And Here We Go!

[College_Reefer]

Now to the move. The plan is to move everything in 5 gallon buckets and a cooler. Each bucket and the cooler will have a bubbler and heater. I have run a 400w inverter in my truck so that the heaters (300w total) and bubblers can run continuously. I cut the bucket lids to have extremely tight tolerance to keep all the water in the buckets/cooler for the drive since saltwater and electronics don't mix well. I have pulled, cleaned and dried every piece of equipment I can without shutting it down fully. Tonight I will fill all the buckets and cooler with clean water from the tank and then start draining and pulling rock/sand out. I will save all the rock in tubs and then let it bake off and bleach in the sun before reusing it due to some blue clove polyps finding their way into the tank. Once the livestock is in the buckets, I will plug it all into the wall for the night until we leave at 4am tomorrow morning.

 

[College_Reefer]

As per usual, a lot has happened since the last update. The tank (and house) move was a success! I only lost one anthias and a light that cracked which is honestly about as good as I could hope for. The sump gorilla crab I brought managed to escape the fish trap I’ve been keeping him in so I had to tear out half the new rock work to re-catch him. All the fish are eating and really enjoying the extra 50 gallons of space they have. Coral is settled in well annd I’m getting great polyp extension!

 

[College_Reefer]

It’s been about two weeks since the move and we had some electrical woes in the fish room. We are learning more every day that the previous owners didn’t believe much in code or electrical best practice. While having an electrician rework some major fire hazards, we decided to have him run two more separate breakers just for the fish room. This way I can run all the heaters and equipment without worry. One thing I learned is Finnex heaters are not really great. They don’t hold temp accurately at all. I had to set them to 82 just to have them not accurately hold 78. With how much travel I do, I decided to get a 700w Helios to remove any issues with heaters for my wife when she watches things. So now, I have a 200w Helios as backup for the 700w main heater. I also just got my Apex hooked back up which will help when I’m away. The last addition was a dehumidifier because it was pretty humid down there. With it running, it keeps things right around 47% humidity which is perfect. With all that done, I’m in a holding pattern until I make the jump to the big tank!