Moving my 47 Year old Reef tank

[Paul B]

I bought out all the electrical adapters from Home Depot so I am going to Lowes today.
My extremely cool water cooled LED lighting system croaked. The room is so damp that the entire fixture was dripping with water and shorted the entire thing out. The LEDs on there have connections so close to the copper tubing that is a mosquito blows his nose on it, it will short. It just won't work in that condition so I had to turn in my Man card and buy a light fixture, and there is nothing I hate more than buying something. I know it will be a piece of junk, cost more then my car and won't last 2 weeks. It's also probably made in China so I can't even look at it and won't be able to hang my American Flag in that room. If I ever get time, I will build a water prof light and junk the new one.

Yesterday I drove 60 miles back to my old neighborhood and visited my favorite LFS. Aquarium Village in Westbury. I saw two fish that I liked because they were unusual. One was a perchlet like my other one but smaller and he looked very healthy.




I am not sure what the other fish is but he didn't look to be in great condition and I hesitated buying him. I told my friend that I give him an hour to live.
I put them in a cooler in my car because it was 98 degrees and drove straight home.
I opened the cooler and the weird sickly fish was fine. I acclimated him for 10 minutes, threw him in and he started to eat and smile in 30 seconds.
The little healthy red perchlet croaked. He was dead in the bag and looked like he had a coronary. Maybe he heard I run an undergravel filter and got the horrors. I didn't have time to give him CPR or do an autopsy or necropsy but I know de didn't have any diseases. Maybe a social disease but that is none of my business. I left him in there for any bristleworms that may have survived the move here.

Right now I have 4 floodlights over the tank that looks a little more than candlelight until I get my new (garbage) embarrassing lights.
Today I may run some electric power to the tank so I can get the massive rats nest of extension cords off my floor. I will also order an exhaust fan for that room. Not one of those Sissy exhaust fans, I am ordering a fan that will pull the wax out of your ears from across a crowded LFS.

 

[Paul B]

My fish all had to get plastic surgery to make their face bigger to fit their smiles. They are so happy they poop in rainbow colors.
The fireclowns are spawning so much they give me a headache and the water smells like eggs benedict. I have not fed my mandarin in a month and he is still in ecstasy because he hunts white worms that I throw in every other day. My copperband loves the new aquascape and thinks he is in a circus working for Barnum and Baily. All is well.

As I keep saying my fish stay healthy because of bacteria in the guts of the food I feed and they are not delicate creatures. They are withstanding huge temperature swings along with salinity cycles so far apart that I can keep Koi in there with them.
The lighting is ridiculous which is making my bristle worms cross eyed. I don't know how any corals are living but I have not lost one of them and they went from 160 nitrates to probably zero. I don't test for anything except Gatorade as I have been taking that stuff intravenously because my fish room is so damp there are cumulous clouds forming above the tank and Al Roker is predicting thunder storms in there.

The air is so full of water that my hermit crabs crawl out at night to watch the sunset on my workbench. I can test the salinity by licking the walls. I mean it is really damp in there and my next move is to install a huge exhaust fan. One that will make your nose hairs stand up from across the street.

I want it to suck so much moisture out of the room that if I forget it on, the tank would go dry.

Do I make my point?

 

[Paul B]

I got new lights but I discovered after I opened the box that they are made in China so at the first opportunity, I will junk them. But they are very bright. All my fish are straining to close their eyes and they don't realize they have no eyelids. so they are scrunching up their faces .
The lights have all sorts of dials and switches but I plugged them in and they lit so I won't be needing or using all of that stuff.

Today I started to build my workbench. It is tough because the place is so full of stuff but I need the workbench so I can make my closets and shelves to put stuff away on. I also uncrated my radial arm saw and drill press so I will have some stuff to work with.
It is so damp in there that I get flashbacks from Viet Nam

Soon I will get an off the road permit so I can go to the sea easier to wash my remaining gravel that is still in my old, muddy water.

 

[Paul B]

I finally filled my tank up almost to the top, now it will be easier for the fish to jump out. I collected some water when we were watching fireworks on the beach. Everyone was looking up at the fireworks and didn't notice the Geezer in the water with a bucket.
I just had to strain out the bottle rockets and roman candles.

I have to clean the glass every day because of diatoms as the Long Island Sound water is loaded with "Stuff". I am sure it will grow red algae also but I kind of like that stuff. I have my diatom filter running on the tank all night because when I initially added water to the tank I used a defective diatom filter which dumped a bunch of diatom powder in the water. I didn't see the tank yet this morning so it will either be very clear, totally empty or the pump went on fire and looks like a lump of coal. It's so exciting to wonder about these things. Eventually I will finish hooking up my UG filter. It had all the tubes connected but one of the big rocks I added separated the tubes and they are now laying on the bottom housing bristle worms and God knows what else. It is so nice to have a clean glass in the back where I can see everything but that is short lived. Algae is starting to grow there and there is no way to clean it. I need to re-connect the tubes before it gets totally covered.

My new (garbage) China lights are still working and I didn't smell any smoke yet but they are still about 18" above the tank. I need to get some chain to lower them. The fish are all doing well which is surprising being I don't know what the temperature or salinity is. . I know many people feel those things need to be right in the middle of the line that someone said it has to be and they stay up at night measuring those things with laser beams and what not.

The tank looks much to sterile to me and I don't like it yet. I need to add more rock (which I have probably 100 lbs left in buckets) and more gravel. But most importantly it needs life. Microscopic life that I will collect as soon as I go out in my boat during low tide. I keep going out high tide and it is hard to collect anything during that tide.

My blue sponge which covered about a third of my tank shriveled up and turned white. It was thriving on nitrates and now there are none so it is croaking. Better it than me. But my other corals are really enjoying the new NSW. I need more corals, a lot more because this tank is bigger and so far has a lot less rocks in it.

I moved the door in my workshop and the electric base board heater because they were in the way of my new 10' workbench that I built yesterday.
The place is coming along. I need to finish installing the floor tiles and paint. There is still vats of rocks and gravel along with enough tools to build the stage for Lady GaGa concerts so I need places to put all that stuff away . I will be tossing out a lot of tools as I just have to much
I did too many things in my life and no longer need a special wrench to adjust the tailgate on 1969 Vista Cruiser Oldsmobile station wagon or adjust the points on Toronado's. Yesterday I threw out my timing light and dwell meter. As soon as I find it I will dump my valve grinding tools as well as my ring compressor and cylinder and brake cylinder hones. I can open a Sears with all the tools I have, a small Sears but a Sears none the less. I am expecting NASA to call looking to have some extra tools.

I hung an 8' LED light in the middle of my workshop on string temporarily because the 7 watt bulb the builder supplied just wasn't cutting it.
I need to permanently install lights and outlets. But I know an excellent electrician

 

[LongIslandAndy]

 

[Geraud]

Hello Paul,


Glad to see your tank is doing great after the move. And... thank you for the read, as always! Would someone edit the first chapter into a book?

 

[Paul B]

Andy, instead of adding smilies into this thread you should be spending virtually all of your time looking for some "special" fish and corals I can add to my tank. Not just spare time, but "ALL" of your time. None of those sissy clownfish (especially designer clownfish which are for real Nerds) I want clingfish, pinecone fish, maybe another one of those cool red fish you got me the last time, some gorgonians, perchlets, (live ones not the dead one I got last week, I tried CPR and mouth to mouth on him but inadvertently swallow him) gobies, more queen anthius. I also want another one of those green corals you got me that looks like Medusa's head. Anything weird. I will also have to put in a boring tang because people tell me they can never live in there because of the parasites. :bigeyes2:
I need to replace my pair of bluestripe pipefish (but only after I again start hatching shrimp)
I will buy you a coffee. OK, two coffees. :teeth:

Also more of these.













OK, forget that last one. I am having him for breakfast with my granola.

It's 7:00 AM you can start calling wholesalers to get me some of that stuff. Get them out of bed. :biggrin:

 

[Paul B]

Hello Paul,


Glad to see your tank is doing great after the move. And... thank you for the read, as always! Would someone edit the first chapter into a book?

I think they did. :biggrin:

 

[Paul B]

My tank now is full of diatoms. I could say I am "Battling" them but they really just sit there and don't fight back. Normally I would like this as it is a challenge, but I don't have time now and the front glass looks like sheet metal 10 minutes after I clean it.
This is from the Long Island Peconic bay water which had more diatoms then water, but it is fine and makes the hobby enjoyable. If it didn't do these interesting things, I would take up golf. (God Forbid)

6 years old yesterday. My Grand Daughter, not my tank.

 

[Paul B]

I took pictures of my tank and they are still in my phone which is right next to my sleeping wife and a sleeping wife is a wife that is not asking me to go shopping for a bunch of stuff that we don't need or want and will return next week. I will post the pictures when I can get my phone.
Yesterday I added about 20lbs more rock from my old tank. Some of it smelled of hydrogen sulfide because it has been in a bucket of old water along with a lot of mud and it had a cover on it.

I also added a few gallons of gravel, also not in great shape but it is what it is. I have a lot more rocks and gravel but I will unfortunately have to either dump it or bleach it as it really developed to much sulfide so I can't put it in.
It is a testament of the health of the tank when you can take everything out, throw it in buckets, move it 60 miles and dump everything back in with no thermometer or test kits, no lights and everything is better than ever. No mini cycles, no spots, no stress, no red tide, no heartbreak of psoriasis. All the fish ate right away. (That is due to the bacteria in their diet)

Yesterday I got my Off the Road permit and found a beach about 2 miles from here that I can drive on. I figured I would be the only one there. Nope!

We went there and you go down this steep rocky hill to the sand and near the entrance there were about 100 people dancing, swimming, playing volley ball and bowling

It was a big party. Then we drove down the beach a while and there was almost no one just a couple of fisher men and Girls Moon bathing.

The water was like linoleum (google it) Very clean and not a ripple. The sand was pristine and you can drive right up to the water. You can drive into the water if you are a Jiboni.
Now I have a very clean source of NSW that I can easily get all year and I am thrilled beyond belief. Well,,, Not that much, but I am happy. I am normally happy but now I am happier.

If my wife was healthy I would be the happiest man on Earth.

 

[Paul B]

I think my diatoms are pretty much gone. Must have gotten bored. I am starting to get a nice growth of algae on the back glass which I think is pretty essential so things can start growing and grazing there. Now I can start to add smaller fish that can hunt there. My mandarin seems pretty fat and I may have to introduce him to Jenny Craig even though I have not added baby brine shrimp in 5 weeks. He must be living on those white worms I throw in there every other day when I think about it.
I want to get more corals and fish as my tank seems a little sparce. I still have a lot of rock and gravel soaking in bleach but that container is covered in construction debris and saw dust so It may be a while before I get to it.

I have been building closets and putting in the floor in my work room/Man cave. I still need to sheetrock around the tank, water heater and furnace. The temperature in that room is all over the place in that room so the fish are just going to have to deal with it. I am going to put in a huge exhause fan which I ordered yesterday. This fan is so powerful it is supposed to pull out your ear wax from 20' away.

 

[Paul B]

I am not sure which thread I am supposed to put this on, so I put it on both of them.

I really need to add my skimmer because I have foam that looks like hot chocolate that was made with bad milk forming on the surface of my water. Being that there is no top on the tank and it is in my workshop where the door is open all day to the outside the tank is also collecting a bunch of beatles that are up side down on the surface. One of them looks like Ringo.
I am also getting some lightning bugs in there but I feel that is a good thing because they are supplementing my lighting. I am not exactly sure of the spectrum though and they may grow cyano.

I need an archer fish in there to eat them because they don't sink and are starting to form an Island.

 

[Reef lover24]

any picture updates of the tank paul?

 

[Paul B]

Nothing with any real lighting on it.

 

[Noel8777]

You should right a book

 

[Paul B]

You should right a book

You mean, Another one! :scratch:

 

[Paul B]

I plugged in the fan while I was holding it. The very first thing that happened, was that it tripped the breaker.
That was one of the builders 15 amp GFCI breakers which is a silly, Sissy thing to have on a garage circuit.
So I then held the fan and plugged it into one of the Real Man 20 amp Non GFCI circuits that I installed and the fan started to spin. Then spin faster, then faster, then it was going like an SST and I was almost pushed backward into my collection of Milly Vanilli tapes.

The thing acted like a gyroscope and I could hardly hold it. I can't wait to install this thing but I am worried it will pull the hermit crabs out of my tank.

 

[Euroreefer]

:biggrin::biggrin:

 

[Reef lover24]

Nothing with any real lighting on it.

You got a lot of space to fill in that baby!! Itll all come together, always enjoy your threads

 

[Paul B]

Thank you. Only yesterday I cleaned up about 25lbs of extra rock that I didn't add yet because it was full of hydrogen sulfide from being in a bucket with gravel for over a month. I bleached it along with the gravel and will add it if I ever get the time. I also hope to build more rock. I am going to my LFS today to get more fish and corals. This tank is 6" higher than my old tank which is why the rock and corals are so sparse. I did add the gravel and now my mandarin is having a hard time finding lunch and I don't have my brine shrimp hatchery running yet.

Also most of my very large blue sponge disappeared as I think it was living on nitrates. Now with almost all NSW I don't think there are any nitrates so it is starving. That sponge took up about a quarter of the tank.

I ran the diatom filter until it stopped last night and now it is crystal clear again. Adding all that gravel stirred it all up.