Tank Thread Tank reached 38 years old...in 2009!

[1UCKY]

It's this kind of talk that causes tank crashes!!!!!

:lol2:

 

[Paul B]

Teeth are overrated and a stupid invention. I have 8 or 9 implants that I love because I could eat rocks if I want. I normally don't eat rocks but I could probably open clams with them. It is a shame that we start with a cavity, then eventually you need a root canal, then that gets infected and you need an apaco (which isn't fun at all) then they pull it and it gets dry socket (very painful) then they put in a bridge. After a few months the tooth next to it rots and you start all over again but you also realize that all of that cost more than the Brooklyn Bridge or the security for the Pope's New York visit. All you had to do when you first got that cavity was to tell the guy to pull it and put in an implant. It takes about 8 minutes and they use about 14 cents worth of titanium (which they charge you $3,000.00 for) but you will save $50,000.00 and a lot of agravation and pain over your life. Now when I get a toothache, thats what I do. Just pull it and put in an implant. :dance:
If I knew this 40 years ago,I would have all implants (sort of like Pamela Anderson) :lol: I could probably do the procedure myself now as they make a big deal out of it. I guess they need to so they can justify using 14 cents of a not very precious metal and charging you $3,000.00 for 8 minutes work. I mean titanium isn't that expensive, the space shuttle is made mostly out of it and we have 3 space shuttles just sitting around doing nothing which they could make implants out of. Like Duh. :sad2:

 

[Paul B]

And my book just came out today. I don't sell it, Saltwater Smarts does but I am not sure if I am allowed to put that on here.

 

[Paul B]

What a beautiful morning. Of course first I had to go to the oral surgeon so he could poke and prod the large hole in my jaw where my wisdom tooth was because it was feeling good. Now, not so much, but that's the way it is. But it is a beautiful day so I will be going boating. You know when you walk your dog and you find a stick and throw it and your dog brings it back and has that smile on his face. So you know he really likes that stick and you bring it home? Then when you take him for a walk you throw it out your front door for him to get it. I do that all the time, but I never had a dog so the neighbors are complaining at all the sticks on my sidewalk. I just thought I would share that with you.

 

[oh207]

Lol

 

[Paul B]

In two days it's my anniversary. My wife and I will be married for 42 years. I think that's an accomplishment and a testament to my wife's patience.

 

[Paul B]

I just added this anthias which I think is kind of cool. I had to many fish before so now I "really" have to many fish. They have to take turns putting their faces in the water.
Andy, look how much he is smiling now that he is in my tank and not eating snot.

 

[ESSELO]

Happy belated anniversary and your tank is amazing.

 

[Paul B]

Thank you Esselo.
My ozone generator croaked. Lucky for me I have a spare which I replaced it with. Now I will try to repair the old one because I really like a spare even though it would not be a disaster if this one broke.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

He is not used to water that salty :wink1:

 

[Paul B]

Yes I know, he misses the kissing gourami's he was with. I think he took a liking to one of them. :hug:

 

[Paul B]

So last night I looked at my tank and I was fooling around with something and I noticed my Ozonizer didn't have the light on and according to the read out, it wasn't making any Ozone. So I remove the thing and I have a spare one. I don't remember where I got it but I put it in and turn it on. It's a Gen-X Ozonizer but there isn't any read out on it and no way to tell how much Ozone it is making so I set it at the lowest setting. My old one put out 200mg ozone but I didn't know what this one puts out. I have been running Ozone full blast for decades so I didn't think anything of it and left it on.
This morning I come down to feed the fish (the tank is in my finished basement) and I notice my copperband butterfly is up at the surface sucking air. (Either that, or he was looking at the picture of the Supermodel I have hanging on the wall and he is trying to whistle)
I shot some live blackworms in the tank and he usually chases them down all over the place. He stays up on top sticking his nose out of the water. This is not good as he has never done that.
Then as I am watching him, I see something red laying behind a bottle, obviously dead. My fish are well aware that they are not allowed to die unless it is from old age so now I am concerned. I carefully look around at the other fish and they looked a little "off". OMG, what happened?
I go around the back of the tank and check the temperature. It is a little low, but it's not like I am going to see a dog sled team flying past the tank carrying an Eskimo so I dismiss that as the cause and just bump up the temperature a couple of degrees. The skimmer is also putting out a lot of foam.
I look for a hospital tank, which I have not used since probably Jimmy Carter was President and I start to mix up some water.
I don't know why because I don't even have any medications and I don't know yet what is wrong with the fish. I remove the dead, red fish which was an old cardinal who I was kind of fond of. I have no idea when I got him. It could have been five, ten or fifteen years ago (I have a lousy memory),
I autopsy him mainly looking for parasites. His gills are clean, not one parasite.
I look at the copperband, who is a really good friend of mine and he is staring at me like, What is wrong with me? Call a doctor. He is also breathing much faster than normal.
Then it hits me. I smell Ozone. I don't normally smell anything because my smeller works as good as my memory. Just then my wife yells down for me to bring something up, or she was telling me how good looking I am, I forget, but either way, I yell back to her, "MY FISH ARE SICK".
She tells me that in the middle of the night she came downstairs and the entire basement smelled funny with a strong odor.
She was right, that little ozonizer filled my entire basement and tank with tons of free Ozone.
So I Google that Gen-X ozonizer and there are all sorts of bad things written about it. First of all the rheostat that adjusts the amount of Ozone isn't even connected to anything so it puts out at least 250mg of ozone all the time even though I thought I had it on the lowest setting. I am sure it puts out way more Ozone than that to fill my entire basement after going through my 5' skimmer.
So I immediately shut the thing off. We went out to my Daughter's in Manhattan for most of the day and now the fish look normal, except for the copperband. He looks better than he did before but is still breathing faster than normal as Ozone would deteriorate the delicate gill filaments.
I am not sure if he is going to make it, it depends on how fast his gills heal. I really like that fish so I hope he lives as he is my favorite and is the first one to greet me when I come home. He is also my biggest eater. If he dies, I will replace him but I really hate to lose a fish, especially to a stupid error or a mechanical breakdown.

 

[Paul B]

Today I noticed my solar electric is not generating anything. Not good. So I pulled apart the system and discovered there is no DC power coming from the 22 panels on my roof. So now I have something to do tomorrow. A few days ago we had a large lightning storm and I think my solar array was hit. I will go up there tomorrow to see what I can find. I would rather look at my fish or a Supermodel but I want to do this while the weather is good.

 

[Paul B]

I also installed the system. But I found the problem. Squirrels. Yes, furry rodents. They made a nest under the panels and ate the insulation off about 8 wires and completely cut two of them. I can't believe they gnawed through #10 thhn insulation and completely cut through 3 live wires. They must have done most of it at night when the panels are not generating 200 volts DC. You can see the red wire here completely cut as is the white.
It took me most of the day because I had to remove 5 panels and clean out the nest and re install new wiring. But it is now working again. I also installed galvanized grating on the sides of the installation where they were getting through. Now on the front and back the gap is about an inch. I think they can still squeeze through and if they do, I will have to put grills on that, but that is a lot more work requiring 80' of grill and there isn't a good place to secure it there, but if I have to I will. or of course I can set a grenade up with a trip wire. :eek2:

 

[cono]

so how long ago did you install them I was wondering to do the same for my house??

 

[Paul B]

I put it in 8 years ago. This is the first time I had a problem with it.
You live 5 minutes from me, does your roof face south?

 

[Paul B]

I may have to go back to work just so I can take a day off. I can't believe how busy I am and I am retired for 8 years. I don't know how I did these things while I was working. This week I missed a Veterans Breakfast and a Veterans Bar be cue because I couldn't get the time to get there.
We get up about 5:45 and start our day. Today we went grocery shopping (my wife has MS so I help her) Then from there we went to a dermatologist for a yearly skin check which I think is stupid but they tell me that we spend so much time in the sun on our boat that we should go and waste some time getting our skin checked. OK, the Dr. is kind of a Babe so I don't mind to much. We talk about SCUBA diving, fish, boats and like that. She also dug something out of my neck. I don't know what it was but I guess I didn't need it. Then we came home and I got a package, it was a new timer for our clothes drier which I took apart last week because the thing ran all night and didn't shut off, but the clothes were really dry. I turned on the light in the laundry room and it didn't work. Luckily I had a ballast, and I was an electrician in another life so I installed a ballast and fixed the light so I could see the drier. I installed the part but before I finished, my wife was yelling that the dishwasher is not filling with water and it smells. So I leave the drier and take apart the dishwasher. I think dishwashers are a stupid invention and I see nothing wrong with washing dishes the normal way. I also think it takes longer using the dishwasher by the time you rinse the dishes, load the thing and un load it. It smelled because water wasn't going in it and the heating element was just burning up all the plastic in there. So I find the problem, it was an overflow switch under the unit that was stuck, so I put that back together and go to finish the drier. Yesterday I spent all day on my roof re-installing wires under my solar panels on my roof because the stupid squirrels ate the wires. I guess my tomatoes that they have been eating all summer ran out and they thought they needed a little copper. This afternoon I went up on the roof and took some measurements and went to Home Depot (again) to get some more wire mesh to fill the gaps on the sides of the panels because yesterday I only did the ends. I fed the fish and noticed that no water was going into my reverse Undergravel filter. I took the powerhead that is hidden behind the rocks out after breaking some montipora and I had to clean out some gravel in the unit. I put that back together and glued the montipora back together. It seems that every day is like this so I want a day off.

 

[Bulldog5]

When is the book signing at AV?

 

[Paul B]

There is going to be a book signing party because my Daughter seems to think I need one. Maybe at the New York Aquarium but I am not sure. We want to wait until the hard copy comes out. It is being printed in South Carolina and the place is flooded. It should be very soon.


I devised this method of keeping squirrels out. I bought gutter guard and sliced them in thirds. Then screwed them in. You can see it here and to the right with the cover on. It took be like 4 hours but it is worth it to see the expression on their little faces when they can't get in.

 

[vwcrackerjack]

How's the fish doing?