How this Geezer did it in the beginning

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Noobtosalty, thank you. I am honored.

Micki, my wife and I were just checking out the new pictures of her and we were OOhing and AAhing. Today she is 6 days old.
 
I am not much of a sleeper so last night about 3:00am I decided to look at the tank with a flashlight. Of course the fish were all sleepping and the corals were all retracted except for their sweeper tantacles but I noticed all of these white things on the glass about as large as this " o", They are of course tiny snails, hundreds of them and I never see them in the daytime. I see them all the time just before the lights come on but I never saw so many of them, but I don't usually look at the tank at that time.
As I was checking out the snails I noticed things swimming through my flashlight beam. There are (I don't want to call them swarms) but "many" creatures swimming all over the place. I was trying to get a close look but they are fairly fast and definately not any of the numerous amphipods that are in there. Amphipods swim kind of slower and on their backs, these looked more like they knew where they were going. Well, they were swimming in a straight line anyway.
I am not sure if they are a spawn of some kind or just some plankton type of creature.
Again, I don't usually peer at the tank at 3:00am.
These things keep me from sleeping and I wish I could have captured one to put under my microscope. I see a tiny trap in my future.
These things, and things like this have facinated me since I started my first tank. Angelfish, tangs and butterflies don't do it for me. They are too common and just get in the way of the more interesting creatures. Imagine how facinating a copepod would be if it was 2" long. :)
 
Paul B, I want to thank you and the other contributors to this thread. I just found this last night and found so many interesting things discussed in here.
 
cheezischrist said:
i love this thread. and i thought i was the only one who viewed reefkeeping as more of a game than a job
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I am both hobbyist and in the business of servicing marine tanks(I service around 30 tanks on a weekly basis)

I agree with you that it can be a game. However games have hard and tested rules for playing and they usually don't change over time.\
This is why an experience guy like PaulB is such an asset to this game or hobby.

Paul, I know how you hate to post:) but could you take the time to post a basic list of these rules of the game that have been consistent for you over the last 40 years.
I am quite familiar with them and have given me great success in this business and hobby in the short time I have been in it. Others I am sure would benefit from it
Scott
 
capn_hylinur said:
I am both hobbyist and in the business of servicing marine tanks(I service around 30 tanks on a weekly basis)

I agree with you that it can be a game. However games have hard and tested rules for playing and they usually don't change over time.\
This is why an experience guy like PaulB is such an asset to this game or hobby.

Paul, I know how you hate to post:) but could you take the time to post a basic list of these rules of the game that have been consistent for you over the last 40 years.
I am quite familiar with them and have given me great success in this business and hobby in the short time I have been in it. Others I am sure would benefit from it
Scott
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+1 Yes, please:reading:
 
I'm sure! Enjoy her she will grow up way too fast!!!
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Yes I know, she is 8 days old today and she sent me 3 texts already this morning.

Paul, I know how you hate to post but could you take the time to post a basic list of these rules of the game that have been consistent for you over the last 40 years.
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Capn where have you been? I have been over here typing my brains out
(that don't take long) and I have not seen you.
As for rules, you know I hate rules and don't feel thate are any hard rules as many people have great success using an entirely different set of rules than I do. Most of them think I am nuts. :spin2:
I have posted what I do and I will glance over it again. Not everyone can do all of these things because you need a salt water body of water near by.
As you know I occasionally add bacteria from the sea in the form of mud from a bay. I do that a couple of times a year and I also add amphipods from the sea. I am not sure if that, or anything I do is beneficial but it seems to be.
My big thing (that you know) is live or at least whole foods like live blackworms (my favorite) and clams. I buy live clams and freeze them whole, then I open them and shave off thin slices to feed to the fish and LPS corals.
Shrimp, scallop, fish fillets, squid, and beef heart are IMO not the best foods although it won't kill your fish. Those things are not whole foods and are only muscle tissue. Almost all of the nutrients in food is in the guts and bones. If you feed a clam, we are feeding the entire animal, guts and all, the same with live blackworms and even mysis. Mysis are good and the only problem with them is that they contain a lot of shell. If you look at frozen mysis it is almost all shell and head parts. The head of a mysis with all the antenna and protrusions does not contain much usable meat. They also don't have bones so they don't add much calcium (I don't think so anyway)but they are a decent food and I use them along with the worms and clams.
I also hatch baby brine shrimp every day in a DIY hatchery. New Born shrimp, (or new born anything) is a great food because they have a yoke sack which is almost all oil. Oil is another one of my big things and I feel that fish should get about a 5th of their diet in pure fish oil. In the sea that is what they get. A fish has a liver that is about a quarter of it's weight and almost all of that liver is oil. Fish in the sea eat fish and they get a fifth of their meal as oil. Shrimp tails and scallop do not contain any oil (as far as I know)
I also feel that fish oil will keep fish in breeding condition which is the condition they are always in in the sea and almost never in in a tank.
Fish in that condition do not get sick. That is my opinion of course as I do not have every fish in the sea in my tank, but I do not have to quarantine and have not in probably 35 years. I add all sorts of things from the sea and many LFSs all the time. No problems and no paracites. I feel it is their diet but maybe it is my good looks, I don't know. :wavehand:
I do not like DSBs and thing they are a great invention if you only want to keep a tank a few years, maybe 8 or 10. Nothing works forever without maintenance. If you don't agree with that, start your own thread on how great DSBs are but keep one for 10 years first. :lol2:
Yes, I am also opinionated and that gets me in trouble.
I used to try to keep my nitrates about 5 and I didn't have any problems, now they are 40 and my corals are growing faster than they have ever grown by far. I don't recommend that and I will lower them soon but I am experimenting for now. But in any case I would not go crazy if your nitrates are 10 or 15. If it don't kill my corals it won't kill yours. :)
If your corals die, send a bill to the Capn, he wanted me to write this.
Algae is good, it is the best thing for this hobby and not a disease. Use it in a refugium or some other way. You want it in your system but not necessarilly in your main tank. If you have no algae, something is wrong and your tank is not as healthy as you think.
Cyano is neither here nor there. It won't kill anything but it is ugly. Don't get a heart attack if you see the stuff. I have a little myself and usually can find a little someplace.
I amgoing to the guy now to keep up this temple of a body I have so I will get back to this. :wavehand:
 
OK that last sentence :
I am going to the guy now
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Is supposed to read: I am going to the gym not, the guy, I don't go to guys. "ever" so get that out of your head. :worried:
I also want to add to my above post that not everyone, or maybe anyone should follow my theologies. They have worked for me for decades but I may have divine intervention or some other lucky charm.
I am not the God of fish tanks. Just UG filters. :o
This hobby used to be simple before they invented the internet and added a lot of confusing, contridicting information along with tried and true methods.
Many times I treated my water with Clorox bleach. Now people will say
OMG :eek2: He is crazy, that is for washing clothes. Well yes it is and Vodka is for getting your girlfriend in a good mood and copper is for making pennies but many people put Vodka in their tanks and the Govt. makes a lot of pennies.
The first squid eggs were hatched out in Clorox treated water. Great stuff for another thread. Again, if you dump Clorox in your tank and "if" your fish die
(they will, I guarantee it, but they will have that nice fresh spring time smell) the Capn made me write this so don't do it. :celeb1:

My tank is old, I am old, my methods are old so if you don't qualify in all those areas, do what all of the "experts" tell you to do. Quarantine everything, feed angel formula #47 or whatever number it is now.
Also use ASW for everything, even take a bath in it and gargle with it.
It won't kill you. They will also tell you to change massive amounts of water if you see any algae or cyano. See if that works and have fun with it.

These people are not wrong. They are very successful, they just have different ideas. Just before you listen to an "expert" make sure they have a tank for a few decades and not just 5 or 6 years. even hermit crabs live twice as long as that. :beer:
 
OMG, I don't type that well and as you can tell, I don't often read what I write. :headwally:

Remember I learned to type on a manual typewriter with a ribbon.:hmm5:
 
Out of curiousity, have you ever considered building another tank? You say you are always looking for something to do and you are always dinkering with your tank and repairing and moving and (should I continue??)... It would be awesome to see you use your methods on a new build if you ever considered.
 
Out of curiousity, have you ever considered building another tank? You say you are always looking for something to do and you are always dinkering with your tank and repairing and moving and
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No, not really. I do tinker with it and all sorts of things. Reefing is only one of my hobbies and I have many. There is no time left for anything else and many times the fish don't get fed. In the summer I am a boater. I love to tinker and re-design things on the boat. For instance, I broke all of the light bulbs and soldered in LEDs. Now when we are anchored I can leave al the cabin lights on without killing any of the batteries. I also designed a fresh water flushing system for the engines because there is not one built for that type of boat. To do that I added 6 valves and.....Well it may get too complicated for this site.
I installed solar panels on my roof and put in a new condensing boiler that, with my solar panels saves me about $5,000.00 a year on utilities.
One of my other interests is building fountains from copper sheets. They have a lot of moving parts and I find them interesting.
I love working on my cars and also re designing things. Improperly designed machinery drives me nuts, there is always a better way to do it.
Just an hour ago I was trying to figure out how to cool my house without using AC.
I have plenty of ideas but never enough time. Another tank would never get any attention. But if I could make another one of me, I would do it.
My tomato plants are grown hydroponically. I love gardening and too many other things. :wavehand:
 
You should have been an engineer Paul! My old man is the same way, always looking to make things better, always dinkering, repairing, ALWAYS DIYing. I hope someday I can be as crafty and inquisitive as my old man is. I am sure both of you would cringe at the phrase "Why do something when you can hire someone?" xD
 
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