Tank birthday, 47+ years

Brew12 · Oct 6, 2019

Paul B said:
Good Morning. Today is my 46th wedding anniversary. We were invited to a great Italian party last night (Unico) with a couple of hundred people, great food and a Dean martin Impersonator and a guy who sung like Pavarotti.

Too much food and drinking so today my fish can take care of themselves and order take out. I threw my credit card in my tank.

We have to recuperate a little as we are going away to a B&B for a couple of days very soon. My fish sitter will do all this fish stuff.

Congrats on your anniversary! Your super model is a real trooper for having put up with you this long!

Lowell Lemon · Oct 6, 2019

Burma shave?

Lowell Lemon · Oct 6, 2019

Wow a triple shot!

Lowell Lemon · Oct 6, 2019

Happy anniversary!

Fudsey · Oct 6, 2019

Happy Anniversary ! !

boostedbeast · Oct 6, 2019

Paul is to the reef hobby what Carol Shelby was to racing. We really have it easy nowadays with all the info available on the web.

Paul B · Oct 6, 2019

That is true, now it's a no brainer.

Paul B · Oct 6, 2019

I found my "almost" complete Log book from 1971 to the 90s. I see I was having trouble keeping corals but my Alk was 3 and my calcium was about 125

I think I know the problem now.

I also saw that I lost an awful lot of fish, but not from disease. I really didn't know what I was doing and the food available was horrendous. I had fish killing each other, I also used to remove all the dead bleached corals weekly to bleach so they were nice and white and during that fish would jump out or the residual bleach would kill them.

My tank was "40 gallons" and I had, at the same time a French Angel, Moorish Idol and copperband along with a bunch of other fish.
I would buy or get for free sick fish and try to cure them with Human burn ointment or human medications as there was nothing for fish.

I really feel bad for all the fish killed.

I wrote it i free hand in pencil until about 1976, then I lost some pages but it turns up again typed on an Apple computer which was basically a typewriter as there was no internet.

boostedbeast · Oct 6, 2019

Yeah you were definitely in unchartered waters back then. The hobby had to have been restricted to people who lived near the ocean.

Paul B · Oct 6, 2019

They did have ASW. It was called "Lampert Kays Marine Magic".

I think Instant Ocean came out in th 70s but I doubt I could get it.

The guy who invented "STP", the stuff we used to put in our cars invented some ASW. I think it was Instant Ocean.

Paul B · Oct 10, 2019

We just got back from Connecticut for a couple of days in a B&B for our 46th (I think) anniversary.

It poured the entire time.

We took the ferry there and it was fairly calm. As I looked over the side at the sea, I saw this large fin slicing through the water. I have been out there in the middle of the Long Island Sound many times but I never saw a large shark there.

I know a few weeks ago they reported a 12' Great White Shark there so I figured it was one of those.
Then as we got closer I saw a Sea Gull land right in front of it. I figured the gull was going to be a small lunch for the shark.

Then I noticed the fin bending from side to side and I know shark fins don't do that as they are made out of aluminum and are very stiff.

All of a sudden this huge fish jumps completely out of the water and slaps down again. It was maybe 4' or 5' long and almost as high.

It was an Ocean Sunfish or Mola Mola.
It jumped three or four times and after every jump it would lay on it's side at the surface and the sea gull would stand on it and eat parasites off it's sides.

Our boat was moving pretty fast so I could only see this for about 30 seconds but it made my day.
I have only seen an ocean sunfish once or twice before but that was far out to sea. This was about 8 miles out.
Sunfish are the largest bony fish and can reach over 2,000 lbs. or as much as some of my old girlfriends.

Very cool.

Coming home it was so windy that they cancelled our ferry due to high winds and rain. I think the Captain noticed there were some Sissy, Girly Men Snowflakes on line and figured they would get the horrors and croak.
This ferry is a big boat holding maybe 100 or more cars.

We drove for an hour to Bridgeport Conn. and got a different ferry to Long Island so we didn't do to bad.

I got good news when I got home and found out my book, "The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist" is back in print on Amazon so I ordered myself some copies in case I forgot what I wrote.

Fudsey · Oct 10, 2019

Already sold out @Paul B

Lowell Lemon · Oct 10, 2019

Paul did you buy all the copies? If so I would like to buy one...pay extra for an autographed copy!

Paul B · Oct 10, 2019

Fudsey said:
Already sold out @Paul B

No It's not. That edition with the old cover is not in print any more because the publisher is out of business. But this is the same book only without my really nice picture on it.

Paul B · Oct 10, 2019

Lowell Lemon said:
Paul did you buy all the copies? If so I would like to buy one...pay extra for an autographed copy!

I can autograph it in 14 different languages starting in Swayhilli

I can't even get my own book for 48 hours so I will have to read an old copy which was printed in Latin.

Paul B · Oct 11, 2019

I still can't order my own book. Amazon told me they are quarantining them for 48 more hours to eliminate bookworms. ;Wideyed

When we came home from our water logged little trip to a B&B yesterday I noticed that my skimmer was empty as was my reverse UG filter manifold and the algae on my algae scrubber was dry and looked like hay.
So I said "Hay" whats wrong? It's not supposed to do that.

I searched and found my pump, that feeds all those things croaked. It is probably 30 years old and never gave me any problems but that maybe their life span.

Luckily, I had another one slightly damaged so I had to hold it together with some tie wraps but it is running fine.

It is also probably 30 years old so i have to keep a watch on it. Stopping my UG filter, skimmer and algae scrubber won't affect my tank at all but I like those things to work just because I built them all and don't want to look like a Jiboni.

I have some spares.