47 year old tank

[paul b]

We still have a lot more to pack.  Remember I have more tools than many people and I had to take them all out of the boxes so they can be carried up the stairs as that is my basement.

I have plumbing tools, carpentry tools, mechanic tools and electricial tools.
That pile is not my power tools which are big and on stands like my Huge radial arm saw, drill press, belt sander and band saw. The biggest pile is in my garage. My workbench there is 1/4" steel, 8' long and must weigh 500 lbs. I put it there with a fork lift so I will let the moving company worry about that. 

Then I have hydrallic jacks, car lifts, winches and pulleys all over the place. It is going to be a little of a job getting all of this stuff there even though I gave away or threw away a bunch of stuff.

Edited June 7, 2018 by paul b

[paul b]

 I still have one computer working, but I will take it down very soon.  I can barely get to it because of all the boxes.  I am a little concerned about my fish because I removed the largest out of the 3 heaters to put in the new tank out east and the water cooled down quite a bit.  If I could get some firefish and flame scallops to throw in there to heat the water that would be great.
They did a lousy job of tapping my ceiling in my new house so I can't hang my lights there yet, but I have so many boxes to carry around that I won't have time anyway.
I rented a 16' truck yesterday and today and moved my tools and a lot of my fish stuff there yesterday.  I have my new tank in the truck and hopefully today I will get it out there with some help and carry it out of the truck and level it on the stand.  We are both Geezers so I am not sure we can get it off the truck.  I guess I could always break it in half.
Of course first I have to put the vinyl tile under the stand.  If that all goes well I will go to the beach and collect a lot of water now that I have this truck and dump it in the tank.  I will have to diatom filter that water because where I collect it my pump lays on the sand and the water is full of seaweed and parts of Manatees that the pump chops up into tiny pieces.  I hope I can get at least one of my diatom filters working.
If that all happens I will come back here this week and in one shot bring out the fish, coral, rocks and gravel and try to keep them heated in the vats while I take the gravel to a beach to clean. Of course that is going to be a horror and very heavy.  I also don't think I will have help with that but I may.
My good friend from my favorite LFS will help me with the fish at the new house but he is also a Geezer and between the two of us this will be a job.  If this was 20 years ago i would have thrown the tank on my back and walked into the ocean to fill it up, but age prevents you from doing certain things.

[paul b]

I put a toilet bowl in my new workshop today and it is the type they use in Europe where it flushes out the back. Anyway I have installed dozens of toilet bowls and they are a no brainer. I got this thing from Amazon and it came in a nice box. I am sure the box costs much more then the fixture.
There was no bowl there before so I cut the main and put in the plumbing which went smoothly. I actually like working as long as no one bothers me and I have good music. So I get the thing installed and try the first flush.

Water shoots all over the wall. It is coming from in between the bowl and the tank. I remove the bowl, take the tank off, check out the seal, which looks good, I put some silicone grease on it and put it back together a little tighter.
Try another flush, and water shoots all over the wall.

I take the tank off again, look at it, scratch my head, wipe off the silicone grease, put on more silicone grease, put the thing back together. Do a test flush.

Water shoots all over the wall. Now after all this time I get smarter and put my reading glasses on and lay down under the thing with a light to see exactly where this water is coming from. I didn't want to do this because once I get under there, I may not get up.

I patiently wait for the tank to fill. Get my light aimed at the seam between the tank and bowl. Do a test flush and see where the water is shooting out.
There is a tiny pin hole in the ceramic bowl. I have seen cracks but never a hole. When they made the thing there must have been a spaghetti worm or pod in the clay and it formed a hole. Great. Now what am I supposed to do, pack it up and send it back to Amazon?

I put some sealer on it which "fixed " it so it can be used but I am going to mail Amazon to ask them if they got this bowl from the Amazon.
I want a new one and I am not sending this one back. Good luck.

[madweazl]

Doh, that sucks, or, blows as the case may be. 

[paul b]

Last night I temporarily hooked up my RO/Di and made five gallons of water for top ups.  There is no auto shut on it yet but that will come later.  I am painting small parts of my wall to hang stuff on it like racks or ROs and it is a really stupid way to work.  I just can't get around in there yet to paint the entire thing or install the entire floor.
But I did find a new beach to collect water about a mile from my house.  I just need to get an off the road permit so I can get down to the water as you have to drive on the beach to get there.
I will make a picnic out of it by taking my wife, some friends and vino and we can relax while I collect water and watch the sunset.  Maybe I can finally get my tank filed up and add the rest of the rocks, gravel and hook up the UG filter.

It's going to be a really nice Man cave.
I also have to put in a huge exhaust fan because it is very damp there. Between the tank and the ocean 90 yards away, there isn't much I can do about that. There are also no windows in it but there could have been.  I think the architect was on LSD when he designed this place as my 5 year old Grand Daughter could have did it better.

[Origami]

Paul, quick question about that toilet bowl (driven by curiosity): With it flushing out the back, can you tie it directly into the soil stack through a cut-in sanitary tee? Nice option to have that doesn't require jackhammering out the basement floor. Any code issues with plumbing it?

[paul b]

Tom, thats what I did and didn't even know they made these.  But they are simple to install and no floor chopping.  Pretty strong flush also, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it.  I don't know about the code but they sell them in Lowes so I doubt there is an issue.   And why would you tell anyone?

 

I just checked my tank and the temp was about 70, the lights were also on for the last 2 or 3 nights and the water level is about 6" low.  The fish and corals don't seem to mind and it is not something I did on purpose.  I am just a little busy now with the move.

Many people have had solutions as to why my tank and a few others don't ever get parasites or anything else and a few things have been theorized.  UG filter that traps parasites, but my UG filter has not yet been connected here.  Ozone kills parasites.  Maybe it does, I don't know but I can't even find my ozonizer, much less connected it to anything.  My skimmer is in the far corner of the room with a few pieces missing so I didn't hook it up yet.
I have not diatom filtered this tank yet.  I tried but the diatom filter I found leaked like a sieve so that didn't work.  I just collected the water in the sea and let it settle.  Hopefully there are parasites in it to keep up their immunity.  I don't have blackworms or clams but I do still have live whiteworms and dirt.
I can't hatch brine shrimp and don't yet have the LRS food they are used to.  The new NSW they are in along with about 25 or 30 gallons of my old water probably has a nitrate reading of 30 or so.  The water they came from had a reading of 160.  I didn't check it but the NSW here has no nitrates.  Just old frankfurter water after it passes NYC.   I didn't hook up my RO/Di until yesterday so I have to use some tap water.

The fish are healthy because they are immune, not because of UG filters, Ozone, diatom filter, stable parameters or the best one, my fish are all easy and not susceptible to ich.

Fish are not delicate creatures that need to be coddled.  We make them that way by messing with them and their immune system.

[Origami]

Thanks, Paul. It's nice to have that as an option if I'm ever setting a new toilet somewhere.

 

The new tank is coming along nicely. I'll bet the fish are loving the extra space. Nice to have the sea this close to home now. Have you found any good spots nearby to collect your pods and such?

[madweazl]

I sure miss having the Scripp's  and Okinawa NSW available :( Was rough going from years of free, quality water, back to mixing up my own. 

Edited June 27, 2018 by madweazl

[paul b]

I have not searched out collecting places yet but my boat is right behind the Riverhead Aquarium in Peconic bay.  I am hoping to find places there 

[KyleGustafson22]

I sure miss having the Scripp's  and Okinawa NSW available :( Was rough going from years of free, quality water, back to mixing up my own. 

Man no joke, in Hawaii I could drive up to this great spigot that collected water from off the coast, put my buckets under and get all the ocean water I wanted. Mixing salt is pretty much my least favorite thing to do!

[paul b]

The trip to our Daughters was uneventful for the most part.  Except that I really hate Manhattan.  I was born in New York city (brooklyn) and worked in Manhattan all my life but after I retired I figured I would never even have to see it on TV any more.  Then our Daughter married a guy who grew up in the West Village so I have to go and see our grand kids.  But I would rather jump off  a huge pile of quarantine tanks full of ich infected fish into a very shallow  lagoon in the center of an Atoll with 3" deep water filled with long spined urchins dancing on a plateau of fire coral while wearing nothing but my "Best Grand Pa" shirt  while sipping a slurpy.  Some day I will mention how I really feel about Manhattan.

We slept there and I had the horrors all night in between the tractor trailer horns, sirens, gun shots and filming CSI.  They have a leak in their ceiling and I discovered it is the air conditioner on the roof.  The condensate line was clogged and went through the ducts all through the house.  (or apartment that they own on the 16th floor)  He is looking at many thousands of dollars in repairs to the finished walls..

Anyway, I made coffee this morning there and he likes strong coffee so he only has Boustella coffee which is like tar.  I made a pot and had to scrape it out of the pot with a spoon.  It not only looked and tasted like tar, but it also smoked like hot tar.  They were repaving the street downstairs so I couldn't tell if it was the coffee or the road.  It didn't seem to matter.
We couldn't drink it or eat it with a fork so I scraped it into the garbage shoot and went out to buy some coffee and breakfast.

They live in the West Village (NYC) and nothing is a real bargain there.  The coffee shop is next to their building and I ordered a paper cup of oatmeal and my wife wanted something healthy so they gave me a piece of toast with a little avocado and "grass" on top.  That came to $21.00.   Where I live now is mainly sod farms so the next time we go, I will bring my own grass.

They are very ecology minded there so they have a bunch of garbage "slots".  One is for cans, one for bottles, one for cardboard, one for paper, but specifically marked,  "not napkins", one is for napkins, one is for food.  There is also one for garbage but there isn't much left to put there.
You spend so much time sorting out recyclables that your coffee gets cold and your oatmeal clumps up by the time you leave.  There is a longer line at the garbage than the food line.

Well it is time to go home so we call an UBER and go to 44th street and Lexington Ave.
WE board the Hampton Jitney which is a big beautiful bus that gets us all the way home, 100 miles in an hour and a half .

As soon as we get out of Manhattan and through the Midtown Tunnel.  The thing gets stuck.  We pull over to the shoulder of the road and the driver gets out and I can hear him talking on the radio.  All I heard was "Overheating".  I thought we were going to have to get out and push or empty all our little bottles of water they gave us into the radiator but something happened and the thing got going again. 

Now we are home and all is well.

[YHSublime]

I just finished up a month and a half of living in the Hyatt in LIC, but working in Brooklyn. We share the same sentiments. Nothing is a bargain there, and it's the only place people can get away with something being super unusual by saying "Well, that's because it's NYC."

[paul b]

Yes it is. But to me, it is all a dump. 

[paul b]

Sometimes your day goes well, and sometimes you get a Boo Boo!

[madweazl]

Marine Corps told us pain was just weakness leaving the body; I must be pretty strong now. My VA rating suggests otherwise... 

[paul b]

My VA rating says I have PTSD, so I must be a Sissy, Girly Man 

[paul b]

Two weeks ago my lawyer who worked on my move sent me a check for the remainder of the escrow from my old house and after a few days we didn't get it. He sent it through FEDEX. So he stopped the check.

Then he sent us another one through FEDEX and we never got it. But we did get an E Mail from FEDEX telling us they can't find our street.

Now the FEDEX facility is almost walking distance from here so I went there to see what the problem is.
I go in and they have posters all over the place showing the FEDEX truck in Istabmbul, The North Pole, Tibet, Tim Buc Too, Coozs Bay Oregon, Tattooee where Yoda lives etc. So I said to the girl there, who looked like she just got up because it was Sunday Morning, "Where is my letter?

She said I need a tracking number. I don't have a tracking number but I live right near here and I got a note saying you can't find my street and If you stand on the roof of this building, you can see my house.

"The driver said he can't find your street". Maybe he needs glasses.

So I said, "If I was on top of a mountain in Tibet, 150 yards north of a Sherpa who lives with a Yeti with the heartbreak of Psorisis I could get a letter but if I live down the block, I can't"

Send the letter to that Yeti, and I will pick it up from him!

[BowieReefer84]

Give them my address. I'll make sure you get it... 

[KyleGustafson22]

Wow thats nuts! 

[paul b]

My tank is running well and looks like I never moved it except some of the gorgonians don't look happy.  They are healthy but grew for years in a certain way and when you move them, they hate you because they were growing in a place with the right amount of light and current and now have to grow in a different direction.  That is fine because they have to live with me, I don't have to live with them.
My porcelain crab is still in there happily filtering the water and all the fish are very happy looking.  The copperband can't stop smiling.
There are no LFSs around here and I am used to having them all around me so I have to drive 60 miles to get what I like.  I went there last Sunday but they didn't have anything I wanted.

I will have to do something soon because the tank is literally 6" from a huge duct which in the winter will be very hot and in the summer is very cold.
I need to get time to insulate it because the tank will be in a small room, or closet with that duct and the furnace/air conditioner.  I am not sure how the temperature  of that room will fluctuate but right now the tank goes from almost 90 degrees to 75.  I have not yet gotten the time to get the thing adjusted yet.  I know people worry if the temperature swings a tenth of a degree in a month but those people have Girly fish.  Healthy fish are not that delicate.
Right now I have not built the walls around the tank but I will start that soon.  I will make part of the insulation on the duct in a way that I can remove some of it because I may need that heat in there.  I am not sure how the temperature of that space will change in the winter as it is a new building and no one has lived in it through a winter yet.  It's a ground level room that is made of concrete with no windows.

Tonight I plan to drive on the beach and collect water with my newly designed water collection hose thing.  I have enough buckets and room in my Jeep to get about 35 gallons.  The beach is five minutes away so I can always get more but I don't have much more capacity to put it.  I just need to wait a couple of days until it heats up then dump it in.
I normally don't change water to often but the tank is in my workshop and it has been getting saw dust in it and there are quite a few dead Beatles, lightning bugs, flies etc floating in there.  There is also a film on the top of the water because I have not hooked up my skimmer, ozonizer or surface skimmer yet and not sure if I will get to it this year.  (I am also putting in an elevator, but I am not doing that myself) I have a few more closets to build and walls to re locate.  Our living room wall I will add a fireplace and make that a stone wall.  The master bedroom I am ordering barn wood to finish one wall and I am building a huge barn door in the middle of it, just for looks because it won't open into anything.  Our laundry room needs to be demolished because I don't like the way they designed it.  Remember this is a new house that was just finished a few weeks ago but I think the architect was on LSD when he designed some of it.    I hate wasted space.

The bed I built didn't fall apart yet. 

[paul b]

Last night I took my new Jeep Renegade on the beach to collect water.  The thing should have no trouble in sand because it says "Trail Rated" and has a setting for sand, mud, snow and rocks so I would assume it will travel on those substances.
So I put it in sand mode and we go on to the beach which is deep, loose sand.  I went about 100 yards and backed up to the water which was not easy because the Jeep wants to follow the ruts in the sand and it is almost impossible to deviate out of those ruts. 

It was low tide so the water was way down the dune.  The Jeep had no problems getting there.
We filled the back with 40 gallons of water and now it is a lot heavier.

I tried to get the thing off the beach and it just sunk.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, two inches back and three forward, again and again.  The people on the beach were all yelling advice to me like I didn't know what I was doing.  Of course they didn't know I had a snow plowing business with a Jeep for ten years. or that I had 400lbs of seawater in the back,   With my friend pushing, I finally got back to the sand ruts and out of there.

The next time I collect water there, I will only collect 20 gallons and only at high tide.

[elbowdeep88]

Does "sand mode" let any air out of the tires?

[paul b]

No, but I could. 

 

Nothing will work too well with all that weight in the back.

Edited August 2, 2018 by paul b

[madweazl]

Airing down makes all the difference in the world should you find yourself out there by yourself. Usually 12-15psi works great, you can go anywhere regardless of weight. Spent a lot of time in the Imperial Sand Dunes (Glamis) in CA and down on the beaches in Mexico with a diesel F250 pulling a 30' Weekend Warrior full of toys (GCWR around 29,000 pounds). Of course, there were times I tried it without airing down...