Hopefully Last Hit From 2020 - o2manyfish's 400g Reef has a seam starting to fail, swap into a 560g in less than a week

[o2manyfish]

2020 just keeps beatin up on me. My Gem and Purples were starting to get a lil too big and bossy. Two weekends ago I got the trap and caught the 3 purples and Gem from the 400g.

Then we added 2 sml Purples and 3 Small Gems. And later that night while watching my new fish I noticed the seam of the front panel of my tank starting to come apart.

Rushed to locate a tank big enough to hold everything and with the help of local reefers got a used 560g tank moved 600 miles and into my house in 4 days. Xmas Eve some very kind local reefers helped move the stand and tank out of the truck and into the house.

That was Thursday. Xmas Day was spent fixing a potential seam issue on the new tank, and then filling it up with salt water - Luckily my new RO/DI System filled the 560g tank in just 6 .5 hours!!! Dumped in buckets of Reef Crystals and a Vectra pump and started mixing. One of the down sides to creating almost 100 gallons of RO DI per hour is that the water is cold cold cold. With 2000w of heaters the tank wasn't able to start warming up till after we stopped pumping in sub 60 degree water. Friday I also put together the plumbing to connect the new tank to the old tanks plumbing.

Saturday morning temp and salinity were good. Connected the plumbing between the two tanks - opened the valve and started mixing 560g of new saltwater into my now 1800g SPS system. Saturday night with the help of my wife we pulled the big colonies out of the 400g and a few small pieces of rock. Some of the rocks were so embedded with corals that 2 or 3 large pieces of liverock had grown into 1 giant piece of liverock with corals. It was going to take 2 people to lift and move these now giant pieces. My poor wife was handed tray after tray of coral colonies and then had to go outside in the cold night air and try to remember which frag tank I told her to put them in.

Sunday with the help of Tim Kelly we moved the corals and live rock off the fiber grate structures to be able to move them to the 560g.

We rebuilt the main rock structure to adjust for the height of new tank. Then loaded the liverock onto the new structures. On Sunday I managed to catch about 6 feet from the rockless 400g.

Monday at 3am I came down in the dark and caught about 6 more fish. Then another dark fish nabbing at 4.45am got me 20 more fish.

The fish seem to be liking the more open space of the 560g. There are still another 60+ fish to try to get out of the 400g before draining it and getting it out of the house.

I've put up a ton of videos on youtube over the past weekend showing the different steps.

The amount of muck under the aquascaping after 16+ years is pretty amazing. Once the 400g and a couple hundred pounds of some non-Miracle mud are gone from the system I will get a Triton test from Unique Corals and see what happens to my perpetually high phosphates (over 1.6 for the past 6 years).

This afternoon I moved the Webcam to the opposite side of the room so you can get a view of the new tank.

New tank is 560g Acrylic - 120x30x36 -- I HATE 36" tall tanks.

Hopefully, with no more crisis we can move forward on building our 800g starfire tank and I can get rid this temporary 36" nightmare


Video from tonight with most of the corals and some of the fish --
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Video of the 16 year old Phosphate Factory
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Final Farewell Video of the 400g Tank
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[xxkenny90xx]

Wow, you've been busy!

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Oh man, that’s one heck of a roller coaster ride.
The amount of time and effort going in to transferring a established tank like that is something else. Luckily you didn’t have to move the old tank before setting up the new one at least.
The new tank already looks great, I like the open aqua scape and your flow should improve drastically

And crap, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need a goldflake angel. Seeing yours made that go out the window...

 

[o2manyfish]

Oh man, that’s one heck of a roller coaster ride.
The amount of time and effort going in to transferring a established tank like that is something else. Luckily you didn’t have to move the old tank before setting up the new one at least.
The new tank already looks great, I like the open aqua scape and your flow should improve drastically

And crap, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need a goldflake angel. Seeing yours made that go out the window...

You don't want one... You want 2!!!!

Once you get one you'll never want to be without one again - With 2 you always have a spare


Dave B

 

[Viking_Reefing]

You don't want one... You want 2!!

Oh you shut up...trying to lead me down dangerous paths haha

 

[o2manyfish]

Oh you shut up...trying to lead me down dangerous paths haha

4.5 Years ago I had a gorgeous pair of Goldflakes in the display tank. A supplier called me knowing how much I love Goldflakes that they had gotten a bunch of mis patterened Juvies. I told my wife I wanted to get a second pair of Goldflakes for the outdoor frag tank. My wife, who doesn't ever say no, said, "No! Most people dream of having a Goldflake, you have 2 already. Nobody needs more than 2 Goldflakes." And I heeded her instructions. Then she left for work the next morning... And being the fish addict that I am I shot down to the wholesaler and came home with a 2nd pair of Goldflakes. When my wife came home from work, I showed her what was in the frag tanks and she just laughed. That was in Sept. The following July we had the devestating power failure that wiped out so many fish in the display tank, including the Goldflakes. When I told my wife I was going to move the pair of Goldflakes from the Frag tank to the display tank, she told me, "No, I like the Goldflakes outside, you get another pair for in the house, and if you want you can get a 3rd pair for the other frag tank." I did end up moving the frag tank Goldflakes to the indoor tank when I finally located a replacement pair (only 1 extra). And it was that pair of Goldflakes that started spawning in 2018. Then a year ago we lost one of the spawning pairs inside. And I only had 1 left outside. And the outside one is now inside with the original spawner. But in the last year I haven't seen any Goldflakes available to keep in the frag tanks.

Dave B

 

[Viking_Reefing]

My wife, who doesn't ever say no, said, "No! Most people dream of having a Goldflake, you have 2 already. Nobody needs more than 2 Goldflakes."

That actually made me laugh loud enough to startle my baby daughter when she was sleeping

Fortunately I have a very tolerant wife as well, she actually recently bought me a navarchus for my birthday.
It’s mostly that I’ve already got two large angels and a grumpy Achilles so I’m scared that they’ll kill a expensive fish.

When are you planning to start up the 800g?