Only after they eat your shrimp.Yeah, but they jump out.
Hello, Geezer coming back to this forum. Paul B
- Thread starter Paul B
- Start date
A long nose hawk has always been on my bucket list but I also like shrimp lol
Paul B
Premium Member
My tank is doing very well, all fish are really healthy, some spawning including mandarins, fireclowns and ruby red dragonettes. The only thing I don't like about my tank is due to the mistake I did a few years ago by adding a photosynthetic sponge that is taking over the tank.
It is really healthy which is to bad as it tries to cover the corals and it exudes a toxin that kills SPS corals especially if I try to cut pieces of the sponge out so now my tank is all LPS, gorgonians and leathers. I kind of like them but wish I had more space to put them but the sponge covers all the real estate.
At my age I am not going to worry about it and certainly not going to start a new tank. I have been slowing down the sponge growth by eliminating silicate from my NSW and top up water. Eventually I think I will eliminate it but it may take years.
The stuff doesn't look bad, kind of like blue montipora.
I think I have between 25 and 30 fish but I keep a lot of fish that hide and I will almost never see many of them. It's OK as long as I know they are in there and healthy.
Looking at my tank the rocks go to the top of the tank and the rock consists of a maze of interconnecting caves and tunnels where the fish can hide. Also any exposed rock that is not covered in corals or sponge is covered with growth that houses multitudes of copepods, amphipods, worms and starfish. All of that contributes to the health of the tank.
Copepod
Notice this Long Nose Hawkfish and what he is laying on. This is in my tank and part of what covers the back and darker parts of my tank.
Some see this as dirt, but the fish see this as health. (doesn't he look comfy?)
I feel the reason so many people have problems with this is the lack of "normal and natural" hiding places. A cave made out of 3 pieces of rock won't do it. The correct food, which does not mean dry foods like pellets and flakes. A food with living bacteria in it and not just the bacteria from our hands.
Medication, whatever it is and long quarantine.
If your tank is white and clean, you probably will have problems......Sorry.
It is really healthy which is to bad as it tries to cover the corals and it exudes a toxin that kills SPS corals especially if I try to cut pieces of the sponge out so now my tank is all LPS, gorgonians and leathers. I kind of like them but wish I had more space to put them but the sponge covers all the real estate.
At my age I am not going to worry about it and certainly not going to start a new tank. I have been slowing down the sponge growth by eliminating silicate from my NSW and top up water. Eventually I think I will eliminate it but it may take years.
The stuff doesn't look bad, kind of like blue montipora.
I think I have between 25 and 30 fish but I keep a lot of fish that hide and I will almost never see many of them. It's OK as long as I know they are in there and healthy.
Looking at my tank the rocks go to the top of the tank and the rock consists of a maze of interconnecting caves and tunnels where the fish can hide. Also any exposed rock that is not covered in corals or sponge is covered with growth that houses multitudes of copepods, amphipods, worms and starfish. All of that contributes to the health of the tank.
Copepod
Notice this Long Nose Hawkfish and what he is laying on. This is in my tank and part of what covers the back and darker parts of my tank.
Some see this as dirt, but the fish see this as health. (doesn't he look comfy?)
I feel the reason so many people have problems with this is the lack of "normal and natural" hiding places. A cave made out of 3 pieces of rock won't do it. The correct food, which does not mean dry foods like pellets and flakes. A food with living bacteria in it and not just the bacteria from our hands.
Medication, whatever it is and long quarantine.
If your tank is white and clean, you probably will have problems......Sorry.
Cool fish. Country Critters?
Paul B
Premium Member
Thats where I got it. I take my wife to a doctor across the street so every week I go in there to browse. If I see something unusual, I get it. Normally I go to Aqua Hut a few miles north of there on the same road as the prices are much lower there.
But Aqua Hut has a very sparse selection of corals and not in very good shape. Sometimes I find something he doesn't even know he has and it is a deal.
I take my wife to a doctor across the street so every week I go in there to browse. If I see something unusual, I get it. Normally I go to Aqua Hut a few miles north of there on the same road as the prices are much lower there.But Aqua Hut has a very sparse selection of corals and not in very good shape. Sometimes I find something he doesn't even know he has and it is a deal.
Cool looking fish
Paul B
Premium Member
"From 2 years ago":
As I sit here self quarantining myself I have a lot of time to look at and ponder my tank. As I study it from the front and the back which I just scraped clean just to do something I noticed something that we rarely speak about.
We normally make our aquascape to look like something pleasing to us. But how do we know if the fish like it? After all, they have to live in it.
I think my fish absolutely love their home and if they had thumbs, they would be giving me the "Thumbs Up" sign.
Most of us (no one here I am sure) certainly look very ugly and scary to our fish and remember they can see us as well as we see them. They can also see our homes, TV, sock drawer kitchen etc. When we eat fish, I put a blanket over the tank so they don't get the horrors.
Anyway, I designed my aquascape with so many caves, nooks and crannies that I have some fish that I see maybe a couple of times a year. That may not be good for me but one fish that I saw maybe once a year lived almost undetected for 18 years. A Brutlyd or 6" cusk eel and I killed it by accident when I took out a rock and didn't know he was there.
Fish need to feel secure and if you can see them, they know it and don't feel safe. PVC pipes and flowerpots do not cut it and you may as well shoot those poor fish as they hate that. That is one big reason so many fish die in quarantine. It isn't their perceived disease, it is their surroundings.
My entire reef structure is built on a base which I built out of cement and the thing sits roughly about 1 1/2" off the gravel.
I can see the back of the tank under the reef almost everywhere and in that under space is an interconnected catacomb system where a fish the size of a mid sized copperband butterfly can hide while traveling from one end of the 6' tank to the other.
After cleaning the back of the tank a couple of days ago I discovered that I have two rainsford gobies, 2 green clown gobies, 2 six line wrasses, 2 possum wrasses, 2 gecko gobies and a pistol shrimp.
I didn't realize I had two of those fish because of all the hiding places I never see both of them at the same time.
You may not like this, but the fish do, which is one reason they only die of old age.
If you do any diving you will notice that there are very few, if any fish that will let you get with in a few feet of them before they hide. Great white sharks are one that let you get very close and personnel.
Fish like Hippo tangs love to jam themselves into a tight space just to have some "personnel" time which is why if you see them in a bare tank, they will be behind the heater. Mine is hiding right now and if I had to find him, I probably couldn't.
My 7" Janss Pipefish rests laying up side down on the top of a cave and my 2 Gecko Gobies have found such a secure place that I can say I never see them. I know they are there because if I "shoot" some live worms into their hole, Iget to see a glimmer of a fin or tail.
This system of caves (not just one or two) and hidden passageways is crucial for many fishes health and one big reason we have a disease forum because fish that can't hide are very stressed and stressed fish are the ones that get sick.
I myself am writing this from under a chair right now.
This piece I built from real rock, dead coral and cement. This and two more like it form the base of my reef structure.
As I sit here self quarantining myself I have a lot of time to look at and ponder my tank. As I study it from the front and the back which I just scraped clean just to do something I noticed something that we rarely speak about.
We normally make our aquascape to look like something pleasing to us. But how do we know if the fish like it? After all, they have to live in it.
I think my fish absolutely love their home and if they had thumbs, they would be giving me the "Thumbs Up" sign.
Most of us (no one here I am sure) certainly look very ugly and scary to our fish and remember they can see us as well as we see them. They can also see our homes, TV, sock drawer kitchen etc. When we eat fish, I put a blanket over the tank so they don't get the horrors.
Anyway, I designed my aquascape with so many caves, nooks and crannies that I have some fish that I see maybe a couple of times a year. That may not be good for me but one fish that I saw maybe once a year lived almost undetected for 18 years. A Brutlyd or 6" cusk eel and I killed it by accident when I took out a rock and didn't know he was there.
Fish need to feel secure and if you can see them, they know it and don't feel safe. PVC pipes and flowerpots do not cut it and you may as well shoot those poor fish as they hate that. That is one big reason so many fish die in quarantine. It isn't their perceived disease, it is their surroundings.
My entire reef structure is built on a base which I built out of cement and the thing sits roughly about 1 1/2" off the gravel.
I can see the back of the tank under the reef almost everywhere and in that under space is an interconnected catacomb system where a fish the size of a mid sized copperband butterfly can hide while traveling from one end of the 6' tank to the other.
After cleaning the back of the tank a couple of days ago I discovered that I have two rainsford gobies, 2 green clown gobies, 2 six line wrasses, 2 possum wrasses, 2 gecko gobies and a pistol shrimp.
I didn't realize I had two of those fish because of all the hiding places I never see both of them at the same time.
You may not like this, but the fish do, which is one reason they only die of old age.
If you do any diving you will notice that there are very few, if any fish that will let you get with in a few feet of them before they hide. Great white sharks are one that let you get very close and personnel.
Fish like Hippo tangs love to jam themselves into a tight space just to have some "personnel" time which is why if you see them in a bare tank, they will be behind the heater. Mine is hiding right now and if I had to find him, I probably couldn't.
My 7" Janss Pipefish rests laying up side down on the top of a cave and my 2 Gecko Gobies have found such a secure place that I can say I never see them. I know they are there because if I "shoot" some live worms into their hole, Iget to see a glimmer of a fin or tail.
This system of caves (not just one or two) and hidden passageways is crucial for many fishes health and one big reason we have a disease forum because fish that can't hide are very stressed and stressed fish are the ones that get sick.
I myself am writing this from under a chair right now.
This piece I built from real rock, dead coral and cement. This and two more like it form the base of my reef structure.
Paul B
Premium Member
I have been having upper back issues (because my life was full of Manly work where you actually have to lift and hold heavy things over your head for many hours, resisting gravity while you wait for an apprentice to get the screw started)
Anyway, my X rays and MRIs indicate that if I move incorrectly about 7 of my disks will shoot out of my back and land on the floor where they will get all dirty and maybe fall into a storm drain.
I go to this Pain Mgt Dr. mainly because she is a Supermodel, but secondly because she is a very good pain Mgt. Dr.
She gave me a few spine injection or infusion procedures where they drill a hole in your back while you are laying on your stomach listening to Billy Joel singing "A bottle of red, a bottle of white, a bottle of rose for your appetite". Then while she watches an X Ray or maybe a Lady GaGa concert she sticks needles into this tube that floods your spine with embalming fluid.
I think some of it was an epidural but not sure. She did both sides of my spine and I feel no pain. The last time she did it I was good for three entire days.
You can only get this done 3 times a year. I am not sure if that is because of insurance or a shortage of embalming fluid.
Anyway at my age we all get something and I am almost in perfect health and most of me runs like a very healthy red legged hermit crab who just got a whiff of a freshly killed Moorish Idol.
So now she put me on Gabapentin which is a nerve thing but it also gives you delusions, Diarrhea, shortness of breath, dizziness, hair loss, weight gain, weight loss, insomnia and an uncontrollable fear of quarantine.
If this doesn't work there is a surgery that fixes it. They remove 7 disks from your back and send them to the National Hockey Team.
Then so you don't stand like a Jelly fish, they screw a couple of re-bars for strengthening concrete into your spine with toggle bolts in an effort to keep you upright unlike a Moray eel.
Of course you can no longer bend or twist so you can't put on shoes and have to hire someone to cut your toe nails. My wife frowns on that so I will forgo that operation for now and just munch on these Gabapentin pills.
Anyway, my X rays and MRIs indicate that if I move incorrectly about 7 of my disks will shoot out of my back and land on the floor where they will get all dirty and maybe fall into a storm drain.
I go to this Pain Mgt Dr. mainly because she is a Supermodel, but secondly because she is a very good pain Mgt. Dr.
She gave me a few spine injection or infusion procedures where they drill a hole in your back while you are laying on your stomach listening to Billy Joel singing "A bottle of red, a bottle of white, a bottle of rose for your appetite". Then while she watches an X Ray or maybe a Lady GaGa concert she sticks needles into this tube that floods your spine with embalming fluid.
I think some of it was an epidural but not sure. She did both sides of my spine and I feel no pain. The last time she did it I was good for three entire days.
You can only get this done 3 times a year. I am not sure if that is because of insurance or a shortage of embalming fluid.
Anyway at my age we all get something and I am almost in perfect health and most of me runs like a very healthy red legged hermit crab who just got a whiff of a freshly killed Moorish Idol.
So now she put me on Gabapentin which is a nerve thing but it also gives you delusions, Diarrhea, shortness of breath, dizziness, hair loss, weight gain, weight loss, insomnia and an uncontrollable fear of quarantine.
If this doesn't work there is a surgery that fixes it. They remove 7 disks from your back and send them to the National Hockey Team.
Then so you don't stand like a Jelly fish, they screw a couple of re-bars for strengthening concrete into your spine with toggle bolts in an effort to keep you upright unlike a Moray eel.
Of course you can no longer bend or twist so you can't put on shoes and have to hire someone to cut your toe nails. My wife frowns on that so I will forgo that operation for now and just munch on these Gabapentin pills.
Hey Paul, you may want to look into kiziks. They are slip on shoes that look like real shoes. My father in law uses them and has never had an issue with them
kizik.com
Hands-Free Shoes | Slip On Sneakers | Kizik
Kizik: The world’s best hands-free shoes. No tying, no pulling, no heel crushing, no hands. Never bend down to put on shoes again! FREE shipping & free returns!
kizik.com
Paul B
Premium Member
LOL. Thanks. I am not that bad yet I still walk 2 miles every morning and I am going now. I may have exaggerated a bit in that post.
With my spine now numb I put brakes on my neighbors car yesterday.
If those shoes are not made in China, I am sure some day I will wear them. But I put my wife's shoes on now so maybe I will get them for her.
Thanks.
I still walk 2 miles every morning and I am going now. I may have exaggerated a bit in that post. With my spine now numb I put brakes on my neighbors car yesterday.
If those shoes are not made in China, I am sure some day I will wear them. But I put my wife's shoes on now so maybe I will get them for her.
Thanks.
Unfortunately I do believe they are made in China.
Paul B
Premium Member
I am running out of room with my other hobbies so I will have to sell my steampunk stuff for about an eighth of what it sells for in an art gallery.
I have been making live edge tables and now I am making a waterfall table.
Very cool. I get so many compliments on my finished table I decided to make more so I bought 5 more pieces of live edge wood. I also have no room for these so I will probably give them away.
I have been making live edge tables and now I am making a waterfall table.
Very cool. I get so many compliments on my finished table I decided to make more so I bought 5 more pieces of live edge wood. I also have no room for these so I will probably give them away.
Advertise them on here “Tables for Aquarium supplies”
Paul B
Premium Member
I was searching for something on the Net and accidentally found this video from Viet Nam. It is the exact place and time I was there. LZ Snuffy 1970. I was a Sargent in the First Air Cav which is the unit here.
I don't remember seeing any film crews while I was there so this may have been filmed a week before I was there. LZ Snuffy wasn't there for more than a few weeks so I must have just missed it because I watched it but didn't see myself.
Some of the video where you see barbed wire and landed Cobra Gunships is in some rear area as we didn't have wire or airfields but they did support us constantly so they weren't far off. I was on 14 of these LZs in my time there, most were short lived.
Some of it is not PC. Sorry but I didn't film it.
I don't remember seeing any film crews while I was there so this may have been filmed a week before I was there. LZ Snuffy wasn't there for more than a few weeks so I must have just missed it because I watched it but didn't see myself.
Some of the video where you see barbed wire and landed Cobra Gunships is in some rear area as we didn't have wire or airfields but they did support us constantly so they weren't far off. I was on 14 of these LZs in my time there, most were short lived.
Some of it is not PC. Sorry but I didn't film it.
Thanks for posting that… being in that age group, I’ve always been interested in the war info…
My cousin was a huey pilot and my uncle make weekly flights delivering empty coffins and picking up full ones! Lost a few friends there and a couple that survived are still around.
The only lottery that I ever won, was the draft lottery… got a high number, so there was no way that I would be drafted.
My cousin was a huey pilot and my uncle make weekly flights delivering empty coffins and picking up full ones! Lost a few friends there and a couple that survived are still around.
The only lottery that I ever won, was the draft lottery… got a high number, so there was no way that I would be drafted.
Similar threads
