Tank birthday, 47+ years

Goodersgold · Jul 29, 2022

Some truly wonderful pictures and tales, although I have not been through every post, but a fantastic achievement both in your work and your hobby :) I would love to ask a crazy question if I may, In all the time you have been running your reef, how many heaters have you had?

Paul B · Jul 29, 2022

Lowell Lemon said:
No wonder you are fireproof since you wrapped yourself in asbestos early in life LOL!

I spent much of my life either installing or removing asbestos, but it wasn't dangerous then. :rolleyes:
Besides, I think, so far, the Agent Orange I am inundated with keeps it at bay.

Goodersgold, I don't go through many heaters and still have some from maybe the 80s. I find they last forever even my very old "coal fired steam Powered ones". :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

Paul B · Jul 29, 2022

Kmst80 said:
Btw. are you surrounded by supermodels or are they magically attracted to you?

Kmst80. I also married a Supermodel. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

Kmst80 · Jul 29, 2022

Paul B said:
Kmst80. I also married a Supermodel. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

An absolute stunner Paul..and you ain't to shabby either.
You need to write your own autobiography mate, it would be the bestseller of the year.

Paul B · Jul 30, 2022

I already wrote a fish book. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

I have been asked to write an autobiography a few times, but I am not sure how that would be accepted. I would read it myself, but I already know everything I want to know about myself and some of it I am trying to forget. :grinning-squinting-face:

It would have an interesting chapter of the week I spent in Australia at Kings Cross in 1970. But I don't think I would want my Daughter to read about that. :oops:

gbroadbridge · Jul 30, 2022

MMcKenna1029 said:
Paul,

I recently took my family on a vacation on the coast of Maine. I ordered your book to have during that week and read it while digging my feet into the sand and hearing the waves crash every morning. It was quite fitting and a great read!

Thank you sir.

Matt

Did you find any supermodels?

gbroadbridge · Jul 30, 2022

Paul B said:
I already wrote a fish book. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

I have been asked to write an autobiography a few times, but I am not sure how that would be accepted. I would read it myself, but I already know everything I want to know about myself and some of it I am trying to forget. :grinning-squinting-face:

It would have an interesting chapter of the week I spent in Australia at Kings Cross in 1970. But I don't think I would want my Daughter to read about that. :oops:

I hate to tell you this.

Kings Cross is like the Great Barrier Reef.

The name survives, but the rest is toast.

You may as well tell your daughter about your escapades, history books etc.

Paul B · Jul 30, 2022

gbroadbridge said:
Did you find any supermodels?

Actually I did and her name was Christine and she lived in South Cucichee, or something like that. I have a picture of her and she was a 24 year old nurse. Now she may be a great GrandMother as she was 4 years older than me. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

She spent the week with me, bought me civilian clothes, took me out to dinner, brought me on my first SCUBA dive
(and second, third etc.) and when I got back to Nam, she sent me a big box of food. Really sweet girl and I had a great time.

At that time, Kings Cross was not a dump and I remember the Opera House was under construction. She took me out on a dinner cruise around Sydney. It was $25.00 for the two of us and unlimited steak and dancing. She paid.

It was great.

Did you ever hear of that place? We also went to the Texas Tavern but after almost 60 years, I doubt it is still in Sydney. :cool:

This was of course before I was married or engaged. :rolleyes:

gbroadbridge · Jul 30, 2022

Paul B said:
Actually I did and her name was Christine and she lived in South Cucichee, or something like that. I have a picture of her and she was a 24 year old nurse. Now she may be a great GrandMother as she was 4 years older than me. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

She spent the week with me, bought me civilian clothes, took me out to dinner, brought me on my first SCUBA dive
(and second, third etc.) and when I got back to Nam, she sent me a big box of food. Really sweet girl and I had a great time.

At that time, Kings Cross was not a dump and I remember the Opera House was under construction. She took me out on a dinner cruise around Sydney. It was $25.00 for the two of us and unlimited steak and dancing. She paid.

It was great.

Did you ever hear of that place? We also went to the Texas Tavern but after almost 60 years, I doubt it is still in Sydney. :cool:

This was of course before I was married or engaged. :rolleyes:

South Coogee?

Coogee beach was well known back then as the place for all visitors.

I lived there for a week when we moved from England to Australia in 1973, Worst case of sunburn ever.

I was only 9, so not ready to partake in supermodels, but I worshipped one who looked after me at the beach

Kings Cross was a dive, no one would go there after lights out as it was filled with naughty people like you.
These days it is a tourist area, all the nasty people have gone, and you can pay $5 for a stale donut.

I think there are token ******* who get paid to stand on corners.

Paul B · Jul 30, 2022

I still have her address and phone number here someplace. I stayed in Kings Cross because I didn't have any money so my Mother must have sent me something and that was the place the Army told me I could go to for R&R for a week.

My "hotel" room was almost big enough for me to stand next to the cot they called a bed. There was also an air conditioner and it made some noise, but besides that, didn't work and I was there near Christmas so it was always 100 degrees in the shade. I have a story about that room but I can't put it on here but remember I spent 10 months in the jungle before I went there and we didn't have females in the Army then so she was just about the first girl I saw. :rolleyes:

I can say how I met her though. I got off the plane and got on a double decker bus which I have never seen before and I was looking out the front window in awe because everything was new to me then. I turned around and the bus was filled with young girls in mini skirts which was another thing I wasn't used to. This cute blonde smiled at me and I sat down next to her. I obviously was GI from Nam and she asked me if I had anything to do that night.

Thats when she offered to take me on that boat ride. She was not a ****** or anything and just wanted to go out and have a good time. So did I. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

At the time, there were almost no men in Sydney because as she told me, there was no work.

I could have gone anywhere but I couldn't afford it and we didn't use real money in Viet Nam so I didn't have any.

It is not like I was anywhere I could spend anything and there isn't much to buy in triple canopy jungle as the monkey's already had all the bananas they could eat.

I found it! She lived on Cuzco Street but I may have spelled it wrong. I have her address but in case she is still alive and living there I would rather not mention it but I really doubt she is carrying a torch for me or remembers much of me. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

Kmst80 · Jul 30, 2022

When I arrived in Australia in 2005 we bought a second hand car in kings cross, a Ford falcon with 476000 km on the odometer...but might have been much more because it wasn't working anymore. The car got us out of overpriced Sydney but not much further. It broke down on the gold coast.

There were not many Supermodels in mini skirts around Sydney then, but it was September and that is end of winter here.

Paul B · Aug 1, 2022

I really hate to see threads that start like this:

"Just got a china wrasse that was treated with prazipro and noticed white spots on some other fish sail fin tang and the china wrasse and blue throat fairy wrasse and my clown fish is hazy white on the top"
end quote

This is on this forum and I feel bad for the person. I also disagree with most of the advice he is getting but I don't want to go on there and open up a can of blackworms.

He's got a tang and other fish in a 40 gallon tank and he just treated them in Prizapro for some perceived thing. Now the fish have pretty severe HLLE and ich so he wants to treat with some ich cure from Petco that is "good" for fresh and salt water. He is also running carbon.

There is just so much wrong with this. The tank is way to small for those fish, Prizapro is silly to put on a fish with nothing wrong with it unless you want to give it some affliction. Carbon should not be used for a number of reasons. Especially if you for some reason are using Prizapro and some type of copper.

I really feel bad for the owner and the fish. Those fish just needed to be in a normal tank with hiding places with no medication or carbon and they probably would be fine.

If our fish get sick it's because we made them sick. They were fine when they were in the sea as Mother Nature doesn't have a disease forum.

I feel that poster needs to start that tank over and remove all those medications. Just my opinion of course.

i cant think · Aug 1, 2022

Paul B said:
I really hate to see threads that start like this:

"Just got a china wrasse that was treated with prazipro and noticed white spots on some other fish sail fin tang and the china wrasse and blue throat fairy wrasse and my clown fish is hazy white on the top"
end quote

This is on this forum and I feel bad for the person. I also disagree with most of the advice he is getting but I don't want to go on there and open up a can of blackworms.

He's got a tang and other fish in a 40 gallon tank and he just treated them in Prizapro for some perceived thing. Now the fish have pretty severe HLLE and ich so he wants to treat with some ich cure from Petco that is "good" for fresh and salt water. He is also running carbon.

There is just so much wrong with this. The tank is way to small for those fish, Prizapro is silly to put on a fish with nothing wrong with it unless you want to give it some affliction. Carbon should not be used for a number of reasons. Especially if you for some reason are using Prizapro and some type of copper.

I really feel bad for the owner and the fish. Those fish just needed to be in a normal tank with hiding places with no medication or carbon and they probably would be fine.

If our fish get sick it's because we made them sick. They were fine when they were in the sea as Mother Nature doesn't have a disease forum.

I feel that poster needs to start that tank over and remove all those medications. Just my opinion of course.

You seem quite strong with QT (I have a heavily no QT protocol as I feel more fish due that way than through actual disease). I’d love to hear more of your opinion towards it :)

gbroadbridge · Aug 1, 2022

Paul B said:
I really hate to see threads that start like this:

"Just got a china wrasse that was treated with prazipro and noticed white spots on some other fish sail fin tang and the china wrasse and blue throat fairy wrasse and my clown fish is hazy white on the top"
end quote

This is on this forum and I feel bad for the person. I also disagree with most of the advice he is getting but I don't want to go on there and open up a can of blackworms.

He's got a tang and other fish in a 40 gallon tank and he just treated them in Prizapro for some perceived thing. Now the fish have pretty severe HLLE and ich so he wants to treat with some ich cure from Petco that is "good" for fresh and salt water. He is also running carbon.

There is just so much wrong with this. The tank is way to small for those fish, Prizapro is silly to put on a fish with nothing wrong with it unless you want to give it some affliction. Carbon should not be used for a number of reasons. Especially if you for some reason are using Prizapro and some type of copper.

I really feel bad for the owner and the fish. Those fish just needed to be in a normal tank with hiding places with no medication or carbon and they probably would be fine.

If our fish get sick it's because we made them sick. They were fine when they were in the sea as Mother Nature doesn't have a disease forum.

I feel that poster needs to start that tank over and remove all those medications. Just my opinion of course.

Don't get me started...

I'm in a very irritating thread at the moment with folks arguing about some super priced ballasts to fire up MH tubes.

They just dont get what a ballast does and why a cheap ebay special will do the same job.

Kmst80 · Aug 1, 2022

Paul B said:
I really hate to see threads that start like this:

"Just got a china wrasse that was treated with prazipro and noticed white spots on some other fish sail fin tang and the china wrasse and blue throat fairy wrasse and my clown fish is hazy white on the top"
end quote

This is on this forum and I feel bad for the person. I also disagree with most of the advice he is getting but I don't want to go on there and open up a can of blackworms.

He's got a tang and other fish in a 40 gallon tank and he just treated them in Prizapro for some perceived thing. Now the fish have pretty severe HLLE and ich so he wants to treat with some ich cure from Petco that is "good" for fresh and salt water. He is also running carbon.

There is just so much wrong with this. The tank is way to small for those fish, Prizapro is silly to put on a fish with nothing wrong with it unless you want to give it some affliction. Carbon should not be used for a number of reasons. Especially if you for some reason are using Prizapro and some type of copper.

I really feel bad for the owner and the fish. Those fish just needed to be in a normal tank with hiding places with no medication or carbon and they probably would be fine.

If our fish get sick it's because we made them sick. They were fine when they were in the sea as Mother Nature doesn't have a disease forum.

I feel that poster needs to start that tank over and remove all those medications. Just my opinion of course.

Problem with our society today is that if you answer in that thread with "Your tank is to small for the fish you got and your fish are sick because they are stressed" all you would get back is "You answer is very agressive" or "If you got nothing nice to say go away" or your answer gets deleted because no one can handle constructive criticism anymore.

Paul B · Aug 2, 2022

i cant think said:
You seem quite strong with QT (I have a heavily no QT protocol as I feel more fish due that way than through actual disease). I’d love to hear more of your opinion towards it :)

I am. I wrote many threads about not quarantining and I am very opinionated,,and old. :grinning-squinting-face:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-other-way-to-run-a-reef-tank-no-quarantine.534274/

Paul B · Aug 2, 2022

OOOooooo HHhhhh NNnnooooooo. FLOOD!!!

I hate when that happens and unfortunately it is always my fault. :confounded-face:

I replaced a defective light yesterday and I have a "baffle" or vertical piece of PVC that runs the 6' length of the back of the tank to help keep the fish from jumping out.

I must have moved that PVC onto the float that controls the water going into the tank so it overflowed. I lost about 15 or 20 gallons. Well, I didn't lose it as I know exactly where it is. All over my workshop floor. :dizzy-face:

I don't care about the floor but fresh water kept going into the tank so the salinity was so low that I could keep bullfrogs, alligators and kissing gouramies.zzo_O

My fish are not Girly fish so they don't care and could live in damp sawdust and my corals are also not Sissies so I don't think anything will happen but it may put them in a bad mood for a few hours.

The salinity doesn't even read on my hydrometer. :expressionless-face:

I have 30 gallons of seawater here that I collected but I needed to raise the salinity in that so I had to run to Petco to buy ASW. I got Instant Ocean and dumped in a few pounds to my NSW. I removed 10 gallons of water from my tank and am slowly pumping in my strong solution of seawater.

I will keep doing that until the salinity is strong enough to keep wild Tuna.

It will take a few more pounds of ASW but I will get there in about an hour or two. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

Paul B · Aug 3, 2022

My tank is fine and I feel my corals enjoyed the freshwater bath. :p
I noticed my Gyre powerhead was not working and I discovered that it's controller sat in a puddle of salt water and electronics frown on that. It was kind of smoking and sizzling so I dried it out and found out the plug rotted right off th thing.
I had to break it apart and do a little soldering to repair and re build it but now it is as good as new. I will put it in a metal box in case it wants to go on fire. :rolleyes:

Paul B · Aug 5, 2022

I am going to get my wife one of these. She has an electric scooter and a walker but this thing will give her more mobility and it folds up with one hand to put in the car.