Moving adventure

[mrbottles]

This epic journey begins with a dirty tank. Dirty because the front seal at the base of front glass panel is near failure. I didn't clean glass on front of tank for a month because i feared pressure on the front glass from inside might actually might make the tank start leaking. Lights aren't on yet in this picture, most residents are hiding or deflated.

Would love ideas for how to make the new tank the healthiest and most beautiful reef system possible.

 

[mrbottles]

This epic journey begins with a dirty tank. Dirty because the front seal at the base of front glass panel is near failure. I didn't clean glass on front of tank for a month because i feared pressure on the front glass from inside might actually might make the tank start leaking. Lights aren't on yet in this picture, most residents are hiding or deflated.

 

[mrbottles]

Paid for new tank to be delivered in garage. After a week delay the delivery guy left it behind garage in zero degree weather. Not a big deal, just had to let warm up for a day in house before opening box.

 

[mrbottles]

Next moved marine life into refugium and a giant tote... Sand and water to 5 gallon buckets. Pumped most of the water out had to scoop last remnants of sand out. Glad to have my friend Lance's help.

 

[mrbottles]

Next was assembling the stand. There were a lot of parts, thankfully my children who have grown up doing massive Lego projects jumped in and got the cabinet assembled in about an hour. AMAZING ! This is the point where old tank headed up and out to the garage.

 

[mrbottles]

When i started with the previous tank it had an anemically small in cabinet fresh water reservoir. After a year of fighting algae and random death, in order to achieve tank stability, i went from little protein skimmer in water return with closed canister weed refugium with a UV light under the tank to a full blown support system by drilling a hole through tile wall to a utility hallway. Including an RODI system and a slop sink for cleaning. I needed approximately 20 more gallons than failed tank so in the days before taking this on i added ten to the refugium and my daughter mixed up another ten gallons in five gallon buckets... This would become an issue later. If you look close you can see anenomes and corals piled in the refugium as the process got going.

 

[mrbottles]

After a couple of trips to the hardware store I decided to convert to flexible tubing. All of the connections were different and the only good way to convert were flow restricting nipples. Likely saved hours and a couple more trips to the hardware store. Some temporary residents of the refugium here too

 

[mrbottles]

Beau and Elijah cleaned the three years of accumulated mess where the tank was including tile from breaking through the wall and finally we were moving forward! The Water box has many screw to level feet. After some leveling and then some more and even a little more after that it was time to unbox the tank.

 

[mrbottles]

Once the tank was on a quick double check to make sure all the levelers were touching floor and then it was time to make the new tank home.

 

[mrbottles]

The project took a took a ton of space with buckets of water and sand and parts and pieces everywhere. If you are going from one tank to another in the same space prepare prepare prepare then sprint.

 

[mrbottles]

The new tank is four same dimensions other than it is four inches deeper front to back. That is a lot more than it sounds like in regard to space. We dumped four five gallon buckets of water that had been sitting on the basement floor without heat and then added ten heated by turning on the main pump. That left the water at 72 degrees. After an hour it was still at 72 but flashing up to 74. At that point i added one rose bubble tip anemone. Goal was to see how much the cooler water would bother the animals. While the anemone doesn't look thrilled here it bounced back quickly and looks amazing through the crystal clean clean and stable glass. LOVE the Red Sea dual return ports!!!

 

[mrbottles]

With the temperature now 74 flashing to 76 on the thermostat we started moving the large live rock in. Here one is in and one is in the tub that has been half drained. Large one is sixty plus pounds! Our royal blue tang hid in a hole and ended up on the floor for at least a minute! Thankfully i didn't step on it. Thought for sure it was not going to make it. It hid until dinner time and then acted like nothing ever happened.

 

[mrbottles]

In these pics things are starting to get moved back in... A lot of arranging and settling to do and many of the animals are stressed... More later when i have some time.