My tank just reached 50 years old.

[polyppal]

Idk, looks like it’s still cycling to me

Congrats on such a milestone!

 

[Paul B]

Congrats on such a milestone!

Thank you. I also feel is a milestone but to me it is also the last milestone.
Here is a stupid video of a milestone.


I think we all need to set milestones for most of the things we do. I always did in my job and my life (which rarely go as planned)

I feel I had milestones for my tank but at the time of each one, I didn't think of them as milestones.
Of course as pertaining to this hobby our first milestone was to get the tank, water fish etc.

It takes a while to figure what lights you want, how to build, get the money, win them on "Name That Tune" or buy them.
So that was everybody's first milestone.

The second milestone was to get them to live a few days or a week. That took a little time. Some people are still stuck on that milestone.

After we get them to live, our next milestone is to keep them healthy enough that they only die of old age like they are supposed to do and what I want for myself. I would like to live to at least 157.

That last milestone is where 95% of the members are still stuck. I myself was lucky because I passed that milestone probably between 1979-1983. That was because Steve Jobs and Bill Gates didn't perfect computers yet so we didn't have so much wrong information and we had to think about this stuff using our brains and common sense.

Our brain is that often unused blob in our heads that is normally used to control our thumbs so we can text a person of the opposite sex (sometimes the same sex) and try to mimic conversation that makes us "seem" intelligent without actually having to have words come out of our mouths as many of us speak in Klingon using "words" such as LOL, ROTFLMAO, DUH, ERRRR, OMG etc.

I discovered, mostly by accident, somewhat through SCUBA diving "alone" and not in a tourist resort with 57 other people that learned how to swim last Tuesday and discovered SCUBA diving that morning about 8:00 - 8:30 am after breakfast of pancakes with that fake Maple syrup instead of the real stuff.

I dove with fish in places I couldn't pronounce, laying on the bottom which was a DSB until I either ran out of air or remembered my wallet was still in my Speedo that I was wearing to impress the cute little French girl that I met that morning sitting next to the guy who just learned how to swim.

From that I learned a few things. French girls don't like me, and fish are getting along very well without us.

There are predators all around them but they don't swim around shaking in fear like we do if we see a Great White Shark smiling at us. ;Jawdrop

I also learned that the majority of fish do not eat flakes or pellets and very rarely eat anything freeze dried although a Great White Shark will eat an accountant no matter how dry he is.

Fish eat fresh seafood. Mostly whole seafood and they don't even spit out the bones like I do.

I also learned that fish in the sea do not "look" sick. They are all much better looking than the fish in tanks but not that French girl with the long hair and..........OK forget her.

That milestone in the early 80s I learned that as long as I "left the fish alone" and fed them the right stuff they lived forever or until they jumped out like many of my fish do. Unfortunately healthy fish in spawning mode jump very high.

When fish in tanks die, it is "always" our fault. Not the drunk who hit the power pole causing your power to go out (buy a generator) the owner of the LFS that told us that Achilles tangs stay smaller than an inch and can be fed goldfish pellets, (read a book) or the guy in the canoe in WacaWaca land in the South Pacific who was just trying to make a few cents so he could feed his pet iguana.

It is our fault. 100% all the time.
And if we fail to learn or don't want to know how to keep fish healthy, we will lose the fish. Probably all of them then get out of the hobby and work in Home Depot loading toilet bowls onto minivans.

You want to learn? Don't ask that guy eating pancakes or that French girl. Ask somebody who has never been on the disease forum. Not me because I am old, cranky, ornery, set in my ways and past my milestones. My milestone was 50 years and I achieved that so maybe now I will start to feed all my fish nothing but boiled gold fish flakes, install a DSB, quarantine everything in hydrogen peroxide for 75 days and soak my corals in tree stump remover like many people do. You can usually find those people in the disease forum with a heading of "HELP"

 

[Paul B]

It uses 100% NSW and the oldest fish, a fireclown is about 35 or 40 years old.

This was a mistake, that fish is about 25 or 30 years old, not 40. I wish.

 

[MERKEY]

Thanks for sharing @Paul B always an inspiration and enjoyment looking at your tank!

 

[Laith]

Bravo! Nice achievement!

I bet you have some stories ;Joyful.

 

[Paul B]

Laith, I have so many stories that you don't want me to get started. Some of them even have something to do with fish.

 

[Uroplatus]

I have a question, how do you create a manifold? I have an old 60 gallon tank laying around that I thought would be interesting to try a undergravel filter with.

 

[Paul B]

I used an old HOB filter canister and drilled 3 holes in the bottom which connect to my UG filter tubes. The tubes are bent in the back just over the gravel.
This was my old one.
I built a new one very close to this. Water is pumped into this thing from that white tube on the left at about 500 GPH, no faster. The 4th tube doesn't do anything and is capped.

 

[MichaelReefer]

@Paul B can we see your Algae Scrubber?

 

[Stuartmercer]

Wow gratz. That tank is way more than 1/2 my age... Cant wait to see what I can do in 50 years

 

[Paul B]

Here is that manifold installed


Here it is when I built it in my last house. That one had a tube at the bottom of the mesh that fed the UG filter manifold. I don't do that any more and my mesh just ends at the top of my water level. My pictures are not working now so I can't take a new picture yet.

 

[Uroplatus]

No problem, thank you so very much for your time

 

[Anarakii]

Very nice! Your tank is gonna be eligible for social security at this rate.

 

[Paul B]

I am so why shouldn't it?

 

[rhdoug]

Hi Paul, I just found this thread, and as everyone else has said: Congrats on the Half-Century Tank! You probably don't remember me, but you called me one morning several years ago when I had some questions on your aptasia zapper. Anyway you made my day with that phone call.

I always enjoy your posts and also have similar philosophies in our hobby (and I don't quarantine either). I don't feed worms but may try it at some point, I have pushed my wife to the limit over the years with my critter hobby and know when to quit while I'm ahead (I kept chameleons for several years - which meant multiple colonies of insects in the house, including giant roaches!)

Keep up the good work, and if you ever venture up near Dutchess county, feel free to stop in and peek at my little reef, it is now almost half as old as yours.

 

[Paul B]

Hi Doug. Actually I do remember you which is odd as I don't remember much of anything.
I have to go feed my goats now..I mean my fish.

 

[atoll]

Did somebody say Triggers old brush.

 

[EagleEye121]

That’s fantastic man! So many times many of us best to always quarantine, never reuse sand, etc... you’ve proved that you can and still have a long term successful reef.
Hats off to you!

 

[Paul B]

Atoll, Thanks. That broom video was posted, (probably by you) a few times when my tank was 40 years old. Great video.

EagleEye, Thank you. There are so many Old Wifes Tales floating around these forums that you would think everybody has an old wife.

Much of the stuff posted boggles my mind and it is fairly boggled most of the time anyway. I am surprised anybody is able to keep a tank. Some of the practices just seem ridiculous especially with many of the things people do to poor new fish. Dipping, medicating, observing, quarantining, then medication again then hiring bag pipe players to play Taps when they croak.

If I was a fish (and part of me is) I would exercise just so I get strong enough to jump out and hopefully fall head first on a tile floor near a hungry cat who has irritable Bowell disease

Just leave the fish alone, feed him correctly, then ignore him and he will be fine.
Of course I am not the God of fish so you may not want to take advice from me as I am so lucky that in 50 years I have never introduced ich, velvet, intestinal worms or any number of things I can't pronounce much less spell to my tank but the day is not over yet.

I am taking my wife to our old neighborhood today and will go to a large LFS, so maybe I will buy something infested with all of those afflictions so I can dip, medicate and quarantine.

That will give me the opportunity to turn on the gas on my oven and stick my head in there while I fall asleep reading page 42 in my book. ;Meh

 

[atoll]

Atoll, Thanks. That broom video was posted, (probably by you) a few times when my tank was 40 years old. Great video.

EagleEye, Thank you. There are so many Old Wifes Tales floating around these forums that you would think everybody has an old wife.

Much of the stuff posted boggles my mind and it is fairly boggled most of the time anyway. I am surprised anybody is able to keep a tank. Some of the practices just seem ridiculous especially with many of the things people do to poor new fish. Dipping, medicating, observing, quarantining, then medication again then hiring bag pipe players to play Taps when they croak.

If I was a fish (and part of me is) I would exercise just so I get strong enough to jump out and hopefully fall head first on a tile floor near a hungry cat who has irritable Bowell disease

Just leave the fish alone, feed him correctly, then ignore him and he will be fine.
Of course I am not the God of fish so you may not want to take advice from me as I am so lucky that in 50 years I have never introduced ich, velvet, intestinal worms or any number of things I can't pronounce much less spell to my tank but the day is not over yet.

I am taking my wife to our old neighborhood today and will go to a large LFS, so maybe I will buy something infested with all of those afflictions so I can dip, medicate and quarantine.

That will give me the opportunity to turn on the gas on my oven and stick my head in there while I fall asleep reading page 42 in my book. ;Meh

Payl yes the vid I have posted a few times, classic British comedy Only Fools and Horses. There are lots of videos of the in YouTube. I esp like the ones of Trigger.
On the Medicate, QT etc etc. All I will say is therecare none so blind that refuse to see.