I just use a photo resizer to post larger photos here
Hello, Geezer coming back to this forum. Paul B
- Thread starter Paul B
- Start date
Paul B
Premium Member
I don't think so Paul. If you have any further issues, email me the photo so i can look into it.
Paul B
Premium Member
Yes, But she is not my Army Buddy.
Paul B
Premium Member
As I said a number of times, I have been married for almost half a century and I realize many people can't seem to find happiness with their relationship.
I have a few tips that have worked for me.
This morning like all mornings I went for my 2 mile walk/jog. I make my wife breakfast every day (since I have been retired) and on my walk, occasionally I pick some wild flowers (or nice looking weeds) to put by my wife's breakfast plate.
I realize it is "corny" (as they used to say in the 50s) but my wife gets a kick out of it. Men have been giving flowers to women since they invented women. I think her name was Eve.
But there is a secret as to why men always did that. Women don't really like flowers. Some of them just sneeze and throw them away when you turn around.
It's not the flowers. It has nothing to do with flowers. It is the fact that you were thinking about her and had enough feelings that you went out of your way to either buy or pick them.
Of course you can use chocolates or "rarely" diamonds. OK very rarely. Sometimes I take a ride to Starbucks just to get her her favorite Cafe Latte.
This is just a little thing that takes no time and the both of you will appreciate it. It will be good for both of you.
I also occasionally buy my wife a Christmas present even if it is summer time. These little nothing things mean a lot to a lot of Ladies.
Many Men need to get out of the bar, get off your Harley, get away from the TV, stop working on your car and do some little thing for your lady that you would never do and she would not expect you to do.
And I am not a Sissy, Girly man.....
It may allow your marriage to last for the rest of your life.
I have a few tips that have worked for me.
This morning like all mornings I went for my 2 mile walk/jog. I make my wife breakfast every day (since I have been retired) and on my walk, occasionally I pick some wild flowers (or nice looking weeds) to put by my wife's breakfast plate.
I realize it is "corny" (as they used to say in the 50s) but my wife gets a kick out of it. Men have been giving flowers to women since they invented women. I think her name was Eve.
But there is a secret as to why men always did that. Women don't really like flowers. Some of them just sneeze and throw them away when you turn around.
It's not the flowers. It has nothing to do with flowers. It is the fact that you were thinking about her and had enough feelings that you went out of your way to either buy or pick them.
Of course you can use chocolates or "rarely" diamonds. OK very rarely. Sometimes I take a ride to Starbucks just to get her her favorite Cafe Latte.
This is just a little thing that takes no time and the both of you will appreciate it. It will be good for both of you.
I also occasionally buy my wife a Christmas present even if it is summer time. These little nothing things mean a lot to a lot of Ladies.
Many Men need to get out of the bar, get off your Harley, get away from the TV, stop working on your car and do some little thing for your lady that you would never do and she would not expect you to do.
And I am not a Sissy, Girly man.....
It may allow your marriage to last for the rest of your life.
Vinny Kreyling
Premium Member
After all these years of pickin you couldn't find a small vase to put them in?
Paul B
Premium Member
From a long time ago.
Thinking outside the box
Unfortunately there is this box. It is very comfortable and warm inside the box which is why almost everyone wants to stay and think inside the box. People inside the box all have much of the same ideas and ways of thinking and oddly enough many of the same problems that don't get resolved using the same methods that people inside the box have been using since the salt water hobby started in the United States in 1971. I think it was on a Tuesday about 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon.
Even though many of the methods don't work, people still use those methods because the sides of the box are very hard so the information gets echoed all over the box and we hear the same wrong information over and over again. We can't help but to use those methods because that is whats inside that box. The box also gets a daily influx of Noobs and many times Noobs will try something and it will work. Of course they don't know that that thing has been done forty seven thousand times.
Then that information bounces around the box and everyone in the box hears it and thinks that is the way to do that particular thing. So it is done over and over again and even though it worked once, and never works again, it is still done because eventually that Noob gets out of the hobby and goes on one of those "Getting out of the Hobby, everything for sale " threads, but his Ideas keep getting re-circulated. He goes on to collect stamps and becomes an accountant at Burger King where he becomes a manager of the French Fry cooker.
Many years ago there was no box. All we had was wide open spaces, Elvis, Marylin Monroe, bell bottoms and a lot of sky. There were also no methods so we had to find our own ways to do things. We had to experiment and in doing so we killed more fish than StarKist Tuna. There was only one salt water hobbiest per state and there was no internet and we didn't know each other so everyone was a researcher. When we bought a fish, no one knew anything about that fish except the fish itself and Jacues Cousteau and he wasn't talking.
So if our tank got overcome with hair algae, we learned on our own how to deal with it. We grew enough algae to cover a 19 hole golf course, but eventually we overcame and eliminated the algae. Of course if we were inside the box we would learn that changing the water will help with that. But we, outside the box realize that never works so we didn't do that.
When our fish got parasites we quickly learned how to deal with that also. Again, if we were inside the box we would change the water , with the same result.
If a fish died, we learned through trial and error how to correct that situation. No, we didn't change the water or check our parameters. We had no test kits anyway so we had to rely on our common sense which worked out pretty well.
We also learned, on our own how to feed fish so they would never get sick. We found out that our fish were supposed to spawn all the time and if they didn't, they were not healthy and prone to diseases. We could have changed the water but knew that in the future there would be this box where everyone changed water all the time but still had numerous problems.
We never had a new fish that wouldn't eat because our tanks were natural and healthy, not sterile like a newly shampooed rug like many of the tanks inside the box.
Sometimes, after a while someone climbs outside of the box and in doing so trys to go against the fine folks inside the box. The people inside the box make fun of that person and say his (or her) Ideas can't work because it is just not done that way. If say that person uses a reverse undergravel filter, the laughter from inside the box will rise to a roar. If that person goes against biblical box knowledge and finds a way to keep fish healthy without quarantining, that roar will become a typhoon and the box will shake.
The box people will never accept those outside the box ideas because it is just not taught inside the box. Even if those outside of the box ideas are proven, they will never be taken seriously, and more importantly if any of those ideas and methods are very cheap and easy to implement, forget about it, that person may as well take up collecting old shoes because he will be driven out of the fish hobby.
Now everyone knows there are some really nice tanks inside the box. Some tanks, everyone are jealous of so going outside the box is not for everyone. But history proves that all of the new, important, earth shattering or Awe inspiring events that happened were the result of thinking outside the box because if everyone always thought inside the box there would never be any improvement because the box doesn't allow for it.
Most Neanderthals thought inside the box which is the reason they walked around for thousands of years carrying sticks and little else. It took an outside the box thinker to invent a microwave so Neanderthals could throw away that stick and heat up a TV dinner. Eventually Neanderthals got taken over by Liberals who invented that box.
Thinking outside the box
Unfortunately there is this box. It is very comfortable and warm inside the box which is why almost everyone wants to stay and think inside the box. People inside the box all have much of the same ideas and ways of thinking and oddly enough many of the same problems that don't get resolved using the same methods that people inside the box have been using since the salt water hobby started in the United States in 1971. I think it was on a Tuesday about 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon.
Even though many of the methods don't work, people still use those methods because the sides of the box are very hard so the information gets echoed all over the box and we hear the same wrong information over and over again. We can't help but to use those methods because that is whats inside that box. The box also gets a daily influx of Noobs and many times Noobs will try something and it will work. Of course they don't know that that thing has been done forty seven thousand times.
Then that information bounces around the box and everyone in the box hears it and thinks that is the way to do that particular thing. So it is done over and over again and even though it worked once, and never works again, it is still done because eventually that Noob gets out of the hobby and goes on one of those "Getting out of the Hobby, everything for sale " threads, but his Ideas keep getting re-circulated. He goes on to collect stamps and becomes an accountant at Burger King where he becomes a manager of the French Fry cooker.
Many years ago there was no box. All we had was wide open spaces, Elvis, Marylin Monroe, bell bottoms and a lot of sky. There were also no methods so we had to find our own ways to do things. We had to experiment and in doing so we killed more fish than StarKist Tuna. There was only one salt water hobbiest per state and there was no internet and we didn't know each other so everyone was a researcher. When we bought a fish, no one knew anything about that fish except the fish itself and Jacues Cousteau and he wasn't talking.
So if our tank got overcome with hair algae, we learned on our own how to deal with it. We grew enough algae to cover a 19 hole golf course, but eventually we overcame and eliminated the algae. Of course if we were inside the box we would learn that changing the water will help with that. But we, outside the box realize that never works so we didn't do that.
When our fish got parasites we quickly learned how to deal with that also. Again, if we were inside the box we would change the water , with the same result.
If a fish died, we learned through trial and error how to correct that situation. No, we didn't change the water or check our parameters. We had no test kits anyway so we had to rely on our common sense which worked out pretty well.
We also learned, on our own how to feed fish so they would never get sick. We found out that our fish were supposed to spawn all the time and if they didn't, they were not healthy and prone to diseases. We could have changed the water but knew that in the future there would be this box where everyone changed water all the time but still had numerous problems.
We never had a new fish that wouldn't eat because our tanks were natural and healthy, not sterile like a newly shampooed rug like many of the tanks inside the box.
Sometimes, after a while someone climbs outside of the box and in doing so trys to go against the fine folks inside the box. The people inside the box make fun of that person and say his (or her) Ideas can't work because it is just not done that way. If say that person uses a reverse undergravel filter, the laughter from inside the box will rise to a roar. If that person goes against biblical box knowledge and finds a way to keep fish healthy without quarantining, that roar will become a typhoon and the box will shake.
The box people will never accept those outside the box ideas because it is just not taught inside the box. Even if those outside of the box ideas are proven, they will never be taken seriously, and more importantly if any of those ideas and methods are very cheap and easy to implement, forget about it, that person may as well take up collecting old shoes because he will be driven out of the fish hobby.
Now everyone knows there are some really nice tanks inside the box. Some tanks, everyone are jealous of so going outside the box is not for everyone. But history proves that all of the new, important, earth shattering or Awe inspiring events that happened were the result of thinking outside the box because if everyone always thought inside the box there would never be any improvement because the box doesn't allow for it.
Most Neanderthals thought inside the box which is the reason they walked around for thousands of years carrying sticks and little else. It took an outside the box thinker to invent a microwave so Neanderthals could throw away that stick and heat up a TV dinner. Eventually Neanderthals got taken over by Liberals who invented that box.
Paul B
Premium Member
I don't think so. I was actually thinking of another book but I am not sure what it will be about..Maybe Aardvarks or my favorite animal duck billed platypuses. Or maybe fish.
I have new ideas on immunity and my wife's Neurologist taught me a few things by inviting me to a few conferences.
I have new ideas on immunity and my wife's Neurologist taught me a few things by inviting me to a few conferences.
Paul B
Premium Member
So yesterday my wife tells me we have to go to a dermatologist for a skin check. She is very worried about skin for some reason like many people here worry about ich.
So we go for this skin thing and the both of us go into this room together and are sitting there looking at the bad art on the wall. Then this tall blonde comes in and asks us to take our clothes off. I am thinking, Wow, this is getting interesting, but then she left with her clothes on.
My wife and I are sitting in the silly paper gowns that I doubt were designed by Tommy Hilfiger and in comes Doogie Howser. No really! this guy looked just like Doogie Howser and seem to be about 12.
A "Nurse" or assistant also came in. Not the tall blonde but she was very nice and seemed sterile with the goggles, gown, gloves and all that. I figured maybe she was going to check our skin on the inside maybe through an orifice or something.
So my wife gets on the chair which raises her to this Doctors eye level which was about 3' from the floor and it flattens her out. He has a flashlight and is looking very closely at every pore. He may have been searching for velvet or uronema but didn't find any so his assistant put away the Coppersafe she was holding.
He did find something and said he was going to freeze it off so he shot it with this can of spray paint.
The rest of her was fine so they leave and tell me to get on the table.
When they come back I am sleeping but his assistant wakes me and says, It's my turn. I find this stupid as my skin is perfect and I should go on "Perfect Skin Monthly" magazine.
So Dugie uses the flashlight on me and on the back of my arm finds this freckle that I am sure I was born with and says "OMG" this is a pre melanoma goma se yam. He needs to remove it and send it out for DNA or some other stupid test. Of course he does so he rips the thing off and gives it to his assistant who takes it in her double gloves hands with a face shield and Hazmat suit and puts it in a jar that she probably used to make her own frozen food for her lipstick tang.
Now Doogie continues to search my body and in the background I can hear that song, Your Body is a Wonderland".
He starts looking in my eyes. Then he gets closer to where his nose is right next to mine. I didn't know if I was supposed to kiss this guy or name my kids after him. He moves back and says again: "OMG" this looks like another thing I need to remove. I said, it is in my lower eyelid, just leave the thing along and go feed your fish.
He says, absolutely not, this needs to be removed. Now he takes this needle and pulls back my lower eyelid by holding my very long eyelashes.
"DON'T BLINK"! Yeah right, like that is gonna happen. He says are you allergic to anything? I said, Yes, "any kind of sharp thing near my eye".
The assistant laughed but it was an evil laugh. Then he plunged this horrible thing into my eyelid and removed the freckle which I am sure everybody has but no one goes to Doogie to remove. Now I have to wait for the results of the biopsy but before he let us leave he gave me a bottle of Prizapro with instructions to pour this into my eye 3 times a day and once every time I peer into my fish tank at night with a flashlight.
I really hate to get my skin checked because now, at home, I have to wash off all these checks.
So we go for this skin thing and the both of us go into this room together and are sitting there looking at the bad art on the wall. Then this tall blonde comes in and asks us to take our clothes off. I am thinking, Wow, this is getting interesting, but then she left with her clothes on.
My wife and I are sitting in the silly paper gowns that I doubt were designed by Tommy Hilfiger and in comes Doogie Howser. No really! this guy looked just like Doogie Howser and seem to be about 12.
A "Nurse" or assistant also came in. Not the tall blonde but she was very nice and seemed sterile with the goggles, gown, gloves and all that. I figured maybe she was going to check our skin on the inside maybe through an orifice or something.
So my wife gets on the chair which raises her to this Doctors eye level which was about 3' from the floor and it flattens her out. He has a flashlight and is looking very closely at every pore. He may have been searching for velvet or uronema but didn't find any so his assistant put away the Coppersafe she was holding.
He did find something and said he was going to freeze it off so he shot it with this can of spray paint.
The rest of her was fine so they leave and tell me to get on the table.
When they come back I am sleeping but his assistant wakes me and says, It's my turn. I find this stupid as my skin is perfect and I should go on "Perfect Skin Monthly" magazine.
So Dugie uses the flashlight on me and on the back of my arm finds this freckle that I am sure I was born with and says "OMG" this is a pre melanoma goma se yam. He needs to remove it and send it out for DNA or some other stupid test. Of course he does so he rips the thing off and gives it to his assistant who takes it in her double gloves hands with a face shield and Hazmat suit and puts it in a jar that she probably used to make her own frozen food for her lipstick tang.
Now Doogie continues to search my body and in the background I can hear that song, Your Body is a Wonderland".
He starts looking in my eyes. Then he gets closer to where his nose is right next to mine. I didn't know if I was supposed to kiss this guy or name my kids after him. He moves back and says again: "OMG" this looks like another thing I need to remove. I said, it is in my lower eyelid, just leave the thing along and go feed your fish.
He says, absolutely not, this needs to be removed. Now he takes this needle and pulls back my lower eyelid by holding my very long eyelashes.
"DON'T BLINK"! Yeah right, like that is gonna happen. He says are you allergic to anything? I said, Yes, "any kind of sharp thing near my eye".
The assistant laughed but it was an evil laugh. Then he plunged this horrible thing into my eyelid and removed the freckle which I am sure everybody has but no one goes to Doogie to remove. Now I have to wait for the results of the biopsy but before he let us leave he gave me a bottle of Prizapro with instructions to pour this into my eye 3 times a day and once every time I peer into my fish tank at night with a flashlight.
I really hate to get my skin checked because now, at home, I have to wash off all these checks.
Paul B
Premium Member
I don't find fish any sicker today than I did 40 years ago. To me, whatever disease we perceive them to come in with is just something that all fish in the sea have and the store or wholesaler has to use some sort of medication so they can sell that fish. I get that and I would do the same thing or there would be no salt water fish hobby.
Those medications will hide whatever disease those fish have so they can sell the fish and without them, no fish would make it through the collection, holding and shipping process. This is a necessary evil we must deal with for this hobby to continue.
Remember the parasites we see are on the outside of the fish, but the medication is going all through the organs of the fish and it's circulatory system. What do you think would happen to us if we drank copper, Prizapro or Hydrogen peroxide?
Those medications, no matter what they are will suppress the fishes immunity and the longer the fish is subjected to that, the worse it will be for the fish, and ultimately us the consumers.
Due to this, some fish will die shortly after we get them. That is because the gut bacteria is beyond the fishes ability to resurrect them.
The fish can't do it on their own. The only place gut bacteria can come from is the food. If we take that fish from an LFS and put it in a bare tank and feed something like flakes and pellets, it may be doomed depending on how long it was in medication as there is no gut bacteria in those foods.
Now if we again put it in more medication, the fish has no choice but to come down with one of the other diseases we see all the time on these forums. We can't treat those afflictions with medication because the fish is suffering from the very medications we are now using.
It's like George Washington. As he lay dying on Dec 14th 1799 at 67 years old his physician proceeded to use the trusted treatment of the time. They bled him and removed five pints of blood effectively killing him. (I know that is political. I am sorry)
We are doing the same thing with our fish.
It would be better if we took that fish from the wholesaler and immediately fed it with something with living bacteria like live worms. The fish will immediately start to re build it's gut bacteria and it's immunity to fight whatever it's ailments are as the fish already has immunity to it. It is just weakened by the medication because the existing immunity won't work without the bacteria and the fishes immune system will recognize the disease as soon as the bacteria develop.
Of curse the fish may die during this process because it doesn't happen overnight. But I do know that medication will make it worse.
Just my opinion of course and what do I know?
Those medications will hide whatever disease those fish have so they can sell the fish and without them, no fish would make it through the collection, holding and shipping process. This is a necessary evil we must deal with for this hobby to continue.
Remember the parasites we see are on the outside of the fish, but the medication is going all through the organs of the fish and it's circulatory system. What do you think would happen to us if we drank copper, Prizapro or Hydrogen peroxide?
Those medications, no matter what they are will suppress the fishes immunity and the longer the fish is subjected to that, the worse it will be for the fish, and ultimately us the consumers.
Due to this, some fish will die shortly after we get them. That is because the gut bacteria is beyond the fishes ability to resurrect them.
The fish can't do it on their own. The only place gut bacteria can come from is the food. If we take that fish from an LFS and put it in a bare tank and feed something like flakes and pellets, it may be doomed depending on how long it was in medication as there is no gut bacteria in those foods.
Now if we again put it in more medication, the fish has no choice but to come down with one of the other diseases we see all the time on these forums. We can't treat those afflictions with medication because the fish is suffering from the very medications we are now using.
It's like George Washington. As he lay dying on Dec 14th 1799 at 67 years old his physician proceeded to use the trusted treatment of the time. They bled him and removed five pints of blood effectively killing him. (I know that is political. I am sorry)
We are doing the same thing with our fish.
It would be better if we took that fish from the wholesaler and immediately fed it with something with living bacteria like live worms. The fish will immediately start to re build it's gut bacteria and it's immunity to fight whatever it's ailments are as the fish already has immunity to it. It is just weakened by the medication because the existing immunity won't work without the bacteria and the fishes immune system will recognize the disease as soon as the bacteria develop.
Of curse the fish may die during this process because it doesn't happen overnight. But I do know that medication will make it worse.
Just my opinion of course and what do I know?
Paul B
Premium Member
I am going out for my morning walk/jog now but it is still pitch dark out there and I don't want to get eaten by a rabid duck so I have to wait a few minutes. I slightly cut down on my "breakneck" speed on my "walks" because I lost slightly more weight than I wanted to.
2 years ago I planned to lose 25 lbs. I wasn't a Moose or anything but I was overweight like almost everyone in America except some ballet dancers and my blackworms. I weighed myself this morning and found I lost 28 lbs so I am fading away to a freight car.
This is a perfect weight for me and I keep asking my wife to call Jenny Craig to see if she needs a Spokesmodel. I keep refusing offers from
"Chip and Dale" dancers and I won't appear in any male underwear commercials. It just isn't me.
I normally walk on my morning walks but lately I have been jogging because I often see a female jogger who goes faster than I do....Much faster.
I am afraid she will catch me because it seems she is carrying a bunch of twenty dollar bills and I am not sure what she plans to do with them if she catches me.
Disclamer: This is a true story but:
If this is racist, feminist, abusive, anti semitic, anti tree, anti ballerina, anti Chip and Dale dancer, anti worms, ants, anti biotic, Anti M (from the Wizzard of OZ" rent it it has flying monkeys in it..You will love it) or any word that begins with the letter A, biased in any way on Earth, please delete it and sentence me and my fish to 74 days of quarantine in hydrogen peroxide while listening to Rap music through Alexa on volume 9
2 years ago I planned to lose 25 lbs. I wasn't a Moose or anything but I was overweight like almost everyone in America except some ballet dancers and my blackworms. I weighed myself this morning and found I lost 28 lbs so I am fading away to a freight car.
This is a perfect weight for me and I keep asking my wife to call Jenny Craig to see if she needs a Spokesmodel. I keep refusing offers from
"Chip and Dale" dancers and I won't appear in any male underwear commercials. It just isn't me.
I normally walk on my morning walks but lately I have been jogging because I often see a female jogger who goes faster than I do....Much faster.
I am afraid she will catch me because it seems she is carrying a bunch of twenty dollar bills and I am not sure what she plans to do with them if she catches me.
Disclamer: This is a true story but:
If this is racist, feminist, abusive, anti semitic, anti tree, anti ballerina, anti Chip and Dale dancer, anti worms, ants, anti biotic, Anti M (from the Wizzard of OZ" rent it it has flying monkeys in it..You will love it) or any word that begins with the letter A, biased in any way on Earth, please delete it and sentence me and my fish to 74 days of quarantine in hydrogen peroxide while listening to Rap music through Alexa on volume 9
Paul B
Premium Member
I was able to get a picture of my new, but tiny tomini tang. The thing is a little bigger than a nickel.
Anyway, this thread is not about that. I just now figured out how to get pictures off my phone and on to my computer without E Mailing them. E Mail here is horrible because I live on Mars,next to the sea and our phone service is sometimes "interesting".
This picture is not from Mars.
I took it yesterday "through" the back of my tank. I took this to show something that would make most people take out the cro bar and paint scraper to remove because they would call it disgusting. My fish call it lunch.
It is a half inch of algae, sponge, cyano and God knows what, but do you know what else it is? Pod Central. I never bought a pod in my life and I have two mandarins, two ruby red dragonettes and four pipefish as well as quite a few other pod eaters who would not live in a bare tank where you need an ATM next to your tank so you can afford pods.
Pods are like an Abacus, (Google it) They multiple faster than "Rain Man" (Google him to). Two pods will become 2,000 pods in a week or two if you feed them and a bare, clean tank won't do it. Pods need food and a lot of it. I am not sure if they prefer Big Macs or pistachio ice cream but they are more prolific than rabbits. (Wild rabbits not the silly, floppy eared ones people get in Petco and keep as pets).
A few weeks ago I added a pair of blue stripped pipefish. I have not seen them yet unless I go back there with a flashlight.
Yes, I would like to see them occasionally but this hobby has two kinds of people. The kind that have a pristine tank and they can see and count every fish they have and the people with the mature tanks where we never see many of the fish but we know they are in there, healthy, spawning and dancing to the early Stones. (I actually met Mick once.....OK,,I bumped into him.)
I have about 30 fish in my tank and if I look long enough, I will see every one of them. But normally you only see three or four of my fish. That is how fish want to be seen. They know we are watching so they take turns swimming past the front of the tank. The rest are hunting through the vast "forests" of farmland in the dark portions of the tank.
Of course you can't see this area of my tank from the front and I don't want my front glass to look like that. But it is considered "health" by my fish. Because of this grazing area my fish get a big discount on their life insurance as almost all of them die of old age.
This area is severely lacking in almost all tanks and 100% of new tanks which is causing many of the problems people have. You can develop an area like this by keeping enough rock in the tank so you can't see much of the back and never clean those areas. It may take a year or two to develop but it will get there. Pristine tanks are not healthy and your fish will hate you for that.
If you want to argue with me about that put a twenty dollar bill in an envelope with a self addressed, stamped return envelope and send it to me.
I will spend the twenty on Pistachio ice cream and throw out the envelope after I steam off the stamp.
Disregard this picture I had of this Male Model. I needed to get it off my phone and only know how to put it here.
Anyway, this thread is not about that. I just now figured out how to get pictures off my phone and on to my computer without E Mailing them. E Mail here is horrible because I live on Mars,next to the sea and our phone service is sometimes "interesting".
This picture is not from Mars.
I took it yesterday "through" the back of my tank. I took this to show something that would make most people take out the cro bar and paint scraper to remove because they would call it disgusting. My fish call it lunch.
It is a half inch of algae, sponge, cyano and God knows what, but do you know what else it is? Pod Central. I never bought a pod in my life and I have two mandarins, two ruby red dragonettes and four pipefish as well as quite a few other pod eaters who would not live in a bare tank where you need an ATM next to your tank so you can afford pods.
Pods are like an Abacus, (Google it) They multiple faster than "Rain Man" (Google him to). Two pods will become 2,000 pods in a week or two if you feed them and a bare, clean tank won't do it. Pods need food and a lot of it. I am not sure if they prefer Big Macs or pistachio ice cream but they are more prolific than rabbits. (Wild rabbits not the silly, floppy eared ones people get in Petco and keep as pets).
A few weeks ago I added a pair of blue stripped pipefish. I have not seen them yet unless I go back there with a flashlight.
Yes, I would like to see them occasionally but this hobby has two kinds of people. The kind that have a pristine tank and they can see and count every fish they have and the people with the mature tanks where we never see many of the fish but we know they are in there, healthy, spawning and dancing to the early Stones. (I actually met Mick once.....OK,,I bumped into him.)
I have about 30 fish in my tank and if I look long enough, I will see every one of them. But normally you only see three or four of my fish. That is how fish want to be seen. They know we are watching so they take turns swimming past the front of the tank. The rest are hunting through the vast "forests" of farmland in the dark portions of the tank.
Of course you can't see this area of my tank from the front and I don't want my front glass to look like that. But it is considered "health" by my fish. Because of this grazing area my fish get a big discount on their life insurance as almost all of them die of old age.
This area is severely lacking in almost all tanks and 100% of new tanks which is causing many of the problems people have. You can develop an area like this by keeping enough rock in the tank so you can't see much of the back and never clean those areas. It may take a year or two to develop but it will get there. Pristine tanks are not healthy and your fish will hate you for that.
If you want to argue with me about that put a twenty dollar bill in an envelope with a self addressed, stamped return envelope and send it to me.
I will spend the twenty on Pistachio ice cream and throw out the envelope after I steam off the stamp.
Disregard this picture I had of this Male Model. I needed to get it off my phone and only know how to put it here.
Paul B
Premium Member
Today I am diatom filtering my tank........No! not for any stupid parasites as that is just silly. I decided to clean a small portion of my back glass. Like 8X8 to see what is living back there and the stuff is half an inch thick and flying all over the tank.
I don't like that and it sticks on my gorgonians so I am filtering it out. I won't clean the entire back because thats one of the secrets of a healthy tank so don't tell anyone.
For those who don't know what a diatom filter is......You are so young and probably watch Justin Beiber and never saw your girlfriend except on Facebook.
Diatom filters were big in the 60s and 70s which is when I got this one. I had to replace the motor a couple of times because they were built, (not very well) for freshwater and when you use them in salt, you can hear them rust.
I still have 3 or 4 of them in various states of decomposition.
I don't think I could be in this hobby if I didn't have a diatom filter although any powerful canister filter may work, just not as good.
I don't use this filter to often or long because it removes anything solid including pods, coral food and parasites which I "don't" want to remove.
And if you run gravel or a "reverse undergravel filter" as I do, this stirring up of the gravel is needed maybe two or three times a year as it gets full of detritus and although I like detritus, I don't want it clogging anything.
All of us have nose hairs ( some of us really need to trim those hairs) and those hairs are to filter air we breathe in so we don't suck in dragon flies or frogs. But if we had to many, or to thick nose hairs, we would not be able to breathe so those dragon flies and frogs would be safe but we would croak. We would also look Icky.
A diatom filter, as the name suggests is that it used diatom skeletons which are much smaller than this ---------> . <----------
They filter out things as small as a micron which is 0.0004" which is smaller than an ich parasite.
I don't use it for parasites nor do I care about parasites but if you do, a diatom filter will remove parasites from a semi bare tank of if you like quarantine tanks it will remove all the parasites from there so you wouldn't have to use medications which I abhor (That means hate)
Diatom filters use diatom powder which you dump after you use the thing and it is very cheap from swimming pool companies.
Vortex used to make them but they are out of business so I have no idea where to get them now....Sorry.
If my last working one bites the dust I will have to build one.
I don't like that and it sticks on my gorgonians so I am filtering it out. I won't clean the entire back because thats one of the secrets of a healthy tank so don't tell anyone.
For those who don't know what a diatom filter is......You are so young and probably watch Justin Beiber and never saw your girlfriend except on Facebook.
Diatom filters were big in the 60s and 70s which is when I got this one. I had to replace the motor a couple of times because they were built, (not very well) for freshwater and when you use them in salt, you can hear them rust.
I still have 3 or 4 of them in various states of decomposition.
I don't think I could be in this hobby if I didn't have a diatom filter although any powerful canister filter may work, just not as good.
I don't use this filter to often or long because it removes anything solid including pods, coral food and parasites which I "don't" want to remove.
And if you run gravel or a "reverse undergravel filter" as I do, this stirring up of the gravel is needed maybe two or three times a year as it gets full of detritus and although I like detritus, I don't want it clogging anything.
All of us have nose hairs ( some of us really need to trim those hairs) and those hairs are to filter air we breathe in so we don't suck in dragon flies or frogs. But if we had to many, or to thick nose hairs, we would not be able to breathe so those dragon flies and frogs would be safe but we would croak. We would also look Icky.
A diatom filter, as the name suggests is that it used diatom skeletons which are much smaller than this ---------> . <----------
They filter out things as small as a micron which is 0.0004" which is smaller than an ich parasite.
I don't use it for parasites nor do I care about parasites but if you do, a diatom filter will remove parasites from a semi bare tank of if you like quarantine tanks it will remove all the parasites from there so you wouldn't have to use medications which I abhor (That means hate)
Diatom filters use diatom powder which you dump after you use the thing and it is very cheap from swimming pool companies.
Vortex used to make them but they are out of business so I have no idea where to get them now....Sorry.
If my last working one bites the dust I will have to build one.
