Tank move

[IanJ]

So far my tank has been moved from one apartment to another in 97, from Spore to UK in 98, back to Spore in 2003 and last week from Bedok to Bukit Timah. Never again.

As usual I underestimated the number of bags needed to pack all the acro's, some were too big to get in bags, some were too firmly attached to rocks to do much about. It took 4 hours to empty the tank. A big thank you to Paul from SKBros for moving the tank, being 5ft x 2 1/4 x 2 and 19mm glass it took some moving.

The rush to re-start it and to minimise fish and coral loss, lead to the whoops, just drilled straight through the main water pipe when drilling through the wall to install the chiller. In this case my metal detector did not!

The tank was slowly filled, salt mixed and the rocks placed as best as possible into the mixture. Corals then placed as and where a place could be found - can always re-scape later. Chiller running, lights connected, Ca reactor running and skimmer foaming it was time to add the fish, they all survived the ordeal.

Now where did I put the bucket of clams? That’s when the fun started. The clams had now been out of the tank for some 12-14 hours. Carefully I placed the mixture of maxima's , squasmosa's and croceas on the bottom of the tank. On stepping back to admire the view, the clams started to spawn, not 1 or 2 but 8 of them, all the crocea's and maxima's. It was a mass orgy, never have I seen so much sperm released in one go. The tank turned to milk, the skimmer went into overload mode. For the next 3 hours I spend running from the skimmer to the sink, the foam would not break, it just pushed off the lid and overflowed in a continuous stream for 3 hours. It was sticky, smelly and covered everything, of course the clams continued the orgy like no tomorrow, 3 hours what stamina.

At midnight the skimmer was just about under control and I had to return to the old apartment for the night. The next morning the water was still cloudy and the fish and corals barely seen. By the end of the day, the water cleared, the fish survived another ordeal, the acros still alive and the clams obviously happy and smiling.

So, as I said, I wont do that again, just too much for 1 person to do in one day. Who knows how many baby clams may have resulted and been skimmed out?

Well, one week on the tank is starting to show positive signs,

now when is that next shipment of acros coming?

[lightningstrike]

Hi IanJ, juz glad that u hv restarted ur tank sucessfully. hope to see great pics soon.

[IanJ]

I will get some pics up when things have grown out a bit more. I could not move many of the corals that had grown large, so i took as many frags as possible. In the rush(and stress) to be honest a lot of frags could have been passed on to people, but with water gushing out of the broken water pipe etc etc, something had to give and i just did not have the time for people to come and collect.

[IanJ]

Some changes made in re-setting up the tank with the main aim to minimise and remove waste asap.

1) fully barebottom

2) Increased flow by addition of Ehiem 1060 at back bottom left side to create flow across base of the tank.

3) Change the skimmer feed from sump(post floss) to direct from tank(pre floss) with Ehiem 1262

4) switch MH bulbs from 3 x 250W 10,000K BLV to 2 Hamilton 14000K and 1 Phoenix 14000K

Will see these changes effect the sps growth and colour.

One interesting observation is that the Phoenix when used on the Aqualight unit, started quite a white blue with good intensity, when burned in it changed to a very blue colour with much reduced intensity. Switching the Phoenix to my UK purchased units gave a much brighter whiter/blue colouration.

I assume this is due to the type of ballast used since the Aqualight unit fires up without a sound and the UK units start with one hell of a bang from the control box.

Will see how the corals react over the next months.

[mohamed]

Bro,

You have quite a heavy duty tank. Since 97 till now! Wow....

Any idea what is the average life span for tanks?

[lightningstrike]

Bro,

You have quite a heavy duty tank. Since 97 till now! Wow....

Any idea what is the average life span for tanks?

dun play play........ Aquatechnic tank.

[IanJ]

I dont know the average life span of a tank. Mine was made by Aquatechnic, expensive, but quality/life shows. Its now 10 years old and the tank looks fine.

[roidan]

bro....nice leh....

[IanJ]

Roidan

Where did the pic come from? Who took? cant remember.

Its looks only the day after putting throwing everything in and still cloudy from the randy clams

Looking a lot different and better today

[roidan]

i saw keywords like:

"move from bedok to bukit timah" and "19mm" and more imptly the aquamedic skimmer beside it....i know it was yours liao..

taken by your tank movers

but nice tank anyway, braceless somemore

[IanJ]

Ok, got it now.

I moved the tank on the Fridayand put everything into the milky water.

The next day we moved the furniture in, the tank movers also did this for us. Thats when they took the pic.

24 hours after the spawning it was just starting to clear.

Had a bit more time to organise the rock/corals now.

[roidan]

no wonder you did not choose to build a new tank at the new place and then slowly move the stuff over.....because this tank is really swee and rock sturdy ...19mm...no joke...

but optically does it warp the vision especially when viewing the tank at angles? coz i am thinking of 15mm or 19mm for my next tank...would like to seek your opinion since u are using 19mm...

[IanJ]

Roidan

As far as i know Aquatechnic are only using a high quality float glass, maybe from Japan.

I dont notice any distortion when i view at an angle. I cant say i have seen any optical differences to other tanks.

I think they can use a thinner glass for tanks of 3-4ft but for 5ft and above, for open top tanks they use 19mm

[roidan]

thanks ianJ...

i kinda worried about the 19's possible distortion but i know it will last hell long and looks neat with minimal bracing...whereas 15's will mean essential bracing....but may not be a problem as i will use a hood to hide the bracing anyway...hehe

[yus75]

bro is there any mini ANN cycle happen.....so i guess most of the water were freshly made after the tank transfer....

mayb i shld try like urs too.....but dunno whether got space to temp all the fish corals n LR.....me now stil cycling my temp tank at my home

[IanJ]

Mini AAN cycle - no idea

Made up fresh salt water in the tank, added the rocks whilst it was filling up and salt still dissolving.

The corals and about an hour after, the fish were then added.

Rock out of water about 8 hours. LPS moved in box dry covered with damp newspaper and out of water about 9 hours, sps placed in plastic bags with tank water about 9 hours. Fish in a bucket with air pump about 10 hours.

No acclimatisation, not ideal, i knowl, but due to limited time thats how it was done.

I believe the big skimmer is responsible for the early stability.

Sometimes i am amazed at just how robust our corals and berlin filter systems are.

losses - 2 sps small aquacultured colonies