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

[Paul B]

Jenna X, I would rather see hair plugs than frag plugs. I hate those things and I feel a reef looks so fake with them in there. The first thing I do with a frag is break them off. They are great to propagate corals or sell them, but then it is time to lose them and glue your frags to a rock. The tank just looks so much more natural. When I dive I very rarely see corals connected to those frag plugs.

I am dying to take most of the rock out of my tank and re-arrange it as those stupid pistol shrimp have gotten large and now I think they even bought a bulldozer because I can't believe shrimps could do that much damage. I should toggle bolt the rocks through the bottom of my tank, but that would have it's own set of problems. I really, really want to build this rock "mesh" base for all the rock that would be suspended off the bottom and suspended on cables. Some day I am going to do that. It has a few design problems but not anything insurmountable. I am working on it.

 

[Jenna X]

Me too. I stick the frag plug in one spot to see if the coral opens up then either cut or break them off. I have a collection of frag plugs to remind myself that I don't need any new corals. Actually I have my fiancee for that.

Wow I wouldn't begin to imagine how to do that, it seems complicated especially since you have a lot of fish and corals in the tank, wouldn't that disrupt them? Maybe you can catch the pistol shrimp, but I'm sure it's easier said than done.

 

[Paul B]

I don't want to remove the pair of shrimp, just make it so they don't create an earthquake every time they decide to move their cave

 

[Paul B]

I was asked if there were pictures of the progression of my tank.
There are some pictures of my tank on here from the beginning and some from when someone invented the internet, but the 25 or so years before that all my pictures are someplace on film. Film is like Scotch Tape but pictures stick to it.
This picture, Circa 1972 was my first real salt water tank. It is a 30 or 40 gallon tank filled with NSW from the Long Island Sound. When I got married and moved it was all carried to my new, very small apartment.
In 1979 we moved to our new house and I again carried everything to my new home where I put everything into the existing 100 gallon tank where it has been ever since.

Over the years I added all sorts f things like this codium I collected on the east end of Long Island

This blue devil was one of the first salt water fish imported to the US. I had 7 of them in that 30 gallon tank. Here the male is over his nest of eggs in that barnacle shell. Circa 1973

Here are the eggs

These shrimp were also in that first tank where they spawned for many years.

This is the first picture of my present tank Circa 1980 in it's present location. I was just building the basement around it as it is not finished here. You can see the white bleached coral skeletons that we used for tank decoration as there was no rock or live coral for sale.

This picture (or one very similar) appeared in "FAMMA" magazine around the 90s (I forget) I remember reading the magazine on the train and thinking, Wow, this guy thinks just like me. Then realizing, OMG, It is me. I sent in the article months ago and didn't even realize it.

The only major changes the tank has gone through is lighting and many home made skimmers. I remember when I set it up, there were no sumps at the time, but I wanted to hide everything so I installed a sheet of black plexiglass about an inch from the back glass with grills to let the water back there. Any tubes or heaters were in there but my fish kept somehow getting in there and it was a disaster to get them out, so I removed it. The tank was never taken down except a few times to re aquascape, but everything was always put back in.
Of course in those days besides fish, I was also interested in the Babes. This is me with my first Girlfriend Georgia.

 

[Paul B]

I just love my dragon faced pipefish. Very cool creatures.
Video

 

[Paul B]

I have been wanting to re design my workshop since I moved here 35 years ago, I just "almost" finished it today. I got that little lab sink At Home Depot and I built those drawers under the bench. It took me a few decades to think about adding that sink, and between yesterday and today, I finally did it. I also built that cabinet with the four drawers in it to the right. Now if it doesn't take me another 35 years to paint it, I will be all set. It is a pleasure having a sink in there so I don't mess up the "real" sink in my finished basement and I won't have to make sure I clean out every worm before my wife sees it.

 

[Hefe-Weizen]

Nice. Tank looks great.

 

[Paul B]

Thanks, my Grand Son Teddy is mad because I told him he is to young, at 5 weeks old to have a reef tank, so he punched me on the chin

 

[SIReefer]

Ah, Paul - Grandchildren, retirement, a new boat and a healthy reef tank. Sounds nice

 

[Paul B]

It is , my life is going just like I planned it and told my girlfriend about it when I was about 5

 

[Paul B]

My dragon faced pipefish has an issue. He is bloated and floats. That is a common problem with fish in the seahorse family. The males have a pouch and they give birth. When Mother Nature decided that males of some species should give birth she designed this pouch for the males to nurture the baby fish. The problem is that the fish has no way to clean out the pouch and bacteria often grows in there from either a still born fry or just gunk as the fish can open the pouch just for the heck of it, maybe to clean out lint or look for spare change.
If I could catch the fish, I can do a little arthroscopic surgery, an in office procedure to correct the problem. But he managed to get to the back of the tank and I can't find him. He has to wedge himself under a rock top stay submerged. If I can't locate him, he will die as he can't eat in that condition. But it is what it is and that is fairly common with that type of fish.

 

[Paul B]

This morning I was looking at my tank and just thinking. Yes, that gives me a headache. I was closely checking things out, watching the pair of pistol shrimp make tunnels all over the place while keeping one antenna on their favorite watchman gobi. Then I noticed one of my small striped cardinals who is dying of old age and will disappear in a couple of days. There is also one thread fin cardinal left as those small cardinals don't have a very long lifespan. The one I have left was the runt of the bunch and is still doing OK, but he looks very lonely as the five of them would spawn all the time.
When they are about to die of old age, they slow down for a few weeks and don't eat very much. They also lose all fear and fish that normally hide, stay out in the open just like an old person, they get a little senile and I can see it in their eyes. Fish sometimes pick on them, but they don't seem to care and I think they know their time is almost gone. (or maybe I give them to much credit) But those smaller fish have a limited lifespan, maybe 4 or 5 years and they may be 2 or 3 when we buy them. If they are spawning until the end, they lived out their life and there is nothing we can do for them.
Yesterday the Mother of a woman we know died. This was the best friend of my 88 year old Mother N Law's "Mother". Yes her Mother and she lived to 106 and was cognizant, walking without a cane and making home made pasta until the end. So if you have a 5 year old little cardinal or a 25 year old clownfish, that is all that you can expect to get out of them.
As I look at my tank I think I know why my tank doesn't seem to have any problems. The animals just seem at home, checking out their surroundings, searching for food and maybe realizing that they are all just going to die of old age. Right in the front of my tank there is a fairly large torch coral that the pistol shrimp made fall down. It is up side down on the gravel and it has been like that for two days. I will get to it eventually and it will be no worse for wear, but some people go nuts over the smallest thing. On this forum there is a guy (or girl) who has a clownfish with a little sore on it. He is dipping him in freshwater, then formalin then some ich medication and he is going to put him in quarantine. The fish just needs to be left alone and he will be fine. We all want a magic pill and it doesn't exist. I feel we over medicate, over quarantine and over stress many of these creatures that would do fine if we just left them alone and fed them appropriately.
I used to get all crazy and drag out the copper or some fluorescent medication that never really did anything but made the tank a cool color. Now, like some of my fish who are dying of old age, nothing bothers me any more and soon I will also slow down, stop eating and fade away. Hopefully, not for a while as I am not quite finished yet because there are still so many things I want to do.
I did everything on my bucket list so it is time to just make a new list.
The first thing on my list, many years ago when I was a little kid was to one day SCUBA dive on the Great Barrier Reef. That actually was my first dive, who would have thought. I wanted to travel to exotic places to dive and I dove in all those places and a lot more. I never got to date Christie Brinkley but my wife also looks like a Supermodel so I kind of did that through osmosis.
One of my larger acropora corals is half dead but that is actually a good thing as it is the clown gobi that is killing it by spawning on it every week or so. Where ever it lays eggs, kills that part of the coral but everyone has acropora, how many people have constantly spawning clown gobies?
My copperband butterfly grew a little larger than I would have liked and he has never gotten along with the old fireclown. The copperband circumnavates the tank every few minutes and on every pass he confronts the fireclown who is always nesting. The clown swims out, the copperband raises his spines and the play goes on. One would think they would tire of this or the copperband would take a short cut through the rock to avoid each other, but I guess it gives them a purpose in life. I love it.

 

[LongIslandAndy]

As usual, well said Paul

 

[Paul B]

I get such a kick out of mandarins. My female mandarin is always pregnant. A day after laying eggs she seems to be pregnant again. The male is kind of large and probably has a hard time finding enough food to stay in breeding condition, but they are so slow. He loves live worms but to get some to him, I have to shoot some worms on the far end of the tank, then I sneak some to him. The copperband, who swims like a tuna is very fast and sucks up every worm in the tank before the worms even realize they just hit the water. The mandarin has to introduce himself to the worm, then he has to apologize to it before he eats it, then he seems to be saying grace, it just takes so long and by this time the copperband, and 4 or 5 other fish already stole all the worms from under the mandarin. Eventually, after I throw in $19.00 worth of worms, he will get one or two. In the mandarin's defense, I know eh can only eat a couple of worms as they don't have a real stomach like Chris Christie may have. They are used to eating a pod every 8 seconds or so. I am surprised he doesn't spend more time with the female as she is a real Babe. But he is a man and probably thinking about eating, soccer or whatever sport they play in his home country.

Sometimes they all go out to dinner together, but I am not sure who picks up the bill.


Here he is after dinner putting his moves on her.



She must like him as she is always pregnant.

 

[Jenna X]

What a lovely story, your mandarin pair is adorable. I feel like I always learn something new with your posts

 

[oh207]

Lovely story indeed. And healthy looking mandarins!

What kind of worms do you feed and where do you get them?

 

[Paul B]

I use live blackworms and white worms every day. The blackworms I buy at an LFS and the white worms I raise myself from a culture that I ordered on line.

Blackworms


White worms, these may be Jewish as they are enjoying a Matzo,

 

[Paul B]

Here is a short video of them eating the worms. On the bottom right you can see the mandarin strolling over after the feast is over.
Every fish in that video is spawning except the copperband. I was going to say he was also spawning but I didn't think I would get away with it.
The larger fire clown is 20, but he still looks like a teenager.

 

[Paul B]

Tomorrow my tank will be 43 years old. I almost forgot

 

[albano]

Tomorrow my tank will be 43 years old. I almost forgot

Are you sure?

Tank reached 38 years old

It was 38 yrs old... 6 yrs ago!
:shhh:I think this method of counting may be why your wife is still only 39!

Don't tell her, that I told you!