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

[Paul B]

So yesterday for Mothers Day we went to our Daughters house in Manhattan to visit her and the Grand Kids. We had a nice, but noisy time and came home about 8:00pm. Before we got to our street we saw that the main road was closed with fire engines and police all over the place. I also couldn't help notice one of the power poles was on fire so I assumed that was bad. I am good like that. As I turned down our block I noticed it was very dark. We don't live in a cave and have street lights but they were all out. I got home and of course saw that my house was dark. The first thing I thought was OMG, my fish must be going crazy. Actually I didn't think of them at all as they have been through this many times and take care of themselves. Although I don't think they have their own generator.

I get inside and being I went to high school and everything I knew exactly where the flashlight is which I used to get to the basement and light a propane lantern.
Now I knew my wife was safe inside I walked up the block to check out the fire. It looked like there was a big short on the pole and the pole was almost burnt in half. It was also raining so maybe a sweaty squirrel or Eagle reached in between two wires and exploded. I am not sure.

I asked the guy on the pole how long until he restored the power and he said 2 hours. The power was already off for an hour so I figured I would drag the generator out. No, not for the fish, for the TV.
My friend was out there also and I asked him why he didn't start his generator and he said it wouldn't start.
He helped me drag out my machine because I have a palm full of stitches and I connected it to my gas pipe and the thing started right up as I knew it would. Now all my outside lights which I have in all the shrubs and trees lit up so it looked like Christmas in May.

Then I went to help him start his generator and after a few minutes I got it started. His wife was in the car on her cell phone as she is most of the time. He told me her biggest worry is if the phone goes out. I didn't even know where my phone was and if someone wanted to tell me something important, they could write me a letter. Like how important is a cell phone? I realize most people need the thing taped to their ear constantly in case they win the lottery, pick five or the Bachelor contest. I think it's great if the phone goes dead. For 30 million years we only had wooden cell phones and reception was terrible. We got along just fine.

Anyway, on my way back home across the street I notice my other neighbor trying to start his generator and he calls me.
I mean, Do I have a big sign on my head that says Home Depot?
Now I had to fix his machine. I start mine every few months as I do my power washer. Maybe it's me. But I told them all "Home Depot" is leaving soon so all you guys have to figure out how to do these simple things for yourself.
They just told me "I can't move"

 

[Paul B]

HELLO. Is this thing on? Anybody out there? It's like invasion of the Geek snatchers, you know when you stare at your tank until you fall asleep and your body gets taken over by a sea cucumber.

HELLO. If anyone is there, you don't have to say anything, just put a picture of your favorite pod up like this --------------> . <---------------- It could be a male or female.

 

[Koyfam16]

Lol. Funny stuff Paul.

How?s the move coming along?


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[Paul B]

WE are still packing. Closing on this house in a few days. We will be able to stay here a little while as we pay rent to the new people until the other place is ready. This place is full of boxes. It seems the boxes take up more room than the stuff that was inside the boxes did.

 

[MIKE NY]

Tagging along as usual Paul....good luck with the recovery and move...
BTW...the hard coral looks like a Hydnophora which can grow in mud and a flashlight...lower the N & P and it would be a nice fuzzy green.


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[Paul B]

Mike, thanks for telling me that. I had no idea what it was and if it lives in my tank, it probably loves mud and darkness.

You hear that Andy, get me more. :spin:

 

[Paul B]

My house is a maze of boxes. I filled 7- 50 gallon cans so far with stuff I am throwing out just from my workshop. I have about 20 boxes of stuff from there that I am keeping. It's amazing the stuff you can amass in 40 years.
I can't touch the tank stuff yet because my new house is not finished. I kept my worm culture out as well as my brine shrimp hatchery because I want to feed the pipes and mandarins for as long as I can. They may not get live shrimp for a month due to me building stuff out there. I also have stuff to demolish because i don't like the way the builder designed a few things. I will move the door into my workshop and may move the furnace and water heater. I also need to move the washer and drier which means I have to move some gas pipes and exhaust hoses. I built most of my lights so I told the electrician not to install most of them. The day I move in I will put up some temporary lights. The place is mostly glass so I can't walk around in my Speedo until I install something on the windows. My neighbors may like that, OK, maybe not.
I won't have my RO/DI hooked up for quite some time as there is no water or drain near the tank. That is not a big priority so I will have to think about something in the mean time.
My boat is also in the water out there and it needs some attention before I can go out. Mostly maintenance and cleaning, filling with water, fluids etc. And I will need to get a GPS card for the Peconic bay as mine doesn't work there. It is for 60 miles away near Manhattan.

 

[Paul B]

A little while ago my door bell rang and I went upstairs to see who it was. It was this guy dressed in a bug exterminator uniform with a picture of a bug on it.
I told him I don't need any bug exterminators and I walked into my back yard. He follows me explaining how important it is to kill bugs and that his company is the best bug killing company and how they can tell a lady bug from a preying mantis and a moose from a duck billed platypus and I wasn't paying much attention.
So i turned around and this giant carpenter bee lands on his sleeve. It looked like a Blackhawk helicopter. The guy went nuts. He got the horrors and I thought he was going to have a coronary. Even the bug on his uniform was scared. I just flicked the thing off his sleeve but as it went away, it hit him in the face. I thought I was going to have to take him to the emergency room.

I said, " your not the guy who comes and kills the bugs, Are You?"

 

[Paul B]

Anyone want this Free. Marble/Onyx hand carved chess set
Free, or I can lower the price and give you a dollar.

 

[Paul B]

I have two big industrial machinists Vises, one on each workbench. I was going to leave them here for the new people and buy new ones, but I can't. I can't find an American Vise. I can't believe it that we don't make an American Vise and I don't buy tools from China, (or anything else) Well so far Amazon don't have any so I will just remove my ole ones which are much better than what I can buy and mine are American. Probably also older then me, much older.

I also want to get a tiny drill press. I have a big one but I have been doing a lot of very tiny work, 1/8" and below. I have been getting rid of a lot of my large construction tools because I had doubles and triples of them. but for my smaller, art work I need more delicate tools and my large drill press won't take tiny bits. I can't get it on Amazon because they don't tell you where the thing is made so I will go to specific manufacturers. I don't like those little Dremmel presses. A Dremmel is more of a hobbiest tool and not built for doing much. They overheat and the bearings are not that good. I have 2 of them and they are good for some small grinding purposes which is what I use them for. But they get very hot and are not very powerful.

 

[Paul B]

I went to Home Depot for styrofoam to put under my new tank and came out with a gigantic tool box. My wife and Daughter got it for me for Father's day. It's about 5' long and 6' high so I will be able to put most of my tools in it so I don't have to have tool boxes all over the place. They had a few of them, different models and sizes and I wasen't even in the market for one. I got a Husky, they had another one I liked a little better but the Husky was made in American and the other one was from China so that was the end of that. The thing weighs over 300lbs so I will leave it in the boxes and let the moving company take it to the new house in a week or so.

I forgot the styrofoam.

 

[Paul B]

The time is getting close. I was putting together my Reverse UG filter tubes a little while today and will have to use my existing manifold for a while until I get time to build a new one. Way to much stuff to do before then. Today I also put together a system to pump water into the back of my car from the ocean. I got a bilge pump and took the brass ends off a 50' hose and still need to take apart an extension cord to run the thing from my car. I tested it today for about 10 minutes to make sure the cord doesn't get hot. It gets slightly warm but that is normal and most of it will be under water.
I can back my car up into my garage and pump the seawater into my tank.

 

[Paul B]

This water collection device is all finished. I just back my car up to the Ocean. Any ocean will do. Then I throw the pump in the sea and plug the power plug into my power outlet in the back of my car or use my portable battery jumper. The thing pumps 1,100 gph of seawater into the vats in the back of my car. Then I back the car up to my garage and throw the pump in the vats and pump the water into my tank or buckets. But when I initially fill the 125 gallon tank, I will pump it right into the tank.

 

[Koyfam16]

Sweet. So you take the water from the shore and add directly to the tank?


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[Paul B]

Yes. I can do that when I initially fill the tank. After that, I have to heat it because the water here now is probably 50 degrees or less.

 

[Paul B]

I can barely walk through my house as we emptied out all the closets and drawers and it is all in boxes. I left out two spoons, two forks and two dishes so we can still eat. My garage hardly fits the car because I did the same thing, most of my tools are in boxes around the garage as well as the King Size bed that I built and is in 4 pieces. We still don't have the closing date on the new place but should be this week, we hope. As soon as we hear, I will rent a truck and after we close I will take a lot of stuff out there. I ordered a 125 gallon tank and I built the stand so i will pick up the tank on my way out there and put it on Styrofoam on the trip.

When I get there and unload the truck I need to put a vinyl tile floor in my workshop at least under where the tank is going. Then I will put the tank in place, level it and go to collect water about 2 miles away. I can collect it in back of my house but there are a lot of steps there so i will drive to a more convenient beach where I can back up to the water. I can only put maybe 30 gallons at a time in my car, then drive back to my house and pump it in the tank. I want to make 3 trips and put at least 90 gallons in there. The rest will be rocks and water from my existing tank.

It will take a few days to heat it because I think it is about 50 degrees now. After it heats, I will come back here and take my rocks, fish and corals and hopefully they will fit in my car for the one and a half hour trip out there where i will quickly aquascape and throw in the livestock. I expect to lose some or maybe all my corals because the nitrates in that NSW are zero and mine are 160. The shock may give them a coronary.

I will try to bring my existing water cooled LED lights out there but they are very delicate and don't travel well. If they don't work, I won't have time to fix them so I will just glue gun some flashlights to the hermit crabs and they will have to deal with it.

We are bringing my friend, my wife's cousin and our cleaning girl out there to help put away stuff. (we hired a cleaning girl because my wife has MS and can't crawl around or get on a ladder to clean like she likes to do)
Then I will install the lights I built for the new place.

We are both going to miss our old house as we raised our Daughter here and have lived here for 39 years.


I also built almost everything in the house including this boulder outside which is about 4' wide and hollow.




We will miss the sunsets over the Bronx from our boat.


And the boat trips around Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. We can't get there easily from our new marina.




I probably won't miss this as it is a condo and they do that for you.


But we went to our new marina Saturday and met some new friends. They have a band there and a nice outdoor restaurant and bar next to the bay and the indoor and outdoor pool.
They give you free Kayaks and canoes and have a few free bar be cues a year along with tables on the water. We will get used to it. And it's not to far for our lifelong friends to come and stay with us. Our closest friends live next door.

This is from our new house. The sun just set on Connecticut.

 

[Paul B]

Getting back to fish tanks I went to my LFS on Sunday because I needed food. Besides clams and worms I use LRS food but I don't like the stuff for spawning because the particles are to small and I can't use the vegetarian food because I have no algae eaters and I can't use Chunky because the pieces are to big. They are out of the stuff I use, I think it is Reef Frenzy. So they gave me this stuff that they thought would work. It is supposed to be Krill but it is compressed into little sticks.

My fish hate it and spit it out in my direction while giving me the evil eye. Nothing eats it except for maybe the crabs and they will eat "Play Doh."
I have to go out and get more clams now because I have nothing else to feed them and Jenny Craig doesn't deliver here.
I really need the stuff especially for when I move because it is a ride to get live clams in my new house so I need something easy for a few weeks.

 

[Paul B]

I am really going to hate moving this tank. The corals are reaching for the ceiling, (or they are trying to get out)

Everything really looks great and I can't understand it with my parameters. I am even afraid to have them tested. I know the real seawater I am going to use is going to kill these things. It's a shame and I think I will bring most of my scurvy water to put in my new tank and gradually change it to clean sea water. I need to go and collect some soon because when I am taking stuff out of this tank to put in buckets, I have to add more water to the tank for the fish.
The fish are also doing very well and you can tell healthy fish by the colorful shimmer you see on their fins. Fish in stores or new fish don't exhibit that kind of coloring and sometimes it is hard to see but all fish in the sea have it. It may take some experience to notice it but it is there and you can't see it much in pictures. But the clear parts of many types of fish get it. I haven't had a fish jump out in probably a year and of course nothing would dare to die.
I say one of my porcelain crabs just now and even he is very colorful and he doubled in size. I didn't even know they got this big. I think I have 3 of them in there someplace. The Duncans really love live worms I think because they squirm around when they hit the tentacles and it drives the Duncans nuts. An hour after feeding they seem huge.
I still use my baby brine shrimp feeder every day and my mandarin is still smiling. Those shrimp also feed my anthiuses and gorgonians.


I just gave my white worms a bath because I have so many that they started to stink. I added more dirt because there seemed to be nothing but worms there are so many of them. Even the baby worms are so thick they look like jelly. They also stay alive in salt water almost 5 days.

 

[Paul B]

Today I went out to my new house even though I can't get in yet but I wanted to collect some water for when I move because I am going to bring to the new house my existing water so I needed a lot of new water so when I remove rock and corals I will have water to put back in the tank. I will probably change my water first with this new water and keep the old water to put back in my tank while I make the move.
My new collection device works great but the place where I collected was full of algae so my water was full of tiny pieces of chopped up seaweed. I needed to clean that out because as soon as the water warms, that stuff will die and cloud the water. The only problem was I already packed my diatom filters and powder.
I tried straining the water through some material but it was still green and scurvy looking so I had to dig through my packed boxes and I found some hoses. Not the right hoses but hoses none the less. Then I found some diatom powder, not enough but some. I looked and looked until I found a XL Diatom filter that I know leaks like a sieve and fills with air, but that was the best I could do. I got the hoses to fit and dumped in the powder and got the thing semi working. It will work long enough to filter the 35 gallons of water I collected. When it is finished I will try to pack this stuff back up. I can hardly move in my house with all the closets, drawers and cabinets emptied and in boxes.

I backed my car up to my workshop window and pumped the water to my workshop with my new water collecting device.

 

[Paul B]

That big blue container has a float switch near the top. When I make ASW I connect that to my reservoir bucket near my ceiling and when it gets full, the float makes it stop so I don't flood the house. It has been working for years but in my new house I plan to use almost nothing but NSW unless it is winter and it gets to rough to collect. The water I collected yesterday was ice cold, after it warms up I will change water in my tank and take that used water to put back in my tank when I remove the rocks. Yes I know I said that in my last post which means I am bored and waiting for my wife to get up so we can go to breakfast.
I don't want to wake her because she gets tired during the day. Yesterday she dropped a tray of fish she was broiling in the oven. It splashed burning oil on her face and she had 4 or 5 burns that turned red and will probably peel. One is right on the end of her nose. It was painful. Because of the MS she drops a lot of things because she doesn't have a lot of feelings in her fingers.