In case I forget all I know, I have theories.

These poor montipora's keep getting pushed all over the place and it seems that everything stings and kills them. If they were allowed to grow anywhere they wished, they would have overtaken my tank a long time ago. I just let them do what they want. I didn't even buy them, they came in on a 1/4" piece by accident but they grow very fast.
My clown gobies killed most of my acro's by spawning all over them, but that is also a natural thing and I don't fault them for that. I just keep the dead pieces in there for kicks. They are another fast growing coral and would also have taken over the tank if other things didn't sting them or shade them.
That monti in the center just was killed by that encrusting gorgonian that was growing behind it.



 
So I took the "Ladies" out for the moonlight cruise last night then dropped them off at my marina where they had dinner. It was Lobster night. I sat at the bar and ordered a hamburger. I wanted the Ahi Tuna burger but that was $22.00 so I went with the $18.00 hamburger. Yeah, I know. So the guy brings out this huge burger and a few feet to the right of me on the bar is a red squeeze bottle of "ketchup", so I grab it and squirt it all over my burger.


The "ketchup" is fluorescent green. So I say to the bartender, "Is this some new kind of ketchup?".


He says NO, THATS SOAP. I said, "Soap?" What kind of soap? He said he does the glasses with it. So I said "So you keep dish soap in a red squeeze ketchup bottle that virtually every diner in the United Stated keeps ketchup in, and you leave it on the bar where probably half the people coming in and sitting at the bar are eating hamburgers".


So I got a new hamburger sans the soap.





Anyway, the "girls" had a great time.


Getting back to fish, I am amazed that almost no one autopsies their fish after they die.


I remember once on the news they asked this doctor, how many autopsies he performed on dead people? He said "all the autopsies I perform are on dead people".





OK getting back to fish, I promise. If they find a dead person, and here in New York and especially in Manhattan they find a lot of dead bodies, they just don't look at them and say "Oh well, he has no spots so we don't know why he died?"


They don't do that because there is very little you can tell from looking at someone as to how they died. Of course if they have to pry pieces of him from in between the subway car wheels that would be an indication as the cause of death, but most of the time, they find someone laying there with a nice suit on, decent hair cut, healthy looking, but dead. That calls for an autopsy. Fish autopsies are simple and if you screw it up, most of the time the family won't complain. And, different from people, you don't have to put the dead fish body back together again to make it presentable. You can fed it to your cat so it is like recycling.


If you find a dead fish and it is not yet eaten up, just take a razor knife and cut the thing open starting at the bottom, the soft parts. Lay out the parts and look at them while trying not to squash anything as fish parts are rather delicate. You should find the swim bladder, stomach, liver and most importantly the gills. Get yourself a jeweler's loupe of at least a magnifying glass and if the fish just died you may see parasites in it's gills. Usually that is accompanied by tears in the delicate gill tissues that should look like feathers. You may also find blood in the muscles near the tail. I find that a lot in skinny fish such as copperbands or tangs and I think it comes from collection because to me I think those very sharp ribs sometimes puncture blood vessels. If you see a dark area on the side of a thin fish, that is usually internal bleeding and the fish rarely, if ever recover and Obamacare won't save them. People tell me that autopsying fish is to complicated for the average hobbiest to perform. Yes, if you are a Sissy you won't do this. But I eat fish almost every day and virtually every one of them suffocated on the deck of a ship and by me eating them or autopsying them didn't make their life any easier or harder. But if I find out why it died, I can maybe better be able to prevent it in the future. "Or" I could just flush the thing and chalk it up to the Moon God and buy another fish.





You can see an area on this copperband where it is just starting to show. You have to look at these fish closely but don't put your head so close to your monitor that you get grease on the screen. Below the black dot near his upper rear you can see a slighter darker area that may just look like some raised scales. That is how it starts, then it becomes darker and sometimes protrudes a little. This is very common on thin, newly collected fish.


Don't buy fish with this condition as even though it looks benign, it is caused by internal bleeding as this fish died and I autopsied it. I have seen this many times.


Those fish should have no marks or raised scales especially along the ribs.
These are 2 different fish with the same problem. Look closely











 
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This is probably the greatest post I've ever read and am going to continue to read and read to my children and my children's children
 
Some of us were taught to respect our elders and head their wisdom.

Others just gotta screw up on their own and realize their elders knew what they were talking about after all.

:)
 
Some of it is wisdom, some of it is senility or fantasy, some is my active imagination and a small part is probably fact. A large part of that small fraction that is fact is not believed by a large majority of the small number of hobbiests who stubble across my posts, because that percentage of people that stumble across my posts, as small a number as they are, are sorry they turned on their computer because at least 57% of them were trying to go on Amazon.com to buy a Speedo. And that is a shame because a very large percentage of people who buy Speedo's should have spent more money on a much larger mirror that would show a significantly larger percentage of their body before they shopped for that Speedo. :sad2:
 
Some of it is wisdom, some of it is senility or fantasy, some is my active imagination and a small part is probably fact. A large part of that small fraction that is fact is not believed by a large majority of the small number of hobbiests who stubble across my posts, because that percentage of people that stumble across my posts, as small a number as they are, are sorry they turned on their computer because at least 57% of them were trying to go on Amazon.com to buy a Speedo. And that is a shame because a very large percentage of people who buy Speedo's should have spent more money on a much larger mirror that would show a significantly larger percentage of their body before they shopped for that Speedo. :sad2:

I'm feeling kinda dizzy, and tired. I think I better go lay down now. :spin2:
 
p.s. I used to live in S. Jamesport LI, eat at the Elbowroom and drink at the Ho after we raced around Robins Island, great area!

Small world. We've likely crossed paths. Used to do a lot of drinking at the old Ho. Worked in the boatyard there for few years, so naturally went next to door for a few drinks after work :D
 
Some of it is wisdom, some of it is senility or fantasy, some is my active imagination and a small part is probably fact. A large part of that small fraction that is fact is not believed by a large majority of the small number of hobbiests who stubble across my posts, because that percentage of people that stumble across my posts, as small a number as they are, are sorry they turned on their computer because at least 57% of them were trying to go on Amazon.com to buy a Speedo. And that is a shame because a very large percentage of people who buy Speedo's should have spent more money on a much larger mirror that would show a significantly larger percentage of their body before they shopped for that Speedo. :sad2:

much wisdom here. i think.
 
Some of it is wisdom, some of it is senility or fantasy, some is my active imagination and a small part is probably fact. A large part of that small fraction that is fact is not believed by a large majority of the small number of hobbiests who stubble across my posts, because that percentage of people that stumble across my posts, as small a number as they are, are sorry they turned on their computer because at least 57% of them were trying to go on Amazon.com to buy a Speedo. And that is a shame because a very large percentage of people who buy Speedo's should have spent more money on a much larger mirror that would show a significantly larger percentage of their body before they shopped for that Speedo. :sad2:

I'm a bit woozy after that read....but hay who's up for another shot of tequila?
Another great read Paul! Also, thanks for talking me out of the spedo, those are only for German and French men. I don't think Polocks are allows to wear them without propped permits.
 
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usually when I am bored at work I log onto RC and try to learn something. . . at some point in time I get bored again and go do something else. . . but not today. . . I LOVED YOUR POST! You've kept me chuckling, and my co-workers now believe they have rock solid evidence that I'm Crazy or something. . . . keep em coming!
 
I just noticed something in my tank that is never discussed. No one thinks of the benefits, or detriments. No one has used these things for any reason that I know of and if your tank is a new one of only a few years you probably don't have any.
What am I talking about? I better write it before I forget as my mind often wanders into the realm of Supermodels, inventions or Jello.
I am talking about tiny tube worms. For some silly reason that is foreign to me, my tank seems very stable. I think a fully grown moose could stumble into my tank after passing out from doing the Macarana and rot in there without having a mini cycle (whatever that is) I am not sure if that is because the bacteria in my tank is so good or that mooses just rot very quickly but I do know that a few years ago, maybe 5 or 10, I forget, I installed an algae trough to control algae cycles in my tank. It worked better than my wildest dreams. Well not all my dreams but you get the picture. That algae trough stopped growing algae a few years ago and now just grows tube worms. The water in it is about 3/4" deep and it is fully covered all the way out of the water with tube worms. Tube worms, brittle stars and amphipods. A tiny tube worm is basically an Electro Lux vacuum cleaner and I am sure they are cleaning the water in some way that it is not just as clean as a "Sham Wow" cloth would clean, but very clean. Could they also possibly be adding something beneficial to the water? I have no idea and I don't have another Moose to test my idea. But as I look at that trough which is fed from my skimmer, the left side is where the water feeds into it. The left side is fully packed with tiny tube worms
(and pieces of Moose) but as I look to the right to where the water exits the through, the tube worms get less to where the water goes back into the tank and there are hardly any tube worms. Like everything else, this is just a theory and also like everything else, the theory is probably wrong or just fantasy. Like the idea that Christie Brinkley is about to come knocking at my door. When I get time I will try to get a picture but in the meantime just picture a trough filled with tube worms (and moose hair) :dance:
 
Great Read! I wish there were 1 or 2 more people like you on RC, I could pass abit more time by reading old/new school techniques. Too many people starting their tanks up with magical bacteria in a bottle:hmm3:
 
I just thought of something else and I figured I would write it before I forget it as my 10 second memory is waning. Oh yeah, target feeding. Why should we target feed? Well if we want to keep some of the cooler fish and not just the sissy fish like tangs and clowns, we need to target feed them. I like weirder, more interesting fish like mandarins, pipefish, clingfish and manta rays. To keep those fish in a mixed reef with 20 or 30 faster more belligerent, nasty, uncouth fish you need to target feed them. Mandarins will get along fine if you have a 40+ year old tank but even though they will live, I want them to spawn because as I have been saying, fish that are not spawning are on the verge of getting psoriasis or just dropping dead. Pipefish, forget them if you throw them in a mixed reef and don't target feed them. They have no sense of humor and will die in a week. They also don't care how much they cost and the more colorful, expensive ones will die faster. Those types of fish all have very underdeveloped stomachs and just have a short tube for a digestive system. I am fed up to here (my hand is under my chin) with people "training" mandarins to eat pellets and Mysis. That fish is supposed to eat smell, live prey such as pods or even better, new born brine shrimp. I posted many times the target mandarin feeder I designed to do just that and my mandarins and pipefish are always spawning and not dying of psoriasis or anything else.
All fish in a tank should be target fed because we just have to many fish in our tanks and they all come from different oceans and don't know each other but eat at different rates. I have some possum wrasses and odd gobies that only come out on Jewish holidays or the Fourth Of July so if I didn't target these fish, I would not have them. Of course I wouldn't know if they died unless it was a Jewish Holiday or the Fourth of July, but I would know eventually. I am not Jewish so I have to consult someone who is for that information or I could just look for those fish and if I see them, I know what holiday it is. To target them, I use a baster looking thing that I designed and after I shoot some food to the rambunctious guys, I quickly shoot some food to the hiders. If I don't see them, I know where they hang out and shoot some food there. I have a copperband butterfly that knows my tactics so I have to try to be smarter than he is but it is tough as he is very smart. Some people feel that the fish I keep such as the copperbands, mandarins, pipefish or clown gobies are difficult. They are not, but they do take some extra work to keep them and sprinkling flakes on the water is not going to do it. As a matter of fact, If you have any flakes, take them outside and put them in the garbage. Fish need live food or at least frozen. And not all frozen food is the right stuff. Only whole foods are good. I must have mentioned that in the first post but I am to lazy to go back and check.

I use one of these to target feed but you can use a baster or something else. But you need to get the correct food to the right fish at the right time.



Video of the feeder.



Video, possum wrasse



Eating live baby brine shrimp



Every fish in this video, except the copper band is spawning (I wish the copperband would spawn but the closest fish to him is the manta ray)


My Grand kids have nothing to do with this except that Greta likes to feed my fish worms, so that sort of counts

 
I can see how a reverse UG filter would be very beneficial . I bet theres more surface area on the gravel than any amount of bioballs or biopellets. Plus your bacteria from the ocean . I wish I could grab a cupfull of your gravel lol . Id be willing to try an algae through * if I knew what it was * lol. I like how you think . Reminds me of my dad and grandfather . I think my granddad has kept fish since he was about 5 before they had filters . He paid for his honeymoon with money he made breeding fish . him and my dad were always building tanks . They used all sorts of materials from asbestos to types of metals . And they rarely did water changes . If they did it was from the reef off of the coast in Durban South Africa where they caught all their fish and got corals from .
 
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