Hello, Geezer coming back to this forum. Paul B

[Paul B]

I almost saved a Supermodel: (actually this was last year)

It's pretty warm here today so I decide to get some exercise and take a walk to the beach behind my house. It's about 170 steps almost straight down and being it's kind of still winter, I have not been doing this much yet. In the summer I try to do it almost every day. So I figure I will go like half way down, take a little rest, and come back up. Every day I will do some more. So I go down about half way and I can see the beach.



I take a little break, sit down and look around.



I see this "Thing" on the sand that wasn't there the day before. I am part of this seal, whale, turtle rescue thing here on Long Island and I figure it is one of those creatures.

This beach is almost in-accessible except by helicopter or walking down all these steps.
I figure I need to get a little closer to see what it is.

I walk down a little farther knowing that at some point I will have to walk back up and I know there is no cell phone service on the beach.

I go down some more and realize it is a person. OMG. Someone must have had a heart attack, broke a leg, was overcome with velvet or is dying from boredom.



I really don't want to descend all the way down because I am not in shape to go back up.
I watch intensely for maybe five minutes to see if they move.

No movement, they must be hurt, in a coma or dead. OMG again.

If I don't get to them I will not be able to sleep thinking about what could be wrong with them.

So I head down still seeing no movement. I check my phone to see how my stocks are doing, I mean to see if I have, service.

I get to the sand and start walking. He or she is maybe 75 yards away, laying on the sand with their feet facing the water and their head facing the mountain.

If they are hurt, I will have to make it all the way up the stairs to call for help and they will have to dispatch a helicopter as there is no other way to get to this particular beach. Should I put rocks on the beach spelling out "SOS" like they do in the movies?

Light a fire?

My mind is racing. Will I have to do CPR, set a broken leg, perform Mouth to Mouth or just brush the marauding hermit crabs off of the body. I don't know but I am getting closer.

I still see no movement but it is windy and the seagulls are giving me a headache.

I get up to the person and notice it seems to be a female. She had kind of nice looking designer boots on and a down jacket with a hood fringed with fur.

Still no movement so I figure right away, she must be a run away Supermodel that is scared of the Corona Virus and wants to get away from the Paparazzi.

As I walk closer I am shuffling my feet making noise with the rocks to try to stir the person.

Nothing!!

I inch right up to her and yell, "HEY ARE YOU OK? ".

She quickly jerks her head up and says, "Yes, I am Fine, I must have fallen Asleep".

I wanted to say, "Are you like Sleeping Beauty and ate a poison apple that made you fall asleep on the rocks and sand of a deserted beach with your feet near the water or are you some sort of Mermaid that thinks you have ich?

I didn't ask and just said, "I am glad you are not dead because I can't carry you up all those stairs.

And I left. But tonight I will sleep knowing I almost saved a Supermodel and walked up more stairs than I wanted to

 

[Paul B]

I am going to fill the tank completely with ASW for a while as I don't think that sponge will live in it. I hope not anyway. The NSW I collect is loaded with silicates and that feeds the stuff.

When I am certain no sponge is alive, I may switch back to NSW or at least 50% NSW. I really don't like ASW but for this case, I need it and am using it as a "treatment".

I have this all planned out and am just waiting for all my fresh water to be made so I can start this long, tedious process. I am also hoping I can give away my large very nice Koran Angel as it is to large for me. Anybody want it? Free

 

[Paul B]

This year will be our 50th Wedding anniversary so we were going to take one of those Mississippi Riverboat cruises. Just the two of us. I don't want to go to Europe with all their problems. We have been to about all the Caribbean, Tahitian, and Hawaiian Islands and there isn't really many places I want to go to.

Flying now is a real horror and my wife has to go in a wheelchair in an airport. They get you through customs faster but for her on the plane is difficult so we don't want to go on a commercial airliner now.

So she tells our Daughter and after they went through all kinds of "litigation" about where to go we are now taking the kids and Grand Kids on a cruise to Bermuda. We have been on that cruise and I really don't like big cruise ships but this one is not that huge. It leaves from New Jersey and we can drive to the ship.

We have been on 4 or 5 of those huge ships and the last time we went on a really big cruise ship I was praying for a torpedo to sink us. Those floating cities with 6000 people on them are horrible. There is a reason they are so cheap. Coming from New York I don't like crowds and go on vacation to get away from them. I also don't need a midnight buffet or join a beer belly contest.

Now we are spoiled and will only go on the Windstar Cruise which has about 100 people and it also has sails.

But getting back to Bermuda, last night my wife gets another idea.

Now we are also going to renew our Wedding Vows. We need a church, priest and all that. Or the Captain can do it.
(I am also a Licensed Captain but it would be silly and awkward for me to do it)

Our 10 year old Grand Daughter will be the Maid of Honor. Our 9 year old Grand Son will be the ring bearer and he will also give my wife to me and my Son N Law is my Best man.

This should be fun, and interesting.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Paul, We had a good time with American Cruise Lines on the "Big Muddy".
Just make sure you don't cancel.
That fact alone has kept me away from them.
I mean what the *****, $250 to write a check----

 

[Paul B]

Vinny I bought the (very expensive) cancellation insurance for the Bermuda cruise.

I removed about a quarter of the rock on one side of my tank to try to remove as much sponge as I can

I cut the corals off the rocks and put them back in the tank. The rocks I removed, about 10lbs I scraped as much sponge off as I could and used a stainless steel brush on the really encrusted stuff. I didn't use fresh water so I didn't kill any microscope life. This is one piece.

That skinny piece is a DIY piece and I will have to bleach that as it was completely covered in sponge and it needs a bunch of repair anyway. Some of the cement fell off exposing the PVC and it bothers me so I will repair that.

All the "cleaned" rock I removed I have outside in a closed vat in the dark and cold. It will get into the 30s tonight so I hope that will kill most of the sponge. If that works, I will do it to all the sponge covered rock.

Now I will suck out the detritus in the gravel on that side of the tank using a diatom filter. I will try to do this a quarter of the tank at a time. Then when it is all finished, I will remove all the rock into big vats and immediately put it back in with a new aquascape because that can't be done piecemeal. Then I will glue back all the corals that are left as they will be removed and put temporarily held in a bucket.

Then I will change the water with mostly ASW to see if any of the remaining sponge spores die. Wish me luck.

In 3 weeks the tank will have lasted for 52 years. I am not 100% sure it will make it but this cleaning needs to be done.
Even if the tank didn't have an encrusting sponge problem I like to do this about every 5 years anyway just to re aquascape and clean out the gravel over the UG filter which I will not be removing...Hopefully.

 

[Paul B]

This is getting to be a lot of work. I have to get a 10 gallon tank for some of my corals that are encrusted with sponge because I can't get the corals off without killing them. I can remove as much visible sponge as I can and put it with the corals in a small tank with ASW in the hope that the ASW kills the sponge for lack of nutrients especially silicates.

If that doesn't kill the sponges in a week or two, I will have to cut those corals off and hope for the best.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

After removing the sponge you will have to inspect the rock.
The sponge has roots all over in tiny spaces.
I had to use tweezers with a good grip & PULL.

 

[Paul B]

Vinny, I am not assuming I will be able to remove every vestige of sponge. I am hoping the ASW will kill it because it won't have any silicates in it .

I used a wire brush and needle nose pliers.

 

[Paul B]

I now have about half of the rock out of my tank so I have vats all over the place. My fish are all looking for new homes and they are giving me dirty looks. The rock I cleaned pretty good will be going outside in sea water. It is very cold and dark in the hopes the sponge will die but not any of the other livestock in the rock.

Rocks with no sponge will just stay in my tank and I am not sure yet how I will deal with those.
The biggest piece of rock

This one as I was building it 5 years ago is covered in corals which I will have to "rip" off will be a problem because I can't lift it by myself so I am going to have to look for some help. That one will also go in the dark outside in seawater.



A weird thing about this is that this tank used to be loaded with bristle worms, especially under the sponge. With all this cleaning/scraping I have not found even one bristle worm. They are gone as are the snails and hermit crabs.

That sponge toxin is very selective in that it killed those things along with the SPS but the brittle stars, anemones, leather corals and fish are thriving like they like the stuff. Maybe it's like hot pepper to them and they like it.

One of my bottles. I think I have 9 of them in my tank.

 

[Paul B]

For sale......Free. I have this beautiful 5" Koran Angelfish. It is much nicer looking than it looks like in the photo. It is just to big for my tank and in about a week I am going to remove him and if no one wants him, I will give it to the LFS for his show tank

 

[Paul B]

Now I am just waiting to mix enough ASW. I have about 80 gallons so far but I need 125 gallons. I am also repairing some DIY "Rock" also

 

[Paul B]

So far I have about 80 gallons of ASW mixed and I found and bought more large vats to hold water, fish, corals and rocks.

When I mix up about 50 more gallons of water and heat it up, I will remove about 20 gallons of water from my tank to put the fish in and remove another 20 gallons of water to rinse off my gravel. When there is about 8" of water left in the tank, I will stir it up vigorously turning the tank into essentially mud and siphon it out. Then I will use that 20 gallons I removed and dump it in there 5 gallons at a time and siphon that out.

I don't want to clean it to good because I have a pair of mandarins, 3 ruby red dragonettes, 2 bluestripe pipefish and 2 dragon faced pipes that all depend on pods..

I also won't clean all the algae off the back glass because thats where they hunt and I am not going to lift the UG filter plates. I am sure they will be hungry but I hope there is enough pods left for them. I am not cleaning the rocks with no sponge so they should be fine.

Then I will put most of the rock back in and the fish. Talk about stress.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

I'm sure many of us know that feeling Paul.
Gotta Do Watcha Gotta Do!!

 

[Paul B]

This is my tank now with most of the rock removed

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Still looks good!

 

[Paul B]

Now I can find most of my fish.

I still have to remove that big 15lb rock in the center which is covered in sponge so I am not sure how I will do that yet. It is also covered in corals and anemones.

Thats all one rock

 

[griss]

Still looks good!

Yes, yes it does

 

[Paul B]

So far I collected from my RO/DI almost 100 gallons of ASW. I got to say, collecting real water is so much easier.
To do that I get in my Jeep and back up to an ocean, In my case, the Atlantic.

I sit in my car and enjoy the sounds of the seagulls as I watch the fish jump.

I stroll to the back of my car and open the hatch, remove a bilge pump on the end of a 50' hose and throw it into the water.
I take the plug and insert it into my car's power outlet and gaze at the water going into one of the 10 gallon buckets I have.

After about 2 minutes, the water stops and I pull back the pump to clear the bowling ball size of ulva seaweed that is clogging the thing.

Throw it back into a different spot and look up and down the beach as I wait.

Off in the distance I see three beautiful Ladies walking in my direction. I live near the end of Long Island where a few Supermodels live so I figure one, or all of them are some of those wanting to come up to me to learn about reef tank husbandry, how I go about changing water, asking about quarantining, medicating or what is my favorite dance move.

As they get closer I notice they are elderly (but classy looking) Ladies who just want to know what kind of toxic waste I am dumping into the sea.

I explain my water change method and how natural sea water, IMO is better than ASW. How I go about cleaning it, heating it, and transferring it to my tank all the while as one of the Ladies, the least classy looking one is calling 911 to report a "Deviant" dumping used oil into the Atlantic.

 

[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.