Tank birthday, 55+ years

[Paul B]

Thank you Keith. She was an athlete and used to teach high impact Aerobics. She is also a SCUBA diver and swims every day in the summer at the pool here. Just now she finished working out with weights.

If she was healthy, I would be the happiest man in the world because there was so many things we used to do together and now she can't even take a container of milk out of the refrigerator.

I do just about everything for her as her hands are pretty numb so she can't tell how tight she is holding something, like a cup of coffee and one leg and foot is totally numb and can't move at all.

A few years ago I installed this walk in tub for her. I needed some help bringing it up and lifting it into place as it is almost 400lbs.



Here it is almost completed.

 

[Freenow54]

I have even used red food dye with white worms to get a small copperband feeding many years ago. Perhaps colour along with smell plays an important part in feeding response. My CB didn't go after the white worms only blood worms till I dyed the white worms red, more pinkish in truth.

I wonder how they would like fish roe ?

 

[tbrown]

I wonder how they would like fish roe ?

I feed Reef Nutrition ROE to the tank periodically and my fish go crazy for it.

 

[tharbin]

I feed Reef Nutrition ROE to the tank periodically and my fish go crazy for it.

Same, also occasionally Oyster Feast. The Arcti-Pods, not so much but I feed all three to the LPS corals.

 

[atoll]

I wonder how they would like fish roe ?

They do for sure and I have been using it for years bought from the local fish market.

 

[Rybren]

They do for sure and I have been using it for years bought from the local fish market.

I do the same. The fish love it.

 

[jsmkmavity]

I have feed some roe from the fish i catch locally.

 

[tharbin]

I have feed some roe from the fish i catch locally.

Now that's real DIY fish food.

 

[Paul B]

To me, this is a hobby. It's all fun. If it stops being fun, there is a dumpster 75 yards from my front door.

Recently, I removed many corals that were covered in an encrusting sponge and I am patiently waiting for them to grow back.
It will not return to the pre-sponge stage, but at my age, I don't care, as I never thought of it as a contest and have nothing to prove. My fish spawn and don't die, so I am happy and feel my "experiment" worked even though people tell me it is because of ozone, skimmers, reverse undergravel filters, ocean rock, or Tinkerbell. If those things are the key, then do that.


All the issues in this hobby fascinate me, but I don't know why there are as many problems with disease as there were in the 70s. I think it's because of all the artificial colors they put in our food.

I have been saying since the 70s that my tank will always be an experiment and never a thing of beauty. I do things to it that most people wouldn't dare to do and most new tanks would not survive.

I have added flounders, sea robins, fluke, baby stripped bass, eels, pipefish, seahorses, puffers and everything else I can collect here in New York. When they get big, I throw them back in the sea.







If I could find a baby skate, I would throw that in. :)


For iron dosing, I have a jar of rusty nails that I dump in occasionally. I used to add garden soil for bacteria and feed my Moorish Idols frozen bananas.

To me, this is a hobby. I am having fun as it is not important. We are not building Space Shuttles or curing ingrown toenails. I am not making any money from it and have never sold anything from my tank, but I have given away many fish and pieces of equipment.

I published 2 books and 100% of it goes to charity.

I have an Eheim canister filter, if anyone wants it, come and pick it up. It's practically new but I don't have a UPS near here so I don't want to ship it.

Cyano, who cares?



The brown stuff under the 6 line is encrusting sponge.



Algae, OMG, Shoot me.





It's all good and makes me happy.

I think this guy overdosed on Prizapro.


I took these in the ocean. Looks like my tank to me.







I never added one of these but they used to sell them here in the 70s for $50.00

 

[jackintheboxfish]

lol sometimes I can’t tell if you are joking Paul. Were you serious about the rusty nails?

In terms of stuff you took from the ocean and put into the tank, if you found them near NY, wouldn’t they be considered from temperate and not tropical areas? Do they do well in a heated reef tank?

 

[jsmkmavity]

If you think the tang police are bad wait till the green sea turtle police show up!!! Your tank still looks good to me Paul.

 

[Freenow54]

lol sometimes I can’t tell if you are joking Paul. Were you serious about the rusty nails?

In terms of stuff you took from the ocean and put into the tank, if you found them near NY, wouldn’t they be considered from temperate and not tropical areas? Do they do well in a heated reef tank?

This is a guy that puts glass bottles in his Tank and makes rocks out of what he calls cement , Such a dopey Sicilian that is an embarrassment to his New York buddies . I had to correct him and say its Concrete . Why Does He Do This You May Ask answer to grow Coraline Algae . Need more PROOF ?

 

[atoll]

The moment I stop experimenting and trying different things with my tank is the moment I will get bored with it and may consider stamp collecting or Morris dancing.

I don't go as far as Paul adding things to my tank esp as here in the UK our waters are cold. However, in the past I have kept beadlet a
nemones and live mussels in the past..
My good friend tells me I am always changing, trying new things and fiddling with my tank. He dosen't but its me who makes little discoveries and passes them onto him.

One if my philosophies is. if it ain't broken well fix it anyway.

 

[tbrown]

This is a guy that puts glass bottles in his Tank and makes rocks out of what he calls cement , Such a dopey Sicilian that is an embarrassment to his New York buddies . I had to correct him and say its Concrete . Why Does He Do This You May Ask answer to grow Coraline Algae . Need more PROOF ?

I made my rocks from Portland Cement but I added aragonite sand so it became concrete - just non silica sand type?

 

[tbrown]

The moment I stop experimenting and trying different things with my tank is the moment I will get bored with it and may consider stamp collecting or Morris dancing.

I don't go as far as Paul adding things to my tank esp as here in the UK our waters are cold. However, in the past I have kept beadlet a
nemones and live mussels in the past..
My good friend tells me I am always changing, trying new things and fiddling with my tank. He dosen't but its me who makes little discoveries and passes them onto him.

One if my philosophies is. if it ain't broken well fix it anyway.

I'm out here in the desert and I've considered building a heat sink for my sump. Currently with surface agitation my tank is rarely over 78° even in the summer, but it would be cool to DIY something like that and have it work good.

 

[Paul B]

lol sometimes I can’t tell if you are joking Paul. Were you serious about the rusty nails?

Yep. There are more corals growing on sunken ships than anywhere else, so why not?

lol sometimes I can’t tell if you are joking Paul. Were you serious about the rusty nails?

In terms of stuff you took from the ocean and put into the tank, if you found them near NY, wouldn’t they be considered from temperate and not tropical areas? Do they do well in a heated reef tank?

Most of the local New York fauna won't survive long in a tropical tank but some things like eels, sea robins, blue claw crabs, baby flounders, urchins and hermit crabs last a few months. Then I put them back in the sea.

I collected all that stuff in tide pools at low tide and the water gets very hot there in the summer.
This is low tide. At high tide the water here is 8' deep.




It's all good and if you don't try, How would you know?

I live to experiment and am not trying to become famous or appear on Dancing with the Stars, I just want my fish to die of old age and spawn.

This is just one of my hobbies, but it is the one I have been in the longest, and get the most satisfaction at.

 

[Freenow54]

What is the temperature of your ground water ? you could make an exchanger out of lots of available of the shell and tube type Or just a coil type . Easy to make but would have to use Titanium which I have found . For a 100 Gallon for a coil type about 2-3 hundred Canadian so convert that . Just look on the internet. That and a small pump with flow control done . Paul will Drool

 

[Freenow54]

I'm out here in the desert and I've considered building a heat sink for my sump. Currently with surface agitation my tank is rarely over 78° even in the summer, but it would be cool to DIY something like that and have it work good.

I dont know why your post was not included in my reply but I tried to give you a fairly esy set up for a heat exchanger Above

 

[Paul B]

When I had a sea urchin collection business I built a chilled tank from a water cooler. I used copper tubing coated with epoxy. Much cheaper than titanium.

I kept hundreds of local NY urchins. They would eat a head of lettuce a day.

 

[albano]

I just want my fish to die of old age and spawn.

Sorry to tell you Paul, but this is never gonna happen!