Paul B's thread

Patrick, no.

So far here in my town of Suffolk New York we have almost 29,000 cases and almost 900 people already died so far. But the people going into the hospital is a little down.

We are supposed to wear face masks but of course you can't get them anywhere. I have them on order from Amazon for 3 weeks already and they are another two or 3 weeks out, so my wife and I are wearing the same two masks we started with. Two masks came with my 3 D Printer so thats what we use.
I sterilize them after we use them.

Theres an argument in the town now because some officials want to give them to our many migrant farm workers and others want to give them to seniors. I can see both sides because the masks are to protect people from you, not the other way around and the farm workers are out all over the place and in stores.
 
My tank is doing great except now I have to clean the glass every day and I could do it twice a day if I felt ambitious. If I left it for 5 days it would be the same as looking through the left front fender of a vintage Ford Thunderbird.

It doesn't bother me and is just because there is so much life in the tank. This is a sign of health.

When I feed the fish, like I just did there are tentacles virtually evrywhere. I have sponges encrusting on every exposed surface and wriggling out of the edges of those sponges are nothing but tentacles. Probably spagheti worms. If I lift the edge of a sponge, the real estate is covered in bristle worms.

Brittle stars completely cover any area next to the glass like behind the thermometer, heaters or any rocks that touch the glass.
Any small part of exposed rock is filled with pores and out of every pore is an arm of "something".

If I turn off the pumps, multitudes of creatures leave the gravel and rocks to swim to the surface and suck up anything they can find in the surface film.
I can also usually see tiny new born clownfish there.

The back glass is covered in a film of algae, cyano and coraline algae which is crawling with snails, small worms, amphipods and asternia stars.

The pipefish hunt there and are always smiling.

These are things that all make up health and come from feeding things like clams that exude clam juice which is just tiny particles of clam in "juice". Sponges live on this stuff as do all the other beginnings of the food chain.

To keep pipefish, mandarins, bleenies and other small fish this stuff makes it much easier as I don't really have to feed those fish.
View through the back of my tank. Those are sponges




 
I hope you enjoy it. Read every other word at first then go back and read the words you missed. It's more interesting and makes more sense like that. :p

My Daughter wrote the foreword as she is the writer in the family. She asked me how she could write that before she read the book, so I just told her to make up something.
I originally had it printed in color and I don't know why now it is in black and white. It's very hard to get in touch with the publisher at Amazon.
 
I devised this almost 90 degree angle needle to inject aiptasia. It has an 18" tube where I can push the plunger to inject the little devils

 
Paul I used muriatic acid in hypodermic needle with great success that was in an old 125 gallon reef tank in AZ Small amount of acid dilutes quickly so no harm
 
I hope you enjoy it. Read every other word at first then go back and read the words you missed. It's more interesting and makes more sense like that. :p

My Daughter wrote the foreword as she is the writer in the family. She asked me how she could write that before she read the book, so I just told her to make up something.
I originally had it printed in color and I don't know why now it is in black and white. It's very hard to get in touch with the publisher at Amazon.
I just finished it today Paul. It was a great read. You included a lot of great information and perspective in there. You may have been an electrician, but you are a hell of a observer of living things and great at aquarium husbandry. Your use of common sense and ecology to care for your reef are something lots of people that try this hobby miss. I especially love the collection of amphipods, mud and local seawater in your techniques. That algae trough might get a spot in my new system as it comes together.
 
Thank you, I appreciate it. I enjoyed writing it. Very soon the book will have made another $500.00 which all will be donated to the MS society in my wife's name.

We are all dealing with this virus but we here are still dealing with MS. I hope they all just go away.

Maybe with all this medical research going on they will find cures for other things people are suffering with.
 
Prototype of new model of aiptasia injector. It has an 18" tube on it and I can change the needle by just sliding it out.
It is shown here full of Luguls Iodine which is something I am testing in the thing. So far the aiptasia have a nice red tinge but I am not sure if they will croak or love the stuff and do the macarana.

I also want to try metheline blue. I don't care if that kills them, but how cool will they look?

I already tried hydrogen peroxide and I think that has aiptasia vitamins in it.
I know battery acid or boiling, almost anything will work, but I am having fun

 
Maybe. I tried injecting grass shrimp with different colors with little success but I am trying to get that "Day Glo" stuff they used to inject into those colored fish to try on them.
 
For some reason the weather was beautiful here today. 72 degrees and sunny so after I washed my car (again) my wife and myself took a walk down the stairs to the beach.

On the way down I noticed that the water was absolutely perfect and clearer than I have ever seen it. You can't tell from that lousy picture but about 50 yards out I can see the rocks on the sea floor. It was like the Caribbean. :p

As soon as I got home I packed up my collecting stuff and headed down to a beach where I could back up almost to the water to collect.

I backed up, threw the pump into the sea. Started filling vats.

And it started raining. :(

You really can't catch a break. How does the rain know when I will be collecting water. :unsure:


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But it wasn't like Noah's flood so I finished collecting and have 40 gallons.
I almost don't have to filter it and could probably get by with just straining out the chopped up seaweed and discarded copies of my book but I figured I will break out the diatom filter for this and before I clean the thing I will just throw it in my tank because I know my fish just love it when I diatom filter the water.

Usually I do it once or twice a year but now with almost nothing to do, I do it all the time just to see the bubbles. :rolleyes:

The alk was 6 and the temp is 52 so I may have to heat it a little.
 
I changed those 40 gallons of water I collected yesterday. Everything is smiling and all is well. :p

Hopefully soon it will warm up enough to collect some mud and maybe a few amphipods.
 
Paul I posted earlier I injected aiptasia with muriatic acid and killed them instantly. Small amount gets diluted so no harm to anything other than the dreaded little buggers;)
 
Yes I know. When I get some muriatic acid I will inject them. I have used that in the past but I have to buy a big bottle of the stuff.
I have also been on a quest to get another copperband butterfly and should find out today if that will happen. They are not shipping much fish now.
 
I just found out where these Rainsford Gobies are spawning. I cleaned my glass and I also cleaned the algae off my algae scrubber which is on one end of the tank where it is hard to access. But in that back corner I never saw because it is up against a duct and I never cleaned the glass there.



I got bored and decided to clean the glass to see if anything was living back there.

There they were. They made a hole behind one of the tubes that goes to the UG filter. I am not sure if they got all the way under the filter plate, but they pop in and out to grab some white worms.



I see one of the possum wrasses also hangs out there. Now that i know their hiding place, I will clean the glass there once in a while to check them out.

 
My new copperband seems fantastic and now eats everything. This is the first living thing I ever ordered through the mail.
I had linguine with clams last night but I decided not to give him any so I gave him cake instead.

He is about 2 1/2" long, just as I asked for, is inquisitive and hunts all day. He eats just about anything he can fit in his mouth and didn't jump out yet. :cool:

So far he doesn't like to come to the front of the tank while I am there, maybe I will try it while I am not wearing my Speedo. :unsure:
 
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