Tank Thread Tank reached 38 years old...in 2009!

[Paul B]

My tank is doing great except now I have to clean the glass every day and I could do it twice a day if I felt ambitious. If I left it for 5 days it would be the same as looking through the left front fender of a vintage Ford Thunderbird.

It doesn't bother me and is just because there is so much life in the tank. This is a sign of health.

When I feed the fish, like I just did there are tentacles virtually evrywhere. I have sponges encrusting on every exposed surface and wriggling out of the edges of those sponges are nothing but tentacles. Probably spagheti worms. If I lift the edge of a sponge, the real estate is covered in bristle worms.

Brittle stars completely cover any area next to the glass like behind the thermometer, heaters or any rocks that touch the glass.
Any small part of exposed rock is filled with pores and out of every pore is an arm of "something".

If I turn off the pumps, multitudes of creatures leave the gravel and rocks to swim to the surface and suck up anything they can find in the surface film.
I can also usually see tiny new born clownfish there.

The back glass is covered in a film of algae, cyano and coraline algae which is crawling with snails, small worms, amphipods and asternia stars.

The pipefish hunt there and are always smiling.

These are things that all make up health and come from feeding things like clams that exude clam juice which is just tiny particles of clam in "juice". Sponges live on this stuff as do all the other beginnings of the food chain.

To keep pipefish, mandarins, bleenies and other small fish this stuff makes it much easier as I don't really have to feed those fish.
View through the back of my tank. Those are sponges

 

[Paul B]

I devised this almost 90 degree angle needle to inject aiptasia. It has an 18" tube where I can push the plunger to inject the little devils

 

[Paul B]

Prototype of new model of aiptasia injector. It has an 18" tube on it and I can change the needle by just sliding it out.
It is shown here full of Luguls Iodine which is something I am testing in the thing. So far the aiptasia have a nice red tinge but I am not sure if they will croak or love the stuff and do the macarana.

I also want to try metheline blue. I don't care if that kills them, but how cool will they look?

I already tried hydrogen peroxide and I think that has aiptasia vitamins in it.
I know battery acid or boiling, almost anything will work, but I am having fun

 

[4Fish]

The funny thing is when I had my first reef tank 45 years ago keeping aiptasia alive was considered a success

 

[Paul B]

I remember that well. I used to feed each one with a brine shrimp or piece of clam. But the nasty things kept dying anyway.

 

[4Fish]

Even keeping a few simple purple mushrooms alive was considered a success for UG filter and hangon Sumpreme King filter,

 

[Timbo]

My first saltwater tank on my own was probably 1992ish.... can’t say for sure but somewhere around there. Straight under gravel filter nothing more. Snowflake eel was king of the tank no coral for me back then. Nems were usuallly condi and some actually thrived in the tank. Salt creep made snow like substance on the carpet behind the tank. Crazy how fast time goes and how much this hobby has changed.

 

[Paul B]

4Fish, I still use an undergravel filter.

 

[Paul B]

For some reason the weather was beautiful here today. 72 degrees and sunny so after I washed my car (again) my wife and myself took a walk down the stairs to the beach.

On the way down I noticed that the water was absolutely perfect and clearer than I have ever seen it. You can't tell from that lousy picture but about 50 yards out I can see the rocks on the sea floor. It was like the Caribbean. :p

As soon as I got home I packed up my collecting stuff and headed down to a beach where I could back up almost to the water to collect.

I backed up, threw the pump into the sea. Started filling vats.

And it started raining.

You really can't catch a break. How does the rain know when I will be collecting water.

But it wasn't like Noah's flood so I finished collecting and have 40 gallons.
I almost don't have to filter it and could probably get by with just straining out the chopped up seaweed and discarded copies of my book but I figured I will break out the diatom filter for this and before I clean the thing I will just throw it in my tank because I know my fish just love it when I diatom filter the water.

Usually I do it once or twice a year but now with almost nothing to do, I do it all the time just to see the bubbles.

The alk was 6 and the temp is 52 so I may have to heat it a little.

 

[Paul B]

I changed those 40 gallons of water I collected yesterday. Everything is smiling and all is well. :p

Hopefully soon it will warm up enough to collect some mud and maybe a few amphipods.

 

[Paul B]

I just found out where these Rainsford Gobies are spawning. I cleaned my glass and I also cleaned the algae off my algae scrubber which is on one end of the tank where it is hard to access. But in that back corner I never saw because it is up against a duct and I never cleaned the glass there.

I got bored and decided to clean the glass to see if anything was living back there.
There they were. They made a hole behind one of the tubes that goes to the UG filter. I am not sure if they got all the way under the filter plate, but they pop in and out to grab some white worms.

I see one of the possum wrasses also hangs out there. Now that i know their hiding place, I will clean the glass there once in a while to check them out.

 

[Paul B]

Yesterday for the first time in my life I ordered a fish on line. A copperband. I am not getting a good feeling about this even though the fish is coming from New York where I live but the stores here are not open and I want to replace my copperband that died probably from old age.

Buying on line costs about 3 times more for that fish than I normally spend but I am not caring about the cost, I am more concerned that I can't see the fish before I buy it, especially a copperband.

I just hope they are not quarantining or medicating it because to me, quarantining and medicating a fish, especially a copperband is the same as killing it.

We will see and I hope it goes as it is supposed. I know a lot of people buy fish on line so I may have to get with the 21st century. At least until the LFSs open around here.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Hi Paul next time you going to order on-line give me a shout we can save on shipping by ordering together

 

[Paul B]

Sounds like a plan. I got it from NYAquatics so I will see how it goes. I could also drive there to Yonkers to pick it up but I would imagine it is about an hour and a half to get there and you can't go in anyway so you can't pick out the fish.

 

[Paul B]

My new copperband seems fantastic and now eats everything. This is the first living thing I ever ordered through the mail.
I had linguine with clams last night but I decided not to give him any so I gave him cake instead.

He is about 2 1/2" long, just as I asked foe, is inquisitive and hunts all day. He eats just about anything he can fit in his mouth and didn't jump out yet.

So far he doesn't like to come to the front of the tank while I am there, maybe I will try it while I am not wearing my Speedo.

 

[Paul B]

My new Copperband is doing great and working to become just like his predecessor who lived a long and prosperous life. He, or she doesn't seem to have any more gill parasites of flukes as I don't see him shake any more. (I think I will call "him" a "She" from now on because of her eyelashes)

The gill parasites probably went through their cycle, fell off and tried to attach to something else but "Oh Boy" were they surprised when they found out my fish were immune to them so they have to find a new hobby, maybe Line Dancing.

That is the entire method to my tank. Whatever disease the new fish believe they have, eventually goes through it's cycle and is over with so the fish can get down to whatever it is supposed to do.

However I have not seen this fish eat any large aiptasia. But in her defense, some of my aiptasia could eat her and I think she is afraid of them. I do see her pick at the small ones and she does hunt all day on the back and side glass where all sorts of creatures live.

She does eat live white worms but she is a little small so has to study them before she eats them. But I think she will be fine.

Of course it is early and I have not seen my tank yet as it is downstairs in my Man Cave/Workshop so she may be laying on the bottom pushing up tube worms with a big hermit crab sitting on her tail while he is watching Don Knots in "The Fish in Mr. Limpet. "

 

[Paul B]

 

[Paul B]

To update my copperband is doing fine and he seems to think he died and went to heaven. I notice a lot less aiptasia but I have a few very large ones and one that is bigger than my copperband and he is actually afraid of it. I would be too.
The thing is like the Godzilla's of aiptasia's and probably thinks it is a carpet anemone andI think my fireclown will host in it soon. ;Bored

I injected it with all sorts of things but I may have made a mistake and injected it with Regain which would account for it's unbelievable growth. I rubbed some Rogain on my head and have started to grow aiptasia out of my ears.

My Janss pipefish I think is way older than it's lifespan is supposed to be but I have no idea what that is.
My bluestripe pipefish is still trying to mate with him but being the Janss is three or four times larger, he is way out of her league.

My rainsfords seem to be constantly spawning and my watchman goby female has not come out of her burrow in a couple of months so she is also probably tending multiple batches of eggs. I can see her in there and she seems to be very content but the male doesn't allow her out so I "shoot" worms in through the back of her cave so at least she can eat. Being married to a fat bully who won't let you come out to have some fun is just mean. He seems to want to keep her barefoot and pregnant. Or bare finned and pregnant. ;Wideyed
I am not sure what to call a Watchman female, maybe a Watchgirl, or a Watchbabe I don't know.

My SPS for some reason are growing like that aiptasia and reaching for the stars as are "most" of my LPS. One LPS I think it was an elegance go completely covered my a Hammer coral which seemed to grow overnight. Now the thing is touching the front glass as is a very old gorgonian.
Last week I "Very gently" pushed the entire reef structure back from the glass a few inches because I was hitting some montipora that was making it hard to clean the front glass.
I need to do it again but I hate to do that as I hear things breaking and I don't like the sound of that.

I don't do much to my tank so I have no idea why some things are growing so good, but I have been playing quite a bit of Vintage Linda Ronstadt lately. I have to clean the front glass every day and really could clean it twice a day. I don't get it.

My tank is not all great, I also have some bristleworms that almost qualify to be moray eels. I really need to trap some of the ones over a pound.

This is my Daughter and has nothing to do with this post, but neither does anything else.

 

[Paul B]

As I was sitting in my workshop/Man Cave a little while ago, this woman walks in. (I have my door open so people out on the street can see me)

She was a nice looking woman maybe fifty or so so I figured she wanted to date me, take me out to dinner or sue me.
It turns out she is starting a salt water fish tank and a neighbor told her that I have fish.

So we talked for about 45 minutes and she has a small, like 30 gallon tank and unfortunately is listening to LFSs and is having all sorts of problems and really wants someone to explain to her what she should do.

I hate to start Noobs on this because I can tell that she wants a tank full of corals, moorish Idols, achilles tangs, SPS corals and she wants it all by 2:00 Tuesday.

Well, she wants a couple of damsels anyway.
I went through the entire speech of the no dry foods, no corals, now anyway, no whale sharks etc. I think she is getting it and she wanted to borrow my book, which I gave her even though it is my own and only personal copy. I also told her that it is not for Noobs which it says near the beginning of the book.

In a couple of weeks I am taking her water collecting because she lives behind my house so she is on the same beach and didn't realize you could collect water. Of course the LFS told her she couldn't do that because she is buying water from them.

I will also give her some rocks and bottles from my tank because she is using bacteria and ammonia from a bottle. I told her that is OK if you get your fish in a bottle otherwise that is not my method and she can choose which way to go. But she loves my tank so she is going with my system.

(which of course may be a problem unless you look like me, and she doesn't)

I am thrilled to know someone with in fifty miles of my house with a salt tank. I will let you know how this goes.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Was she wearing a covid mask