Everything I know in case I go Senile (from 2014)

[Paul B]

Haha! Paul, I love your posts, man!

mdbannister, I saw your name and I figured you wanted to ban me or tell me to stick a sea urchin spine in my eye.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge (and sharing it in a way that is always enjoyable to read).

I was thinking of ways to "not" make it enjoyable like listing specifications, quotes from Shakespeare, references from long dead marine biologists, Liberals and that chart of the ich cycle that we see all the time. I don't think the ich parasites ever saw that chart because if they did, they would know they are supposed to croak after a certain number of days. Maybe they are confused because it is a leap year and they lost count.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

mdbannister, I saw your name and I figured you wanted to ban me or tell me to stick a sea urchin spine in my eye.

LOL!! Nothin' but love for you, sir!

 

[WVNed]

Male pattern baldness is one thing I don't have.

 

[Paul B]

Another old post: (This is easier than typing all this stuff again.)

The advantages of keeping a natural Reef

We all know that there are many ways to run a tank but I would like to start a thread about keeping a natural reef. The ocean is natural and the fish there are all very healthy and never have to worry about getting sick, getting enough food, getting enough sunlight, exercise etc. They do however have to worry about getting eaten by something larger or getting caught in a net, suffocating on the deck of a ship then being stuffed into a small can labeled "Dolphin Safe".

None of the tanks we keep are natural by any stretch of the imagination but I feel we should strive to get as close to naturel as we can.
There is a reason for this thinking. Fish in a natural, unstressed state are just healthier. They are healthier because they eat better and by that I don't mean the foods they eat have more nutrition, although they could have. I mean they eat healthier because the foods they eat have the living bacteria in them that help keep fish immune from disease.
Fish are different from most of us and some of us smell better than fish. Fish in the sea eat mostly fish and crustaceans and many of us also feed that type of food, but fish in the sea eat whole fish and crustaceans, bones, guts, eyes and all. It is difficult for us to get very tiny whole fish for food and I discussed this point with fish food manufacturers a few times. I can buy very tiny whole maceral babies in an Asian market but they are always freeze dried with the consistency of wood. Fish won't eat wood and neither would I.

My last few weeks in Viet Nam we were issued what they call LURPS. It's basically freeze dried stew but if you tried to eat it without adding boiling water, it would be like eating Styrofoam with powdered Styrofoam on top of it. Our problem was that we hardly had water, much less boiling water. If you just added water the same temperature as our tanks, it would just float, and you still couldn't eat it. That’s the same problem with trying to feed our fish freeze dried food.

The ingredient in foods that will keep the fish immune is the bacteria and parasites in its gut and a wild fish eats that at every meal. A fishes gut, or intestine and stomach is filled with bacteria just as ours is. We and the fish need that bacteria because it is that bacteria that keep us healthy. That is the reason that when we take antibiotics we get the "runs" and feel lousy. The antibiotics kill our stomach bacteria and we can’t live without it. I don't really know how fish feel but I do know they are supposed to have a gut filled with live bacteria and parasites as all the fish in the sea do.
That is the reason fish in many tanks are so delicate and the reason for all the disease threads. Fish are actually very robust and rarely, if ever get sick on the proper diet. A healthy fish in a natural tank will eat right away and not hide for days at a time, unless it is a type of fish that is supposed to do that. All healthy fish will also try to spawn. Of course if you have an algae blenny it won’t try to mate with a whale shark.
So many people have trouble with feeding fish such as mandarins, copperbands, moorish Idols etc. That is because IMO, it is not a natural tank. ;Sour

When we get the fish from a store, that fish may have been collected a month ago. In that time it was not eating the food it is supposed to eat along with the bacteria and parasites it is used to eating. It’s like us on antibiotics and its stomach and intestines are not working properly because a fish gets its immunity from its kidney and the kidney knows what types of immunity it should churn out by the types of bacteria and parasites in its stomach.
If we get a new fish and put it in a tank with copper or antibiotics, that fish is off to a bad start. I myself used to do that. Treat new fish just to make sure they were “healthy”. I learned the hard way that that is not the way to go. Naturally if we get a fish in the process of having last rites, or if an angelfish is giving it mouth to mouth resuscitation, we have to treat it, but we should rarely get a fish like that.
Healthy fish in natural tanks spawn continuously because that’s what fish do.

The Mother fish imparts her immunity to her fry so it can survive its first few days outside the egg because a fish fry has a thin coat of slime which is the fishes only defense against pathogens. If that slime doesn’t have any immunity in it from its Mother, it cannot survive because it will be attached by every pathogen in the sea, or a tank. If it’s Mother doesn’t have immunity, neither will its babies because where would it come from? The baby fish hasn’t yet been exposed to anything so it could not get any immunity and it would not survive. As that baby fish starts eating, it consumes bacteria and parasite laden foods which it should be immune to, but only if it got that immunity from an immune Mother.

If you keep a sterile tank with no input of natural bacteria or parasites, that fish will always be at risk of infection from bacteria, viruses and parasites so everything in contact with it needs to be quarantined. But even if you quarantine everything that is in contact with that fish, you can’t keep all disease bacteria away from it, especially if you buy coral or rock because those things, even if quarantined for years can harbor disease pathogens in the form of viruses and bacteria that quarantining will have no effect on. Quarantining can remove parasites, but nothing else.

You can’t turn a sterile, quarantined tank into a natural tank very easily because those fish have no natural immunity to anything because they are not exposed to anything so it would be a slow and possibly scary process. The fish would need to become infected, and then cured by un natural means until the fish builds up immunity or unfortunately, dies.
It is much easier to set up a natural tank in the beginning but of course that can also be scary, especially if you are new at this. If I were to set up another tank tomorrow I would do it almost exactly like I set up my present tank. Reverse Undergravel filter and all, but I doubt the UG filter has much bearing on the health of the fish.

I am lucky that I can get some natural water and mud from the sea, but I also add regular dirt from outside my house. Dirt that doesn’t have pesticides, fertilizer, weed killers or battery acid from a 1957 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I add a little soil, not for the soil, but for the bacteria. If I collect earthworms for food, I leave the dirt on. It’s the same dirt that is inside the earthworms. Eating a little dirt won’t hurt us and it won’t hurt your fish.
I would also feed something with live bacteria in it at every meal. I use white worms, blackworms, earthworms, or clams that I buy live and freeze myself. Clams that you freeze yourself would still have the same bacteria in it as when the clam was alive because our home freezer is not that cold. Processed fish food you buy is questionable as to the presence of bacteria because it needs to be somewhat free of bacteria so it can last and be sold. It may also be irradiated.
(If I could only use one food, it would be clams)
Our fish should only die of old age and fish on the proper diet in a natural tank do.
This is all just my opinion of course and I would like to hear your ideas on keeping fish healthy

Ref:
Me
Long dead biologists

I also make chowder out of them.

 

[Paul B]

More, just in case you are bored and are tired of the News. It's about worms.

Worms, I love worms and if it were not for worms I would not have this hobby, thats how much I rely on worms(although I never tasted them myself)
I use two types of worms for food, California Blackworms and lately, white worms. Blackworms are fresh water worms and white worms live in wet soil. Blackworms only live for about 15 seconds in saltwater but my fish eat them very fast so they never make it to the bottom. Whiteworms are smaller and live for a few hours in saltwater.
Through experience I have realized that fish that are in excellent health do two things, they spawn and they don't get sick. So if a fish is not spawning or exhibiting spawning tendancies, it is not that healthy and is suseptable to a vast assortment of maladies including ich. ( just see how many ich threads there are) A fishes immune system is much different than ours and fish make antibodies in a few different places in their body, one place is in their slime secreting glands. We sweat, fish exude slime. The slimier fish such as mandarins and eels are more disease resistant than less slimier fish such as tangs. More slime equals more antibodies.
Anyway, to get a fish into spawning condition is not simply to have them spawn so we can raise the fry. My fish spawn frequently and I have not raised any babies in many years but the fact that the fish are spawning is an indicator that the fish are in the best shape they will even be in.
I don't want this to be a discussion on ich or diseases, as that has been done to death and if you don't believe that spawning fish don't hardly get sick, start a new thread titled "Paul B thinks that if your fish are spawning, you have to step on them to kill them" or something like that.

Back to worms. Worms for some reason greatly aid the fish into getting into breeding condition. Why? I have no idea, but when I used to raise freshwater fish fifty years ago, blackworms are what I used to get the fish into condition. When I got my first saltwater fish in 1971 I also used live worms and I had blue devils spawning every few weeks for seven years, and that was before most people even knew salt water fish could be kept at home. Some fish will live for many years on flakes and pellets and some, such as clownfish and some other damsels will even spawn but for most fish a more nutritious diet is needed.


I realize that flakes today are better than many years ago but flakes are baked to dry them. Anything dry can not have the nutrition of moist food because many vitamins do not take to drying and the oils that I feel are the most important are lost during the drying process. There is also a reason that flake food, or any dry food lasts for months, there is not much to go bad in them. White flour can be kept forever for the same reason which is the reason it is always fortified with vitamins and minerals, if it were not fortified, it can not be called food because it is just paste. Think about that.

A fish is a cold blooded animal and like all cold blooded animals can go for long periods of time with no food. They don't waste calories as we do just trying to keep our body temperatures warm. Fish don't have to because the ocean where they live is already at the perfect temperature for them. We move around a lot in different temperature locations so our body has to regulate our internal temperature for us and that takes up most of the calories we eat. A large fish such as a shark can go almost a year without food. ;Watching

Live worms (or live fish) supply the freshest assortment of nutrients that our fish need to not only live, but to spawn. Live saltwater fish are the best food but are not available to us as a fish food but the next best thing is live worms. When a fish produces eggs (as "all" healthy female fish do) the fish needs much more calories than it does when it is just living. If you have ever filleted a pregnant fish, you will see that the eggs can be half the weight or more of the fish. To produce these eggs the fish needs more nutrition, much more and in the correct proportions of fats and proteins. Fish egggs are mostly oil and it takes a lot of calories and fat to produce all that oil. This is a huge burden on a fish but in the sea they have plenty of fresh food and they eat it all day, not just in the morning or whenever we decide to feed them.

Also live foods provide nutrients that they can't put in dry foods because much of those nutrients are constantly produced by a living body and used up by that body.

I use live blackworms every day along with clams and mysis to feed my fish. Virtually all of my fish are spawning except my copperband butterfly, one watchman gobi that doesn't have a mate, a cardinal without a mate as I have five of them and the pairs are spawning and my Shrimp gobies as one of them is very young.
The rest of my 20 or so fish are spawning and disease free. Along with my mandarins even my 19 year old fireclowns are spawning. These fish have never had any diseases including ich and I add fish from the sea along with bacteria in the form of mud, seaweed, amphipods, copepods and anything I consider interesting.
I am not talking about being disease free for a year or two, I am talking over 30 years.

Recently I have added whiteworms to the menu as a test. I bought a starter culture a few weeks ago on line and now I have millions of the little suckers. I keep them in a plastic shoebox in potting soil and feed them matzo's. I am not Jewish and am not sure if my worms are but I find Matzo's great at raising worms, but they will eat just about anything including crackers, cheerios, bread, Alpo SPAM, linguini and clams, hamburger helper etc. I use Matzo's because I can lay it flat on the soil and I like to add a few drops of fish oil to them. (I try to get fish oil into anything I feed) In 2 days the worms will eat a 2"X2" piece of Matzo (or cracker) with fish oil on it.
When the cracker is almost completely finished there are so many worms on it that you can't see any cracker. I remove those small pieces and put them in a little fresh water and stir it up. The worms do a little Macarana dance and seperate from the cracker and I can remove the piece of cracker and just have worms. (now I use whole grain bread with fully fatted yogurt on it)

Those worms are tiny, less than 1/4" and very skinny. My copperband and most of my fish can't even see them which is what I want because the copperband and other larger fish are busy eating the larger live blackworms so the white worms fall to the substrait where they do that macarana dance again attracting my smaller fish such as mandarins. My mandarins are normally fed live baby brine shrimp and they are spawning so they don't really need the extra nutrition but I just love to see the smile on their faces when they see tiny live worms.
My mandarins are so happy that when they think I am not looking even they start doing that Macarana dance.

 

[Clarksski]

Hi Paul B
My fish love white worms too. It's so convenient when you have a good culture going. Saves on time, like driving to lfs for blackworms.. and money too, just harvest from home!
I had a thriving culture last fall. I kept mine in a plastic shoe box in a dedicated worm wine fridge in my sons room. The regular fridge too cold and worms in food fridge too gross, for some people. But not me. Well, to make a short story long, (which you are the Master at)
I came home from a four day road trip up the California coast, walked in the front door, and smelled the smell of death. The fridge had been accidentally turned off by someone, at the wall switch(stupid me for having it in that outlet in the first place)..
Thousands of white worms, maybe even tens of thousands of white worms, ( exact number unknown as I was just a few days away from completing and returning to Nancy Pelosi, as requested, her white worm census count), had tried to escape their demise as the temperature slowly climbed in the fridge over the course of four days. They were out of the dirt and mostly dead in every crack and crevice in the fridge. In the fan motor, insulation, wiring, digital display...you name it, they were in it.
I'll never forget that smell either... to this day.
The wine fridge is cleaned and completely disassembled in my garage. Don't think it smells anymore but haven't checked lately. I just need to get it put back together but I don't know where all the wires go. And get this, if I fry it up from bad wiring, (which is the most likely outcome) As of Jan 1, 2019..Nancy Pelosi won't let me buy a new thermoelectric wine fridge in the State of Corruptifornia anymore. I think she banned them citing "environmental concerns". If I have to, I'll drive across the border to Nevada and pick one up at the Home Depot there, and transport it back across the state line. Could get 10 years in the clink, but that's just a chance I'll have to take.

 

[Tajaba]

I’ve been following your threads since 2013 and have been feeding my tank exclusively frozen/ live food since 2015 following your advice. Gotta say its made my experience in reef keeping much better and my fishes and corals much happier in the process! Thanks for everything Paul

 

[Bob Escher]

I posted this someplace 5 years ago and figured I have nothing to say today except build things in my Man Cave so I am Re-Posting it again. If it contains anything not PC, irritating, racist, not ethical, unrealistic, argumentative, political, religious or anything else that is considered irritating to any living creature, please delete it fast.
These are only my opinions and in no way does Nancy Pelosi agree with them. I didn't ask her so maybe she does.

From 2014:

I have theories about just about everything and unfortunately, most of them are probably to radical, simple, inane, old school, or complicated for many people to understand, comprehend, agree with or even bother to read, so if you are one of "Those" people, don't read any further, just go and watch TV, I think there is a re run of the Opera show where she gives away Cadillac's to homeless cats.



Now I am far from the God of fish tanks, corals (SPS, LPS, leathers, suede's, velour's or velvet)



I am however the God of UG filters and maybe bald heads which I have always aspired to be famous for. In my many years of reading, diving and learning I have noticed a few things. Much, or most of what we do or want to do with regard to this hobby is either wrong, almost wrong or even dangerous, but what we can all agree on is that it is expensive. I will get to that as I feel it is a very cheap hobby. I just may be rich and this money is just a drop in the bucket or else I am poor, or to cheap to spend anything so I can feed my family. The truth is that I am neither, I am like most of us, in the middle, in the "fusion zone" as I like to refer to it as. I would also like to say imperically that I do not have the nicest tank on here, probably far from it, but it ain't to bad either



I am getting old (er) and in a few years I am sure I will start forgetting many of the things I learned through trial and error, the things I picked up in the 50s 60s and 70s that is all but forgotten about now as parchment paper degrades over time. I am fortunately still sharp as a tack, OK maybe a slightly duller tack, but a tack none the less, OK a finishing nail, not one of those aluminum Home Depot finishing nails, a good steel one from an American hardware store, a store that was started in the 40s after the big one.



Much of the things I do to my tank I can not print as I am sure I would be put away. Things like using Clorox in NSW to eliminate red tide or heating the water to kill paracites without affecting the parameters. Curing PopEye in a few seconds with a hypodermic needle or cleaning a fish of ich, flukes or flounders in a day. I won't even mention putting in copper pennies before they invented liquid copper. These are things I have posted in the past with regret because of the flood of hate mail. OK, maybe not a flood, one or two E mails, but to me that is a deluge. As I said in the beginning, some of you should be watching Opera and not reading this, I think she is just about to give away one of those cadillac's.



I mentioned a few times that I have no need for a quarantine, or hospital tank, Whoooa, I was bombarded after that. The Idea that I let all my fish become sick, infected with all sorts of things such as crypocaryn, velvet, black ich, jaundice, hemorrhoids or psorisis. I usually say that if you don't have my tank, maybe you should quarantine. But of course I can't leave that alone although I do try. I think that in "some" instances, paracites are good. OK I said it. Now will you please stop reading as I am only wrighting this now because I am bored.



It seems to me, and I also posted this numerous times, that so many people, maybe even the majority of people have problems with things like diseases (or those sweat stains in your armpits) You can use things like Priazo, copper, KicK Ick, (Oh God) or any number of things. I myself am 65 years old and the only thing I take is fish oil. I also give it to my fish but that is not what this is about. Ok, it is a little about that, but only a little. Fish in the sea probably never get sick. Why is that? No it is not that they have free access to Priazo from Obamacare. They also don't get eaten right away if they get a few paracites. They don't get sick because of their immune system. Their immune system works better than ours does. It makes sence as they have been around longer than us and their immune system has to work in the water. The water that they live in contains everything that ever was, including dinosaur poop, Wash water from Columbus underware, and Amelia Airheart. No, Literally, Amelia Airheart. Our piddly immune system only has to protect us from airborn stuff like excess gas from those chili houses in Texas and maybe some simple viruses. Diseases can get around much easier in water than in air so a fish immune system has evolved for that task. In the sea, fish eat live, "whole" food such as fry, fish eggs, shrimp, seaweed or Happy Meals. Most fish don't spit out the guts, heads, scales, fish hooks or bones. In many tanks they have to do with pellets, flakes dried nori, cardboard, dried ants or some frozen concoction. (in the 50s tropical fish food was dried ants, no, really) Many of the frozen foods are very good but they are not live food which is vastly different. Flakes and pellets have a purpose, I use them to feed my worms, but it is live, or at least frozen "whole" food (with the guts) that will keep a fishes immune system up to where it can fight off things including paracites and sea gulls. You can tell if this is working if the fish is spawning or making spawning attempts to spawn as only fish in excellent health will spawn. I personally have never seen a fish that was spawning afflicted with any disease but some people tell me that is not true. I have a word I like to call those people, and that word is "wrong". OK maybe one fish got sick while it was spawning, he don't count. But anyway, this post was not supposed to be about immune systems because I have posted that to death and if you ever had a fish get sick with any disease, it is because it's immune system did not protect it and unfortunately, that is our fault, not the fish, the dealer or the old lady on the corner who collects tin cans and cats.



Thats enough about food and immune systems. As I said, I am posting this because I know, in time I will forget, and then, even if no one else reads this (and I am quite certain only me and the night watchman at the OTB office will see it) I may again come across it in 10 or 15 years in my nursing home, and in my stupor, I may remember some of it and hopefully someone will at least get me a goldfish to occupy my time. A goldfish and maybe a picture of a Supermodel.



I see people use all sorts of chemicals to control things that our bacteria are supposed to do for us for free. Things like Rowaphos, Rowanda, Rotweilder or whatever it is called. I am not sure why you would need it but I would imagine if you need those silly Bio-pellets in a reactor you would also need that. I never used any of it so I am sure I am doing something wrong. I guess my bacteria don't mind doing what they are paid to do. Of course i also collect bacteria as I feel that if you don't do that (and I realize one or two people don't live near the sea) the only bacteria in your tank is that stuff in your dealer's tank and all he has is the stuff from his wholesaler and all he has is the stuff in the shipping water that is mixed with bilge water from some canoe that also has some of columbus wash water and possably ear wax from Jimmy Hoffa. I hear all the time that people get the horrors because their nitrate measured 12 or 15. I don't think my nitrate was ever that low, not that I have a test kit but I do get it tested just so I can write these rediculous threads. My nitrate is now about 40, it could be 50 but even if it was 680, I really don't care because if it was to high, the corals would let me know right away. I feel the same about phosphate, anthrax and calcium. but I do add calcium in the form of driveway ice melter at a cost of about $10.00 a year so I don't want to waste it. I also use baking soda for alk, I think that costs about 99cents if I get it on sale and once a year or so I add some Epsom Salts after I soak my feet in it. Maybe that also adds beneficial bacteria, I can't be sure. (that expensive calcium you buy is driveway ice melter and baking soda)



Then we have nusience algae. It grows on every healthy reef and it is not a nusience there, but in our tanks it sometimes is. I don't want it growing on my corals although in the past my tank has looked like a produce stand. I still have a slight amount but just as much as I want. The first thing people ask when they hear about an algae problem is "what are your parameters?" Then they all say "change the water" Does that ever work? No, but people still change massive amounts of water every day in the hope of eliminating a natural substance that has nothing to do with changing water but what do I know? Stores have to make money also so changing water is good. It won't do anything for algae growth except maybe make it grow faster but we keep doing it for lack of a better "cure". If you take RO/DI water and put it in the sun, and an ant dies in it from exhaustion after doing the macarana, it will grow algae. Try it. New tanks with all brand new water grow the most algae, I wonder why? Maybe algae can grow with just a tiny smidgeon of nutrients, but wait a minute, there is also algae in the tissues in the coral so if we eliminate all the nutrients (like that was even possable) we may also kill the corals. OMG, it is an unfixable connundrum, like a paradox. I love paradoxes. I really don't know why algae sometimes grows and sometimes it doesn't but you know something? No one else knows either. We think we know, like we know all about paracites, Obamacare and global warming, but we don't. Some day we will know everything and I hope that day never comes but for now we don't. I bet the Neanderthals thought they knew everything until they were taken over by Liberals. If you have a tank long enough you will see cycles of all sorts of different, colorful and annoying algae's. Most tanks don't have a long enough lifespan to notice these things but I do. Every few years my tank would get an outbreak of something even if I didn't change anything. I think the next outbreak may be Brocclirabe, onions or tent catterpillars. I stopped those cycles a few years ago by installing an algae trough but an algae filter would do the same thing. Now I really don't care what causes nusience algae as it will only grow where I want it to grow and I realize I can't completely stop it as that would be unhealthy. After all it grows everywhere and if it didn't what are all those urchins, slugs, snails, rabbitfish, chitens, sea hares and tangs eating?



If we really knew what caused algae, ich or cyano don't you think we would have eliminated it 43 years ago when the salt water hobby started? I think it was on a Tuesday about 1:00-1:30 in the afternoon. I mean, Really! But alas. We will still continue to change massive amounts of water, increase circulation, cultivate a clean up crew, buy newer light bulbs, vacuum our substraits, add magnesium and look at pictures of Supermodels, but we will also still have hair algae, cyano and ich. I can not eliminate any of those things but I have found a natural way to allow them to live side by side in my tank, with my healthy, spawning fish and corals while at the same time changing a modest amount of water and not adding one cent of manufactured chemicals "and" having fish living happily for their natural lifespan that is sometimes older than Myley Cyrus. Actually all of my fish are older than her but that isn't saying much.



I said before that paracites "may" be healthy for our fish. Of course the fish won't think so, so don't ask them. But I remember after I got drafted and was going to Viet Nam, they inoculated me with everything you could imagine. 6 shots at a time in each arm. Plague, jungle fever, malaria, diptheria, cholera, parot fever, jaundice and Play Doh. I didn't get any of those things. Those vaccines were made out of weak or dead disease organisms. We can't get weak or dead paracites but live healthy paracites work even better. Yes, they may kill our fish, but if they don't, our fish will become immune from those paracites. Why, you ask. I have no freekin Idea. What do I look like? A researcher? No, i am an electrician but a very good one. I also have been keeping fish for 60 years so if you find someone who has been keeping fish longer than that, don't ask him anything as he is probably senile and will just snot and drool on you. I do remember that the Vietnamese people didn't get malaria, but I had to take a pill every day. When I got home my wife and I went to mexico. Big mistake. I never get sick but in Mexico, both me and her ended up in the hospital. Do you who who else was in that hospital with Montizuma"s revenge? Americans thats who, not Mexicans because their immune system was used to paracites in the water. That is why i don't have to have a quarantine tank. I know, all 4 of the people reading this are saying that my tank is a time bomb and will crash any time now. Maybe it will, but it has had one heck of a run.



I run a reverse UG filter, virtually unknown by anyone under 57 years old. People think it is old school. Well it is not. Regular UG filters are old school but not reverse UG filters. DSBs are much older (I think). Speaking of old school, the school I went to was heated by coal. There was this old guy (he was probably 30) who used to shovel coal to heat the school. And when the teacher would send us to empty the waste paper basket, we would go down to the basement and give it to that guy who would throw it into the furnace. But I digress.



If I have any more ideas, I will post them. But in the meantime, if you have any colorful, connotations, cures, quatations or comments, I would be extreamly happy to hear them.



I just came back from my boat and had a few Harvey Wallbangers and Long Island Ice teas so I will most likely forget what I wrote in a few minutes. But of course, that could be senility.

Ah, as many other have stated I too have enjoyed those many shots on my way to that lovely land called Vietnam.
Enjoy your posts and no I didn’t need to look up any of your names for drinks.
I also knew what many of your meaning meant.
Thank you for your insights

 

[Matt Carden]

Paul, you say saltwater fish is the best food to feed. I was thinking that while I am on vacation in Siesta Key, I can catch some minnows and freeze them to bring back home with me. Minnows are always swimming in schools at the shore and I see people collecting them, I assume for fishing bait. Could be good for my next batch of Mollusk feast. My last batch I added freshwater minnows from that big box store cause my LFS was closed.

 

[Paul B]

Clarksski. I don't live in California so I keep my worms on my workbench at the same temperature that I live. They have to live with me, I don't have to live with them.

I also have millions of them (I actually had Nancy Pelosi count them) and I started this culture maybe 7 or 10 years ago. The worms evolved to look more like small earthworms and no longer look like those emaciated sissy looking white worms. I will take a picture some day but they are much fatter and I presume healthier. I didn't eat any so I can't swear to it.

 

[flchamp89]

Paul I really hope you can keep this thread going. It provides a much needed break during my work day. Really enjoy it. Thank you

 

[Paul B]

Paul I really hope you can keep this thread going. It provides a much needed break during my work day. Really enjoy it. Thank you

It could be a very long thread. But I need you guys to post as I am old and need help with this.
But I have extra thread.

 

[Clarksski]

Paul, I'd really like to see a pic of the fat, workbench, white worms that Nancy Pelosi counted for you and I'd like to request her, or Kamala Harris, to do a recount. I believe many of those worms were erroneously counted twice and some, may have not even been white worms at all.

 

[Paul B]

You may have to argue with Nancy about that.

 

[BigJohnny]

@Paul B

When was the last time you added fish to your aquarium?

 

[Matt Carden]

Pretty sure he added a tang recently not sure what else

 

[Paul B]

@Paul B

When was the last time you added fish to your aquarium?

About 9 days ago.

 

[Paul B]

That hippo is fine. No spots, no puking, no intestinal worms, no bacteria, no nothing but living in extacy.

 

[Paul B]

This obviously was from 2016

Understanding Old Tank Syndrome
March 16, 2016

In a few years, my reef will turn 50 years old. I believe I’ve avoided old tank syndrome by using the procedures outlined in this article.

Old Tank Syndrome, or OTS, is something we have been hearing about since the hobby started, and I am not quite sure exactly what it means. Is it due to parameters, loss of diversity, lack of interest, diseases, metal accumulation, global warming, locusts, or all of the above? I think it is much simpler than “all of the above,” but some of those things are probably on the list of causes—especially locusts.


It’s about bacteria
In my opinion, OTS has to do with bacteria, or lack of it. Bacteria really run our tanks, and we are just there so the bacteria have something to make fun of. Without bacteria, our tanks would crash in less than a day. Of course on the other side of the coin, bacteria are also the cause of tank crashes. Bacteria can work for us or against us, and even the same bacteria can work both ways.

Some bacteria can double in numbers in an hour (I wish my tomatoes would grow half as fast as bacteria!). Just put a dead fish in a container of water (preferably in your girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s house) and see how quickly it stinks. If you put a live, healthy fish in a container of water, nothing will happen—the water will remain clear, for a day or so anyway. What is the difference? How do the bacteria know that they should foul the water?

It is simple. The healthy fish has an immune system that prevents the bacteria from decomposing it. As soon as the fish dies, its immune system also dies and the bacteria hear a dinner bell and start consuming its body—not just the bacteria on the fish, but also the bacteria inside the fish, mostly in its gut, which is filled with bacteria.

Of course, if we leave the fish in that container of water for any length of time, bacteria will also kill it, but for a different reason. In this case, there are not enough bacteria in the water to convert the ammonia that the fish excretes through its gills into something less toxic, so the fish dies of ammonia poisoning. In a sense, it’s not the ammonia that kills the fish, but the lack of bacteria.

A matter of multiplication
Luckily for us (and our fish), bacteria usually “know” how many of them should multiply in a certain situation. For instance if we overfeed our tank, the bacteria will multiply very quickly, and because bacteria can’t really swim, or even dog paddle, all the available spaces on the rocks will be covered in bacteria, forcing the overpopulation into the water column where they cloud the water. (I assume they learn how to swim very fast, but I really don’t know.) In time, the bacteria will consume all the food and the tank will clear.

The problem with doing this is that most of those bacteria that are clouding the water also use oxygen, just like the fish, and they can easily use it all up, causing the fish to gulp air at the surface. The majority of fish were not designed to live like that, so unless they are lungfish, they can die.

Bacteria and OTS
What does all this have to do with OTS? As I said, we need bacteria and bacteria live on and “in” all the surfaces in the tank. Many of those spaces in a tank are inside the rocks. These are places we rarely think about, but they’re home to the types of bacteria we need to purify the water. Bacteria certainly live on the surfaces of the rock, but there is much more surface area inside the rock where the bacteria like to party. In time, those spaces, or pores, will clog. They will clog with detritus, which in boating terms we call “flotsam and jetsam.” That means just about anything that is a solid and in the water. It could be dead bacteria, pod exoskeletons, or anything else we have in the tank that eventually gets ground down by animals and currents.

Remember, at one time, eons ago, the sand was rocks, meteorites to be exact. Then storms, volcanoes, and lightning broke up the rocks, dinosaurs and Bigfoot walked on them, and, finally, SUVs finished the job. Eventually those rocks became sand, and that sand, even today, keeps getting smaller and smaller, sort of like my bank account.

This is a clogged pipe I removed from my house. This is what happens to any hole or pore given enough time.

In the sea, fish like parrotfish chew on the reef and excrete sand, but the stuff they are chewing on is not really rock, but coral rock, which was made by calcium-secreting creatures. Anyway, this also happens in our tanks to a smaller degree, and those tiny particles get trapped in the pores in the rock just like old plumbing pipes eventually get clogged. That leaves fewer places for the bacteria to live. Fewer bacteria equals less capacity to purify the water. This happens in tanks at the same time that the organic load is getting larger.

In older tanks, we have more fish and larger fish because we have gotten older, our boss has given us raises, and our kids have (hopefully) grown up and moved out, so we can go out and buy more fish. Do the bacteria care? Of course not. They can’t elevate their numbers because the pores in the rock are clogged, and besides bacteria being stupid, they are also lazy and won’t even try to clean out the pores in the rock. Instead, they will let the pollution build up in the tank in the hope that the fish will die so they can all feast on Thanksgiving dinner.

Typhoon time!
This does not happen in the sea for a very good reason. The sea has Mother Nature caring for her, and we have Old Aunt Ester. Mother Nature (or Al Gore) invented typhoons. Typhoons were a wonderful thing before she mistakenly invented humans who insist on building condos near the shore. In the sea, typhoons completely churn up the sand and everything on it. I have gone diving in places right after hurricanes and typhoons and have seen brain corals half the size of my house upside down. I have seen sea fans hundreds of yards up on mountainsides alongside yachts. These occurrences destroy some corals, but they also allow others to flourish. It’s like forest fires; they are needed to restore forests, kill insects, and keep insurance companies in business.

This undersea carnage helps to keep the pores in the rock open, and the wave action breaks open rocks to allow access to the virgin pores inside them. Those pores will quickly fill with bacteria that purify the water.

We can carry our tanks to an airport, get on a plane to a tropical destination just before a typhoon, and set them down on the sand to be stirred up, but the airlines frown on that. What you can do is take a canister filter (I use a diatom filter) and put a restriction on the output hose. I use one of those little plastic funnel-looking things that florists use to keep cut flowers fresh. But anything that restricts the water flow is good, and you can use that just like a power washer.

You will be amazed at how much gunk will come out of reef rock when you put this device right on the pores. Don’t hit the corals with this pressure unless you don’t want them. I do this twice a year on all the rocks that I can reach. In my setup, I also stir the gravel all the way down to the bottom of the tank, but if you have a deep sand bed, you should not do that (which is why I do not like DSBs). The more you can stir things up, the more gunk you get out, the more spaces for bacteria, and the longer your reef can last.

This is all just my opinion, of course, and you surely do not have to believe me. In a few years my reef will be 50 years old, and I believe it got to that age because of this procedure, which only takes me an hour or so twice a year. Of course at that time, I will be 120 years old, so I may take the tank down then and set it back up in my nursing home, where a retired supermodel will do this maintenance for me.
Ref:
Me.
"The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist" which I wrote so that is a silly reference.

 

[Paul B]

This was from 2015. I wrote it in a drunken stupor for Saltwater Smarts and I think it is in my book

In Praise of Fish Oil
December 18, 2015 by Paul; Baldassano

Fish oil is an important part of Paul B’s fish feeding regimen

Hobby pioneer Paul “Paul B” Baldassano has some strong opinions on what types of foods are best for fish, formed over his many decades of involvement in the marine aquarium hobby. Somewhere near the top of his list is fish (or krill) oil. He explains exactly why in the following excerpt from the third chapter of his book The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist: A 60-Year History of Fishkeeping:


From Chapter 3: Keeping Fish Healthy
Oil, in my opinion, is one of the most important things you can feed to fish. No, not Oil of Olay or olive oil, but fish or krill oil. I take it myself every day, but not too much, as I don’t want to resemble my old flounder-faced girlfriend.

In the sea, fish get a large percentage of their diet from pure fish oil. How do I know? Glad you asked. I have been scuba diving since 1970, when I did my first dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I was on R&R from Vietnam, and I met a girl there who took me to this restaurant where they give you all the dive equipment and throw you in the water. All you had to do was give them any extra fish you speared.

I caught an anemic-looking lobster, and she had a belt full of fish. When we surfaced and started back to shore, I heard machine gun rounds. I knew that sound because a couple days before, I was in a war. I said (not very calmly, I am sure), “what the heck is that?” She replied, “Don’t worry, they are shooting the sharks.” Apparently, sometimes a large shark gets tangled up in this net they have around the harbor, and they shoot it. I understand that there are holes in that net large enough to allow a tractor trailer to “swim” through, and the girl I was swimming with had a belt full of bleeding fish. To this day, that was the fastest I have ever swum.

Anyway, since then I have been diving all over the place and have spent about 200 hours under water. If you’ve done any real diving—the kind where you lie on the bottom by yourself until you run out of air or realize you forgot to remove your cell phone from your Speedo—you may have noticed schools of tiny fish fry, mostly near the substrate. Well, fish fry are like fast-food restaurants for most of the fish on a reef and form a large part of their daily diet. If you watch fish long enough, you will see them dip down often for a snack of fresh fish fry.

All fish have a liver. That liver serves a couple of functions besides cleaning the blood. It also helps with buoyancy, but only slightly in most fish. In sharks, the liver provides all of the buoyancy. Without the oil in their liver, sharks would swim about as well as Paris Hilton’s dog or a cinder block. In fact, the liver is mostly oil and can be 15% of the fish’s weight—almost 20% in sharks.

So think about this: When a fish eats another whole fish, it’s getting almost 15% of its diet as pure fish oil. If a shark eats a 100-pound grouper, it’s getting about 12 pounds of oil. That’s a lot of oil!

Check out the ingredients on a package of dry food and see if there is any oil. Oil doesn’t dry very well, and boy does it stink! So my theory is that fish require a large portion of their diet as oil. It makes sense to me and to the fish.

Also consider that in pregnant fish, the eggs can be almost a third of the weight of the fish, and those eggs are mostly oil. It is a huge burden on a fish to produce those eggs, and many of the correct extra calories are needed to do so. Just imagine how much a woman would have to eat in order to have a 50-pound baby every month!

So where can we get this oil? The best place is in whole fish, but whole tiny fish are not available live or frozen, and I don’t know why. (Tip to fish food manufacturers: Sell tiny frozen fish fry for food!) Fish and krill oil is also sold in capsules, and if I plan to feed my fish flakes or pellets, I always put a drop of fish oil on it first. Pellets soak up oil very well. However, don’t put oil of any kind on wet foods, such as frozen food, as it will just wash off as soon as the food hits the water.