Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Paul B]

I love pipefish

 

[gettaReef]

Me too, very beautiful. I really really love those bluestripe pipefish....especially Betsy

 

[Paul B]

Yeah, she's a cutie

 

[Eienna]

They're pretty awesome... :)

 

[Paul B]

Whats awesome, that she's cute or it's almost Christmas? :attention:

 

[skinz78]

They look great Paul!

 

[Eienna]

Whats awesome, that she's cute or it's almost Christmas? :attention:

I was talking about the pipefish XD
And when you write that book, I wanna buy it. Your writing is always fun to read and I'd love to learn the things you've got in that noggin. n_n

As far as Christmas, I think I already got mine...for the next decade, minimum...take a look at the tank thread in my sig XD

 

[Paul B]

OK I will look at it. Christmas is my birthday. I think I am going to be 40 something. :boink:

I couldn't resist. Today I got another pipefish, a multi banded and a ruby red dragonet. Sometimes you got to have what you got to have. It was probably a mistake because now I have spawning mandarins, two pairs of pipefish and a fifth pipefish along with two dragonets and they all eat just about nothing except new born brine shrimp. I doubled my hatching supply but may have to triple it. I am not sure how many fish I have but I am sure it is to many

 

[Paul B]

When I get time I need to build a much larger brine shrimp hatchery, the one I have can't take the volume as it was built a long time ago for one mandarin. I still have the hatchery/auto feeder for vacations which continousely hatches how many I want but it will only work well for a week or so. Now I still need a vacation feeder to feed live blackworms which is a little more difficult but not insurmountable. If I can make that, I would not need a tank sitter any more.

 

[SpartaReef]

If you could make those Paul you could make a lot of money selling the design.... Make them for smaller tanks too and I would buy one from you.

 

[SpartaReef]

I tried making my own based on your designs but Im not as smart as you ;)

 

[Paul B]

Making them is easy, driving to the Bronx to get the black plexiglass is a little bit of a pain but that's the closest place to get that. It's about 40 minutes each way with another hour for traffic. I need to make a much larger hatchery.

 

[Paul B]

You can see 3 of the 5 pipefish here

And helping PopPop feed worms.

And vacation hatchery and feeder.

Just because I can

 

[Eienna]

AWWWWWW

And making them might well be easy, but not all of us are so handy...or so inclined....

 

[Paul B]

I don't think you have to be handy to make these. After all the fence post was already made and sold to Home Depot and someone else made the stocking I have over it, then someone else made the acrylic tube and funnel. I just threw those things together in a few minutes. But you do need to want to make the thing.

Painting Greta's room like that took a little more creativity but not much as I copied those characters out of a book.
If I was a real artist I would be painting Supermodels, but instead I can do Cookie Monster, Elmo and some Tweedle Bugs.

 

[gettaReef]

I haven't read your diy instructions for baby brine hatchery, but is all you have there a box with a funnel shape inside, you place the eggs in there and run air through the tubing/acrylic rod thingy, and place a mesh bag over it? Then the brine are attracted to the light seeping through the mesh bag through the top of the box, and pipefish, seahorses, dragonets, etc.. can eat them through the mesh bag? If so, it does appear very simple. I also hatch baby brine almost daily for dwarf seahorses which is incredibly easy, and think I will try to encorporate this design when gone for more than a few days. Also love your Muppet babies/sesame street art work. For some even copying designs from a book can prove very difficult (not for me so much, but must say my wife is a little artistically declined ((and it's a very good thing she does not read any of my posts on here !!))).

 

[Paul B]

No air in the acrylic thing, I guess you should read the instructions, or read my book, that is not out yet being I only wrote two pages.

 

[Paul B]

I seem to have so many fish that just eat new born brine shrimp but those are the fish I really like. I have the pair of mandarins, pair of dragon faced pipefish, a multi banded flag tail pipefish, a ruby red dragonette, pair of blue stripe pipefish, and a regular red dragonette or scooter bleeny as they are mistakenly called. For all these guys I hatch brine shrimp every day and give two or three feedings as that is what you need to do unless you want to keep common fish like tangs and clowns. I find these types of fish more interesting albeit more problematic in feeding but much more satisfying to keep.



























I can't get a good picture of the ruby red guy yet. But I will. I am looking for a mate for him but the males are all I find so far.

 

[gettaReef]

Agreed, although I also enjoy the occasional tang (esp am interested in the rarer gem or black or achilles). I understand it is good to have a decent pod population for the aforementioned pipefish, dragonet, butterfly, etc.. but if you are primarily feeding them baby brine, is it a necessity to reintroduce pods or have a safe place for them to procreate to add to their population (e.g. via Chaeto filled refugium) if their numbers appear to be in decline? Obviously it would be best to have both (feed baby brine with a booming population of self-sustaining pods), but in my remodel of my aquarium I am lacking room for an efficient refugium, unless I get creative, and plan on keeping some pipefish and dragonets, and am curious if having a fuge for the pod population is more a necessity or luxury. I also feed baby brine to my tank inhabitants every other day which currently consists of the more "common" fish variety. With them being accustomed to the baby brine, I hope when I do introduce pipefish and dragonet that their is plenty for both parties. Also, while I agree that these types of fishies are more interesting, I find most every "hard to care for" fish or invert to be interesting in different ways, which is aided by the feeling of accomplishment when keeping fragile and fickle species successfully

 

[Fish76]

Those pipe fishes are so cool!