Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Paul B]

You don't come across many people using a reverse UG filter,

That is true, but you also don't come across very many old tanks and plenty of tanks were started in the 70s and 80s.

 

[vlangel]

That is true, but you also don't come across very many old tanks and plenty of tanks were started in the 70s and 80s.

I'm not sure about the 80s but what I remember of the 70s folks were smoking reefers rather than keeping reefs!

 

[Paul B]

Yes we referred to reefers as someone who smoked pot and at that time almost everyone did.

 

[Reefer831]

Yes we referred to reefers as someone who smoked pot and at that time almost everyone did.

We still do... The only difference now is it's legal :xd:

 

[Paul B]

Not in New York it isn't.

That diatom filter stalled and over heated before the job was done so I took it apart and cleaned the bearings. I also drilled large holes in the end plates of the motor and even drilled holes right through the brass bearings so I can put oil right on the armature shaft while it is running. So I ran the unit again and it worked well but there was more diatom powder in the tank than in the filter so I tore it apart again and noticed that the bag, which is basically paper that is glued together had a rip in the seam, oh I don't know, like the entire thing fell apart. So I got some thread and sewed the entire thing up and threw it back together. Now it works great. I don't remember how old it is but I pulled rusty anchors out of the Atlantic from ancient sailing ships that looked to be in better shape. I think they make these units out of the softest iron that they know will rust even if they are near a TV that is showing a National Geographic show about the Galapagos
Islands. This is not new for me as I have been dismantling diatom filters as long as I can remember which most of the time is last Tuesday. All of mine are sewed together or I had to make entirely new bags. They are a terrible design but they do a good job. Of course it is probably faster to just dump out the tank and start with all new water by the time you re build these filters.
Now my tank is so clear that you can't see any water so the fish are scared to swim.

 

[gregcoyote]

Good basic primer. Was unaware of the problem with pellets and dragonettes. So if I fed fish roe or another high protein meal to a mandarin, it doesn't matter because the feeding schedule has to be continuos anyway? How often per day can you feed them using white worms and other high protein diets?

 

[Paul B]

Mandarins need to eat almost all day and as long as they have something to eat like that you can supplement them with white or blackworms, fish roe, tater tots, meatballs and spaghetti or anything else they will eat, but their basic food should be pods and they need a lot of them to last in between you going to the Italian deli for the spaghetti. They will live on new born brine shrimp if you build a feeder like I use but I only use that because I like them to spawn. They will live just fine in my tank without it.

 

[gregcoyote]

Because I have wrasses, my pod population is under constant pressure even in a 22 year old system. As long as I have to depend on pods I won't mess with mandarins. Thanks for the advice. Spaghetti?

 

[Paul B]

My Grand Daughter Greta noticed her first rainbow this morning out of their Manhattan Condo. She was upset because she couldn't bring it inside

 

[MrDJeep123]

We seen one the other day, except it wasn't even a bow, more like rainblotch. It was pretty interesting.

Nice picture. Can't say much about the view though.

 

[Paul B]

view

That's a really nice picture of your rear view mirror. Were you driving like 60 mph when you took that? The scenery is very similar to what I posted in the west side of lower Manhattan. :fear:

My Daughter lives in Manhattan, I worked there for 40 years and hate the place. I think they should put a fence around it and burn it, after my Daughter and my Grand Kids leave of course. 10 million people all running around thinking they have someplace to go, all thinking their job is so important, even if they work in Starbucks where almost 9 million of them work. I mean, it's not like they are building space shuttles or anything. The Long Island Rail Road I took every day carries almost 3 million people a day. And most of them wanted the same seat that I wanted so I almost never ever got a seat. I saw one once. I think they reserved them for the tourists from Tennessee. That view from my Daughter's place is the West Village where most of the people want to live. Why? I have no Freekin Idea. If you want to go to a restaurant that has 6 tables and sells hamburgers for the same price as a nicely equipped Chevy Equinox, that's the place to live. Or if you like to bump into 12 weirdo's every 15' then you should move there today.
Their condo probably costs as much as Yellowstone National park but the plumbing in Yellowstone more than likely works better. Probably 80% of the businesses are tattoo parlors, sex apparel shops or they sell Opium pipes even though opium is illegal. The rest of the places are Starbucks. There is a "park" across the street from their place that I am un comfortable walking past as the men there are all undressing me with their eyes. :nono:
To park there they have these Muni Meters. No more coin parking meters because you couldn't fit enough coins in the thing to park there for an hour. You have to stick your credit card in the parking meter to park, and it costs......Wait for it........25 cents for , wait for it
12 minutes. Yes, 12 minutes. By the time you insert your card and pull it out, it already cost you 25 cents. They have a bank on almost every corner just to offer you loans so you can park there for an hour to go to dinner. But if you go over on your time and you get a ticket, it is cheaper to just leave your car there, let the city have it and buy a new one.
I really don't see the attraction in the place. To me, it is a dump, but I am in the vast minority. And it is not cheap to live there. Oh no. You have no Idea what a place there costs and I would be embarrassed to say but the homeless people have homeless people to help them push their shopping carts :wof:
I live about 30 miles from them and that is just the distance away I want to be from Manhattan. I would not live there for all the money or SPS corals in the world.

 

[MrDJeep123]

That's a really nice picture of your rear view mirror. Were you driving like 60 mph when you took that? The scenery is very similar to what I posted in the west side of lower Manhattan. :humble:

lol You like Christy Brinkley. I like mirrors. What can I say?

Did lower Manhattan look something like this?

I'm sure city living has it's perks...I can't imagine what...but I'm sure it's there somewhere. :p

 

[gregcoyote]

I have to work in big cities, in New Orleans right now doing checks on the satellite based hurricane network I built for them and will be thrilled to go home to my fish and dogs, wife too...

I am not a lover of my fellow humans, so living in NY is my last choice.

 

[Paul B]

I walked through Times Square almost every day, I don't see why so many people would travel so far to go there and see Macy's and some lights which mainly serve to light up the homeless people and Wino's. We do have some wildlife, occasionally you will see a cop on a horse as they patrol Central Park.
My Daughter has a bicycle, I am not sure why as she "thinks" about taking it out maybe once a year. They charge her about $400.00 a month to store it in the garage. Now maybe it's me, but whouldn't it make more sense to just leave the bike outside and let someone steal it, then, in a year or whenever you want to ride, buy another one for say $200.00? My Daughter went to Fordham and although I asked, they refuse to let me have my money back.

 

[MrDJeep123]

I am not a lover of my fellow humans, so living in NY is my last choice.

Agreed!

 

[vlangel]

I am with you folks who like wide open spaces! I grew up in rural PA where we had lots of woods. My husband and I met working on a farm when I was 15 years. We would have bought a farm if we could afford one but we settled for 2 acres in the suburbs. We do have lots of wildlife, deer, turkeys, squirrels, bunnies and lots of birds. Yesterday I was thrilled to see bluebirds building in one of our bluebird boxes!!!

 

[Paul B]

We have a lot of this here :bounce:

 

[Paul B]

I need to go to the dentist. I have 9 tooth implants, yes 9, I could be the poster child for implants. In Viet Nam I had a tooth ache, so they sent me to a semi rear area where the guy pulled my tooth, a few days later I had the same toothache and it was back on another helicopter to the same guy who said, "Oh, it must be this tooth" and he pulled that one. So I had two spaces and when I got out of the army they paid for a bridge. Bridges only last so many years and they destroy the teeth they are anchored to so I needed a couple of more implants, and they don't do them for free. I mean it is an 8 minute procedure with 25 cents worth of titanium and each one is like 3 grand. Even if the implant was made out of diamonds and 4 Supermodels held your hand during the procedure and stayed with you until the pain went away and they performed it on Broadway while they were showing "Phantom of the Opera" it shouldn't cost that much. OK maybe only 3 Supermodels and they are showing Cats. But you are stuck and it is what it is. (although my dentist does have some almost supermodels working there which almost makes it worthwhile)
So I have one place where there are 2 implants (thanks to the army) and there are 3 crowns on it. That makes it a cantilever and the end tooth doesn't have any support so the thing gets loose every 6 months. I want the DDS to put a screw in the tooth farthest from the end that has no support but he says he is afraid the screw will break. If I could stand to heat myself scream, and I had a drill small enough I would fix it myself because, to me, it is a no brainer. But that is what college does to you, it takes away your creativity and forces you to only think inside the box. I don't like boxes and find these things just stupid.

 

[gregcoyote]

I to am dentally challenged. Comes from years of me taking my choppers for granted. I however do not recommend home dentistry. :-)

As a engineer, my goal is to not find myself in that box. In fact most of my professional success has come from being that arrogant ******* that does what everyone else said was impossible. It's a lonely road but better than the status quo.

 

[Paul B]

I also don't do status Quo. I think many doctors and dentists just don't know how to get creative. I don't mean to make an artificial heart out of two tin cans and a hermit crab shell but they are so specialized now that if you don't have the exact thing they specialize in, they look at you like you have two heads. I was seeing double once when I turned my eyes to the side. It was fine if I was looking at a Supermodel because I saw two of them, but I went to this eye Dr. He was very weird looking and nerdy. So he says turn your eyes to the side and tell me how many fingers I am holding up. He holds up one finger and I say 2. He says, no, look again, and I say 2. Then he starts yelling at me and says, what are you looking at, I only have one finger up. I should have stuck my one finger up his nose. I said, I know you only have one finger up, but I see two, why do you think I am here? And I said, you know what? I am no longer here, Bye.

If you go to a cardiologist with a chest pain he will say you have a heart problem, but if you go to a urologist he will find a kidney stone, and a gynecologist will tell you, you are pregnant, while a proctologist will find things in places you didn't even know you had. He may even send you to an endocrinologist who will tell you your hormones are raging, probably from all the doctors you went to.
In our hobby you may have to go to a parisitologist because maybe you sucked up some tank water and swallowed ich. The only doctor you really don't want to go to is a coroner. But the good part about going to coroner's is that "you" don't have to pay them :becky: