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Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

Paul B

NJRC Member
As I was sitting here enjoying a tuna fish sandwich with a side of shrimp cocktail, I was thinking about a thread I saw yesterday about how to euthanize a fish. Now I have been keeping fish since trillobites were the best clean-up crew, so I certainly don't want to see fish suffer, but I wonder how this tuna was euthanized or these shrimp.

Did they carefully put it in a small container, play soft music and dose it with clove oil? I really don't know. Those shrimp too. How did they meet their end?

Being of Italian descent, on Christmas, it is our custom to have at least 7 different kinds of seafood for dinner. Last Christmas we had over twenty. Does that make us bad? Of course, we never eat fish in view of my tank, as that would be like cannibalism, and my fish may get the horrors.

My family owned a seafood market, and on Fridays, my Dad would bring me down to the Fulton Fish Market in lower Manhattan to buy the seafood for his store. It is amazing that those tons of fish that were unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk were then moved around with snow shovels. Were they all euthanized? I wonder where they got the time.

And how much clove oil were they using?

In those days there were also huge sea turtles still alive on their backs. Now I know they were just pets as no one I know would hurt a beautiful sea turtle.

Every day I feed my fish live blackworms, clams and mysis. I am not sure if each one of those worms has feelings or thinks about it's family just before it gets eaten.

The millions of mysis also. Do they have more civil rights than the new born brine shrimp I feed my mandarins. Is there a brine shrimp rights group? How about the goldfish we sometimes feed to our moray eels? Do they have fewer rights than, say, a lionfish or tang? What if we fed tiny tangs to large goldfish? Would that be OK?

If we were to cycle a tank with a live fish or shrimp, we would get yelled at from everyone, but it seems to be perfectly fine to cycle a tank with a fish or shrimp that suffocated on the deck of a ship. I wonder about that. I also wonder about the leather belt I am wearing. How did they remove that strip of skin from that cow without him noticing?

Many people dip corals in insecticide before they put them in their tanks to kill "pests". I am sure those "pests" think of us as pests and, worse, murderers. If those "pests" were larger and cuter, we would keep them as pets and try to kill the corals they were living on.

Just one of the things I think about. :eek2:
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
My morning walk was un-eventful, dull and raining so I didn't take a picture.

If you want to see what it looked like, just look at this picture from last year, but before you do, smear "Vaseline" on your screen and spray sea water from your reef on it.

Thats what it looked like today. :biggrin:

 

Paul B

NJRC Member
In 2011 I see I posted this then:

I am in my 60s now so I also don't know how long I will have, but I hope to get the tank to 50
Now I think my tank is 55 years old. (it could be 54, I am not that good at math )

Now I will say that I will call it a big success if it lasts another 45 years when it will be 100 years old. :)

Of course, many people will still say I am lucky because I don't quarantine. But I doubt I will hear them :biggrin:
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
This urchin was as big as a ping Pong Ball when I got it a couple of years ago. My last one croaked after about 10 years.

Now this one is almost 11" wide.....Or tall,,,,, depending on how you are looking at it.
Urchin.jpg
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
I just sold my Lionel Trains. They were 77 years old. My parents got them for me when I was born. The entire set in 1948 sold for about $100.00, and I just got $100.00 for them. A great deal, if I must say so myself. :biggrin:
 
I just sold my Lionel Trains. They were 77 years old. My parents got them for me when I was born. The entire set in 1948 sold for about $100.00, and I just got $100.00 for them. A great deal, if I must say so myself. :biggrin:
I also had Lionel trains as a kid. When I was a teen my mom gave them away. I don't think there was anything very valuable in there, but I sure didn't like my mom pulling that on me.
 
I have American Flyer training set. Went out if business long long long ago. I was told not worth anything.
Actually American Flyer trains are still available. Oddly enough, through a series of sales of the brand they are now produced by Lionel, of all companies. So you can still get some locos, cars, and track. I don't think they still make the AF operating accessories. If you want to check it out, here is a link to the company and AF - https://www.lionel.com/brands/american-flyer
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
My Lionel trains were all iron and weighed a ton. I still had the original book that showed all the trains and I also have some of the boxes they came in
 
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