Jay Hemdal
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Fish Medic
A little story -
I’ve been a home brewer for over 25 years, I generally brew 15 to 20 gallons a year. I’m ashamed to admit that I am just an extract brewer – one can of extract and 3 pounds of DME and three weeks later I have five gallons of good cheap stout. Indeed, my primary fermenter for all this time has been a six-gallon plastic “Mr. Beer” carboy. Just once, about ten years ago, did I try an all grain recipe. I over-hopped it and had to pour it all out. However, that one instance is how homebrewing saved my fish last month….
The second thing I have to be ashamed of is my 16-gallon Bio-Cube that I set up just before the Covid lock-down. This is the first home aquarium I’ve had in almost 30 years. Since I set it up, I’ve discovered that with R2R, my Zoo work, a new grandson and sailing, I just didn’t have time to maintain it properly. Although it has one really nice Darwin clownfish, all of the rockwork was now covered, nay, completely hidden by hair algae and Valonia. So, I took the day off of work and spent the morning plucking hair algae and washing rockwork. Trying to take a shortcut (as I am prone to do) I then drained 10 gallons out of the tank for a huge water change. I then grabbed my mixing bucket, salt and the … whups; my hydrometer was nowhere to be found! The nearest LFS is 1 ½ hours roundtrip. Although I’ve been mixing seawater for fifty years, my confidence was low that I could just eyeball the mix. As the clownfish eyed me disapprovingly from the murky five gallons of water left in his tank – I remembered my one foray into all-grain brewing; I had purchased a glass hydrometer back then! And using that, is how homebrewing saved my fish!
Jay
I’ve been a home brewer for over 25 years, I generally brew 15 to 20 gallons a year. I’m ashamed to admit that I am just an extract brewer – one can of extract and 3 pounds of DME and three weeks later I have five gallons of good cheap stout. Indeed, my primary fermenter for all this time has been a six-gallon plastic “Mr. Beer” carboy. Just once, about ten years ago, did I try an all grain recipe. I over-hopped it and had to pour it all out. However, that one instance is how homebrewing saved my fish last month….
The second thing I have to be ashamed of is my 16-gallon Bio-Cube that I set up just before the Covid lock-down. This is the first home aquarium I’ve had in almost 30 years. Since I set it up, I’ve discovered that with R2R, my Zoo work, a new grandson and sailing, I just didn’t have time to maintain it properly. Although it has one really nice Darwin clownfish, all of the rockwork was now covered, nay, completely hidden by hair algae and Valonia. So, I took the day off of work and spent the morning plucking hair algae and washing rockwork. Trying to take a shortcut (as I am prone to do) I then drained 10 gallons out of the tank for a huge water change. I then grabbed my mixing bucket, salt and the … whups; my hydrometer was nowhere to be found! The nearest LFS is 1 ½ hours roundtrip. Although I’ve been mixing seawater for fifty years, my confidence was low that I could just eyeball the mix. As the clownfish eyed me disapprovingly from the murky five gallons of water left in his tank – I remembered my one foray into all-grain brewing; I had purchased a glass hydrometer back then! And using that, is how homebrewing saved my fish!
Jay
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