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

[Paul B]

She is a couple of years old and has hatched out a lot of babies, or reef food

 

[Paul B]

I just was looking at my tank and decided some of the bottles needed cleaning because they looked too much like rock. I diden't clean them too much, I just wiped them with a paper towel to get off the slimy film but in the process I dumped out a couple of them into a container. I love to do this. There was about a quarter inch of detritus in them and after it settled in the container I looked at it with a magnifier. It reminded me of a golf course with thousands of rabbits running all over the place.
Those pods just love to be inside bottles where the fish rarely go to eat them.
I would imagine having places like this would improve your pod population. Of course if you don't like bottles you could use something else.

 

[Pedro Nuno Ferreira]

I just was looking at my tank and decided some of the bottles needed cleaning because they looked too much like rock. I diden't clean them too much, I just wiped them with a paper towel to get off the slimy film but in the process I dumped out a couple of them into a container. I love to do this. There was about a quarter inch of detritus in them and after it settled in the container I looked at it with a magnifier. It reminded me of a golf course with thousands of rabbits running all over the place.
Those pods just love to be inside bottles where the fish rarely go to eat them.
I would imagine having places like this would improve your pod population. Of course if you don't like bottles you could use something else.

Hi Paul
Wish you had pictures or a video of that. Did you return those "riches of the sea" to the tank again?
BTW do you have pictures of the mud you collect every now and then to add to your system and enrich the bacteria population? It would help to better look for it over here, just to be more sure.

Cheers
Pedro Nuno;-)

 

[Paul B]

Pedro I don't have any pictures of the mud but it is just ordinary mud which is loaded with de composed reeds. It is loaded with snails. I have a bucket full of it and it is also full of snail eggs.
Some of my bottles are very old. Older than a lot of people here.

 

[Eznet2u]

Mr. B, Isn't it time to change the name of this thread? 39?:birthday:

 

[Paul B]

Mr. B, Isn't it time to change the name of this thread? 39?:birthday: <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=400 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=5 height=5>

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<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>gal_register('gal_1_573579', '1', '1', '0', '0', '0');</SCRIPT>

I don't know how to do that

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

That slimy film kinda looks like cyano. What are your phosphates?

 

[Paul B]

Why does this guy always give me dirty looks?

 

[Paul B]

 

[Paul B]

I just had to move some rocks to remove a powerhead for maintenance and I found some animals I diden't think I had anymore.
I found my harlequin shrimp who I had not seen sinse I put him in there and a gobi that I also thought I lost. He, or I should say she is spawning. I diden't even know she was pregnant, or even still alive.
God knows what else is lurking back there.

The girl I found was one of these, on the left. She was tending some eggs.

 

[Paul B]

A few wierd things happened to my tank today. I heard a noise right away and I could tell my skimmer was not working and was empty.
My skimmer has a 5 gallon effluent tank that I only have to empth every few weeks. A snail slithered into the outflow tube and slowed the flow of the outlet water causing the skimmer to fill the five gallon bucket. There is an emergency shut off switch which I invented in there which stops the pumps to the skimmer in case of an overfill or leak. That five gallons of salt water was replaced by five gallons of fresh water from my top off system so the salinity is now low. Thats easy to fix and I have been adding salt.

Before the lights came on I noticed something crawling on the glass which was about an inch and a half. I got a flashlight and saw that it was a sea slug. Kind of nice looking and it slimed away as soon as the lights came on. I have not put rock in the tank in over 20 years so I have no idea where it came from.
It may have been a baby on some coral. I did once have over 100 lettuce slugs hatch in there but at that time I put in the Mother.

The other misshap today was that I have been working on an in tank brine shrimp hatcher that will seperate the shells and feed the shrimp to the fish while I am away. I built a few prototypes that work well but they need tweeking. I put one in the tank today and being a prototype, I did not glue it together, it was just kind of pushed together. Of course, it broke open spilling about a million shrimp eggs into the tank.
Now I have the diatom filter running to get all the shells out of there. What a mess.
The good news is that the feeder works, I just have to glue it together so the eggs stay inside the thing.

__________________

 

[Paul B]

I think I am in for a cycle of hair algae, I can feel it in my bones.
I can also see the tiny start of an invasion and it is about due.
It's been a few years since I have seen any and I know what it looks like when it starts.
Ahh the anticipation of a new thing happening, , new experiments, new challanges, Well, OK old challanges.
I think the fish even know something is about to change because they are spawning like crazy, even two old hermit crabs are spawning.
These cycles are normal, healthy and just make the hobby interesting.
Of course it may not happen but I can tell when something is is the works

The tank has had some horrendous hair algae bouts in the past and it seems the corals always look better when that happens.
Hair algae is a great water conditioner as long as it does not shade any corals. :mixed:
Look at this old picture from the eightees or ninetees. Hair algae looks like a lettuce farm.
I love this hobby :lol:

Actually it must be about 15 years ago because I still have that fireclown

 

[Paul B]

My closest friend and dive partner is in the Caymans this week and I asked him to take a close up of the rock to get some fry.
Look closely at the white specs especially on the bottom left. There are about 50 fry. That is what fish snack on all day. And they are all over the place

 

[Paul B]

Something else is spawning in my tank and I don't even know ahat it is.
Look at the worm tube or whatever it is sticking out of the top left of this coral. You can barely see the eggs coming out. It expelled dozens of them today

 

[Pedro Nuno Ferreira]

Something else is spawning in my tank and I don't even know ahat it is.
Look at the worm tube or whatever it is sticking out of the top left of this coral. You can barely see the eggs coming out. It expelled dozens of them today

Hi Paul
By the looks of it and your descritpion it looks to be a Petaloconchus snail
If it is, then it will spin threads with which it captures food particles. Sometimes these threads or webs irritate the coral tissue so if you notice that then in that case or if its population grows to much you might consider removal of the Petaloconchus snail, otherwise just leave it peacefully as it will also perform a good activity by collecting food particles.

Cheers
Pedro Nuno

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Pedro, it does look exactly like that. I diden't look it up because it seems to be harmless and I find almost anything I discover in there interesting. I even let a few mojano anemones live because I also find them interesting. They are after all just anemones.
I don't know where this snail, or worm came from but I did just get that coral from another member on here a few months ago so I guess it was always there. I have not added rock.

 

[Paul B]

I found two of these in there

 

[Awibrandy]

Paul, your tank is a forever changing amazement to me....

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Awilda. As long as something stays alive in there it is a good thing.
Have a great Holiday

 

[Paul B]

That slug from nowhere finally showed up in the light and turned over for the picture.