Moving 47 year old reef 60 miles. OMG

BestMomEver · Jul 12, 2018

Paul B said:
Esimison. If I didn't live, my stories would not have been as funny. But remember, in Nam we had no electricity, no plumbing, no clean water, no roof, no walls, no roads, no underwear, (no Seriously) no nothing but mud and VC. We did have mosquitoes, leaches, scorpions, all sorts of snakes (I once shot a cobra and a very huge python) Tigers, elephants, monkeys and malaria. I spent a year in the jungle and I never came out except for a week of R&R in Australia.
My unit lost men every week and in one night we lost about 50 of us out of about 250. (They wrote a book about it. It was the worst day of my life.
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/contemporary-history/april-1-1970-fire-base-illingworth-hell-earth/ )

I once caught a scorpion that was about 7" long. I put him in a can about as big as a beer can and his elbows stuck out. I shot it with my 45 and that just wounded it and made him mad. I eventually killed him with my M-16 but he didn't go easily. If that didn't work, I had plenty of grenades.

Speaking about snow. I was stationed in Colorado for a few months and one of the things I remembered was the snow plows on the trains. They were like 15' high and I thought that was a little overkill. The truth is that those plows were not high enough.
I went out in an M 60 tank through that snow and you can't stop an M 60 tank but the snow was coming up over the turret. There is a tank story that goes with that but not tonight as I think I already told it and this is a tank move thread, not an M 60 military tank thread.

This was Duk Duk. He was my best friend. I took him from a kid who was going to make lunch out of him. I gave the kid some C Rations which were just as greasy. Duk Duk stayed with me about 8 or 9 months and would not leave me. He slept with his head on my shoulder and all night he would "snore" He would say, very quietly Quack, Quack, Quack. Then when the sun came up about 4:30 he would go Quack Quack very loud in my ear until I fed him. When he came in a helicopter with me I had to hold his wings down. If I walked away, he would run after me qand sit down in front of me. I really miss Duk Duk.

This was our "Amazon" Anything we needed came on one of these.

This is Judy (the monkey) looking for something to eat in my pocket.

This was a friend of mine that wandered out of the bush

BTW... you had a very lucky duck!

foxt · Jul 12, 2018

I am waiting with interest for more pictures of the new tank, or did I miss them? I have seen pictures of buckets, geezers, supermodels, grandchildren, boats, even a bed, but just one picture of tank after the move, and that was half-filled with water. I bet he didn't even move. This is all just an elaborate hoax upon us in prep for news that one of his fish caught ick.

Actually, maybe what he is really doing is shutting down his 47 yr old QT and finally moving stuff to a DT?

norfolkgarden · Jul 12, 2018

Rispa said:
I don't they hurt anything when they cling

They don't hurt a larger fish that I know about.

But the neon cleaner goby was about 1 inch long and and 1/8 inch wide and the cling fish was almost 3 inches long.

This was after we lost the first neon cleaner goby.

The cling fish turned out to be a very hungry predator.

Paul B · Jul 13, 2018

I took pictures of my tank and they are still in my phone which is right next to my sleeping wife and a sleeping wife is a wife that is not asking me to go shopping for a bunch of stuff that we don't need or want and will return next week. I will post the pictures when I can get my phone.
Yesterday I added about 20lbs more rock from my old tank. Some of it smelled of hydrogen sulfide because it has been in a bucket of old water along with a lot of mud and it had a cover on it.

I also added a few gallons of gravel, also not in great shape but it is what it is. I have a lot more rocks and gravel but I will unfortunately have to either dump it or bleach it as it really developed to much sulfide so I can't put it in.
It is a testament of the health of the tank when you can take everything out, throw it in buckets, move it 60 miles and dump everything back in with no thermometer or test kits, no lights and everything is better than ever. No mini cycles, no spots, no stress, no red tide, no heartbreak of psoriasis. All the fish ate right away. (That is due to the bacteria in their diet)

Yesterday I got my Off the Road permit and found a beach about 2 miles from here that I can drive on. I figured I would be the only one there. Nope!

We went there and you go down this steep rocky hill to the sand and near the entrance there were about 100 people dancing, swimming, playing volley ball and bowling

It was a big party. Then we drove down the beach a while and there was almost no one just a couple of fisher men and Girls Moon bathing.

The water was like linoleum (google it) Very clean and not a ripple. The sand was pristine and you can drive right up to the water. You can drive into the water if you are a Jiboni.
Now I have a very clean source of NSW that I can easily get all year and I am thrilled beyond belief. Well,,, Not that much, but I am happy. I am normally happy but now I am happier.

If my wife was healthy I would be the happiest man on Earth.

BestMomEver · Jul 13, 2018

Paul B said:
I took pictures of my tank and they are still in my phone which is right next to my sleeping wife and a sleeping wife is a wife that is not asking me to go shopping for a bunch of stuff that we don't need or want and will return next week. I will post the pictures when I can get my phone.
Yesterday I added about 20lbs more rock from my old tank. Some of it smelled of hydrogen sulfide because it has been in a bucket of old water along with a lot of mud and it had a cover on it.

I also added a few gallons of gravel, also not in great shape but it is what it is. I have a lot more rocks and gravel but I will unfortunately have to either dump it or bleach it as it really developed to much sulfide so I can't put it in.
It is a testament of the health of the tank when you can take everything out, throw it in buckets, move it 60 miles and dump everything back in with no thermometer or test kits, no lights and everything is better than ever. No mini cycles, no spots, no stress, no red tide, no heartbreak of psoriasis. All the fish ate right away. (That is due to the bacteria in their diet)

Yesterday I got my Off the Road permit and found a beach about 2 miles from here that I can drive on. I figured I would be the only one there. Nope!

We went there and you go down this steep rocky hill to the sand and near the entrance there were about 100 people dancing, swimming, playing volley ball and bowling

It was a big party. Then we drove down the beach a while and there was almost no one just a couple of fisher men and Girls Moon bathing.

The water was like linoleum (google it) Very clean and not a ripple. The sand was pristine and you can drive right up to the water. You can drive into the water if you are a Jiboni.
Now I have a very clean source of NSW that I can easily get all year and I am thrilled beyond belief. Well,,, Not that much, but I am happy. I am normally happy but now I am happier.

If my wife was healthy I would be the happiest man on Earth.

This may be too personal .... But..... Your wife is sick? I hope it's not serious ..

Paul B · Jul 13, 2018

She has MS. Multiple Sclorosis.

Chasmodes · Jul 14, 2018

Glad things are going well Paul. I look forward to your updates daily!

For those that don't know clingfish, to have one is to love one. They're an oddity and yes, they are predatory because they have large mouths. But, if all of your fish are bigger than their mouths, they will leave them along. Sometimes, when I feed my fish, my skilletfish (a species of clingfish found locally to me) will actually cling to one of my other fish. It is funny as both of them will sink to the bottom of the tank away from the food until the clingfish realizes that clinging to the other fish was a bad idea.

Here's a video of one of mine guarding eggs after spawning a couple weeks ago...aren't they fun?

Deereefer · Jul 14, 2018

Great story! Thank you for sharing

foxt · Jul 14, 2018

I had a clingfish that came in with some TBS rock. It had a way of finding the overflow, and riding down to the sump. I have a 220g, and have lost track of it - it's not in the sump, nor the overflow, so it either perished, or it's good at not being seen in a big tank.

Paul, did you acquire your clingfish from the local waters, or somewhere else?

Subsea · Jul 14, 2018

Chasmodes said:
Glad things are going well Paul. I look forward to your updates daily!

For those that don't know clingfish, to have one is to love one. They're an oddity and yes, they are predatory because they have large mouths. But, if all of your fish are bigger than their mouths, they will leave them along. Sometimes, when I feed my fish, my skilletfish (a species of clingfish found locally to me) will actually cling to one of my other fish. It is funny as both of them will sink to the bottom of the tank away from the food until the clingfish realizes that clinging to the other fish was a bad idea.

Here's a video of one of mine guarding eggs after spawning a couple weeks ago...aren't they fun?

Outstanding. I should have guessed that you and Paul knew each other. I have been following both of you distinguished gentlemen for a bit.

Paul,
I have always been inspired by your dedication and passion for reefkeeping. Not to mention that your sense of humor is “off the hook”. I emulated the reverse flow under-gravel aroggonite sandbed which worked for 45 years on your tank. 120G tank set up two days before Christmas.

Tristren · Jul 14, 2018

Paul B said:
I don't care if she was two or 92 It was a frivolous law suit. Coffee is hot. In most coffee pots, it boils. Her and her lawyer should be in jail.
...
Her fault, not McDonalds. I have a stove in my kitchen and if I put my hand on the burner, I will get third degree burns. Should I sue the stove manufacturer? If I stick my head in my reef tank and I drown, should my wife sue the tank manufacturer? If I eat one of those things that come in pill boxes and I die, should I sue the drug company? If I put a plastic bag over my head and croak, should I sue them because they didn't print that sign on them that reads "Don't put over your head"? If I go cross eyed from reading your post, can I sue you? Maybe I should get that Lady's Lawyer.

Yeah, not so much actually.

Here's a good story on it from Reader's Digest:
https://www.rd.com/culture/hot-coffee-lawsuit/

I think the general reaction to this incident is pretty mean actually, and surprising. If I stick my hand on a burner, I expect to get badly burned. If I spill coffee on me, I expect it to hurt. A lot. I don't expect to get third degree burns in seconds and be hospitalized and need skin grafts. That's absolutely nuts.

She originally asked McDonald's to just cover her medical bills. When they refused she eventually got a lawyer. She asked for $125k in the lawsuit (and assume a lot of that would go to the lawyers).

The jurors are the ones that upped it to several million. As far as I can tell they thought that the McDonald's people were jerks. There had been 700 incidents of burns in the years leading up to it, and the McDonald's witness said that number was worth them taking a look at their policies.

So the jurors gave her two days worth of coffee sales for McDonald's, or $2.7m.

That was reduced later on to around $500k. That amount apparently paid for nursing care. The third degree burns to her thighs, groin and buttocks apparently created lasting medical issues. So she wasn't traveling around enjoying her windfall...

Subsea · Jul 15, 2018

@Paul B

Glad you finished moving. I remember at Christmas that our weather stayed below freezing for three days here in Austin. If I remember correctly, at that same time, you started your tank breakdown during a cold snap on Long Island into single digits. I am trying to emulate the live fish tanks you once mentioned that were at Montauge Point before it became popular. When you told the owner that he should harvest & sell amphipods for a lot more money, I listened.

Yesterday, while piddling around with outside growout system, I confirmed that I got thriving amphipod populations in all six 150G Rubbermaid tanks. Because of sun intensity, initially, I was not able to control competition between macro algae species. With installation of “shade sails” I lowered PAR values from
above 5000 to < 500 PAR. To control water temperature requires evaporative cooling. The initial outside growout consisted of three 150G Rubbermade tanks buried in the ground for geothermal heating and cooling. Three more 150G tanks were plumbed into this system. Two were Rubbermade and the one glass tank was 6” taller. During a controlled experiment, I maintained water temperature below 80 degrees with 105 degree outside heat. Evaporation rate of 10G a day was required to keep 150G in the 70 - 80 degree range.

I reread the Vietnam link. It brought back some vivid memories that I try not to visit. It is a testimony to what men in combat have to deal with. As a comrade in arms, I salute you.
Patrick

Paul B · Jul 15, 2018

Thank you Patrick, I also Salute you.

I actually don't live too far now from that place in Montauk. I may go there some day and see if the tanks are still full of amphipods.

I collected mud and snails yesterday but didn't get any amphipods. The bottom here is sand and not rocky like where I used to boat so I need a better amphipod collection place. But the water is very clean right behind my house and 27 miles across to Connecticut so it is really the Atlantic Ocean.

I bought that clingfish and ordered some more Foxt.

McDonalds should have paid for her Medical bills just as good business but even if her bills were $5,000,000.00 it was still her fault as I said before. The cost or pain has nothing to do with it although I am sorry for what she went through and I have lived with elderly women for quite some time.
But all accidents are not the owners fault no matter the pain or cost. It's Lawyers that want you to think that and if we didn't have ambulance chasers it would be enormously cheaper and easier to live.

That's why they have those commercials that say "If you have been injured anywhere, doing anything you may be able to get compensation". No that is wrong. If you walk around and stop texting and look where you are going and handle coffee, fire and TNT responsibly, you wouldn't need a doctor. If you get hurt, you may be clumbsy or it was an accident and no one's fault.

The reason it cost $5,000.00 to go into an emergency room for a splinter is not because of the doctors. It is because of the lawyers.

Subsea · Jul 15, 2018

Paul B said:
Thank you Patrick, I also Salute you.

I actually don't live too far now from that place in Montauk. I may go there some day and see if the tanks are still full of amphipods.

I collected mud and snails yesterday but didn't get any amphipods. The bottom here is sand and not rocky like where I used to boat so I need a better amphipod collection place. But the water is very clean right behind my house and 27 miles across to Connecticut so it is really the Atlantic Ocean.

I bought that clingfish and ordered some more Foxt.

McDonalds should have paid for her Medical bills just as good business but even if her bills were $5,000,000.00 it was still her fault as I said before. The cost or pain has nothing to do with it although I am sorry for what she went through and I have lived with elderly women for quite some time.
But all accidents are not the owners fault no matter the pain or cost. It's Lawyers that want you to think that and if we didn't have ambulance chasers it would be enormously cheaper and easier to live.

That's why they have those commercials that say "If you have been injured anywhere, doing anything you may be able to get compensation". No that is wrong. If you walk around and stop texting and look where you are going and handle coffee, fire and TNT responsibly, you wouldn't need a doctor. If you get hurt, you may be clumbsy or it was an accident and no one's fault.

The reason it cost $5,000.00 to go into an emergency room for a splinter is not because of the doctors. It is because of the lawyers.

Shakespeare said it best, “First, we kill the lawyers”.

Subsea · Jul 15, 2018

Getting back to putting mud in our reef tanks, I say we have been sterile too long.

Water from Trinity Aquifier goes directly in my reef tank at a pH of 7.8 and TDS > 1000. When I sent it off to be analyzed, a lab technician called to tell me that my water had bacteria in it. When I asked what bacteria, I got back that test was not able to determine specific bacteria. I told technician that the air I breathe has bacteria in it and considering that I had been drinking the water for a year, I was not very concerned. Without bacteria, we would die very quickly. When working in Trinidad, we were cautioned not to drink the water. So I drank beer.

Ryanbrs · Jul 15, 2018

Best thing I’ve read all week

lapin · Jul 15, 2018

Subsea said:
Yesterday, while piddling around with outside grow out system, I confirmed that I got thriving amphipod populations in all six 150G Rubbermaid tanks.

I might stop by and check on your worms. maybe purchase a few amphipods if possible?