Move/New Tank Setup

[scubasteve]

OK, as promised here is the start of the new tank seup thread. First I'll detail the move, then show you the new tank, and the stand my brother and I built for it. Overall the move went pretty smooth. I emptied the 50 gal into buckets and removed the coral, LR, and fish and put them into the buckets. The movers tilted the tank too much as it went up the stairs, so the sand bed shifted to one end of the tank :nervous: Here is the tank before i started draining it.

 

[scubasteve]

Here is the stand with the tank removed, and the buckets.

 

[scubasteve]

My frogspawn and scleronephthya in a bucket.

 

[scubasteve]

Mushrooms, ricordea, and xenia.

 

[scubasteve]

The buckets loaded up for transport.

 

[scubasteve]

The water was probably cooling off more than they liked, but I think the coral liked sitting in natural sunlight while i moved the old tank downstairs and started setting it up.

 

[scubasteve]

The frogspawn was opening up sitting out in the sun.

 

[scubasteve]

The xenia seemed to stretch out to the sun also.

 

[scubasteve]

I set a piece of LR on the bottom to pour the water onto, and strained the water thru a net to pick out any large particles and algae as i poured the water back in.

 

[scubasteve]

Old tank half filled.

 

[scubasteve]

I had to wait a while to actually add the LR with the corals, because the water was too hazy to see where i was placing them.

 

[scubasteve]

Here is the tank with with some coral in it now. I did add about 10 gallons of new water, and ran some carbon in the HOB filter for about an hour to try and clear the water up. I also put the foam filters in the canisters under my powerheads to filter the particles out of the water.

 

[scubasteve]

Finally reintroduced the fish to the tank. Between the stress of the move, and the rearragned rockwork, it took them almost 2 days to eat normally. The first day I couldn't get them to eat at all. The 2nd day they were still pretty timid, but were eating. On the 3rd day things were pretty much back to normal. I'm still arranging corals with the new rock setup, to find a spot where everyone seems happy.

 

[baddlord77]

Why did u stop there..... You were on the roll......looks good......:happy:

 

[scubasteve]

Later that night the tank had cleared up.

 

[scubasteve]

Closeup with the new rock formations. The setup is kind of ghetto right now. I only have 2 outlets in the basement, and I cant have my computer and fishtank on the same circuit, so i have an extension cord running from upstairs to power the computer, and i unplugged the sump pump to power the tank. Hopefully i can get the electrician out soon.

 

[scubasteve]

Here's your first peek at the new 300 gal tank (with the 50 gallon in the background)

 

[scubasteve]

The move was Thursday. Saturday my brother came up and on Sunday we started building the stand for the new tank. This thing could probably withstand a nuclear blast. We probably went overboard, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Here is the lumber before we started.

 

[scubasteve]

Here's my bro inspecting what will be one of the sides.

 

[scubasteve]

Here are the 2 sides in the basement. We used 4x4's for the legs and 2x6's for the crossbeams. We used 1/2" bolts to secure the 2x6's to the 4x4's.