Tenting or Fumigating Effects on Reef Tank

[LarrySmith75]

So I'm going down this road. I have a fish room aka garage and I have a dozen tanks all full of coral inverts and fish. Am I crazy to try this positive pressure scenario? I've read almost every thread on here and reef central. I keep getting the same thing. Positive pressure or remove the tank. I have more than a 1000 gallons to move if it comes down to my only choice. Definitely not living with termites swarming the house.

If anyone has successfully done this positive pressure please contact me. I'll be tenting within a week or so.
Any suggestions on a powerful air pump that can run air from outside to the tank and keep positive pressures.

 

[saltyphish]

Seems like depending on how airtight the tank is sealed up will dictate how much leakage you will have tighter seal smaller leakage requiring a smaller pump. I would still get one of the larger fusion pumps just make sure it's pumping air from outside. Never had to do this so no experience with it.

So I'm going down this road. I have a fish room aka garage and I have a dozen tanks all full of coral inverts and fish. Am I crazy to try this positive pressure scenario? I've read almost every thread on here and reef central. I keep getting the same thing. Positive pressure or remove the tank. I have more than a 1000 gallons to move if it comes down to my only choice. Definitely not living with termites swarming the house.

If anyone has successfully done this positive pressure please contact me. I'll be tenting within a week or so.
Any suggestions on a powerful air pump that can run air from outside to the tank and keep positive pressures.

 

[LarrySmith75]

Everything Survived!!!

I was able to keep all my tanks alive. Thanks for this thread!
It wasn't an easy chore considering I had 12 tanks to cover.
I started Wednesday evening and had them all covered with fresh air pumping by 7:30 am Thursday.
The tent guys showed up at 8:30 am and they had the gas flowing in by 9:30am. After that it was time to chew my fingernails :clock:
I was able to set my apex to alert me every hour so I could watch the temps. I put one probe in a tank and another out.
I'm thankful we had a Florida style cold front roll in. My temps never got above 75 but Saturday morning once the tent came off it got down to 72.5. I got the call arnd 9:30 am Saturday morning that we could get back in the house. I was home by 10am and began to remove all my homemade tents from each tank. It was very exciting to see fish start coming out of the rocks and that all my corals were doing just fine. I had all the tanks back up and running by 1 pm with no ill effects from the gas.

The 12 port air line junction with my new portable 10,000 btu a/c in the background which really helped me keep the temps stable.

I used 1.7" air stones with 3/16" air tubing.

The longest run to the dining room for the 40 gallon about 50' away.

Making the tents for each tank. I used a lot of duct tape.

2 of my 120's and the 180 gallon all sealed up.

Positive air pressure forming on the 180

The tent!!

Saturday morning checking for live fish and my clowns were out and waiting for food.

More life!!

The aftermath. 200' of air tubing

The Elemental O2 1744 gph commercial air pump used to pump in fresh air

 

[redfishbluefish]

I would not trust my tank to a total gassing of the tented house. That stuff goes everywhere. If it were me, I'd move the tank.

However, I did have the oak floors on my first floor sanded and varnished with oil-based polyurethane and simply tented off the first floor fish room with plastic. Here's the tenting from inside the room.






And from outside the room. FYI, they sanded and finished right up to this door opening. That's why the tenting is angled back.







Kept the room tented off for 3 -4 days while the urethane cured. Climbed in and out of a window to care for the tank.