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Congratulations on 41, Paul!!

That's awesome man!

These were my first pair of breeding shrimp, I think this was about 1978 or 80 something

Have you changed anything in your tank in that time?

Have I changed anything in 41 years. I would imagine so. But the gravel and some of the rock is original. Maybe some of the original New York water is still in there, who knows. Remember in the 70s there was no live rock and tanks were decorated with dead coral skeletons like you can see in the picture. Eventually I collected all my rock by SCUBA diving and I also made a lot of it.
My original Blue devils spawned in there every few weeks for 7 years. This is the male over his nest of eggs


And you can see the eggs here in a barnacle shell.


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It started like this, then in 1980 I moved to a larger home and transfered everything to the 100 gallon present tank.
I also look exactly the same, same hair, same physique, same watch, same everything.

Do I smell a little bit of jealousy there? Paul, that looks amazing after 41 years. Have you changed anything in your tank in that time?

That silicone is doing a herculean job!

Maybe a little blue there.

"It must be tough being a clownfish." hahaha

No, I don't raise fry any more. I do get spawns occasionally from gobi's and pipefish but it is an old reef and I can't catch anything. It also takes up too much time. Years ago I used to collect them and raise some but no more.

Congrats on keeping them so long! That is sort of strange how they get along...if they do spawn would you try to raise any of the fry

Very interesting. I wouldn't know where to start with a fish autopsy.

I always start with a dead fish
And of course a microscope.

Very interesting. I wouldn't know where to start with a fish autopsy.

Sorry to hear Paul, But I am glad you gave him a good life.

He died at 7:00pm last night. I just watched him take his last breath. He had a very peaceful death, I hope I have the same. When fish die a natural death they just kind of slow down until they stop. Their breathing becomes very shallow until they just don't get enough oxygen any more and stop. I am glad I was able to catch him in the reef but he put up little resistance and probably knew it was his end.

Right after he died, I autopsed his gills to see if I could find any paracites because that is the best way to tell if you have any in your tank.
He had the gills of a teenager, who never smoked.
His gills were in perfect shape and I could not find one gill filimant out of place or even one paracite, which is strange.
But I know he died of old age and nothing else. There was no need to do a full autopsy

Sorry to read this Paul. Great pictures - and thank you for sharing this with us on R.A.

Amazing thx for sharing.
Sorry to hear your loosing him

Sorry that he is on his last stretch of life, but he had a good one. A safe home and a steady supply of food.

I hope one day I can say that I successfully keep a fish for 12+ years.

I keep Photobucket open on my computer and just go back and fourth from here to there and copy them one at a time from there and put them here.

im sorry that ull be losing such an old friend, that really sucks. but may i ask how do you get your pictures to go down the page like that?

I took a short video of the thing working.