THE OFFICIAL ASK ALBERT THIEL THREAD

[albertthiel]

 

The buildings are in my home city of Liverpool Albert

 

Cains Brewery maybe

 

Albert

[atoll]

 

Cains Brewery maybe

 

Albert

Good guess but no.

The buildings etc in then pic are of ............. the ALBERT dock.

[albertthiel]

Good guess but no.

The buildings etc in then pic are of ............. the ALBERT dock.

Wiul not have come up with that. ?

[atoll]

Wiul not have come up with that.

 

I am not sure they named it after you however Albert

 

http://www.albertdock.com/history/

[StinkyBunny]

Glad you're back up and around Albert.

[albertthiel]

 

I am not sure they named it after you however Albert

 

http://www.albertdock.com/history/

?????

Glad you're back up and around Albert.

 

Not quite yet but I hope to be in a few days

Need to see a few Docs this week and hopefully that will get me back on track

 

Albert

[StinkyBunny]

Do what they tell you, I'm a nurse and I don't wanna have to come up there and enforce their orders.

 

In other news, I love eBay. I've been looking for a set of corner clamps to make aquariums with. Do you know how hard it is to find decent clamps? I'd have settled for German, Swiss or anything but Chinese. Found a set of Craftsman for $40 delivered.

[albertthiel]

Do what they tell you, I'm a nurse and I don't wanna have to come up there and enforce their orders.

 

In other news, I love eBay. I've been looking for a set of corner clamps to make aquariums with. Do you know how hard it is to find decent clamps? I'd have settled for German, Swiss or anything but Chinese. Found a set of Craftsman for $40 delivered.

 

Yes I am following my Dr's recommendations and taken all the pills I have to .. Being a good patient

 

I agree finding good clamps and other tools can be a problem nowadays ... lots of cheap Chinese stuff around

 

Albert

[StinkyBunny]

Finding decent tools today is getting difficult. This is something that you young folks will find out. Buy THE BEST tools that you can, in the long run it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing them every few years or them breaking on a Sunday when you can replace them. I had a mill that was used to make Tommyguns during WW2, it's still in use today some 70 years later. I love old tools, I don't think I have anything newer than the 80s in the shop and I haven't bought anything new in 10 years or so.

[CronicReefer]

Finding decent tools today is getting difficult. This is something that you young folks will find out. Buy THE BEST tools that you can, in the long run it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing them every few years or them breaking on a Sunday when you can replace them. I had a mill that was used to make Tommyguns during WW2, it's still in use today some 70 years later. I love old tools, I don't think I have anything newer than the 80s in the shop and I haven't bought anything new in 10 years or so.

All the tools in my Dad's garage are probably twice my age (I'm 27) and work 10x better than any of this new stuff that is half made of plastic. If you need a portable drill, better bring an extension cord .

[atoll]

I have many many tools as I have accumulated them over the years since I was 17 and an apprentice joiner and carpenter along wth mechanics tools as we used to fix our own motorcyclesite and cars. I have Diston and Sandvik saws Stanley and record clamps and planes. I have Marples chisels. Bedford sockets and many more. I told my 2 sons when I die they will inherit many many tools most they will have little idea what they are or how to use them. My eldest son is a foreman engineer but the only lathes he can use are computer controlled, he programmes them and freely admits he couldn't use an old style lathe anymore. Sigh!

[Paul B]

Virtually all of my tools are American, but I am old. I was a GM mechanic when Tornado came out in 1968. Then I was a plumber, then electrician for 40 years. I can open up a Sears in my garage. I have piston spring compressors, valve spring compressors, cylinder hones, core drill machines, umpteen drills, saws, sawzalls, hand saws, drill presses, band saws, radial arm saws, welders, etc. I could build a Space Shuttle in my garage. A small Space Shuttle but a Space Shuttle none the less. If I were stranded on a desert Island with you or a Supermodel, I could build you a flat screen TV from a hermit crab shell, two empty water bottles, a tooth pick and a Hermins Hermits CD. If the shell was from a blue leg hermit crab, I could built it is HD, Blue ray. Of course if you were a Supermodel, I wouldn't try to hard to be rescued.

[StinkyBunny]

All the tools in my Dad's garage are probably twice my age (I'm 27) and work 10x better than any of this new stuff that is half made of plastic. If you need a portable drill, better bring an extension cord .

Well, I did upgrade to a German made cordless drill, Metabo makes a damn fine line of tools.

I have many many tools as I have accumulated them over the years since I was 17 and an apprentice joiner and carpenter along wth mechanics tools as we used to fix our own motorcyclesite and cars. I have Diston and Sandvik saws Stanley and record clamps and planes. I have Marples chisels. Bedford sockets and many more. I told my 2 sons when I die they will inherit many many tools most they will have little idea what they are or how to use them. My eldest son is a foreman engineer but the only lathes he can use are computer controlled, he programmes them and freely admits he couldn't use an old style lathe anymore. Sigh!

 

I actually have an old set of Marples chisels and Bedford sockets.

 

Virtually all of my tools are American, but I am old. I was a GM mechanic when Tornado came out in 1968. Then I was a plumber, then electrician for 40 years. I can open up a Sears in my garage. I have piston spring compressors, valve spring compressors, cylinder hones, core drill machines, umpteen drills, saws, sawzalls, hand saws, drill presses, band saws, radial arm saws, welders, etc. I could build a Space Shuttle in my garage. A small Space Shuttle but a Space Shuttle none the less. If I were stranded on a desert Island with you or a Supermodel, I could build you a flat screen TV from a hermit crab shell, two empty water bottles, a tooth pick and a Hermins Hermits CD. If the shell was from a blue leg hermit crab, I could built it is HD, Blue ray. Of course if you were a Supermodel, I wouldn't try to hard to be rescued.

I'll take that flat screen now since I just spit out my soda, lol. We actually replaced our TV 2 weeks ago, lasted all of 3 years.

[Paul B]

I posted this 2 years ago and figured I would also put it here.

(Albert actually also knows all these things)

 

I have theories about just about everything and unfortunately, most of them are probably to radical, simple, inane, old school, or complicated for many people to understand, comprehend, agree with or even bother to read, so if you are one of "Those" people, don't read any further, just go and watch TV, I think there is a re run of the Opera show where she gives away Cadillac's to homeless cats.

 

Now I am far from the God of fish tanks, corals (SPS, LPS, leathers, suede's, velour's or velvet)

I am however the God of UG filters and maybe bald heads which I have always aspired to be famous for. In my many years of reading, diving and learning I have noticed a few things. Much, or most of what we do or want to do with regard to this hobby is either wrong, almost wrong or even dangerous, but what we can all agree on is that it is expensive. I will get to that as I feel it is a very cheap hobby. I just may be rich and this money is just a drop in the bucket or else I am poor, or to cheap to spend anything so I can feed my family. The truth is that I am neither, I am like most of us, in the middle, in the "fusion zone" as I like to refer to it as. I would also like to say imperically that I do not have the nicest tank on here, probably far from it, but it ain't to bad either

 

I am getting old (er) and in a few years I am sure I will start forgetting many of the things I learned through trial and error, the things I picked up in the 50s 60s and 70s that is all but forgotten about now as parchment paper degrades over time. I am fortunately still sharp as a tack, OK maybe a slightly duller tack, but a tack none the less, OK a finishing nail, not one of those aluminum Home Depot finishing nails, a good steel one from an American hardware store, a store that was started in the 40s after the big one.

Much of the things I do to my tank I can not print as I am sure I would be put away. Things like using Clorox in NSW to eliminate red tide or heating the water to kill paracites without affecting the parameters. Curing PopEye in a few seconds with a hypodermic needle or cleaning a fish of ich, flukes or flounders in a day. I won't even mention putting in copper pennies before they invented liquid copper. These are things I have posted in the past with regret because of the flood of hate mail. OK, maybe not a flood, one or two E mails, but to me that is a deluge. As I said in the beginning, some of you should be watching Opera and not reading this, I think she is just about to give away one of those cadillac's.

 

I mentioned a few times that I have no need for a quarantine, or hospital tank, Whoooa, I was bombarded after that. The Idea that I let all my fish become sick, infected with all sorts of things such as crypocaryn, velvet, black ich, jaundice, hemorrhoids or psorisis. I usually say that if you don't have my tank, maybe you should quarantine. But of course I can't leave that alone although I do try. I think that in "some" instances, paracites are good. OK I said it. Now will you please stop reading as I am only wrighting this now because I am bored.

It seems to me, and I also posted this numerous times, that so many people, maybe even the majority of people have problems with things like diseases (or those sweat stains in your armpits) You can use things like Priazo, copper, KicK Ick, (Oh God) or any number of things. I myself am 65 years old and the only thing I take is fish oil. I also give it to my fish but that is not what this is about. Ok, it is a little about that, but only a little. Fish in the sea probably never get sick. Why is that? No it is not that they have free access to Priazo from Obamacare. They also don't get eaten right away if they get a few paracites. They don't get sick because of their immune system. Their immune system works better than ours does. It makes sence as they have been around longer than us and their immune system has to work in the water. The water that they live in contains everything that ever was, including dinosaur poop, Wash water from Columbus underware, and Amelia Airheart. No, Literally, Amelia Airheart. Our piddly immune system only has to protect us from airborn stuff like excess gas from those chili houses in Texas and maybe some simple viruses. Diseases can get around much easier in water than in air so a fish immune system has evolved for that task. In the sea, fish eat live, "whole" food such as fry, fish eggs, shrimp, seaweed or Happy Meals. Most fish don't spit out the guts, heads, scales, fish hooks or bones. In many tanks they have to do with pellets, flakes dried nori, cardboard, dried ants or some frozen concoction. (in the 50s tropical fish food was dried ants, no, really) Many of the frozen foods are very good but they are not live food which is vastly different. Flakes and pellets have a purpose, I use them to feed my worms, but it is live, or at least frozen "whole" food (with the guts) that will keep a fishes immune system up to where it can fight off things including paracites and sea gulls. You can tell if this is working if the fish is spawning or making spawning attempts to spawn as only fish in excellent health will spawn. I personally have never seen a fish that was spawning afflicted with any disease but some people tell me that is not true. I have a word I like to call those people, and that word is "wrong". OK maybe one fish got sick while it was spawning, he don't count. But anyway, this post was not supposed to be about immune systems because I have posted that to death and if you ever had a fish get sick with any disease, it is because it's immune system did not protect it and unfortunately, that is our fault, not the fish, the dealer or the old lady on the corner who collects tin cans and cats.

Continued.

 

Thats enough about food and immune systems. As I said, I am posting this because I know, in time I will forget, and then, even if no one else reads this (and I am quite certain only me and the night watchman at the OTB office will see it) I may again come across it in 10 or 15 years in my nursing home, and in my stupor, I may remember some of it and hopefully someone will at least get me a goldfish to occupy my time. A goldfish and maybe a picture of a Supermodel.

 

I see people use all sorts of chemicals to control things that our bacteria are supposed to do for us for free. Things like Rowaphos, Rowanda, Rotweilder or whatever it is called. I am not sure why you would need it but I would imagine if you need those silly Bio-pellets in a reactor you would also need that. I never used any of it so I am sure I am doing something wrong. I guess my bacteria don't mind doing what they are paid to do. Of course i also collect bacteria as I feel that if you don't do that (and I realize one or two people don't live near the sea) the only bacteria in your tank is that stuff in your dealer's tank and all he has is the stuff from his wholesaler and all he has is the stuff in the shipping water that is mixed with bilge water from some canoe that also has some of columbus wash water and possably ear wax from Jimmy Hoffa.

 

I hear all the time that people get the horrors because their nitrate measured 12 or 15. I don't think my nitrate was ever that low, not that I have a test kit but I do get it tested just so I can write these rediculous threads. My nitrate is now about 40, it could be 50 but even if it was 680, I really don't care because if it was to high, the corals would let me know right away. I feel the same about phosphate, anthrax and calcium. but I do add calcium in the form of driveway ice melter at a cost of about $10.00 a year so I don't want to waste it. I also use baking soda for alk, I think that costs about 99cents if I get it on sale and once a year or so I add some Epsom Salts after I soak my feet in it. Maybe that also adds beneficial bacteria, I can't be sure. (that expensive calcium you buy is driveway ice melter and baking soda)

 

Then we have nusience algae. It grows on every healthy reef and it is not a nusience there, but in our tanks it sometimes is. I don't want it growing on my corals although in the past my tank has looked like a produce stand. I still have a slight amount but just as much as I want. The first thing people ask when they hear about an algae problem is "what are your parameters?" Then they all say "change the water" Does that ever work? No, but people still change massive amounts of water every day in the hope of eliminating a natural substance that has nothing to do with changing water but what do I know? Stores have to make money also so changing water is good. It won't do anything for algae growth except maybe make it grow faster but we keep doing it for lack of a better "cure". If you take RO/DI water and put it in the sun, and an ant dies in it from exhaustion after doing the macarana, it will grow algae. Try it. New tanks with all brand new water grow the most algae, I wonder why? Maybe algae can grow with just a tiny smidgeon of nutrients, but wait a minute, there is also algae in the tissues in the coral so if we eliminate all the nutrients (like that was even possable) we may also kill the corals. OMG, it is an unfixable connundrum, like a paradox. I love paradoxes.

 

I really don't know why algae sometimes grows and sometimes it doesn't but you know something? No one else knows either. We think we know, like we know all about paracites, Obamacare and global warming, but we don't. Some day we will know everything and I hope that day never comes but for now we don't. I bet the Neanderthals thought they knew everything until they were taken over by Liberals. If you have a tank long enough you will see cycles of all sorts of different, colorful and annoying algae's. Most tanks don't have a long enough lifespan to notice these things but I do. Every few years my tank would get an outbreak of something even if I didn't change anything. I think the next outbreak may be Brocclirabe, onions or tent catterpillars. I stopped those cycles a few years ago by installing an algae trough but an algae filter would do the same thing. Now I really don't care what causes nusience algae as it will only grow where I want it to grow and I realize I can't completely stop it as that would be unhealthy. After all it grows everywhere and if it didn't what are all those urchins, slugs, snails, rabbitfish, chitens, sea hares and tangs eating?

 

 

If we really knew what caused algae, ich or cyano don't you think we would have eliminated it 43 years ago when the salt water hobby started? I think it was on a Tuesday about 1:00-1:30 in the afternoon. I mean, Really! But alas. We will still continue to change massive amounts of water, increase circulation, cultivate a clean up crew, buy newer light bulbs, vacuum our substraits, add magnesium and look at pictures of Supermodels, but we will also still have hair algae, cyano and ich. I can not eliminate any of those things but I have found a natural way to allow them to live side by side in my tank, with my healthy, spawning fish and corals while at the same time changing a modest amount of water and not adding one cent of manufactured chemicals "and" having fish living happily for their natural lifespan that is sometimes older than Myley Cyrus. Actually all of my fish are older than her but that isn't saying much.

 

I said before that paracites "may" be healthy for our fish. Of course the fish won't think so, so don't ask them. But I remember after I got drafted and was going to Viet Nam, they inoculated me with everything you could imagine. 6 shots at a time in each arm. Plague, jungle fever, malaria, diptheria, cholera, parot fever, jaundice and Play Doh. I didn't get any of those things. Those vaccines were made out of weak or dead disease organisms. We can't get weak or dead paracites but live healthy paracites work even better. Yes, they may kill our fish, but if they don't, our fish will become immune from those paracites. Why, you ask. I have no freekin Idea. What do I look like? A researcher? No, i am an electrician but a very good one. I also have been keeping fish for 60 years so if you find someone who has been keeping fish longer than that, don't ask him anything as he is probably senile and will just snot and drool on you. I do remember that the Vietnamese people didn't get malaria, but I had to take a pill every day. When I got home my wife and I went to mexico. Big mistake. I never get sick but in Mexico, both me and her ended up in the hospital. Do you who who else was in that hospital with Montizuma"s revenge? Americans thats who, not Mexicans because their immune system was used to paracites in the water. That is why i don't have to have a quarantine tank. I know, all 4 of the people reading this are saying that my tank is a time bomb and will crash any time now. Maybe it will, but it has had one heck of a run.

 

I run a reverse UG filter, virtually unknown by anyone under 57 years old. People think it is old school. Well it is not. Regular UG filters are old school but not reverse UG filters. DSBs are much older (I think). Speaking of old school, the school I went to was heated by coal. There was this old guy (he was probably 30) who used to shovel coal to heat the school. And when the teacher would send us to empty the waste paper basket, we would go down to the basement and give it to that guy who would throw it into the furnace. But I digress.

If I have any more ideas, I will post them. But in the meantime, if you have any colorful, connotations, cures, quatations or comments, I would be extreamly happy to hear them.

I just came back from my boat and had a few Harvey Wallbangers and Long Island Ice teas so I will most likely forget what I wrote in a few minutes. But of course, that could be senility.

[albertthiel]

Wow .....................................

 

Albert

[StinkyBunny]

I love reading what Paul has to say, it's not sugar coated, politically correct Bravo Sierra. You get it the way it is and if ya don't like it? Tough cookies. All I know is that it's hotter than a $2 pistol here right now and I ain't built for it anymore. I spent my day lounging in the creek at the farm, 60 degree water feels delightful when it's 95 in the shade.

[Paul B]

It is about 97 here today, but it's a dry heat.

 

However, it never got this cold in Viet Nam

[albertthiel]

I love reading what Paul has to say, it's not sugar coated, politically correct Bravo Sierra. You get it the way it is and if ya don't like it? Tough cookies. All I know is that it's hotter than a $2 pistol here right now and I ain't built for it anymore. I spent my day lounging in the creek at the farm, 60 degree water feels delightful when it's 95 in the shade.

 

Me too ... so much fun and full of so many truths

 

Albert

It is about 97 here today, but it's a dry heat.

 

However, it never got this cold in Viet Nam

 

 

[Paul B]

I love this red seaweed. I can collect it fairly easily here in New York when it is dead low tide and I anchor near shore. To bad it doesn't last too long.

[albertthiel]

Nice

 

Albert

[StinkyBunny]

 

 

However, it never got this cold in Viet Nam

 

Never got this cold in Thailand either and you could drink the air there too, that is if you like warm tea.

[Paul B]

A friend of mine gave me some large rocks he "acquired" in the tropics for me to put in my tank. So I did. But to fit them in I had to remove some pieces that I am giving away. My clingfish used to hide behind that rock and now I can't find him. I used to target feed him every day and I am sure as soon as he gets hungry, he will stick his head out from wherever he is hiding. Everyone else is doing great but my bangai cardinals are beginning to show their age. They are very large and just starting to show some beginnings of cataracts. That happens often on fish with large eyes in a brightly lit reef tank especially when they get old. The female slowed down a lot and hides most of the time. She eats well but I have to shoot the food into her cave. The male still comes out for food. I am not sure how long bangai cardinals live so she may make another five years or more. I really can't remember how many years I have kept them in the past.

I had to remove this piece.

Clingfish

Here they are much younger.

[albertthiel]

Nice rock Paul

 

 

And Banggai Cardinals do not live all that long in the wild and only a little longer in captivity.

 

I came across a text that states that in captivity 2 to 3 years is probably the max

 

Albert

[Paul B]

That's great information Albert. Mine are already that old so I won't feel to bad if they croak

[atoll]

installed my Aqua Medic Kalk 1000 stirrer I bought it brand new for a 1/3 of the RRP from a guy who biought it but never used it so I couldn't be happier with that. The reason you see the level of the kalk so high (approx4") is it's coupled up to my ATU and when it switches on the water going in pushes the kalk level up higher in the body. Only clear kalk water enters the sump no undisolved powder. I am also running this along side my calcium reactor.