Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Paul B]

Today I went down to my marina because they just put my boat in the water and I needed to get there to clean it, start it and charge the batteries. The water is full of grass shrimp and amphipods so I netted a bucketfull and when I got hime, I threw them in my tank. I don't do this in the winter but the shrimp and pods are there, I just don't like freezing while I am collecting. This stuff renews the tank like it always does.

 

[Paul B]

I picked up some more SPS frags to replace some of the corals I lost when I went to Europe. Some of the "Dead" ones still have some growth on them and seem to be doing fine.
I really hate the look of frags and up until a few weeks ago I never had any. It is not the frags I dislike, it is that silly looking round plug they come on. I personally never use them, but I like to glue corals right to pieces of rock, then as they age and get largter I glue those rocks to larger rocks to make them completely natural looking.
Now there are maybe 10 frags in my tank on those round plugs and when I get time I would like to break them off and stick them on rocks. They really detract from a natural looking aquascape and my eye goes right to them.
I know stores have to sell them like that because it is easy and they fit in eggcrate, but it drives me crazy.
Most of my corals came on those plugs and I broke almost all of them off eventually or else I just epoxied rock to the plug so you don't see them.
Yes, little details make me crazy.

 

[johnboy411]

thats awesome, i thought i was doing well at 7 years
you just created another goal for me!

 

[Paul B]

7 years is a huge acomplishment in this hobby, most people seem to go three or four and get disquested and give it away.
I don't know why people seem to have so many problems. Ich, cyano, flatworms, bubble algae, pop eye, broypsis, the heartbreak of psorosis etc.
Ich is not a problem as long as you feed the fish properly and get them into breeding condition but no one believes me. Cyano, what can I say, it comes and goes, if it comes too much throw some Chemi Clean in there and feed less, flatworms? Last year I had millions of them. In a few months they disappeared with no help from me. I also have some bubble algae, I kind of like it and it is only in some areas. Pop eye you can cure in 5 seconds with a hypodermic needle, Psorosis, I am not sure, maybe Vaseline.
I think people get too crazy with this stuff. Most of the time there is nothing to do and it works out on it's own. We have problems when we start fooling around trying to change the parameters because they are slightly off. I don't know, maybe it's me.
But 7 years id great.
I had this pair of hermit crabs for 13 years before they croaked, I don't know what they died from, maybe boredom.

 

[Paul B]

Today I decided to clean the algae out of my algae trough. There was just too much algae and the water was having a hard tiime getting through. The thing has a plastic window screen in it that I normally just roll up, then brush off the algae in the sink and put it back in but this time it was just too much of a job. The screen was covered in those hard tube worms and bubble algae. There was also just too many amphipods in it to save. I swirled the screen in some salt water and collected as many amphipods as I could and threw them back in the tank. Then I threw out the screen and installed a new one. I don't like to do that because I like a coating of algae on it and algae takes a long time to grow on a new screen.
I also like to smear a coating of cement on the screen because algae grows very fast on cement but I didn't have time to prepare a screen so I just put in a new one. Now it will take a good 3 weeks before algae grows significantly on it.
I may make a cement covered screen in the meantime for next time.
Today I will go to my marina to "play" with my boat and I will collect a bunch of amphipods to replace the ones I lost.
Have a great day

 

[CJO]

Do you have any plans for how you covered the screen in cement? Sounds like a good idea for the algae filters.

CJ

 

[Paul B]

Do you have any plans for how you covered the screen in cement? Sounds like a good idea for the algae filters.

Yes, I lay out the screen, fill my hand with wet cement and smear it on. It works a little better (but not much) if you rough up the screen with an electric sander with rough paper. You have to smear it on a few times over a few days because hardly any sticks the first time.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Got any pics of the screen?

 

[Paul B]

Got any pics of the screen?

Go to one of the windows in your house and open it up. Look at the screen, thats it. :bounce:

Just your basic plastic window screen available everywhere.

You can see a little of it here in this old picture on the left side.

 

[Paul B]

From the disaster of when I went to Europe I now have so many frags I don't know where to put them. They are mostly acropora and they are growing very fast.
You can see some on the very white stands toward the right side of this picture I just took. I really don't want to take apart the rocks again to fit things but it seems the LPS are also growing a little fast although I don't know why.
A few weeks ago a member on here also gave me a few frags.
Everytime I put my hand in there, I break something because the fireclown always feels the need to bite me and I jump and something breaks. I like the SPS to get big, but at this rate, I will have a tank of frags and I don't like the look of that.

 

[Paul B]

Experimenting is my way of keeping this lifelong hobby interesting and when I stop inventing and experimenting, I am dead.
I just finished my last prototype of a de nitrification coil and I will be flushing it out for a few days before I cycle it with salt water. Water takes almost 10 minutes to get through all the intracies of the thing so I think that will be sufficient time to process nitrates. If not, back to the drawing board.

 

[CJO]

Sweet. Let us know how it goes.

CJ

 

[Paul B]

OK, it will take a couple of months to work

 

[ThatOneGuy]

Paul How Are You Able To Keep A Moorish Idol Alive? Could You Offer Some Help To Me?

 

[Paul B]

First thing I did was to go to Bora Bora and hang out with them to get into their head. Then I collected sponge that I learned by trial and error that they love. Then I designed a feeder that would deposit fish oil soaked pellets into a dish three times a day for him.
Every day he got those pellets, sponge that I kept frozen, fresh clam and the most important thing, live blackworms.
My tank at 100 gallons is too small for an idol and I won't be getting another one for that reason. He lived five years until he died in an accident with many of my older fish while I was away.
I now feel I can keep them long term but I probably won't find out.

Bora Bora

And you can see an Idol at the bottom of this last picture

 

[Paul B]

The bluestripe is gone which as I said happens every time I stir up the tank. I can't do that when I have them but their lifespan is only about 3 or 4 years so it is not too bad. She was about that age. I think the detritus clogs up their tiny mouths and you can't catch those in a reef.
I have also found that when SPS grow very fast like acropora, it grows thin and brittle. The urchin sometimes breaks off pieces as it bulldozers past it. I have frags all over the place which I glue to large rocks. I like urchins because all healthy reefs have large populations of urchins but they are destructive.

 

[Paul B]

I just got home from boating and I dumped in a couple of dozen mud snails and a few hundred amphipods, my fish are so happy

 

[mallorieGgator]

Sweet Paul! Those reef pics are awesome. Black tips are pretty nifty creatures!

 

[Paul B]

Black tips are pretty nifty creatures

Thanks, but I don't put them in my reef. Only their head fits in the tank:nerd:

 

[mallorieGgator]

Lol!

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