Tank birthday, 40 years

[Paul B]

The trap works very well but I am going to re-design that trap. I think it does not fill with bristle worms because the bait rots and stinks too much and there is not enough oxygen left in there for more worms to get it. I don't want to make any holes in it because those worms can get through the tinyiest holes and I only want the scent coming out the one entrance. I will put in a small tube that pumps a small amount of water into the device. This way the water in the trap will stay fresh and the aroma of rotting clam will pour out of the trap opening. By doing this, I believe it will fill with worms. I will try to do this tonight but I am kind of busy today. I still can only ues one arm and I am still painting my Grand childs room I recently lost 14 lbs and want to lose a few more. I did this because I knew I was having this shoulder operation and I will not be able to swim for 5 months. I normally swim 900 yards a week and I figured when I stop, I will gain a lot of weight. But I still go to the gym, I just have to pick exercizes that don't move that arm. I was not real heavy and just wanted to maintain my weight but most of us can afford to lose a little weight so it is what it is. Now I have to watch when I go out in public because all the Babes want to stare at my 6 pack. OK so I don't have a 6 pack and there are no Babes starring, but I am working on it

 

[dubcity03]

This month my tank is 41 years old. I don't remember when I was 41 years old.

So Nice

 

[Paul B]

I am having a hard time keeping up with the tank and everything else because my Daughter is having a baby and I am painting her old room for my new Grand Kid for when they visit. It is not done but it should be a little different than normal rooms. When my Daughter was a Baby I painted it almost the same exact way.

 

[stooops718]

I am having a hard time keeping up with the tank and everything else because my Daughter is having a baby and I am painting her old room for my new Grand Kid for when they visit. It is not done but it should be a little different than normal rooms. When my Daughter was a Baby I painted it almost the same exact way.

That is amazing. You are truly a renaissance man. LOL. Congrats on the new grandbaby.

 

[Paul B]

Thanks, I am happy the way it is coming out and didn't think I could still do it.
I had to include Beaker, he is my favorite character. I now just have to add more Tweedlebugs, grass, plants, trees and some sunflowers. I hope to finish in 2 weeks but I am still working with one arm so it is slowing me down a little.
I need to get done before boating season.

 

[Paul B]

I re-designed the bristleworm trap with a flexable water tube feeding it water to keep it fresh and all of the smell of rotting clam will only exude from the entrance hopefully bringing in more worms.

 

[Paul B]

I am happy to say that in the 5 or 6 weeks since I installed this baby brine shrimp feeding station my skinny little female mandarin fattened up nicely and is now bordering on plump.
The first picture is when I got her, you can see her sides pinched in, especially under her dorsal fin and she resembled Twiggy.
The second picture is today.

 

[stooops718]

Nice. Can you tell me how you made that brine shrimp hatchery/feeder?

 

[Paul B]

I had some scrap pieces of plexiglass so I just cut them and welded them together but you can just use 2 plastic containers and glue them together or use one and put in a barrier. Either way, one side must be black, but you can paint the outside. You need a hole in the partition between the sides with a door or some means to open and close that hole. I installed a sliding door on the dark side. I have also built these with long HOB old types filter containers and just put in a barrier. I have one built from a one gallon tank with a barrier in it. It doesn't matter as long as one side is black and the other side could be clear or white.

 

[Paul B]

I had to re design slightly my algae trough. The LEDs I had over it just were not bright enough so I got a strip of LEDs that are about twice as bright. When I had MH lights the trough used to get the spill light but the LEDs are more directional so I had to add supplimental light to the trough because it was only growing red and brown algae. Now hopefully It will grow green hair algae. I also re designed the way the water enters the trough from the skimmer. I used to have unacceptable splashing that used to make salt creep all over the place. Now I have multiple layers of plastic screening around the skimmer outflow and now there is no splashing and no bubbling which burst and splash on the lights and rear wall.

This acropora has grown at least three times it's size in a year and I can't clean the glass in front of it any longer. Whenever I go near it I accidently break off pieces so I have frags of the thing all over the place. Now I am going to try to move it to a larger space and move the giant mushroom in that place to where the acropora is now. I wonder how many frags I am going to have because there is no room to move it so I have to lift it out of the tank to re locate it.

 

[Paul B]

After moving this all over the tank, getting bit to death and breaking a few pieces off this and other corals, I realize there is no room for this acropora. I temporarilly put it on this rock but it is just about out of the water and not sitting well. When I get time I need to do a major rock move. Of course I just re-aquascaped and removed a bunch of rock, but it is time again.

 

[Paul B]

Of course a large rock in my reef fell down taking much of the structure with it so I had to go in there and re position everything. It is all precarious because I am very busy now and I don't have time to do it correctly. I got everything back and I even like it better now than before. I think this is the best aquascaping I ever did even though it all came about by accident. Now I have a bunch of acropora frags because I keep breaking the thing whenever I put my hand near it. I still don't have a good place for it but I am getting there.
That yellow wrasse I have is also much better but I can't figure out why. He is swimming much better and much of the swelling went down. He still has a dark patch on one side but it is also faded. I never saw a fish recover from that before as I know from autopsies that that is from internal bleeding. I will be amazed if he continues living but he seems fine. A week ago he was just swimming in spirals and could hardly catch food.
Wierd.

 

[Paul B]

I just got back from a week in Europe. We were on a riverboat cruise from Budapest to Vienna, Munich and Hungary. Had a great time but when I got home I see the water in my reef is down about 7" and some corals are above the water and of course dead. I lost a few corals but not entire corals. My gorgonians are the worst as the salinity rose a lot. I am not sure if anything happened to the fish because the lights are off and I won't know until tomorrow. The pump I put in that the tank babysitter was putting food in was not even touching the water so the fish did not have food in a few days. Most of them should be fine but the copperband needs food every day as does the pipefish so I am concerned if they are still with me. I can't blame the girl watching the tank as she was doing me the favor and she knows nothing about fish tanks. The next time I go away I will put in a back up system for my ATO.
My ATO fills the tank very slowly so to avoid overflows but it may be too slow because sometimes air enters the system and it stops, which is what happened.

 

[CHEMCHEF]

Sorry to hear this. I hope your fish are ok.

 

[Paul B]

I see the copperband and he seems fine. The yellow wrasse that was sick seems cured. I can see all the other fish but I have not noticed the bluestriped pipefish yet but he sleeps late so I think he will show up.
I need to trim the dead parts off the corals and see what the damage is as the corals are not awake yet. I am hoping the LPS are good but I don't know yet.
Here is the riverboat we were on in Melk, I took this from a helocopter.

 

[ijvasquetelles]

congrats on the 40th anniversary nice pics

 

[Paul B]

Thanks

 

[Paul B]

I am still waiting to see how much damage my tank has. Almost every coral has dead spots but the large acropora is totally history except for two 4" frags that I managed to save and about 6 tiny ones. Most of my gorgonians have lost significant tissue and the tank looks like it went through a typhoon.
It is what it is and I will get new corals to replace the dead ones and the frags will in time recover.
Much of my time is getting ready for my first Grandchild so the tank is suffering a little. It is really a no maintenance tank anyway (unless I go away) so it will be fine.
This tank has always been an experiment to me rather than a thing of beauty and I enjoy the opportunity it has given me to design and invent things.
I stay up many nights just thinking about a new design for something, sleeping would be more productive but I guess my mind doesn't think so.
As I go through my day and notice things, they stick in my mind and in the middle of the night an idea pops into my head about it and I can't wait until the world wakes up so I can go to a store and buy sheets of copper, cement, wire, LEDs, springs or some electronic gizmo that I will need to work on the next project. I really wish I didn't have to sleep.
This morning my wife and I were in a diner for breakfast and she asked me why I was looking up at the ceiling. I was designing a new kind of ceiling tile. Does anyone need a new ceiling tile? No.
I have had this idea for many years about this sun powered motor, but I have never had the time to build a prototype even though I know the thing will work. I really wish there was a switch to shut off my mind, at least for a few hours.
Wow, I think I could modify this keyboard to type by just thinking about it.................##%@455%%333*34%$5458+(;
OK maybe not.

 

[Paul B]

I have quite a bit of cyano now. When I left the tank babysitter here for a week I gave her pre measured frozen food to add to the tank and I didn't tell her to thaw it and rinse it because I didn't want to ask for too much. That little bit of frozen yuck made cyano form on about a quarter of the substrait.
It also didn't help that many of the corals died because they were out of the water.
The cyano is easy to eliminate, I just need a little time. I also want to get some corals to put in the space left by the acropora.
Today I also bought a nice, black shrimp gobi. I just hope it is not a male or my other, much larger gobi will harass it to death. He is in my tank but they have not met yet.
One good thing I notice is that the remaining corals look great, even the half dead bubbles that I got for almost free are practically back to normal with almost no dead skeleton showing.
They were a good buy.

 

[Paul B]

I threw some "Chemi Clean" in the tank today. The water is really in lousy shape since I went to Europe and cyano started to grow. It is amazing how fast things could go sour if you are away for a few days, but all the animals are in great shape and they enjoy the Spa treatment of Chemi Clean.