Tank birthday, 47+ years

[vlangel]

Some of the pics of your fish peeking out of bottles is adorable.

 

[Paul B]

Vlangel, Thanks, I was going for adorable. :)

 

[Paul B]

Timfish, the tank birthday is in March. It will be 52, if it makes it. :grimacing-face:

So far I have about 80 gallons of ASW mixed and I found and bought more large vats to hold water, fish, corals and rocks.

When I mix up about 50 more gallons of water and heat it up, I will remove about 20 gallons of water from my tank to put the fish in and remove another 20 gallons of water to rinse off my gravel. When there is about 8" of water left in the tank, I will stir it up vigorously turning the tank into essentially mud and siphon it out. Then I will use that 20 gallons I removed and dump it in there 5 gallons at a time and siphon that out.

I don't want to clean it to good because I have a pair of mandarins, 3 ruby red dragonettes, 2 bluestripe pipefish and 2 dragon faced pipes that all depend on pods..

I also won't clean all the algae off the back glass because thats where they hunt and I am not going to lift the UG filter plates. I am sure they will be hungry but I hope there is enough pods left for them. I am not cleaning the rocks with no sponge so they should be fine.

Then I will put most of the rock back in and the fish. Talk about stress. :oops:

 

[snorklr]

for you or the fish?

 

[Paul B]

Both of us. :p

Here is some damaged DIY rock.

While I am waiting to make more water I an repairing all my DIY rocks.

 

[Paul B]

My tank with most of the rock out for cleaning and sponge removal.

 

[Cthulukelele]

My tank with most of the rock out for cleaning and sponge removal.

Still gorgeous!

 

[vlangel]

Still gorgeous!

I agree!

 

[Paul B]

Hopefully it will be better. I will put the rock back in a very lacy pattern as much as possible. I won't be able to fit all my rock back in.

 

[Paul B]

I have almost all the rocks out of my tank with just a few left to make the fish at home...Kind of although they are getting the horrors..

I also mixed about 110 gallons of ASW. Most of my live rock is still live in vats of NSW so I won't lose the life on those. The biggest piece I couldn't save 100%. It has a lot of sponge on it so I have it outside in the air. I am hoping the 30 degree weather as well as the air freezes the sponge. That shouldn't kill all the bacteria but even if it does, there is plenty left and I am not removing the gravel.

In a couple of days I will heat all the water I just made and all in one fell swoop (that will take all day, I will remove all the corals, fish and remaining rock. Stir up the gravel and siphon it out. Then add everything back and glue all the corals back.

That will be tough because I had to cut all the very old gorgonians off the rocks and now they are not branching any more so I have a lot of single pieces to glue which may take more than a full day.

Now I can catch that big Koran Angelfish that no one wants and bring it to a LFS for their show tank.

I got my neighbor to help me lift the biggest rock as I was afraid of dropping it. :)

 

[Paul B]

I didn't realize I had so many fish and I even found this guy who I haven't seen since the day I put him in. I thought he croaked or jumped out someplace but he is fine and even colored up more. After I put the rocks back in, I am sure I will never see him again. :confused:



I couldn't save 2 of the anemones because they went into a hole in large rocks and I couldn't get them out. I found one of my fish in a bucket of rock that jumped out when I removed the rock, but he is fine.

Grand Kids are coming over today so I can't do anything but I plan on Tuesday or wednesday to do the big switch and put everything back.

I am not sure if the stress will affect the fish so maybe I will throw some Prozac in the water just to make sure. :D

 

[atoll]

When all done just try abd keep any returning sponge to the minimum, easier said than done. I have some white sponge but it only grows in the shade thankfully.

 

[Paul B]

Atoll I really think, and hope it is all the silicates in the NSW I collect here fueling the sponge. Of course I am not sure but in my last house 5 years ago I also had this sponge but it wasn't that invasive or fast growing. I used almost all ASW then.

When I moved here and started using 100% NSW the stuff really took off. If I can eliminate all of it in ASW eventually I will again start using NSW because,,,,well,,,,I can. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

I am not sure my fish will survive through all this as it is a big change to go from real water that is very old to brand new ASW but we will see. If the tank crashes, and there is a real possibility of that, I will still consider it a success. Of course the fish may not see it exactly like that. :anguished-face:

I am trying as hard as I can with what I know and the time constraints I have in doing this to keep everything alive and not killing the important bacteria and pods that keep the tank healthy.

My many pod eaters may have to go on a diet for a couple of weeks and I hope they can find enough to eat but it is what it is and I am doing the best I can.

I just went downstairs to check the tank because I was concerned with all the fish in there there may not be enough bacteria left to keep the water healthy. But they are fine and happy looking, some of them are doing the Macarena. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

The very large rock I have outside is frozen and the sponges on it look like ice cubes so I can "assume" the nasty stuff is dead. Now I have to scrape off the dead, frozen sponge and rinse it off in salt water to get it ready to go back in.

If I was not afraid this sponge would take over the ocean here, I would bring all the sponge encrusted rocks to the sea and scrape and wash them off in the sea.

I won't do that but that would be the best thing. :cool:

 

[MyLittleReef]

I didn't realize I had so many fish and I even found this guy who I haven't seen since the day I put him in. I thought he croaked or jumped out someplace but he is fine and even colored up more. After I put the rocks back in, I am sure I will never see him again. :confused:



I couldn't save 2 of the anemones because they went into a hole in large rocks and I couldn't get them out. I found one of my fish in a bucket of rock that jumped out when I removed the rock, but he is fine.

Grand Kids are coming over today so I can't do anything but I plan on Tuesday or wednesday to do the big switch and put everything back.

I am not sure if the stress will affect the fish so maybe I will throw some Prozac in the water just to make sure. :D

This is an adorable fish - looks like a venomous blenny. What is it?

 

[Paul B]

That is a very cool Red Waspfish. Not very common and I think I will never see him again after I put the rocks back in.

 

[Paul B]

This is my biggest rock that I built from smaller rocks cemented together.

 

[Paul B]

Tomorrow is the day I remove all the fish, dump out the water and re fill the tank and re aquascape. I have to go and get ashes first as it is Ash Wednesday and that is my wife's Idea. If I don't take her she will go by herself and I don't need her mad at me on a very busy day when my tanks life is in the balance. This will be very difficult, moving all this water and rocks around and keeping it all warm, aerated and "happy for the 12 or so hours it will take.

Then another day or two to glue back all the corals, mostly gorgonians. I purposely didn't feed the fish yesterday to limit wastes and today, if the rain lets up a little I would like to go down to the sea to pick up some barnacle encrusted rocks to temporarily add to my tank for the fresh bacteria.

This is a good time for that because I killed a lot of bacteria on the heavily sponge encrusted rocks I had to bleach. :oops:

 

[Paul B]

I have two 40 gallon tubs and some 5 gallon buckets full of live rock and a bunch I had to bleach. I also have my diatom filter filled with powder because I am not removing the gravel and it will be full of detritus and I don't want to remove all of it.

The first thing I will do is partially empty the tank and catch all the fish and remaining corals. I hope I can find all of them. :oops:

 

[trainbob]

Good luck decades ago I used under gravel filters and know how dirty the gravel can be

 

[Paul B]

I got everything back in the tank and everything looks good. The fish are hunting for food and so far I didn't lose anything.

This only took me 7 hours and I have more live rock left over than I started with. Like 3 five gallon buckets. :D

I have my big angel fish in a bucket and I almost lost him. I noticed the water looked very funky and it smelled. I could see sparks under the water. The heater broke.

Luckily it was only for a minute or so and being I am an electrician my fish don't care about electricity in their water. :rolleyes: