36 year old reef

[Paul B]

I became a member here a couple of days ago and I think this is where I can post this.
My 100 gallon reef was started 36 years ago. It actually started out as a fresh water tank in the early sixtees then in 1971 became brackish then I added salt and it became a full salt tank in 72 which is when they started selling salt water fish in New York. I use a portion of NSW and I collected most of my rock in the Caribbean, the rest I built.
My family had a fish market so I was born into the hobby. Most kids played with toys I grew up playing with dead sardines:sad2:
Anyway, the tank has a RUGF, state of the art in 74. I wouldn't change it. There is also a 5' homemade protein skimmer that I use with ozone along with homemade MH and actinic lights.
I have raised many lettuce slugs, and seahorses.
I have also operated on quite a few fish but that is another story.
Here is the tank

 

[jackson6745]

YEAH!!!!! Paul, I'm glad you made it to this site. I love the beer can This has to be the oldest running reef. I see space for more corals in there

 

[crox99]

Is that beer can also 30 years old!!!:biglaugh:

 

[DEEPWATER]

WOW 36 years old ...shees i was only born back then


Welcome to MR Paul .

Have you changed anything in the tank ,sand rocks or are they also 36yr old ?

Ronen

 

[Awibrandy]

Hi Paul, show the babies how it's done.:usa1:

 

[ellebelle]

What is the newest/oldest thing in your tank?

 

[SlamaJama]

Looks like such a natural reef, beautiful...the can, priceless...welcome paul

 

[herman]

Welcome to MR Paul!!! I do have to say that the beer can ROCKS :thrash:
I hope you will be posting some more pics. Maybe some history pics etc. It would be nice for some of the younger guys to see how things used to be done and that those methods still work fine provided they are used properly.

 

[jhale]

I love the bottles in the aquascaping also. they are harder to see, but if you look close you'll find them.

 

[scarf_ace1981]

paul it seems that as the years progress the streamer on the moorish idol gets worse and worse. do you know why this is? is it getting picked on or is this a sign of something else?

btw welcome! you are now part of the MR family :grouphug:

 

[deelucky]

wow a tank older than me.looks really nice and antique.i like everthing about it.

 

[headlessblade]

wow thats crazy! nice!

 

[Paul B]

Rich, I know there is plenty of room for more corals, the problem is that the moorish Idol is about 7" and I have to feed him four times a day which is really messing up the water. I keep removing rock to give him more room which is also not helping with nitrate reduction. I need a bigger tank or a smaller Idol. I have a 20 gallon pail filled with the extra rock that at some point will go back in the tank.
Crox99, no the can is not 36 years old. I did find it under water in the Sound but I doubt aluminum will last that long underwater. There are about 8 or 9 bottles that have been in there for over 25 years. I found them in the Sound too while diving Huckelberry Island, they were thrown there during prohibition.
Ronan, you are a lot younger than me.
Awirandi, the babies will get there, it is just a lot easier now. Before there was copper, MH, VHO, compact florescents, computers internets and "experts" this was a little more difficult. I had to travel downtown to get saltwater fish and the only thing available were damsels.
Herman, there is also a bunch of asphalt in there but I diden't want to go there yet.:splitspin Since I am older now and have a little more cash I can visit the places where our animals come from to learn first hand what they are doing when they are not in our tanks. I recently were on a diving vacation to the Tahitian Islands to dive with moorish Idols. I did learn a lot about them and I am glad I went because there is very little information written about them and I find too much of it is just guess work.:tired:
Which brings me to the disclaimer. :shhh: Don't do what I do. My tank is very old and everything I do is an experiment. I lost many of my animals three times with experiments that diden't go exactly as planned. The beer can is coated with fiberglass resin and the asphalt was underwater over fifty years.
Here is an article I wrote if anyone is interested,that was published about ten years ago about the tank and about the history of the hobby in general. Take care and have a great day. (If I am not allowed to post a link just delete it and make believe you read it :biglaugh: http://reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=2127079

 

[Paul B]

Scarf, you are correct, the Idol looks lousy. He looks even worse now due to an accident last week when I almost lost him. That day that it was 7 degrees my wife and I were away and my power and heat went off. The tank went down into the sixtees. I found him laying on the bottom not looking very happy. The next day he and a few otherd developed ich. I have not seen a paracite in this tank in over 25 years. Ich is always in my reef but it has not infected anything in all those years. I had to fresh water dip him in formulin a few times because I don't have a large spare tank. He is fine now and I diden't lose anything but he did lose some of his fins due to the bacterial infection that comes with ich. He was covered with paracites.
Besides that I have a theory as to why he lost his streamer as well as some of his tail.
I will have to finish later, have to go

 

[Psycho graphic]

Did I read you feed the Idol, Plaster of Paris?
Or is this an inside joke?

 

[fritz]

You live right here in NHP!!!!

I was just reading your RC thread the other day! Fantastic tank, truly spectacular on every level. You use (or non use) of technology alone is beyond impressive. Your attitude towards nuisance algae was also quite refreshing and caused me to rethink my approach to other aspect of this hobby. Your tank is inspiring and I hope that my reef reaches can one day reach the maturity level that yours has.

Also I love the natural aquascaping as seen on your dives in the sound.

 

[KathyC]

What a great tank! Looking forward to hearing more about it and seeing more pics!

 

[Paul B]

Psycho I do not exactly feed him Plaster of Paris. Well yes I kind of do but it is a mixture of plaster, bananas, avacado, sponge and vitamin A.
Fritz it's a good thing that Ihave that attitude about algae because after that freeze accident I had a huge algae bloom. Some of the algae in places was alomst two feet long. Very wierd but interesting. Some worms or other stuff must have died causing it. Luckily it is almost gone now but I took out a lot of rock and I am keeping it in the dark. I also want to give the moorish Idol some exercize so there is a lot more room. Of course the tank looks like I threw a grenade in there :tank:
As for the Idol, while I was diving with them I noticed that they eat mostly this lime green sticky sponge. It looks like avacado. I have been feeding him mostly protein but I think they need more fat. I have started feeding him four times a day and I added more avacado and black worms.
He is about 4 years old so the food is keeping him alive but not great looking. I hope to change that.
That third picture is actually asphalt from the Sound, (but don't use it)
Paul

 

[Pedro]

Talk about experience, i feel like such a noob! I love those diversified tanks that are out of the norm. For a second i thought your tank was one that i saw in RC that had the glass bottles. Very nice, looking forward to more photos.

Can you elaborate on the experiments that went bad?

Also, have you ever pondered about the theory of old tank syndrome?

 

[Paul B]

Pedro, the last time I almost killed everything was with Clorox. I sometimes use Clorox bleach to treat Long Island Sound water before I dump it in my reef. If the water has red tide or just does not look right I use Clorox. I have been doing this for many years but the last time the Clorox was different. I think they used the same machinery for the Regular Clorox that they used for "New Fresh Scent" Clorox. New Fresh Scent Clorox will kill almost everything in your tank in a few minutes. I know because I used it once and thats what happened. I lost most of my fish in no time. The corals all lived but did not look happy.
Regular Clorox if used properly will make your NSW much better than anything that you can buy but again, don't do this. I don't want to be the cause of anyone killing their tank. I have been doing this a long time and I still screw up. The first time I killed most of the fish was when the salt hobby just started, there was no saltwater aquarium gravel so I used griveway gravel. Big mistake. :banghead: Whatever was in it was definately no good. Also once my town put zinc orthophosphate in the water to control corrpsion in the pipes. I changed the water and almost instantly the corals started croaking. That was before we were using RO/DI for water changes.
Paul
one more thing, that is my tank on RC with all the bottles.
And I think Old Tank Syndrome kicks in at 37 years