Tank turned 49 this year

DaveK

Well-Known Member
At least you found the bad wire issue before you replaced the alternator. I know the feeling well. More that once I've replaced something only to find out the original only needed a simple repair.

Of course, things have gone the other way too. I've started something thinking it was going to be a simple job, and I uncover a major issues that requires a lot of time and parts to fix.

Good luck with the garden eel. It's considered fairly difficult. I'd say with your system, you have a good chance of success. (Note, as a "public service" to the other people on the forum, this is a fish most other people should avoid)
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I doubt the eel will live a long and prosperous life and I really should not have bought it as that was a stupid move. My tank has about 2" of gravel and the fish really needs 8" of sand. :cool:
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I just had to do it today. I had to glue some corals back. I had 5 large pieces of montipora laying on the gravel and every hour, a crab or fish would turn them over so they were in the dark. For a couple of weeks I would just turn them over so they had light but I got tired of that and I had a few minutes so I glued them all back on. Now I have to look for a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from the clownfish tearing pieces of flesh off of my arm.

 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Tomorrow I am going for acupuncture. I have a very Manly degenerative disk and if you live long enough and do more than carry protest signs and text, you may also get these old people things. Anyway almost all of your nerves go right next to your disks which were actually a mistake when they designed us because those disks are not really built too well. They are alright for the first 50 years but not so much after that.
I think pressure treated wood would have been better.

Our nerves should have been designed to go through aluminum tubes outside our body away from those disks. But I wasn't there when Al Gore invented nervous systems.
Anyway, when disks start to bulge or corrode they give you all sorts of problems depending on which nerves they press on. If it's your ear lobe nerve, you can get your ears pierced without any pain, but I don't do earrings.
It's not the end of the world and I can still do backflips. But only once.

I really don't believe in acupuncture, chiropractors, faith healers, witch doctors, herbalists, etc. I also don't have a lot of trust in real doctors unless you have an arrow sticking out of your head. If that is the case, they will know immediately what code to put on the form to send to your insurance company.
But my wife goes to this acupuncturist and she is kind of a Supermodel so I will try it. If nothing else at least I will be a little more porous, and poor as insurance companies frown on acupuncture. :cool:
 

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
Ouch ! Good luck Paul !
cartoonwebpost.jpg
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Today it is going to be hot and humid so it is perfect collecting conditions. I have a new dinghy on the back of my boat and hopefully can collect more amphipods and mud. I don't think the tide will be right and I am to lazy to look up the tide tables so I am winging it. I am going anyway so it doesn't matter. If nothing else I will get to my favorite restaurant for some clams on the half shell.
I can still collect mud at high tide because there is mud all over the place, especially on my anchor but for amphipods I really need to be there at dead low tide because it is 8' deep at high tide.

My tank is doing well but I have been neglecting it a lot due to some health issues for me, my wife and our Grand Daughter. I myself am almost perfectly healthy, but our Grand Daughter has some issues.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July.
We celebrated America's birthday from our boat as we usually do with good friends that we have had since high school.
Anchored in Port Washington we could see the fireworks from New York Harbor, The Bronx and Connecticut as well as over our heads in the harbor. Great weather and great night.





 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I collected a bunch more amphipods and mud yesterday as I was exploring the muddy tide pool. There are thousands of baby horseshoe crabs but the mud there is shoe sucking mud and you sink up to your knees and lose your shoes. I am surprised the crabs like it.
It's places like that which keeps horseshoe crabs abundant in the Long Island Sound but unfortunately, the horseshoe crabs are less every year. I used to see dozens of adults hanging around or mating. This year so far I have seen one adult.
Their muddy habitats are slowly disappearing to condo's and parking lots. The place I go is a wildlife preserve but it is only about 200 yards long which isn't real big and the part the crabs spawn in is not much larger than a medium size home.
Even the fiddler crabs are disappearing. I still find maybe a hundred or two there, but I used to see thousands.
I also have not seen a hermit crab there in a few years and they used to be very common.
I still collect mud there for the bacteria and I am sure that will always be available.











 

cracker

Well-Known Member
Hey Paul Hope all is OK with You and Family. I also don't think Ya gotta too old for disk issues. I can say that 30 years of humping packages for UPS will do it . I feel Your pain ! Hang in there.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Burning, thanks.
Cracker. Most of my disks and other parts are fantastic. When I drive through Manhattan and look up at the buildings I can point to different parts on those buildings I helped build and know which body part I wore out there. :confused:
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
This morning I came downstairs and looked at my tank and all of a sudden, the tank lights went out. I walked around the back of the tank in the closet, and the lights came back on. I stated looking at the fish and the lights went out. 15 seconds later, they came back on and I walked around the back, and they went off. Every 10 or 15 seconds the lights would go out.
It is easy to fix a problem if it stays a problem but much harder to fix something that keeps fixing itself.
But in this case, I figured it out easily. I touched the copper tubing that the LEDs are mounted on and it was hot. Then I touched the "radiator" I built that is supposed to cool the water running through the tube that ther LEDs are mounted on and it was cold. That means the water is not circulating and the LEDs were getting too hot.
I didn't even think the pump was needed but now I know it is.
The tiny pump was very hot so I knew it was getting power but it was not pumping. Luckily, I have a spare.
I drained the water out of the water cooled lighting system and installed the new pump. The old one does not come apart so I will just buy another spare. This one lasted a couple of years and they are not that expensive.





 

yungreefer2410

Well-Known Member
What are the specs on your awesome diy fixture? I looked at the thread but I don't remember if they are 3w or 5w, and the different colors you have going on. What % do you run them at as well? Good post as always
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I think I have two thirds white and one third royal blue. I got them from an old fixture that wasn't working so I am not sure exactly on the color but they are 3 watts. I run the entire thing about 11 hours a day and I can't dim them.
I also have two flood light looking things that are made out of LEDs that have more colors. I use them on the couple of SPS I keep because I don't think my normal lights are bright enough. I think I have 72 LEDs in that fixture and the tank is 6' long so it isn't real bright.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I know I keep saying my bangai cardinal is dying of old age but he is still with me. As a matter of fact, his cataracts cleared up and he is livelier than ever and he eats much more than he ever did. I think he is having a mid life, or end of life crisis as he looks like a teenager. I can't make heads or tails out of it as he didn't hardly eat anything for a couple of months and he is making up for it now. Very weird.
On another note one of my flasher wrasses jumped out. I wish it was my much to big blue wrasse. Soon I will catch that guy and give him away because he is about 7" and much to big for my tank. He also jumped out once and it was so quick that he jumped into my hands and I threw him back. I should have thrown him in a bucket but I didn't think fast enough. At my age thinking is much slower than it used to be. I am still waiting for the results of the last Presidential election.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
So I go to my boat today because for some reason, there is always water in the bilge and it drives me nuts. For 10 years I have been cramming myself in the bilge with a rag and a bottle of Lestoil so I can get the grease off of everything especially those white bilge pump hoses in between the engines. You can barely make out the red bilge pump all the way in the back. There is always grease in there because even a drop of oil in a bilge will coat everything if there is water in there.

Years ago I installed that bilge pump on a 24" piece of 1/4" plexiglass and secured the plexiglass in a place in the bilge where I can easily remove a screw and take out the bilge pump that is in a place that you can't get to.



Today I brought my camera there which has a 6' flexible hose in it so I can get the camera all the way under the engines to look for the leak.



So I removed all the water in the bilge and cleaned it nice and white. I also cleaned those corrugated hoses. I then did something else for 10 minutes and when I came back, there was water in the bilge.

I again sucked out the water with a vacuum and dried it nice and clean. I went and did something else and when I came back, there was water in the bilge.

OMG, I am going crazy, there should not be water going in there but it is a very tight spot and I can't see where the water is coming from.

It didn't help that it is 90 degrees and the sweat coming off of me is also filling the bilge.



I stick my feet up in the air and get my head all the way down there wondering how I am going to get out and I see it.

A little waterspout of water is coming into the boat from a tiny hole in the middle of the bilge, under where I have that plexiglass bracket that I made to hold the pump.



Then I figured it out. When they built the boat, the Jiboni that installed the bilge pump must have drilled the hole for the screw all the way through the hull into the sea. That must have been tough because the hull is probably 2" thick there.

He probably put in a screw he got in Home Depot because it was not stainless steel and it rotted out leaving this nice little hole where water comes in.

I got a real stainless steel screw and screwed it into the hole.

Problem solved and it only took me 10 years to find it.

I would never have found it if I didn't take the pump. bracket and hoses out to clean.

The water was probably filling the bilge about 2" deep and the bilge pump would come on pumping out most of the water until it filled again.



 

yungreefer2410

Well-Known Member
Boat = bust out another thousand. We run Volvo Pentas in our parasail boats. 470 hp of turbo diesel, absolute workhorses def recommend.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
My last boat had a Volvo Penta. But those Duo Prop outdrives weigh a ton.
I have had a boat since 1974 I think and you are correct, I busted out a lot of thousands. I am lucky that I can do everything myself.
 
Top