Sorry I have been away for so long! From Oct 29-Nov4th I was relocating my entire house, along with all my aquariums. It was an epic battle against the cold front brought on by the hurricane from the east and wooden furniture that is larger than the doorways. To say how my week went in one word would be impossible. It was a roller coaster of good, bad, and ugly. The end result? I am back on top!
Pictures are mixed in my phone, so i will get them up as i find them of my progress, which was not captured as planned since i was building all this alone, and usually dripping wet up to my neck. My phone has had enough issues and salt creep was one I was not trying to add to the list :) (Cant wait to get an iphone w/ the scuba diving case). Any ways, I will do my best to sculpt the images with words.
-Here is my story-
To start out, you must know where I was originally living. 2 blocks west of the local circus building rests a white shanty built in 1863. From the outside it looked like just another old crack house, but I was a PizzaHut delivery man when I was looking for rentals and the place was dirt cheap w/ 3 bedrooms. I just needed a place for my music equipment, my bed, and a place to throw parties daily...all my co-workers went to high school with me and were a lot of fun, I was the only one with my own place so i figured I would just let everyone go nuts, including myself. It was a grande ol time. For a single musician/pizza guy, this house was deluxe.
Then came the girlfriend...
I met my girlfriend by pure chance. The first day we ever hung out together was the last day we didn't ever hang out together. We are going on 3 solid years in the same bed :) and hope to never end. Since then, I have changed my partying ways and become more goal oriented. I quit drinking pretty much all the way, I got some dogs, I even got a few tiger Barbs for the living room. Tiger barbs are just about the most boring things I have ever seen, so I started getting into green spotted puffers and violet gobies...only to learn they are actually brackish. ok, I guess I will buy salt.
Well after more research I found these fish will go to the ocean as well...the fact that puffer fish are hard to sell once brackish made me worry they would be mine forever...thus leading me to the marine hobby, and boy do i regret not doing this stuff a long time ago.
After reefing for a while I got into more complicated things like fragging and making rocks, breeding, DIY stuff, until I just said OK! I need to open a business. Well I was just an unemployed hobbyist at the time with an ebay account. I put a few things up there and they sold FAST! I used the money to get some more equipment, corals, or what ever i needed at the time and then I decided to also do a craigslist ad. That was also awesome, I have met many really cool people through there and have solid honest people who I meet up with in the middle of nowhere to trade or sell stuff because we know eachother are not going to do anything sneaky and sometimes halfway between Cheese ville And BOONtucky is in the middle of the cornfields. SO i have a pretty regular route I drive now just meeting with people and doing business on a personal level. It has basically become a club, but its not really local as not a single person in town has ever contacted me :) which i enjoy haha...our town is not the classiest.
Every time I get regular habits, something has to interrupt them...this time for the better. We finally got to move out of my shanty to my childhood home, the fortress. Not a huge house, but certainly bigger than mine and nicer. WE went from a pit to a pool, a tub to a jacuzzi, a shack to a home. well...when your Mom moves out of the house you are moving into, she tends to leave things behind to pick up later...uh huh...lol. We spent 2 days solid, 4 uhauls, 12 jeeploads, and a few honda fulls of boxes and massive furniture...but we got it, mostly. The basement and the closet are whats yet to be moved...but there was room for my aquariums.
MY house took 2 days to move, but it was an easier two days. we packed a month ahead of time and were living in boxes until it was time to load. day 1 was all the stuff large+boxes, day 2 was everything else minus the tanks.
I dedicated day 3 to just the water moving. (detail will be in another thread on how I SUCCESSFULLY moved ALL MY STUFF!) I woke up on day 3 ready to lose some stuff. I was sweating balls trying to locate someone to help me move the water in trashcans and lift my 6 ft tank. Finally someone texted me back! I then went to the old place w/ my pump and started filling the trashcans. I had 3 45g cans and a 55g can. one can was dedicated to only fish, one for only corals, the others for live rock. all filled 3/4 to the top w/ water!. I tried to move the trashcan and it did not budge...Im very strong, and so was my friend. It moved about a foot with us when all of the sudden two of my even stronger friends came by and saved our fannies. We ended up loading all the water on the truck against the front, then all four of us picked up my tank w/ sand in it and on the solid oak stand we moved it 40 feet into the truck...unharmed. holy &^%$. I am buying all of them steak and cooking it for them as soon as it warms up another day just for getting it on the truck!
Getting it off the truck was even easier!!! Not because of the physics or anything, but the biggest guy just bought a new xbox....yep...he wanted to play it soo bad that he straight manhandled everything like a samsquanch and pretty much did most of the moving himself while we stood jaw dropped.
The temperature was 32 degrees, and i had to go 8 blocks west...in that time the water reached 45!!!! I was sure I killed everything!
The first thing I did was put all the corals in one tank w/ water, than the fish. I cranked the heater and then put all the rock in a separate tank with the rest of the water. I also heated that as well. I pretty much spent the next 3 days trying to rig everything in seperate tanks plumbed together so that the drain tubes were even going past space heaters for the room. It was hectic, but after the whole process everything is perfectly fine and The only die off I found was a large pod floating. i fed him to the mandarin :)
Now with everything all in its temporary holding places, it is time to spend some time planning my build and the permanent foundation for what I hope to become the greatest fish room known to anyone, or at least to me haha!!! I have all the space and my name is the one on the deed, not LAND LORD OF THE RINGS!!!
My computer is on my dining room table until i can repair the outlet by my desk, so i will still be irregular as they say.
I do plan on a full on detailed build thread for this and am basically waiting on my moms things to be picked up to start. This was the most intense move I have ever had, and its all because of my aquariums. I now know how much stress there is when moving complex systems, In the past I have only moved single setups and never entire fish rooms...my arms are now thicker. thanks P90 Fish
Pictures are mixed in my phone, so i will get them up as i find them of my progress, which was not captured as planned since i was building all this alone, and usually dripping wet up to my neck. My phone has had enough issues and salt creep was one I was not trying to add to the list :) (Cant wait to get an iphone w/ the scuba diving case). Any ways, I will do my best to sculpt the images with words.
-Here is my story-
To start out, you must know where I was originally living. 2 blocks west of the local circus building rests a white shanty built in 1863. From the outside it looked like just another old crack house, but I was a PizzaHut delivery man when I was looking for rentals and the place was dirt cheap w/ 3 bedrooms. I just needed a place for my music equipment, my bed, and a place to throw parties daily...all my co-workers went to high school with me and were a lot of fun, I was the only one with my own place so i figured I would just let everyone go nuts, including myself. It was a grande ol time. For a single musician/pizza guy, this house was deluxe.
Then came the girlfriend...
I met my girlfriend by pure chance. The first day we ever hung out together was the last day we didn't ever hang out together. We are going on 3 solid years in the same bed :) and hope to never end. Since then, I have changed my partying ways and become more goal oriented. I quit drinking pretty much all the way, I got some dogs, I even got a few tiger Barbs for the living room. Tiger barbs are just about the most boring things I have ever seen, so I started getting into green spotted puffers and violet gobies...only to learn they are actually brackish. ok, I guess I will buy salt.
Well after more research I found these fish will go to the ocean as well...the fact that puffer fish are hard to sell once brackish made me worry they would be mine forever...thus leading me to the marine hobby, and boy do i regret not doing this stuff a long time ago.
After reefing for a while I got into more complicated things like fragging and making rocks, breeding, DIY stuff, until I just said OK! I need to open a business. Well I was just an unemployed hobbyist at the time with an ebay account. I put a few things up there and they sold FAST! I used the money to get some more equipment, corals, or what ever i needed at the time and then I decided to also do a craigslist ad. That was also awesome, I have met many really cool people through there and have solid honest people who I meet up with in the middle of nowhere to trade or sell stuff because we know eachother are not going to do anything sneaky and sometimes halfway between Cheese ville And BOONtucky is in the middle of the cornfields. SO i have a pretty regular route I drive now just meeting with people and doing business on a personal level. It has basically become a club, but its not really local as not a single person in town has ever contacted me :) which i enjoy haha...our town is not the classiest.
Every time I get regular habits, something has to interrupt them...this time for the better. We finally got to move out of my shanty to my childhood home, the fortress. Not a huge house, but certainly bigger than mine and nicer. WE went from a pit to a pool, a tub to a jacuzzi, a shack to a home. well...when your Mom moves out of the house you are moving into, she tends to leave things behind to pick up later...uh huh...lol. We spent 2 days solid, 4 uhauls, 12 jeeploads, and a few honda fulls of boxes and massive furniture...but we got it, mostly. The basement and the closet are whats yet to be moved...but there was room for my aquariums.
MY house took 2 days to move, but it was an easier two days. we packed a month ahead of time and were living in boxes until it was time to load. day 1 was all the stuff large+boxes, day 2 was everything else minus the tanks.
I dedicated day 3 to just the water moving. (detail will be in another thread on how I SUCCESSFULLY moved ALL MY STUFF!) I woke up on day 3 ready to lose some stuff. I was sweating balls trying to locate someone to help me move the water in trashcans and lift my 6 ft tank. Finally someone texted me back! I then went to the old place w/ my pump and started filling the trashcans. I had 3 45g cans and a 55g can. one can was dedicated to only fish, one for only corals, the others for live rock. all filled 3/4 to the top w/ water!. I tried to move the trashcan and it did not budge...Im very strong, and so was my friend. It moved about a foot with us when all of the sudden two of my even stronger friends came by and saved our fannies. We ended up loading all the water on the truck against the front, then all four of us picked up my tank w/ sand in it and on the solid oak stand we moved it 40 feet into the truck...unharmed. holy &^%$. I am buying all of them steak and cooking it for them as soon as it warms up another day just for getting it on the truck!
Getting it off the truck was even easier!!! Not because of the physics or anything, but the biggest guy just bought a new xbox....yep...he wanted to play it soo bad that he straight manhandled everything like a samsquanch and pretty much did most of the moving himself while we stood jaw dropped.
The temperature was 32 degrees, and i had to go 8 blocks west...in that time the water reached 45!!!! I was sure I killed everything!
The first thing I did was put all the corals in one tank w/ water, than the fish. I cranked the heater and then put all the rock in a separate tank with the rest of the water. I also heated that as well. I pretty much spent the next 3 days trying to rig everything in seperate tanks plumbed together so that the drain tubes were even going past space heaters for the room. It was hectic, but after the whole process everything is perfectly fine and The only die off I found was a large pod floating. i fed him to the mandarin :)
Now with everything all in its temporary holding places, it is time to spend some time planning my build and the permanent foundation for what I hope to become the greatest fish room known to anyone, or at least to me haha!!! I have all the space and my name is the one on the deed, not LAND LORD OF THE RINGS!!!
My computer is on my dining room table until i can repair the outlet by my desk, so i will still be irregular as they say.
I do plan on a full on detailed build thread for this and am basically waiting on my moms things to be picked up to start. This was the most intense move I have ever had, and its all because of my aquariums. I now know how much stress there is when moving complex systems, In the past I have only moved single setups and never entire fish rooms...my arms are now thicker. thanks P90 Fish
