Paul B's thread

[Paul B]

I have almost all the rocks out of my tank with just a few left to make the fish at home...Kind of although they are getting the horrors..

I also mixed about 110 gallons of ASW. Most of my live rock is still live in vats of NSW so I won't lose the life on those. The biggest piece I couldn't save 100%. It has a lot of sponge on it so I have it outside in the air. I am hoping the 30 degree weather as well as the air freezes the sponge. That shouldn't kill all the bacteria but even if it does, there is plenty left and I am not removing the gravel.

In a couple of days I will heat all the water I just made and all in one fell swoop (that will take all day, I will remove all the corals, fish and remaining rock. Stir up the gravel and siphon it out. Then add everything back and glue all the corals back.

That will be tough because I had to cut all the very old gorgonians off the rocks and now they are not branching any more so I have a lot of single pieces to glue which may take more than a full day.

Now I can catch that big Koran Angelfish that no one wants and bring it to a LFS for their show tank.

I got my neighbor to help me lift the biggest rock as I was afraid of dropping it.

 

[Paul B]

I didn't realize I had so many fish and I even found this guy who I haven't seen since the day I put him in. I thought he croaked or jumped out someplace but he is fine and even colored up more. After I put the rocks back in, I am sure I will never see him again.



I couldn't save 2 of the anemones because they went into a hole in large rocks and I couldn't get them out. I found one of my fish in a bucket of rock that jumped out when I removed the rock, but he is fine.

Grand Kids are coming over today so I can't do anything but I plan on Tuesday or wednesday to do the big switch and put everything back.

I am not sure if the stress will affect the fish so maybe I will throw some Prozac in the water just to make sure.

 

[Paul B]

I just found this "hunting" story on another site from 2 years ago.

Once on an LZ a deer walked out of a clearing about 100 yards away. We normally ate C Rations and since we had a lot of Red Necks with us some of them decided to shoot the thing and one of then would cook it.

About a dozen of them started firing at the poor creature who just stood there in Awe. M-16s fully automatic, grenade launchers and I think one of them fired at it with a 60 caliper machine gun.

The deer eventually walked away. I said, "Please, if we get attacked here, you guys stand behind me so I can actually shoot something" .

 

[Paul B]

I am not sure my fish will survive through all this as it is a big change to go from real water that is very old to brand new ASW but we will see. If the tank crashes, and there is a real possibility of that, I will still consider it a success. Of course the fish may not see it exactly like that.

I am trying as hard as I can with what I know and the time constraints I have in doing this to keep everything alive and not killing the important bacteria and pods that keep the tank healthy.

My many pod eaters may have to go on a diet for a couple of weeks and I hope they can find enough to eat but it is what it is and I am doing the best I can.

I just went downstairs to check the tank because I was concerned with all the fish in there there may not be enough bacteria left to keep the water healthy. But they are fine and happy looking, some of them are doing the Macarena.

The very large rock I have outside is frozen and the sponges on it look like ice cubes so I can "assume" the nasty stuff is dead. Now I have to scrape off the dead, frozen sponge and rinse it off in salt water to get it ready to go back in.

If I was not afraid this sponge would take over the ocean here, I would bring all the sponge encrusted rocks to the sea and scrape and wash them off in the sea.

I won't do that but that would be the best thing.


SaveShare
Reply Quote

 

[Paul B]

This is my biggest rock that I built from smaller rocks cemented together.

 

[Paul B]

Tomorrow is the day I remove all the fish, dump out the water and re fill the tank and re aquascape. I have to go and get ashes first as it is Ash Wednesday and that is my wife's Idea. If I don't take her she will go by herself and I don't need her mad at me on a very busy day when my tanks life is in the balance. This will be very difficult, moving all this water and rocks around and keeping it all warm, aerated and "happy for the 12 or so hours it will take.

Then another day or two to glue back all the corals, mostly gorgonians. I purposely didn't feed the fish yesterday to limit wastes and today, if the rain lets up a little I would like to go down to the sea to pick up some barnacle encrusted rocks to temporarily add to my tank for the fresh bacteria.

This is a good time for that because I killed a lot of bacteria on the heavily sponge encrusted rocks I had to bleach.

 

[cablez]

Tomorrow is the day I remove all the fish, dump out the water and re fill the tank and re aquascape. I have to go and get ashes first as it is Ash Wednesday and that is my wife's Idea. If I don't take her she will go by herself and I don't need her mad at me on a very busy day when my tanks life is in the balance. This will be very difficult, moving all this water and rocks around and keeping it all warm, aerated and "happy for the 12 or so hours it will take.

Then another day or two to glue back all the corals, mostly gorgonians. I purposely didn't feed the fish yesterday to limit wastes and today, if the rain lets up a little I would like to go down to the sea to pick up some barnacle encrusted rocks to temporarily add to my tank for the fresh bacteria.

This is a good time for that because I killed a lot of bacteria on the heavily sponge encrusted rocks I had to bleach.

I honestly would hold off for a couple months adding natural sea water to the reef. Especially of collected near the shore. Because of the Ohio railway thing. This rain....hitting us now is containing some of that plume cloud residue. I would try to limit my outside interactions today for all people in New England and those close to it. New York especially. This rain is going to be much much dirtier than normal

 

[Paul B]

I will wait a few months just because I want to make sure I have no sponge growing. Then before I use NSW again I need to find a really good way to remove the silicates from it before I dump it in.

I really don't like ASW and will be biting my lip until I can get it out of my tank and I will be very surprised if I don't lose a lot of fish from this change. But I will have to deal. For most of the life of my tank I used ASW but I always had at least some NSW in there.

I am not sure how that toxic fire will effect the water because this is the Atlantic Ocean behind my house and it is pretty big.

But I do need to get some mud for the bacteria. I don't want the stuff I have in the tank now to take over all the clean real estate.

 

[Paul B]

I have two 40 gallon tubs and some 5 gallon buckets full of live rock and a bunch I had to bleach. I also have my diatom filter filled with powder because I am not removing the gravel and it will be full of detritus and I don't want to remove all of it.

The first thing I will do is partially empty the tank and catch all the fish and remaining corals. I hope I can find all of them.

 

[Paul B]

I got everything back in the tank and everything looks good. The fish are hunting for food and so far I didn't lose anything.

This only took me 7 hours and I have more live rock left over than I started with. Like 3 five gallon buckets.

I have my big angel fish in a bucket and I almost lost him. I noticed the water looked very funky and it smelled. I could see sparks under the water. The heater broke.

Luckily it was only for a minute or so and being I am an electrician my fish don't care about electricity in their water.

 

[Paul B]

So far I don't like the look or ASW but I will get used to it. I need to go down to the sea to get some bacteria but it is very cold and raining today so I will wait until tomorrow or until someone volunteers to get some for me. Maybe those people in that club who go swimming in Coney Island in the middle of February. I won't even swim there in July.

I didn't see my tank yet this morning and I won't be able to do much because I have a thousand "paper" cuts on my hands from the tiny tube worms on the rocks. And I wore gloves.

Today, if he is still alive I will bring that Koran Angel to a LFS and hope he takes it.
I had my diatom filter running all night for the fine particles floating all over which looks like powder.

Unless of course my fish are so annoyed at me that they are doing cocaine. I hope not.

I realized last night that there is nothing in the tank for my large, very old urchin to eat so I will get some clams and lettuce, his two favorite foods.

I also hope my 4 pipefish, 2 mandarins and 3 ruby reds find enough pods because the tank is really clean now. Much to clean but I had to do this to get all that sponge out and unfortunately, the algae and food sources went with it. I will throw a bunch of sinking pellets in there to feed the pods.

After I put the rocks and water back in I ran my Diatom filter 7 times to clean it up. I really don't know how people stay in this hobby without one. I could never survive.

I think I went through maybe 8 of them in the years I have been doing this.

One good thing, I found this guy who I haven't seen since I put him in. He seems happy and healthy.

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

After I put the rocks and water back in I ran my Diatom filter 7 times to clean it up. I really don't know how people stay in this hobby without one. I could never survive.

Power filters work very similar.

 

[Paul B]

Yeah, but not old school enough and that thing would clog in 2 minutes or less.

My Koran Angel is alive and well so I can take him to his new home. My tank looks good but a little bare from all the rocks I didn't put in. I will add a few of then but not to many. My reef is now a lacework of open spaces and I kind of like it. It has very open rock work which wasn't easy to do and doing that unfortunately makes the aquascape very prone to collapsing as none of the rocks are touching the back glass.

Taking my wife to her Dr. now so I will try to take pictures later.

 

[Paul B]

I made linguine and clams tonight and saved some clams for my fish. My urchin just ate one. He doesn't know he is a vegan.

 

[Paul B]

It's getting there.

Tonight I made linguine and clams so my fish ate clams as did my urchin who doesn't know he is a vegan.

 

[Paul B]

The tank is doing well. I just had my arms in it for an hour gluing gorgonians and leathers and "fixing" the rock which is very precarious and I am sure it will fall soon

I added more rock and still have a lot left over that probably won't go in.
Unfortunately I found a dead fish in the vat where I had the rock after I removed it from the tank. It was a cool looking gobi who must have hidden in a rock as I removed it. I didn't even know I had him.

All in all one fish lost isn't all that bad considering all the work I did to this tank yesterday.

Soon, maybe today depending on the tide I will drive down to the beach to collect some algae covered rocks to temporarily add for the diversity and bacteria. I want to make sure algae grows and some new, fresh amphipods and copepods won't hurt and will give some food to my urchin and 7 or 8 pod eaters.
It's still a little murky from my hands being in there just now.

 

[Paul B]

This morning it was 23 degrees and I walked down to the beach. The ocean is at the end of this road and it is a huge hill. I like to walk this way occasionally to start my walk because it is a big climb and my heart gets started.

My tiny tomini tang doubled in size

Bluestripes seem happy.

I have 4 of these Hector gobys

 

[Cpage101]

This morning it was 23 degrees and I walked down to the beach. The ocean is at the end of this road and it is a huge hill. I like to walk this way occasionally to start my walk because it is a big climb and my heart gets started.

View attachment 190113


My tiny tomini tang doubled in size

View attachment 190114



Bluestripes seem happy.


View attachment 190115

I have 4 of these Hector gobys

View attachment 190116

View attachment 190117

longnose hawkfish is one of my favorites they have such personality

 

[Paul B]

Yes they do. They also love to jump out and thats how I normally lose them.

 

[Cpage101]

Yes they do. They also love to jump out and thats how I normally lose them.

Lol that’s why I made a DIY screen tops. for my wrasse and him. I lost my 1st one to floor surfing