In a drop of water

[Paul B]

Now I know how every one likes to make fun of the bottles in my tank and that is fine. But thinking about bottles I was looking at the tank today and I have this skinny bleeny of sme unknown type that lives in one of these bottles. The bottle has been in there for decades and it looked like there was some dead crabs or snails in the bottle so I decided to check it out. Bottles will kill crabs if the bottle is upright, the crabs will fall in and can't excape. Anyway I chased the bleeny out of the bottle and I dumped the contents of the bottle into a container to check out if the "crabs" were alive or just shells.
Well, there were no crabs or snails in there but instead, a ball of some type of filimental algae. I looked at it closely and could see things swimming so I decided to take a closer look.
I put some of it in a test tube and with a jeweler's loupe I could see hundreds of tiny shrimp and large copepods. The stuff was crawling with life. I put some under the microscope and was amazed at the amount of living animals.
Many of these bottles I have in there are broken but the ones that are intact have openings too small for most of my fish to enter which is the reason for this sanctuary. I know people make rubble piles to breed pods but I think a bottle is better for a big reason. A bottle is glass which lets in light. Light grows algae and a film on the glass which is the perfect food for pods. Just look at places on your glass where you can't clean.
I took this material and placed it back in the bottle and I won't clean it again. There is way more life in these bottles than in my gravel.
OK now all of you can stop laughing at my gravel and bottles.
Oh did I mention that those bottles have been in there longer than most of you guys were alive? :lol:

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Lol

Good info too.

 

[Paul B]

Wingo, you should have taken some of those bottles while we were out collecting :tongue1:

 

[Arati]

always love your posts Paul. Your tank is looking great , much better then the last pics I saw, you must be doing something right .

If you go out on the north fork collecting again, Id love to join you and learn. I read another post of yours about using georgica pond water. I have a buddy with a boat in Shinnecock bay. Maybe next summer we can get some H2O from a little farther out.

I like your bottles, but I really liked the chain!

 

[Paul B]

Arati those pictures look great because they are old. My tank does not look as good it that picture.

 

[NYPDFrogman]

I did a dive off liberty Island some years ago we collected a ton of bottles from the turn of the century they were loaded with stuff!

 

[RyanG]

Ive always liked your bottles! I know of a guy who specifically put chaeto into bottles and into his display specifically for pod production. Cool find anyways!!

 

[Paul B]

Frank I did most of my diving off Huckelberry Island near City Island. Also tons of bottles. Not any more, too many divers, but in the seventees, no one dove so it was a treasurechest.

 

[Paul B]

I have always said that sterile tanks are not the healthiest but people look at me funny when I say that. My house is very clean, my wife even cleans the light bulbs (really) but I don't want my tank too clean.
Too clean for too long = crash.
It is the bacteria that perform all of the purifying and bacteria do not live on clean surfaces like they live on surfaces with some type of growth.
A thin film of algae on a surface is like acres to bacteria.
Our tanks would greatly benefit from small enclosed spaces as I have always provided. All of the rocks I build are hollow with PVC skeletons. There are openings in the rock for water to enter. I have always provided rocks like these but again, people look at me wierd.
It is no secret that I think DSBs are a waste of time in the long term, but there are those wierd looks again.
I have a prediction that in the future our tanks will have a thin layer of sand and a refugium filled with small glass, or better yet, clay vessels. This would grow massive amounts of bacteria and if the vessels have small openings, anerobic bacteria would proliferate. A little experimentation would determine the size of the opening so nitrate would be eliminated but hydrogen sulfide would not be produced.
I will probably be dead but mark my words, it is the future of reefing.

 

[h20 freak]

I have always said that sterile tanks are not the healthiest but people look at me funny when I say that. My house is very clean, my wife even cleans the light bulbs (really) but I don't want my tank too clean.
Too clean for too long = crash.
It is the bacteria that perform all of the purifying and bacteria do not live on clean surfaces like they live on surfaces with some type of growth.
A thin film of algae on a surface is like acres to bacteria.
Our tanks would greatly benefit from small enclosed spaces as I have always provided. All of the rocks I build are hollow with PVC skeletons. There are openings in the rock for water to enter. I have always provided rocks like these but again, people look at me wierd.
It is no secret that I think DSBs are a waste of time in the long term, but there are those wierd looks again.
I have a prediction that in the future our tanks will have a thin layer of sand and a refugium filled with small glass, or better yet, clay vessels. This would grow massive amounts of bacteria and if the vessels have small openings, anerobic bacteria would proliferate. A little experimentation would determine the size of the opening so nitrate would be eliminated but hydrogen sulfide would not be produced.
I will probably be dead but mark my words, it is the future of reefing.

Saved

 

[QUESTIONMARC]

i like the bottles.. i think they are cool! i always wanted to find like a stone statue of atlantis with the fork.. or like a statue of liberty.. and put like a very large one in the middle of the tank and watch it get covered with corraline or soemthing cool.. i just get sacared becase you never know what is going to leak out or what somethign you think is fine.. might do.. you know?? if its not broke.. dont play with it type theory.. then again.. you never live until you take that risk.. lol.. the double edge sword of life i guess..

either way.. great story.. makes me want to throw a corona in

 

[Paul B]

My fish will eat good on Christmas. I just finished preparing Scuingelli, calamari, mussels, shrimp, clams and octopus.
Of course there will be some fish also but I don't know what my wife bought yet. But Christmas is always fish, so is every other day but not to the extent of Christmas. Of course my family all being in the fish business probably started my obsession with seafoos as we never ate meat. My wife's Dad was a butcher so they never ate fish.
I have mostly small gobies so did you ever try to cut scungilli to the size of new born brine shrimp?