My tank reboot thread

[Len]

Well, fish are in there (and all the old rocks are out). I'll do water changes when necessary. I don't plan on them being in there more then 10 days.

 

[Len]

I'd take a pic of the fish in the fish pen, but it looks like there's nothing in there. There's a dozen fish huddled under a small pile of rocks. They were freaked out yesterday, no doubt.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, to be fair to them, until recently, they were just a figment of your imagination.

 

[Len]

My imagined sand is out too. There were a lot of imagery worms too.

 

[Hyolee]

Lol.... Let me know if you are fragging your imaginary watermelon. I'll take a piece.

 

[Len]

The watermelon is doing ok in the temp tub. Elegance is holding on, and the micro is doing well. I'm more worried about my fish, but they seem ok. I'll probably have to do a big water change soon though (LR tub too).

The tank should be torn down completely by the weekend. Then I will have to go through the cleaning/sanitizing steps this weekend to next week, then start the fill next week. The new rocks should be cured by then.

 

[Posh]

My imagined sand is out too. There were a lot of imagery worms too.

Did you eat ALL the sand?

 

[Len]

Every last grain of it. Full of chalky calciumy goodness.

I ended up buying new pumps and plan to replumb the whole thing. Since I'm already going through the trouble, I might as well replace these parts. The only major mechanical equipment I'm keeping is my skimmer. I'm going to dunk my skimmer in a 5% bleach solution to clean it.

 

[JT]

Every last grain of it. Full of chalky calciumy goodness.

Are you a cucumber?

 

[Len]

No, but I have been called a turd on more than one occasion.

 

[Posh]

I've called you worse =)

 

[RichK]

Len, I hope all goes smooth in the reboot. Looking forward to updates and the finished product.

 

[Len]

Nothing goes smoothly with a project this size For example, my PVC cutter blade broke on me yesterday, and so now I'm a day behind schedule (well, really more like 5 days when you add things up). 8)

 

[Len]

Coralline scrapped, sump cleaned. The tank looks really good after all the elbow grease. Next batch of water is going in now (to test out the new plumbing and to run bleach). Getting there, but this is tiring

 

[Len]

2 gallons of bleach for now ... I'm scared of the stuff Everything is working well ... plumbing does not leak except if I close the ball valve on my return (high backpressure causes a little leakage in 3 spots). I might silicone it or leave it alone.

 

[Len]

Bleach is doing it's thing. The little coralline I didn't get is turning white, and I've got a small amount of detritus build up now (white of course) that is probably all the other stuff it's killed. This is only 2 gallons. I'm scared to add more, but I'll see tomorrow (last 10 minutes, I might add more).

 

[Anonymous]

Don't worry about the bleach. Just rinse it out good and let it dry. If it still smells like bleach after it dries (and it probably won't), just rinse it again.

Isn't it about time for another photographic shot of your imaginary reboot?


Louey

 

[Len]

I'm too tired to shoot photos, and there's nothing worth shooting anyhow But I'll do a new build thread once the whole thing is cleaned out. I'm almost there; I just added dechlorinator and am letting the system run a few hours. I'll drain, rinse once more, drain, then air dry. Then I get down to the fun stuff (which I'll shoot photos of in a new thread).

All in all, reboot is going well, but very tiring. Tank is looking like new again, including a sump and skimmer that's cleaner then I can ever remember.

 

[Len]

Sodium thiosulfate worked perfectly. Zero chlorine smell after I used about 4 cups of it. I've removed that water and have put in my final rinse fill. And bleach really killed everything ... tank looks brand new running this final fill water. I'll empty tomorrow and let air dry, then do the RO fill.

 

[Posh]

:roll: