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Paul B's thread

I posted this 5 years ago:

I am not the smartest fish keeper in the world, but I am probably one of the oldest. Being one of the oldest, I have also had more time to study this stuff and more time to make mistakes. Mistakes are one way we learn. A very good way.

It's actually how they train you in basic training in the Army or Marines. By forcing you to do impossible tasks, knowing you can't do them, then punishing you for not doing it correctly. Eventually, you learn what they want you to do while never completing those tasks correctly.

Trust me, it works.

I was a Noob at one time and that time was the 1950s, yes the world as we know it was around then and so were fish. We had the same problems then as we do now but a few of us learned, after many dead fish what we were doing wrong and I think I got it.

Most people in this hobby do something and it works, and they think they found the secret, but we may be talking about a time frame of a few months or a couple of years. A common hermit crab lives over 12 years so if we keep one for a couple of years, it is not "Great Success". To have a reef tank for four or five years without crashing, although is an accomplishment that few people ever attain is also not a Great Success and we should strive for more. We should always strive for more.

IMO a reef tank should be immortal or "live" as long as it's owner. Of course fish are not immortal, but most of them live much longer than people stay in this hobby.

Corals are immortal and can keep living while growing new polyps on top of older ones. That’s how reefs grow.

I feel the biggest mistake we make (and us Geezers who started this hobby are the cause) is keeping our tanks to clean.

Our gravel or sand is to clean, and our food is to clean and our water is to clean.

I will get to clean water later as it even sounds weird to me.

Fish, birds, whales, lizzards, earthworms, Liberals, Conservatives and us all have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria, viruses and parasites.

Viruses, bacteria and parasites have been here longer than us and will be here when we all go to Mars because this planet has nothing left but plastic.

In a tank, any tank, except a quarantined or medicated tank, bacteria run everything. We forget about them, but it is the bacteria that call the shots, not us.

Bacteria have their own problems as viruses also affect and kill them. Bacteria hate that.

Parasites are also infected by bacteria and viruses.

Probably funguses also, but I am guessing.

Anyway, we call those things “disease organisms” because they can make us sick, but we forget that without them, we couldn’t live.

Our stomach is loaded with both beneficial and harmful bacteria. They live in harmony along with the funguses and viruses. Seawater is loaded with all of those things and that is natural and the way it should be.

We have problems when we mess with that system. If we kill bacteria, the viruses can take over as can the parasites.

If we for instance use copper, we will kill the parasites and bacteria, but not the viruses.

We really can’t kill the viruses (as Covid 19 taught us) because viruses are not alive to start with but we can disintegrate them using UV light or ozone.

So if we kill one of the pathogens, we allow the remaining ones to thrive and cause problems.

We can of course kill everything by using drugs along with UV and Ozone but should we?

It sounds like a good plan but have you seen anyone who just had Chemo and radiation to kill cancer?

Those people have no immunity to anything and although they are kept in a sterile environment, many of them die anyway because we can’t live like that in the real world.

Neither can fish.

In some cases we do have to resort to that drastic measure and sometimes it works. But not usually and it could take years for that fish to regain its compliment of stomach flora where it could live a normal life free from disease with a functioning immune system.

The problem with killing everything is of course that the bacteria, parasites and viruses will all infect the fish at different times and whichever comes first can overwhelm the fishes immune system because those things no longer are living in harmony where they can all keep each other in check.

In nature none of those pathogens get the upper hand because they evolved to counteract each other.

If we disrupt the cycle, we cause problems and tank crashes.

I propose, and it has worked for decades for me and other successful aquarists with long lasting reefs, that instead of trying to limit or eliminate natural pathogens leaving the fish open to disease, we cultivate those things, "in proportion" with each other leaving the fish with a strong immune system that it evolved with.

Remember, in the sea the fish are living with every aquatic disease there is with no problem. They only have problems after they are collected, shipped and put in our tanks.

There is no reason for them to have problems as my fish realize including my almost 30 year olds.

I know many, or all the fish we buy don’t look very good and are all infected with something. But remember, they are “always” infected with something because fish eat and breathe pathogens as they live. In the sea their immune system has no problems dealing with those afflictions because the fish is not stressed and is eating there natural food which is loaded with bacteria.

It’s the pathogens that tell the fishes immune system what method to use to eradicate that organism.

Remember in the sea fish normally eat living prey. They rarely eat sterile pellets, flakes or freeze dried anything. The prey they eat is always loaded with bacteria, parasites and viruses in the same proportions as are already in the fishes gut. Fish and us can’t digest food without bacteria which is the reason so many fish die while being medicated with copper or other drugs. It kills their stomach bacteria. It’s simple.

I mentioned before that our water is to clean and that may sound counterproductive because coral reefs are thought to be pristine. But the difference in water from a coral reef and our tanks is that the water on a coral reef has been there long before Betty White was born and many of our tanks were started a week from last Tuesday. Seawater actually gets better with age, to an extent.

If new, clean seawater was so good, why do new tanks look lousy? Why do new tanks, with all new water have so many diseases? Why do Noobs lose so many fish?

It’s because bacteria, viruses, corals, seaweed, rocks, meteorites, shipwrecks, whales and waste water from frankfurter carts in New York City all end up in the sea and all of those things are what fish evolved in. OK, maybe not the frankfurter carts. But it takes time for those organisms to reach a point where they are in sync with each other and none of them out weigh or out perform each other.

I was also under the impression that we needed to keep everything sterile. I wouldn’t think to put my hands in the tank without rinsing many times to get every trace of soap off.

I tried very hard to keep dirt out of my tank and vacuumed up every last bit of un eaten food.

I was wrong.

Now I take mud from a salt water bay and throw it in. I take garden soil (without pesticides) and throw it in. I feed earthworms full of dirt. I feed clams, mussels and whiteworms with as much dirt attached as I can find.

I never quarantine or medicate unless I purposely buy a very sick fish that I know will not live through the night and I experiment with questionable results.

I never worry if a fish I buy is in the same tank as fish with spots.



What I do is take that fish home as soon as I can and after a short acclimation, place it in my tank and try to get natural food into it. Natural food with living bacteria in it which is not usually commercially purchased food.

That food is deep frozen or irradiated to kill bacteria. I do use that food but I always supplement it with the foods I mentioned because without fresh, living bacteria, fish will always be at risk of dying from just about anything.



If you don’t believe any of this, go and watch Oprah give away Cadillacs to stray cats.

 
Unfortunately I received bad news last night. My close friend of over 40 years has 4th stage colon cancer.

Two weeks ago he went for a routine colonoscopy and got the news. He seemed to be in perfect health, he exercised all the time by playing tennis and racquetball and ate very healthy.

He has two Daughters and one just got engaged but we don't think he will even make the wedding.
I feel awful.

If he dies, he will be my 5th friend who passed in the last few years. I am about in the middle age wise. It's tough when all your close friends are dying. My old crowd is getting smaller every year and even though I realize this is the way it is and has always been, it is still depressing. His wife is going crazy and I don't blame her.
 
Last night in the pouring rain our power went out. So I called the electric company and informed them because it was only my block and not the east coast of the US.

Usually it comes right back on so I just got some of my battery lights and candles so we could see. My wife was in the bath tub so I gave her a candle.

After 20 minutes my fish had the look of horror on their faces so I started the generator. The power dept. trucks came and fixed the problem on the pole and the lights came back on.

Of course some of my neighbors came over to plug extension cords into my generator because I am so "lucky" that I have a generator. :)
 
Yesterday I cleaned 18 crabs for part of the Christmas Eve. dinner. My wife makes a dynamite crab sauce over linguine.

Crabs.jpg



Last year I think we had 21 types of seafood Christmas Eve.

This is a building near my Daughters house in Manhattan. It's by Louie Vittone. I have no idea how they did it.
Building.jpg
 
I decided that for my new book, (nothing about fish) I will donate any and all profits to "The Wounded Warriors" project. I dedicated the book to the almost 50 brave, young guys who lost their life fighting on April 1st 1970 on a remote Firebase in Vietnam.

I was very lucky that night and I really feel for those guys and I don't think enough is being done for them. Not that any meager profits from my book will help much but I think it's necessary.
 
I can't believe this is happening again in the same week. Another good friend is dying of cancer. Dennis was fine and playing golf two weeks ago and I just got a call they are putting him in hospice for lung cancer that spread. There is nothing they can do.

If he dies, it will be my 6th friend in 3 years that have died. I am really depressed
 
Tonight, New Years Eve, millions of crazy people will descend on Times Square.

They are all tourists because us New Yorkers know better.

5 Hours in the rain and cold with no bathrooms and you can't even see much from the street. :oops:

Happy New Year :D
 
What if Jesus had a reef tank?
Jesus and I have a couple of things in common. We both have the same birthday and like fish, but I can’t make miracles. I think Jesus must have been a cool guy, and I would probably get along with him, although he did have much more hair than I do, was perhaps better looking, and had a more likable personality.



If Jesus had a reef tank, I think it would have been fantastic and pretty easy for him.



Like most of us, he probably started with fresh water because even though the “Sea of Galilee” is called a sea, it is fresh water. However, it contains many different types of fish. Unfortunately, they are all kind of bland-looking.



Jesus would have no problems collecting fish because he could just bend down and grab whatever swam by while he was walking on the water.



I also think that, like most of us, he would eventually want a reef tank. But where would he get salt water from?



It was actually easy. Remember, in the Old Testament, God Smited everyone because they were all sinners, and many of them cycled their tanks using live fish.



But if you recall, all the good people were running away from Sodom and Gomorrah as God was destroying the bad people on Earth with fire and brimstone. Lot's wife turned around because she forgot to turn off the light on her frag tank so God turned her into a pillar of salt. I think it was “Instant Ocean”.



Jesus could have scraped off a little salt, maybe from her kneecap, and used it in his reef.



So now he had salt water but he lived in a desert so where would he get rocks from?



Brimstone, of course. I don't know what brimstone is, but I bet it would make a really nice seascape.



At first, his tank would go through the ugly stage and get overrun with algae and diatoms. In time, his fish may get infected with things like ich, urenema, or that Brooklyn disease because he didn’t have a quarantine tank. He could try a few drops of Muhr and frankincense but I’m not sure if that would work as well as Prizapro.



For Jesus, this would be no problem because he could just turn the water in his reef into Holy Water, thereby curing his fish from whatever they had. Even if that didn’t work 100% and a fish died, he could just resurrect it.



I’m not sure how he would test the salinity, but I assume he could clean the glass with that swaddling cloth he was wrapped in when he was born.



His Father, Joseph, was a carpenter, so he could make a dynamite stand. While Jesus was away preaching, his Apostles could have cared for his tank. They most likely wouldn’t mind because while they were there, Jesus' Mother Mary would make them a dynamite meal, as she was an excellent cook.



I think that’s exactly how Jesus would have created his reef tank.
 
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