Tank birthday, 47+ years

[snwmnky007]

Paul,
Thank you so much... This is one of the greatest most entertaining threads i have read in a long time.

 

[Paul B]

Thank you.
Today I notice that my algae trough is falling in the tank from the weight of the algae. The left side is lower then the right side so the water is not flowing any more but just falling out the back. I will remove it today to clean it and make a stronger bracket so this does not happen again.

 

[Paul B]

My 5' algae trough just about fell into the tank. It was so full of hair and other algae's that it filled up with water and became too heavy for the flimsy acrylic angles that I had holding one side of it to the side of the top rim. I remove the entire thing to make new (flimsy) angles. I don't have time right now to re design the thing.
I cleaned out the algae and it was very thick and heavy. I also rescued uncountable brittle stars and amphipods but I also lost plenty of them.
It is back together and working like a charm. My skimmer is going crazy now from all the "gook" that came off the trough when I removed it.

 

[Paul B]

I noticed that I have this wierd bubble algae growing only on my cement rocks. Randy gave me an Idea and suggested that it "may" be the iron that is attracting the algae to the cement. It could be another chemical in cement but I will try iron first.
I made a slab of cement about 6 square inches and I ground up some nails with a grinder into the surface of the wet cement. I will let it cure for a week then put it in my algae trough. The trough is there to grow algae anyway and I want to see if I can enhance that ability with iron filings.
I want as much algae growing in the trough as can fit.
I love this stuff.

 

[Paul B]

The test plugs are done and soaking in fresh water. One has iron and one is just cement. In a few days I will put them in my algae trough. I am really hoping the iron sintered one grows more algae, if it does I will line the entire bottom of the trough in the stuff in the hope that it will grow more algae. I think it will. Of course it may also grow more algae in the entire tank and that would not be what I am going for but you have to experiment to learn these things.
The tank is running beautifully with nothing receeding or dying. All the SPS seem to be growing and the LPS are all doing great from being fed clams and oil soaked pellets every day. I re designed my live worm keeper so I don't have tobuy worms very often, they don't get caught in the powerhead and seem to be breeding but I am not sure about that.
Have a great Christmas which is also my birthday.
Take care
Paul

 

[Paul B]

I think I have too many animals in my tank now and I need to stop adding things.
I also realize that In all these pages I don't think I ever mentioned what is in the tank.
I am going to try to list the animals but not the corals because I can't remember names to save my life.
I now have a copperband
2 fireclowns
a bluestriped pipefish
2 mandarins
an algae bleeny
a yellow wrasse
a rainsford gobi
2 unidentified red and yellow stripped cardinals
yellow clown gobi
4 various gobi's one is a watchman
and 4 chromis, two of them I got today and I never seen this type before. They are silver with a yellow horizontal stripe. Not extreamly great looking but If I never seen it before, I got to get it.
I don't know how many grass shrimp are in there, maybe a dozen and about the same with hermit crabs and mud snails. But there is a cool decorator crab and of course an arrow crab, you got to have an arrow crab.
I am sure I missed a few but thats all I can remember.

 

[Paul B]

I'm still on a quest to take a decent video but I am not there yet. Here I tried with the pumps off. I am going to keep trying. These new camera's have so many settings on them that it could take a half an hour just to set the thing the way you want it. But they still come out kind of lousy. I will get it some day.
Click on it to start the video

 

[CJO]

Any way to use a remote flash? That would help with the areas that are too dark and too light.

CJ

 

[Paul B]

Not for the video. I purposely set the appature way down to dim it because it was over exposed.
The back of the tank is dark anyway because I want it like that.

 

[joejoe1055]

paul i really like the goby in the last set of pics
its seems like it could blend in really well

 

[Paul B]

If you like blending in, this white blob under the algae bleeny is a crab

Here he is again

That guy is cool but I like this old guy better

 

[JWorth]

40 years is very impressive!!

 

[kingb4c0]

Wow... that tank is older than me!!!

 

[skulls_and_sparrows]

like the Gieco commercials...Thats AMAZING! Congrats on that!!!! interesting that you think that most keep their tanks to sterile!!! 40 years holds a lot of weight in that knowledge!

 

[Paul B]

Kingb4c0 I have pods older than you. :wink:

 

[JackoChang]

What kind of crab is that?

 

[Paul B]

it's a type of decorator crab. he decorated himself with bubble algae and he can float

 

[Electrobes]

lol! A floating crab, now that is awesome! Call Ripley's. ;)

 

[Paul B]

I need to change some water and do a little tank maintenance so I have to get creative. I am having problems cleaning the glass because even though I re-aquascaped a few weeks ago, the corals have again grew too much towards the front glass. When I can use both hands I need to remove some more rock to gain more room. (I had shoulder surgery and am using one hand) I built a few more fake rocks that will cascade over the rockwork to hold some of the corals but even then, i need more room. Of course a larger tank would do it but I installed this one and built the house around it and i don't think I could even remove it.

 

[Paul B]

So I just got back from the Dr that did my shoulder surgery and he showed me the pictures that he took inside the shoulder. Very cool. I love this stuff.
He showed me what it looks like now after he repaired the rotator cuff. It looks like a bright white plastic sheet stretched over the shoulder joint and the collar bone above it. Everything looks great. Then he showed me the before surgery picture. The rotator cuff is completely torn off and it is crumpled up off the side of my shoulder. None of it was anywhere near where it was supposed to be. So he gradually pulled it until he found some tissue thick enough to screw back in. Then the bone looked like broken glass which is what caused the cuff to tear he ground away until it looks brand new.
In 6 months, I will be as good as new. This one was much more severly damaged thabn the other side. He also sucked out all the detatched pieces of tissue that were just floating around. I wish I had some of those tools to operate on my fish.
Speaking of fish, my new bluestriped pipefish came in and I will pick him up tomorrow. My male died last year and he was part of a breeding pair. I still have the female who os old now so I may take the pair of them. They only live maybe five years and my female is about that. They are one of my favorite fish along with copperbands.
I find them very interesting and colorful.