Wave Without A Shore

The chemistry is holding firm, the other live rock, from the breakdown of a tank in the midwest, arrived today, and we made the decision, once we had the rock arranged to our satisfaction, to put the rest of the corals over, and the four fish we have.

The last in was the yellow watchman male, who was just more elusive than the others, and some crud got kicked up in the old tank: when we finally did get him, he’d inhaled entirely too much crud, and the poor fellow fainted, quite unresponsive when we put him in—we’d been talking about a celebratory dinner, but we stayed and ate a frozen one, because we were worried about him: he was mostly unresponsive and breathing like a bellows. Eventually he began to cough (yes, fish can, a sort of a wheeze that blows the gills clear) and twitch his fins, and then began really to come to, about the time his mate discovered him, and he waked up and did a little ‘hi there’ dance with her: they dived deep within the rocks, and hopefully he didn’t take any serious damage now that he’s cleared his system of the nastiness…the old tank had just had too much disturbance of the sandbed, which in a marine tank you don’t disturb. Usually that crud gets processed, instead of being kicked up like that.

The other fish, after initial confusion, are dashing about in all this doubled space and new currents, just enjoying it.

We’re settling the disturbed old tank down again just as a backup in case the chemistry of this tank goes south, but it’s very unlikely it will. The sump sandbed’s been feeding this tank for a week, and if anything were out of kilter, the microlife wouldn’t be multiplying and filling this tank—I saw a mysis shrimp dart for cover in the new tank: they breed in the sump.

The conch and crabs and shrimp are all doing their thing…and I’m pretty confident this tank is now rolling. The four fish we have, each one about 2″ long, and skinny, are not going to stress the sandbed, and we’re not going to be feeding big dinners for a while yet—let the fishes forage for starters.

Time to clear a storage filebox for 2012 records…the victim was 2003, long overdue for sunsetting, and it’s always a memory trip when I do that. We were living over on Coeur d’Alene St, we had certain places we went, things we did…trips we took, that show up in the records. There were the epic screwups, the companies that would not believe we did not want to do business with them, the letters, the usual 941 confusion (it took us years to figure out when those reports were due) — and the whole business of a year now lying in little bitty confetti, with all its trials and tribulations: we collect the good bits and take them with us.

Jane went out weeding the back paths while I attacked the office organization prior to corporate taxes, our separate little re-April-15th because we’re on a fiscal year. At least it separates the personal chaos from the corporate chaos. We’re pretty well organized. Just not totally.

And the shredding, of course the shredding. We have a big crosscut shredder, not one of the little wastebasket toppers, and I still kept overheating it.

We went to the gym—had to activate credit cards that had expired over there; and did a bit of a workout; and we’re resolved, as the aquarium mess sorts out, to start throwing things out. I’m taking garbage bags to the basement, and if I don’t see a use for it, out it goes.

Naturally we heralded this resolve by flooding the basement floor—I was tired, I was distracted; I turned on the ro/di water filter for the 32 gallon tub, and didn’t set the kitchen timer when I came up. Result? 32 gallons of water that went onto the floor, and over to the finished side of the basement. So…lots of towels, the dehumidfier turned on, mopping, laundering, drying…

I swear, I double-dog swear I am going on a stuff-removal campaign. We have too much stuff. I am going to start at one end of the basement and go to the other, disposing of things.

It’s beauteous. I’m very anxious to get fish and corals into it, but the water’s warming up to liveability. Chemistry for these tropic creatures doesn’t work at life friendly rates until you reach 62 and it started at 58. So We’re trusting the lights to warm it—which it can do. The next question is how to cool it down and get the ‘heat budget’ balanced…

Sort of like making a planet behave…planets figure things in terms of albedo, ie, how much solar input does it reflect back into space— and internal heat from the core; and how much solar input it gets.

For a tank—it’s how much does the heater input, how much do the lights input, how much do the submerged pumps input, how much escapes via evaporation, how much radiates from the glass, the rates while the lights are turned on—and the rates during the dark cycle—not mentioning that we have 2 light cycles. And if you think I’m getting pad and par meter and thermometer and figuring all this out in numbers, nope, nope, nope. I’m doing it by setting up what has to run, and figuring out what has to increase (heater) and decrease (fans) for this to stay within a 1-2 degree swing day to night. Rock and sand are a heat sink: they hold the prior condition, and the more of that there is, the more resistant the system is to change; water holds the prior condition too, but not quite as efficiently, and not while it’s falling in air with wind blowing on it.

And my friend in the East is sending me an 18″x18″ box of rock. So there will be more rock coming next Wednesday.

As a footnote, we did break our diet and celebrate with a bottle of Champagne. Jane had weird dreams that didn’t make sleep easy, and, me, I just got a headache. But neither of us woke up 3 pounds heavier, so we’re happy.

The fish store will be open, and I hope to all getout they have the pump we want. We’re going to be building some rockwork, washing sand, installing sand, and adding some water.

This requires removing corals from the 54g, putting them in a tub with excess water from the 54g, warming water—we’ll be microwaving water and pouring it into the tubs—and arranging base rock to support the tank’s prettier rock above the sand level.

We’ll wash the bagged sand completely before beginning to put it in. We have the bottom lined with eggcrate lighting grid so it protects the bottom glass.

We’ll be establishing a pump and pot filter that circulates water in the 54. If I were really brave, I’d connect the main pump to the 105g, put a hose over to the 54g, and leave the drain hose connected to it, which would, theoretically, balance out and not flood the living room.

But I’m not crazy, and I’m not relying on a siphon to do anything involving fish tanks.

Fish, which are more fragile than my corals, are going to stay in their tank until I know the 105 has had its adjustment snit (aka ‘cycled’) and the coral acts happy.

We’re going to get our workout today.

…at the factory. But we think we’ve got it handled.

The new Easy Blade scraper works really well, which will enable us to clean all the front glass, beyond arm’s reach, even with coralline.

And, after 2, count ‘em, two trips to Lowe’s in a 40 mph gale, I got all the pieces I need except the 2 valves. We have the tank plumbed, ready to connect to the sump. We have determined we didn’t get enough rock for the rockwork we want.

We have some planning on the rockwork, we have the eggcrate liner laid down, we’ve got everything ready to plug in except we need the bottom ‘junk’ rock to lay down as a base for the prettier rockwork, and we need to start unbuilding the main tank WITHOUT stirring its sandbed, which is incredibly bad juju in a marine tank. That’s where, once we start to move, we need to have our wits about us and hours when shops are open to work in. So since the fish store doesn’t open until Wednesday, we’d be crazy to start this going— without recourse to them for additional rock, to take the fish I want to get rid of, to take the coral I want to trade in, and to be open and able to provide things I forgot to get.

So tomorrow may be a day off from this, except for connecting up the new drain line and pulling some of the old hose up to give us more maneuverability with the elephant-dance above. We’ll later cut it off, when the ability to go out from the wall is less important.