KrazyKuch's & Michika's 180Gal Tank Build

[michika]

So the move is about half done, and I am so thankful I will not be moving again. At most we will be moving across the room.

I left on Friday for a charity Roller Derby game in Red Deer and came back yesterday around noon. On Friday Kevin told me that my powderblue didn't make it. I am not going to try to keep this type of fish again unless it is coming from another established home.

Yesterday at noon we started dismantling the tank and transporting it from our condo to our new house. We put all the fish, clams, and corals into the sump, and they have spent the evening there. Today, around noonish, we'll be moving everyone back into the 180g. The logistics of this move were quite the pain. We transported water to the house and put it into garbage cans and the sump. I really hope this works.

The SPS will have been without MH or T5 lighting for about 24 hours, and I do expect some brownout. I'm just antsy to get everything back up and running. The gigas clam is still looking the same. I was really worried when I pulled it out of the 180g at the condo that it would smell like dying flesh. It didn't, and it still looks exactly the same.

The basement is a bit of a disaster. We just kept placing all the fish related equipment on the floor, and its overrun the room. I have some photos to share, but I need to find the proper cord for the camera first.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I hated moving my aquarium six feet to the left....I can't imagine how difficult it would be to move it to another completely separate location!

Good luck. Sorry about the PBT

[michika]

The basement reeks like tank unfortunately. I can't wait for the water to be flowing properly again. With the next big system we will definitely be venting the room separately. I hate the smell of tanks, but love how they look. I just don't think I can handle the smell from a big tank.

Tina looked good this morning, happy, if not a little cramped. The naso, vlamingi, and sailfin, all jumped into a different sump compartment together.

[Lance]

I hope the Powder Blue will be the only casualty. Good luck with the move.

[michika]

Today I really hate this hobby.

On Tuesdays I make a round trip to Edmonton. I left at 2:30pm and everything looked fine. The fish are still in a holding tank at this point. I arrived back at about 12:30am and went downstairs to check on the fish. The water was 65! Two of the heaters in that tank crapped out at the same time. A third heater was tossed in and as of this morning at 6am it was back up to 72.

I saw most of the fish this morning swimming around. I think the clams had a spawning event as well because the water is cloudy this morning. I am really hoping that is all it is. I was really wanting to stay home to deal with it, but my job is on the line, these are the last few days on my current project and they will decide if I go elsewhere, or stay in my current position.

I have come to the point where I almost want to toss in the towel. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping two heaters in the tank. I was always worried that one would be stuck on and it would bake my system. Clearly switching to two heaters is not the best of options either. Looks like I will be going to 3 heaters now.

[Parker]

Wow, now I know where my bad luck went. Sorry to have passed it on to you.

[Delphinus]

Yikes, that's horrendous. Good luck sorting it out. If you have a new heater in there, it may just be better to let it be and warm up slowly anyhow, I'm not sure what more you can do in the meantime. A quick temp swing back upwards may be just as bad overall as the temperature dip. If there is a silver lining, "too cold" usually is less deadly than "too hot."

Good luck. Man I feel so terrible for you..

[christyf5]

Wow thats brutal. I always thought the two heaters thing was bulletproof, I guess that theory is down the tubes.

I'm of a mind that 65 is better than 95, I'm sure everyone will come out of it okay

[michika]

Well at about 3:30 I should know how it all went down today. Kevin gets home 2 hours before I do, and he is going to start transfering everything back into the display, provided everything looks okay.

I'm looking at nice photos, ToTM, the Show Me Your _____ ones, and a few others to keep me positive.

You are right though, colder seems to be better then hotter. The only fish I didn't see this morning were the chromii, the purple tang and the scopas tang. I saw everyone else briefly. I am holding out a lot of hope for my clams and corals. Starting over last time was devistating enough, I'm not sure if I can deal with doing it again.

In the very least when everything goes back into the 180g there will be more water volume, and better flow. We ended up having to cut off the bulkheads from the overflow to get it down our stairs in the new house.

Any tank we build will definitely have to be build on site!

[michika]

Alright so everything is back in the 180g, there have been 3 casualties. They were the pocci colony, the neon green one ( ), and a frag from Snappy/Coral Master. All the fish made it, and I attribute it to the temp going down, not up.

The fish also seem to have lost some of their mass, so I am kind of pleased I overfeed, because everyone is looking quite a bit skinnier now.

There has been, what I can guess, is browning out of the SPS. It was expected, and I am now taking steps to slowly acclimate everything back to my usual lighting regimen.

Two clams don't look super fantastic, one being the gigas. The gigas however did not smell at all when I pulled it out of the holding tank. I am now in a better position to get better photos. The second clam that doesn't look so great is placed a bit funny. It used to be placed straight up, and now its at more of an angle. I will fix it tomorrow morning and see if that helps things out.

So overall it was very stressful, especially the part with the heaters. We figured out that one of the heaters just stopped working, failed in the off position. The second one failed with the light on, but the heating element not working at all.