Here's my Big Office System

Baxreefs · Jun 11, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Thanks Wendy, the ribs are on the mend thoughstill not 100%. I can laugh now at least> Sneezing is still a real bad idea!

Been moving fish & critters all day and I have never faced such chilly conditions during a move. My holding tanks are all out in the shop and the water just chilled over night big time. I am sure to loose some things :-\.

I'll be acclimating all night now and trying to get the heaters balanced for the weather.

... I hate moving!!!!!

JerseyWendy · Jun 11, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Bax, I wish you the best of luck and all good karma for the move, so that hopefully nobody will be lost.

Gosh - you're looking at a loooooooooooong night, I bet. Take plenty of breaks, and don't wear yourself down.

Baxreefs · Jun 11, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

I am happy to report that I am finally stable, key word stable at 75 deg and rising.

Man! It's been a crap day! Cold! Wet! The shop doors have been up and down all day between jobs and the move.

I've been at 76-78 all week until today!

Thankfully every one even the calm & nem are looking a bit better since the temp got up a bit.

So far the only casualty (besides scads of caps

) is the fire shrimp. I saw him clinging to a rock I placed in one of the hold tanks, but he must have grabbed onto my hand and I found him on the floor next to the transport bins. He's been with me longer then any other individual shrimp. :-[

jimroth · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Man, Bax that sounds like a giant pain in the...

Of course the weather hasn't cooperated (would it be better if it was 98F?). Supposed to be in the 80s today.

Best of luck, I hope eveything gets settled in all right.

Baxreefs · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

In light of day, it doesn't look like it should have been such a huge PITA!

... But it was!

... But, it is done! Every thing is in temporary mode, but there's flow and warmth and all the critters are in there. The fish look good so far. The pseudochromis pair is very happy to be back together and they were courting this morning already.

The nem is looking a bit better now that the temp is 78-79 and there flow pointed at him.

The clam is a bit bleached, I have a few things to do today and then I'll get some lights on the tanks. Hopefully that will perk him up.

I was very fortunate in removing most of my large colonies with very little breakage. So there are far less frags then you may have hoped for!

Casualties of the move to date:

1)One set of lights (400w PFO ballast & pendants) accidentally thrown into the trash!

2) One fire shrimp RIP :-[

3) Still evaluating the bucket I found on a truck this morning that never got carried into the shop with several digital thermometers, two or three pH meters, a pH controller, an ORP meter, and about ... oh .... about 5 inches of water from all the rain! I am drying it out now and really hopefull I didn't just loose another 500-600 bucks worth of equipment!

4) And, the tip of my finger has an urchin spine embedded in it. Hurts like a @#%!

Other then that, it's been a great experience! ;D

JRWOHLER · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Take care of that Bax the infection can be a bugger. Make sure you swirl your wiskey with that finger or something. Glad to hear you got everything moved. Hope you took some pictures to document it all.

blange3 · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Baxreefs said:
Other then that, it's been a great experience! ;D

Other than thar Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? ;D

I would add moving a reef tank to a prominent spot on the mos stressful things you can do list. Hope it all works out for you Bax.

I had my own temperature issue. I brought a new fish home for the 180 and was wondering why she looked kind of sluggish the next day in QT. Turns out the heater was unplugged and the temp was 71. Hopefully things are better today.

Hang in there!

Baxreefs · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Thanks JR & Bill

JR I'll definitly remember to twirl my scotch & ice with that fingerfor a while.

Bill, I've been waiting to hear from you. We've mentioned wiskey at least in six of the last twelve posts! I though you had that word on automatic search upon logging in!

I am very happy to report that upon flipping the swtch on the 400s, the clam perked right up, nem ate from the frozen fish food in the water and the fish look great!

Corals, eh? They're going to need a few days to get over this truama!

So I plan to to a WC every couple of few days, in say, 30 g batches. I'll dump water out of the rock bin and then move water from the tanks to the rock, then add new SW to the holding system.

blange3 · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Baxreefs said:
Thanks JR & Bill

Bill, I've been waiting to hear from you. We've mentioned wiskey at least in six of the last twelve posts! I though you had that word on automatic search upon logging in!

It's blocked at the moment, I'm on one of those high protein shakes with nothing you really want to eat diets for a few weeks.

Jack has left the building! :

Baxreefs · Jun 12, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Bill

I feel your pain and will hoist on for you

Baxreefs · Jun 13, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

The holding tanks looked pretty good today.

There's just tons to do to get all the gear back on line and all the automation up and running again. Probably, I'll just get it all dialed in and it'll be time to move the live stock again and have to convert the holding tanks to the fuges and prop tanks I imagine them to be long term. :

.... I hate moving!

Baxreefs · Jun 20, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

An ode to the 120 :-\ ...

The 120, the only thing left in my old building on the final move day.

The tank in need of a good cleaning but getting torn down anyway :-[

These pics were taken just before the tear down began

R.I.P. 120 what a great learning experience! 8)

blange3 · Jun 20, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Ah a bittersweet day!

I know how I felt when I pillaged the 75 to populate my 180.

On to bigger and better things Bax!

BTW how are you feeling?

Baxreefs · Jun 21, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Better thanks Bill.

Still kinda tender, and of course, now we are, getting busy .... thankfully!

But that is not condusive to healing.

Baxreefs · Jun 21, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Here's the 90g & 75g tucked under a set of stairs. My office is behind the stairs, the display will eventually be on that wall with the stairs.

Here's the sump with my ASM G4x skimmer with a mesh modded SPK250, pulling temporary duty until I plumb in the MRC MR4R

Here's the rock tub, there's a lota rock in there!

Here's my clam looking much much better in the 90g.

The fox face & heniocus butterfly are in the 90 with the chromis. All the other fish are in the 75g. The tenetti is getting FAT! without the competition for food from the fox and HB!!!

Baxreefs · Jun 28, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

So, I am using two submersible pumps as returns, one to feed the 90 and another to feed the 75 while I figure out some more permanent plumbing scheme. Anyway, I walk in yesterday to both pumps sucking air! My 90 is not drilled and I am running a Life Reef overflow box on it. It has been flawless in every application I have ever used it in but now there's no siphon!

My first official, system based, water spill in the new location! 8)

Took me quite a bit of head scratching, but eventually I figured out that the U-tube had cracked!

I whipped one up out of 1" PVC, that's more of a squared U tubish thingy, but it seems to be working! ;D

ds4x4 · Jun 28, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

wow goes to show it takes a failure in the material it's made from to work improperly lol.. hopefully everything is better now.

and why'd i buy such a deep tank from you? my armpit really hurts and i kept falling off the ladder

Baxreefs · Jun 29, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

ds4x4 said:
wow goes to show it takes a failure in the material it's made from to work improperly lol.. hopefully everything is better now.

That's so true, I've never seen antything made by Life Reef that wasn't top knotch in build and performance. The U tube is made from fairly thin clear tube, and I'm guessing it's the one thing on the unit made by mass production out side of Life Reef.

and why'd i buy such a deep tank from you? my armpit really hurts and i kept falling off the ladder

That's why I was planning to build a shorter stand!

Dang! That tank would be bubbling away in this new office right now if I still had it!

Baxreefs · Jul 1, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

Getting a few things going, mostly just laying out and choosing equipment positions and roughing out plumbing.

Just to prove the 375 made it to the new shop, that's it wrapped in pink styrofoam and piled up with equipment!

Here are the holding tanks, don't flame me for the cords. Once the equipment is all located and I frame the enclosure, & I'll run 2 or 3 dedicated circuts in.

Been test fitting the equipment, but some spots are still temporary. The ballasts & chiller will be on top of the enclosure when it's done to keep the heat outside the equipment room.

The ASM with the sicci mesh mod doesn't pull tons of skim, but it is quality skim, very dark, I am also running a filter sock in the first section of the sump.

I was trying to fit in the manifold I made for the old fish room as it is, but I was going to have to mod it, which I wasn't ready to do. Then, I realized, the first section could be used with a random piece of plumbing I had as the unions just happened to match up and will give me enough valved outlets to run this setup.

Which alowed me to begin work on setting up the MRC 4R skimmer. Just sizing up the location in this pic. Later, I roughed out the plumbing for it returning to the sump for now. After the rock tub comes on line, the MRC will feed the rock tub which will be a big criptic fuge that will return to the sump.

The way I am going with this, I think I'll be able to run the entire system with the one Dart!

... We'll see! 8)

ricwilli · Jul 1, 2009

Re: Here's my now 375 (was 120) by Bax

WOW! Now that looks like alot of work.