paul b

On a brighter story, I noticed my last batch of Fireclown eggs hatched so with nothing else to do, I figured I would try to find some of them. I turned off all the powerheads, I have 5 of them. And I looked closely at the film on the surface of the water. After a while I saw one. A couple of seconds went by and I started to see more and more of them. Of course I can barely see them but there are quite a few all over the place. I don't raise fish any more so they will become gorgonian food but thats just the way it is. Even if I wanted to raise them, I couldn't as I can't get rotifers now. Maybe in the future I will again raise some fish but now I have more pressing things to do and these guys spawn constantly. I don't even like Fireclowns as they are not that interesting even though thy are quite rare as I rarely see them anywhere. I got the male 29 years ago as a baby and I thought it was a RedHawk fish because I never saw a Fireclown.

Although we live on a 120 mile long Island and I live on the east end, it is still about 45 minutes for us to go all the way out east on the North Fork of the Island where we live. WE just went out there and explored many beaches that I never knew were there. We had lunch on this one. My wife can't walk on the sand so we had to stay on the pavement. Connecticut is probably 27 miles across from here. Then we went to a Park at Orient Point right next to the Plum Island Ferry. I think Orient point is the most eastern part of the US beside Montauk Point which is on the South Fork of Long Island. This is the road that goes to Orient Beach State park and that is Plum Island in the background where the Government did animal experiments with incurable diseases and all sorts of Nasty nerve poisons etc. Now the Lab there is closed and they don't know what to do with the Island. Being what they did there, I don't want to live there but it is prime real estate and may be developed. (No Thanks) Nelson DeMille wrote a book titled "Plum Island" about it. This afternoon we are hosting an Anti Corona Virus party. It will be outside in my driveway. The neighbors will all bring their own chairs, drinks, glasses and snacks. I provide the music. We will all be at least 6' apart.

Maevpotter, good luck. This morning I made some really nice waffles. I make breakfast every day and I like to get a little creative and do something different every day as much as possible. These are Paleo waffles. (Think cave man) No wheat flour or sugar but they taste really good. (we always try to eat healthy up to a point) (They are almond flour and coconut flour) I am trying to use what I have and the alternative is dirt, ASW or diatom powder. The other stuff is just nuked apples with a little cinnamon and cloves, and nuked blueberries, bananas. That red stuff is the "Jumping Juice" I make for my wife for pain, and it works great because if she forgets to take it, the pain for her is overwhelming. I wanted to eat outside but it is still a little cold, like 55 degrees. I don't live in a Girly climate like Humble, we only have Manly climate here where it rains nails and hails cro bars. On another note, it seems my friend has the Corona virus. But although he has a fever and not enough energy to get up, he is still breathing with no problems so the Dr. told him to stay home and don't take anything for fever because it's the fever that kills the virus. Or more accurately "inactivates" the virus because viruses are not actually alive so you can't kill them. If he can wait it out he will get cured and as a benefit will probably be immune to it afterwards. I really hope so anyway. A market also just called me and I can pick up my food tomorrow. That is good news. Be well everyone.

My good friend who is sick still has a fever and is very weak even though he tested negative. His wife is trying to get him to a doctor today to re test him and her as he obviously has something. I am very concerned for him and his wife, our closest friends for most of our life. Here on Long Island we can't order food from a supermarket for curbside delivery because it is a 2 week wait just to order so I am going to have to go in person because I don't have enough Amphipods to eat and my fish are all hiding. I know Larry from LRS foods eats his fish food but I am not in the mood for sushi today. I may have to start fishing behind my house but I am not sure what I will catch there. In Know in the summer there is sea bass but now I think all we have is ducks and seagulls and I don't want to yell Fowl. I made a nice breakfast this morning and my wife and I had it on the beach. But it was cold. So cold I saw a chicken with a cape-on.

I know how that is.

Yes Tom. I remember you didn't believe I got an electron microscope to look at the amphipods in my Undergravel filter.

I did speak at WAMAS but I have no idea what I spoke about. Maybe frogs or Supermodels.

Did your wife's foot get all wrinkley hanging in your sump?

I am diatoming my tank again. Do I have to? No, I just did it last week. I am starring at the detritus particles going into the intake. This is as exciting as watching paint dry which I did this morning when I painted a wall.....Again. My fish have no idea why I am doing this again and the tank is not dirty. It is just a total waste of time. But it is an essential waste of time at a time when I have more time than I need. At this stage of the year I would be working on my boat. Of course it is still shrink wrapped and I can't get in it as that is not an essential part of life. Well, for me it is but I can't leave my wife alone to long as she doesn't have the enormous amount of totally useless hobbies that I do. She will just keep vacuuming until she makes a hole in the floor and my couch will fall into my garage. I installed a very powerful "whole house" vacuum that will suck out your ear wax from across the street. I can take fish pictures, but I already have to many. I can wax my workshop floor, but I did that too. My car is very clean and if I put more wax on it I will slide off the seat. I can spent my entire life in my workshop/Man cave as I am now but only because she is on the phone with one of her bored friends.

If you really need to freshwater dip you need to make sure the temp and pH of the fresh water is the same and if the fish sinks to the bottom, or tries to jump out it needs to be removed fast. Fresh water kills flukes but it also kills tangs, just slower. It broke my heart but I had to fresh water dip my new copperband because the gill flukes were just to much for her. She lost the flukes and had no problems. As you may know I am "almost" totally against medication as it rarely turns out well and I truly feel it is what causes most diseases, not the other way around which is why my fish "never" get sick. I also feel if you want to observe a fish for some reason I would not put it in a small tank, especially a tang, with PVC fittings. That alone would make a healthy fish sick. I would use red clay bricks or even clay flowerpots. Fish are intensely afraid of anything pure white and won't go near it. Also if you can see the fish, it can see you. Pvc is also to big. Fish like and need to jam themselves into tight places so other fish such as moray eels don't eat them and they are horrified if they can't feel secure. In the sea a fish would be eaten instantly if it was in a PVC fitting. Put a PVC elbow in your reef and see what the fish do. I bet they run and hide. Pure White is a color fish never see and it reflects all the colors of the spectrum. Our fish, in a tank see all of those colors which is frightening, almost like seeing me in a Speedo. All our fish live below 30' in the sea and they don't get to see all those colors in one place. Only blue light penetrates there. It's like when I was young and used to go to Disco's. (I am a great dancer ) They used to have psychedelic colors brought out by black lights. It was garish and if you have never seen it before, even scary, especially to a fish which may not have ever gone to a disco. These were below 30' deep. The only reason you see the yellow on the moorish Idol is because of the flash on my camera. Everything else is blue. See any White PVC in there? There is a colorful spotted moray eel in the center, but all you see id blue. In an observation or quarantine tank use blue or some muted color like clay bricks. The clay won't absorb medications and you can make tight holes that make the fish feel secure. To be successful in this hobby we need to be fish doctors and physiologists so we not only know how they feel physically, but more importantly Physiologically which we often fail to recognize which is the reason for all the disease forums. Again, just my opinion of course.

Thanks

Since I have a lot more time now, like everyone else, I scraped the back of my tank clean. I was never able to see anything back there but Now I see there is a huge systems of interconnecting caves where many of the fish and crustaceans that I rarely see, hang out. Now I spend more time in the back of the tank than the front. These Rainsford gobies always stay on opposite ends of my 6' tank. But I see they get together in the back to hang out and I think they are spawning. I have 2 of these Sunburst Anthius and they also don't seem to get along. One stays in a small cave in the front and I rarely know where the other one is. Now I see they both hang out in the back. I don't think they are spawning yet, but they are young. This Janss Pipefish I also rarely see, but now I know where he hides. This female Bluestripe is also there constantly trying to spawn with the much larger Janss. I think this is impossible and probably illegal. This Perchlet also lives there.

All seems good and everything looks great today and on an added note, I think my Rainsford gobies are starting to spawn. They normally stay on different ends of the tank, but looking through the back glass they appeared to be doing the Macarana. But it could have been the Hustle or Tango. I am not sure because Janis Joplin music doesn't lend itself to those dance moves.

Last night I wanted to clean the front glass of my tank because if I don't clean it in 3 days, it looks like sheet metal so I clean it every day. I lifted the front panel and stuck the glass cleaning magnet inside. The tank overflowed a little. I figured maybe I dropped it in to fast and it splashed. The top rim of my tank is just at my eye level so I can't really see the top of the water. I started to move the magnet cleaner and a lot of water spilled out. OOOOOOhhhhNNNNNNoooo. So I stick my hand over the rim and notice the water is right up to the top rim. AAAAAhhhhhhhhh I immediately shut off the inflow to the tank from this 7 gallon bucket I have hanging from the ceiling behind the tank that automatically fills from my RO/DI using gravity which goes to a float valve on the top of the tank. I get a hose and siphon out 10 gallons of water so now the water level is about an inch down and in no danger of overflowing. Then I look for the problem and find it right away. Lately, with not much to do I have been cleaning the back of the tank using a magnet scraper. I have a 6' plastic on the back of the tank that leans against the lights because I lose a lot of fish to jumping. Especially when I listen to my Janis Joplin music. I must have moved the plastic to much and it was pushing down on the float about an inch so the float valve wouldn't shut off. I tested the salinity and it was about 0.14 so I could have kept kissing gouramies or goldfish. I immediately took some dry asw and after mixing it with a little water, poured it into the manifold that feeds the Reverse undergravel filter. I am not one of those people that worry about raising the salinity more than one percent in 24 hours. So I did that a few times over about an hour and now the salinity is probably closer to 0.018. I have not seen the tank yet today but instead of letting the ATO fill the tank in the next week, I will add back the water that I siphoned out and eventually it will get back to normal. These little occurrences are needed to keep the interest up because if nothing ever happened, we would call this "stamp Collecting" You could see that white plastic piece here over the back top of the tank.

I took a couple of pictures of the back of my tank.. Yes, I am really bored today, and it's raining.

This is a shot through the back of my tank after I scrapped it clean. It's a mass of sponges. I also got two of these guys there, very hard to photograph.

Tom we are being very careful, we open mail outside, then sterilize. We keep a respectable distance from everyone and I go to the supermarket at 6:00am when it opens and there is almost no one there. I made sterilizing wipes from 93% alcohol and paper towels in a tupperwear box and use that on my hands, door handles etc.

In these tough times My wife and I have been trying to get innovative and to do things that don't involve other people, or at least not other people that have to get to close. This week we played a few Scrabble and Monopoly games that I had to dig out of mothballs. We do a crossword puzzle at night and we also have a WII game, which is on the TV and we can play golf (I hate golf), tennis, boat racing and a few others. I touched up some paint that my wife has been telling me to do for a while. We take a walk or I ride my bicycle. I have hobbies and a nice workshop/Man cave so I could occupy myself forever but my wife can't. Her hobbies all involve exercise, mostly in a gym which of course are closed now. I don't want to leave her alone to much because she is already to depressed that she can't do any of her things (her MS medication increases depression) and now she has a big leg brace which she hates. But in the scope of things, it's better than what a lot of people have to endure. All in All the people around here all seem happy and are coping. WE were donating food (bagels) to a hospital until our Daughter yelled at us to stay home so now all we can do is call a restaurant and have them deliver it to them. I don't know if we will do that today. The "older" people here are all living with someone so they are taken care of. I will see how many times I can wash my car today and clean the glass on my tank. My fish are getting mad at me as they are tired of looking at my face. But it's the entire world which doesn't make it sound any better. Early in the morning I always turn on the TV to see if the thing peaked yet, and as we know, it has not. Here in New York our hospitals are filling up and they have tents in the parking lot for the overflow. Thankfully the children aren't affected as much. Our Grand Kids left Manhattan and are in Vermont on top of a mountain far away from anyone except cows. Thank God for Skype. It should peak soon (we hope) and I hope everyone stays safe and healthy,

I think a lot of people make the mistake of buying, or collecting rock and stacking it in their tank. I think that is a totally wrong approach. When they collect rock in the sea they throw it up on a barge. Doing that breaks off all the cool looking protrusions so we get roundish, un interesting, few holes rock. We can easily make it much better for almost free. That picture of conglomerate rock I pictured at the beginning of this thread is about 3' long. It was simply built by cementing together using Mortar, like you use for bricks smaller pieces of rock and dead coral skeletons. It spans half my tank and only touches the gravel in 3 small places. I have three of those home made rocks which support my entire reef. My original plan was to build the entire thing supported from above on cables and it would have been able to be raised and lowered. I didn't have the time to do that but imagine being able to raise your entire reef structure a few inches for maintenance or just looking for a creature. I think that would be so cool. But it didn't happen. Here is another piece in my tank. It is about 18" long. You can't correctly build hiding places with tunnels using small pieces of rock. It just can't work.

As I sit here self quarantining myself I have a lot of time to look at and ponder my tank. As I study it from the front and the back which I just scraped clean just to do something I noticed something that we rarely speak about. We normally make our aquascape to look like something pleasing to us. But how do we know if the fish like it? After all, they have to live in it. I think my fish absolutely love their home and if they had thumbs, they would be giving me the "Thumbs Up" sign. Most of us (no one here I am sure) certainly look very ugly and scary to our fish and remember they can see us as well as we see them. They can also see our homes, TV, sock drawer kitchen etc. When we eat fish, I put a blanket over the tank so they don't get the horrors. Anyway, I designed my aquascape with so many caves, nooks and crannies that I have some fish that I see maybe a couple of times a year. That may not be good for me but one fish that I saw maybe once a year lived almost undetected for 18 years. A Brutlyd or 6" cusk eel and I killed it by accident when I took out a rock and didn't know he was there. Fish need to feel secure and if you can see them, they know it and don't feel safe. PVC pipes and flowerpots do not cut it and you may as well shoot those poor fish as they hate that. That is one big reason so many fish die in quarantine. It isn't their perceived disease, it is their surroundings. My entire reef structure is built on a base which I built out of cement and the thing sits roughly about 1 1/2" off the gravel. I can see the back of the tank under the reef almost everywhere and in that under space is an interconnected catacomb system where a fish the size of a mid sized copperband butterfly can hide while traveling from one end of the 6' tank to the other. After cleaning the back of the tank a couple of days ago I discovered that I have two rainsford gobies, 2 green clown gobies, 2 six line wrasses, 2 possum wrasses, 2 gecko gobies and a pistol shrimp. I didn't realize I had two of those fish because of all the hiding places I never see both of them at the same time. You may not like this, but the fish do, which is one reason they only die of old age. If you do any diving you will notice that there are very few, if any fish that will let you get with in a few feet of them before they hide. Great white sharks are one that let you get very close and personnel. attachFull50181 Fish like Hippo tangs love to jam themselves into a tight space just to have some "personnel" time which is why if you see them in a bare tank, they will be behind the heater. Mine is hiding right now and if I had to find him, I probably couldn't. My 7" Janss Pipefish rests laying up side down on the top of a cave and my 2 Gecko Gobies have found such a secure place that I can say I never see them. I know they are there because if I "shoot" some live worms into their hole, I get to see a glimmer of a fin or tail. This system of caves (not just one or two) and hidden passageways is crucial for many fishes health and one big reason we have a disease forum because fish that can't hide are very stressed and stressed fish are the ones that get sick. I myself am writing this from under a chair right now. This piece I built from real rock, dead coral and cement. This and two more like it form the base of my reef structure.

Why do we find this stuff so fascinating. (I actually posted this quite a few years ago somewhere, I think) I don't know about many of you guys but I have been watching fish for well over half a century and today as I was sitting close to my tank watching every move of every tentacle I started thinking. Wow, I must "really" be a fish Geek. My wife hates it when I come to breakfast dripping salt water all over the floor when I climb out of the tank in the morning. After all these years and countless hours peering at fish in my tank, in other tanks, on my plate, in LFSs, on TV, and while diving, everything about them still fascinate me and I never get bored. I mean, I still like looking at Supermodels, scenery, my boat, my Grand daughter and did I mention Supermodels? Fish are such a large part of my life and always have. (wait a minute, I think I have something stuck in my left gill) It is in my genes as my family has been in the fish business as far back as history goes. I think they had a tank during the Roman Empire. Of course I do other things and have other hobbies, like bungee jumping. Yeah bungee jumping, thats what I do. I do that almost every morning before breakfast. As I was looking at the tank just now, I turned off the pumps after I filled the baby brine shrimp feeder with new born shrimp. In a minute or two, the two mandarins stopped their eternal hunt for pods and made a Bee-line to the feeder. Did the shrimp text them that it was dinner time? Do mandarins smell pods? Do they hear them? I don't see ears on my mandarins and I can't hear baby brine shrimp. Do baby brine shrimp make noises when they bump into each other? That is one of the mysteries about fish keeping that keep me up at night. (That and poking my head above the water occasionally to breathe) The copperband butterfly also knows exactly when baby brine shrimp are served and he just finished eating a large portion of fresh clams and live worms so I am surprised he can still eat. I turn on the pumps just for a minute to scatter some baby shrimp through out the tank, then again turn off the pumps. Now the fun starts because the zinia start pulsing as they sense the shrimp hitting their tentacles and thin tentacles pop out from every crevace. Tiny hermit crabs that I didn't even realize were in there set out looking for food that they smell. The clams I feed are their favorite food, and they literally run in every direction until they find a piece, often crashing into each other. I wonder if they recognize each other, give a high five, remark on the new shell they may be sporting or just ignore each other. The sheer number of tentacles emerging from every place is also a wonder. How do all these things ever get enough to eat? How do they know exactly where the food is? It is not like I dump in a Happy Meal from Burger King. Food by necessity is kind of scarce, except at feeding time, and then it all is devoured as soon as it hits the water. If I look even closer, I can just make out the tiny faces of amphipods trying to determine if it is safe to venture out for a bite of something. (After you have been doing this for forty or fifty years you can identify each amphipod just by the expression on their face). I collect them in the summer and dump them in, but they seem to like the tropical temperatures of the tank and even re produce. I find them in the skimmer bathing in the ozone infused water. So much for ozone killing everything and being so dangerous. The large volume of bristle worms remain hiding but if I look under the rocks or in the dark recesses in the back of the tank, I can see them just chilling with each other. They know, that I know, they come out at night hunting for prey and that prey could be anything on the gravel from a clam to a freshly shed crustacean or a piece of chicken that a Grand Child inadvertently throws in the tank when you are not looking. I can easily trap them with my bristle worm trap but that is an ongoing task as these things have been in the tank from the beginning and the gene pool goes back to when Nixon was President. (He was after Lincoln) Of course while I am checking out the tiny stuff the fish keep blocking my view, they just don't care. I have these two fireclowns that are very old, and they spawn. But even when the female has no eggs, the male keeps trying to push her into his pad (broken bottle) where he has been cleaning a nest since before Myley Cyrus was born. Way before. I can't blame him though, I would do the same thing, she is cute. I had hermit crabs that also did that, but I am not sure if the larger one wanted to mate or just steal her shell or make interesting conversation. She was a cutie and very sexy with her above the knee shell and long eyelashes on her eye stalks. I lost them a year ago when they were about 13 years old. I am not sure if that is old for a crab, as Social Security doesn't keep records on them. But the male (I think) would chase the female, (not very fast) and he would push her into a coral, then jump into her shell. I always stopped looking at that point because I am not A perv, but I think they spawned many times. It is hard to tell with hermit crabs but that is what I think because I would then see him standing on one claw, leaning against a rock smoking a tiny tube worm. My all time favorites are the pipefish. Such interesting animals that really should not exist. They are not fishlike at all, they are not even slimy. Instead of scales they have plates and they have an inner skeleton like fish and an external skeleton like a bug. Their toothless mouth has no real jaws but a silly flap that opens upward like a landing craft. The males have the babies (better them than me) and they have prehensile tales like a monkey. No stomach, just a short tube. If you cut one open, their insides look, and feel like styrofoam. I mean, Really! How did these things evolve? Being a fish Geek isn't to bad unless you are in mixed company with a bunch of people you just met. Like last night, my Son N law opened a new restaurant and it was just for friends and family but there were quite a few people there that I just met. When they ask me what I do, I am not going to say I am a fish Geek and I put on magnifying goggles, kneel in front of my tank in the dark with a flashlight looking for amphipods and worms. Of course not, I say I am a Martial Arts instructor, test pilot, body double for George Cluney, secret service agent, Navy Seal or all of the above. I will be married 40 years this year and to this day my wife thinks I am Sylvestor Stallone's personal body guard and I haven't even told her yet, that we have a fish tank.

Now we live out east on Long Island and it is not very populated out here. No one is worried about Lyme Disease any more from ticks so I am sure the ticks feel bad. I baked some muffins this morning and put coffee in a thermos and we took it down to the beach to have breakfast. We stayed in the car because it is 32 degrees and very windy. But it was nice to watch the waves crashing on the rocks while we ate. Then we took a ride out east and discovered some roads that led to the sea and a park we never knew was here. I also found a lagoon where I may be able to collect amphipods but I am not sure if a road goes there. I can go by boat but my boat is on the other side of the north fork of Long Island and I can't really get there from here but I can put my inflatable boat back there and find the place. My fish eating some live white worms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhWLAxI2I8k

I am very happy with my tank now. I have quite a lot of the fish I prefer to keep which are all smaller, odder and a little more difficult to get like the Janss Pipefish. I am going to try to list the fish but I am not near the tank. Copperband Hippo Tang 2 Rainsford Gobies 2 Possum Wrasses 2 Sunburst Anthius 2 Fireclowns Perchlet Fang Tooth Blenny 2 stripped cardinals Black cardinal? Janss Pipefish Bluestripe Pipefish Mandarin Scooter Dragonette Purple Psudo 2- 6 line wrasses Yellow wrasse some kind of stripped wrasse 2 Gecko Gobies Red something and 5 or 6 other fish that I can't remember.

My tank is doing great but I have about 2,372 aiptasia. I guess my copperband was eating them, who knew? I have been tying to get a new copperband and they are normally very common but for the last couple of weeks I have not been able to get one. 3 LFSs promised me last week that they will have them today, so tomorrow I am going on a quest. I am getting my taxes done tomorrow and that is about 40 miles west of here so I will try some stores there. I hate it when I can't even get a common fish. If I find some I may get two of them. I gave up trying to get the types of fish I really want as all stores only stock silly common fish like tangs and some wrasses. I have one Mother of all aiptasia about 4" tall and If I can find a spare tank I would like to keep that one for study as I never seen one that big. Nice looking animal.

New Lamp This one only took a couple of hours.