Paul B's thread

[gobyvin]

There have been the most Mola mola, Ocean Sunfish, in our area than I have ever experienced. Saw pairs touching even! They were inside the Cape Cod Canal even, many at a time, and breaching. All at the beginning and throughout the month of September. Glad you saw that cool bird-fish interaction. I have not seen that yet and I spend a lot of time on boats where Molas live.

 

[Paul B]

The people at the B&B we stayed told me they are not that rare there. Who knew?

 

[Paul B]

At 6:30 this morning the sun just stated to come out and I figured i would go for a bicycle ride. Loosen up the stiff muscles a little.

There is a little hill next to a pond here and I started cruising down the hill.

All of a sudden I see this young deer right in front of me not moving. As I got closer and closer I could tell she had that
"Geezer in the Headlights" look.

Just before I crashed into her she took off. She was running right next to me for a while and as she looked over at me I could tell she was thinking "Wow this Old Coot can go pretty fast"

But I don't think deer know much about bicycles going down hill.
This isn't her, maybe her sister.

 

[Paul B]

This blue sponge that grows on virtually every spare piece of real estate in my tank is really looking nice. It is "Bluer" that it used to be for some reason. I think it is due to the clams I have been feeding and all the clam juice associated with it.

The stuff grows a little to fast and I do have to trim it about every month or so but it is a great water filter.
I got a small piece of it many years ago but it really took off. It's almost like a very cheap coral and I like it a lot.

I do throw a lot of it out when I trim it because i don't know what to do with it and I don't know anyone locally with a salt tank.
I also think it is photosynthetic which is weird as sponges are not usually sensitive to light except to hide from it.
If it gets shaded because something grows over it, it turns very light, almost white.

 

[Paul B]

This morning I am washing my worms. My neighbors think I'm nuts and that my PTSD got worse.
My culture of white worms is very old, maybe 10 years and there are tiny flies hatching in there. More flies than worms so it, of course is outside.

I am going to leave them flooded for 24 hours because I know the worms can live submerged for five days in salt water, but I am hoping the fly larvae can't SCUBA dive for long.

I don't want to order a new culture because these are very big for some reason, much larger than the original batch.
I think they are Godzilla Larvae.

 

[Paul B]

Today, after I went on my boat to do a few last minutes winterizing things, paid some bills and started designing a new
(what will be very cool) steam punk "thing" I gave my worms a bath. Actually it was yesterday that I flooded them and kept them flooded for 24 hours. My worm culture has been giving me problems as it is breeding dozens of flies, and I hate flies. Scurvy little vile things.

I know they are hatching in there and I know the worms don't mind being submerged so I sunk them all day.

The worms seemed happy and were all doing what looked like an Italian wedding dance so i figured there were fine.

I was trying to drown the fly larvae. So far, so good as I don't see any flies.
If this doesn't work, I will flood them for 48 hours, then 72 hours.

After I dried them out somewhat, I fed them a nice dinner of stale bread, yogurt and nutritional yeast. I also added more potting soil in the hope they will once again start breeding and multiplying. I may have to wait a couple of weeks to see if I was successful.

In the absence of live worms I have been feeding my fish, besides LRS food, clams that I got in a bait store. I was going to use these clams as bait, but I only went fishing once this year and didn't catch anything so i am feeding them to the fish.

My anemone quadrupled in size and is the largest thing in the tank by far except for the sculpture of myself next to Christie Brinkley.

 

[Paul B]

This thing says there are 89,070 views. Where are all you people? Are you in a coma? I understand that even if you are in a coma, you can still hear and understand. HELLO!!!. Someone say something, even Duh or Um.
Say something in Aramaic or Latin. Talk about Pina Colada's, anything except the democratic convention picking last night.

No politics. Just fish, life, wine, Praying Mantises, bowling balls, Supermodels, pliers, grilled cheese, salt water taffy,anything.

HELLO.
Is this thing on?
I went to the beach the other day and saw a Praying Mantis, see even I can make up something.

This little friend met me by the beach. See how easy that was.

 

[Chris A.]

We’re still here bud, time is very scarce for me between work n a 3 year old lol
Still read your threads on a daily basis and I know it’s hard to post sometimes without any acknowledgement but trust me, this place wouldn’t be the same without you putting a smile on our faces daily. Thank you sir

 

[mrjantzen]

I agree with Chris, we are here! And enjoying your observations and wisdom.


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[mandarin]

I also made a praying mantis friend the other day lol he was on the side of my house


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[CAPSLOCK]

I rode roller coasters in Ohio the beginning of the month.

They also had pumpkin garden artwork:

 

[Paul B]

See, now that's what I am talking about. I wanted to make sure someone was still alive as all the people that were in this hobby when I started are either dead or were abducted by Aliens.

 

[Kelly's Reef]

Not trying to jump your thread, but the demographic of this thread will not be offended and will likely be amused.
Millennial story of the day.
I was walking at lunch and noticed a car stopped at the bottom of the hill and a millennial looking down at something in front of their car. A few cars stopped, got frustrated and went around. They went to their car, grabbed what looked like an umbrella. By now I was close enough to see there was something in front of the car. They poked at something in front of the car with the umbrella a few times. Cars keep stopping and going around. By now I can see it is a turtle in the middle of the road trying to cross. It has taken me about 5 minutes to get there.
I pick up the turtle and move it to the other side of the road.

 

[Paul B]

That happened to me twice this year. Once was this little guy and the other time was a huge snapping turtle. His mud hole dried up. I put him in a pond on a golf course. The golfers will get a kick out of that when they go in there for their ball.

 

[mrjantzen]

That shell looks like fine woodwork. For a second I thought you were going to tell us that you had built him a new shell.


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[Countryreefer]

My stupid yellow tang decided to grab some of the super glue from a frag I was placing. He stretched it out and swam around with it for a while until he broke most of it off. He finally rid the rest of it in a couple days. I was a little nervous that he was going to stress and show ich, but like you Paul, that tang never went through QT. My fish are all fed well with homemade food!

Yes that is super glue stuck to his upper lip!

 

[CAPSLOCK]

That's one way to diet - glue your mouth shut.

 

[Paul B]

It seems my 24 hour worm bath did nothing to eliminate of drown flies. As a matter of fact, I think there are more flies now than before and if I look close I could swear they have SCUBA fins on.

Now i will try a 48 hour "bath" and if that doesn't work I will just collect all the worms I can and make a new culture. I don't want to do that because it will take forever to collect a lot of worms with no dirt as I feel fly larvae or eggs may get into my new culture. Maybe I will just play RAP music near the worms and see if the flies croak first.
Before me anyway.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Could you pull out a handful of good worms and just rinse the bejesus out of them? Seems easier than rinsing individual worms. Sink them all and swish them around, scoop 'em back out.

 

[jcherepo]

I am having the same problem with my worm culture Paul. I did hand pick as many out as I could and then got new soil. I have had good luck with the dehydrated blocks you get from petco for lizards. After I soak it in some water, I microwave it for several minutes to hopefully sterilize it. Let it cool and add the worms back in. It has been about 3 weeks and the colony is starting to show signs of coming back.

On a side note, did you know after a praying mantis mates, the female eats the male...


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