I just realized my reef is 44 years old this month.

[Turbo's Aquatics]

I think that your tank needs an official "roast" for it's 45th.

 

[Paul B]

I threw a roast in there last week

 

[Paul B]

Can we hear the tank story (as in Jeep story) Daddy?

I will get to that as soon as I get time, it is not that exciting.

 

[beaslbob]

I threw a roast in there last week

I thought you were supposed to brine turkeys not roasts.

 

[Paul B]

I am waiting for my Grand Kids to get here from Manhattan so I have some time before they destroy my house and I will see if I remember any tank stories. A long time ago, when I was stationed in Colorado we had armored personnel carriers and M-60 tanks. Before you went to Nam they just made up things for you to do to keep busy so you didn't go into town and make problems. You were assigned a tank or armored personnel carrier which was like a school bus but it was 3" thick aluminum and had tank tracks on it. Of course an M-60 tank weighed 120,000lbs and had a big gun sticking out the front. The personnel carriers also were supposed to float but every time we tried that, they sunk. Anyway, in town I met this girl at Tombstone Discoteck. Yes, they had such things then as we didn't have cell phones so when we wanted to meet a girl, we had to actually stand in front of her and make comprehensible words come out of our mouth. This girl had a Volkswagen bug, and a friend. We danced with the girls and got along fine. I knew we had to take those vehicles out the next day, get them all dirty then bring them back for maintenance so I had an idea. Not a very good idea, but an idea none the less. I knew a place next to the Federal land where the fence was near a road on the other side. I told the girls where to meet us at that fence and she parked the VW right up to the fence. We brought the tank next to the fence and asked the girls to get on the roof as we swing the gun over the fence so the girls could hold on to the gun as we brought them over. Great Idea right!!!
My friend took one girl in the tank and I took the other in the carrier. It had snowed a few feet and we drove around checking out the buffalo who were up to their waists in snow. No, we didn't hit any of them. There were no cell phone camera's in those days so I don't have any pictures but it was a great, if not interesting night. Those things could go over or through anything. "Eventually" we brought the girls back and swung them back over the fence. (I dated that girl for a few months)
The next day I had to take that 577 personnel carrier out for a silly maneuver with a bunch of guys. I was a Sargent so I got to stay in the thing while the guys had to walk behind. I was nice and warm but they were in a foot of snow. We were supposed to stay the night in sleeping bags. The next morning I opened up the back of the personnel carrier and couldn't see anybody. I got nervous and figured they ran away to find shelter. I walked out the back and tripped over something. The guys were buried in the snow and I could barely see them. They were not happy but that's the way the Army works. I said it wasn't that great of a story, but it is true. Eventually I will try to remember other things. I am sure the Army is quite different now and they don't let you do fun stuff.

You can see one of those personnel carriers here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M113_armored_personnel_carrier

 

[Paul B]

Of course you know what the tank looked like.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/m60/

 

[nervousmonkey]

Love it. I remember the days when we dressed up and tried to look the best we could to ask a girl out. Never asked one to ride in my tank though...

 

[Paul B]

That was my only time also. I loved Colorado and when you are in the Army you could get into places that the general population was not allowed to go in. You also didn't have to pay speeding tickets and the local police couldn't arrest you, not that I did anything that I would have gotten arrested for but once we were driving from Colorado Springs to Denver. I think it was about 70 miles but I could be wrong. We got stopped for speeding and the Cop had to wait there until an MP came to get us. Army justice was much more severe than civilian justice but I don't remember anything happening to us. Remember, in the Army, you don't even have a civilian license. You get a military license which doesn't count for much. I mean, I was going to Viet Nam in a few weeks so whatever they would do to us was not that much of a big deal.
My Jungle training for Nam was in Colorado in the winter in the snow. It didn't quite cut it.
In those days (I was 19) my entire thing was trying to meet girls and I have to say, I was pretty successful at it. I didn't always look like this.

 

[reynaldoramon]

Your stories are reason enough to follow your threads.

 

[reynaldoramon]

Unfortunately, it's like our phones, tablets, and computers are the new proverbial fire. We sit around them, sharing stories, ideas, and good times.

 

[Paul B]

We didn't have such things so we had a lot of good times out in the open which is on the other side of the door that many people today never see,

 

[Paul B]

I am having a hard time keeping all my fish fed because I just have too many. You know that feeling when you go into a LFS not intending to buy anything. You promise yourself you won't buy anything because you just don't have the room. You swear to yourself you won't buy anything. Then you see it. You really must have it. It is a one of a kind. You convince yourself that you owe it to your body. Then as you are driving home with the new fish, you swear to yourself, that that is the absolute last fish you can possibly fit in there. My fish are now taking turns putting their heads underwater, that's how crowded it is. Their tails are getting a rash from hitting each other. Each fish is on a first name basis with each other.
It's terrible, but that's where I am now. For the last two weeks I can't find my male bluestripe pipefish, so I figure he is gone along with my clingfish, so that gives me the opportunity to get more fish. As soon as I put in the new fish, guess who shows up? Yep, the bluestripe pipefish and clingfish. The pipefish was doing what he always does, having babies in the back of the tank. My water is like sewage from all the food I have to put in. One of my bubble corals died, probably because my nitrates are 980 or so. I tested the nitrates once and the test water in the vial turned into tar. I don't know what I am going to do because the fish just won't die, they don't even jump out any more but they keep growing. One of my bangai cardinals uses a shoehorn to get in between the rocks because he got to large. That fireclown had a birthday, he is about 25 years old (but I could be off by a couple of years as I lost his birth certificate)

 

[beaslbob]

if the water turned to tar won't that fit in with your asphalt live rock?

 

[Paul B]

I guess you are correct.

 

[Paul B]

Still practicing with camera so don't mind me.

 

[Paul B]

Today is a beautiful day so I figured I would powerwash the eaves of the house. To do that I had to turn on the hoses outside that I had off all winter. I tried to turn on the valve inside my house for the hose and it wouldn't budge. That figures, I never turned off this valve before but this winter it went to zero degrees and I figured I would turn it off so I didn't break the pipe. That valve was installed when they built the house in 1959 and generally you don't touch something that has had water flowing through it for so long. I put a wrench on it and tried it but I could see that I would probably break the valve if I turned hard enough so I shut off the water main in the house. Sure enough, just as I figured, the valve handle broke off. Great. But at least it broke in the off position. So I remove the bonnet nut and put a vise grip on the stem and get it to move. That valve is not in a place where I want to change it. Maybe 20 years ago, but not now. It is over the red central vacuum just to the right of the blue bucket that is my RO/DI top off and behind the float switch for that system. It is also right against the side of the house in a place I can just about reach with one hand. I would like to ask the genius who installed it what he was thinking as it could have been installed just as easily a foot away from the stone wall where it was accessible, but people rarely so sensible things. So I just put the valve back together, made sure it was open and not leaking and I sweated a new ball valve in a place where I could get to it. This also happened a few weeks ago with another valve for a different hose. They are always in the stupidest places.
But now all is well again and I can get back to powerwashing.

 

[mniemann]

Very nice

 

[Paul B]

As I was feeding the fish tonight I noticed a pipefish that I thought I lost a couple of weeks ago. It is a very plain looking pipe that crawls around the bottom like a dragon faced pipe. I got him at Aquarium Village my favorite store.

He is crawling around hunting, and apparently finding pods

 

[Paul B]

Feeder video. Notice how pregnant the pipefish is.

 

[revhtree]

Feeder video. Notice how pregnant the pipefish is.

Cool little vid!