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

[Paul B]

my oldest is only 25 and his mate is about 18. I only had one other fish reach 18. it was a cusk eel and I killed it by accident

 

[SantaMonica]

Well at least watching the tank should provide some shoulder recuperation therapy.

 

[Paul B]

it does. I rest my shoulder on the glass and I feel better through osmosis

 

[Paul B]

I picked up a couple of "porcelain" crabs today and 3 pieces of coral.
They are all great except (Andy) the 2 porcelain crabs are green crabs.
I seem to remember me saying that but what do I know?


Andy, look close at this picture.

 

[yangabanga]

looks awesome. congrats on the tank!

 

[Paul B]

Today I picked up a couple of corals. One is about 6" and the other two are small. I had to cut about 6" of my blue sponge so it has some light. I will give that away, hopefully someone wants it.
It isn't easy to glue frags because I am still in a sling and can't raise my arm. I got them in there, a little sloppy, but that's the way it is.
I can't find those two green crabs I accidently got and don't believe I will ever see them.
I ordered a new small LED light for my algae scrubber because the red water cooled one I built is just a little to Thick even though it is less than one inch thick water drips on it. I will use the one I bought while I design a thinner LED light.


Everything else is good except due to the drought in California, I am having a hard time getting blackworms. I still have some but I am rationing them.

 

[Paul B]

Thank you Yangabanga.
Today I went to my favorite LFS again. While there I say this beautiful lipstick tang and the way she was looking at me with those pouty lips, I almost went home with her. But then I thought, this thing will probably live for 20 years. At that time I will be in my 80s, probably senile, blind and have a weak bladder. How am I supposed to catch her then because I will want to give her away before I croak.
So I didn't buy her. Instead, I got another crab. He waltzed over to my existing crab, carefully put his arms around her, pulled her closer, and tried to rip her face off.
But now that they have been formally introduced, they settled down to share filter feeding next to each other.

 

[Paul B]

One of the pitfalls of having shoulder surgery is that it is difficult to do any tank maintenance that requires two hands. I can feed the tank, clean the glass and the skimmer cup but that's about it.
My algae scrubber is so full that the algae is sloughing off the thing and falling into the tank. In my set up, there is a pump in the tank that supplies water to the scrubber, then the water flows into a pipe that feeds my reverse undergravel filter.
The amount of algae is preventing the water from traveling into the UG filter as it is overflowing that pipe and going straight into the tank.
I can't raise my right are right now to clean it but I managed to clear some of the algae with a screwdriver.
I won't be able to reach up to it for a few weeks when my shoulder gets better so I will have to live with this for a while. It is not the end of the world, just a little annoyance.
This is an older picture of the scrubber.

 

[Paul B]

A friend of mine on another forum had an Idea to use a shop vac to clean the scrubber. Great Idea. I did it in 2 minutes and the thing is almost brand new. I still have to take it apart eventually to clean the slot, but it's working perfectly.

 

[Paul B]

So today, Veterans Day I wear my almost 50 year old Army shirt to go to the Veterans ceremony at out village hall and on the way I went with my wife to Star Bucks to take advantage of the free, Veteran breakfast they offered.
When we finished, we go to my car to go to the ceremony and I get "Click, Click".
The battery is dead.


If your battery is going to die, it will always happen the first day that it is cold. It will also happen right after you had a shoulder operation to fix torn rotator cuffs, torn bursa's and broken collar bone, which I have.
So I have to call my neighbor to go into my garage and bring my battery jumper.
This is my neighbor that takes care of my tank while I am away so they knew how to get into my house, past all the ****y traps, alarms and acid baths.


This morning the car started just a slight bit slow and being I was a mechanic many years ago, I knew what that meant and I made a mental note to replace the battery tomorrow as it is way over it's lifespan. But I figured it started so I would probably make it home.
"WRONG"


So my neighbor came to rescue me and my wife and I got the car started.
That was easy, then I had to go and get a battery.
I get car stuff wholesale which is a big saving and of course I had to get the guy to carry it to my car for me. Batteries are heavy and not conducive of carrying with one hand.


My neighbor told me he would be right over to help me right after he had breakfast. I saw that as a challenge and replaced the battery before he came over.
Changing a battery is easy, changing a battery with one arm, not so simple. But it is done and I can enjoy the rest of Veterans day. :biggrin:

 

[Paul B]

I just decided (possibly stupidly) to feed my corals yeast. I feed it to my worms and they are always smiling but now my tank is all cloudy from yeast. So either the tank will crash or It will make one heck of a salty loaf of bread.
When I get bored, I sometimes do stupid things. :bigeyes2:

 

[SantaMonica]

If you are still having scrubber harvesting problems I could donate one of our Surf4 upflow units and two air pumps, or our Rain2 waterfall unit, either of which you can clean with one hand without turning any water off.

 

[Paul B]

Thank you, that is great, but I think I got it with my shop vac. I still need to take it off and take it apart but I think it will last long enough for when I can move this arm. I can start therapy this week and I get the stitches out tomorrow.
I need two hands to remove it and I can't yet do that.
The only hard part is disconnecting the feed tube, I can't do that with one hand.

 

[Paul B]

Andy, I may get to Aquarium Village today so I know you will have my gorgonians and Janss pipefish. I was there yesterday and all you had was guppies, manta rays and llama's. Nothing I needed.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Andy, I may get to Aquarium Village today so I know you will have my gorgonians and Janss pipefish. I was there yesterday and all you had was guppies, manta rays and llama's. Nothing I needed.

Sorry Paul no gorgonians or Janss pipefish, I am not getting any fish today. I'm surprised the llama's are still there:spin:

 

[Paul B]

ONG!!!! No gorgs, no pipefish, only Llama's. How do you people stay in business :scratch:

I guess I will go there to look at the guppies. :bigeyes2:

 

[Paul B]

I just came back from the Doctors office. I had shoulder surgery 3 weeks ago so I had to go for the follow up appointment.
I didn't see the doctor, I assume he was playing golf but I did see the physicians assistant which was good because she was a Supermodel. She took out the stitches on the four places where the guy dug holes in my shoulder and we talked a while being I had five shoulder surgeries already and I liked her boots. I worked construction all my life so I wore out some of my parts. The Dr. put two bolts, anchors or toggle bolts in the bone but he had trouble doing that because all the good real estate was already taken from the last 4 times I had this done. The tendon was to thin, probably from lifting Supermodels up on my shoulder so he had to take a piece of something to re inforce it. I am not sure if he used a sliver of muscle or a piece from the sole of my shoe but in 6 months I will be cured as long as I only lift very skinny Supermodels and only buy light fish like bluestripe pipefish and clown gobies, no groupers.
I still have to wear a sling for a month and go to physical therapy. I went to the therapy place after the Doctor to make an appointment. I like physical therapy because they also have Supermodels working there and I know them from the last surgeries I had. They also have good candy on the desk and a Siamese fighting fish that we spend time talking about. Next door is a bakery and coffee shop so what's not to like?
In between the doctor and the physical therapy I noticed that a new LFS opened up. I went in just to be nosy and the guy recognized me from one of these forums. He showed me how he feeds the fish using flake food. To me that is a no no and I explained to him what I think he should feed. He never heard of blackworms, or much else so I explained it to him. The guy actually hugged me and kept asking me to come back. I probably will as the owner is a very nice guy and I hope he makes it as it is a tough business.

 

[cono]

Where was the new store that opened up????

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[Paul B]

It's on Northern Blvd about two or three blocks east of Little Neck Pkwy on the north side of the street.
I wouldn't go there yet. He has some fish but no corals or inverts as he is conditioning his tanks.

 

[Paul B]

I want to talk about quarantining, or not quarantining. I get in trouble for my opinion for this all the time (yes, even on this forum which is pretty liberal with your methods) and that is one reason I don't post on that big forum any more. People have the wrong idea and for some reason very few people grasp the concept. Quarantining if fine, if that is what you want to do, go for it as it is one way to run a tank. But if you don't want to quarantine, there are things you should do or you will lose your tank to disease. You can't just have a normal tank that you set up a year or two ago and decide to not quarantine. There is a process that goes along with it just like there is a process that goes along with quarantining and if you do it wrong, you will lose your fish and condemn the system you are using.
First and foremost your fish need to get into excellent shape, which we should strive for no matter what system we use. It takes about two months to get most fish into excellent shape if it is done correctly. I know it takes about 7 weeks with damsels so I am guessing on other fish.
Just because they are swimming around looking at you while whistling doesn't mean they are in great shape. If they are not spawning or making spawning gestures, they are not healthy no matter what their doctor says.
To do this we need to eliminate the dry, sterile foods like flakes, pellets and freeze dried anything. Use them in an emergency or if you go on vacation and you need to put it in a feeder but never as a way to feed fish every day. If you want to use dry foods, "keep quarantining". I mean that. ( yes, even expensive dry foods)

I wrote many articles about this so I won't go into the scientific research on it.
Next get some fresh frozen foods or the absolutely best, live blackworms. By fresh frozen I mean get something like clams that you can buy live (not if you live in Arizona). Buy the biggest live clams you can. Chowder clams here in New York can weigh a couple of pounds. Partially open the clam and insert something inside like a nail. This will make it easier to open the thing after it is frozen. It takes 2 days to freeze a big clam.
Open the clam and shave off paper thin slices with a knife. Make a dent like you would do in chocolate and slice off ribbons of clam. I supplement the clam with frozen Mysis, LRS food and live worms.

This diet, "every day" will get your fish into spawning condition. That won't necessarily make them immune especially if they have been in your tank for a long time or were quarantined for 72 days.
I think the best thing to do if you are really worried about disease is to keep your quarantine tank and put the new fish in there when you get them. Set up that tank with hiding places of rock, not pvc. Give them hiding places and light it as you would a regular fish tank. Feed them the diet I stated and observe the fish for a week or two but do not medicate with anything. If you see one or two spots on the fish, I also would not medicate as that is usually normal. Of course if the fish gets a bunch of spots, starts shaking and texting SOS there is something wrong and you would have to replace the rock with PVC and use copper.
I personally would use copper "and" a diatom filter as that would clean the fish of any parasites in a couple of days.

Remember, I never have to do this part because my fish don't get sick and yours probably won't either. I am talking about a healthy "looking" fish you buy from a LFS. That fish was probably in the ocean 2 weeks ago and has some sort of immunity in it's system. Our goal is to nurture that immunity, not suppress it, with the proper food and very low stress.
We want the fish immune, not sterile and to do this we need to get food into it along with "live" bacteria at every meal.
After a couple of months your fish should start to spawn (if you have fish that will spawn). Even fish that are not paired will start to clean a nest, bite you when you put your hand in there and chase other fish away.

If you do all this and if your fish are now in spawning condition, you can now add fish from an LFS without being concerned about parasites as now parasites should continue to boost the fishes immune system.
I have been running my tank like this for decades and I may have invented this system (along with the internet, unless that was Brian Williams) It works, I can prove it works and if you don't like the idea of this, keep quarantining as there is nothing wrong with that as long as you can quarantine everything and never want to use anything natural from the sea. Most inland people need to do that anyway.
Now you can write an article saying I am advocating Russian Roulette and don't know a fish from a duck billed platypus.