DKoKoMAN’s 305g Basement Reef

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by Dash

Wow - she did good! Beautiful variety of form & colour.

Thanks! I am going to place all of them on ththe right side of my tank where I have a a shelf rock and make it in to a large Zoa combo rock.

[DKoKoMan]

Just a quick update...chaeto has been growing great leaving me trim once a week or once every 2 weeks. Here is a couple photos to show the massive trimming (usually half at a time).

[DKoKoMan]

A little coral spot feeding and my little helper letting me know I missed a spot

[Dash]

Ha, so nice that someone shares your interest. My cat completely ignores the tank. I’ve even held him up to it

[DKoKoMan]

Originally Posted by Dash

Ha, so nice that someone shares your interest. My cat completely ignores the tank. I’ve even held him up to it

Hahahahaha ya he is obsessed with the tank when I’m down there. My wife also put a cat tree near the tank so he can lay and watch the fish. He is well behaved and has never shown any interest in jumping on top.

[DKoKoMan]

Just a quick update... tanks looking great and everything is really starting to grow. Most my acros are growing new tips and some of the new pieces have encrusted the plug. The bad news my wife and I closed on a our dream acreage and will be moving by the end of the month.

Sadly I’m going to have to tear down this system, once again stress out all my fish and probably incur losses. The good thing is after this move the tank should be settled in for years to come and it will finally grow out. One day in stride, looking at a large move which I dedicated an entire day of the move to the 305g.

[Dash]

Wow, congrats! I love that word - acreage

Good luck on the move. Your fish are gonna be like, what?

[DKoKoMan]

ugh... poor fish and moving the tank. That being said it will just be left alone after that...or will it hahahahaha

[kien]

Good luck with the move!

[DKoKoMan]

Ok... I have been away from canreef more then I usally am. So I left off with letting everyone know I would be moving the 305g basement reef tank. I dreaded this decision however the wife and I were able to purchase our dream acreage. My wife is not into reef tanks like I am, although she has put in a great deal of effort.

The Good!
The tank move commenced... I have been in this position before so I was adequately prepared for what was need regarding supplies. The fish/inverts were removed and it went by fairly quickly. The tank was setup at our new house and all the fish survived.

The Bad!

So all said and done the transfer for livestock was not the worst. The fish were transferred in 5g pails and put in Rubbermaid’s at the new house. Now, the darn mp40 would not stay running for more than 5 mins for some reason. I tried moving it a bunch of times but it didn’t seem to work. So that was a real hiccup during the move but mainly everything survived. I lost 2 of my corals... my red dragon colony RTN’d and my Aussie green highlighter completely browned out /. STN’d.

The Ugly!

So naturally a big tank, so I took every precaution I could in prepping the tank for the move. My squad worked a night shift but everyone reluctantly to go for the next morning. I had a total of 8 people including myself to get the aquarium out of the basement. We managed to work against gravity and one step at a time navigated the stairs.

All was well until I hear ...*crack*...the external overflow box bottom crack near both drill holes . No choice but to carry on we struggle but get the tank out of the basement and in to the trailer. Of course at this time I have 2 people honking like crazy as my truck is jackknifed with the trailer on the driveway. Really people just go around sheesh.

Eventually get the tank to the new house and begin the trek to try to move it to the basement. At this time everyone is ****ed off, angry and upset that the tank had already cracked. My buddy and I carried down the metal stand which made it clear that this was a tight fit and the angle in which the tank would be required to travel would be tough for the weight. In fear that someone would get hurt, the wall would get destroyed or the hardwood stairs, it was decided that the tank was not going down.

I contemplated be upstairs office... this is a 2000 sq/ft. Bungalow, however the overflow was cracked and I worried about water leaking. Long story short, the tank ended up in the garage fully setup and operational. Now I’m lucky the garage in the new house is oversized and the tank fits great with the vehicles in. I’m contemplating removing a basement window to slide the tank through but the idea has been tabled at this time.

So the tank is setup in the garage and looks like a hurricane wiped out my reef. I went from 3/4 of a 5g pail leaking to 1/8 of a bucket. The salt managed to plug most of the rack as well i siliconed the cracked piece a bunch. I reached out to Dave_C (Concept) the day of and he quickly responsed on how to make it work for the time being. Awesome customer service even after the tank has been built. I will have to cut the bottom piece of the external overflow out and have it remade. I’m not great with silicone but I hope I’m able to remove and replace the bottom glass piece. I will end up having to order a couple new sch. 80 piping and elbows after bulkheads are replaced.

Couple photos of the damage...