ReefQueen
Amphiprion Admirer
Formerly “ReefQueen’s 90 gallon transfer”. The tank has sort of become a shelter for “deformed” fish. I’ve always had a soft spot for these types of animals, I love to see them overcome their handicaps to live a perfectly normal life, I think they have more personality too!
Here we go. As promised I am going to start a thread for the 90 gallon. I am calling this a "transfer" instead of a "build" because, as you can see, there was not really much building going on. Instead, due to the circumstances, I ended up with a haphazardly thrown together tank that turned out looking ok so far
Let's start this story a few weeks ago. I was sitting in front of my 45 cube as usual, just enjoying my personable fish and growing corals when I happened to notice the bottom of the stand was looking a bit off. Ok more then a bit...
I guess I was so occupied with what was going on in the tank, that I didn't notice what was going on with the bottom. I couldn't figure out where the damage was coming from since I was always very careful with my water changes, and wiped up any water that may have spilled immediately. I have since decided that it was from a few skimmer overflows that worked it's way from the inside out. Anywho I emailed marineland who basically said I needed to replace the stand immediately and I was SOL on getting any help from them on replacing a stand that has been in use for less then a year. Little did they know I had the exact stand from a friend's tear down sitting in my basement waiting on a frag tank. But did I really want to use it and run the risk of having a repeat or should I suck it up and have a custom stand made? Keep in mind marineland will only honor their warranty if the tank if it is on their stand. Cue serendipity. My good pal @waybad41willys found himself a sexy Redsea max and asked if I would be interested in the 90 he had set up at his shop! I will admit I was a bit hesitant at first because I had downgraded from a 75 because it was too much for me to handle with work and a baby. After some thought I figured what the hey, work is never going to go away, and said baby is now a somewhat independent toddler. Independent in the way that I can leave the room for more then 5 minutes without him bawling that is:/ Here is the tank set up at the shop, I hope I can do it justice!
So you would think it would be as easy as picking up the tank and setting it up at home right? Not for me! Shortly after we had discussed me taking the tank I somehow managed to slice open my gum while eating a Philly cheese steak at the local reef clubs picnic (I am not blaming anyone but myself for not being able to properly eat, and it was totally worth it) don't ask how that even is possible. I just know I felt a pain and continued to stuff my face with wild abandon while ignoring it. The next day I was a bit uncomfortable, and the day after that I was in full blown agony. So 18 days of antibiotics, an urgentcare then ER visit, more dentist appointments then I care to remember and one surgery to cut out the stubborn infection later, I am almost back to eating normal foods. Luckily I am in very little pain now. Did I mention that in the midst of all this horribleness, the store I had been working at for 5 years closed. So I had to help tear down a store and then get transfered to another location and somehow convey to all my new coworkers that I am not a rude B, I just can't talk to them because it was too painful lol. Let's get back on track. August 16th was the day of my surgery, I had one day to heal before I was needed back at work, but even though my mouth was all stitched up I felt a million times better. I was lucky enough that my in laws wanted to take my son for a week starting on the 21st so I thought that would be a perfect time to get started on moving tanks, but there was a catch. I had been wanting to redo these awful floors in the kitchen for a very long time,
and since the tank was going to be moved into the living room for the transfer what better time then that?! And I had a whole week of adults only to do it! So I set up a spare 20 long in the living room and moved everyone over in a few hours (I did almost kill myself tripping over a dog gate while running with a monti cap, but I'll leave the bruised legs and broken frag details out).
So now it was time to start the floor, which should be a piece of cake with my sweet floor redoing skills. It was horrible! It took almost 5 days to fully complete, and it is peel and stick! Granted we had to pull up one layer of crappy floor (only to find crappier floor underneath)
do some patching, plus our kitchen is huge, but still! I am so pleased with how they turned out though.
We had actually picked up the tank the day before the floors were even done and just kind of squeezed around it since it was in the hallway lol. Are you still reading? If so this is were the fun really starts because I had to have this tank up and running before my son got home on Sunday, which left me 2 days (spoiler alert, I didn't get it done in time)! We scrapped the blue paint off the back and slapped on a black background. I just prefer black over blue myself. I would have preferred to paint it, but time didn't allow it. We got the tank on the stand and plumbed. Then I started filling it up with water and vinegar to run overnight. Somehow I had forgotten the overflow drain pipe at the shop, but I just left it and listened to a waterfall all night lol
I got up early before work the next day (Saturday) and scrubbed until I got everything but some stubborn spots on the overflow off. I then ran to the shop for the pipe, then the store to get my oolite, came home and dumped it in and went to work. That's right, I didn't even rinse it! Hubby was in charge of making RODI water for me and throwing in salt while I was a work because I hadn't even started making RODI until the night before lol. So I get home from work that night and start pumping water from the brute cans into the tank. Finally I have enough to start the pump, but I forgot I had the returns pointed up so sprayed water all over my walls lol.
I had to be up early for work so I dumped a bottle of bacteria in and went to bed while the sand settled overnight. After work we had to pick our son up, so I was officially past my time limit. My solution to keep him from messing in the sump of the open stand was to use his old baby play yard to go around the tank which was holding all my fish and most of my corals. This did keep trucks and crackers from ending up in the sump, but made it interesting to work in the tank lol. It was too late to do anything with the tank that day and work made most of the next day useless also, but the tank had cleared. My background has also fallen victim to the return spray.
I had to find a way to get the bubbles out without being able to reach behind the tank, but I managed
At this point I had an ammonia spike so I threw a bunch of my live rock in the sump. The next day my test kit and alert badge told me it was time to get this party started for realz.
I also had just gotten a box of rocks from Billy's reef connection, which I highly recommend!
So it was time to start playing with rocks! I really wish rubber gloves fit my baby hands, full use of my finger tips would have been helpful with the epoxy kneading:/
Crap!
After much cursing, and many hours I finally got a scape I am sort or happy with. I love how the right side turned out, the left not so much. I can live with it though. The only thing left to do is to start transferring over my livestock. So I loaded everyone up into buckets and started dripping. As that was happening I switched out the left light for my SB and set up the ATO. It was now almost 2 am so I plopped everyone in and watched for a few minutes before heading to bed. As I was brushing my teeth I got a feeling I forgot something, so I checked on the half full 20 still sitting in the living room and sure enough I found this guy
hiding behind the overflow box! So another hour goes by while he drip acclimated, then he gets plopped in also. I was exhausted, so I went to bed then and woke up early to check on everything. With the exception of one of the anemones who can't decide where he wants to be, everyone is doing great and was out acting like they have lived there forever.
There is still sooooo much to do, such as wire management, wavemaker replacement, move over the rest of the corals, and obviously some new livestock to name a few. I am going to leave the equipment list out for now since it will be changing here and there. If you hung in there and read the whole way through, congrats and stay tuned. There will be more to come
Here we go. As promised I am going to start a thread for the 90 gallon. I am calling this a "transfer" instead of a "build" because, as you can see, there was not really much building going on. Instead, due to the circumstances, I ended up with a haphazardly thrown together tank that turned out looking ok so far
Let's start this story a few weeks ago. I was sitting in front of my 45 cube as usual, just enjoying my personable fish and growing corals when I happened to notice the bottom of the stand was looking a bit off. Ok more then a bit...
I guess I was so occupied with what was going on in the tank, that I didn't notice what was going on with the bottom. I couldn't figure out where the damage was coming from since I was always very careful with my water changes, and wiped up any water that may have spilled immediately. I have since decided that it was from a few skimmer overflows that worked it's way from the inside out. Anywho I emailed marineland who basically said I needed to replace the stand immediately and I was SOL on getting any help from them on replacing a stand that has been in use for less then a year. Little did they know I had the exact stand from a friend's tear down sitting in my basement waiting on a frag tank. But did I really want to use it and run the risk of having a repeat or should I suck it up and have a custom stand made? Keep in mind marineland will only honor their warranty if the tank if it is on their stand. Cue serendipity. My good pal @waybad41willys found himself a sexy Redsea max and asked if I would be interested in the 90 he had set up at his shop! I will admit I was a bit hesitant at first because I had downgraded from a 75 because it was too much for me to handle with work and a baby. After some thought I figured what the hey, work is never going to go away, and said baby is now a somewhat independent toddler. Independent in the way that I can leave the room for more then 5 minutes without him bawling that is:/ Here is the tank set up at the shop, I hope I can do it justice!
So you would think it would be as easy as picking up the tank and setting it up at home right? Not for me! Shortly after we had discussed me taking the tank I somehow managed to slice open my gum while eating a Philly cheese steak at the local reef clubs picnic (I am not blaming anyone but myself for not being able to properly eat, and it was totally worth it
) don't ask how that even is possible. I just know I felt a pain and continued to stuff my face with wild abandon while ignoring it. The next day I was a bit uncomfortable, and the day after that I was in full blown agony. So 18 days of antibiotics, an urgentcare then ER visit, more dentist appointments then I care to remember and one surgery to cut out the stubborn infection later, I am almost back to eating normal foods. Luckily I am in very little pain now. Did I mention that in the midst of all this horribleness, the store I had been working at for 5 years closed. So I had to help tear down a store and then get transfered to another location and somehow convey to all my new coworkers that I am not a rude B, I just can't talk to them because it was too painful lol. Let's get back on track. August 16th was the day of my surgery, I had one day to heal before I was needed back at work, but even though my mouth was all stitched up I felt a million times better. I was lucky enough that my in laws wanted to take my son for a week starting on the 21st so I thought that would be a perfect time to get started on moving tanks, but there was a catch. I had been wanting to redo these awful floors in the kitchen for a very long time,and since the tank was going to be moved into the living room for the transfer what better time then that?! And I had a whole week of adults only to do it! So I set up a spare 20 long in the living room and moved everyone over in a few hours (I did almost kill myself tripping over a dog gate while running with a monti cap, but I'll leave the bruised legs and broken frag details out).
So now it was time to start the floor, which should be a piece of cake with my sweet floor redoing skills. It was horrible! It took almost 5 days to fully complete, and it is peel and stick! Granted we had to pull up one layer of crappy floor (only to find crappier floor underneath)
do some patching, plus our kitchen is huge, but still! I am so pleased with how they turned out though.
We had actually picked up the tank the day before the floors were even done and just kind of squeezed around it since it was in the hallway lol. Are you still reading? If so this is were the fun really starts because I had to have this tank up and running before my son got home on Sunday, which left me 2 days (spoiler alert, I didn't get it done in time)! We scrapped the blue paint off the back and slapped on a black background. I just prefer black over blue myself. I would have preferred to paint it, but time didn't allow it. We got the tank on the stand and plumbed. Then I started filling it up with water and vinegar to run overnight. Somehow I had forgotten the overflow drain pipe at the shop, but I just left it and listened to a waterfall all night lol
I got up early before work the next day (Saturday) and scrubbed until I got everything but some stubborn spots on the overflow off. I then ran to the shop for the pipe, then the store to get my oolite, came home and dumped it in and went to work. That's right, I didn't even rinse it! Hubby was in charge of making RODI water for me and throwing in salt while I was a work because I hadn't even started making RODI until the night before lol. So I get home from work that night and start pumping water from the brute cans into the tank. Finally I have enough to start the pump, but I forgot I had the returns pointed up so sprayed water all over my walls lol.
I had to be up early for work so I dumped a bottle of bacteria in and went to bed while the sand settled overnight. After work we had to pick our son up, so I was officially past my time limit. My solution to keep him from messing in the sump of the open stand was to use his old baby play yard to go around the tank which was holding all my fish and most of my corals. This did keep trucks and crackers from ending up in the sump, but made it interesting to work in the tank lol. It was too late to do anything with the tank that day and work made most of the next day useless also, but the tank had cleared. My background has also fallen victim to the return spray.
I had to find a way to get the bubbles out without being able to reach behind the tank, but I managed
At this point I had an ammonia spike so I threw a bunch of my live rock in the sump. The next day my test kit and alert badge told me it was time to get this party started for realz.
I also had just gotten a box of rocks from Billy's reef connection, which I highly recommend!
So it was time to start playing with rocks! I really wish rubber gloves fit my baby hands, full use of my finger tips would have been helpful with the epoxy kneading:/
Crap!
After much cursing, and many hours I finally got a scape I am sort or happy with. I love how the right side turned out, the left not so much. I can live with it though. The only thing left to do is to start transferring over my livestock. So I loaded everyone up into buckets and started dripping. As that was happening I switched out the left light for my SB and set up the ATO. It was now almost 2 am so I plopped everyone in and watched for a few minutes before heading to bed. As I was brushing my teeth I got a feeling I forgot something, so I checked on the half full 20 still sitting in the living room and sure enough I found this guy
hiding behind the overflow box! So another hour goes by while he drip acclimated, then he gets plopped in also. I was exhausted, so I went to bed then and woke up early to check on everything. With the exception of one of the anemones who can't decide where he wants to be, everyone is doing great and was out acting like they have lived there forever.
There is still sooooo much to do, such as wire management, wavemaker replacement, move over the rest of the corals, and obviously some new livestock to name a few. I am going to leave the equipment list out for now since it will be changing here and there. If you hung in there and read the whole way through, congrats and stay tuned. There will be more to come
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