47 year old tank

[paul b]

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.

 

 

[paul b]

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. 

 

[paul b]

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.

 

 

 

[Origami]

On 4/1/2020 at 8:59 AM, paul b said:

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.

 

I had a salinity crash years ago due to an ATO failure and did something similar. Instead of your approach, measured out the required amount of dry salt mix into the toe of one of my wife's knee high nylons and clamped it to the side of my sump so just the toe was dragging in the water. As the salt in the toe dissolved, it was replaced by salt higher up in the nylon until it eventually brought the tank back up to where it needed to be.

[Origami]

Nice shop, Paul!

[paul b]

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

[Origami]

8 hours ago, paul b said:

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

No. But she's still searching for the missing knee high. I mean, I can't tell her that I took it, you know? 

[paul b]

I know how that is. 

[paul b]

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.  

[Origami]

Chicken with a capon! Now that made me laugh. 

 

Sorry about your friend. I hope he's able to hold up and get through this. 

[maevepotter]

Yikes, that salinity crash is enough to give someone a heart attack. I hope your friend will be ok. Depression is very hard during this isolation. It's much warmer here in MD and going for walks has helped me.

 

I also had some fun tank times today when literally the moment I had the new bigger tank ready for my evansi anthias, it died. Swam into the carpet? Finally died because it hates food and it's friend jumped out weeks ago? It ate, but it came to me really underfed. I bought it a whole Mandarin feeding kit and frozen cyclops etc. So no idea. Maybe it was the pistol shrimp. He's always shooting off his pops in there. #darnit I'm just glad I found it in the tank or I would have thought it jumped and the cat ate it. Now that's some fancy feast.

 

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[paul b]

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.

Edited April 7, 2020 by paul b

[paul b]

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.

[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.

 

[paul b]

WE are still in a funk but getting back to fish. After I lost my copperband my tank is having a big aiptasia invasion.
Those things don't normally bother me but lately a lot of things are bothering me so I wanted to take it out on something and all I have that I am not particularly fond of are aiptasia.

I looked around and found one of my old prototypes of a majano wand. I plugged it in and I was surprised it worked.

I killed a bunch of them and it was gratifying. Some came back so I killed them again. Now I feel much better and hope some return so I can yet again kill them. (The thing is not designed to kill aiptasia so if you have those, don't buy one)

These guys are much more than friends but I am not sure where they are spawning or even how they spawn because I don't remember ever having Rainsford gobies spawning or ever having two of them but for a year they stood on complete opposite ends of the 6' tank. Now they hang out all the time

[paul b]

WE had a "little" scare yesterday and this morning.  Yesterday my wife and I took a walk and about 5 minutes into the walk I started to get itchy.

Like all over.  I felt like I had fire ants doing the macarana all over me and also in places I didn't know I had.   

 

Of course we walk up to this couple that we always  wanted to make friends with and we were talking to them for like ten minutes.  I was dying to scratch

"all over" but I didn't want these people to think I had cooties, amphipods or black ich. 

 

The itchyness was unbearable and I know I was squirming so they may have thought I was a Mime, contortionist or Mick Jagger.

I put one foot on top of the other like I was resting my leg, but I was trying to scratch between my toes.  It didn't work.

 

Eventually we left them and I told my wife "We have to go home".

 

She said Why!  Whats the matter?  Are you sick?   With this virus around everyone is paranoid.

 

At home I told her what was going on and she insisted on inspecting me.  I had this rash all over my body.  I generally don't get rashes and I am not allergic to anything.  So she rubs this stuff on me which was probably meat tenderizer and the itching subsided a "little".

 

I figured I would lay down.  Yesterday we put this new blanket on the bed, right out of the package.

As I am laying there listening to Vintage Linda Ronstadt, I notice my tongue feels big.  I have a big mouth but my tongue usually stays the same size.

 

My tongue was scraping against the teeth in back of my mouth and It seemed like I was having just a little trouble breathing.  Just a little, not enough for me to call a SWAT team or "The Good Doctor" or even "Doctor Who "  (it's an English thing, don't worry to much about it)

 

Now my Girly man emotions  kick in and I am getting a touch worried.

 

I make the mistake of telling my wife who immediately goes into panic mode and wanted to give me CPR and get out the paddles.

She calls our Daughter in Vermont because her husband and Daughter have allergies to everything except air, and not all air.

 

She tells me to take Bennedril.  All I have is our Grand Daughters Bennedril and she is 7. The largest does on the bottle was for a 10 year old so I take about two doses.

 

In ten minutes I am as Loopy as the people on Circ De Solei .  I can't stand up so I go lay on the bed.

 

My tongue gets bigger.  OOOOOooooooNNooooooo.  I'm gonna die and Humble won't be able to come here to take my fish.  But if he does he will quarantine them in tree stump remover and they will get nightmares.

 

I look up symptoms of Corona Virus and a big tongue.  A rash are about the only things that the virus "doesn't " cause. 

 

So We call my Doctor on the slim chance that he can see me.  Here in New York nothing is open, you can't even open a clam.

 

But the nurse, who I know answered and she said, as long as you don't have Corona Virus symptoms, the Doctor will see you.

Of course If I had Corona Virus symptoms the doctor won't see me and I will have to go to a fortune teller or Lady GaGa concert.

 

I go there and the guy immediately sees the rash, takes blood, looks in my mouth, listens to my heart and lungs and doesn't have the slightest idea what is wrong with me but says he is getting a lot of patients now that have this from eating meat.

 

(I have learned that unless you have an arrow sticking out of your head or a crow bar stuck in your nether regions, they won't really know what the diagnosis is)

 

I almost never eat meat and didn't eat any in a week or so.  He gives me a prescription for Prednisone.

 

Meantime Our Daughter is freeking out because she doesn't want me to go out of the house.  It would be hard for the doctor to take blood through my computer screen unless I got really close to it and maybe stuck a USB cable in my arm.

 

So, I am still alive but the Bennedril is still making me walk like Uncle Festus from the Adams Family.

 

We think we figured it out.  The new blanket my wife put on the bed was the only thing different we did.  It was probably made in China and soaked in Anthrax before they sent it here.  We bought it last year and one of my hobbies is removing those tags that say "Don't remove under penalty of the law"

So I am not sure where it came from.  If I find somehow that it is from China, I will donate it to the Chinese President 

[paul b]

I just realized, actually someone told me I made a reference to China and it was disrespectful to Chinese people which was not my intention.  I actually have quite a few Asian friends and am just mad at the government of that country, not, of course the people. 

[paul b]

So far here in my town of Suffolk New York we have almost 29,000 cases and almost 900 people already died so far. But the people going into the hospital is a little down.

We are supposed to wear face masks but of course you can't get them anywhere. I have them on order from Amazon for 3 weeks already and they are another two or 3 weeks out, so my wife and I are wearing the same two masks we started with. Two masks came with my 3 D Printer so thats what we use.
I sterilize them after we use them.

Theres an argument in the town now because some officials want to give them to our many migrant farm workers and others want to give them to seniors. I can see both sides because the masks are to protect people from you, not the other way around and the farm workers are out all over the place and in stores.

[paul b]

My tank is doing great except now I have to clean the glass every day and I could do it twice a day if I felt ambitious.  If I left it for 5 days it would be the same as looking through the left front fender of a vintage Ford Thunderbird. 

 

It doesn't bother me and is just because there is so much life in the tank.  This is a sign of health.

 

When I feed the fish, like I just did there are tentacles virtually evrywhere.   I have sponges encrusting on every exposed surface and wriggling out of the edges of those sponges are nothing but tentacles.  Probably spagheti worms.  If I lift the edge of a sponge, the real estate is covered in bristle worms.

 

Brittle stars completely cover any area next to the glass like behind the thermometer, heaters or any rocks that touch the glass.

Any small part of exposed rock is filled with pores and out of every pore is an arm of "something".

 

If I turn off the pumps, multitudes of creatures leave the gravel and rocks to swim to the surface and suck up anything they can find in the surface film. 

I can also usually see tiny new born clownfish there. 

 

The back glass is covered in a film of algae, cyano and coraline algae which is crawling with snails, small worms, amphipods and asternia stars.

 

The pipefish hunt there and are always smiling. 

 

These are things that all make up health and come from feeding things like clams that exude clam juice which is just tiny particles of clam in "juice".  Sponges live on this stuff as do all the other beginnings of the food chain.

 

To keep pipefish, mandarins, bleenies and other small fish this stuff makes it much easier as I don't really have to feed those fish.

View through the back of my tank.  Those are sponges

 

 

 

 

 

 

[astroboy]

On 4/20/2020 at 1:05 PM, paul b said:

WE had a "little" scare yesterday and this morning.  Yesterday my wife and I took a walk and about 5 minutes into the walk I started to get itchy.

Like all over.  I felt like I had fire ants doing the macarana all over me and also in places I didn't know I had.   

 

Of course we walk up to this couple that we always  wanted to make friends with and we were talking to them for like ten minutes.  I was dying to scratch

"all over" but I didn't want these people to think I had cooties, amphipods or black ich. 

 

The itchyness was unbearable and I know I was squirming so they may have thought I was a Mime, contortionist or Mick Jagger.

I put one foot on top of the other like I was resting my leg, but I was trying to scratch between my toes.  It didn't work.

 

Eventually we left them and I told my wife "We have to go home".

 

She said Why!  Whats the matter?  Are you sick?   With this virus around everyone is paranoid.

 

At home I told her what was going on and she insisted on inspecting me.  I had this rash all over my body.  I generally don't get rashes and I am not allergic to anything.  So she rubs this stuff on me which was probably meat tenderizer and the itching subsided a "little".

 

I figured I would lay down.  Yesterday we put this new blanket on the bed, right out of the package.

As I am laying there listening to Vintage Linda Ronstadt, I notice my tongue feels big.  I have a big mouth but my tongue usually stays the same size.

 

My tongue was scraping against the teeth in back of my mouth and It seemed like I was having just a little trouble breathing.  Just a little, not enough for me to call a SWAT team or "The Good Doctor" or even "Doctor Who "  (it's an English thing, don't worry to much about it)

 

Now my Girly man emotions  kick in and I am getting a touch worried.

 

I make the mistake of telling my wife who immediately goes into panic mode and wanted to give me CPR and get out the paddles.

She calls our Daughter in Vermont because her husband and Daughter have allergies to everything except air, and not all air.

 

She tells me to take Bennedril.  All I have is our Grand Daughters Bennedril and she is 7. The largest does on the bottle was for a 10 year old so I take about two doses.

 

In ten minutes I am as Loopy as the people on Circ De Solei .  I can't stand up so I go lay on the bed.

 

My tongue gets bigger.  OOOOOooooooNNooooooo.  I'm gonna die and Humble won't be able to come here to take my fish.  But if he does he will quarantine them in tree stump remover and they will get nightmares.

 

I look up symptoms of Corona Virus and a big tongue.  A rash are about the only things that the virus "doesn't " cause. 

 

So We call my Doctor on the slim chance that he can see me.  Here in New York nothing is open, you can't even open a clam.

 

But the nurse, who I know answered and she said, as long as you don't have Corona Virus symptoms, the Doctor will see you.

Of course If I had Corona Virus symptoms the doctor won't see me and I will have to go to a fortune teller or Lady GaGa concert.

 

I go there and the guy immediately sees the rash, takes blood, looks in my mouth, listens to my heart and lungs and doesn't have the slightest idea what is wrong with me but says he is getting a lot of patients now that have this from eating meat.

 

(I have learned that unless you have an arrow sticking out of your head or a crow bar stuck in your nether regions, they won't really know what the diagnosis is)

 

I almost never eat meat and didn't eat any in a week or so.  He gives me a prescription for Prednisone.

 

Meantime Our Daughter is freeking out because she doesn't want me to go out of the house.  It would be hard for the doctor to take blood through my computer screen unless I got really close to it and maybe stuck a USB cable in my arm.

 

So, I am still alive but the Bennedril is still making me walk like Uncle Festus from the Adams Family.

 

We think we figured it out.  The new blanket my wife put on the bed was the only thing different we did.  It was probably made in China and soaked in Anthrax before they sent it here.  We bought it last year and one of my hobbies is removing those tags that say "Don't remove under penalty of the law"

So I am not sure where it came from.  If I find somehow that it is from China, I will donate it to the Chinese President 

For the last couple weeks I've had a low grade itch over my whole body. Don't have any allergies that I know of. Anyway, I got some Nizoral shampoo (dandruff killer) and put it all over my body for about 5 minutes, relief was immediate. Repeated for two more days. Itch all gone. Worth a try, I suppose. 

 

[paul b]

That sounds great.  I never heard of nizoral shampoo.

 

I devised this almost 90 degree angle needle to inject aiptasia.  It has an 18" tube where I can push the plunger to inject the little devils

 

[paul b]

Prototype of new model of aiptasia injector.  It has an 18" tube on it and I can change the needle by just sliding it out.

It is shown here full of Luguls Iodine which is something I am testing in the thing.  So far the aiptasia have  a nice red tinge but I am not sure if they will croak or love the stuff and do the macarana.

 

I also want to try metheline blue.  I don't care if that kills them, but how cool will they look? 

 

I already tried hydrogen peroxide and I think that has aiptasia vitamins in it.

I know battery acid or boiling, almost anything will work, but I am having fun

 

[paul b]

For some reason the weather was beautiful here today. 72 degrees and sunny so after I washed my car (again) my wife and myself took a walk down the stairs to the beach.

On the way down I noticed that the water was absolutely perfect and clearer than I have ever seen it. You can't tell from that lousy picture but about 50 yards out I can see the rocks on the sea floor. It was like the Caribbean. :p

As soon as I got home I packed up my collecting stuff and headed down to a beach where I could back up almost to the water to collect.

I backed up, threw the pump into the sea. Started filling vats.

And it started raining. :(

You really can't catch a break. How does the rain know when I will be collecting water.

 

But it wasn't like Noah's flood so I finished collecting and have 40 gallons.
I almost don't have to filter it and could probably get by with just straining out the chopped up seaweed and discarded copies of my book but I figured I will break out the diatom filter for this and before I clean the thing I will just throw it in my tank because I know my fish just love it when I diatom filter the water.

Usually I do it once or twice a year but now with almost nothing to do, I do it all the time just to see the bubbles.

 

The alk was 6 and the temp is 52 so I may have to heat it a little. 

[paul b]

I changed those 40 gallons of water I collected yesterday.  Everything is smiling and all is well.   

 

Hopefully soon it will warm up enough to collect some mud and maybe a few amphipods. 

[paul b]

I just found out where these Rainsford Gobies are spawning.   I cleaned my glass and I also cleaned the algae off my algae scrubber which is on one end of the tank where it is hard to access.  But in that back corner I never saw because it is up against a duct and I never cleaned the glass there.

I got bored and decided to clean the glass to see if anything was living back there.

There they were.  They made a hole behind one of the tubes that goes to the UG filter.  I am not sure if they got all the way under the filter plate, but they pop in and out to grab some white worms.

I see one of the possum wrasses also hangs out there.  Now that i know their hiding place, I will clean the glass there once in a while to check them out.