Well, another era has come to an end. Andy and Tremayne came over to our house on Thursday and took home the majority of our live rock, corla and fish. John then came from Mississippi on Saturday morning and took some rock, corals, sand, water and a few fish I had saved out for him so he could get his tank up and going again. That left us with basically a tank full of stinky sand and a few pieces of coral skeleton and some live rock rubble.
And so it became apparent that it was time to again tear down a tank that we had worked diligently on for years. First it was the 500 and now a 250. We are coming home to Mobile and there is no room in our house for the 250..not on ground level anyway, so a smaller tank is in order. We don't feel comfortable putting 250 gallons of reef on the 2nd floor of our home. We are again wondering wether we want to try again (I vote yes so we most likely will ).
I thought you guys might like to see what we go through when we have to do this...now for the 2nd time.
Elizabeth
Attachments
takedown5-600.JPG (123.66 KiB) Viewed 3798 times
Last edited by lzb3 on Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
And another pic...its a big tank and it had about a 6-7 inch sand bed. The PVC rack is what held the rock in place. First we drained the saltwater and then refilled it with fresh water. The we drained the freshwater and started scooping sand into a barrel with cups. We actually stored quite a lot of sand this way for months last time we moved. We rinsed it with fresh water and put it directly into the tank with no negative consequences at all.
At this point in the process we are still scooping sand.
The canopy is on the floor. Once we get the tank cleaned and the coraline algae scraped off, I will have to figure out how to finish painting the wall behind the tank. After that is done, We will put the canopy back on...
Boy, that's tough emotionally. I vote yes on another tank too, even if you didn't ask. Just think of the fun in planning a new tank, even if it will be smaller.
I can offer a couple of suggestions on painting the wall, if you need opinions. That room must be huge!
And she's good on painting tips. The main reason that my stand came out as well as it did was because Sue stepped me through the entire process. It was a pain but I get compliments every time someone sees it. Thanks Sue! By the way, I also vote yes for a smaller tank.
As for the room..yea its big. It's actually the kitchen, dining room and living room all in one big space. It stretches the entire length of the house practically. It measures about 25 x 60 I guess. Maybe it's bigger. I had the entire interior and exterior of the house painted just prior to putting it up for sale but of course they couldn't paint behind the tank. I saved out a bit of paint and will finish the job when the tank comes down.
Right now we are cycling fresh water through the tank in order to kill off the rest of the coraline algae. It will be easier to scrape off that way. AND GET THIS...after searching for an hour, we still couldn't fing our shrimp gobi and his tiger shrimp anywhere. We thought they had dissapeared into the pvc rack and were gone forever or had gotten tied up in the rock and would reappear in Andy's, Tremayne's or John's tank one day. So, we filled the tank with fresh water and started scrubbing. About 2 hours later we see the shrimp gobi swimming around! We snatched him up and tossed him in a bucket of salt water we had sitting around. I am not sure if he will survive but we were shocked to see him still swimming after being in fresh water for all that time especially considering how high the nitrate level must have been since we had scooped almost all the sand out of the tank at that point. Absolutely amazing.
I will keep you updated on the processing of tearing dwon the tank. We have thought about converting it into an Amazon Basin tank....cichlids (again). And then I can still get my sea horse tank????
Now that would be a great idea, I just love to see big freshwater tanks. Roger Vitco (the Tunze guy from RC) has an outstanding 180Gal Planted tank, or used to. It would be an impressive Cichlid tank.
It's true I don't see a lot of large freshwater tanks. It would be quite impressive as a South American tank. I see even less super heavily planted tanks (where the fish actually disappear in the plants). Actually, I can only think of one. By the way Sue, how is your plant tank doing? Seen any fish lately?
I think if I had the room and the opportunity (and the money), I would set up a large african cichlid tank. I can't stand small african tanks--they just aren't impressive enough. Combine a large tank with lots of well aquascaped rock, etc., and a big african tank can be incredible. Amazon basin style would be cool, as well.
My tank is back to it's old self....the usual jungle. But I DO see the fish! A few spaced empty spots on the substrate and the Corydoras come out, the Cardinals are very comfortable so they stay out, and the Siamese Algae eaters are so big and fast you can't help but see them.
The tank is completely empty and scrubbed clean. It looks as if it were in a LFS ready to be sold. It's odd walking through the living room and not seeing water and fish and corals...very strange. We have a 20x40 storage building behind our new house so the monster tank will go there when we move in. If we find a place in the house for it to go, then we will set in up. If not, then we will likely sell it.
We have the sand in a 30 gallon barrel..it fills it almost to the top. We had no idea we had that much sand left. Like we did before we will save it and use it again. All we did before was clean it and put it back in the tank.
So it's over for now. We are officially reefless. Ho-hum....
Well, I ran an ad in the BR newspaper today and got a call about the tank first thing this morning. A very sweet girl came by this afternoon. She and her husband had a 90 gallon saltwater system that fell victim to Hurricane Katrina and they are ready to start again. She put a deposit on the tank and will be here on Saturday morning to pick up the tank. Hopefully they won't change their mind before then.
The gentleman from the moving company came yesterday and he said that if need be, he would build a crate for the tank and move it for us. He and I both hope that won't have to happen but it's good to know we have that option if it comes to that.
Please say a prayer and keep your fingers crossed that the tank goes to it's new home and we don't have to move it. It will be a huge burden lifted if we can sell it before we move. Thanks to everyone that has helped us get to this point by coming over and taking some of the livestock off our hands. We really appreciate your help. The moving company will start packing our stuff 2 weeks from tomorrow so we aren't too far away from being there. I can't wait to see everyone.
). 
Just think of the fun in planning a new tank, even if it will be smaller. 
