Moving My 47 year old reef tank

[paul b]

Anyway, getting back to my tank move, the thing is moved and it is doing great.  Most of the algae is gone with no help from me and there is nothing growing in my algae scrubber (because it is dying)  Some day, if I get time I will drive on the beach and collect 30 gallons of water in case I want to change water.
Today we have to go to some Doctors in the old neighborhood so I will be able to get to my LFS for some corals and fish.  I keep mostly small, nerdy, interesting, girly, man/sissy fish so I can fit a lot of them in there.  I may also pick up some food while I am there but my white worm culture is still going strong and I think it may be five years old.  It's hard to get black worms here but my fish are an equal opportunity eater and will eat any worm.  I just want them for the bacteria.  I also have not collected much in the way of amphipods this year as we have been busy and the 9 times we went out on the boat it seemed to be high tide and amphipods don't sun bathe at high tide.
All the corals are fully extended and the sponges bounced back and grew quite a but since the move 3 months ago. 
The algae cycle lasted about three months which is about normal.  As long as you don't mess with the tank, don't add things or do anything silly like change water, the algae will get bored and leave.  No need to add sea hares, snails, urchins, duck billed platypuses or manatees.
Last night my wife was running the dish washer and a plastic kind of large dishwasher safe spoon "jumped" out of the basket and melted around the heater coils.  Now the place is filled with acrid smoke and a stink.

[madweazl]

Ahh yes, the glorious smell of napal... er, plastic in the morning. We're quite adept at melting things in the dishwasher, and by we, I mean my wife! I haven't melted a single thing in there, perhaps due to only using the thing twice but those details aren't important.

 

Good to hear the tank is rebounding. I went through a bit trouble about a month ago but everything seems to have come around. It's about time to focus on the "fish room" and I remembered you had installed some sort of exhaust fan in the basement, do you have any more info on that? I'll likely need to do something similar as I plan on adding a 100-200 gallon sump along with some frag tanks in the basement fish room.

[paul b]

I did add a huge exhaust fan and I ducted it about 30' out side.  The fan draws almost 900 cfm of air out of my room but it is noisy if I run it full speed.  I added a speed controller.  I got the fan on Amazon

[paul b]

I took my own advice and did nothing to the tank until the algae disappeared. And it did. All the fish are doing the macarana and smiling. The new two bluestripe pipefish are still in there which I am surprised about because the Janss pipefish killed my last ones. He seems to have stopped chasing these but I still don't trust him.
I can't get live blackworms here real easy so I feed my live white worms which stay alive for 5 days in salt water. Maybe they hold their breath.
I found the 2 Gecko Gobies and see the cave they live in. Really beautiful fish but you never, like never see them.
I want a few more small very interesting, rare, odd fish. No angels or tangs because they are to boring and everyone has them.
I would also like more corals, especially gorgonians. If I get time I will collect some water down the block but I don't think I will change any yet, I may keep it until the winter. I am getting my knee replaced in December so I may change some water before that.

[paul b]

It's been about 4 months and it's time for an update.   I think this tank move was a success and it was the second tank move for this tank and it is the third glass it is in.  It started in 1971 in a 40 gallon tank, then in about 1979 I moved from our tiny apartment and  upgraded and moved everything into a 100 gallon tank .  Then 4 months ago I again moved and put it all in the 125 gallon tank as the old 100 gallon was to scratched and I couldn't get it out of the wall in the old house.  The gravel, water and everything else was always moved with me to the new location.  Some of the gravel has been in there since the 60s and probably there are things in there from the 50s.
Once in a while I will find a marble, a piece from a plastic soldier or Lionel train.

I didn't lose any livestock during the move although some of the corals got buried and lost some of their tips.  I also can't find one of my anemone crabs but he may be in there someplace.  I see two of them but I had more.

Since this tank is larger I needed to add more corals and a good friend of mine gave me a bunch of pulsing Zinia and other very cool stuff that has been thriving beyond my wildest dreams.  Well, not the wildest ones as they involve a flounder, bowling pin and a bottle of Rogaine.

My bluestripe pipefish, (which are new) are pregnant and probably gave birth last night.  My old pair which I had before the move had problems.  My Janss pipefish which is 3 times the size of the bluestripes bit the male bluestripe almost in half and he only lived a few weeks after that and the female died of old age as they only live a few years and she was well past her lifespan.  I have two teenager bluestripes now and so far the Janss leaves them alone.  
My male mandarin is a little overweight and I have not had time to hatch a single brine shrimp since I have been here.  I think he gets "Take Out" besides the white worms and other stuff he finds.  He is also kind of old.  I forget how old, but old.

The tank went through the normal algae cycle which ended and now some of it is growing again.  I don't think of this as a bad thing, just a normal, natural thing as I want a short growth of algae and sponges to cover the rocks as is happening.  The new algae is now growing only on the glass rocks and sides and not on the corals.  Healthy corals can convince algae to grow someplace else and most of it grows on my algae scrubber.

I haven't changed any water since I set up the tank but I will try to collect some soon, it is very windy today so I can't collect it unless I want to go swimming.  I put my boat on dry dock yesterday and this year I didn't hardly collect mud which I like to add but I can probably still get some of that from the shore here.  I also didn't hardly get any wild amphipods this year.  I am in a new location and can't find any yet.  But I will. 

I am volunteering at the Long Island Aquarium here and see if I can get any mud or amphipods there or at the back of the place which is where I keep my boat.
The tank is still very natural and extremely easy and cheap to maintain.  I throw in some calcium and alk occasionally and clean the glass, that's about all my maintenance.  I feed almost every day with some clam or LRS food and live white worms as I can't get blackworms here.
For the anthius, and pipefish I use Cyclopeze which they go nuts for and those fish are all fat and have beautiful colors and fins.

I still use my skimmer and now installed a much smaller ozonizer than I like, but I made a mistake when I bought it.  I thought it put out 200mg/hr but it only puts out 50.  It should be enough to at least discourage some growth of worms inside the skimmer because I built the thing and I can't really chop them out of there.
My above the tank algae scrubber grows algae almost an inch thick every two weeks which is perfect but I only have a trickle of water going into my reverse undergravel filter and I would like a little more flow.  I need to re think my plumbing to make that happen.

All the corals, including the SPS and sponges are growing very well and I doubt they could grow faster.  I do almost nothing to the tank because I am constantly building and re designing our new home although it is a brand new building.  I don't like they way people do things so I am changing almost everything around, including walls. 
In short, I am happy with everything

[Origami]

Here's one of your threads, Paul.

[paul b]

OMG, there it is!  I need you or someone else to find them.  I only found this because I saw it on my E Mail and hit it to come here. ?

[Origami]

This thread is actually searchable right now. I just typed in "moving" in the search box at the top right of the page and this thread came up as one of the options. 

The indexing is still running. I'm going to have to go out and get some more index cards soon.