How this Geezer did it in the beginning

[Paul B]

Thanks Ohmsford. We just now got back from the boat. We were anchored with friends fifty yards off a tide pool where I collect a lot, but today and last night and tomorrow are just partying days and I did not collect anything. After dinner last night on the boat we watched the fireworks over the Bronx.
Tomorrow I will again be there checking out the hermit crabs, horse shoe crabs etc but I don't think I will collect. My tank is full of amphipods already but I will slog through the tide pool just to check out everything as I have done for decades.
It is true todays kids are extreamly limited in what they do and learn. There is very little out door, hands on stuff any more. I also dreamed of getting tools and the 38 or so years I have been married my wife always bought me tools for my birthday. Now I can open a Sears with all I have and soon will be selling off stuff. I doubt I will be re building engines any more so my ring compressors and valve compressors etc i will no longer need. I don't have a Son so I have no one to teach. My Daughter is not interested in fish so I also have no one to carry on my tank or my methods.
The new ways and methods of doing things rely on technology and not common sence which is a shame. I can look at my tank from 50' away and tell you the parameters, and what mood the animals are in.
But all of that will soon be gone.:sad2:

Anyway, life will go on.
Have a great night and thanks for posting.
Paul :dance:

 

[Johanv]

What happened to this thread, it was very entertaining, bring this thread back to life!!!

 

[Paul B]

What happened to this thread, it was very entertaining, bring this thread back to life!!!

What happened was that my Daughter just had a baby. Greta is her name and she is my first Grand child.
My time has been spent in a Manhattan hospital with her.
Now I am back home and hopefully will get back to posting about fish. My tank looks a little disheveled due to lack of time. The fish have been sending out for take out because I didn't have time for them. A few weeks ago I built a cool glass scraper and I really need to use it so I can see the animals and determine if any of them are alive. My hermit crabs texted me that everything is fine but they are hungry and there is some cyano on the gravel.
Many of the corals are growing into each other but many types of corals don't mind close company. Some like the montipora don't do well and the parts of it that touch died. But the thing is growing in another direction with a vengence. I can't move some of the corals because they decided to grow on large rocks and they have to fend for themselves. This is an example of things that don't bother me. It is what it is and they will get over it.
I really should change some water and I did make some water a month ago but I have not had time to add salt yet. Tomorrow I want to go to my boat to do a little maintenance and to do what I have to do I have to get in the water. I don't want to do that in my marina so I will go out to where I usually anchor which is right of the tide pool where I collect so while I am there, I may collect amhipods.
If anyone wants to come, let me know. You guys in South Africa or Montana should leave now, just bear right at the Statue of Liberty. :fun2:
I just walked over to the tank and I had to move a powerhead because a large hammar coral was retracted. Besides the powerhead hitting it, one of the gorgonians was laying across the thing. The urchin moves everything around and has no respect for my decorating.
My goal for this tank has always to try to keep it natural and natural looking. I have always wanted to raise the rocks up off the gravel and now I have almost accomplished that goal but not quite.
I built pylons that raise the entire reef up but I want to lift the entire thing off the substrait. I would like to make a cement grid that will look like tonga rock and support the entire reef, then suspend it from above the tank so that not one piece is touching the bottom. That is my next goal and I just need the time to acomplish it. I want to be able to see under the reef entirely. I think it will be different and kind of cool. I only want to raise it maybe an inch so it doesn't look stupid.
Changing things is one way to keep it interesting. If you do this long enough, you will do everything imaginable and I don't want it to get stale.

My tank, and the hobby in general used to be to just try to keep things alive. Now that is easy and I am committed to keep it interesting.
I am a little past putting sunken chests and divers in there but I have not ran out of ideas yet. This idea of raising the reef on cables will cause logisticle, aquascaping and engineering "problems" but only tiny problems which will totally encase me in thought. :idea:

I love this stuff and when I get an idea in my head, the consequences of it cause me to not sleep and get up in the midle of the night to sketch ideas.
This is the reason the hobby engrosses me and the reason that to me, it is not a hobby but a way of life.
I can't live long without designing or re-designing something. It has to be made better or at least different, more interesting, less boreing, more time consuming, harder, more facinating. It is never work, there is not one aspect of it that is work. I worked for over 40 years and that was enough, I am finished working, now the rest of my life is resigned to be fun and to me, this is fun which is why we call it a hobby and never work. :dance:

One hour old. Meet Greta. (she is crying because she doesn't have a reef tank yet.)

My boat is on the right, that is not me but my wife is in red. This is off that tide pool where I collect pods. That other couple is my closest friends and we have been friends since high school. That is their boat to the left. They have probably 10 times more dives than I do because they spend their winters in the Keys.
He is also a great underwater photographer and a fellow Captain.
One of his pictures is last.

 

[rogermccray]

Congratulations on becoming a grandpa!

 

[Sunshine252]

Congratulations! She's beautiful!

 

[nanshaw2001]

Congrats and love the "Grandpa" shirt!!!!!

 

[Paul B]

I was about as old as her when I got my first goldfish. I can never keep those dam things alive. I guess I need more experience. :fish2:

 

[Zoomer22]

Hello Paul, great thread by the way I finally read through it all - it is like porch sittin with a wise man - thank you. Also, congratulations on the grand daughter:celeb1:

Here is a (perhaps too) foundemental topic for you, but what is your thought process with mechanical filtration? I often hear the "nitrate trap" thrown around in regards to how often they are changed and such. I was just reading about how some people change their filter socks every/everyother day... Seems like a bit too much of a hassle:headwallblue: So I am curious to know what you use for mechanical filtration, why, and how is it maintained?

Thanks,
Phil

 

[Paul B]

I personally don't have a sump, they were not invented when I started the tank so I have no need for filter socks. There is a mechanical filter, a sponge on the intake of my UG filter that I clean every couple of weeks. That is not there because I care about mechanical filtration but to keep detritus out of my gravel.
I also use a diatom filter a few times a year to powerwash the rocks and gravel. That is my maintenance and the reason this tank can possably last forever but a system like a DSB can not. Nothing will last forever without maintenance.
There is nothing wrong with using mechanical filtration and it should prolong nitrate production. Anything that rots in the tank will contribute to deteriorating conditions.
The problem with many mechanical filters like canisters is that the thing is not cleaned often enough so the particles stay in the water and it doesn't matter if they are in the filter or the water itself. It is still in the tank.
If your bacteria are up to the tasks, they should be able to process the food and waste you add to your tank but mechanical filtration should help as long as they are cleaned often.

 

[Zoomer22]

I personally don't have a sump, they were not invented when I started the tank so I have no need for filter socks. There is a mechanical filter, a sponge on the intake of my UG filter that I clean every couple of weeks. That is not there because I care about mechanical filtration but to keep detritus out of my gravel.
I also use a diatom filter a few times a year to powerwash the rocks and gravel. That is my maintenance and the reason this tank can possably last forever but a system like a DSB can not. Nothing will last forever without maintenance.
There is nothing wrong with using mechanical filtration and it should prolong nitrate production. Anything that rots in the tank will contribute to deteriorating conditions.
The problem with many mechanical filters like canisters is that the thing is not cleaned often enough so the particles stay in the water and it doesn't matter if they are in the filter or the water itself. It is still in the tank.
If your bacteria are up to the tasks, they should be able to process the food and waste you add to your tank but mechanical filtration should help as long as they are cleaned often.

So, foundimentals are indeed, fundimental :spin3:

Thanks,
Phil

 

[premilove]

I'm sure Greta will be the one to carry on your tanks. Congrats on the grandchild she's an angel. I just finished reading the entire thread and I'm hooked. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Paul B]

So, foundimentals are indeed, fundimental

I think so. I also feel that we make this way to complicated. It is 99% common sence
(How do you spell that anyway? Sence or sense. I think it is with a C)
I just found a thread on ich and there is so much information on trying to cure it and almost nothing on how to prevent it. Someone is even dosing ginger.
I don't know, maybe it's me. I may be living in the twilight zone. But this thread is, or was about how I did it in the beginning.
I think the hobby was much more fun then. Everything I saw was facinating, every fish was new, every crustacean, I had to have. I used to hang out at aquarium stores when they got in a shipment and when they opened the boxes we would all go OOH and AAH.
Then I would go to the wholesalers with the store owners to pick out my own livestock. That I really loved because even the wholesalers were not sure what they had. I bought an awful lot of creatures that I had no right buying. No one at the time knew that it was almost impossable to keep an orange spotted filefish or twin spot gobi, especially years before reef tanks. My nitrates were probably 80 or so but why cared?
Then corals started to come in I was in my glory. Nitrates of 80, incandescent lights or regular flourescent lights. I am surprised the hobby didn't die then. There was a time I couldn't keep a hammar or bubble coral, now they grow like weeds. Frogspawns also. I just used a weedwacker on mine. The hobby has gotten so easy in spite of the internet and all the wrong or at least conflicting information. I don't think there ever can be a book on this stuff that most people will agree with. When I started to get more experience I started to question the information I read in books, then I started to write to the authors explaning that I disagreed with their point of views. My views have changed many times since I started this.
Now I feel that the correct food is mainly what is needed to prevent almost all of the problems that there is so much written about.
I know it is a pain to keep live worms, buy clams and open them so you can freeze them, hatch shrimp every day, but to me that is not a job. It is part of my hobby and I know that if I didn't do those things, I could not have an old healthy tank and I would be contributing to all of those ich threads. :lol2:

I'm sure Greta will be the one to carry on your tanks

I don't know if it is to soon to get her a moorish Idol. She is 4 days old but I can tell from this picture she is thinking about it. Her mouth seems to be saying "Moorish Idol"

 

[tonyf]

Great thread, Paul ... Being an 'oldie', I really enjoy reading about the 'old days' in reefing ... not much changed right up into the mid 90's.

One thing,

[ ... ] It started in Germany a few years before that and al of the older books were translated from German. That is kind of wierd because Germany is land locked. [ ... ]

Germany has a coast line along both the Baltic Sea and North Sea.

 

[Paul B]

Germany has a coast line along both the Baltic Sea and North Sea.

And I was just there, you think I would have known that. :headwallblue:

Not much coral collecting along that border though. :wavehand:

I am better with fish than geography I guess.

 

[Paul B]

I just read an article in an aquarium magazine by Charles Delbeek about cleaning the rock. I have been doing this since my reef started and I forgot to mention it here in this history thread.
From the beginning I have been removing detritus using the same method. You can't see any detritus in my reef but if I blow around the gravel, you will not be able to see anything due to it. My tank incorporates a reverse UG filter so the detritus is evenly distributed in the gravel, if you have sand or a DSB it will remain on the surface.
I have always used a diatom filter (but any canister filter will work) A diatom filter is a canister filter but a little more powerful and removes much smaller particles. I put a restriction on the end of the outflow hose to make a strong powerwasher.
I use a carnation holder for that. Florists have them and they are little green containers that they sell carnations in so you can put them in places like bouquets and they have this little one ounce water supply over the stem of the flower. I just drill through the thin end. Anwyway you can use your imagination. I carefully blast the rock in between the corals. It will tear up corals so you can't hit them with the blast.
I play it all over rocks and I am amazed at the gunk that comes out of rock. You see streams of mud coming out 6" away from where you are blasting. These channels in rock really need to be cleaned or the nitrate reducing qualities of the rock will diminish. That is why older tanks used to get "old tank syndrome".
I do this a few times a year and don't know how anyone can keep a tank long term without performing this.
After I blast for a while, I let the filter remove the detritus, then I blast again and repeat the process. I may do this 5 or 6 times in a row.
In the tropical sea there are numerous storms and occasional typhoons. I have seen these storms in the South Pacific and believe me, no powerhead can blast the rocks as powerful as these storms. In the Caribbean I have seen brain corals almost as large as my house, turned up side down. I have also seen sailboats 100' up on the side of a mountain covered in huge sea fans.
A guy I know in Jamaica who owns a few dive shops purposely sinks his large sailboat and ties it to the bottom in 40' deep water to protect it. Then he re floats it with the airbags he installed in it just for this purpose.
The only negative thing about doing this is that I always lost my bluestriped pipefish during this. Maybe their tiny gills get clogged up.
The green thing on top of my baby brine shrimp feeder is the thing I use for the filter restriction.

 

[Paul B]

 

[Noobtosalty]

Well Paul,
I am also one of the 5000 lurkers.... Until Now. Your are a very interesting guy!!! Reading your posts makes me look at things differently :strange: So thank you for your insight!!!!:wavehand:

 

[Paul B]

Your are a very interesting guy!!!

Being that I am bald, I was thinking of tattooing a picture of my face on the back of my head to make me more interesting.

OK, maybe not.
So what do you lurkers do all day besides lurk?

Reading your posts makes me look at things differently

To look at it differently sometimes I close one eye or tilt my head sideways.

OK stop lurking and post something. No one will bite you. We like everyone's input.
My fingers are getting tired of typing and I am running out of things to write. After so many years there is only so much you can post and virtually all of it has been posted many times before.
I am going to start posting pictures of me in a Speedo soon, and no one wants to see that. :thumbdown

 

[Noobtosalty]

Let me rephrase that I WAS a lurker!!!! i have been checking out your threads for a while!!!!! I really enjoy your simplistic views on keeping a reef tank!!! Your 40+ year old tank shows that you do not need all these fancy chemicals, equipment and other things that are expensive and not all the trustworthy!!!!You Sir deserve a gold star for today!!!!!!

 

[Micki]

Such a beautiful Granddaughter and proud Grandpa! Congratulations!!! So happy for all of you! Get on her tank ASAP would ya!?!?!?