Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Paul B]

I know whats wrong with your oil burner as I have had to change that part a few times. Now I switched to gas. Under my boiler, washing machine, sinks and a few other places I installed leak detectors. If those sensors get wet, the water main shuts off. I put that in 2 years ago because my wife and I were going out and I said, what is that water running noise I hear? The stainless steel flexible connection to a kitchen sink burst in half and water was pouring out and running through my ceiling tiles into the finished basement. If we had left, I would have had a foot of water in my house. The next day I installed that system.

 

[Rybren]

Must be the day for floods.

No supermodels were harmed in the making of my flood.

I lost 4 fish over the past 6 days. All seemed to be perfectly healthy - swimming fine, eating like pigs, no visible signs of injury. Then they just croaked. I looked at the bodies under a digital microscope and everything seemed normal.

Seeing as how the filters on my RODI unit were getting long in the tooth, I decided to replace them all and dump all of my existing water just in case something nasty had made it through the filters.

So I get the filters replaced and the unit flushed, and I got my SW and FW tanks emptied, then I turned on the water to the filter and went to bed. I have an auto shut-off on my FW tank, so I didn't have to worry about shutting it off.

I got up this morning, had my coffee, took the dog for a stroll and then decided to make up some SW. Into the basement I went and as I was walking to my water tanks, I heard the unmistakable squishing sound that slippers make when stepping in water. The FW tank was empty! As I looked around to see what happened, I noticed that the drain valve on the tank was wide open.

Dumbo forgot to close it after emptying the tank last night. Luckily, this portion of the basement is unfinished and there is a drain in the concrete floor about 4 feet away.

D'oh!

 

[Paul B]

Yep, it is the day for floods.

 

[Rybren]

And now for something completely different.

Paul , when you make your concrete wrapped pipe rocks, do you bother to cure it in water for a bit or do just toss it into the tank once it's dry?

Thanks.

 

[Paul B]

I cure them for a week or so in some fresh water, then throw them in. The cement needs a few days to cure anyway or they will fall apart if a hermit crab sits on it

 

[Rybren]

Thanks Paul. I didn't think that you'd follow the 45 day FW soaking "rule" that most people insist on. There you go, living outside that box again

 

[Chasmodes]

I know whats wrong with your oil burner as I have had to change that part a few times. Now I switched to gas. Under my boiler, washing machine, sinks and a few other places I installed leak detectors. If those sensors get wet, the water main shuts off. I put that in 2 years ago because my wife and I were going out and I said, what is that water running noise I hear? The stainless steel flexible connection to a kitchen sink burst in half and water was pouring out and running through my ceiling tiles into the finished basement. If we had left, I would have had a foot of water in my house. The next day I installed that system.

Thanks Paul for the suggestion. I think that I need to install some sort of sensor and a water shut off or alarm system too.

By the way, the relief valve turned out to be OK (although our repair guy replaced it anyway). The part turned out to be a bad boiler expansion tank, just gave way... was that the part that you were thinking of?

Sorry to hear about your flood Rybren, and also for your fish losses.

 

[Rybren]

Thanks Kevin,

Jerry

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Paul. I didn't think that you'd follow the 45 day FW soaking "rule" that most people insist on. There you go, living outside that box again

That's because most people are Sissies and they heard that from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who started in the hobby last Tuesday about 2:00 or 2:15 in the afternoon.

Thanks Paul for the suggestion. I think that I need to install some sort of sensor and a water shut off or alarm system too.

By the way, the relief valve turned out to be OK (although our repair guy replaced it anyway). The part turned out to be a bad boiler expansion tank, just gave way... was that the part that you were thinking of?

Sorry to hear about your flood Rybren, and also for your fish losses.

No it was not and that doesn't make any sense but I really can't see your boiler from here, not even if I squint so maybe I am wrong.
I was thinking of the auto fill or "Boiler ATO" which is that weird valve on top of the boiler which usually gets filled with rust.
You did empty that expansion tank occasionally, didn't you.

 

[cdmckinzie]

In a couple of weeks my reef will will have reached 40 years old.
Unfortunately I don't remember when I was 40 but I remember when I set it up. I was a skinny 22 year old just back from Viet Nam.
It is still running very well, still using the same reverse UG filter, same dolomite substrait but none of the fish are original. The oldest one, a fireclown is just over 16, all of the older fish died in an accident that was due to my carelessness.
The tank is mostly LPS, gorgonians, giant mushrooms and a few leathers.
There are only three SPS corals, two of which have been with me for a few years and are growing nicely.
I am not sure is any of the original NSW from the Long Island Sound is still in there or any of the original amphipods but maybe much later generations.
I still can't take a decent picture and the tank is not as blue as these pictures but it is what it is.

Can't see any pics

 

[cdmckinzie]

To update my tank seems to be doing wery well. The only thing I notice is that my 4 SPS corals are growing very fast as my LPS seem to be shrinking a little. This happens when you mix the two types of corals and I may start to introduce more SPS but I know what will happen to the LPS which I kind of prefer. At one time, years ago the tank was all SPS. I get bored and need to change it around every so many years.
The tank looks no where near what it looked like a couple of years ago before I lost most of the corals to a make up water problem but it looks pretty good, not as good as many tanks on here but it is the way I like it.

Again I can't see any pics

Thanks guys. It is common practice in Long Island to add zinc orthophosphate to the water supply to control corrosion in the pipes. All of Long Island uses well water and it corrodes brass very fast. The zinc forms a film on the inside of the pipes to protect them. The brass screws inside valves just crumble.
I have resins now that specifically remove zing, I get it from "The Filter Guys" I don't remember what type it is but I need to orser some more.
This zinc is what stopped my from using tap water like I did for many years. The first time they added the zinc I lost all my corals also and that was about 20 years ago. I don't think it is too much of a problem every day but if I happen to change water with a batch of water just after they add the chemical, my tank is in trouble. It seems that my RO/DI does not remove enough of it in those cases. It also happened to the large LFS a few blocks from my house the same time it happened to me.
Newman blue devils cost $7.00 in 1971 in Manhattan, thats like $50.00 today. I initially filled my tank with water from the Long Island Sound as there was no ASW for sale then. There was also no live rock or any rock, we used dead coral skeletons for decoration and we removed then every couple of weeks to bleach so they were pure white. All tanks looked like that.
I added livestock then like I do now but we had to keep copper in the water continousely because everything had ich. ZThe tanks were not very healthy due to not having enough bacteria and there was no salt water food available. There was nothing in print, no books and no computers so no internet. No fish forums, and no one with a salt tank, except me. I bought the first blue devils the week they became available for sale 40 years ago next month.
I change about 20% of the water 5 or 6 times a year and I only add homemade 2 part calcium and Lugols Iodine.
The first 5 years the tank was in smaller glass, here it is circa 1972. You can see the bleached corals and the blue devils.
I got them to live 7 years and they spawned for many of those years.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Newman, I didn't know those watches ever came back in style.
Percula clowns became available right after dominos, sargeant majors and blue devils. That is the extent of the fish then. My first percula lived 12 years.

Hermit crabs and snails were available after fish, arrow crabs, if I remember were even before hermit crabs but I could be wrong.

My first equipment was a Sanders Protein skimmer. It was small and driven by an airstone, I thought it was the coolest thing I ever saw. After that first model I began to build them myself and came up with about 20 prototypes until I developed the venturi model I use now. But it was all because of that first model.
I ran the tank with tap water that I ran through a PVC pipe full of carbon.
I don't use any additives that I would buy. I make my own 2 part calcium for practically nothing and I add some Luguls Iodine when I remember. I only add that because I bought a large bottle of it about 15 years ago and I feel I should use it. I don't know if it does anything or if I am wasting my time with it.
I really have no idea why people add all sorts of things and spend so much money. I don't think my reef costs me $200.00 a year except for electricity. Probably much less.
People call this an expensive hobby and to set it up it is, but if you keep spending a fortune after that, you are wasting your money. One year of boating costs me more than 40 years of reefing by far. If a fish cost me $50.00 and it lives 15 years what does it cost me a year? Three bucks. I feed mysis, live worms and fresh clams. A chowder clam costs less than a buck and lasts about a month because I freeze it and shave off thin pieces that I use every couple of days. Worms cost about $2.00 a portion and that lasts a couple of weeks because I only need a couple of worms a day for each fish.
Mysis are about $10.00 a month. So mysis are my biggest expense. I need to teach my fish to eat cake. :smile:
This is one of the first blue devils imported into the US in 1971. I had 7 of them and they lived about 7 years. During that time this male always had a nest and spawned almost every two months. The other 6 remained females. This guy became a male and I could tell because after a while his fins which had been clear, turned all blue. The females remained with clear fins. He is over his nest of eggs in that barnacle shell. The corals are all dead skeletons.

I'm just a baby compared to your 40 years! But in the 12 years I've been in this hobby I too have concluded that electricity, salt and food are the only necessities. Although I do test my water my fanciest equipment would have to be my Hydor wave maker which is more for me than for my tank inhabitants. They do well with/without it. On the same token, I don't have any SPS Coral... so maybe that's why I can get away without having controllers and whatever new-fangled gadgets hit the market.

 

[Paul B]

Again I can't see any pics

I don't know how to fix that on your computer, maybe someone else does. I can see them and I think everyone else sees them. Can someone help her?

I use this to take my tanks pressure

 

[Rybren]

Again I can't see any pics

The photos are from 2011; Paul or Photobucket likely changed something. I don't see those old ones either.

 

[Paul B]

Do you see the picture of the lamp above? It is a week old. Does this tank picture show up?

 

[mcarroll]

Again I can't see any pics

@revhtree is this from one of the database maneuvers by any chance?

@Paul B may be able to look at the link code in his post to see if it looks corrupted.

 

[Chasmodes]

I was thinking of the auto fill or "Boiler ATO" which is that weird valve on top of the boiler which usually gets filled with rust.

That part is OK

You did empty that expansion tank occasionally, didn't you.

Nope, it ties into my hot water and baseboard heating. It has an air purge valve (or something like that) where it occasionally "bleeds" out the air out of my baseboard heating line/hot water line on it's own. The bladder in the expansion tank failed, which caused the hot water pressure to open the relief valve and send hot water all over my floor. The repair guy bled the entire baseboard heating water line too anyway because when he replaced the part, air got in the line.

But, once per year, they come to give my system a check up, so maybe they bleed the system then. Would that make sense?

I'm not a furnace expert, but that's the jist of what I think the repair guy explained to me.

By the way, I can see the new pics and some of the older ones, but a lot of them have red X's now...

 

[cdmckinzie]

Do you see the picture of the lamp above? It is a week old. Does this tank picture show up?

I saw the tank and the pressure thing. I see one every once in awhile but most I get a grey box with a smaller grey box that looks ripped in the middle

 

[cdmckinzie]

That is a stunning tank btw

 

[Paul B]

@revhtree is this from one of the database maneuvers by any chance?

@Paul B may be able to look at the link code in his post to see if it looks corrupted.

Do I look like I know how to do that!

I don't know how to fix pictures. I am lucky I know how to breathe.
The boiler bladder makes sense