Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

I got up at 5:00 today and baked some really nice looking apple, nut muffins. I get bored in the morning waiting for the world to get up so I have to do something and my fish don't want to be bothered.
I will invite my neighbors (and best friends) over for breakfast because they are snow birds and will be heading back this week to "Sissy land" I mean the Florida Keys for the winter.

Soon we will be getting real Man weather with snow and all.

I would like to collect water at least once more before it freezes and this time of the year it is tough as the sea is angry and very rough. I take it from shore and will probably get soaked. But I am a Man so it doesn't matter. I just have to go a few hundred yards from here to the sea.

My tank is doing really well but a lot of people wouldn't like it as it has some cyano, a little algae and the tips of some of the SPS bleached. That is fine and just the way it is in the sea. It is very natural, the corals fight each other and some win and some lose. My pistol shrimp makes a lot of noise because my purple psudo keeps trying to eat him and he will have none of that. He sounds like he could break the glass which is difficult for a 3/4" crustacean.

I don't like a pristine reef tank as that is not the way Mother Nature designed it. I also have quite a few flatworms which are just free life. I am sure a few of my fish are feasting on them because 3 of my fish are so fat, they can hardly swim and I rarely see them eat. The flatworms are sun bathers and contrary to popular opinion don't hurt anything. Of course there are some species of them that cover corals so we need to make sure what kind we have, if any. But the reefs all over the world house flatworms and a lot of fish eat them. I would never use Flatworm exit or any other chemical for sun bathing flatworms. If I had Godzilla Larvae, I may use something, maybe Alka Seltzer.

Of course I never dip any corals as I think that is just silly.

I didn't collect one amphipod this summer. Amphipod collecting in my new home isn't very productive and it is mostly sand here. You need rocks for amphipods so next year I may have to take a trip to the old neighborhood to do some collecting.

My muffins are ready,, Have a great day

 

[Paul B]

This morning my wife and I went to the Supermarket. We didn't see any Supermodels but as she was picking through eggplants, tomatoes and whatever I got bored and went over to the coffee machine where they also have a few tables.

There were three nice looking Ladies there and they were laughing and having a good time. A white Lady, a Black Lady and a Middle Eastern Lady. They asked my name and I said "Paul". They said Oh, like the Saint. Then they invited me to sit with them. They were very nice and friendly I was thinking, "I still got it."

Then they gave me one of those "Jehovah's Witness" Booklets and I realized, I got nothing.

 

[Paul B]

My wife and I were just talking about going back to California for more stem cell treatments (for her MS) but it is quite costly and the slight benefits only lasted for about 6 months.
We are really hoping and preying that something better comes along.

I posted this the last time we went in 2017 and figured I would post it again because I have nothing else to write:

This week I took my wife to La Jolla California for Stem Cell treatment for her Multiple Sclerosis. It is kind of an experimental treatment but we hope it works.

Before the "visit" began we spoke to the nurses a few times there on the phone and they were so nice I thought they were putting me on. The nurse asked my wife questions like they would before a medical procedure.



She asked my wife for her name, and my wife told her "Dale". The nurse said Oh, Awesome. Then she asked her for her birthday. My wife told her and the nurse said Wow, that’s so cool, thank you for telling me that. She asked her weight and said, Fur sure, totally awesome, you are so nice to tell me that. And the rest of the questions went like that. She didn't want to know anything about me or my fish tank.



I figured marijuana is legal there so maybe they were all "happy".



It was a six hour flight and they picked us up from the airport and brought us to the hotel where we checked in. The Supermodel at the desk spoke the same way and gave us cookies which were totally awesome, Fur sure.

The next day they brought us to the clinic where my wife will have the stem cell treatment. The Supermodel nurse comes in with the same attitude, thanking us and explaining the treatment and all that.



Then the doctor comes in with his arms stretched all the way out and says to my wife, First of all, let me give you a big hug. I don't remember any of my doctors here hugging me. Then the doctor explains her treatment to us for an hour and twenty minutes, all the while joking and making my wife at ease. She was really happy when the doctor told her that she doesn't have any belly fat so he has to harvest the fat from her thighs. (They get the stem cells from your fat) He couldn't believe her age and told her she is in the best shape out of almost anybody he treats and that she must spend a lot of time in the gym. She has gone to the gym four times a week for forty years. He didn't mention anything about my thighs or me not having any belly fat or anything.



After the treatment they bring us back to the hotel and call us to see how she is feeling and if she would like another hug, or cookies.

It was the nicest visit to not only a doctor’s office, but to anything.

We got home late last night and I see I got three E mails from them thanking us and asking how my wife is.

That entire experience is so different from a doctor’s visit here in New York.



A visit to the doctor’s office here would go something like this.

First thing in the morning you would call the doctor’s office and get elevator music with a recording that says "Your call is important to us, stay on the phone and your call will be answered by the next available operator". You would get that message twelve or thirteen times with 20-30 minutes of elevator music in between. Then someone would answer and say

"Please Hold."

Now you hear the music again with that same message.

You are now eating dinner with the phone on speaker on the table right next to the bread and mashed potatoes.

The operator comes on and says "can I help you?" You finish chewing and say: Yes, I am trying to make an appoin......... "OK, I will connect you with the appointment desk." Click

You hear:

"Your call is important to us, stay on the line and a representative will get back to you"

Now dinner is over and you are sitting on the couch watching TV with the phone still on speaker. It's hard to concentrate on the TV with Beethoven’s sixth symphony playing through the phone.

"Hello, can I help you? "

Yes, I would like to make an appointment.

"Sorry, the office is now closed; please call back in the morning."



After a few days you get an appointment the week after Easter. It is now December.

You get to the office and park, in the next town because the lot is full and there are a pickup trucks and wheelbarrows in all the handicap parking spaces.

Finally you get into the office and get in line at the desk. You grab lunch.



"The doctor will see you now"


The nurse or the lady who washes the windows shows you to the little room where you get naked, put on a paper gown and wait.

You finish your lunch while you read, "Pregnancy Today or Golf Magazine". Two things you wanted to read but never had the time.

The nurse comes in and asks for three forms of identification with a picture ID and wants to know your medical insurance group number and if they are still in business and how you will pay if the insurance doesn't cover you and how much money do you make as well as what kind of car you drive and what sign are you.



The nurse then says, what’s your name? "Paul", "How do you spell that?" Like the Saint, "Which Saint, Peter?"

No, "P" as in pin head, "A" as in "Are you kidding me", "U" as in are "U" kidding me, and "L" as in "Let me know the college you graduated from".

The nurse leaves.

After you are finished with Golf Digest and have learned 14 ways to breast feed in a subway, the doctor comes in. He doesn't hug you or look at you but looks at your chart and says. I don't see anything blaring here maybe you should see a Podiatrist.

 

[Paul B]

I got back form the surgeon just now and it seems he wants to tear out my new titanium knee and try it again.
There is a problem with the plastic part that the titanium rubs against and it is not making the tendons happy so they go into spasm.

I am scheduled for the surgery in February but I am not sure I am going to go ahead with it. It will be another year recuperation and I don't want to put my wife through that as she needs me to be able to walk so I can help her walk.

If the both of us can't walk, we will have to buy a drum, fife and flag and walk down the street like that.

It won't get any better but it may not get much worse so I am thinking of trying to see if I can hold out for a year, like a real Man would do.

I just gave it a freshwater dip and now I am soaking it in Prizapro .

The Dr. said to isolate it for 72 days and keep it far away from my other knee.


On another note, the doctor is near an LFS so I bought 3 fish which I just threw in my tank. Another possum wrasse, a bananafish and some other kind of wrasse that looks really cool.

The possum doesn't look to good but he didn't look to good in the store either. I think he will snap out of it and be fine as soon as he realizes where he is.

 

[Paul B]

I looked at the tank this morning before the lights came on and that Possum wrasse is "running" around looking for something to eat. He wouldn't eat his dinner last night so he won't be able to eat until tonight. I don't cater to slouchers. He has to live with my rules, ,I don't have to live by his.

The banana fish stays right in the front and is a really cool fish. I have a picture of my other banana fish someplace. My last ones a few years ago even spawned.

That other very cool purple wrasse I have not seen yet, but wrasses do that. They could hide for months. I am pretty sure when he smells the nice clam dinner I whipped up for him, he will be out.

I am not sure if the Possum wrasse is male or female because I didn't smell him, (or her) Females smell like Channel #5 and males smell like sweat.

Here they are.


Of course, like most people I have too many fish now but I will have to live with that. Most of them are not old enough to die of old age but that new wrasse may jump out. My Janss Pipefish is a few years old so I guess he is old for a pipefish and the fireclown is about 28, but I think they live into their 30s.

I also don't know how old my copperband is but I doubt he is 10 years old. Probably only 8.

 

[Paul B]

I just cleaned my pumps and venturi valve in my skimmer. It's amazing the amount of stuff that grows on things in a salt tank. Everything is clogged with those hard tube worms, brittle stars and bristleworms, especially the intakes for the powerheads and I really hate those Korilia type pumps with the exposed grills, they are the worst and the hardest to clean. \

If I get ambitious I need to cut back the blue sponge because it wants to take over not only my tank, but my Man Cave.

I think the possum wrasse I added last week is fine but I am not sure because I have two of them and I rarely see one of them so I doubt I would ever see the both of them at the same time. There are a lot of hiding places in my tank so a lot of my fish I almost never see but those tend to be the fish I like the best.

I also have a huge decorator crab but I see him before the lights come on.

Those acropora "sticks" I added a few weeks ago which I thought croaked colored up nicely and are covering the epoxy that I stuck them on with.

I still haven't seen the last Queen Anthius I added a week ago, but as Queens, they do that and I am not concerned.

I took some video's
I wanted to get this purple guy. I think he is eating flatworms

 

[Paul B]

Just finished my "Money Machine"

Not really Steam Punk so I am not sure what it is.

 

[Paul B]

My Copperband has a problem, she sees fine and can probably see better than me, but her depth perception is off by a few millimeters. She sees the food but snaps at it just short and misses. Then she looks at the food in bewilderment because she can't understand why she can't bite it. Now I think she is getting tired of trying to eat because she knows she can't.
This is neurological. I know we think we can cure everything in fish, but we can't. Just like we can't cure MS, Parkinson's, Als, Lou Gehrig's disease etc.
I can hold a pice of clam, her favorite food, right in front of her mouth and she will continually try to get it, but she can't.
It could also be an eye muscle problem. I myself had a similar problem and was fixed by a slight eye muscle tightening up operation. We are not yet at the point where we can operate on a fishes eye muscles or brain tumors which she may also have.
I have been keeping copperbands for almost 50 years and don't remember ever having one over ten years because something always happened to them at the age. But I "assume" a fish of that size should live at least 15 or maybe 20 years. I wish I knew their lifespan.

 

[Paul B]

I am at the point now where my fish never die from the "normal" things like ich, velvet, worms, dropsy or stupididy. But some things are not normal fish diseases like not all diseases on humans are on the skin like spots, fungus, bacteria etc.

I know this fish is not dying of old age as I think she is just middle aged but definitely has a neurological problem that can't be treated. Maybe if I had a fish MRI of Cat-fish scan I could diagnose it, but even if I could, I couldn't treat it.

I have a couple of more tricks for this fish but I think it will be futile as the Borg say. Over a year ago there was a dark spot on her side almost healed here. It went away and is now completely gone.
She may have over extended her insurance coverage so I don't know if I can save her, but as long as she is still great looking and in good spirits, I will continue to enjoy her knowing that she probably lived longer with me than she would have in the sea.

 

[Paul B]

These Fireclowns just won't give up. They just spawned again as they do every week, it looks like they only laid a dozen eggs this time. That large male is I think 28 years old.

I devised a thing to collect the eggs but I won't use it as I don't have the time to raise them anyway. Maybe after the Holidays I break it out if I can find the thing.
The eggs are the orange things to the left of his (or her) pectoral fin just below the coraline algae.
It's not exciting to spawn clownfish as they will spawn in last weeks damp newspaper.

 

[Paul B]

It seems my Steam Punk pieces are worth more than I thought. I brought them to a gallery here on the North Fork and she wouldn't let me take them home. They are on display for more than I was expecting.

 

[diana a]

Congrats!!!! That is very exciting.

 

[Paul B]

Diana, at my age, getting up is exciting.

 

[Paul B]

I noticed on my 4 newer pieces of SPS acropora that I had originally thought were dying are growing faster than they should be. I think it's from the clam juice I have been adding by feeding clams.
I also have not been rinsing the clams because I have so much sponge growing that there is no need.

I have been feeding more clams than usual because my copperband has some sort of neurological problem and can't get his mouth close enough to food to snap it up so he is getting frustrated. He is actually getting worse and there isn't mush I can do about it.

But the coral is all growing new "arms".

Besides my fireclowns spawning my watchman gobies are also spawning but now they are the only paired fish I have.

 

[Paul B]

I need help trimming some sponge. The stuff is growing to close to the glass and I am having trouble getting the magnet cleaner in there. I trim the stuff all the time but I let it go to long and it is covering many corals. My arms aren't long enough and since I got a "little" older, my dexterity isn't what it used to be, but I can still build Steam Punk stuff.

The top of the tank is at armpit level so I have to stand on a small stool to get my hands in there and I have to wear a glove so the fireclown doesn't rip my arm off.

I use a small razor knife to cut the sponge, which cuts easy but it does stick to the rocks a little and is the consistency of something between leather and Silly Putty.
I throw out the sponge as I trim it as I have no use for it but it is probably growing inside my plumbing.

So If anyone has nothing to do and wants to trim some stuff, let me know. You can keep all the sponge you cut and I will throw in a bottle to put in your tank. I had to remove some. I am on Long Island NY near Riverhead.
I am not Humblefish so you don't have to boil your arms in Hydrogen Peroxide then soak them in copper to put them in my tank. As a matter of fact, I would rather you change your oil or plant a tree first.

 

[diana a]

Wish you were in jersey. I would be there in a heart beat with a homemade Italian cheesecake

 

[Paul B]

I could go for that.

 

[Paul B]

I just spent almost an hour cutting sponge out of my tank with a friend of mine. We removed over a pound of the stuff which will not go in my dumpster along with all the associated bristle worms that live under the stuff. I just couldn't clean the front glass any longer and it had to be removed.

It will grow back in a few weeks and need to be done again.
This is last nights bristleworm haul

 

[Paul B]

Last night we came home from dinner and my Christmas lights were out. I didn't think much about it and figured the timer from Home Depot (China) croaked, melted, blew up, went on fire, was stolen etc.

I checked the timer and it seemed fine. Then I plugged the lights straight into the outlet and still nothing.

This is a newly built house that I didn't build but I noticed the outlet was a GFI (or as you people like to call them GFCIs. In the trade they are just GFIs)

Anyway, I pushed the button to re set it and it still didn't go on.
Now I have been a Master Electrician for fifty years so I know I can figure this out. But first I want something in the refrigerator.

I open the door and the refrigerator is dark. I assume it is dark when I shut the door but it isn't supposed to be dark now. It wasn't that cold either.

I went to High School and everything so I deduced that the outdoor outlet and refrigerator were on the same circuit. It's not really supposed to be, but it isn't illegal. Just stupid.

I go to the circuit breaker panel and see that one breaker is tripped. It is also a GFI breaker, which is also stupid. There is no reason to put a GFI breaker on a circuit with a GFI receptible.

I have been retired quite a while and it may be a new code. If it is, it is stupid and I will tell the guy who wrote that code as soon as I find him. A GFI receptible is very sensitive and if you put that on a circuit with a GFI breaker and then have it on the same circuit as your refrigerator "And" an outdoor outlet in the rain where you will plug in Christmas lights. You are at some time going to come home with no lights on and a dark, warm refrigerator.

Today I will remove that GFI receptible and GFI breaker. Carefully walk over to the dumpster, and throw them both in. Then I will replace both with normal devices.

I hate GFIs unless they are needed like for a fish tank, bathroom or near a sink.

So far I removed about 6 GFI breakers from my panel as I hate stupidity, even if it is a code.
So I guess I could call myself a "Code Breaker"

 

[Paul B]

Last night we went to the Moose Lodge for the first time. It is right near my marina and they also have a large marina. We have never been there before and I was relieved to know that I didn't have to wear Moose antlers or bow to the Grand Exalted Poobah.

It was a Christmas party with about 150 or 200 people there.
They had a DJ, open bar and great food. Even the Grand Marnier was free which is very surprising.

Our group was about 40 people as all our neighbors were there.
We are going to join, and I never join anything as I am not generally a joiner and prefer to do things spur of the moment. I also don't do meetings, thats just not me. I don't even belong to any Fish Clubs.

But they have great boat excursions where a bunch of boats sail out someplace and barbecue lobsters and bring loads of clams, steaks etc and we eat on the boats. Thats my kind of
"meeting" and what I miss from most of my boating days at our last marine west of here.
Last night my wife won the fifty fifty, over $300.00

They also have great dinners every Friday. All you can eat for 13 bucks. You can't eat at Burger Dirt for that and the drinks are always $4.00. A lot of times Veterans drink and eat free.

If I knew that, I would have stayed another year in the Jungle.

Quite a few people knew me because at our condo we have a huge pool and many of these people go there as I do. But I have a memory like an arrow crab so I don't recognize a lot of people. I danced with a lot of the Supermodels. OK, Older Supermodels as I am kind of a good dancer. Just like "Fred Upstairs." If you start dancing and they can see that you can dance, they all want to dance. Of course I can also do the "Electric Slide" because as an electrician, it was required.

I realize today people don't dance because you can't dance and text at the same time, but I spent my younger days going out a lot and much of that included dancing. Our Daughter didn't even want to dance at her own wedding and if young people today dance, they just jump up and down to some noise then go and text someone in Tibet or go on facebook to show their selfie to 14,000 strangers who don't know you from a piece of cyano.

Yes, I know, I'm old but my generation used to do so much more than text, which we couldn't do (I still have a hard time doing that)

But we used to go to Disco's (Think John Travolta) to meet girls. Then if she liked you, you got her number. She had to answer the phone because we didn't have the thing where your name came up on the phone and you couldn't leave a message or send an emoji. Everyone also had the same ring and the phone was attached to the wall.

Then you had to meet her and actually make intelligible words come out of your mouth. LOL was not an option.
Then maybe you took her out "after" you opened the door for her.

At dinner you "always" paid for her meal and didn't dress with your pants falling off. In those days, if you had a Mohawk and weren't an Indian, they would put you in jail, or maybe just shoot you where you were.

Anyway, it was a great party..