Tank birthday, 47+ years
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Paul B
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This thread made 100 pages, how about that!
For a few days I couldn't find any of my anemone crabs, and I have 5 of them. I searched behind rocks with a flashlight, crawled under and to the back of the tank with a mirror, called out their name etc. Not one.
But this morning before the lights came on I see four of them on the same montipora like they were checking out each other's cell phones. I can't find the fifth one but he may be shedding someplace or just enjoying his quiet time.
For a few days I couldn't find any of my anemone crabs, and I have 5 of them. I searched behind rocks with a flashlight, crawled under and to the back of the tank with a mirror, called out their name etc. Not one.
But this morning before the lights came on I see four of them on the same montipora like they were checking out each other's cell phones. I can't find the fifth one but he may be shedding someplace or just enjoying his quiet time.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
100 pages is very impressive! That is a LOT of people telling you that they hope you get an Urchin spine stuck in your eye!
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I just took this video which came out pretty good. The mandarins won't let me take closeups so they are not in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7dKzh6ZOYs&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7dKzh6ZOYs&feature=youtu.be
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I don't have any anemones but I don't tell them that. They live on a hard montipora, but think it is an anemone with arthritis.
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I am cooking tonight so I just came back from the fish market. $19.99 for a pound of flounder. Flounder!!! which I used to catch by the dozen. My copperband is starting to look pretty tasty right now. (Those porcelain crabs could be dessert) And a pound of flounder is almost enough to feed my fish for a couple of days. The price of fish has really gone up. My family was in the sea food business but they all got out of it many years ago. My dad who had a fish market died almost 60 years ago.
My wife and I eat a lot of fish and we go out a lot but I never ordered a steak in a restaurant in my life. If they have fish, I always eat that. Or pasta of course as I am Italian. We don't eat imported or farm raised seafood, it has to be American but it is getting tough. I tried to buy sea scallops today but they were almost $25.00 a pound. You get about 6 or 7 sea scallops in a pound which isn't much of a meal.
Here in New York the sea used to be teeming with flounders, I haven't seen one of those in many years. Now we have sea robins. You can eat those, but who wants to?
Lobsters are only about $7.00 a pound but I don't eat those because I grew up on them and whenever they would die in our store we had to eat them because you are not allowed to sell a dead lobster. It was like in that movie Forest Gump. We had boiled lobster, fried lobster, broiled lobster, stuffed lobster, sautéed lobster, fricasseed lobster etc. I hate those things. My teacher in grammar school used to trade me their peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my lobster.
My wife and I eat a lot of fish and we go out a lot but I never ordered a steak in a restaurant in my life. If they have fish, I always eat that. Or pasta of course as I am Italian. We don't eat imported or farm raised seafood, it has to be American but it is getting tough. I tried to buy sea scallops today but they were almost $25.00 a pound. You get about 6 or 7 sea scallops in a pound which isn't much of a meal.
Here in New York the sea used to be teeming with flounders, I haven't seen one of those in many years. Now we have sea robins. You can eat those, but who wants to?
Lobsters are only about $7.00 a pound but I don't eat those because I grew up on them and whenever they would die in our store we had to eat them because you are not allowed to sell a dead lobster. It was like in that movie Forest Gump. We had boiled lobster, fried lobster, broiled lobster, stuffed lobster, sautéed lobster, fricasseed lobster etc. I hate those things. My teacher in grammar school used to trade me their peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my lobster.
wowkingjames
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I will trade you a peanut butter and jelly for a lobster.
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I've obviously been living in a cave as only just found your thread.
Nice name (Paul) by the way.
I have to say....What's been said a x many times before. I'm amazed.
I will have to make time to read each page. It's like a good book. Just finished the chapter on the pigeons siting in the plaza tank and you setting up the LEDs.
May I ask are you still running those LEDs.
One thing I'd like to ask if I may, do you ever check water parameters. If so what are they. I get the impression you do the need to check you just know.
My problem at the moment is my tank is starving. It's running so ultra low in nutrients the corals are dying. It's become sterile. I plan to start dosing nitrate but one thing I've learnt from reading your threads is not to get too caught up technology or chemistry.
Some other questions.
Have you ever found anything weird or unusual growing or mooching about in your tank. Or even caught whilst boating.
What tip can you give to people like me in keeping a stable environment. Ie Mud, turf algae reactors....?
With catching pods etc. and even brining in your own rock in the day, do you feel you have had more or less pests than you may read on other threads.
Again. Truly an inspiration Paul. All the best from here in ole blighty.
Nice name (Paul) by the way.
I have to say....What's been said a x many times before. I'm amazed.
I will have to make time to read each page. It's like a good book. Just finished the chapter on the pigeons siting in the plaza tank and you setting up the LEDs.
May I ask are you still running those LEDs.
One thing I'd like to ask if I may, do you ever check water parameters. If so what are they. I get the impression you do the need to check you just know.
My problem at the moment is my tank is starving. It's running so ultra low in nutrients the corals are dying. It's become sterile. I plan to start dosing nitrate but one thing I've learnt from reading your threads is not to get too caught up technology or chemistry.
Some other questions.
Have you ever found anything weird or unusual growing or mooching about in your tank. Or even caught whilst boating.
What tip can you give to people like me in keeping a stable environment. Ie Mud, turf algae reactors....?
With catching pods etc. and even brining in your own rock in the day, do you feel you have had more or less pests than you may read on other threads.
Again. Truly an inspiration Paul. All the best from here in ole blighty.
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Paul B
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,.
Chasmodes, thank you. It's just a YouTube so I don't know why It doesn't come up easily. I probably screwed it up somehow.
Paul (nice name by the way) I can't believe you are reading this thread, I don't know how many years ago it started. But thank you for the kind words.
I don't really check the parameters but a couple of times a year I take some water to a LFS and let them check it. Let them but the test kits.
The last time I checked them my nitrates were 160 (although that is over what most test kits read so I am not sure how they got that reading) Calcium is 460, phosphate is 2.0 and KH is 10. Pretty lousy parameters.
I don't let the fish and corals know the actual numbers.
I am still running LEDs but in later years on my thread you will see that I built a water cooled LED fixture that I still use.
As you said I dump all sorts of stuff in there that I find while collecting here in NY. Except for the occasional crab, I never had any thing that I would call a pest. I had flatworms once and they were all over the place. I let them alone and they left for vacation as I never knew what happened to them. My tank doesn't get any diseases because I keep the fish immune as you will eventually read.
I do run an algae scrubber but that has only been on there for a few years. I have to clean it every two or three weeks. As you can see I don't run an ultra low nutrient tank, rather the opposite. I probably couldn't keep delicate SPS corals due to the nitrate but I like LPS better anyway.
My theories don't often go over very well, one example is that I feel quarantining is one of the worst things you can do for fish, Now I expect an egg to come flying through my window. But I explain it in the thread on immunity. Here More reading if you are interested. Here are two threads that may answer some of your questions. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-make-a-tank-last-for-40-years-with-few-problems.290237/ https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-discussion-on-immunity.209701/
I also wrote a book but you don't need to read it if you are going to read all 1995 posts of this thread.
Sundog, the bluestripes and mandarins eat every day from the feeder. They are pregnant and always are.
Chasmodes, thank you. It's just a YouTube so I don't know why It doesn't come up easily. I probably screwed it up somehow.
Paul (nice name by the way) I can't believe you are reading this thread, I don't know how many years ago it started. But thank you for the kind words.
I don't really check the parameters but a couple of times a year I take some water to a LFS and let them check it. Let them but the test kits.
The last time I checked them my nitrates were 160 (although that is over what most test kits read so I am not sure how they got that reading) Calcium is 460, phosphate is 2.0 and KH is 10. Pretty lousy parameters.
I don't let the fish and corals know the actual numbers.
I am still running LEDs but in later years on my thread you will see that I built a water cooled LED fixture that I still use.
As you said I dump all sorts of stuff in there that I find while collecting here in NY. Except for the occasional crab, I never had any thing that I would call a pest. I had flatworms once and they were all over the place. I let them alone and they left for vacation as I never knew what happened to them. My tank doesn't get any diseases because I keep the fish immune as you will eventually read.
I do run an algae scrubber but that has only been on there for a few years. I have to clean it every two or three weeks. As you can see I don't run an ultra low nutrient tank, rather the opposite. I probably couldn't keep delicate SPS corals due to the nitrate but I like LPS better anyway.
My theories don't often go over very well, one example is that I feel quarantining is one of the worst things you can do for fish, Now I expect an egg to come flying through my window.
But I explain it in the thread on immunity. Here More reading if you are interested. Here are two threads that may answer some of your questions. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-make-a-tank-last-for-40-years-with-few-problems.290237/ https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-discussion-on-immunity.209701/I also wrote a book but you don't need to read it if you are going to read all 1995 posts of this thread.
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Oh I plan to read every page Paul, but please let me know the ISBN or way of buying the book.
There is both charm and intrigue in your posts with a dash of...Oh what's it called...wisdom. You sir, are a legend.
Add to that it's like every thread ends in a small cliff hanger. Intentional or not but it's been as fun reading as it has looking back at some of the older photos.
The aquarium from one of the early pages shows pictures of glass bottles and a can. It looks as natural (as natural for an unnatural thing) can look on a reef. With the algae encrusting at times it's hard to work out what it was. Beautiful, creative and cheap.
I caught the reefkeeping bug some 6 year ago. It's (no pun intended) not gone so swimmingly. However I've learnt lots in that time, yet forgot a whole lot more.
I've made mistakes and then some. Not so much careless more trying to do the right thing
I've tried to help people and probably made things a whole lot worse.
I sometimes bite my lip at comments and sometimes dont know when to stop. I guess it's a passion.
For me now I just need to balance OCD in what i think a tank should look like, what the industry insist it should be, compared to what the diversity actually want.
Paul, happy reefing.
There is both charm and intrigue in your posts with a dash of...Oh what's it called...wisdom. You sir, are a legend.
Add to that it's like every thread ends in a small cliff hanger. Intentional or not but it's been as fun reading as it has looking back at some of the older photos.
The aquarium from one of the early pages shows pictures of glass bottles and a can. It looks as natural (as natural for an unnatural thing) can look on a reef. With the algae encrusting at times it's hard to work out what it was. Beautiful, creative and cheap.
I caught the reefkeeping bug some 6 year ago. It's (no pun intended) not gone so swimmingly. However I've learnt lots in that time, yet forgot a whole lot more.
I've made mistakes and then some. Not so much careless more trying to do the right thing
I've tried to help people and probably made things a whole lot worse.
I sometimes bite my lip at comments and sometimes dont know when to stop. I guess it's a passion.
For me now I just need to balance OCD in what i think a tank should look like, what the industry insist it should be, compared to what the diversity actually want.
Paul, happy reefing.
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Paul B
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Paul, there is a thread on here about my book.....https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/paul-“paul-b”-baldassano-pens-unique-book-on-marine-aquarium-keeping.216448/
As for "wisdom" that is because I made every mistake that can be made and made up a bunch of new ones. I killed more fish than Starkist tuna.
The bottles and cans have always been in my tank. I consider them natural because almost all of them I collected while diving and in the almost 300 dives I did, I doubt I saw too many places where I didn't find a bottle of some sort. Especially here in New York where the visibility is measured in inches so whatever is in the water is rarely found and some of it has been here for 300 years.
I try to make my tank as natural looking as I can as you can see it is not the normal coral looking tank. I think this very old picture of my tank is the most natural looking it ever was. I collected that codium seaweed here in NY.
Many people will not like these pictures because there are little, if any SPS corals. But the tank looks just the way I wanted it to look and I only need to please myself.
As for "wisdom" that is because I made every mistake that can be made and made up a bunch of new ones. I killed more fish than Starkist tuna.
The bottles and cans have always been in my tank. I consider them natural because almost all of them I collected while diving and in the almost 300 dives I did, I doubt I saw too many places where I didn't find a bottle of some sort. Especially here in New York where the visibility is measured in inches so whatever is in the water is rarely found and some of it has been here for 300 years.
I try to make my tank as natural looking as I can as you can see it is not the normal coral looking tank. I think this very old picture of my tank is the most natural looking it ever was. I collected that codium seaweed here in NY.
Many people will not like these pictures because there are little, if any SPS corals. But the tank looks just the way I wanted it to look and I only need to please myself.
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Paul B
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Rock Pool Reef Keepers
Here is what the sea floor looks like off one of the remote Hawaiian Islands. I took this 2 years ago. See all the mulm on everything? That is normal in much of the sea and is healthy, depending on what you are trying to re create.
This hair algae was on the same reef. People think this stuff is a disease. But some people also think Myley Cyrus is talented.
This was the Caribbean, totally different, not at all bad, just different.
This was Bora Bora which is what most people try to emulate.
This hair algae was on the same reef. People think this stuff is a disease. But some people also think Myley Cyrus is talented.
This was the Caribbean, totally different, not at all bad, just different.
This was Bora Bora which is what most people try to emulate.
Well you do only need to please yourself with such an aquarium, but sharing you have already made my Friday night. I do like the tank, very much.
A tank doesn't have to be fully sps. Sea fans can be just as challenging to keep.
PS one book bought, paperback so should hopefully start winging its way to the UK any time soon.... Now how do I get it signed
A tank doesn't have to be fully sps. Sea fans can be just as challenging to keep.
PS one book bought, paperback so should hopefully start winging its way to the UK any time soon.... Now how do I get it signed
Man I'd die to see those places. If the climate keeps changing as it is then I may never get the chance.Here is what the sea floor looks like off one of the remote Hawaiian Islands. I took this 2 years ago. See all the mulm on everything? That is normal in much of the sea and is healthy, depending on what you are trying to re create.
This hair algae was on the same reef. People think this stuff is a disease. But some people also think Myley Cyrus is talented.
This was the Caribbean, totally different, not at all bad, just different.
This was Bora Bora which is what most people try to emulate.
Beautiful.
I've never minded a bit of turf algae. It's only a problem in a small glass tank when it takes a hold and covers the immotile inhabitants.
Each environment plays host to its select invertebrates. I guess the problems occur when mixing them, or trying to introduce an animal into conditions it's not suited for.
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