Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Paul B]

When I moved here almost 5 years ago I had a Handicapped elevator installed. I went in there yesterday in a pouring rain and the thing is full of water and that elevator is not an outdoor machine and is not supposed to get wet.

I opened up the top door while the car was down and saw that the Jiboni who installed the thing cut the hole in the wall for the door.

(It's outside in the side of the building) they didn't put the tar paper up over the cut where the door goes so the water cascades down into the car.

Anyway, I need to remove the deck boards to access it and of course the "deck screws" they installed it with are rusted so the "torx" head screws are stripped. (of course they are) If you need something done, do it yourself but they wouldn't let me build this house myself so I had to have their "expert Jiboni",,,,I mean house builders do it.

Now I need "easy out" screw extractors to remove the screws to seal the shaft. I have screw extractors and I don't know where I got them but they are made in China so of course they also are stripped and rusty so don't work.

I just ordered some "American made" screw extractors from Amazon which is surprising and I had to look through many pages before I found one.
There is a huge difference between Chinese steel and American steel in tools or hardware which is why you can get a Chinese drill bit for 50 cents and that same bit made in America may be eight bucks, but if you need to drill something in hardened steel instead of butter, you need a good tool.

Chinese grade tools are good for a homeowner who is going to drill one hole in balsa wood once every two years, but a serious crafts man needs a much better tool.

I only buy American for other reasons also because I am an American and a Veteran but almost nothing is made here any more. If I look long enough I can get most things but it isn't easy.

Not just China, I am talking the Philopeans, India, Viet Nam, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Korea etc.

 

[atoll]

Paul, my eldest son is a foreman engineer in a smallish engineering firm. They specialise in high quality and often difficult work to undertake to a high standard. He tells me they can put in a quote for a job only to be out quoted by a⁹ Chinese company. However, a good % of those they find the Chinese can't do the work to the required high quality and standards so they get the job in the end anyway.

 

[Paul B]

Many people in this country and I am sure in the UK don't realize that the tools in the big box stores sell things stupidly cheap because they are inferior quality. They are fine for most homeowners but can't be used on a real job or a serious craftsman. They just don't work or last very long. They are good for the price if you just need a couple of holes but for real work, they just won't do it.

 

[atoll]

Many people in this country and I am sure in the UK don't realize that the tools in the big box stores sell things stupidly cheap because they are inferior quality. They are fine for most homeowners but can't be used on a real job or a serious craftsman. They just don't work or last very long. They are good for the price if you just need a couple of holes but for real work, they just won't do it.

Or last the course Paul. I have US hammers (Eswing) and saws (Diston) along with older UK ones. I may buy a cheapish tool if it's one I will only use on the odd occasion but as you say for regular use it's has to be quality.

 

[Paul B]

Today I came home and went into my workshop/mancave/fish room and immediately noticed that it smelled really clean. A little to clean so I looked around and noticed the hose came off my Ozone generator and filled the place with ozone.

It was probably off for two days and freshened up the place. There are no windows in my workshop but the smell is kind of nice as long as you don't mind the headache that comes with it.

 

[Paul B]

Today my Gyre pump was making noise so I took the thing apart and found the problem.

These brittle stars must have gotten in there and were having a hoedown making a racket. I talked them into going back in my tank if they remained quiet.

Then I figured I would remove some sponge which resulted in me crashing a good part of my aquascape which I had to re build after I removed about a quart of sponge.

I even cleaned some of the bottles. This one is partially cleaned. I am running my diatom filter through this as the tank now looks like sheet metal as the detritus that was in places I didn't even know I had flew all over the place.
I like the new aquascape and only one end of the tank collapsed and I had to re glue quite a few corals that I needed to remove from sponge encrusted rock.

 

[Paul B]

Today I took my wife for one of her therapy sessions so I went to the LFS near there. They had a singularia coral that I wanted so i got that and I saw a very small filefish that I also thought was cool and would go well with my other four filefish. (I am on a filefish kick lately)

The tiny 3/4" filefish was overpriced at $40.00 but I got him anyway. That fish should have been $29.00.

So I am acclimating them and walk behind my tank to get some water and notice something on the floor. That is never a good sign.
It was my very cool male Mandarin all dried up so all the CPR in the world wouldn't revive him.

So I got one fish and lost another. Now I need t get another male mandarin and fix the hole where he jumped out.

 

[atoll]

Shame about the mandarin, some fish can find the smallest hole to escape through. At least finding a male is easier than trying to find a female. Always seems to be far more males than females available in LFSs.

 

[Paul B]

I got a text this morning that read:
Hello, this is Karen. "The $8,750.00 we owed you has been paid back and will be going back into your bank account"

I texted back and said: "You know Karen, you have been so nice, why don't you keep it. Maybe go out to dinner and have a nice Pino Grigio."

I was born at night but not last night so I know that "Karen" is probably a terrorist in Somalia, Ethiopia, Iran or Brooklyn and wants me to go to my bank account to see where this money is.

Banks don't generally text someone on their cell phone especially before 7:30 in the morning

 

[atoll]

There's a lot of it about and some scams appear quite genuine. I had one from DHL supposedly saying I needed to follow the link to arrange delivery. I am expecting a parcel like many this time of year but I never clicked on it of course. Low life everywhere these days most in foreign countries and many do get caught unfortunately.

 

[blaxsun]

I got a text this morning that read:
Hello, this is Karen. "The $8,750.00 we owed you has been paid back and will be going back into your bank account"

I texted back and said: "You know Karen, you have been so nice, why don't you keep it. Maybe go out to dinner and have a nice Pino Grigio."

I was born at night but not last night so I know that "Karen" is probably a terrorist in Somalia, Ethiopia, Iran or Brooklyn and wants me to go to my bank account to see where this money is.

Banks don't generally text someone on their cell phone especially before 7:30 in the morning

Banks never call period unless you owe them money...

 

[Paul B]

My Grand Kids are coming over so I put in the bubbler sunken ship they gave me for Christmas 5 years ago because they look for it whenever they visit.

 

[Paul B]

This time of the year I like to remember all the kids who don't have it as good as most kids. There are so many very sick kids in hospitals who won't be home for Christmas and many never make it home. Way to many of them are infants who were born from drug addict parents and are going through withdrawal.

 

[John Bolden]

Very cool I'll have to take Christmas break to go through the other 400 pages...

 

[Paul B]

OMG are there 400 pages here?

 

[albano]

OMG are there 400 pages here?

Sounds like another book to me!

 

[Paul B]

I wouldn't know what to write it on or who would read it besides my Daughter who wrote the foreword for my last book

 

[Paul B]

I found out today that my mandarin is still in my tank happy, healthy and doing the Macarana. So now I have no idea which fish jumped out. I watched my tank for an hour and I think I see all my fish. I even saw some I forgot I have.

It may have been one of those fish I have for years and never see. The thing was all dried up but it's shape looked like my mandarin so I figured it was him. It's also not my ruby red dragonettes. I am baffled.

 

[Paul B]

I thought it was my brand new and tiny 3/4" filefish as I couldn't find him for a couple of days. Then I fed the tank worms and there he was all happy and all so I have no idea what that dried up fish was but I do occasionally find a fish in there that I haven't seen in months or years.

I know I had 2 Gecko gobies and I only catch a glimpse of a fin from those every couple of months at most. It could have been one of them.

Anyway on another thread I have been in a "discussion" with someone and I have been misquoted a number of times. My method of no quarantine or medication must be very confusing because some people have it almost totally wrong.

I also have nothing against quarantine as long as it is not done for a very long time like 72 days.
But I think if you want to do that it is fine as long as when you put that fish into your tank it has a chance to eat food containing gut bacteria to give it a chance to revive it's immune system to be hopefully immune to things we normally find in a natural tank.

If we don't want to keep a natural tank and prefer instead to depend on quarantine, UV and medication, that is fine. But in such a tank we just can't add anything that has not been quarantined because those fish will not be immune to that. We also need to be careful and not feed those fish live food unless it is from fresh water where there would be no parasites.

Plenty of tanks run like that and if that is what you want, that is what you should do.
All new tanks should be run like that especially if they were set up with ASW and dry rock as those tanks are not healthy and won't be until the bacteria, viruses and funguses settle down and do what we pay them for. That may take a couple of years.

Many people, especially scientific people who like to study charts and learn about all the studies of the life cycle of parasites and such are at a loss unless they are keeping their tanks in a lab.

Frankenstein was born or made in a lab and look what happened to him with all the village people wanting to set him on fire and all that. Frankenstein could never live in a normal house because he ate with his feet and probably smelled like dead people.

Labs are totally different from a common home tank. They are fed certain foods that are sterilized to kill parasites and bacteria lest that corrupt the study. The tanks are mostly bare or just have inert materials like PVC or glass which stresses the fish to no end.

Then they count the parasites to see how they multiply and see how long it takes to kill a percentage of the fish.
They will study how long a fishes immunity lasts after it was removed from parasites and put in a sterile tank. Then in a laborious process they introduce parasites to see how long the immunity lasted.

This is all good information to know especially if you are going to be a marine biologist and are writing a paper on it. For the rest of us with a normal life and tank it doesn't mean anything.

Of course it is all true and scientists can spent their entire lifespan on this instead of going out with their girlfriend to a nice seafood restaurant and maybe having the Cod with a side order of clams on the half shell.

But in a home tank we can't separate our fish from the parasites present so the parasites are happily living in there with the fish just as they do in the sea. Those hungry parasites, especially the ones with fangs will constantly try to take a bite out of a fish gill. (If you look really close and maybe squint a little, you can see those fangs. )

When those parasites take a bite out of a fish, the fishes immune system eliminates the parasite in one of a few ways but the fishes immune system is very smart and it remembers that bite.

Instantly the fish starts pumping out antibodies that will repel the next parasite bite so even if this protection only lasts 6 months (Like scientists say) it doesn't matter unless that fish is in a lab where it won't get another parasite bits so it's immunity will eventually wane. Those bites are like measles booster shots.

I didn't make this up as I am an electrician, albeit a really good one. I have posted scientific papers on that because I know people like to read things by people with more degrees than a thermometer. A fahrenheit thermometer because I think they have more degrees but I could be wrong.

 

[atoll]

The must QT brigade will never believe or understand that Paul. The concept just evades them and the notion you can keep a reef tank without loosing fish to parasites and disease is beyond their compression.

They struggle to come up with viable reasons for success, don't believe in immunity from parasites and so on. There must be more to it than you believe and often don't rule out pure luck.....as if.

You can show photos of your tank fish and corals growing and healthy and just ignore your success or question it. I have a sneaking suspension something you're just lying.

Seems to drive people mad to the extent they become abusive. Still, let them believe what they will, we owe them nothing. Debate is good along with questioning what you do and you're beliefs but turning to insults shows them for what they really are.