Everything I know in case I go Senile (from 2014)
- Thread starter Paul B
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But wait..... Your NurseNed, you can fix us all up.
Michael Gilbreath
we all have are ways
Paul we met a few years back in Stockton Ca at a club meeting there be out of hobby for a few yrs because life has its ups and downs also moved to different state getting back in hobby because it gets in the blood lol. always fun to read your posts and learn im a firm believer in let it be it will work its self out. Now if I can finish this 180gl inwall build in the next couple months I'll be golden doing it my way which means a lot of making my own stuff. Hope your Wife is feeling better. Mike G
Matt Carden
Valuable Member
Always a pleasure to read your posts Paul. I have been attempting the natural method of adding as much diversity as I can. Memorial week I am going on vacation to Siesta Key, FL. I will be bringing back a 5 gallon jug full of ocean mud and NSW to add to my already diverse system. When I've gotten livestock in a bag, their water always goes in the tank.
My tank has been running 6 months. I have had fish for 3 months and have yet to have any issues with fish getting sick. I feed a Mollusk feast i pick up from the fresh seafood counter at the grocery store. My corals as well can tell when I'm feeding the fish a frozen cube because all those polyps pop out when the were closed up before i dropped the frozen cube directly into the tank.
There is ALOT of algae in my tank. If it gets really long i will reach in with a scrub brush to loosen some of the longer stuff the catch it with my fish net. Other than that I clean my glass with my flipper so I can look at all the interesting organisms.
I have had off the chart PO4 like over 6ppm which concerns me a little but nothing is dying so who knows.
My tank has been running 6 months. I have had fish for 3 months and have yet to have any issues with fish getting sick. I feed a Mollusk feast i pick up from the fresh seafood counter at the grocery store. My corals as well can tell when I'm feeding the fish a frozen cube because all those polyps pop out when the were closed up before i dropped the frozen cube directly into the tank.
There is ALOT of algae in my tank. If it gets really long i will reach in with a scrub brush to loosen some of the longer stuff the catch it with my fish net. Other than that I clean my glass with my flipper so I can look at all the interesting organisms.
I have had off the chart PO4 like over 6ppm which concerns me a little but nothing is dying so who knows.
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Paul B
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I Wish I Were a Fish—with a Lateral Line System!
Notice the lateral line on this Anthias in my tank
Everything about fish is amazing and fascinating. To me, the most fascinating thing about fish (beside their taste) is their lateral line system. The lateral line is the most important thing fish possess because without it, they would get around about as well as a supermodel with no high heels or make up artist.
We in the hobby rarely, if ever mention the lateral line, but all fish have one, and you can usually see it. It is a line of scales that are slightly different from the rest of the fish’s scales, and they run from near their mouth, around the eye, to the tail. That line is made up of epithelial cells, which are basically modified skin cells. They are mucus-filled canals that have hair cells in them—kind of like what we have in our ears to help us determine which direction our spouse is yelling at us from. For our participation in this hobby, we don’t need to know exactly how all this works, but you can delve into it if you desire.
Basically, the lateral line system allows the fish to know what is around it, what it is chasing, and how close it is to anything solid, including other fish, which is how millions of fish can swim in a school and never touch each other. I rode on the New York City subway system for 40 years, and I can assure you that none of those people had a lateral line system!
This system is a huge help to fish, but in an aquarium, it can also be a liability. Think about this for a minute: A fish in the sea has no barriers. It can roam all over the place as long as it avoids the bottom, other fish, and rocks. The lateral line system works just like sonar in a submarine and lets the fish avoid obstacles and predators. Of course, predators also have a lateral line system, which is why so many fish get eaten. But a tank is made out of glass, which the fish can sense but not see. The glass surrounds the fish so the fish can detect only a very short distance around or under it.
The lateral line is apparent on this copperband butterflyfish
As noted in my subway example, we humans don’t possess such a system, but plenty of us are claustrophobic, and if we’re put in a small space, such as an MRI machine, we can go nuts. Of course many of us have no fear of tight places. We can, of course, just avoid tight spaces, but our fish are at our mercy and know they are confined.
A schooling fish, such as a tang, always swims in very close proximity to other tangs in its school. Most tangs are never alone, and they depend on the mindset of the entire school to determine when to turn, when to eat, and when to flee. Now, when we take that tang and put it in a tank, there is no school. There are no other fish within inches of it, no other fish for it to take cues from. But there is that glass—that obstacle near it that seems to always move with it. It can’t get away. It can’t find open water. It can’t go deeper. Then we wonder why tangs are known as ich magnets. I wonder if this tank situation causes HLLE, which always starts where the lateral line does, on the head.
Fish in a tank also know that they are only in a few inches of water and I am sure that drives them nuts. If we walk by a tropical sea we will never see full grown copperbands or French Angels in two feet of water. A fish such as a Royal Grammar are deep water fish and they know the depth they are in.
Have you ever tried to catch a fish with a net? Of course you have. I bet you didn’t catch it very easily unless you cheated and trapped it next to a rock or the glass. Healthy fish can easily avoid a net because they are much faster than we are and their lateral line instantly lets them know exactly where the net is. Have you ever seen a fish crash into the glass? No you haven’t. Fish don’t crash, as I have never seen one with a bloody nose. Not even in the dark. Have you ever seen a fish get cut on coral or a rusty fender from a 1957 Oldsmobile? I bet you haven’t. Fish can even get along quite well if they lose an eye and sometimes both eyes. Blind cave fish don’t even have eyes, and you still can’t catch them with a net unless you trap them.
If you scuba dive, you will see dozens of fish all dive into a coral head at the same time. If you are wearing a Speedo, they will cram themselves in tighter. They don’t even know whether they will fit, but they get in. They don’t even jam themselves into the same hole as other fish. And they all come out just fine, no scratches.
For an experiment, you can take a permanent marker and draw a line from your eye, down your sides, right to your toes. Then blindfold yourself and run through a forest or Times Square in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve. I bet you come out all beaten up and bloody.
That’s because you are not a fish.
Notice the lateral line on this Anthias in my tank
Everything about fish is amazing and fascinating. To me, the most fascinating thing about fish (beside their taste) is their lateral line system. The lateral line is the most important thing fish possess because without it, they would get around about as well as a supermodel with no high heels or make up artist.
We in the hobby rarely, if ever mention the lateral line, but all fish have one, and you can usually see it. It is a line of scales that are slightly different from the rest of the fish’s scales, and they run from near their mouth, around the eye, to the tail. That line is made up of epithelial cells, which are basically modified skin cells. They are mucus-filled canals that have hair cells in them—kind of like what we have in our ears to help us determine which direction our spouse is yelling at us from. For our participation in this hobby, we don’t need to know exactly how all this works, but you can delve into it if you desire.
Basically, the lateral line system allows the fish to know what is around it, what it is chasing, and how close it is to anything solid, including other fish, which is how millions of fish can swim in a school and never touch each other. I rode on the New York City subway system for 40 years, and I can assure you that none of those people had a lateral line system!
This system is a huge help to fish, but in an aquarium, it can also be a liability. Think about this for a minute: A fish in the sea has no barriers. It can roam all over the place as long as it avoids the bottom, other fish, and rocks. The lateral line system works just like sonar in a submarine and lets the fish avoid obstacles and predators. Of course, predators also have a lateral line system, which is why so many fish get eaten. But a tank is made out of glass, which the fish can sense but not see. The glass surrounds the fish so the fish can detect only a very short distance around or under it.
The lateral line is apparent on this copperband butterflyfish
As noted in my subway example, we humans don’t possess such a system, but plenty of us are claustrophobic, and if we’re put in a small space, such as an MRI machine, we can go nuts. Of course many of us have no fear of tight places. We can, of course, just avoid tight spaces, but our fish are at our mercy and know they are confined.
A schooling fish, such as a tang, always swims in very close proximity to other tangs in its school. Most tangs are never alone, and they depend on the mindset of the entire school to determine when to turn, when to eat, and when to flee. Now, when we take that tang and put it in a tank, there is no school. There are no other fish within inches of it, no other fish for it to take cues from. But there is that glass—that obstacle near it that seems to always move with it. It can’t get away. It can’t find open water. It can’t go deeper. Then we wonder why tangs are known as ich magnets. I wonder if this tank situation causes HLLE, which always starts where the lateral line does, on the head.
Fish in a tank also know that they are only in a few inches of water and I am sure that drives them nuts. If we walk by a tropical sea we will never see full grown copperbands or French Angels in two feet of water. A fish such as a Royal Grammar are deep water fish and they know the depth they are in.
Have you ever tried to catch a fish with a net? Of course you have. I bet you didn’t catch it very easily unless you cheated and trapped it next to a rock or the glass. Healthy fish can easily avoid a net because they are much faster than we are and their lateral line instantly lets them know exactly where the net is. Have you ever seen a fish crash into the glass? No you haven’t. Fish don’t crash, as I have never seen one with a bloody nose. Not even in the dark. Have you ever seen a fish get cut on coral or a rusty fender from a 1957 Oldsmobile? I bet you haven’t. Fish can even get along quite well if they lose an eye and sometimes both eyes. Blind cave fish don’t even have eyes, and you still can’t catch them with a net unless you trap them.
If you scuba dive, you will see dozens of fish all dive into a coral head at the same time. If you are wearing a Speedo, they will cram themselves in tighter. They don’t even know whether they will fit, but they get in. They don’t even jam themselves into the same hole as other fish. And they all come out just fine, no scratches.
For an experiment, you can take a permanent marker and draw a line from your eye, down your sides, right to your toes. Then blindfold yourself and run through a forest or Times Square in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve. I bet you come out all beaten up and bloody.
That’s because you are not a fish.
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Paul B
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Matt, keep that mud suspended and airated or it will be a stinking mess when you get home.
Crashjack
Well-Known Member
I'm no expert, but my belief is that stress has a lot to do with it. I think one of the problems people have today is replacing the rock wall with a couple of rocks in the middle of the tank. Where do fish hide? Where do fish "sleep"? Fish in our tanks don't know there are no nocturnal predators lurking so they still want the kind of protection they would find on the reef. Take that protection away, and it has to cause stress. I'm sure nutrition plays some role, but I don't know that terrestrial live foods hold the key to immunity any more than a variety of quality fish foods or vitamin supplements. I'm certainly not claiming live foods don't have some merit. I'm just not sure it can be proven that tanks fed with live foods periodically are immunity factories and those that are not are ticking parasite time bombs. I do agree that when I was in the hobby back in the mid-90's - early 2000's, I didn't quarantine all fish and never dipped a coral. Every now and then I might see a few ich spots on my yellow tang and didn't worry about it because I believed all tanks had ich. I rarely lost a fish and can't remember ever losing a fish after it had been in the tank a while except maybe some chromis that probably killed each other. I got back into the hobby almost 2 years ago and have quarantined every fish and dipped every coral. Admittedly, I've had less success, though I attribute that to trying too hard to have a low nutrient "clean" tank. I started with all dry rock, but I didn't test nitrate/phosphate and ended up with a horrific dino problem. Finally the dinos were replaced by a GHA infestation, and I was too aggressive getting nutrients back down, which led to my second dino infestation that took almost a year to get rid of. Not only that, I had the worst aiptasia infestation I've ever seen and am treating bryopsis for the second time. My old tanks were always started with mostly live rock, had what we would consider today as underpowered skimmers, had no controllers, the temp of my in-wall 75 gal sometimes got up to 84 deg F in the summer, and I almost never tested nitrate/phosphate (maybe 5 times the whole time I was in the hobby, and that covered multiple tanks). Therefore, I'm never going to claim that "new school" is better than "old school".
On the other subject... chronic debilitating diseases... I am an expert. I was diagnosed with an adult form of Muscular Dystrophy almost 30 years ago (I'm 54). I deal with a lot of frustration and also anger towards those things that cause me frustration (mostly inanimate objects). However, I have almost no depression, probably less depression than most people with no debilitating disease. The key is not allowing the disease to define you. Of course you struggle. Of course you can't do all the things you want to do or used to do. So what? Identify something (or some things) you want to do and figure out a way to do it (them). I've always poured myself into hobbies, and my favorite hobby was fishing. I had a bass boat and fished in clubs, went trout fishing a couple of weekends a year, and I spent most of my free time on the water or working on my boat or reading bass magazines or looking at catalogs. However the day came when I realized that getting in and out of boats and getting around in boats while on the water was getting to be too difficult. I sold my boat and got into aquariums, which evolved into reef tanks. Again, I poured myself into the hobby, including reading, participating on message boards, visiting LFSs, and so forth. Eventually, my manual methods of keeping tanks got too time consuming, and lifting, carrying, and pouring 5 gal buckets was getting pretty hard so I sold out. I then got into home wine making, which included some intensive work at times but also included a lot of down time and most things weren't time sensitive. The glass carbouys filled with wine were heavy, but I used carbouy holders, and you don't lift and pour wine out of a carbouy; you siphon it out. Again, I read a lot and participated on message boards and so forth. Eventually I delegated the heavy-lifting to my son and then eventually got out of that hobby. Near the end of my wine making days, I received a cheap, toy coaxial helicopter from my wife as a Christmas present, and my next hobby was born. That indoor toy morphed into a small fixed-pitch helicopter, which morphed into a small collective pitch helicopter, which morphed into foamy planes and larger, up to 550-sized collective-pitch helicopters and flying with an RC (remote control) club at a dedicated RC field. By this time, I had to use a mobility scooter to get around except for walking on flat surfaces with a cane. Like my other hobbies, I had to figure out "cheats" that enabled me to participate. Everything from how to load/unload my models and equipment into my van to how I needed to modify and hold my transmitter to the weight and size of models I could lift, carry, and handle while sitting in my scooter. It was as big of a mental exercise as it was physical. Of course, I poured myself into it... building, flying the simulator, reading and participating on message boards, not to mention actually flying. Also like my other hobbies, it got to where the "cheats" weren't enough, and I knew I couldn't go much longer. I started searching for something new and finally settled on getting back into reef keeping. Only this time, I had to figure out a lot of cheats. At the same time, I was in the process of getting a powerchair as my walking was regulated to inside the house with a walker, and using a scooter as a wheelchair all of the time isn't practical. One of my cheats was an elevating wheelchair so I could get to the top of the tank. I also thought out every step and designed the system to where everything is accessible, and I have a controller. I also have a guy who comes every two weeks to do water changes and some maintenance that would either be difficult or impossible for me to do. Everything else, I do myself.
Yes, I have a personal relationship with God that admittedly is sometimes strained, but it isn't like God waves a magic wand and all of a sudden, I'm not depressed. Instead, He gave me an obsessive compulsive personality (bordering on disorder) and a terrifying fear of failure (whoever says God doesn't have a sense of humor doesn't know what they are talking about).
If anybody is still awake, my point is, you can either obsess about your disability, disease, illness, or whatever and let that define you. Or, you can give it a big FU and cheat it out of taking over your life. I can 100% guarantee that you will never regret choosing the latter.
On the other subject... chronic debilitating diseases... I am an expert. I was diagnosed with an adult form of Muscular Dystrophy almost 30 years ago (I'm 54). I deal with a lot of frustration and also anger towards those things that cause me frustration (mostly inanimate objects). However, I have almost no depression, probably less depression than most people with no debilitating disease. The key is not allowing the disease to define you. Of course you struggle. Of course you can't do all the things you want to do or used to do. So what? Identify something (or some things) you want to do and figure out a way to do it (them). I've always poured myself into hobbies, and my favorite hobby was fishing. I had a bass boat and fished in clubs, went trout fishing a couple of weekends a year, and I spent most of my free time on the water or working on my boat or reading bass magazines or looking at catalogs. However the day came when I realized that getting in and out of boats and getting around in boats while on the water was getting to be too difficult. I sold my boat and got into aquariums, which evolved into reef tanks. Again, I poured myself into the hobby, including reading, participating on message boards, visiting LFSs, and so forth. Eventually, my manual methods of keeping tanks got too time consuming, and lifting, carrying, and pouring 5 gal buckets was getting pretty hard so I sold out. I then got into home wine making, which included some intensive work at times but also included a lot of down time and most things weren't time sensitive. The glass carbouys filled with wine were heavy, but I used carbouy holders, and you don't lift and pour wine out of a carbouy; you siphon it out. Again, I read a lot and participated on message boards and so forth. Eventually I delegated the heavy-lifting to my son and then eventually got out of that hobby. Near the end of my wine making days, I received a cheap, toy coaxial helicopter from my wife as a Christmas present, and my next hobby was born. That indoor toy morphed into a small fixed-pitch helicopter, which morphed into a small collective pitch helicopter, which morphed into foamy planes and larger, up to 550-sized collective-pitch helicopters and flying with an RC (remote control) club at a dedicated RC field. By this time, I had to use a mobility scooter to get around except for walking on flat surfaces with a cane. Like my other hobbies, I had to figure out "cheats" that enabled me to participate. Everything from how to load/unload my models and equipment into my van to how I needed to modify and hold my transmitter to the weight and size of models I could lift, carry, and handle while sitting in my scooter. It was as big of a mental exercise as it was physical. Of course, I poured myself into it... building, flying the simulator, reading and participating on message boards, not to mention actually flying. Also like my other hobbies, it got to where the "cheats" weren't enough, and I knew I couldn't go much longer. I started searching for something new and finally settled on getting back into reef keeping. Only this time, I had to figure out a lot of cheats. At the same time, I was in the process of getting a powerchair as my walking was regulated to inside the house with a walker, and using a scooter as a wheelchair all of the time isn't practical. One of my cheats was an elevating wheelchair so I could get to the top of the tank. I also thought out every step and designed the system to where everything is accessible, and I have a controller. I also have a guy who comes every two weeks to do water changes and some maintenance that would either be difficult or impossible for me to do. Everything else, I do myself.
Yes, I have a personal relationship with God that admittedly is sometimes strained, but it isn't like God waves a magic wand and all of a sudden, I'm not depressed. Instead, He gave me an obsessive compulsive personality (bordering on disorder) and a terrifying fear of failure (whoever says God doesn't have a sense of humor doesn't know what they are talking about).
If anybody is still awake, my point is, you can either obsess about your disability, disease, illness, or whatever and let that define you. Or, you can give it a big FU and cheat it out of taking over your life. I can 100% guarantee that you will never regret choosing the latter.
BestMomEver
2500 Club Member
@Paul B its interesting you mention dipping corals. I have, in the past, dipped corals. The only thing that has ever come off of them is pods and bristle worms. Last time I looked, that was considered free fish food. Now when I put a new coral in I noticed that my six line Wrasse was the first to investigate. He knows his job and does it well. He’s fat as can be. But I also buy bottles of pods every two weeks. He and my Pygmy angel love me for it.
So now, I have bottles of Copper Power, Prazipro, methylene blue, Coral Dip, Coral Feel Better, Fish Swim Faster, everything eat more, triple antibiotic ointment and bandaids that will never get used.
So now, I have bottles of Copper Power, Prazipro, methylene blue, Coral Dip, Coral Feel Better, Fish Swim Faster, everything eat more, triple antibiotic ointment and bandaids that will never get used.
M007
Community Member
Thank you for sharing Paul, I've been lurking your threads for sometime and so appreciate your stories and invaluable information. As for QT; did that recently with two CBB. Both ended up passing. Tried again, same introduction to my water including 2 hour drip. This time straight into the displays. Magic! Eating and looking great. On algae; ran GAC and P04 absorbers for years together with Siporax. Meh, tanks did OK. Tried some other bacteria driven ideas, even did vodka a few years ago. Meh! Pulled it all and converted my centre sump section to full Cheato with a H380 grow lamp and loaded the reactor with floss. Tanks NEVER looked better. Thank you
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Paul B
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Copperbands hate quarantine like most fish do. If you want to quarantine a fish like a copperband it really needs to be a tank that is set up with real hiding places and real rocks and real copperband food.
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Rules. Where did these "rules come from?
Where did these rules come from? Most "rules" came about because of the internet. Now there are thousands of people with reefs and many of them are having problems. We all have problems in the beginning and it is not our fault or the fault of the fish. New un-established tanks have problems. Eventually "rules" came out of all the advice, both good and bad. Unfortunately many of these rules were originally rumors from people with little experience, experiencing problems.
Someone would add a cleaner shrimp and the ich would go away so they figured the shrimp cured the fish, it diden't.
How many times we read someone put a snail or sea hare in a tank and the algae disappears so they think that 1/2" snail ate all the algae, it diden't.
The truth is that ich and algae often (usually) disappear overnight on their own.
Reverse UG filters were lost because of these rules. People don't know how to use them so they invented a rule that they don't work in a reef. Using NSW also became involved in rules because, in part, not many people have access to it and also because of all the negative presss the oceans have been getting from envirnmentalists. The US coastal seas are actually much cleaner now then they were in the seventees because of dumping regulations. People say you have to go out in a boat a few miles to collect. You don't. That came about from people who never collected NSW or they live in Idaho or Tibet. The water miles out is the same water that was on the shore in France a few months ago or Coney Island a few hours ago.
There are "rules" on what size tank you need for a tang". I had a hippo tang in a 40 gallon tank for years. He smiled every day and grew larger when I put him in a larger tank. He was fine and lived a long healthy productive life. If you only have a smaller tank and you want to use it, no one is going to shoot you. All fish should be in larger tanks, preferably the ocean but we all don't have an ocean. people keep parrots in a cage for decades and no one complains.
I add bacteria from the sea, there is a rule for that because it may add paracites. I have been waiting for those paracites to harm something since Nixon was President.
There is one that says that if you use copper in a tank, you can never use that tank or rocks again. How long is "never?" I have used copper for years in my tank. Still waiting for the crash.
Unfortunately this is not an exact science so rules have to be very flexible.
We look at our tanks and try to find problems but many of the problems are associated with bacteria. If we could see them, bacteria covers every grain of sand in our tanks. That bacteria is all that is keeping the animals alive.
There are thousands of types of bacteria and we all have different strains of them depending on where we collect our water or where we buy animals and where they were collected and how they were treated.
The guy with the canoe who collected our algae bleeny may have had athletes foot, so athletes foot bacteria would be in that water.
If we never added bacteria from the sea, (or our back yards) our tanks are a desert when it comes to bacterial diversity. Thats where tank crashes, algae blooms and diseases come from. Thats alas why so many people have problems with nitrates which should be taken care of by the correct type and amounts of bacteria.
We, of course need some rules but we have to understand that they are very flexible and all tanks and people have their own set of needs and circumstances.
Just my drug induced thoughts.
Where did these rules come from? Most "rules" came about because of the internet. Now there are thousands of people with reefs and many of them are having problems. We all have problems in the beginning and it is not our fault or the fault of the fish. New un-established tanks have problems. Eventually "rules" came out of all the advice, both good and bad. Unfortunately many of these rules were originally rumors from people with little experience, experiencing problems.
Someone would add a cleaner shrimp and the ich would go away so they figured the shrimp cured the fish, it diden't.
How many times we read someone put a snail or sea hare in a tank and the algae disappears so they think that 1/2" snail ate all the algae, it diden't.
The truth is that ich and algae often (usually) disappear overnight on their own.
Reverse UG filters were lost because of these rules. People don't know how to use them so they invented a rule that they don't work in a reef. Using NSW also became involved in rules because, in part, not many people have access to it and also because of all the negative presss the oceans have been getting from envirnmentalists. The US coastal seas are actually much cleaner now then they were in the seventees because of dumping regulations. People say you have to go out in a boat a few miles to collect. You don't. That came about from people who never collected NSW or they live in Idaho or Tibet. The water miles out is the same water that was on the shore in France a few months ago or Coney Island a few hours ago.
There are "rules" on what size tank you need for a tang". I had a hippo tang in a 40 gallon tank for years. He smiled every day and grew larger when I put him in a larger tank. He was fine and lived a long healthy productive life. If you only have a smaller tank and you want to use it, no one is going to shoot you. All fish should be in larger tanks, preferably the ocean but we all don't have an ocean. people keep parrots in a cage for decades and no one complains.
I add bacteria from the sea, there is a rule for that because it may add paracites. I have been waiting for those paracites to harm something since Nixon was President.
There is one that says that if you use copper in a tank, you can never use that tank or rocks again. How long is "never?" I have used copper for years in my tank. Still waiting for the crash.
Unfortunately this is not an exact science so rules have to be very flexible.
We look at our tanks and try to find problems but many of the problems are associated with bacteria. If we could see them, bacteria covers every grain of sand in our tanks. That bacteria is all that is keeping the animals alive.
There are thousands of types of bacteria and we all have different strains of them depending on where we collect our water or where we buy animals and where they were collected and how they were treated.
The guy with the canoe who collected our algae bleeny may have had athletes foot, so athletes foot bacteria would be in that water.
If we never added bacteria from the sea, (or our back yards) our tanks are a desert when it comes to bacterial diversity. Thats where tank crashes, algae blooms and diseases come from. Thats alas why so many people have problems with nitrates which should be taken care of by the correct type and amounts of bacteria.
We, of course need some rules but we have to understand that they are very flexible and all tanks and people have their own set of needs and circumstances.
Just my drug induced thoughts.
Last edited:
vetteguy53081
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Great write-up
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This was also from this forum on my tank thread from 2011, but 93% of the people who read that are now in nursing homes so I am posting it again. If you read it then, you are a Geezer.
It is common practice in Long Island to add zinc orthophosphate to the water supply to control corrosion in the pipes. All of Long Island uses well water and it corrodes brass very fast. The zinc forms a film on the inside of the pipes to protect them. The brass screws inside valves just crumble.
I have resins now that specifically remove zinc, I get it from "The Filter Guys" I don't remember what type it is but I need to order some more.
This zinc is what stopped me from using tap water like I did for many years. The first time they added the zinc I lost all my corals, and that was about 20 years ago. (40 now) I don't think it is too much of a problem every day but if I happen to change water with a batch of water just after they add the chemical, my tank is in trouble. It seems that my RO/DI does not remove enough of it in those cases. It also happened to the large LFS a few blocks from my house the same time it happened to me.
blue devils cost $7.00 in 1971 in Manhattan, that's like $50.00 today. I initially filled my tank with water from the Long Island Sound as there was no ASW for sale then. There was also no live rock or any rock, we used dead coral skeletons for decoration and we removed then every couple of weeks to bleach so they were pure white. All tanks looked like that.
I added livestock then like I do now but we had to keep copper in the water continuously because everything had ich. The tanks were not very healthy due to not having enough bacteria and there was no salt water food available. There was almost nothing in print, no books and no computers so no internet. No fish forums, and no one with a salt tank, except me. I bought the first blue devils the week they became available for sale 40 years ago next month. (48 years ago now)
I change about 20% of the water 5 or 6 times a year and I only add homemade 2 part calcium.
The first 5 years the tank was in smaller glass, here it is circa 1972. You can see the bleached corals and the blue devils.
I got them to live 7 years and they spawned for many of those years.
It is common practice in Long Island to add zinc orthophosphate to the water supply to control corrosion in the pipes. All of Long Island uses well water and it corrodes brass very fast. The zinc forms a film on the inside of the pipes to protect them. The brass screws inside valves just crumble.
I have resins now that specifically remove zinc, I get it from "The Filter Guys" I don't remember what type it is but I need to order some more.
This zinc is what stopped me from using tap water like I did for many years. The first time they added the zinc I lost all my corals, and that was about 20 years ago. (40 now) I don't think it is too much of a problem every day but if I happen to change water with a batch of water just after they add the chemical, my tank is in trouble. It seems that my RO/DI does not remove enough of it in those cases. It also happened to the large LFS a few blocks from my house the same time it happened to me.
blue devils cost $7.00 in 1971 in Manhattan, that's like $50.00 today. I initially filled my tank with water from the Long Island Sound as there was no ASW for sale then. There was also no live rock or any rock, we used dead coral skeletons for decoration and we removed then every couple of weeks to bleach so they were pure white. All tanks looked like that.
I added livestock then like I do now but we had to keep copper in the water continuously because everything had ich. The tanks were not very healthy due to not having enough bacteria and there was no salt water food available. There was almost nothing in print, no books and no computers so no internet. No fish forums, and no one with a salt tank, except me. I bought the first blue devils the week they became available for sale 40 years ago next month. (48 years ago now)
I change about 20% of the water 5 or 6 times a year and I only add homemade 2 part calcium.
The first 5 years the tank was in smaller glass, here it is circa 1972. You can see the bleached corals and the blue devils.
I got them to live 7 years and they spawned for many of those years.
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Paul B
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What part is it? The fish disease part or the people disease part or is it just my weird personality?
WVNed
The fish are staring at me with hungry eyes.
What part is it? The fish disease part or the people disease part or is it just my weird personality?
I suppose it is how I view the forum. I use the "new posts" tab. Some days it is a rolling marquee for the death, disease, pest and parasite show.
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Most forums are like that and I am not sure why. IMO there is almost no reason for fish to ever get sick
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The fish are staring at me with hungry eyes.
I have started to keep my opinions to myself. They do not fit the current zeitgeist.
My biggest issue is I have to clean my glass once a week.
My biggest issue is I have to clean my glass once a week.
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My Tank Thread
Haha! Paul, I love your posts, man! Thanks for being an inspiration to all of us! There's no way half of us would still be in the hobby without the innovations and advances in tech and science, but you're here reminding us that some of you guys have been stalwart enough and creative enough to do reefing when it was REALLY hard to do! I'm always amazed at your tank, and I learn so much just by following along with what you do. Thanks for sharing your knowledge (and sharing it in a way that is always enjoyable to read).
Nice! My yellow tang is constantly paranoid. Hes always coming out and swimming with any fish he can form a school with lol. Even my panther grouper. The panther gets annoyed sometimes.I Wish I Were a Fish—with a Lateral Line System!
Notice the lateral line on this Anthias in my tank
Everything about fish is amazing and fascinating. To me, the most fascinating thing about fish (beside their taste) is their lateral line system. The lateral line is the most important thing fish possess because without it, they would get around about as well as a supermodel with no high heels or make up artist.
We in the hobby rarely, if ever mention the lateral line, but all fish have one, and you can usually see it. It is a line of scales that are slightly different from the rest of the fish’s scales, and they run from near their mouth, around the eye, to the tail. That line is made up of epithelial cells, which are basically modified skin cells. They are mucus-filled canals that have hair cells in them—kind of like what we have in our ears to help us determine which direction our spouse is yelling at us from. For our participation in this hobby, we don’t need to know exactly how all this works, but you can delve into it if you desire.
Basically, the lateral line system allows the fish to know what is around it, what it is chasing, and how close it is to anything solid, including other fish, which is how millions of fish can swim in a school and never touch each other. I rode on the New York City subway system for 40 years, and I can assure you that none of those people had a lateral line system!
This system is a huge help to fish, but in an aquarium, it can also be a liability. Think about this for a minute: A fish in the sea has no barriers. It can roam all over the place as long as it avoids the bottom, other fish, and rocks. The lateral line system works just like sonar in a submarine and lets the fish avoid obstacles and predators. Of course, predators also have a lateral line system, which is why so many fish get eaten. But a tank is made out of glass, which the fish can sense but not see. The glass surrounds the fish so the fish can detect only a very short distance around or under it.
The lateral line is apparent on this copperband butterflyfish
As noted in my subway example, we humans don’t possess such a system, but plenty of us are claustrophobic, and if we’re put in a small space, such as an MRI machine, we can go nuts. Of course many of us have no fear of tight places. We can, of course, just avoid tight spaces, but our fish are at our mercy and know they are confined.
A schooling fish, such as a tang, always swims in very close proximity to other tangs in its school. Most tangs are never alone, and they depend on the mindset of the entire school to determine when to turn, when to eat, and when to flee. Now, when we take that tang and put it in a tank, there is no school. There are no other fish within inches of it, no other fish for it to take cues from. But there is that glass—that obstacle near it that seems to always move with it. It can’t get away. It can’t find open water. It can’t go deeper. Then we wonder why tangs are known as ich magnets. I wonder if this tank situation causes HLLE, which always starts where the lateral line does, on the head.
Fish in a tank also know that they are only in a few inches of water and I am sure that drives them nuts. If we walk by a tropical sea we will never see full grown copperbands or French Angels in two feet of water. A fish such as a Royal Grammar are deep water fish and they know the depth they are in.
Have you ever tried to catch a fish with a net? Of course you have. I bet you didn’t catch it very easily unless you cheated and trapped it next to a rock or the glass. Healthy fish can easily avoid a net because they are much faster than we are and their lateral line instantly lets them know exactly where the net is. Have you ever seen a fish crash into the glass? No you haven’t. Fish don’t crash, as I have never seen one with a bloody nose. Not even in the dark. Have you ever seen a fish get cut on coral or a rusty fender from a 1957 Oldsmobile? I bet you haven’t. Fish can even get along quite well if they lose an eye and sometimes both eyes. Blind cave fish don’t even have eyes, and you still can’t catch them with a net unless you trap them.
If you scuba dive, you will see dozens of fish all dive into a coral head at the same time. If you are wearing a Speedo, they will cram themselves in tighter. They don’t even know whether they will fit, but they get in. They don’t even jam themselves into the same hole as other fish. And they all come out just fine, no scratches.
For an experiment, you can take a permanent marker and draw a line from your eye, down your sides, right to your toes. Then blindfold yourself and run through a forest or Times Square in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve. I bet you come out all beaten up and bloody.
That’s because you are not a fish.
Ive seen a correlation between activated carbon dust and hlle. I suspect the dust gets inside that lateral line.
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