Paul B's thread

[Joe Rice]

Just a wet, dark, cold morning walk. I never see anyone at this time, especially in the rain.

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That looks like a car on fire in the first pic.

 

[Paul B]

Maybe it is.

 

[Paul B]

The sun finally came out this morning for my walk.

 

[Paul B]

Our Grand Daughter, Greta came to visit us old people for a few days.

 

[Paul B]

Now that my tank "seems" to be free of encrusting sponge my corals look hugely better. The toxins from the sponge was severely limiting the growth of those. Now they all have full extension even though they are all surrounded by hair algae.

Hopefully the algae is smothering any remaining sponge and I know it is purifying the water of any remaining sponge toxins and eliminating the organics that I have left from cleaning my rocks in the dark and cold.

I am finding corals that I thought were gone so I bought a bubble coral today to see how it does. If in a couple of weeks it still does well, I will fill my tank with some of the corals that were smothered by sponge. Of course I have to many fish

 

[Paul B]

I found this in my old Log book and it wasn't easy. I started the log in 1971 and it goes to about 1992. I have a bunch of extensive notes and many things I am embarrassed to say I did because at that time, there were no Salt water fish medications so I used people meds usually not with good results. Look at some of the medications I used in 1975. I was like Humblefish then. Now I know better and don't use any medications.

I know,,,,Scary.

But this is how I say I cured HLLE on a French Angelfish

I wrote this in the 70s and barely remember it but HLLE on a French Angel would look really bad. (We didn't call it HLLE then. It was "Fading Color Disease")

I used Cod Liver Oil capsules. I would stick a pill with a pin and disperse a couple of drops of the oil on the surface after I shut off the pumps. It would make a slick on the entire tank and will be absorbed in flake food. Flakes are something I would never feed except for this treatment.

You can take this "cure" as you like.

 

[Paul B]

I trained one of my hermit crabs to clean the tank. He has headlights, a vacuum, wire brush to clean the glass, a bumper and a Blue tooth antenna.

 

[Paul B]

These Ruby Reds are trying to spawn but it is hard with big brother watching.

 

[Paul B]

Today Is Viet Nam Veterans Day. I am sure almost no one except maybe Veterans knew this day even existed

 

[Paul B]

Actually I found out it is in March so I screwed up.

Very foggy morning. I noticed this crane in a pond across the street from me in the golf course looking for fish. With all the bullfrogs and turtles in that pond the only things in there are golf balls.
The bird is huge, I thought it was an Emu. I took this picture from pretty far away because I was afraid he would pick me up and carry me back to feed his kids.

 

[Paul B]

I am diatoming my tank again. I have been doing this almost every day since I removed the sponge and a hair algae produce stand grew.

This is a good thing and the algae is now dying after it has done it's thing so I am vacuuming it out. The tank is looking good and after all the algae is gone, I can re glue some of my corals back where they are supposed to go. I don't want to do that yet with the algae still there.

I am almost proud of my tank again and I feel in a couple of weeks it will be better than ever.

Th fish are spawning and corals are extending nicely without the toxins from the sponge suppressing them.

 

[Paul B]

This morning walk.

A couple of new fish

 

[Paul B]

Still a lot of algae, but getting better

 

[Paul B]

I caught this beautiful Filefish just now to return back to the store as he grew a little larger than I like. He is about 5" and I rather have 5 or 6 small interesting fish than this big guy. I also have 2 more of them and when they get to big, I will return them.

I caught him with this hook which I made from a needle. I have caught a few fish like this and never hurt any of them as far as I can tell.

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The only other way I could catch this fish would be to remove everything from the tank.

 

[Paul B]

That filefish is back in the store in his show tanks so he won't be sold. I picked up another one of each of these just because I can. He didn't have anything else earth shattering that I wanted.







And a big, blue hermit crab

 

[Paul B]

This is how I caught a blue wrasse 5 years ago with a hook.

 

[Paul B]

My new Possum wrasse became best friends with my old one and my new yellow clown gobi is more than friends with my other one.

 

[Paul B]

Morning walk

 

[Paul B]

I have this pair of Fireclowns for about 30 years. Years ago, when she was about 25, the older one looked like this. Notice the "bags" under her eyes.



Now she looks like this. No white "bags" under her eyes and a perfect coloring. They are still constantly spawning.

I wish I could get better looking with age.

 

[Paul B]

Playing with the camera.