Tank turned 49 this year

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I couldn't help myself. I had to take this pump off to clean it and of course one of the threaded studs that hold the impeller housing cracked.
I fixed it but while I had the thing off I found in my workshop a much larger pump that I got a few years ago when a LFS here went out of business and they gave it to me. Brand new.
Now I got it working and I have plenty of bubbles but I still want smaller bubbles so I think I am going to make two venture valves and parallel them into the skimmer.
Soon, if I keep designing this thing, I can turn this thing into a space shuttle.
Here is the old pump

 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
It's a good thing I just looked at the pump to check for leaks. It is making to mush foam that it almost filled up my five gallon bucket that it goes into. Now that it is broken in I have to adjust it way down.
To make these modifications I turned off my ozone generator, of course that doesn't go back on either. You just can't touch these old things. Now I have to take that apart and see if I have any parts from old units to fix it with.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
I know the feeling. Late last year I had to replace my sump, and it turned into a project where I replaced about 80% of the filtration system and a good bit of the control systems.

Between the "... well, it's apart, so I might as well ..." items and the items I found that were broken, I spent a lot of money and replaced a lot of gear. I can't complain. The new system is a lot better, and because I replaced all the pumps with controllable DC pumps, the whole system consumes far less power.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I fixed the ozonizer and now I am going to winterize my sprinkler system so I hope the tank runs now with no help from me as I am busy with other things. I need to get a lot of things done before my shoulder operation.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
So a couple of days ago my Daughter was in Washington Square Park in Manhattan where my Grand Daughter who was riding on her scooter. Greta is 4 years old and a little kid about the same age comes over to her and takes her scooter.
My Daughter sees this happen and follows the kid with her scooter as he brings it over to this old guy who I found out is her Father.
My Daughter says, "excuse me but that is my scooter." The guy says, "do you need it right now". My Daughter says "Yes, I do". So the guy reluctantly gives her back the scooter and seems to be looking at her as if to say, "Don't you recognize me".
The guy was Alec Baldwin who was there with his wife, who is probably younger than my Daughter, but I don't know that for sure. I think Alec Baldwin can well afford to buy his own scooter.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
If I could catch this wrasse I would give him away as he has gotten a little big for my tank. He is about 6".
I am talking about the striped one, not the spotted leopard.

 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Thank you. I have had 5 shoulder surgeries so I could probably do it myself if I could stand all my screaming. :eek:
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I just made some delicious stuffed calamari for dinner that we will have over linguini and clams tonight. I had too many tentacles left over and didn't want to throw them away so I chopped some of it up for my fish. I generally don't feed squid to my fish as I feel clams are much better but my copperband thinks he died and went to heaven because he will eat all you give him and I want to fill him up a little so I can get some food into the rest of the fish as he hogs most of it.



 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
i had shoulder operation #5 today. I hope he used some quality toggle bolts and not from home depot. nerve blockers are great so no pain yet, but I know what it feels when it wears off.

but it is a real man pain and not a girly man pain......besides I got plenty of pain pills.

sorry about the typing. its hard to make capitals with one hand
 

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
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Paul B

Well-Known Member
My Skimmer Is working so good since I changed that 20 year old pump that was running the venturi. Now I get about half gallon a week effluent out of it.

I'm like all tingly inside..
Now of course with an arm I can't move I have a loose ATO hose, a broken coral that needs gluing and a skimmer top that needs cleaning. At least I can clean the glass with one hand
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Glad to hear the surgery went good.

As for that other aquarium stuff, put those super models to work on it. (grin)
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Today I went to my favorite LFS because they were getting me some Caribbean gorgonians I wanted and a couple of porcelain crabs. I want a mate for mine. I got the 2 crabs, but they didn't look like porcelain crabs and were in a tank a little high for me to see. So now that I got them in my tank my porcelain crabs are really green crabs so I will never see them again.
They didn't get in my gorgonians either so I just took 3 small frags. I had to stick them on my sand because I can't glue them with one working arm. Normally I break off those silly frag plugs and glue the frag to a rock or bottle. I hate the way those frag plugs look as they kill the natural look of a tank.
I was supposed to get a couple of these to mate with mine.


As I was looking at the tank I saw one of these pop out of a frogspawn and I couldn't figure out where I got him. Then I remembered I bought him last week. It's great getting old.

 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Today I picked up a couple of corals. One is about 6" and the other two are small. I had to cut about 6" of my blue sponge so it has some light. I will give that away, hopefully someone wants it.
It isn't easy to glue frags because I am still in a sling and can't raise my arm. I got them in there, a little sloppy, but that's the way it is.
I can't find those two green crabs I accidently got and don't believe I will ever see them.
I ordered a new small LED light for my algae scrubber because the red water cooled one I built is just a little to Thick even though it is less than one inch thick water drips on it. I will use the one I bought while I design a thinner LED light.

Everything else is good except due to the drought in California, I am having a hard time getting blackworms. I still have some but I am rationing them.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
One of the pitfalls of having shoulder surgery is that it is difficult to do any tank maintenance that requires two hands. I can feed the tank, clean the glass and the skimmer cup but that's about it.

My algae scrubber is so full that the algae is sloughing off the thing and falling into the tank. In my set up, there is a pump in the tank that supplies water to the scrubber, then the water flows into a pipe that feeds my reverse undergravel filter.

The amount of algae is preventing the water from traveling into the UG filter as it is overflowing that pipe and going straight into the tank.

I can't raise my right are right now to clean it but I managed to clear some of the algae with a screwdriver.

I won't be able to reach up to it for a few weeks when my shoulder gets better so I will have to live with this for a while. It is not the end of the world, just a little annoyance.

This is an older picture of the scrubber.



 

deaclauderdale

Well-Known Member
One of the pitfalls of having shoulder surgery is that it is difficult to do any tank maintenance that requires two hands. I can feed the tank, clean the glass and the skimmer cup but that's about it.

My algae scrubber is so full that the algae is sloughing off the thing and falling into the tank. In my set up, there is a pump in the tank that supplies water to the scrubber, then the water flows into a pipe that feeds my reverse undergravel filter.

The amount of algae is preventing the water from traveling into the UG filter as it is overflowing that pipe and going straight into the tank.

I can't raise my right are right now to clean it but I managed to clear some of the algae with a screwdriver.

I won't be able to reach up to it for a few weeks when my shoulder gets better so I will have to live with this for a while. It is not the end of the world, just a little annoyance.

This is an older picture of the scrubber.



Wouldn't be OK if you just shutoff the scrubber until your shoulder completely heals? If you lived just a bit closer I'd come over and give you hand with your maintenance schedule.

Reef keeping is life!
 
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