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.
So does the new tank go in a different place than the old tank? If they go in the same place, how are you going to move the old one out and the new one in? It sounded like moving the tank alone was a huge multi-person job, and moving the tank with rock & water would be even harder.
We’re draining the old tank down to half: it’s on teflon glides. We’ll scoot it sideways, destined ultimately for the far corner: it’ll go as salt water until the fish are secure in their new home.
We won’t add all the water to the new tank until it’s in place. We won’t likely even add the sand, which goes in before most of the water. Once it’s piped in and secure in place, we’ll connect the sump, which has 30 gallons of water, weed, rock, sand, and a lot of micro organisms, and pour more water in as we pump it up to the new tank. The old tank will sit with many corals and water and sand and rock, and the new tank will have mostly (but not all) new water and sand and rock, and a good portion of the corals, as we get it to go into fully ‘live’ mode. It might take 5 days of this, before it’s safe to start moving fish over.
The tanks being on teflon glides on the carpet makes it possible to move them about—dance of the elephants they may be, but at least they have roller skates.
Step a: all pipe and hose is connected at the new tank but not to the live pumps.
step a-1: install cutoff valves on all lines.
Step b: drain half the live 50 tank into a 30 gallon tub and put the coral in there.
step c: pick up the live rock I can get without disturbing the sandbed, and place it as the bottom layer in the new tank.
step d: add water to the new tank to cover the live rock.
step e: put many corals back into the old tank, but save some to go into the new tank.
step f: put all the rock into the new tank.
step g: disconnect the old tank from the live pump and sump, and start a pot-filter pump in there, which does not depend on much water. Move the old tank out of the corner.
step f: move the new tank into the corner. Connect the hoses and pipes to the new tank. From downstairs, keep pumping water up and adding it to the new tank, turning the pump off periodically to let you catch up.
step g: install some coral in the new tank. Heater in the sump will be bringing it up to norm. Coral’s bony skeleton will hold heat while this goes on.
step h: return the coral water to the old tank to fill it up and make the fish happy.
step i: tomorrow: catch the wascally wabbitfish and take him to the fish store, where he will find a nice new home.
step k: wash the new sand and keep adding it through an auto oil funnel and a piece of 3″ pipe. Fish will later distribute the piles.
step j: have a nervous breakdown.
That’s almost as bad as remodeling the whole house! I’m not surprised by that last step! I hope you have a massage scheduled!
step l: remember where we put the rest of the vodka?
I thought the wabbitfish was already gone, because he didn’t play well with the rest of your tank?
Lol—we shouldn’t drink on this diet. But it’s tempting. Our pump didn’t come in so everything’s stalled again: we can’t disconnect the old tank until we have that pump to keep the fish ok.
The wabbit’s still with us: because he’s venomous, I’d really like to bag him and get him out of there, but catching him isn’t easy: he literally goes camo and tries to look like a rock, and if you put your hand wrong you can be in a world of hurt. They have a venom about like a fiddleback, but quite a lot of it, and I don’t want my hand puffed up and turning black.
We didn’t get our whole list done. We have the base rock, have the digital thermometer working again, have the water ready, have the first bag of sand washed and in, and the base rocks in place under it. They’re very stable, and they’ll hold our upper rocks stable. We have all the plumbing done. We’re ready to make the switch when we get that pump.
But the tank is holding water, and we have about an inch or so of sand in it the bottom. Washing the sand is quite a job. Takes about 300 gallons of water to make 13 pounds of aragonite sand reasonably clean of dust. It starts out looking like milk when you first wash it.
Not unlike traditional washing rice before you stick it in the cooker!
Entirely and utterly off topic:
I went to the doctor today because of a swollen head. Not that one, I’m a girl-thing!
She didn’t know what was wrong either, which doesn’t help with my swelled head; the meds she gave me seem to be working, though, which does. >snicker< It's funny, now that I feel better…
Random thought. Washing the sand made me think of it. For those who no longer have freshwater fish, but still have the gravel, it can be used to grow paperwhites in the spring. Use a shallow dish with the gravel to hold the bulbs upright.
I have some aquarium gravel, and also some non-scoopable kitty litter. At some point this week I have to set up starter flats for some succulent and cactus seeds I got, and the fine gravel and grit will be good for that. I’m hoping to get enough lithops to cover a nekkid part of my front yard. I’ve given up on growing anything that requires more than a few inches of water over the year; we really do have desert conditions here most of the time. At least the dragon fruit cactus has taken off and is happy.
Chondrite, if you’re using an American non-scoopable kitty litter, do a soak test first because a lot of it is clay and does dissolve into plant-choking mush. There are some British versions of kitty litter that work, but I don’t know of any US brands of kitty litter that work. I ran into that little fact on bonsai groups. There are several brands of oil absorbent out there made of diatomacious earth (read the package!) and I use one of those with no problems whatsoever.
@mmberry: Are there different kinds of paperwhites with different smells where you live?The Paperwhite daffodils I bought in Holland smell of scorching bakelite, I noticed the one and only time I tried growing them indoors… unless you mean to grow them outdoors, I’d think almost any other kind of bulb or plant would be better than having the whole room smell like that!
I use a lot of the FW substrates that fail for me (mostly due to aquatic plant issues) in tank trials in my bulb pans. I like to put ~1″ layer of gravel/grit under tulip and daffodil bulbs to help mitigate fatal fungal infections which are more likely in a potted situation. I have several inches of enriched soil under the gravel and more around the bulb itself. Since I have 7 steps in front of the house, I like to put bright pots of bulbs on each side in the spring. Right now I have Tulip ‘Daydream’ in full bloom interspersed with grey-green glazed ceramic pots of lavender (not blooming yet). I’ve used up quite a bit of an icky substrate (Eco-Complete) in my Pleione orchid (a semi-terrestrial cool-growing orchid) pots to enhance drainage. Another reason to do FW instead of marine with all it’s lethal-to-most-plants features (wink wink).
Have you thought of the downhilling method? Basically you build a structure that looks like a fish ladder, cover it in plastic, put sand in each compartment. When the one at the top runs clear into the next one, you take the clean sand out of the top, move the other sand all up a level, and put new, dirty sand into your bottom compartment, until you run out of sand. I don’t know what water bills are like where you are, but this might be useful to some folks.
I’d be trying to set it up so the runoff goes into the garden.
@Hanneke, I honestly don’t remember what they smelled like. I haven’t grown paperwhites in years. They were on top of a file cabinet in a sunny window. I just remember trying to wash all of the roots out of the gravel because I didn’t pull them up when they finished blooming.
I’ve grown three or four varieties of paperwhite and there is a bit of a range of smell. That said, people do vary in their perception of scent.