Tank birthday, 47+ years

[dricc]

Today, and yesterday I am kind of sick and I very rarely get sick. But I am not as immune as my fish, I think that is because I have Grand Kids. I think I may have a touch of HLLE or velvet so my wife is giving me fresh water dips and dosing me with Przapro and coppersafe. My pH is 8.4 but my PO4 is a little high.

My wife noticed I was sick because I was breathing air up near my ceiling.

I am only drinking RO/DI water and making sure the temperature is 78 degrees. I ordered some blackworms and will mix those with a little Mastick so I can stick them on the wall and I can snack off of that all day.
I will also darken the lights and keep my bully neighbors away.

I understand the problem, you forgot to turn on the ozone before the grandkids came over.

 

[atoll]

You may be able to still find some of those small oblong grid type plates that lock together to make just about any size UG filter with as many uplifts (downlifts) as you want. Rena and Fluval made them and perhaps other's

 

[Paul B]

They really come as one long 72" plate?? How do you get it past the two brace(s) on top of the tank?

Only two/three standpipes makes a little more sense if there's more than one plate.

How many pumps are driving your rfUGF presently?

My tank now is very old and the glass is thick, there re no braces across the top. My present UG filter If I remember is in two pieces. I use one pump to run the thing. It pumps into a manifold over the water and the water equally flows down each tube about 150 GPH down each tube and that is what I want to re create.

This is the manifold. Water comes down the algae scrubber into that white tube, then flows into the UG filter manifold which has 3 tubes coming out of the bottom. State of the art.
Remember I don't have a sump and "probably" won't have one on my new tank.

 

[mcarroll]

After looking, it seems that a 125 just has a single brace. I guess that's not too tough to slide a big UGF plate into.

My tank now is very old and the glass is thick, there re no braces across the top.

That never even struck me looking at your pics over the years....I also have an old-style 50 Gallon that is braceless. HEAVY AS HECK and you can't get them pre-made like that anymore.

Think you'll mind the brace on the new tank very much? (Something I've been wondering too.....125 is my likely upgrade path.)

Remember I don't have a sump and "probably" won't have one on my new tank.

My next probably will not have a sump either.

 

[Paul B]

I am not sure if the brace bothers me or not. I can always modify it to remove the brace and make the top rim out of stainless steel.

See, no brace

 

[Paul B]

I got another one of these a couple of hours ago to help the other one eat the asternia stars. Now I can't find either one of them. They are probably in the back someplace spawning. I didn't buy them to spawn and if they want to screw around, they should have stayed in the store. I need them eating starfish. When I put him in he sauntered over near the old fireclown who has no sense of humor. The clown grabbed him by the face and I thought he was going to eat his face off, but he was just saying hello and he carried the shrimp about 10" away and dropped him. He has eggs and is very touchy.


I got a few of these maybe 6 months ago and haven't' seen them since then. This week I see two of them and they shed because they are much bigger. They love new born brine shrimp because when I put them in the tank they do the Macarana and go nuts trying to catch as many as they can with those silly "catchy, things" they have for hands. They also love live worms. I am not sure how they manage to eat them, but every day I give a worm to each of them and it puts a big smile on their little faces. If that is their face.


This guy also loves baby shrimp but after the shrimp are gone he trys to eat anything that is floating by which is mainly bubbles. He has been catching bubbles for months. I would imagine that would be a good way for us to lose weight.


This guy colored up nicely in the few months I have him



As did this guy who I am very partial to.


These guys spawn like every three and a half minutes. It's unbelievable. They don't even have to spawn because the female is always so full, that she "Leaks" eggs all over the place.


This guy loves to eat pieces of clam. I never told him he is a vegetarian. I got him as a tiny baby but I don't remember where or when. (That was a song title)
I am sure it was many years ago because I don't remember not having him. But I don't remember much

 

[Tristren]

Remember I don't have a sump and "probably" won't have one on my new tank.

Oh I think you should try one!

Maybe I mean a refugium really. Think of it as a combination algae trough and beneficial bacteria and pod breeding ground. These things are designed to get tanks closer to where yours is.

Just think about how having that separate section could help with your experiments.

And the thing to remember is that with all the changes you are making you are going to have an at least partially new tank!

So to pass on some advice from one newbie to another, please see this quote from the godfather of the avant garde natural reef aquarium:
"supermodels, worms, something something, I'm old, story about building the first something-or-other out of a decommissioned Russian submarine, something something worms, bacteria, immunity, supermodels, story about finding a halfdead fish in an alley in a snowstorm and nursing it back with nothing but worms and a Petrie dish of the plague he bought at a swap meet, something something, Don't do what I do noob! "

You only need the last bit now but the rest of it is worth it for the colour it adds.


But seriously though, this new focus (not new ideas i know but newly popular it seems to me as an actual newbie) on refugiums and less artificial filtration etc etc really does seem to be moving the hobby more towards where you and a few others have been for years. I think that it would be a real shame if, given this opportunity, we missed out on what your set up would be like running a sump / refugium. I think that would be really interesting and useful for the rest of us who are trying to get our systems closer to where yours is now (and who mostly have sumps ourselves).

Anyway, food for thought.


Cheers, Tony

 

[Paul B]

Tony, I have nothing against sumps and it isn't totally out of the realm yet. But in my particular set up I run a Reverse UG filter. Underneath that thing is a plethora of organisms that have no place to grow in most tanks.
It protects the millions of tiny brittle stars and tube worms that grow all through my gravel due to the water circulation provided by the UG filter. If you don't have a UG filter, the bottom layers of your substrate are pretty baron and stagnant. Baron and stagnant is not a good thing anywhere in a tank. IMO we need oxygen everywhere so things can thrive to grow and feed larger things.
I was at my favorite LFS a few hours ago buying a shrimp and some food. A guy comes up to me and says, "Are you the guy with the very old tank?"
I said, yes thats me. He says, how do you do it, whats the secret? I said I am going to be here for 3 minutes and it would take weeks for me to explain what I do. I forgot to tell him to read my book.

I don't know exactly what I do to keep the tank healthy and have the fish living forever, but I know what I don't do which I believe is one of the keys. I don't quarantine, I don't use medications, I don't tweek the parameters, I don't use Roaphas, GAC, Prizapro, tree stump remover, red slime remover, antibiotics, carbon, bio pellets, suppliments or just about anything else as I try to run a natural system and I feel the tanks with all the messing with, crash first.

 

[Dogtown]

I could see you having a good time with both your RUG filter and a remote sump/refugium. Just think of all the additional diversity that you’ll have in the fuge. It will be a full time Macarena dance for sure.

 

[atoll]

I wrote to Tunze UK hoping they would have some photographs of an old skimmer of theirs as I could not find one on the net. Well, this morning I got a reply stating they just had an old catalogue with a pic etc of it in. I had this skimmer around 30 years ago (I believe however the model was first introduced years before that as when I bought it cheap but new it had already been superseded ) and it was a beast that would give many of today's skimmers a run for their money I can tell you. The air cooled motor was one of their very powerful 4002 models. The skimmer was a venturi design which you clamped on the edge of the tank or in my case my sump. The motor could be stripped down to all it's parts and worn out parts could be replaced nothing could not be fixed or replaced. I don't recall what I did with it but I sure wish I had it now, it replaced a Sander skimmer I had converted using a Hagen 2000 powerhead and a bit of DIY.

Here is a blownup portion of the pi'sc from the catalogue they sent me. Anybody else recall these skimmers? I think they may not have been available in the US at the time, however. In fact, many in the US did run skimmers back then.

 

[Paul B]

I do remember those motors.

 

[atoll]

I do remember those motors.

Paul, they are still available new I think at least they were quite recently but then quite recently to us could be a few years ago

 

[Chasmodes]

Edit: I haven't had a UGF for years but do you have yours cover every inch of the bottom? If not, couldn't you just carry the one you have forward or is it too old/brittle?

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[Paul B]

I want it covering the entire bottom, No cheating

 

[Tristren]

Tony, I have nothing against sumps and it isn't totally out of the realm yet. But in my particular set up I run a Reverse UG filter. Underneath that thing is a plethora of organisms that have no place to grow in most tanks.
It protects the millions of tiny brittle stars and tube worms that grow all through my gravel due to the water circulation provided by the UG filter. If you don't have a UG filter, the bottom layers of your substrate are pretty baron and stagnant. Baron and stagnant is not a good thing anywhere in a tank. IMO we need oxygen everywhere so things can thrive to grow and feed larger things.
I was at my favorite LFS a few hours ago buying a shrimp and some food. A guy comes up to me and says, "Are you the guy with the very old tank?"
I said, yes thats me. He says, how do you do it, whats the secret? I said I am going to be here for 3 minutes and it would take weeks for me to explain what I do. I forgot to tell him to read my book.

I don't know exactly what I do to keep the tank healthy and have the fish living forever, but I know what I don't do which I believe is one of the keys. I don't quarantine, I don't use medications, I don't tweek the parameters, I don't use Roaphas, GAC, Prizapro, tree stump remover, red slime remover, antibiotics, carbon, bio pellets, suppliments or just about anything else as I try to run a natural system and I feel the tanks with all the messing with, crash first.

Wait, so I should remove the tree stump remover from my system?

I reckon you could have a good time with different macro Algae in a refugium too.

Also do you really think that the sand is stagnant a couple of inches down?

 

[Paul B]

Wait, so I should remove the tree stump remover from my system?

I reckon you could have a good time with different macro Algae in a refugium too.

Also do you really think that the sand is stagnant a couple of inches down?

Yes,,,And remove any tree stumps also,,,,,,YES,,,,,and YES,,,

 

[GBRsouth]

Hey Paul, why not make yourself a custom RUGF. I'm sure you've already got the handyman skills. Then you can make it exactly to your new tank's dimensions.

 

[Paul B]

The first two or three I did make myself. This time I will be in the middle of a move so I only have one day to set the tank up, fill it with seawater, heat it up and move it to the new house.

 

[Chasmodes]

Hey Paul, why not make yourself a custom RUGF. I'm sure you've already got the handyman skills. Then you can make it exactly to your new tank's dimensions.

You could make one steampunk style

 

[Paul B]

My lights are already SteamPunk. I am very busy building SteamPunk stuff for the house. I already built three of the lights and I have one lamp already made from aan old crank phone. I am also building a SteamPunk, Industrial bed. Very cool. I have huge steel wheels so far.