Tank turned 49 this year

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
That mermaid was cute, wasn't she.
Quarantine for observation is imperative......I would love to have a tank full of them, but my current red head would not find it suitable. She would kill other tank mates and me. The red headed variety seems to get more feisty with age.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I went to Home Depot for styrofoam to put under my new tank and came out with a gigantic tool box. My wife and Daughter got it for me for Father's day. It's about 5' long and 6' high so I will be able to put most of my tools in it so I don't have to have tool boxes all over the place. They had a few of them, different models and sizes and I wasen't even in the market for one. I got a Husky, they had another one I liked a little better but the Husky was made in American and the other one was from China so that was the end of that. The thing weighs over 300lbs so I will leave it in the boxes and let the moving company take it to the new house in a week or so.

I forgot the styrofoam.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
The time is getting close. I was putting together my Reverse UG filter tubes a little while today and will have to use my existing manifold for a while until I get time to build a new one. Way to much stuff to do before then. Today I also put together a system to pump water into the back of my car from the ocean. I got a bilge pump and took the brass ends off a 50' hose and still need to take apart an extension cord to run the thing from my car. I tested it today for about 10 minutes to make sure the cord doesn't get hot. It gets slightly warm but that is normal and most of it will be under water.
I can back my car up into my garage and pump the seawater into my tank.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
... I got a Husky, they had another one I liked a little better but the Husky was made in American and the other one was from China so that was the end of that. The thing weighs over 300lbs ...

That's the thing isn't it. You got all your tools in one place, but at 300 lbs plus the weight of all the tools, you can't exactly pick it up and carry it to the work. So you select the tools you think you need, and no matter what, you always need at least one more tool. (grin)
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
That's right. But I have a few portable tool boxes filled with tools if I need to travel to fix something like my boat or a friends something. :cool:
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
;
This water collection device is all finished. I just back my car up to the Ocean. Any ocean will do. Then I throw the pump in the sea and plug the power plug into my power outlet in the back of my car or use my portable battery jumper. The thing pumps 1,100 gph of seawater into the vats in the back of my car. Then I back the car up to my garage and throw the pump in the vats and pump the water into my tank or buckets. But when I initially fill the 125 gallon tank, I will pump it right into the tank.

 

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
;
This water collection device is all finished. I just back my car up to the Ocean. Any ocean will do. Then I throw the pump in the sea and plug the power plug into my power outlet in the back of my car or use my portable battery jumper. The thing pumps 1,100 gph of seawater into the vats in the back of my car. Then I back the car up to my garage and throw the pump in the vats and pump the water into my tank or buckets. But when I initially fill the 125 gallon tank, I will pump it right into the tank.

Nice!
 

oneofmany

New Member
So in essence your tank is just a tide pool? Do you think you could achieve the same results if you were land locked? Hmm.
 

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
Any ocean will do.
Do you worry about pollution at all? I ask because I have somewhat frequent visits to the eastern shore of the Delmarva penninsula and a few inlets and the atlantic. I love the 12v pump idea, and I could easily transport a month's worth of water changes quite easily on the way back from weekends at the family's beach house. Do you do any pre-filtering (something tells me you don't). Do you worry about wild critters getting loose in the tank?
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
So in essence your tank is just a tide pool? Do you think you could achieve the same results if you were land locked? Hmm.

I have no way of telling. But my tank now is probably 95% ASW as I don't collect water in the winter and have not collected it in almost a year.

Squatch, do I look worried. :D
Remember all your fish came from NSW, none of them came from fake water. i do not worry about pollution, if you collect in the ocean that is not a problem. No, I don't worry about creatures, if I find a manatee or flounder, I will remove it. I started this tank with real water and so far, no problems yet. I like to run a natural tank. I may diatom filter it because the pump is laying on the sand and will pick up sand and some seaweed that I don't want to see floating around, but if it is clear, I don't do anything to it except warm it up and maybe add some salt as it is a little weak around here. :cool:
 

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
Quite possibly the ONLY critter I try to catch. These things are the only reason I get into a boat.
Remember all your fish came from NSW
I would question where I would collect the water being free of trace petroleum products and/or sun screen. However, I am dealing with shallow channels and bays. Open ocean may be a different story entirely. I would love to set up a "Chesapeake bay" fish tank, but something tells me that too many laws would be broken to catch & keep such things.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Anybody want this? Free. Come and get it.


I was able to pick up the chess set on Thursday, and I got to meet Paul B. I think I have just the place for it too. I also got to see Paul's current reef system, and even though it's going to get torn down soon and the contents moved to a new home very soon it still looked really good.

Since I still had to drive the rest of the way home, we only got to meet for an hour or so. In a way this is good because I'm sure we could have talked about reef system well into the wee hours of the morning. In a way some of this is a bit scary. Both of us have been in the hobby more years than we care to think about, and we are among the older members here. That combined time in the hobby works out to something a bit more than a century.

Someday it would be great to get together again and compare notes.

My drive the rest of the way home way plagued with traffic. What should have been a 2 hour or so drive took me about 4 hours. While the NYC area is notorious for slow traffic, I had traffic problems most of the rest of the way home.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Even though you get to build a whole new system, tearing down a tank you have had running for years is always a bit sad. It's just about impossible to setup and run a reef system for any length of time with out pouring your heart and soul into the project.
 

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
tearing down a tank you have had running for years is always a bit sad.
I have a different word for it other then sad....Most are dirty Anglo-Saxon words. I have moved 3 times in the last few years at various stages of the reef, and each time was draining physically....even with a small tank like a 40g. But, you are correct about the heart/soul thing. What is worse is the emotional drain. I know the fears and terrors and also know that no matter how good a plan you make, god will be having a laugh at your expense....He had a few at me in each of my moves.

I will pray for everyone in this move, even the rocks. I wish I could offer my help, but something tells me you have this under control Paul! Thanks for continuing to be a great member of this community.
 

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I can barely walk through my house as we emptied out all the closets and drawers and it is all in boxes. I left out two spoons, two forks and two dishes so we can still eat. My garage hardly fits the car because I did the same thing, most of my tools are in boxes around the garage as well as the King Size bed that I built and is in 4 pieces. We still don't have the closing date on the new place but should be this week, we hope. As soon as we hear, I will rent a truck and after we close I will take a lot of stuff out there. I ordered a 125 gallon tank and I built the stand so i will pick up the tank on my way out there and put it on Styrofoam on the trip.

When I get there and unload the truck I need to put a vinyl tile floor in my workshop at least under where the tank is going. Then I will put the tank in place, level it and go to collect water about 2 miles away. I can collect it in back of my house but there are a lot of steps there so i will drive to a more convenient beach where I can back up to the water. I can only put maybe 30 gallons at a time in my car, then drive back to my house and pump it in the tank. I want to make 3 trips and put at least 90 gallons in there. The rest will be rocks and water from my existing tank.

It will take a few days to heat it because I think it is about 50 degrees now. After it heats, I will come back here and take my rocks, fish and corals and hopefully they will fit in my car for the one and a half hour trip out there where i will quickly aquascape and throw in the livestock. I expect to lose some or maybe all my corals because the nitrates in that NSW are zero and mine are 160. The shock may give them a coronary.

I will try to bring my existing water cooled LED lights out there but they are very delicate and don't travel well. If they don't work, I won't have time to fix them so I will just glue gun some flashlights to the hermit crabs and they will have to deal with it.

We are bringing my friend, my wife's cousin and our cleaning girl out there to help put away stuff. (we hired a cleaning girl because my wife has MS and can't crawl around or get on a ladder to clean like she likes to do)
Then I will install the lights I built for the new place.

We are both going to miss our old house as we raised our Daughter here and have lived here for 39 years.


I also built almost everything in the house including this boulder outside which is about 4' wide and hollow.




We will miss the sunsets over the Bronx from our boat.


And the boat trips around Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. We can't get there easily from our new marina.




I probably won't miss this as it is a condo and they do that for you.


But we went to our new marina Saturday and met some new friends. They have a band there and a nice outdoor restaurant and bar next to the bay and the indoor and outdoor pool.
They give you free Kayaks and canoes and have a few free bar be cues a year along with tables on the water. We will get used to it. And it's not to far for our lifelong friends to come and stay with us. Our closest friends live next door.

This is from our new house. The sun just set on Connecticut.

 
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