Tank birthday, 47+ years

[adupree]

First, congrats on the little guy! Second, wow I can't imagine a tank running that long. I will have to read through this all over the next few days.

 

[Eienna]

I got one of these today. Meet Teddy. My brand new Grand Son. We got the call at 2:30 this morning and rushed into Manhattan just before Teddy was born.
My fish will have to wait until I get my fill of him before they get much attention. And if they complain, I will remove the water from their tank and fill it with damp sawdust. They hate that.

D'awwww!

 

[Paul B]

Thanks, I can't even imagine that I have been running that long. Well, mostly walking now :faint2:

Clown gobies spawned again and this time they spawned more then usual. I honestly don't know how they can make eggs that fast. They must be super worms that I am feeding them.
I will be playing with my Grand Son Today so I won't be able to collect eggs or take pictures of them, but if they don't hatch by tomorrow I will try to collect some. They are tiny. :yo::usa2:

 

[Mike in CT]

Congratulations Paul! Happy New Year to you and the newest member of your clan!

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Mike.
I was just looking at my tank and wishing the fish a Happy New Year and noticed that I have a lot of animals in there that eat pods.
I have a banded pipefish, a pair of mandarins, red scooter bleeny, some tiny gobies, possum wrasse and a copperband who also eats most of the food I throw in there.
I have a large pod population but pods won't just reproduce unless they have some food and they refuse to go out and buy their own. To remedy that I always have an automatic feeder in the tank.
(Oh wait, what a coincidence, the thing just this second dispensed food into the tank. How weird is that?)
Anyway, the feeder is not there for the fish as most of my fish don't know a pellet from Justin Bieber, the pellets are there to feed the pods.
I know most people get terrified at the thought of pellets going to "waste" in the tank making nitrate, phosphate, radioactive waste etc. But I get over that by not having any test kits. I want my pods well fed because as we often forget, it is the bacteria and pods that keep a tank running and healthy, not us. We are here just to give the pods and bacteria something to make fun at, and don't fool yourself, they can see you and they think you are funny looking, especially you people with the comb overs and they know, that you know who you are.

 

[Paul B]

Tank is looking very good, I am not sure why but some times it just looks exceptionally good. The water is crystal clear, the clown gobies are spawning almost twice a week, the copperband grew a little large but he is great, the possum wrasse comes out to smile and all the corals are extreamly extended. Maybe they enjoyed the big snowstorm we had last night and are happy that I spent all morning snow blowing.
I am having a problem with my white worm culture. They are still living and partying but I can't get them to eat any more. I used to put in a cracker or Cheerios and they would swarm all over it, now they just ignore those foods. I have tried clams, pellets, flakes, T Bone steak, Tofu but they won't eat. To collect them now, I put a bunch of their soil with the worms in it in a guppy breeder with the slots on the bottom and I position that 1/8" from some fresh water. Then I put a lamp over it and eventually they crawl through the soil into the water below. But that is time consuming. I used to just pick up a bunch of them from a cracker. Maybe as they age, they prefer a salt free diet, I really don't know.
They do live in the water with the blackworms for some reason but I doubt they eat in there although I have no idea. I may order another culture of them if I can't figure out why they are not eating. They seem healthy and fat so they may be sending out for Pizza, but I just don't know. If I go out for my favorite dish tonight, linguini and clams, I will save some for them. But in the meantime, my fish are just getting clams and blackworms.

 

[roadrashpaul]

I love this thread Paul. From one Paul to another, congratulations on the new addition and don't get too cold out there shoveling.

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Paul. It was 14 degrees here when I was snow blowing but it is a little warmer now. I keep that maching running like a top and it is 30 years old.
I had to replace plenty of parts over the years but you can't beat an American made machine. I will keep it running as long as I can.

 

[Paul B]

I was wondering why I have not had to add water to my worm tank for a month, and I found out. The water resovour that feeds my tank, (blue bucket) sprang a leak and drips into the worm tank that is not the one in this picture, there is a much smaller tank there now. The acrylic tube on the side of the bucket is leaking. I noticed it today as I was changing the bag in the whole house vacuum (red bucket) I put that there as a sight glass so I can see how much water is in the bucket. It has been there for more years than I could count and I don't even remember building the thing so I don't know why it started leaking. But I fixed it (I think, it is still drying) so all is well. If not, I will just make a new sight glass. That bucket was in need of a cleaning anyway as it had quite a bacterial slime built up in it.

 

[roadrashpaul]

Paul have you posted how that reservoir actually works? How does it top off the tank without overflowing it?

 

[Paul B]

It goes over the ceiling and into a float valve on the tank. No overflowing yet.
There is also a home made shut off switch on that.

OMG, it's a good thing you asked me that. I just remembered I didn't put the float back in the resevoir and it just kept filling up. Luckily, I do have an overflow tube on it which is where the water was just going, otherwise it would be all over my work shop as the water reached 1/8" from the top of the bucket. Thanks for reminding me.
I started to say, there is a homemade float switch on that bucket that shuts off the electric valve that feeds the RO/DI. But of course you have to drop the float in the bucket.

 

[mbray94]

Wow! You have my up most respect. I think every reefer would dream to make it 10 years let alone 40 with their tank.

 

[roadrashpaul]

Glad I could help Paul although I don't really think I did much. Thank you for the explanation. I thought it was some sort of gravity feed system but now I know it is not. I have been trying to come up with some kind of gravity feed system so I don't have to run pumps/shut off switches but can't come up with a reliable and SAFE way to do it.

 

[Paul B]

It is a gravity feed system. The water comes out of that small black tube you can see entering near the bottom of the blue bucket, it travels over the ceiling to the tank where it goes into a float valve. There are no pumps, nothing electrical except to shut off the RO that fills the bucket.

Mbray, I think people fiddle to much with their systems. Salt water is very stable as long as you don't mess with it. In all the years I have been doing this I don't remember ever testing my pH or doing much of anything else except a few times a year changing some water. I think the people who experience the most problems are the ones who have to have all their parameters exactly what some scientist says.
The numbers do not have to be exactly anything as long as they are close. My nitrates are 30 or 40 and I have no idea what my PO4 is. As long as the corals look good and the fish are spawning, that is all I need to think about. If the corals still looked good and the nitrates were 400, I still wouldn't worry as long as it all looks good. The corals know how they "feel" and they will let you know. Don't look for problems or you will fine them, and you will mess something up. Of course if you can't keep anything alive, there is a problem.

 

[roadrashpaul]

Ok I misunderstood your previous post then. By float valve I thought it was an electrical one that would shut off a pump. I will look into this option as I really like the idea of not having anything powered.

 

[Paul B]

The float valve is just mechanical like there is in every toilet bowl.

 

[Paul B]

I posted this some place else (yes, other places do exist) and since I like to hear myself rant, I figured I would also put it here. Just resist the urge to argue with me about it.
They asked me about my practices

I may not be the best one to ask about setting up a salt tank as I kind of disagree with a lot of the common wisdom out there. Presently, most people set up tanks the same way because everyone goes on the internet and sees how tanks are set up. Many people are knowledgeable but a lot of the methods and rumors come about from novices that have one tank set up since last Tuesday and they had one tang with ich and they cured it with chicken bones, a cleaner shrimp, Justin Biebers latest hit single ,garlic, Ginger, Maryann, or something that IMO does nothing for the fish, "but" you can't make linguini and clams without garlic.
You can (and will) argue with people all day long about this stuff but in reality
you need a fair amount of experience over a number of years with a number different types of creatures before you should start posting things as fact.
Of course anyone, including my 18 month old Grand Daughter can post her theories (if she stopped sucking her thumb long enough).
That being said, I believe in a much more natural approach to this hobby. An approach where algae and diseases including paracites can be used to our advantage. This is where virtually everyone will disagree with me. Other approaches of course will work. We can keep a person alive on a respirator indefinitely, but wouldn't it be better for everyone if we could have kept that person healthy in the first place or at least allow their own body to repair itself.
That is my approach and it is simple but the theory may be hard to comprehend.
For instance, when, and if you begin this hobby you will read from the internet. Much of what you will read about is ways to eliminate algae, diseases and paracites. You will never read (unless I wrote it) how paracites and algae "may" in "some" circumstances be beneficial. Algae and paracites are found all over the sea on all healthy reefs and it is not something we try to remove from the reefs. If we removed the algae all the urchins, tangs, algae bleenies, slugs, chitens, sea hares and snails would starve as that is what those animals use as a staple. Many people shy away from that fact and see algae as a pest. They will use all sorts of measures to get it out of their tank, but the truth is that if you have no algae at all, something is wrong. There are certainly nutrients in the water that promote algae and it doesn't take much nutrients to grow algae.
You will also learn about paracites although you probably already do being you have fresh water tanks. Again, most people try their hardest to keep every paracite out of their tank and in some instances that is a good practice. It is also a good practice when setting up a new tank because new tanks with all new water, especially if you use artificial salt water (ASW) are not very healthy at all. What I do is keep my fish in spawning condition through live food such as live blackworms and for the tiny fish, new born brine shrimp less than a few hours old. Spawning fish are as healthy as fish can be and in my experience are not "hardly" ever harmed by paracites. I can say that because of the age of my tank and the fish. A lot of people hate me and my tank because of this as it puts a dent in popular opinion that if you don't quarantine, your tank is a time bomb. (They are also jealous of my luxurious hair) My time bomb is the oldest one on here by far and I have not quarantined in decades. I am sure there are so many paracites in my tank that on Friday nights they sit around the torch corals doing the Macarana. I don't care as they are natural and can stay as long as they like. I also like the fact that I can go to any store, pick a fish out of any tank (or even the ocean) and just throw it in my tank (after I acclimate it for a little while) The paracites in my tank whatever they are doing are keeping up the immune systems of my fish. Again, this is just from my experience as I am not a fish or paracite expert. But I have been doing this since last Tuesday.

The key is the fish "Must" be "always" in breeding condition. That is perceived by a lot of people to be hard. Those are the people who feed flakes, pellets, lettuce and some commercially prepared food that is not live.
I also feed frozen foods but my system would probably not work in the long run if I didn't use at least some live food. Then again there are frozen foods and frozen foods. Some foods such as frozen bloodworms, mosquito larvae, brine shrimp, and some others are not a suitable food. A suitable food is a whole animal such as Mysis shrimp, fish eggs, clams or whole, live worms.
That is all I use (along with new born brine shrimp for tiny fish)
That is all you need but I feel the live worms should be fed almost every day.
As for algae, yes we don't want it to grow in our displays, but I want the algae to grow in my system, just not on the corals. We use some type of refugium or some place to grow algae other than the tank that has better growing conditions. We want algae, it removes substances from the water naturally without adding chemicals and it does it for free except for some electricity to light it. Algae growing in a controlled place is the best eliminator of algae in the main tank.
There is also the thing about testing. That is another facet in this hobby that people obsess about. The fact is that saltwater is very stable "if" there is some algae in the system and "if" you don't add things that offset the waters natural ability to stay stable. If you change water occasionally like we should do, the water should stay stable with no help from you. The tanks with most of the dosers of various chemicals need testing as they parameters are always off due to the tweeking. It is not bad to know your parameters and in a newer tank we should test to see what is going on, but resist the urge to try to keep the numbers "exactly" where some "expert" feels they should be. Even the temperature has a wide margin as to what it should be. It can be anywhere between about 73 to 87 or so. A little higher or lower doesn't hurt either as mine has gone down into the higher 60s to the mid 90s but that was during power outages and I don't recommend it. But if your fish are in breeding conditions it will be fine for short periods, if they are not, you will be collecting a lot of ich infected fish.
Luckily for me, no one is going to read this except for you and maybe me because as I said, I am perceived to be either a weird nut job who is very lucky or a magician who conjurs spells to keep the tank running as I read in so many places that my methods are next to impossible to re produce

 

[GHill762]

Paul, I've looked through your thread quite a bit but maybe I missed it, do you have progression pics? like day 1, year 1, year 5, year 10, etc..? I think it would be interesting to see how this transformed over the many years..

 

[MrDJeep123]

I posted this some place else (yes, other places do exist) and since I like to hear myself rant, I figured I would also put it here. Just resist the urge to argue with me about it.
They asked me about my practices

I may not be the best one to ask about setting up a salt tank as I kind of disagree with a lot of the common wisdom out there. Presently, most people set up tanks the same way because everyone goes on the internet and sees how tanks are set up. Many people are knowledgeable but a lot of the methods and rumors come about from novices that have one tank set up since last Tuesday and they had one tang with ich and they cured it with chicken bones, a cleaner shrimp, Justin Biebers latest hit single ,garlic, Ginger, Maryann, or something that IMO does nothing for the fish, "but" you can't make linguini and clams without garlic.
You can (and will) argue with people all day long about this stuff but in reality
you need a fair amount of experience over a number of years with a number different types of creatures before you should start posting things as fact.
Of course anyone, including my 18 month old Grand Daughter can post her theories (if she stopped sucking her thumb long enough).
That being said, I believe in a much more natural approach to this hobby. An approach where algae and diseases including paracites can be used to our advantage. This is where virtually everyone will disagree with me. Other approaches of course will work. We can keep a person alive on a respirator indefinitely, but wouldn't it be better for everyone if we could have kept that person healthy in the first place or at least allow their own body to repair itself.
That is my approach and it is simple but the theory may be hard to comprehend.
For instance, when, and if you begin this hobby you will read from the internet. Much of what you will read about is ways to eliminate algae, diseases and paracites. You will never read (unless I wrote it) how paracites and algae "may" in "some" circumstances be beneficial. Algae and paracites are found all over the sea on all healthy reefs and it is not something we try to remove from the reefs. If we removed the algae all the urchins, tangs, algae bleenies, slugs, chitens, sea hares and snails would starve as that is what those animals use as a staple. Many people shy away from that fact and see algae as a pest. They will use all sorts of measures to get it out of their tank, but the truth is that if you have no algae at all, something is wrong. There are certainly nutrients in the water that promote algae and it doesn't take much nutrients to grow algae.
You will also learn about paracites although you probably already do being you have fresh water tanks. Again, most people try their hardest to keep every paracite out of their tank and in some instances that is a good practice. It is also a good practice when setting up a new tank because new tanks with all new water, especially if you use artificial salt water (ASW) are not very healthy at all. What I do is keep my fish in spawning condition through live food such as live blackworms and for the tiny fish, new born brine shrimp less than a few hours old. Spawning fish are as healthy as fish can be and in my experience are not "hardly" ever harmed by paracites. I can say that because of the age of my tank and the fish. A lot of people hate me and my tank because of this as it puts a dent in popular opinion that if you don't quarantine, your tank is a time bomb. (They are also jealous of my luxurious hair) My time bomb is the oldest one on here by far and I have not quarantined in decades. I am sure there are so many paracites in my tank that on Friday nights they sit around the torch corals doing the Macarana. I don't care as they are natural and can stay as long as they like. I also like the fact that I can go to any store, pick a fish out of any tank (or even the ocean) and just throw it in my tank (after I acclimate it for a little while) The paracites in my tank whatever they are doing are keeping up the immune systems of my fish. Again, this is just from my experience as I am not a fish or paracite expert. But I have been doing this since last Tuesday.

The key is the fish "Must" be "always" in breeding condition. That is perceived by a lot of people to be hard. Those are the people who feed flakes, pellets, lettuce and some commercially prepared food that is not live.
I also feed frozen foods but my system would probably not work in the long run if I didn't use at least some live food. Then again there are frozen foods and frozen foods. Some foods such as frozen bloodworms, mosquito larvae, brine shrimp, and some others are not a suitable food. A suitable food is a whole animal such as Mysis shrimp, fish eggs, clams or whole, live worms.
That is all I use (along with new born brine shrimp for tiny fish)
That is all you need but I feel the live worms should be fed almost every day.
As for algae, yes we don't want it to grow in our displays, but I want the algae to grow in my system, just not on the corals. We use some type of refugium or some place to grow algae other than the tank that has better growing conditions. We want algae, it removes substances from the water naturally without adding chemicals and it does it for free except for some electricity to light it. Algae growing in a controlled place is the best eliminator of algae in the main tank.
There is also the thing about testing. That is another facet in this hobby that people obsess about. The fact is that saltwater is very stable "if" there is some algae in the system and "if" you don't add things that offset the waters natural ability to stay stable. If you change water occasionally like we should do, the water should stay stable with no help from you. The tanks with most of the dosers of various chemicals need testing as they parameters are always off due to the tweeking. It is not bad to know your parameters and in a newer tank we should test to see what is going on, but resist the urge to try to keep the numbers "exactly" where some "expert" feels they should be. Even the temperature has a wide margin as to what it should be. It can be anywhere between about 73 to 87 or so. A little higher or lower doesn't hurt either as mine has gone down into the higher 60s to the mid 90s but that was during power outages and I don't recommend it. But if your fish are in breeding conditions it will be fine for short periods, if they are not, you will be collecting a lot of ich infected fish.
Luckily for me, no one is going to read this except for you and maybe me because as I said, I am perceived to be either a weird nut job who is very lucky or a magician who conjurs spells to keep the tank running as I read in so many places that my methods are next to impossible to re produce

I would like you to know that you aren't the only that has this line of thought. I get so annoyed of the obsession over numbers. I've been cycling my 29g for 3 weeks now and haven't bothered with testing. I suspect I'm at the point where nitrites are lowering.
My old neighbor and I once had a competition to see who could have the "better and most healthiest" tank. He had doo dads and what nots and spent well over enough $ than I ever would. I had a planted reef, rock, sand, skimmer, and t5 lights. He lost fish and coral out the wazoo while I was already in cruise control and did barely anything. I firmly believe the less we have our hands in the tank, the better.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this thought.

 

[GHill762]

For instance, when, and if you begin this hobby you will read from the internet. Much of what you will read about is ways to eliminate algae, diseases and paracites. You will never read (unless I wrote it) how paracites and algae "may" in "some" circumstances be beneficial. Algae and paracites are found all over the sea on all healthy reefs and it is not something we try to remove from the reefs. If we removed the algae all the urchins, tangs, algae bleenies, slugs, chitens, sea hares and snails would starve as that is what those animals use as a staple. Many people shy away from that fact and see algae as a pest. They will use all sorts of measures to get it out of their tank, but the truth is that if you have no algae at all, something is wrong. There are certainly nutrients in the water that promote algae and it doesn't take much nutrients to grow algae.

I can't grow "pest" algae in my tank worth a darn.. I get a little on the powerheads, and a little here and there in the sump.. NONE on any rockwork in the DT and very very little in the sump.. my 15g was that way for 2 years and my 40g seems to be that way now too.. I don't understand it.. I even introduced several pest algaes into my 15g like green bubble, cotton candy, etc, they never thrive for me. I do have a nice assortment of macro algaes (7+ species, I've lost count) and all but the octodes do great, my only thought is that "pest" algae is being out-competed by the macros.. in my 15g I rarely did water changes, had no mechanical filtration, fed plenty, etc..

I see you say that this means "something is wrong", do you think I might have something wrong or do you think it's being out-competed and maybe I should trim back all my macros and try to let pest algaes thrive? my problem is that it looks so sterile with no pest algae on the rocks, makes it very bland and un-natural.. every time I bring this up in other threads people say "be careful what you wish for" and "I wish I had that problem"..

I know you don't like to give advice, I was just curious what your thoughts were on it..