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

[Paul B]

Shed Some Varied Light on Your Reef
NOVEMBER 2, 2015 BY PAUL BALDASSANO

The pair of yellow wrasses attempting to spawn after the lighting change in my aquarium

The other night, as I was watching the debate on TV, I noticed that my reef tank got darker. Just a little, but it was darker and yellower. I opened the front (it is in a wall) and noticed that half the LEDs were out. “Okay, no problem,” I thought. “I’ll fix it in the morning.” The lights were about to go out anyway.


As I watched, I noticed that my pair of fire clowns, which have a love-hate relationship, looked like they wanted to spawn. The larger one was trying to entice the smaller one into a bottle “cave.” The smaller one eventually followed, and the pair spent “time in the bottle” (reminds me of a song), swimming very close to each other, although I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

As I was watching the clowns, I couldn’t help noticing that my pair of bright yellow wrasses was also attempting to spawn. The larger one, who I assume is a male, dug an impression about 2 inches deep and 4 inches wide in the gravel and kept following the female and guiding her to this nest. As he chased her around, he also did this little Macarena dance, which I assume she liked because she kept following him to the nest while she batted her eyelashes.

Unfortunately, the female is not pregnant enough to spawn right now. Nor is the fire clown, even though the two clowns were intertwining and dancing like they were trying to spawn (which they do all the time). I personally have never seen wrasses spawn and would like them to get on with it. Interestingly, my two bluestripe pipefish were also spending some very close time together, although the male is already very pregnant, as he often is.

Why am I telling you this (and why are you reading it)? All this behavior was, in part, due to the change in lighting.

Lighting is something we typically discuss only in relation to corals. We discuss lumens, PAR, color, height above the tank, LED, MH, VHO, PC, etc. But we never discuss how the lighting on a reef ebbs and grows through the day and night. Yes, night.

If you’ve ever gone scuba diving at night, you know the nighttime reef is a totally different place. I am basically a lobster diver, so I’ve done quite a few night dives here in New York. Totally different creatures emerge at night while the daytime creatures normally hide. This happens in our tanks also, but the big difference is that on a reef, the sun doesn’t automatically shut off at precisely 10:00 p.m., leaving the tank in total darkness. The natural reef does go completely dark, but not instantly. Gradually, as the day wanes, the reef darkens. Some days it goes completely dark, while other times the moon is so bright that it almost seems like daytime.

Fish have no problem navigating at night due to their lateral lines, but they do have a problem if they find themselves plunged instantly into total darkness. This is extremely abnormal and fish don’t like it. I don’t like it either. If my electricity goes out at night leaving me in a completely dark room, I struggle to find my way around, looking for a flashlight. That reminds me of a story.
Years ago I had this friend who was much older than me. He was totally blind. He asked me to go to his house to see what was wrong with his grinder. I was surprised, and shocked that he even had a grinder. But he did and when he turned it on, it blew the fuse. So I went there in his basement and he said to turn on the grinder, which I did. The fuse blew and the lights went out leaving us in complete darkness. I said, Jimmy, the lights are out and it's dark. He said, it's always dark in here.
Makes sense being he was blind. I said, do you have a flashlight? He said Why would I ever buy a flashlight!

Fish and corals run their schedules according to the moon even more than the sun. Corals especially are in tune with the moon. They also know that these changes happen gradually. The sun over the tropical seas rises and sets about the same time every day of the year. But the moon does not. The moon illuminates the sea with varying degrees of brightness as it waxes and wanes.

As far as I know, few people, including me duplicate this in a home tank, but I think it may be much more important than we have been thinking, or not thinking. Of course, most of us can’t read the minds of our fish, but I feel that lighting, or the lack of it, is a very important topic that they would like us to discuss. And why wouldn’t they? After all, light controls a major part of their life, as fish run on instinct, unlike many of us who run on junk food.

 

[Paul B]

In My Opinion, how I feel a reef tank could be run to last over forty years with "Almost" no problems. (from a few years ago, I forget when)


First of all this will not be for Noobs as I realize most things printed for this hobby are. There are many other people besides Noobs and if many Noobs tried these methods, they would fail. Not because they are stupid or have knock knees, but because this hobby requires a level of experience that can not be taught by reading alone, but comes about by seeing with your own eyes and by making mistakes which unfortunately we all had to make at one point or another. After a number of years we can look at a fish and read it's mind, know how it feels, determine if it is lonely or has gas. I can look at my tank from across the street and determine if one fish has one scale out of place, but that takes time and nothing but time will teach that skill.

This will also not be for a very mature, successful aquarist who has a well run functioning, old system because those people, Me being one of them, are hard headed, stubborn and in many cases bald and we don't like people telling us how to run our system or show us how to dance. (watch, those will be the people argueing with me tomorrow, but that is fine, I would probably do the same thing and these people are friends of mine so it is just a friendly conversation until they throw eggs at my house.

This is for the few people that fall in between those extremes. Those people I like to call in the "Fusion Zone" where they are not sure what to do. If they should put in a DSB, BB, keep moray eels, bake a cake, eat broccoil or forget about it and go bungee jumping.

I started with "In My Opinion" because virtually everyone will disagree with almost all of my ideas. I even disagree with some of them. (This is why I wrote a book)

If I were to start a new tank tomorrow I would do it exactly as I did when I started my tank 45 years ago. (with a few exceptions) In those days I used Natural Sea water and I realize most people can't do that and that is a shame. So if you must, use ASW. ASW has a few problems first of which it is actually "fake" sea water. Yes, it has "most" of the chemicals that we can measure in generally the same proportions but real sea water has everything in it that is on earth. Things from undersea volcanic vents, meteorites (some of which I assume contain substances we don't test for because we are not sure exactly what they are but Chewbacca spit may be one of them) everything that runs off land masses during storms, some good and not so good. Chemicals exuded by corals, algae, bacteria, viruses and Columbus wash water. It is questionable if these substances are good or not, but our fish evolved in them so I consider them natural and I want my tank to be as natural as possable. This is very important to me and to my fish. (But most of my tank water is also ASW)

You can of course run an un natural tank and have success as most tanks are run like that. But most tanks have problems.

Make believe I put "In My Opinion" before every sentence so when people argue with me, I can point to that.

I would start a tank with gravel, not sand (remember IMO) Sand can work very well and is needed with certain fish but after 45 years, gravel has seemed to work perfectly for me. Gravel has one huge benefit. Any detritus (which I do not feel is bad) hides in it and doesn't get blown around. "In My Tank" I would help the gravel by installing a reverse undergravel filter and running it very slow. (I will give you time to stop laughing now)

Thats enough time. If your tank has run longer than mine without a reverse undergravel filter, raise your hand. Thats what I thought.

People ask me if I were to start a tank tomorrow, if I would use a "better, more modern system". First you would have to show me that system which lasts longer. (Thats what I thought)

The reverse UG filter needs some maintenance just like The Space Shuttle, the Enterprize air craft carrier, your teeth, your car, your toenails and everything that works needs maintenance. The good thing about a Reverse UG filter is that it only needs a stirring once or twice a year and a filtering of whatever comes out of it. That is not because detritus is bad, but that it can clog in between the gravel grains.

A huge advantage of this systemis that oxygen will flow through the entire substrait nourishing worms, amphipods, copepods, brittle stars, Godzilla larvae and everything else that is at the bottom of the food chain. Remember, this is for a natural, immune tank.

The next thing I would do is (and remember to add " IMO" before every sentenance) buy a fish (not the most expensive or delicate fish there is) and if I started this tank with fake water, I would put it in a spare tank, not decorated with PVC but have real rocks in there, I would watch this fish for maybe a week and if it is not covered in parasites, I would put it in the Main tank. I did not say to quarantine for a reason and this is "my" theories and I did say IMO.

Yes, this can be "dangerous", but remember this tank does not have any coral in it yet. The fish you bought was hopefully collected a few weeks ago in the sea and all fish in the sea have some sort of immunity. That immunity will be severely tested in this new tank and may develop some sort of parasites. This is OK. (and actually preferable) Yes i did say that but this is how "I" would start a natural, immune tank.

If you are squeemish, you could put the fish in copper for about 10 days as that will kill parasites and not affect the fishes natural immunity. (Or you could stop reading and take a dance class, maybe Rhumba)

If I were a Noob I would not do this or know anything about it because I did say Noobs should not be reading this. Perhaps they would be watching a Soap Opera if they still have such things.

As soon as I buy this fish I would try to feed it with live foods such as blackworms or earthworms. Just a couple of worms a day is fine because we are not that interested in the protein, but in the live bacteria in the worms. If you can't, or won't get worms, at least try to get clams. Live clams would be the best thing but I also realize many people live in Utah, the Sahara or Tunisia and can't get live anything except maybe Buffalo which is not the best food.

You can use frozen clams from a supermarket but my fear is that there may not be much living bacteria in a commercially frozen clam. If that is all you can get, then get that.

I did "not" say to feed squid, octopus, fish fillets, shrimp, chicken, taco's or anything else because we want the guts of the prey animal, not just the tentacles. This is very important.

As I said we are mainly interested in the live bacteria for this "natural" tank which By the way will also be an immune tank. I would also feed something like LRS food or some other commercially available food preferably with pro biotics added.

If you can't get foods with live bacteria, forget what you read so far and set up a good quarantine system as you will not be able to run a natural or immune tank. Nothing wrong with that, it is what it is. Just a different type of a system and a system that many successful people have. Just remember a quarantined fish must always be with quarantined fish as they will have no immunity from parasites.

Now when we added that first fish to our tank, we also added parasites AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOO. Don't panic. A natural, immune tank needs parasites. Don't think of them as bad, but as "not very cute" poodle puppies. If this all works out, the parasites will live right along side your fish, maybe sampling a little slime occasionally while keeping your fish immune from the parasites.

Remember, fish have been living with parasites since they were invented, probably by Al Gore. Healthy fish are well equipped to handle parasites and parasites are needed if we are to keep our fish immune from them.

If, that fish we put into our tank becomes "covered" in parasites, we need to catch it and place it in copper at the proper dosage. This should not be viewed as a bad thing, I said there were parasites in there didn't I!. Do Not put copper or anything else in your main tank to kill parasites. If you see a couple of parasites, don't worry about it, maybe go out for a nice dinner of linguini and clams, try the merlot.

Now when you eliminate those parasites on that fish and continue to feed it the "proper" foods (which are not flakes, pellets or any dry foods of any kind) it will have an immunity from those parasites in that tank. But we need to feed the fish the foods I mentioned. (always) There are no short cuts and please don't mention "Quality" dry foods. All dry foods are Quality, but they are baked, sterilized and loaded with preservatives, if they were not, they would rot and virtually any great food will go bad very quickly without freezing unless it is live like a worm (the best food) ;Vomit

OK now we have the "hopefully" immune fish in there and we are feeding it the proper foods. Now we can buy another one and do the same thing.

But we must "always" feed the correct foods with living bacteria. It is OK if we go on vacation for a week to have someone come over and feed them oatmeal or TV dinners but only for a week.

A diatom filter is a great invention for a natural reef tank for a few reasons. If you would like to limit the number of parasites in your new tank, a diatom filter will severly restrict their numbers, but it won't cure anything by itself. I use a diatom filter to stir up my UG filter a couple of times a year, but any canister filter will do that.

If that new fish (or any fish) became covered in parasites, a diatom filter in conjunction with copper will cure that fish much faster and is similar to the tank transfer method which accomplishes almost the same thing. I sometimes purposely buy fish covered in parasites because i get them for free, a diatom filter and copper, in many cases clears these fish from parasites and they become great fish. Many of my fish I aquired like that and all my fish only die of old age.

Algae, cyano, flatworms, black ich, and a whole slew of other things seem to be a problem in this hobby and IMO there is no need to "Battle" these things. This is a hobby so there is no need to battle anything, if you want to battle, tell your wife she looks fat in those shorts.

Now the disclaimer:

This is as I keep saying my opinions from my experiences which span over 60 years. I did not come up with this last Tuesday and none of it came from a book or from a rumor or fish forum. It is all from my experience and I have kept many specimins of almost every fish available and have spawned many of them. I have also spent time under water with most of the fish we normally keep, but not Godzilla Larvae as they scare me.

References:

Me
My Book
The Lady on the corner who keeps 40 cats.

 

[Subsea]

Thanks for the post. Keep it coming.


How is titanium knee working out for you?

 

[Paul B]

The knee is not to good. He may have to "open it up again" and look around (Like you would look for ants under a cabinet I guess)
He said the ligament on the side of the knee is supposed to make scar tissue to cushion it but it isn't happening so he wants to put a cushion on it. Sounds like fun.

 

[Subsea]

The knee is not to good. He may have to "open it up again" and look around (Like you would look for ants under a cabinet I guess)
He said the ligament on the side of the knee is supposed to make scar tissue to cushion it but it isn't happening so he wants to put a cushion on it. Sounds like fun.

Sorry for that complication. Getting “older than dirt” is not fun. .

 

[flchamp89]

Great stuff here. Always makes my day better reading this thread.

 

[Paul B]

Great stuff here. Always makes my day better reading this thread.

I am glad you like it. I can't wait for some other body part to malfunction so I have something to write.

I can't believe that 3 of the tiny fish I collected in the sea for food are still alive and kicking. I think they will grow into manta rays.
For some reason, whatever I throw into that tank just grows and seems very healthy. Those tiny fish never even live long enough in a bucket to make it home alive. They will probably spawn soon.

 

[flchamp89]

8 knee surgeries here I can relate lol. Have a great day. Win the day.

 

[Paul B]

That's great. I only had (I think) 7. But I also had 5 shoulder surgeries and one was real surgery where they remove your arm and send it out for repairs. ;Smuggrin
Did the surgeries work or after all that did they still have to replace the knee like they always do?
Those knee surgeries and that "Jello" they inject into your knee never works and they just do it to get you ready to replace the thing. After it's replaced you end up holding up the line at the airport because you can't make it through the metal detector.

I don't know which ones I liked better. But I love that stuff they give you to sleep. When I was a kid, in the mid 1800s they gave you a bullet to chew on. Now they just say, Good Night and in less than 3 seconds, it's na na time. I love it.

The pain when you wake up, not so much. But it's man pain Not that sissy Botox pain that actresses get on their lips so they can look like a clingfish on steroids.

 

[Subsea]

Collecting stuff has always been a high point for me. When I go fishing, if the big boys aren’t biting, out comes a fine mesh net for collecting. Between grass shrimp, Peppermint Shrimp, Sheepshead minnows, Green Sailfin Mollies, Sea Robins and Pods, there is no shortage of livestock.

 

[Ferrell]

Excellent read as always. Love the way you write. Makes for an easy read with a few chuckles and snickers inserted along the way.
Btw I am 57 and remember RUG filters

 

[sag2]

Paul, I read a lot of your posts, I'm intrigued with the immune theory and too don't QT, to this point I've had good success over the last few years. I live on gulf of Mexico, the east coast of Florida. What are your thoughts about introducing water from the gulf to the aquarium on occasion?

 

[Paul B]

I would use that water constantly , not just occasionally. It's the Atlantic Ocean. Where do you think your fish came from?
I just may not take it near a river, toxic waste dump or Nancy Pelosi's house.

 

[sag2]

I live on a bay less than a block from the gulf of Mexico on St. Pete Beach, I will start introducing the water on regular water changes. I have a 250 gallon tank and normally do 30 gallon changes every 2 weeks. Your thoughts?
Thanks again, Daniel

Picture from our dock behind the house...

 

[Paul B]

I would only collect water there on a rising tide. Probably half way to high tide would be best.

 

[Subsea]

@sag2

What kind if fish do you catch from the pier?

When I was going to school in Galveston, we would get Sargassum Seaweed floating islands. I would collect neat stuff amongst the seaweed. We also caught numerous Peppermint shrimp at rock jetties

 

[sag2]

@sag2

What kind if fish do you catch from the pier?

When I was going to school in Galveston, we would get Sargassum Seaweed floating islands. I would collect neat stuff amongst the seaweed. We also caught numerous Peppermint shrimp at rock jetties

That's my dock behind my house. We catch everything from sharks to grouper..

 

[sag2]

I would only collect water there on a rising tide. Probably half way to high tide would be best.

thank you again for the info, I will let you know how it goes...thanks again..

 

[Subsea]

That's my dock behind my house. We catch everything from sharks to grouper..

If you are catching fresh marine fish, you have a source of healthy live bacteria. Just feed them your catch. Healthy bacteria in gut cavity of fish will be, imo, much more helpful for fish immune system. For certain, the bacteria will be much more concentrated than just in the water.

When I went to the Texas Maritime Academy in Galveston, I maintained a 55G tank with 100% nsw. If you maintain filter feeders, they should benefit the most from live water from the sea. In the long run, fish immune system will benefit indirectly thru the food chain nourishment that benefited from zooplankton soup coming in with nsw.

@Paul B
Your dock at Montague Point is frozen with black mussels for half the year. We should go get us some grouper fishing in on this excellent looking fishing platform. You could scuba and scare them up to the surface and I’ll grill em. Make sure you invite the Dallas Cowgirls.

 

[road_runner]

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.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING WITH US!
I saved this post on my phone so I can read it every now and then to remind me of some of the great points you making...