almost 35 year old reef pictures

[snapper1]

Paul that is a awesome Tank,Teach me sensei I am humbled it is incredible.You have had it over 30 years wow,good job buddy and many more to come.

[Paul B]

Wow Snapper you woke me up with your enthusiasm.
I have had it over 30 years because I am older than most people here (but not all of you). In another 30 years many people here will have older reefs than that. Of course mine will be over 60 then but who's counting?

[skippy2]

I was thinking about you today Paul and still hoping everything is going fine with you.

[saltfan]

Beautiful, where do you collect the macro on LI?

[Paul B]

Peggy we are still in the midst of this situation. Hopefully it will end one way or the other,
Saltfan, you can collect macro out east near the Hamptons or in Peconic.
Paul

[kes_reef]

Originally posted by Paul B
Sindjin, I don't think my tank would qualify for tank of the month, it is not your normal tank and my methods scare people. Just mention UG filter and people think you are a newbe.
The tank is an experiment and everything goes.
Dyayne, thanks. I still like looking at it and I am still in awe when I see something slithering around and I have no Idea where it came from. I still sit there like a kid with a magnifying glass looking at the rocks. Of course when my wife comes downstairs to see if I am still alive, I pick up a dumbell and start grunting.
Take care.
Paul

I just laughed out loud with your description at the end. Great stuff Paul and congratulations!

My 120g reef tank isn't as low tech as yours but I think most would give me a quizzical look when I tell them I have always used tap water, use only 2- 150watt MH and blue led, 1 pump for return with scwd and 1 pump for skimmer in refugium. I try to keep it simple.

[Paul B]

It seems that my tank is again picking up some dirt and looking good again. I replaced most of the rock that I took out for the Idol and I used a lot of pieces that I built that I had no room for. There is still no algae to speak of but I hope a little grows soon.
(a little, not a forest) I am sure my town has been putting "stuff" in the water again which kills my corals. They use zinc orthophosphate which clogs my RO and screwed up my DI. The DI resins diden't even change color like they do when they are exhausted so I had to dump them and get some different resins and my RO clogged about a year early. This is the third time this happened to this tank and I really have to talk to someone in the water dept. to see what I can do about it. The last time, a few years ago even before I had RO I lost almost all of my corals to this chemical. This time, with the RO/DI I only lost a few but the rest shrunk. I may use a PVC pipe filled with carbon before the DI but I really need to talk to a chemist. RANDY COME BACK.

Anyway I like my new aquascaping and my fish are very healthy. I want to start breeding gobies and I have been collecting a few of different types. This was always my plan to have many gobies and bleenies with only one or two slightly larger fish like a copperband and hippo. It's not like there is a fish that I diden't have that I really feel the need to have. Well I diden't yet have a pinecone fish but that will have to wait.
I have some gobies that I have never seen before that I hope to breed. Right now I have two males and they seem straight so no pairing there.
I also need desperately to get to the water to do some collecting. There is almost nothing tiny crawling around, whatever they put in the water also affects those big time. There is usually uncountable "things" crawling around and I believe they are missing in many tanks which is a big reason a lot of tanks are not as healthy as they could be. We really need this stuff. I am
talking about the bacteria and animals found under rocks on a muddy beach. I have always used this stuff and if it were not for my water company I would have corals like oak trees.


I am still going to the nursing home almost every day to "babysit" my Mother and try to feed her

Take care and have a great day.
Paul:

<--------- (this is actually the way I dance)

[RockinRichie]

Paul B can I ask you what that green piece is in the picture with the raccoon butterfly fish on the very first page? We have a piece of that as well that someone gave to us and they said that it is rare?

[Paul B]

There is no racoon butterfly in there I think you may be talking about the copperband butterfly but the green thing is codium seaweed from Montauk Long Island. I collect it in the summer. If thats what you are talking about I can collect enough of it to fill a 50 gallon drum. If its the soft coral in the front I would have to ask the guy who gave it to me. I think it was CB747 on here.
Paul

[RockinRichie]

Yes, the copperband butterfly..sorry..here is a picture of what I am talking about, this is from my tank, and not quite sure what it is. It looks kind of like what you have, but I could be wrong.

[Paul B]

Thats what I have. The member I mentioned gave it to me and it is not rare. It grows all over the place,
Paul

[sunfishh]

Glad to see things are getting back to normal Paul. I wish you and your mother the best of luck.

[Paul B]

Thanks sunfishh, it's getting there

[TammyLiz]

Thanks so much for sharing. I am willing to bet there are other people with tanks as old but they have not taken the time to share online. Do you have any semi-recent pictures? I'd love to see them.

[Paul B]

Tammy I don't have any new pictures so I guess I will have to take some. I now am on a gobi breeding kick so the tank is set up differently and is full of gobies.
Have a great day.
Paul

[erbio]

Wow Paul!

It is my understanding that saltwater aquariums became MOST popular in the 1980's, that makes you a genius.

My question is, how old is your oldest fish in that tank?

- Paul (also named paul)

[Micki]

Originally posted by Paul B
I now am on a gobi breeding kick so the tank is set up differently and is full of gobies.

Is it still a reef tank? Please do take some new pictures!

[Paul B]

It is my understanding that saltwater aquariums became MOST popular in the 1980's, that makes you a genius.

Yes that is true, I know everything, I am a genius, NOT.

Actually saltwater tanks were popular in the seventees but there were no reefs and very few stores carried salt water fish, if they did, they had a large sign that read, "We have Salt Water Fish"

Micki, my tank is still a reef, sorta. There are still encrusting corals all over the place and a clam but there are no large corals.
The last accident I had took care of most of those. My reef had two back to back accidents which I could not avoid. That was the third time that happened to the tank. One of them was that my town adds large quantities of zinc orthophosphate to the water to control corrosion in the pipes. Every time they do that I lose corals. Even though I use RO/DI I guess whatever they use enough gets through to affect the tank. Within a week I lost most of the corals. Many of the fish were lost in an accident when my Mother was found in a comotose state I rushed to the hospital with almost all of my fish in a small tank while I did some major maintenance. I stayed in the hospital a few days and neglected the fish. One must have died and polluted the water. Anyway it could have been worse, it could have been me. It is what it is.

The oldest fish is a fire clown. I don't remember when I got it but the place has been out of business for years. I think it is about 13 or so. The oldest fish was a cusk eel which was 18. He died the last time my town dosed the water as well as a bunch of other fish. I am working on the problem and did some things to try to avert the next disaster.
The tank is now set up for gobies which I have always liked.

I have about five different types some are unusual and I have not seen them before. I have had enough of the usual fish for a while and I am going for wierd. My goal was always to have many small interesting fish as opposed to a few larger fish. How many hippo's, tangs, Idols, and angels can you have.
This Fire clown is still with me but that bubble coral almost disappeared during the zinc episode. Now suprisingly what little there is left of that coral looks healthy again.
Have a great day.
Paul



I also have this guy and a few more gobies lived through.

[sunfishh]

Grreat pictures paul. How do you plan to stop the zinc othophosphate?

[Paul B]

Sunfishh I already installed a large carbon chamber after my RO/DI in the line that goes to the tank. I am also going to add a Poly Filter chamber on that line also. I can't believe that some of that stuff gets through all my filters but I know it's that because the last two times I called the water company and they told me that they added it. The last time a few years ago I changed my water and in advertanly used water just when they added the zinc. The corals acted immediately, I diden't know what was wrong so I changed more water and they got worse. I had to buy supermarket water to make salt water. If it were not for this problem I would have a lot of very old fish. They add the stuff continousely but sometimes they go overboard and I guess it just overwhelms my system althoughj I diden't think any of that would get through.
I have been very busy lately planning for my retirement in 22 weeks (but whos counting?) so I don't have much time for the tank, I am also trying to buy another house just to flip it and of course it's boating season so I am out almost every day.
Have a great day.
Paul

[sunfishh]

Wow water from the supermarket. How many gallons did you buy?

[Ryanqk]

This guy really deserves tank of the month sometime, i mean to keep a reef tank this long with corals that old is amazing. Along with the simplicity and beutiful large colonies. This tank never fails to amaze me.
Ryan

[Paul B]

Sunfishh I bought about 50 gallons of supermarket water.
Ryan, this will never be tank of the month. There are lots of much more beautiful tanks you guys have. My tank is an experiment and I do all sorts of things that I would not recommend to others.
Now it really does not look too good at all. I still have a zinc problem (at least I think it is zinc) and I can't get most corals to live at all. I am going out collecting today but where I am going I really can't collect water. I will just be getting small fish, amphipods, and other interesting stuff but I can't collect water from there. I really need a large change of saltwater and I won't be going out for that for a few weeks. I like to get large amounts of water out east on the ocean beaches of Long Island.
My reef runs for years and looks beautiful with everything spawning then all of a sudden I have a water problem and it wrecks everything for a few months. This has been happening for the entire time I have had the tank. I would imagine this problem also affects other tanks as well.
A RO membrane only removes 98% or so of contaminents which is almost perfect but if there is massive amounts of a chemical in the water I believe enough will get through to affect the tank.
I know I have all sorts of other filter media in there also but apparently whatever they use in the public water is not filterable entirely. I run plenty of carbon on the tank and it does nothing.
Not everything is removable by our methods.
I will eventually get this figured out but it will take time and a lot of phone calls to the water company.
Have a great day.
Paul

[TammyLiz]

Water problems are so frustrating.

[danch]

Originally posted by Ryanqk
This guy really deserves tank of the month sometime, i mean to keep a reef tank this long with corals that old is amazing. Along with the simplicity and beutiful large colonies. This tank never fails to amaze me.
Ryan

And there's some cool, unusual aqauscaping - the bottles and the hand-bent pvc rocks. Not the typical TOM "Acropora garden" at all!

Cudos, Paul!