Paul B

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I just did one of the things that I love to do which I have mentioned before. I removed a bottle that I have not emptied in years and dumped it out in a flask to check out what is living in there. It is an entire eco system. There was a nice strand of seaweed growing right in the center like a mineature garden or bonsai tree. The thing was just teeming with pods, worms and all sorts of other cool little things. This to me is what makes this hobby so interesting. I sometimes get more excited to watch this stuff than my fish.
I had to do some work on the tank because I have a small auto feeder mainly for the hippo tang that puts a few flakes and pellets in the tank in case I don't show up for a couple of days.
I heard the thing cycle and the surface of the water was covered with flakes. The top came off the feeder and about a can of flakes went into the tank. I skimmed a lot of it out but the rest sunk so I had to get out the diatom filter and do a thorough cleaning. As I was doing that I found the coral that I had been looking for that my urchin transported into a cave. It seems fine.
I also did a little aquascaping to re position all the rocks the urchin moved and to re pile anything that had fell.
I also have a problem with corals toppling onto each other so I fixed most of that problem. I also added a few very pregnant grass shrimp. The fish will enjoy that. Tomorrow I will collect some more of those which seem larger this year for some reason.
They are all around my boat along with zillions of amphipods.
That all goes intio the tank.
Have a great day, whats left to it.
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Paul B

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Today was an interesting day of boating and collecting. I went to my usual place at low tide, the tide pool goes under a road and on the other side there is a lake that spills over these 20' long walls ibnto this tide pool. At high tide the lake is almost the same height as the sea.
Anyway these walls are about 4 or 5' high with freshwater spilling over into the salt water. The walls look like they are made of barnacles. There are no cement patches, it is all barnacles. As I was checking them out as I always do I noticed the walls loked like they were crawling with something. At first I thought it was just the barnacles which a lot of it was (I didn't have my reading glasses on) Then I noticed it was tiny creatures, different from any amphipods I have ever seen, and I have seen more amphipods then most people, believe me.
These things look like tiny trillobites about 3/16" long. There were billions of them.
I collected a bunch along with sheets of barnacles to put in my reef. I know the barnacles will not live more than a month but I am curious about these "pods". Wierd.
I also collected a few hermit crabs for my local tank.
We tried to get some blue claw crabs for dinner but all we got were two, so we let them go. One of them was the largest blue claw I have ever seen.
I am going back tomorrow then tuesday it is the south shore for tropicals.
Barnacles
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NY hermits
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Paul B

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Here is a picture of the box fish we collected a few days ago. It is in my un lit, un filtered Long Island Sound tank which has raw NSW in it which is kind of green. I took the picture through a jewelers loupe but the fish never stops and is only a half inch long, the glass is also filthy. It is just an experimental tank so I don't go crazy on it.
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Paul B

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Here is some stuff I collected today along with a million pipefish which I returned to the sea, another million blowfish, which I also returned and a load of trumpet fish, needle fish, and wrasses.
We also collected five gallons of spearing, to eat. Me not the fish.
This picture was taken in my local tank where there is a regular light bulb so everything is yellow. The water also was just poured in right from the sea so it is turbid. The fish really have yellow and black stripes.
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Paul B

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I really need to take a picture of the cool fish I collected this week. I gave them to a LFS because they were about 7" long and very skinny like a pipefish. They look like half pipefish and half needlenose. I know some people know what they are called as we collected some last year but I forgot. They have a tail about two thirds of the way back then another tail comes out of the center of that and goes a couple more inches.
Really cool. We found that they only eat small fish and I don't yet know if they will eat dead fish. I know I can't put them in my reef because my bumblebee gobies would be eaten like M&Ms
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Paul B

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Now this is a very cool picture of the fish corner of my workshop.
The big blue thing hanging is the RO/DI water tank. It is high because it siphons to the tank above the ceiling about 30' away.
You can just make out the acrylic DI resins to the left of the blue bucket. There is a homemade float switch in the bucket which shuts off the electric valve to the RO.
The 15 gallon tank is filled with tropical and some local critters I collected in the Atlantic including a few butterflies and that boxfish/puffer/burfish whatever it is.
The long thin horizontal white thing is my new worm keeper which I just built 10 minutes ago. It is the Mother of all worm keepers. The small worm keeper is the acrylic one below it. On the 15 gallon tank is the black and yellow brine shrimp hatchery.
Yes, I know, everything is very neat just like the pictures many of you guys post
Wormkeeper003.jpg
:lol:
 

Paul B

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I did something tonight that I never do and it is against one of my cardinal fish keeping rules.
I fed my fish flakes
That was 15 minutes ago and they are still writing bad things about my family on the inside of the glass.
It was a mistake, I didn't have time to feed them yesterday and I have no worms. I was too tired to defrost fish eggs or mysis so I deserve this.
I will have to make it up to them. Tomorrow I am going out to the east end of Long Island and I will collect some nice juicy amphipods.
I hope they forgive me :sad2:
 

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