paul b

Playing with my new lenses. I got this Hippo when she was very small. She has never eaten seaweed, algae or nori. Very pregnant Watchgirl

I certainly can't help as I have no medications.

Pictures aren't working, it must be me. I just got back from the Bone Doctor. I went for cortizone shots in both knees because my knees are sucky. Commercial construction in Manhattan for 40 years messes up your knees because everything is 1,000lbs, even lunch. So I get there and roll up my two pants legs, I actually wore sweats for this and the Dr, assistant said why did I roll up both legs. I said, both knees don't work and both feel like I have tiny sea urchins playing polo in there. She said, she can't do anything with the left knee which is a titanium one because there is no more arthritis in there, just inflamed tendons and she can't fix those. Another knee replacement, like the original knee doc wants to do would only make it worse so I am stuck. I asked if she could fix the right knee and she said, any small amount of meniscus left in there is shreaded and it is bone on bone so I am just pinching the nerves when I move. Nothing can be done except a new knee. I told her the other one didn't work out to well and I can't be laid up because my wife has MS and I even have to put her shoes on. She can't live without me for a day, much less a year. So she told me I am in between a hard place and a rock covered in long spined sea urchins so a new knee is the only option. I can take over the counter pain meds like Tylenol or Dr Pepper. She gave me the cortizone shot and I can take them every three months until I croak, so that was good news.

I am going to try this again because the pictures didn't come out and there is no "edit" for some reason This morning like most mornings I got out of bed at 5:15, got dressed to go out for a walk and immediately got a flashback from Nam because there is a monsoon outside. In Nam I had no choice and had to live in it but here I have a nice warm house so I decided not to walk today. I decided to bake muffins like I often do for a few reasons. I like them, my wife likes them and I can't go out so what else an I going to do at 4:15? As I am waiting for them to bake I was thinking of all the times I do walk in the morning and all the deer I see so early. These things are all over the place. I wish purple tangs were so common. Most people here think of the deer as a big problem because they don't look both ways when they cross streets and don't make good hood ornaments. I am quite sure the deer think of us as pests but I am guessing as although I can read the mind of a copperband butterfly, deer minds confuse me and I don't get much incite from what they are thinking. Looking into the black eyes of a deer is like looking into the eyes of a flounder. Not much going on. They did put "Deer Crossing" signs all over the place but many times the deer ignore those signs and cross the streets in other places. Over the years there have been plans on how to limit the numbers of deer but with 4 or 5 million people with opinions, nothing gets done. It's like fish forums, everyone has an opinion and the outcome is almost always to change the water. At one time the government hired hunters to cull the population. Of course that is only a temporary solution and people cried out about the cruelty. I myself don't shoot deer or even deer ticks and also don't like that idea. I don't eat deer meat but I do eat hamburgers which are humanly grown in a supermarket Even if they killed 100 deer, there are tens of thousands of them and more of them get hit by cars than that every month. There was a plan to feed the deer birth control pills. They would drop bales of food by helicopter laced with birth control pills. That didn't work because the way a deers hoofs are built, they have a hard time getting the pills out of those little round plastic containers they come in and the deer never knew what day it was so even if they could pry the pills out, the dosage was off. Also the bucks, or male deer were eating them and it started to make them grow long eyelashes and many people would complain that when they were watching Oprah, the deer would look at the TV through their window instead of running after females like bucks are supposed to do. [URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/urchsearch/a/0aecb164-96ce-4c85-ad43-aef2e707f671/p/77d62044-0ccb-4877-8240-40ca11334bd6][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/.highres/IMG_27071_zpsagimpc5u.jpg[/IMG][/URL] There is an Island here called Shelter Island and a lot of wealthy people lived there. Many of them got rich from whaling. (They killed all the whales then started to kill other things but that is for another useless thread.) Anyway they wanted to grow gardens and they couldn't because the deer would eat everything, so the residents came up with a plan. The Island isn't that big so they hired these people to come to the Island with huge fishing nets. They got a few hundred people and started walking the nets through the Island trying to force the deer all to one side where they would have a barge waiting. The idea was to herd the deer onto the barge and let them go on the mainland. (Originally they were going to shoot them but the people started protesting. They figured it was much more humane to pry the poor animals from the grill of a 1929 Oldsmobile ) At first it looked like it was working and almost all the deer were in the nets going on to the barge. Thats when the Island occupants learned that deer could jump six feet and swim like Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) There were Deer swimming all around the Island and the Coast Guard had to be called to chase the deer out of the water because now they were a hazard to navigation. Inadvertently, all the deer ended up back on the Island and now, after swimming all day they were hungry so the little vegetation that was still on the Island was quickly devoured by the deer. Now the Island residents were up here. [URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/urchsearch/a/0aecb164-96ce-4c85-ad43-aef2e707f671/p/1c126516-48cc-4462-81f4-ad94163611d0][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/.highres/2013-03-06%2007.36.20_zps3gxtkagv.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

This morning like most mornings I got out of bed at 5:15, got dressed to go out for a walk and immediately got a flashback from Nam because there is a monsoon outside. In Nam I had no choice and had to live in it but here I have a nice warm house so I decided not to walk today. I decided to bake muffins like I often do for a few reasons. I like them, my wife likes them and I can't go out so what else an I going to do at 4:15? As I am waiting for them to bake I was thinking of all the times I do walk in the morning and all the deer I see so early. These things are all over the place. I wish purple tangs were so common. Most people here think of the deer as a big problem because they don't look both ways when they cross streets and don't make good hood ornaments. I am quite sure the deer think of us as pests but I am guessing as although I can read the mind of a copperband butterfly, deer minds confuse me and I don't get much incite from what they are thinking. Looking into the black eyes of a deer is like looking into the eyes of a flounder. Not much going on. They did put "Deer Crossing" signs all over the place but many times the deer ignore those signs and cross the streets in other places. Over the years there have been plans on how to limit the numbers of deer but with 4 or 5 million people with opinions, nothing gets done. It's like fish forums, everyone has an opinion and the outcome is almost always to change the water. At one time the government hired hunters to cull the population. Of course that is only a temporary solution and people cried out about the cruelty. I myself don't shoot deer or even deer ticks and also don't like that idea. I don't eat deer meat but I do eat hamburgers which are humanly grown in a supermarket Even if they killed 100 deer, there are tens of thousands of them and more of them get hit by cars than that every month. There was a plan to feed the deer birth control pills. They would drop bales of food by helicopter laced with birth control pills. That didn't work because the way a deers hoofs are built, they have a hard time getting the pills out of those little round plastic containers they come in and the deer never knew what day it was so even if they could pry the pills out, the dosage was off. Also the bucks, or male deer were eating them and it started to make them grow long eyelashes and many people would complain that when they were watching Oprah, the deer would look at the TV through their window instead of running after females like bucks are supposed to do. [URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/urchsearch/a/0aecb164-96ce-4c85-ad43-aef2e707f671/p/77d62044-0ccb-4877-8240-40ca11334bd6][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/.highres/IMG_27071_zpsagimpc5u.jpg[/IMG][/URL] There is an Island here called Shelter Island and a lot of wealthy people lived there. Many of them got rich from whaling. (They killed all the whales then started to kill other things but that is for another useless thread.) Anyway they wanted to grow gardens and they couldn't because the deer would eat everything, so the residents came up with a plan. The Island isn't that big so they hired these people to come to the Island with huge fishing nets. They got a few hundred people and started walking the nets through the Island trying to force the deer all to one side where they would have a barge waiting. The idea was to herd the deer onto the barge and let them go on the mainland. (Originally they were going to shoot them but the people started protesting. They figured it was much more humane to pry the poor animals from the grill of a 1929 Oldsmobile ) At first it looked like it was working and almost all the deer were in the nets going on to the barge. Thats when the Island occupants learned that deer could jump six feet and swim like Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) There were Deer swimming all around the Island and the Coast Guard had to be called to chase the deer out of the water because now they were a hazard to navigation. Inadvertently, all the deer ended up back on the Island and now, after swimming all day they were hungry so the little vegetation that was still on the Island was quickly devoured by the deer. Now the Island residents were here. [URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/urchsearch/a/0aecb164-96ce-4c85-ad43-aef2e707f671/p/1c126516-48cc-4462-81f4-ad94163611d0][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/.highres/2013-03-06%2007.36.20_zps3gxtkagv.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

You can see mine here in the back. If the picture shows up [URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/urchsearch/a/0aecb164-96ce-4c85-ad43-aef2e707f671/p/baaa008c-b83a-4aed-957d-89693370cf6c][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/.highres/thumbnail_zpsz6hkit6e.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

That is true. I worked as a plumber (although I am an electrician) and I installed a sink in my workshop just as you plan to do. (I also plumbed my whole house and many others) I also would not get a permit as that opens you up to all sorts of inspections and you don't want inspectors in your house if you can help it. I also doubt it is illegal. Don't use a sump pump as they will always be a problem. It looks like you have enough room there for a normal drain line and you can easily put the antisiphon valve right next to the sink. Thats where I have mine.

I love this.

I love this. Mine have been spawning for years but I never tried to raise them, or even see them. Great job.

Yes, your clownfish are very healthy and should breed almost every week. If you want to raise them, that is another story and not quite as easy. [URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/urchsearch/a/bf7387db-6345-4b19-b382-6b7cde1dad34/p/a6428f15-7f19-4825-9a25-8cdd62734e19][IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/.highres/thumbnail_zpskurdziqh.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

I prefer Cognac White worms

In the 2000s a neurobiologist researcher in Ireland was studying gut microbes on the brain and how they and stress affected mental and gut health. I don't want to bore everyone more with all this research but in short it was found that stress also affects gut microbes and gut microbe health can cause stress in us and I assume in fish. When the salt water fish hobby started in the US, in 1971 in New York anyway where I live I bought the first salt water fish available which were blue devils. (I wrote about this many times and it is in my book) Those 7 blue devils were always sick and I had to keep copper pennies in their tank constantly (Liquid copper was not available to me at the time) The copper kept the parasites from killing the fish but the dosing and subsequent overdosing was tricky. After about a year I discovered live blackworms and started feeding them to my fish. After seven weeks something happened. The fish became much "bluer" and looked so much better. I stopped using the pennies and the fish didn't die. One of the fish became, or always was male and his clear fins also became royal blue. The 6 female’s fins remained clear but their blue was very blue. They spawned, and continued spawning for many years. And that was in 1972, when most people didn't even know what salt was unless it was in a small container with holes in it on the table next to the pepper. Since then I have been feeding live worms a few times a week. I can't get live blackworms now where I live so I raise (very easily) white worms which live in dirt. It seems that those worms, for some reason, have the same good bacteria that our fish need for immunity because since then, none of my fish have ever been sick with any communicable disease like ich or velvet and in those fifty years I have added many fish. Virtually all my paired fish spawn and the rest of them only die of old age, jumping out or being bullied. They always eat, are social, get along (unless I stupidly add something that I should not have) and never give me any problem. I have no medications, hospital or quarantine tank and after a few minutes of acclimation, put the fish right in no matter if the tank they came from was heavily infected with some sort of parasites. I also feed shellfish and if I can get it live, I like it better because when we feed shellfish like clams, oysters or mussels we feed the entire creature and those creatures are almost all guts as they don't have arms and legs to waste nutrients on. Those guts seem to also have the living bacteria and parasites that will keep our fish immune. (Fish, and us need to be occasionally exposed to disease organisms including parasites to stay immune to them) I am not sure about shellfish sold as “aquarium food” because they could be old, deep frozen or irradiated to kill bacteria. Again, I am guessing here so I like to buy living shellfish and freeze it myself if I can. But living worms seem to work just as well. White worms can be had by Googling "white worm culture" you get a small supply for about fifteen bucks that you put in a shoe box size plastic container with damp potting soil. Keep them under about 80 degrees and feed dry cat food or bread with yogurt on it. I have a culture going for many years and I get millions of inch long worms. Fish disease is a non-issue for me and I believe it is due to the microbes in the food I feed and have been feeding since the 70s. Store bought dry food, no matter what it is; will not have these healthy gut microbes, only living or freshly frozen "whole" creatures will have this. Fish fillets, shrimp, octopus, scallop will also not as you are only getting the muscle of those animals and not the gut microbes. This food does not have to be fed at every meal but “I” feel dry foods should never be fed except for short intervals like vacations. Pro-biotics while great (I take them myself) will also not have the full complement of microbes that are needed for immunity. Only the variety of bacteria that exist in living, or freshly frozen animals will supply this. So in short, I feel when we buy a fish, if we don’t already have a quarantined tank, acclimate the new fish, put it in your tank and the first meal should be something like live worms or fresh shellfish as I mentioned. Nothing else is needed and dry foods should not be used except for vacation but never at first. Whiteworms live in soil. Don’t be concerned if some of that soil gets in your tank. As a matter of fact, make sure some soil gets into your tank. Someone posted not long ago that their fish died because it ate a piece of dirt! Really!. Fish eat poop, dirt won’t hurt them and is actually needed If this is followed and our fish are in a proper, natural tank with natural hiding places (no stark white PVC or anything man made looking) and they are never medicated, they should end up immune from everything except jumping out or maybe your cat.

As some people may know I have been talking about how my fish have never gotten sick in decades and I have been offered many reasons why such as I am Lucky or my tank has some mysterious creature that eats parasites, my Undergravel sucks up parasites and diseases, the Ozone I use kills diseases (I have not used Ozone in almost 3 years) UV light won't allow diseases to flourish (I never used UV light) or a variety of other "explanations". I am pretty sure I know the reason and I have known it for many years but never actually had proof. Now I do. My wife has MS and has had it for over 20 years so I research all I can about it. My Grand Son and Granddaughter also have health problems that can be life threatening. Because of this I do a lot of researching of new therapies or any ideas or theories that may be pertinent to this. Two of my friends are Neurologists and I have spoken to them on this also. Ever since the 80s I have thought there was some kind of important connection between the organisms living in our, and animals guts and the brain. At first I figured it was slightly but not very important. Now I know differently. I read all I can find on this relationship and in this months "Discover" magazine (Nov. 2020) There are two articles on the subject. They mainly focus on mental health and Autism but they outline how gut microbes control our health. Something I have known all along but didn't put it all together so completely. The article starts out by quoting the Doctor at UCLA in 1990. He started thinking about how tiny organisms, too small to be seen could function as "powerful, "self-contained machines" powerful enough to take over and destroy the Human body. The gist of one of these articles is about a young boy who had Autism and severe gastrointestinal symptoms. He then had new microbes introduced into his gut which changed everything. Within a year he was almost back to normal and no longer is considered to have Autism and his internal issues are also resolved. "Our body, especially our intestines are teeming with thousands of types of bacteria but it was largely unknown how they affected the body besides causing illness.” Then he thought, "Why would the human immune system which is designed to attack and destroy foreign invaders, allow hundreds of species of bacteria to live and thrive in our guts unmolested?" The answer is, there must be some sort of benefit to both the microbes and the body. A "Symbiotic System". Early research was done on lab mice that were bred to have no bacteria in their bodies. It was found that those mice had a 30 to 40% reduction of a specific type of immune cell known as "helper T cells”. Helper T cells help stop invading pathogens and it was found that germ free mice were far less robust than mice with a full complement of microbes. Copper, antibiotics and most aquarium medications either kill or severely alter gut microbes Those sterile mice were then given fecal transplants from healthy mice and within a month were just as healthy and had a strong immune response as healthy mice. I realize mice, Humans and fish are different but we all evolved together and our gut microme, just as in a fish act very much the same in relation to health. One of the biggest things this researcher found was a gut microbe named "B.fragilis" played a key role in preventing the immune system from attacking its host and protecting against autoimmune diseases. (We don't want to kill that one) (I was very interested in this because my wife's MS is an autoimmune disease) I don't know if fish get autoimmune diseases but it seems odd to me that many fish in quarantine or medicated for one disease, all of a sudden are afflicted with other, non-related diseases. You know and I know that is very common. Quarantine by itself I don't feel will cause disease unless the fish is stressed as in a bare tank with PVC "decorations or if the fish is not being fed food with living bacteria (microbes) in it. Getting back to the research. It was found that children with Autism had "leaky Gut Syndrome" which allowed microbes, one in particular called "4-ethylphenyl sulfate" to circulate in the blood. Tests were performed on mice and it was found that if they injected 4-ethylphenyl sulfate into healthy mice, they were more easily startled and were less comfortable in large empty spaces than their untreated peers and an increase in anxiety-related behaviors. Also (in mice anyway who have been given this molecule or have autism like symptoms) several important species involving the digestion of carbohydrates were severely depleted. That sounds very similar to me to fish that are quarantined, on meds or not eating living bacteria and why many of them refuse to eat, stay hidden, and try to jump out or just die. We humans are more bacteria than human. 1.3 to 1 to be exact. Our gut houses 100 trillion bacteria (I didn't count them) it is a complicated microbial universe which plays a very important part in our and our fish’s health. These microbes help us digest food, keep harmful microbes at bay and control our emotions. (Maybe Vulcans use these) Continued below

I don't know, whose BRS? I think I should know that.

As I am waiting to go out I started to look at my tank and I couldn't find my pair of Rainsford gobies that I thought were spawning. I grabbed a flashlight and snuck around behind my tank. It's a little dark there and as I was looking through the rocks, I noticed something on my gravel. Thousands, or maybe millions (I didn't count all of them) of worms. I don't know what kind of worms but they are not bristle worms. I got thousands of them also and know very well what they look like. These guys are smaller, grey and don't move much. It seems only the front half of them moves, or thats all that I see move and they don't move much. They seem to be doing the Michael Jackson robot dance as they move in jerky "twitches". Looking at them with a jewelers loupe (yes I am weird) I didn't notice a feathery plume so I don't think they are tiny feather dusters and I have no idea what they are. They seem to shun light as none of them are in the light and I assume they are filter feeders and they live all through my gravel over my reverse undergravel filter. I also notice back there that my gravel is "awash" in copepods which is good. I am going to research these things but I am all excited about them as I get excited whenever I find something new. On a day that it is not my anniversary I am going to try to remove some to put under a microscope. For now I took some pictures which wasn't easy as I had to hold the camera and a flashlight and take the pictures from an inch away. If anyone knows what they are, let me know. PS I did see my Rainsford Gobies.

I am not the smartest fish keeper in the world, but I am probably one of the oldest. Being one of the oldest, I have also had more time to study this stuff and more time to make mistakes. Mistakes are one way we learn. A very good way. It's actually how they train you in basic training in the Army or Marines. By forcing you to do impossible tasks, knowing you can't do them, then punishing you for not doing it correctly. Eventually, you learn what they want you to do while never completing those tasks correctly. Trust me, it works. I was a Noob at one time and that time was the 1950s, yes the world as we know it was around then and so were fish. We had the same problems then as we do now but a few of us learned, after many dead fish what we were doing wrong and I think I got it. Most people in this hobby do something and it works, and they think they found the secret, but we may be talking about a time frame of a few months or a couple of years. A common hermit crab lives over 12 years so if we keep one for a couple of years, it is not "Great Success". To have a reef tank for four or five years without crashing, although is an accomplishment that few people ever attain is also not a Great Success and we should strive for more. We should always strive for more. IMO a reef tank should be immortal or "live" as long as it's owner. Of course fish are not immortal, but most of them live much longer than people stay in this hobby. Corals are immortal and can keep living while growing new polyps on top of older ones. That’s how reefs grow. I feel the biggest mistake we make (and us Geezers who started this hobby are the cause) is keeping our tanks to clean. Our gravel or sand is to clean, and our food is to clean and our water is to clean. I will get to clean water later as it even sounds weird to me. Fish, birds, whales, lizzards, earthworms, Liberals, Conservatives and us all have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria, viruses and parasites. Viruses, bacteria and parasites have been here longer than us and will be here when we all go to Mars because this planet has nothing left but plastic. In a tank, any tank, except a quarantined or medicated tank, bacteria run everything. We forget about them, but it is the bacteria that call the shots, not us. Bacteria have their own problems as viruses also affect and kill them. Bacteria hate that. Parasites are also infected by bacteria and viruses. Probably funguses also, but I am guessing. Anyway, we call those things “disease organisms” because they can make us sick, but we forget that without them, we couldn’t live. Our stomach is loaded with both beneficial and harmful bacteria. They live in harmony along with the funguses and viruses. Seawater is loaded with all of those things and that is natural and the way it should be. We have problems when we mess with that system. If we kill bacteria, the viruses can take over as can the parasites. If we for instance use copper, we will kill the parasites and bacteria, but not the viruses. We really can’t kill the viruses (as Covid 19 taught us) because viruses are not alive to start with but we can disintegrate them using UV light or ozone. So if we kill one of the pathogens, we allow the remaining ones to thrive and cause problems. We can of course kill everything by using drugs along with UV and Ozone but should we? It sounds like a good plan but have you seen anyone who just had Chemo and radiation to kill cancer? Those people have no immunity to anything and although they are kept in a sterile environment, many of them die anyway because we can’t live like that in the real world. Neither can fish. In some cases we do have to resort to that drastic measure and sometimes it works. But not usually and it could take years for that fish to regain its compliment of stomach flora where it could live a normal life free from disease with a functioning immune system. The problem with killing everything is of course that the bacteria, parasites and viruses will all infect the fish at different times and whichever comes first can overwhelm the fishes immune system because those things no longer are living in harmony where they can all keep each other in check. In nature none of those pathogens get the upper hand because they evolved to counteract each other. If we disrupt the cycle, we cause problems and tank crashes. I propose, and it has worked for decades for me and other successful aquarists with long lasting reefs, that instead of trying to limit or eliminate natural pathogens leaving the fish open to disease, we cultivate those things, "in proportion" with each other leaving the fish with a strong immune system that it evolved with. Remember, in the sea the fish are living with every aquatic disease there is with no problem. They only have problems after they are collected, shipped and put in our tanks. There is no reason for them to have problems as my fish realize including my almost 30 year olds. I know many, or all the fish we buy don’t look very good and are all infected with something. But remember, they are “always” infected with something because fish eat and breathe pathogens as they live. In the sea their immune system has no problems dealing with those afflictions because the fish is not stressed and is eating there natural food which is loaded with bacteria. It’s the pathogens that tell the fishes immune system what method to use to eradicate that organism. Remember in the sea fish normally eat living prey. They rarely eat sterile pellets, flakes or freeze dried anything. The prey they eat is always loaded with bacteria, parasites and viruses in the same proportions as are already in the fishes gut. Fish and us can’t digest food without bacteria which is the reason so many fish die while being medicated with copper or other drugs. It kills their stomach bacteria. It’s simple. I mentioned before that our water is to clean and that may sound counterproductive because coral reefs are thought to be pristine. But the difference in water from a coral reef and our tanks is that the water on a coral reef has been there long before Betty White was born and many of our tanks were started a week from last Tuesday. Seawater actually gets better with age, to an extent. If new, clean seawater was so good, why do new tanks look lousy? Why do new tanks, with all new water have so many diseases? Why do Noobs lose so many fish? It’s because bacteria, viruses, corals, seaweed, rocks, meteorites, shipwrecks, whales and waste water from frankfurter carts in New York City all end up in the sea and all of those things are what fish evolved in. OK, maybe not the frankfurter carts. But it takes time for those organisms to reach a point where they are in sync with each other and none of them out weigh or out perform each other. I was also under the impression that we needed to keep everything sterile. I wouldn’t think to put my hands in the tank without rinsing many times to get every trace of soap off. I tried very hard to keep dirt out of my tank and vacuumed up every last bit of un eaten food. I was wrong. Now I take mud from a salt water bay and throw it in. I take garden soil (without pesticides) and throw it in. I feed earthworms full of dirt. I feed clams, mussels and whiteworms with as much dirt attached as I can find. I never quarantine or medicate unless I purposely buy a very sick fish that I know will not live through the night and I experiment with questionable results. I never worry if a fish I buy is in the same tank as fish with spots. What I do is take that fish home as soon as I can and after a short acclimation, place it in my tank and try to get natural food into it. Natural food with living bacteria in it which is not usually commercially purchased food. That food is deep frozen or irradiated to kill bacteria. I do use that food but I always supplement it with the foods I mentioned because without fresh, living bacteria, fish will always be at risk of dying from just about anything. If you don’t believe any of this, go and watch Oprah give away Cadillacs to stray cats.

This Tuesday is our 47th Wedding Anniversary and I just received a gift from our Daughter. Three bottles and one is my favorite.

I have so many white worms I may start to eat them myself. I have been feeding them a dry cat food and although they don't spit up hairballs, they grow very large very quick. My fish are all doing the macarana.

Anything would work if it changes the pH

You add baking soda or calcium until the pH matches your tank. pH is just a measure of acid or alkalinity.

Elbowdeep, thank you. I am glad it all worked out. I have not visited here in a while. I took a video eating some white worms. The fish, not me. Those little Bangai cardinals are new. I have them two days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6xcO9ybMcM

They live a lot longer than that. Maybe 5 years. Mine are older than two now. And my watchmans lived to 12 years. I don't know who wrote that.

They live a few years. Mine spawned on all my large heads of acropora and killed all of them. Very hard to catch You can see her eggs above her here.

I don't know of any specific reef related charities that support reefs if that is what you mean. My book "The Avant Garde Marine Aquarist" is on Amazon and of course it is about our captive reefs. 100% of all profits go to Multiple Sclerosis research in my wife's name who has that disease. But it does not go to help reefs anywhere in the wild. Wait, I just thought of one. Of course I forgot the name but it's a company that "plants" corals all over the world in places where it died. If you like, I will look it up. I found it. Coral Restoration Foundation. This one was in Key Largo Florida. I took this in the Caribbean, it is one of their coral "trees"

We did have a great "driveway" party yesterday after boating. We all brought, or bought food and set up tables and chairs in my driveway. I made the fireworks and most of the drinks and we had a nice turn out. It's not like the old parties because the Virus put a damper on that But we do what we can do. I found out the pool, which is huge and 12' deep is being "fixed" and should be filled and opened soon. But with the Mandated Covid rules it is not going to be much fun. WE have to hire security guards that will take your temperature before you go into the large fenced in area and sign you in. You have to be a resident, no guests. (Or Grand Children) Only a certain number of people are allowed in and you have to bring your own tables, chairs and umbrella's. Normally, all that stuff is there. (I am surprised we don't have to bring our own water for the pool, but maybe that is in the small print) The tables have to be 12' apart and they will count the people in the pool, maybe one of the guards will wear SCUBA gear to make sure you aren't swimming near someone. If you walk near another table, you must wear a mask. I think I will just stay home. WE have this large pool because this land used to be some kind of summer camp and Telly Sevellas owned most of it.