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THE OFFICIAL ASK ALBERT THIEL THREAD


ZephNYC

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Think they are a newish company Albert making specialised products for the marine hobby..

 

Yes indeed looking at their web site that is what it appears to be

 

Albert

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My tank is doing great for some reason. I still have to move the entire structure to the back and break a bunch of corals to do that, but I am going to wait until after the holidays because I get a lot of visitors now and after I do that, the tank will need a little time to recover and re grow. The pistol shrimp pair are still making huge tunnels. It amazes me that they can construct tunnels so long under a heavy reef using just gravel. All my livestock is doing very well and many are still spawning. These duncans probably doubled in size in the few months since I have them

2014-12-26161842_zps25839a5c.jpg

 

This mushroom is weird and I have seen this many times. The thing will sit there for years doing almost nothing and all of a sudden it grows to 5 times it's size. I have noticed that a number of times. Now that it grew I can feed it and it really grows when you feed it. I use clams to feed them and most of my corals and fish (the fish also get live blackworms every day) I do not use Mysis to feed corals because Mysis are mostly shell and corals do not need shell which is not even calcium. I still feel clams are the best food besides live worms that you can feed most sea creatures.

2014-12-27134636_zps46b177f0.jpg

 

About a week or two ago I bought this staghorn. Tomorrow I am going back to get some more of them as it seems to like my tank so far and expands nicely. When I dove in Tahiti these things were like weeds with miles of them growing in shallow water. I love this stuff.

 

2014-12-27134622_zpsdf22dfec.jpg

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My tank is doing great for some reason. I still have to move the entire structure to the back and break a bunch of corals to do that, but I am going to wait until after the holidays because I get a lot of visitors now and after I do that, the tank will need a little time to recover and re grow. The pistol shrimp pair are still making huge tunnels. It amazes me that they can construct tunnels so long under a heavy reef using just gravel. All my livestock is doing very well and many are still spawning. These duncans probably doubled in size in the few months since I have them

2014-12-26161842_zps25839a5c.jpg

 

This mushroom is weird and I have seen this many times. The thing will sit there for years doing almost nothing and all of a sudden it grows to 5 times it's size. I have noticed that a number of times. Now that it grew I can feed it and it really grows when you feed it. I use clams to feed them and most of my corals and fish (the fish also get live blackworms every day) I do not use Mysis to feed corals because Mysis are mostly shell and corals do not need shell which is not even calcium. I still feel clams are the best food besides live worms that you can feed most sea creatures.

2014-12-27134636_zps46b177f0.jpg

 

About a week or two ago I bought this staghorn. Tomorrow I am going back to get some more of them as it seems to like my tank so far and expands nicely. When I dove in Tahiti these things were like weeds with miles of them growing in shallow water. I love this stuff.

 

2014-12-27134622_zpsdf22dfec.jpg

 

Looking great indeed Paul ... as always in fact ... Love the Copperband egg :) :)

 

Albert

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Just over an hour and a half to go here in the UK to 2015. Happy new year to you Albert and to all who post and visit this thread. May the coming year be a very good one for you all.

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Just over an hour and a half to go here in the UK to 2015. Happy new year to you Albert and to all who post and visit this thread. May the coming year be a very good one for you all.

 

Thanks you Les and all the same to you and may all your wishes come through in 2015

 

Albert

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Thanks Albert. I had to move the structure back as it was touching the front glass and I had to break some corals to do it and remove some rock.

 

Yes everything grows so well in your tank that I am surprised you had to move some and frag others

 

 

Albert

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Today I installed a leak detector in my house with 3 sensors. If any of the sensors detect any water they shut off the house main. I have been meaning to do this for quite a while and just got around to doing it. A few weeks ago my wife and I were going out and as we were leaving she said, what is that hissing noise? I said it sounded like the dish washer, she said it wasn't on and opened the cabinet door under the kitchen sink. It looked like Noah's flood. The host connecting the sink broke and was shooting water like a fire hose. I ran downstairs and shut off the main. Water was pouring out of my finished basement ceiling like Niagara Falls. Another 30 seconds and we would have been out for the night and the water would have filled up the basement, over the reef tank so my fish could have swam out through my windows, of course the salinity would have been a little low so if they had any parasites, they would have been cured, but that is besides the point. So I put in this detector and main shut off. I also built one for the reef tank that shuts off the pumps feeding the skimmer if it detects water. To think I went to Hawaii, Sicily, Germany, Greece, Tahiti and half of the Caribbean so thank God the thing decided to break while I was home. What are the chances?

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Today I installed a leak detector in my house with 3 sensors. If any of the sensors detect any water they shut off the house main. I have been meaning to do this for quite a while and just got around to doing it. A few weeks ago my wife and I were going out and as we were leaving she said, what is that hissing noise? I said it sounded like the dish washer, she said it wasn't on and opened the cabinet door under the kitchen sink. It looked like Noah's flood. The host connecting the sink broke and was shooting water like a fire hose. I ran downstairs and shut off the main. Water was pouring out of my finished basement ceiling like Niagara Falls. Another 30 seconds and we would have been out for the night and the water would have filled up the basement, over the reef tank so my fish could have swam out through my windows, of course the salinity would have been a little low so if they had any parasites, they would have been cured, but that is besides the point. So I put in this detector and main shut off. I also built one for the reef tank that shuts off the pumps feeding the skimmer if it detects water. To think I went to Hawaii, Sicily, Germany, Greece, Tahiti and half of the Caribbean so thank God the thing decided to break while I was home. What are the chances?

 

Good move indeed Paul and yes you were indeed lucky that the leakage happened while you were still home ... I can just see your fish swimming all the way down into Long Island Sound if that flooding had taken place ... and of course cured of parasites :)

 

Albert

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Albert I am going diving in the Florida corals in a few weeks to spear lionfish to eat, maybe I will see some of those staghorns. If I do, I will take some pictures

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Albert I am going diving in the Florida corals in a few weeks to spear lionfish to eat, maybe I will see some of those staghorns. If I do, I will take some pictures

 

That sounds like a great idea indeed Paul if you do find the fields referred to in the article where they are plentiful

 

And good luck spearing those Lionfish ... the Big ones !

 

Albert

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I just love clams, I collect them, I feed them to my fish, I eat them either raw, stuffed, fried, or in chowder but the only way I feed them to my fish is fresh. OK I buy them live and freeze them. I feel clams are the second best food we can feed our fish "and" corals for a few reasons. First of all, they are very cheap. I can buy a live chowder clam here in New York for about fifty cents (or I can catch them for free) I slightly open them and stick a popsicle stick, tooth pick or rolled up 100 dollar bill in it's shell so when I freeze it, it is easier to open. After it is frozen, I shave off paper thin slices as big as I want depending on what size fish I am feeding. A manta ray would get bigger slices than a sexy shrimp. I don't keep the more common fish, I don't have any tangs, percula clowns, or angels, I just find them to common but I do have copperbands, mandarins, pipefish, possum wrasses, and a weird assortment of gobies and ruby red dragonettes. Besides them my tank is a conglomeration of SPS, leathers, LPS and rusty beer cans. As the fish eat the thin slices of clam, clam juice is dispersed from the pieces that goes all over the tank. This does not go to waste as my algae trough (or algae filter) is filled up to the surface with tiny tube worms. My reverse undergravel filter is also loaded with them. Yes reverse undergravel filter, you can stop laughing now unless your tank is older. The tiny pieces of clam are just the thing for feeding giant leather corals, and forget about duncans, they grow so fast after eating clams that you can hear them creaking. The clam juice is undoubtedly used by the myriad of filter feeders and the slightly larger pieces are eaten by gorgonians and most corals. Clams are the best (or second best) food because a clam is an animal that sits on the bottom of a bay just hanging out for 7 or 8 years just sucking up water and everything that is in it. They are full of minerals including calcium which is what their shell is made out of. When you feed a clam to your tank you are feeding the entire clam including the guts, intestines, ears, eyelashes etc. Everything, unlike if you feed shrimp, squid, scallop, octopus, platypus or fish because those foods are just the muscle and not the guts. I don't eat most creature guts, but I am not a fish. Fish crave that stuff which is why some of my fish are on social security. If your fish are not dying of old age, you are feeding them wrong. You can tell them I said so. Fish fed correctly do not get sick, not ever (OK one fish in 100 may get hemorrhoids once in 20 years) And they live out their normal lifespan which may be anywhere from 10 to 30 years depending on what species it is "and" they should be spawning for almost all of those years. Clams is what you need. I know many people say they can't get clams and what I like to tell those people is, Move

(By the way, the best food of course is live blackworms)

 

IMG_1578.jpg

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Finally got my new tank up the stairs with a friend helping me. That was some task I can tell you. Now the real work begins. It needs cleaning then filled by running an RO round my apartment straight to the tank. Going to be a week or so before it's up and running.

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Finally got my new tank up the stairs with a friend helping me. That was some task I can tell you. Now the real work begins. It needs cleaning then filled by running an RO round my apartment straight to the tank. Going to be a week or so before it's up and running.

 

Yes I can imagine Les but glad you got it up the stairs .... must have been a heavy-weight :)

 

Albert

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