overheat. OOOOOOOHHHHH NNNooooooo. I replaced the fan for nothing. It's something else. I have to question my mechanic skills and maybe get a Nerd card or worse, Snowflake card. Usually when I fix something, it stays fixed. I have completely lost confidence in myself and right now I am sticking my head in the gravel of my tank to hide my shame.

But before I did that, I tried to figure out the problem. I am positive that the old fan was defective. Could the new fan also be defective? I start with the testing all over again. It is hard because my PT Cruiser book is for a much older car and the wiring diagrams are totally different. I search the internet and can't find my car's wiring diagram. Now I have to do old fashioned detective work. I get out my trusty test light and jump in. I test the two relays and they are good. I switch them with each other and that doesn't work. Everything seems good. This is bad. If everything is good and it doesn't work, thats bad. Now I go and take a pain pill and put the car up on ramps. I want to jump out the fan and see if it is defective. I go to un plug the wiring harness from the fan, and it comes apart in my hands. Yeeeeahhh. The plug was loose. Like Duh. When I pulled up on the harness to connect the relays on top of the engine I must have pulled to hard and disconnected the fan wire. Simple two minute fix. I plug it in, turn on the car and the fan starts right up. This calls for two glasses of Grand Marnier and I may even give some to my fish.

 

[Paul B]

Today I emptied out my goldfish pond and took all the fish back to the LFS where I got them from. I always empty it in the winter because it is a small pond and I only really built the thing to put in a fountain that I made from copper sheets and I had no place to put it.
I also put worms in my worm keeper to see how that works.

Then I want to my boat and had to fix the white light in the back. In my boat (and all boats) you need this silly light that sits on a pole about 6' high. (some boats can have short lights) The light reflector broke in a million pieces (apparently someone did the hustle or macarana on it during one of our not so quiet boat parties).
I went to get a new reflector and of course you can't get that. You have to buy the entire thing which costs almost as much as the boat. So I bought a one foot one and cut it apart and used the parts on my 6' light pole. It only cost me $36.00 for the $2.00 part that I needed. I often wonder how people live that don't know how to do things. Very few days go by that something doesn't break and I have to fix it. Either my car, boat or house something always breaks. Do people hire someone to fix all of these things or do they just leave them broken.
My wife has a cousin that doesn't know how to do anything so everything in his house is broken which drives me nuts. 99% of it is a no brainer things.

Here is my fountain. I took a video but I took it sideways. Is there any way to turn a video sideways? Anyone know how to do that?
The copper scoops all move up and down and there is a wheel near the water that spins.

 

[Paul B]

I figured out the video.

 

[Paul B]

I still love looking at my tank after all those years mostly because, well first of all there are no Supermodels here right now and I went to church and breakfast with my beautiful wife this morning so I looked at her for a couple of hours. Now I am looking at my tank. I love the way it is now because it is filled with the combination of fish that I find the most intriguing.
My copperband is a little larger than I would like but it is what it is. My Bangai Cardinal is way past his supposed lifespan and I have been saying for many months that he should pass away soon from old age, but he is still hanging in there. This week he stopped eating (again) but he has done that 3 or 4 times in the last 6 months so I am not sure what he is thinking but I am sure he "misses" the "Misses" who died last year, also past her life span.
I love the bluestripe pipefish. They go off ontheir own to hunt but always find each other and spend time curling around each other, a perfect pair.
My Fire clowns are like an old married couple. Fighting then mating. This has been going on for decades and they never tire of each other.

My other two pipefish, a dragon face and a Janss pipefish are always on the move. The dragon face slowly inching his way along the rocks intently starring at every grain of gravel looking for a pod and the Janss who is like a Javelin cutting through the water searching for new born brine shrimp that escaped from the feeder. At that feeder is normally the two mandarins who stay there long after they ate the last brine shrimp in the hope there is one left. Eventually they get the hint and go out looking for more productive haunts but they always circle back for a quick look at the feeder.

The other cool IMO fish are a possum wrasse that rarely comes out along with a tiny red perchlet. Those two fish really colored up on their diet of worms, new born brine shrimp and clams. They are so much brighter than they were when I got them.

Of course there are quite a few wrasses, bleenies, anthias and gobies that I also find facinating but I forget their exact names so I rarely mention them.

I love this type of tank as I always find something that comes out of hiding that I forgot I had. I forget a lot. Why did I start this? OK I remember.
I do not like tangs and angels except for a hippo tang that I have always had up to a couple of years ago. They are one of the most beautiful fish but not as interesting as some of the fish I mentioned and much more common. You see tangs in every tank and if you dive, you see thousands of them as they are one of the most common fish in the sea. I just got tired of them.

Who could resist this face!

 

[Paul B]

I was just thinking of old times.
I remember once I was stationed in Colorado and in Colorado they have a lot of space. I rented, or borrowed a nice Manly motorcycle and headed out in the mountains to see if I could pick up any girls. After all I thought who I was with my hair and all.

So I see these two girls in a convertible so I head out in the plains after them with all my "coolness".

They finally stopped for a light and I very smoothly pulled up beside them to put my moves on them. I came to a stop, put my foot down, and my bell bottom pants got stuck on the starter pedal and I fell down right in the street next to these girls.

I stayed on the pavement until they left. That was fifty years ago. I am sure those two girls just stopped laughing last Tuesday.

 

[Paul B]

This little Cardinal is so pregnant she doesn't know which way to go.



I just took a picture of this guy because he rarely poses. Unlike Supermodels

 

[Paul B]

I bleached my worm tank because the worms kept turning into Jello. Maybe after so many years they get some weird bug that affects them in a way so they can't sing or do anything so they croak. I don't now. But after bleaching and filling the tank with scurvy goldfish pond water the worms seem fine. You can tell healthy worms because they stay in a clump with their heads (or tails) straight up and not laying all over the place like homeless worms. If you put your ear very close to the tank, you can hear them sing. One or two sound exactly like Pavarotti.

I have been thinking very hard as to how I am going to move this tank and it is not going to be easy. I went to the new house today which is under construction and I need to add heat to that room as well as water, electric and a sewer. Those things are not a problem but this will be in the winter and fish and corals frown on getting chopped out of ice especially in the dark. I am not sure I can keep them warm and lighted until I add those things.

 

[Paul B]

A couple of times a year my town has a drop off place for all the toxic liquids you have laying around that you can't or at least should not put in the garbage and they frown on you dumping it down the storm drains in the street.

Today is the day to do this so I gather all this stuff that I have accumulated in my house over the last almost 40 years I have been living here.

I got helicopter fuel, gasoline, fluorescent green paint, insect killer, sulfuric acid, hydraulic acid, Prizapro, two part epoxy, cleaning fluid, barnacle killing paint, grub poison, weed killer, grass killer, fungus killer, Godzilla Killer, carburetor cleaner, crank case oil and a number of other toxic things.

I take all this stuff and cram it into my car and bring to the beach where they will pick all this waste up. Its a beautiful day and I am enjoying the scenery to the beach.

It's a beautiful and large beach and I am now looking for the pick up point. I don't see anyone there except a girl wheeling a baby carriage. I notice there was a baby in the carriage so i am pretty sure she is not going to take this toxic waste off my hands. I drive to the water and notice the white caps as it is windy.

So I call the Town at 311 and hear the taped message. Then 1 press one for English.
"This conversation will be recorded" OK record it. "All of our operators are busy helping other residents"

Of course they are. (They only have one operator ) So finally I get this friendly sounding girl and she asks me how she can help me. I tell her I am at the beach looking for the toxic waste pick up place. She tells me to enjoy the beach because it is next month.

OK, so I screwed up by a month. Thats better than a year so I head home with all this stuff in my car.

Now I start thinking, if I, God Forbid get into an accident now. All of this stuff in the back will pour all over me. If that happens I will probably turn into Green Lantern, the Incredible Hulk, Spider Man, The Flash, The Torch, Iron Man and Batman's Penguin.
(But not Wonder Woman)

I would be also be fluorescent green, on fire and be able to fly and leap tall buildings in a single bound, but the best thing would be that I could kill bugs with my breath.

 

[Paul B]

I took a video,not a very good video, but a video none the less. The Jans pipefish was shy but you can just about make him out at the 50 second mark.

 

[Paul B]

I just remembered a story as I am waiting for my wife to get up. I had to do some work on my propeller and I didn't want to get into my scurvy marina water and I had my street clothes on. The boat had a sloping back and it was an I/O (inboard/outboard). I tied a rope around my feet and the other end around the steering wheel so I could reach the prop without sliding into the water. My spot in the marina was right in front of the marina bar where there were probably 100 people drinking, dancing and many of them were most likely looking at me thinking I was trying to hang myself.
I get my wrench and inch myself over the back of the boat, Inch by inch I can finally reach the prop. I pull on the wrench,,,, and the rope slips off the steering wheel and I go head first into the water, clothes and all. I stayed under the water as long as I could figuring the people on the dock are all hysterical laughing and I wanted to give them time to stop. I couldn't really swim under the dock and come up someplace else because my feet were tied together and I can't swim real good like that as I am not a manatee.
I imagined I started to turn blue so I had to pull myself up. The water wasn't too deep so I could put my feet down into the ooze at the bottom where they sunk in up to my knees.
I climbed up, not looking at the marina bar and I casually walked over to the hose so I could wash off the black mud because I am sure I looked like the Monster from the Black Lagoon.
Then I looked at the bar like I had that planned and I really wanted to go for a swim with my clothes on.

 

[Paul B]

I swim to or three times a week but 7 or 8 months ago I couldn't swim because of this pain in my chest. I figured with all the asbestos and Agent Orange I have in me I better go (real fast) to a lung Dr. or pulmonologist.

The Dr took X Rays, blood tests, MRIs, yada, yada, etc., and so on and there is nothing wrong with my lungs which is a good thing.

But I still have this pain that wraps around my ribs. There is no such thing as a rib Doctor, Or Ribologist, which surprises me, so I went to the next best thing, a bone guy or osteopath or whatever they are called.

The bone guy took X Rays, blood tests, MRIs, CAT scans Doh Ray Me's etc, and so on and told me, "well, yeah you have these stress fractures, edema, and other things from working construction all your life and you should have been an accountant or shoe salesman.

Go to a Neurologist.

I go to the Neurologist. He takes X Rays, blood tests, MRI's CAT scans, hair scans, bone scans and shows me a picture of Scandinavia where he vacations.

He sends me to a Pain Management guy. The Pain Management guy takes X Rays, MRIs, and checks me for GAC and shoots my back six times with, I think, Prizapro or Rowaphas. But it could have been something else, i am not sure. He sits you in front of an X Ray machine which he uses to guide the needles into your back near your spine, which you kind of need. He said, “See that?” I said Yeah. He said, that is your lung. If I hit that, you are in trouble. I said, No. If you hit that, “You are in trouble.” Not a real pleasant experience.

A few days went by and I still had these pains so he shot me six more times. I said, I think I need more X Rays and CAT scans.

Ho told me to go to a surgeon. I figured if I go to a surgeon, what am I going to tell him? Just make some holes in my back, dig around and see if you find anything wrong!


So I go back to my neurologist (who is a good friend of mine) He tells me, maybe I have arthritis. Go to a rhomitoligist.

So today I went to a Rhomotologist and this was my best appointment so far because the Rhomotologist is a Supermodel.

She doesn’t have much of a clue as to what is wrong with me, but who cares!

Oh, except that I have arthritis. I am quite sure everyone has arthritis but not everyone has a Supermodel arthritis Doctor.

Now I got these cool pills that make me feel like I am an electric eel with a short circuit.

 

[Paul B]

My old Bangai Cardinal is still kicking but he hasn't eaten in about 2 weeks so I think he is finally dying of old age. He is living much longer than their lifespan but now I think the end is near, unless he starts eating again because he has done this twice before. He stopped eating for 2 weeks a few months ago then made up for it and almost ate my TV. He is my heaviest fish and when he goes I only have one large eater, my copperband which is by far my biggest fish. I am moving soon so I won't replace the Bangai as I am not even sure if I can move the tank. It all depends on if the new place is built at the same time I sell my house.

 

[Paul B]

My next tank will be a combination tank with all the innovations that have come about in this hobby. For instance I want a DSB a SSB, BB along with a Undergravel filter and bio balls. This is going to be tough. I guess I will have the BB on the bottom, then a few inches up, put 7" of a DSB, then a few inches above that install the UG filter and maybe the SSB in the sump. Of course there would be bio balls in a housing suspended from the ceiling feeding the algae filter that will be both lit from above and the side and the top. The algae filter would feed the bio reactor, calcium reactor, Rowaphos, GAC, skimmer (with ozone) UV sterilizer and Kalk reactor. Lighting is easier, I would glue LEDs on to PC flourescent lamps and mount that in the same enclosure as the MH lights which would be 14,000K and 20,000K
A controller would alternately cycle all of these lights on and off a few times a second for the shimmer effect. Both a chiller and heater would be run at the same time.
Water changes would be performed every day for a year, then no changes for the next year then by monthly the next. Water would be NSW that would first be stored in an empty ASW bucket to get the benefits of both. The tank would be initially cycled with a damsel that was pickeled in ammonia. Because I don't want to offend anyone that damsel would have died of old age.
Ich will be controlled by adding cleaner shrimp, cleaner fish and manta ray fry that are filter feeders and pick paracites off whales and copperband butterflies.
The tank would be stocked with moorish Idols, twin spot gobies, orange spotted filefish and octopus.
I will report on the progress of this tank in a few years when I am sure it will be overloaded with corals and baby moorish Idols.