49 Year Old Tank

Last night there was a huge threat of thunder storms. As a matter of fact, my phone kept giving me this annoying noise with an announcement of the storm, flooding, lightning, meteorites, brimstone and everything else they could warn you about. I couldn't listen to the radio because it was all warnings, I thought we were being attacked by Bayone New Jersey.

So I decided to go to the beach and collect water. :p
It was very dark but wasn't raining yet. I backed up near the sea but I couldn't get to close because the waves were breaking like the "Perfect Storm" where George Cloony was in that boat that sunk with all the swordfish and I just waxed my car and didn't want it getting dirty.

(I am not speaking to Mr. Clooney but that is another story and I can't tell it here)

There were quite a few people on the beach watching the lightning as it was getting closer but I think most of them were watching us. (My friend came with me)

I had the back of my Jeep open and I reeled out the 70' of hose and threw the end with the pump on it into the angry Sea.

This wasn't as easy as it seems because the water was so rough, and it was so windy that the pump kept flying back at me and this was a boat ramp lined with huge rocks that the pump kept banging on the rocks and it was hard to get it into deep enough water to pump.

As the waves came crashing in there was water, but when they went out, the pump was dry and just sucking in sand fleas and cigarette butts. I even had to pull in the pump once to bang it on a rock to get the thing going as it was clogged with gravel and probably terrified amphipods. o_O

I had to walk out on the rocks into the water, luckily I had the foresight to wear my bathing suit. Not just because I knew I would get wet, but I wanted to Bring Sexy back.:p

I turned on the pump and it started to suck water from the sea, it also sucked in loads of seaweed and sand. The water didn't look to good but my fish are not Sissys so they will have to deal with it.
After all, I am doing all the work, they just have to live in it and like it. :cool:

We noticed the few people still on the beach looking at us and two of them started to walk over. I tried to think up a witty story to tell them, but I had nothing. One was a girl.

He said "We on the beach are curious. What the H-ell are you doing?"
I said, we are getting water for a fish tank.
He said "Oh, we thought you were testing something like those storm chasers who drive into tornadoes."

I could tell the girl thought I looked Sexy. ;Smuggrin (Oh, get over it)
Now our containers were getting full and we had the capacity to take 40 gallons and I was determined to do that unless the lightning came right into my Jeep and hit the radio changing the station from vintage Linda Ronstadt to Justin Beiber which would immediately end the moment.
Nothing like collecting water in a storm while blasting Blue Bayou.;Joyful

I couldn't keep my hat on and we could barely keep the jeep from sliding sideways on the sand due to the wind (and Linda Ronstadt, actually, not that the wind picked up, I think In a Godda Divida was playing)

The wind was picking up, Linda was singing louder, the lightning was getting closer and I looked Sexier as now I was all wet from the splashing. The on lookers were starting to move to their cars as they seemed like Girly, Sissy Mary people.
But we persevered and still needed more water.

We looked out to sea and there was this smallish boat trying to head into the wind. Now that was a Real Man. A very stupid real Man, but a man none the less. He took shelter behind an oil tanker unloading from a platform about a mile out.

Now it started to rain, not much at first, just enough to make it interesting. The lightning was hitting the water all over the place and coming in sideways lighting up the sky like the last creshendo of a
Bochelli concert.
I thought I saw a guy who looked a little like Benjamin Franklin flying a kite.

We still had more capacity and continued pumping as the waves grew larger.
I was surprised the pump didn't clog again as the water was raging so much.
Now we were all filled up just as the rain hit, and by "hit" I mean a deluge. Noah's flood was just a pond compared to this. I have seen Monsoons and this was a monsoon.

I quickly dragged the pump back over the rocks trying to keep standing upright while I impressed the people in the cars filming us for National Geographic.
I wanted to look like Lloyd Bridges in "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" where he fights the giant squid with a scizzors and a cell phone. I think I captured the moment.

We got in the car and tried to go, but the windshield wipers wouldn't go fast enough and the wheels were slipping on the sand. Fiddler crabs were running in circles with a completely horrified look on their faces.
Finally we got off the ramp and headed home through knee deep water.

I got to my garage and closed the door. Then I pumped the water into vats and it is now being diatom filtered to remove the seaweed and sand as it looks like Miso soup.
I will change it today and see if anything lives.
 
That 40 gallons of NSW water I added was the largest water change I ever did in my life that I remember. My tank is 125 gallons so there is probably about 90 gallons of water in there so that was almost half of the water.
The seawater was 76 degrees so I just had to heat it up 2 degrees, but I did have to add some salt as the salinity was .016 or so. I don't know how the fish live around here with such low salinity and this is the Atlantic.

I think Aliens are coming at night or very early in the morning the days after holidays and sucking up the salt. :rolleyes:

My fish and corals didn't react in any way that I could tell from the new water. The calcium of the Long Island Sound water was close to 400 but the alk was about 6 so I added a little.

I also can't find those tiny fish fry that I added a few weeks ago. They grew about twice or three times the size and I noticed one a couple of days ago but now I can't find any. Of course they may have grown larger and are in the rocks waiting to put on a little more weight so they can finish off my copperband butterfly. But more likely, my Janss pipefish found them and had a nice lunch.

If I go back there, I will collect more. I hope they carry different parasites because I like to keep adding new ones to keep up the immunity so I never have to go on those silly disease threads that start out reading "Help!!!!!> I got ich after 6 months of quarantining, dipping, medicating and fresh water dipping in insect repellent and Nair"

Tank is doing very well and the corals seem to be continuing to grow. One "arm" of a SPS bleached and I am not sure why but the rest of it and the rest continuue to smile.

The fish are extremely healthy and you can tell that by the very bright iridescent colors healthy fish have on their fins. That iridescences normally fades in captive fish unless they are fed correctly.
I am most surprised that my Janss Pipefish is still living as they are supposed to be difficult. I want another one.

I myself glow like that because I also drink this "elixir" that I invented for my wife for her MS Pain which seems to work better than pain pills. She calls it "Jumping Juice" but it is a little work to make.

 
So this morning I went for my walk, Bike ride. Down the 167 steps to the beach and I noticed that it was dead low tide.



I have never been on this beach, behind my house before at dead low tide and I noticed that there were seaweed covered rocks exposed. Seaweed covered rocks are to me like High Heels to a Supermodel so I walked (not very fast) the 100 yards or so to the place and started lifting rocks.



I was in my glory that there were amphipods all over the place like weirdoes at a Lady GaGa concert.
( I know because our Daughter got us tickets to one of those. Girls "walking" their boyfriends on dog collars didn't do it for me)

The beach is very clean, not even a nose hair to be found so I didn't have anything to put amphipods in but I needed to get some as the tide changes an hour each day and the tide wouldn't be this low at this time in the morning for a very long time and I was very disappointed that I couldn't get any.

I started to walk back to the stairs when just then, out of nowhere, I see a plastic bottle.

I rush over and pick it up. I was thirsty and it was half filled with a dark liquid. I removed the cap and brought it up to my lips and........No, I didn't drink it. I was born at night but not last night. I smelled it and it was Coke.

I poured it out and rinsed it out. Now I started to collect amphipods, but the mouth of the bottle was small so I had to collect them one at a time. I don't know if you have even gone amphipod collecting but as soon as you lift a rock, the amphipods run like they are just missing the five PM train out of Manhattan on Fourth of July Weekend.
So you can only get one as the rest run away and jump off the rock. Collecting this way doesn't yield too many pods.
I normally swish the rocks in a bucket of water which i didn't have so I only got maybe 25 amphipods.


I didn't want my fish to eat them because these were very big so they were breeders. I put some under my UG filter and the rest I added behind the rocks in the dark.

I may go tomorrow an hour later as it will be low tide again but hotter so going up all those stairs will be tough.
 
They really don't want you to repair these Chinese LED fixtures. My blue lights went out so I took the thing apart to fix it. I figured it was the driver, but it was the LEDs themselves. 5 of them were sort of melted. I had a couple of blue LEDs and I shorted out one to get the thing running. You can see the one I shorted out. Now it's "almost" as good as new with just a few Blues that don't light.
 
I am at a loss for words which is a first for me so I will just update my tank. OK, thee is nothing to update, it is the same as it always is.
I can try to name the fish but I am sure I will miss some.

2 Gecko Gobies
Copperband
Mandarin
Scooter "Bleeny"
Queen Anthius
Possum Wrasse
Janss Pipefish
Red Perchlet.
Yellow Wrasse.
2 Striped Cardinals
Hippo Tang (with no spots)
2 Fire Clowns
2 Watchman gobies
Some kind of red fish
Rainsford Gobi
Some kind of brown fish. Maybe a bleeny.

That makes 20, I am not sure if I missed any.

I also have this very cool decorator crab. I don't remember how long he has been in there because I rarely see him, even if I am looking right at him, but he is very cool.

 
I am back from my morning exercise. I took my bike to the stairs that lead to the beach. On the way there I saw so many deer and they were so close to the road that I could count the ticks on them.
There was only one Buck that I could see. I think his last name was Rogers.

The stairs down to the beach has a lot of spider webs crossing the hand rails so you have to constantly brush them off. They are probably covered in ticks but real Men don't worry about such things. Only Sissy, Snowflakes and Girly men.

The sun was just coming up and there were a few tiny tide pools that will evaporate soon leaving all the tiny fish fry and snails to croak. I would imagine if I took some home and dipped them in tree stump remover I could revive them, then quarantine them for 3 months where they would grow into 10 lb stripped bass and I could have them for dinner. That sounds like a great business.

Today we are getting company from the old neighborhood so we will take them to the pool, then on the boat for dinner. She works at a pool and is bringing me a 12 gallon bucket that they buy chlorine in. I already have two of them so now I can bring back 36 gallons of water from the sea without trying to fit 6 five gallon jugs in my Jeep. :p

 
bringing me a 12 gallon bucket that they buy chlorine in. I already have two of them so now I can bring back 36 gallons of water from the sea without trying to fit 6 five gallon jugs in my Jeep.
I think walking up those stairs 3 times, each time carrying 2 times 5 gallon drums (or 20 Liters in rest of the world speak) is far easier than walking up those stairs 3 times each time carrying a 12 gallon drum (or 55 Liters for us). Will also need to go up 3 times. Maybe in my much younger years I would carry over 100 kg or 220 pounds for you but nope, no way I'm even trying to do that. Difference is only 6 gallon. No reason to bust your back or you knee.
 
Keeping your knees healthy is for Girly men. As long as there is still titanium, I will keep the doctors working. :thumbup1:

Today I am designing another Steam Punk Project. Still in the very early stages. The bottom part is a 1910 or so Broadway light housing, I am not sure what the middle part is but it is some sort of timing device with all brass gears.
The top is from the Railroad in the 60s. It has some huge relays in it.
I have some bicycle chain and sprockets that may go on it and it will have a lot of lighting and movement.

 
We are having company this weekend so we went to Costco to get hamburgers.
We are taking them on the boat then back to the pool to Bar be cue.
So my wife says we can just "jump" into Costco for the hamburgers.
We get to Costco and I run to the cell phone booth because I need a new battery on my 8 year old "I" Phone 4. I know the guy and I don't want a new "upgraded" phone because I know it won't work, I won't be able to figure out how to use it, I have to kill half an hour for him to program it, and I don't want to pay another $49.00 a month being my old phone works fine and is paid for. Besides I don't need my phone to make me breakfast, put gas in my car, feed my fish and get my slippers. Just make phone calls and don't annoy me.
The guy I need is on vacation so I look for my wife. She is buying sweatshirts for the Grand Kids, Water Piks, beach chairs, pop corn, olives, flashlight batteries, flounders, Halloween costumes,
celophane, vacuum cleaner bags etc. Everything but hamburgers.
I tell her, "I thought we were going to "jump" in here for hamburgers. Then of course she gets mad and says now I am shopping for things we "need". Why don't you go to Home Depot?
How do women do that? I hate to shop and if I need hamburgers I park the closest I can get to the door, run in and ask the closest person where the hamburgers are.
(I don't need a shopping cart as they take too long)
She points to the back corner of the store and If I could get there diagonally by climbing over the counters, I would. I quickly look down the aisles and avoid the ones where there are people. Then I get down the least crowded aisle to the hamburgers, find the closest package and grab it. I put it under my arm and in one quick motion, spin around and go as fast as I could to the least crowded check out counter.
If there are more than 2 people on line, I run back to the hamburger section, throw them back into the case and go back to my car as I have PTSD and I don't do lines. On my way home
I change the menu and go to a deli and we have sandwiches.
This all takes place in under 8 minutes.
Thats the way a Man shops.
 
That Hippo Tang I threw in my tank two or three months ago looks great. No spots, no lumbago, no irritable bowel, no cataracts, no worms, no flukes, no flounders no nothing. That health comes from not quarantining.

I also don't feed him lettuce, spinach or "The impossible burger". He eats worms, clams and LRS food like everyone else and he gets over it. I think he meditates. :rolleyes:

If I quarantined him he would now be on the disease forum and people would be telling me to dip him in stump remover while fresh water dipping him and adding Prizapro to French Onion soup to feed him while giving him soapy water enema's. :oops:

 
So this morning I took my normal bike ride to the cliff to go down to the beach.
It is a little brisk today. I put my bike there and started down the long walk to the stairs.
This is part of the walk way to the stairs.


Then I got to the stairs and heard all this rustling as it is a steep cliff with all bushes.
I saw three of these guys. One was a little one and hid in the bluffs. And I am not Bluffing.


This is on top of a steep cliff over the sea which is angry today because it is so windy.
As I was descending I heard this loud noise, like a snort. It sounded just like an elephant. I am a boy from New York and we rarely find elephants here, especially up on a cliff. Maybe you guys have them, but I don't. :confused1:
I couldn't get off the walkway as it is built high and if you touched the sand underneath the stairs, I think the entire mountain of sand would collapse causing me to call the ski patrol to dig me out.

I am sure they are off for the summer so I would be in trouble and besides, they couldn't get to me because it is hard to climb stairs wearing skiis.
I never did find that elephant but I kept looking and I didn't even see his footprints in the sand.

 
Collecting NSW in a storm.

I want the Ozone infused water in my tank.
tongue.gif




 
So I got the boat back to the Marina this morning and they took it out of the water.


The first thing I noticed is that they didn't put any bolts in the two "Zinc's" on the power tilt pistons. This would not cause any problem like the one I am having but the zinc's are supposed to be bolted in or they don't do anything and they are expensive. To make a complicated story short, they are made of zinc (like Duh) and they are supposed to rot before parts of your boat rot. But if they are just hanging there, they are not doing anything so the Jiboni's would have had to take my boat out of the water to put the bolts in anyway.

The "mechanic" told me "sometimes they rot out".. I was born at night but not last night and I am not an accountant. I was an A rated GM Mechanic and I know stainless steel doesn't rot out in 2 months.

I said, that can't happen. Then he said, "sometimes they come loose". Yeah right, 4 stainless steel bolts coming not just loose, but completely falling off in 2 months.

I mean if you screw up and make a mistake at least make up something plausible or tell the truth that you messed up. I was a mechanic and I could have done that. Or I would at least make up something believable about Aliens or Bigfoot.



We didn't find anything obviously wrong with the shift cable but I had him change this shift arm anyway. I figured I came all this way, took the boat out of the water, removed the drives so I may as well waste some money.



I made it home without incident so I am not sure if it is fixed or not. :cool:
 
I can't buy an interesting fish no matter how much money I throw at them. They got tangs and angelfish and I find them very boring. Nothing unusual. Corals, forgetaboutit. They got tiny frags and at my age, I don't do tiny anything. I probably couldn't see them or my hermit crabs would carry them away.

To add any corals I would have to cut away a lot of blue green sponge that covers most of my tank. But it cuts easy with a razor blade.

We are supposed to take some trips, but again, at my age, I already went to everyplace I want to go. Except the Galapagos. I haven't been there but my wife hates lizzards.

I also didn't go to Easter Island but my birthday is on Christmas so that is a different holiday and I don't know if I can mix holidays like that.

If I decided to go hang gliding or bungee jumping my insurance company would disown me because I already broke or tore everything that is breakable .

I still dive (very occasionally) but from spending so much time underwater, the fish find me boring as they all saw me already.

WE are having people over (again) for the weekend and I know there is a big pool party. Then we will go on my boat to waste some gas and hopefully not get stuck and have to come back on one engine. But that sometimes happens in boating. Boating is fun. Young people today IMO don't know how to have fun.

I tell that to my Daughter all the time. She is 40 and at her age we always had a big crowd and would get everyone together and either go to a river upstate to Kayak down the rapids and camp or go to a lake with our small canoe's or sailboats and sink each other. There would be maybe 20 of us.
We once went to the "Ice Caves" in the snow. They are only open in the summer and they have ice then. We brought ropes and lowered ourselves down into the caves with flashlights. Very cool.

My Daughter and her friends text each other as to what they will do and they do nothing but text each other. They text about how much fun it is to text.

Then they meet each other at someone's house, and sit there so they can text other people to ask them to join in on a group text.
Our Grand Daughter texted us yesterday to tell us she was looking at the window. And she lives in Manhattan so all she can see is the roofs of taxi cabs. I know her generation is going in the same direction as our Daughter. A generation that does nothing.

There's a whole world out there and a lot of it is free. In those days we couldn't rub two nickels together to make a dime but we always did things.
This was at a lake many years ago before they invented time.
 
Talking about things to do, once our crowd got together and rented tree houses on a tiny Island in a river. We had to drive through a shallow part of the river to get there.

We slept in the tree houses about 15' up in the trees. There was a storm and we had to drive off the island through torrential floods. It was great and a lot of memories. I don't think my Grand kids ever saw a tree.
 
I can fully related to what you say,my kids may only be in there 20s but they also do nothing except go to expensive hotels and text and live on there phones no camping no going to the beach.
 
OOOHHHH NNNOOOOO. Disaster. No Really!!.
I looked at my tank and it was all foggy. OK, maybe smoky. A combination of foggy and smoky. My friend was here and he said, "That coral looks like it is dead!!!"

I said, "Can't be" It was fine a few hours ago. Then I noticed my skimmer wasn't working as there is a crack in the plastic and not enough water is going into the skimmer.

AAAAHHHHHHHhhhh.'

I found that one coral was just about all croaked and another one is almost all croaked.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!! Oh Noooo.

I got the skimmer working and it overflowed about a gallon of water on the floor. It kept foaming out like when you put 15 times too much soap in a washing machine. :p

OOOHHHH NOOOO.

The effluent from the skimmer was much too much to go down the tube to the drain so we found a big PVC elbow and stuck it on the top of the tube so it at least went into a bucket. It was overflowing all over me.
NNNNNoooooo!!

Then I got my diatom filter and after spilling a couple of gallons of water on my feet and the floor I got the thing running.

The skimmer was still going nuts so I knew there was something in the water.... But What!!!!!

As I was fixing the skimmer I kept getting stung by the long spine urchin. Then I noticed.
Why is his spines sticking out of the water like 4"

Then I remembered. Years ago I had an urchin business and I would SCUBA for urchins and sell them. Once they all spawned at the same time. I think I walked in front of the tank wearing my Speedo which caused that to happen.

But when they spawn, they go to the top of the water and stick their spines out, then spawn. And sea urchins have a LOT of spawn. I mean a LOT. And this is a ten year old very large urchin.

He was still spawning and turned the water into "Half and Half". Normally that is not a problem and the skimmer removes it right away. But if the skimmer isn't working, the stuff rots and the corals frown on that and croak.

Now I have the diatom running and the overflowing is almost managable but still happening. I have to let this keep overflowing for a few hours to get those poisons out of the water so maybe my other corals won't croak. :confused:

 
I found three working ones. If I look long enough in my house I can find anything. But I fixed the crack in one and ordered another one so I should be good. :cool:

 
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