Moving My 47 Year old Reef Tank. OMG

[Paul B]

URL=Photo by Paul Baldassano]

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The stand I built a few weeks before out of redwood because it warps less and the color matches my eyes. All the hardware is galvanized steel and it is also glued together with waterproof glue. I purposely built the legs out of 4 x 4s and not sandwiched 2 X 4s like many people do because I wanted to minimize places where two pieces of wood are together because those areas will get water in between and it will never dry, eventually, that wood will rot. This will also go behind a wall so you won't see any of it. The back of the stand (in the foreground) is built of sandwiched 2 X 4 redwood pieces sealed together for strength because I didn't want a support there that would interfere with that space in case I end up sleeping there or storing Oldsmobile parts.


Two days before my actual move I go out to the new place with the truck and drive up to the water at a boat ramp armed with enough containers to take about 40 gallons of seawater.
(I also collected the week before and carried that water out there with the truck)


I am in back of the truck with my 50' hose connected to a bilge pump and I am pumping water into the truck.
(actually the thing clogged with shrimp, hermit crabs and hot dog wrappers) so after a while I had to pump it into containers, then dump it into the truck)
I am actually a lot taller, skinnier and hairier in person, the camera adds 50lbs to how you look.

 

[Paul B]

AS I am collecting water I notice a State Trouper pulled up in front of the truck. This tall trooper gets out with this befuddled, but stern look on his face. I run and get my Viet Nam Veteran hat on because maybe he is sympathetic to Veterans and I say "Hello Officer". Is there a problem? He says "I don't know yet What are you doing?". I say I know it looks like it but I am not dumping toxic waste or those little tags that say, "Do not remove under penalty of the law". I am collecting seawater. He looks at me and says "Seriously!" For what?
So I figured I could go into the nitrogen cycle, The Ich life cycle, The Cycle of Life or any number of things but I just said I have this fish tank and it uses salt water. (I also told him I test and inspect the water in the Sound but I think he knew I was full of hermit crab poop) He says "Do you have a permit?". I said a permit for what? A fish tank!. I didn't think it was illegal to collect water. He says it is not. But it's illegal to use this boat ramp without a boat or a permit. I knew that but I played myself, or stupid. I said "Really! I just moved here yesterday and didn't know of such things". He said, "Are you finished?" I said "Yes Officer" And he let us go and told me where I can get a permit and collect water.
We drive the truck back to my new house and notice that it was filthy. It looked like I was looking through Crocodile Dundee's socks. It was filled with chopped up seaweed, jellyfish, sand, pieces of worms etc.
So I look for my three diatom filters. I look and I look but I have stuff piled up to the ceiling and I can hardly crawl through my garage.
I had two moving vans bring my stuff here and I brought almost no furniture, it's all my tools, fish stuff, boat stuff, and just stuff.
I find my XL diatom filter and that is the one that runs the worst. I put in the diatom powder and get the thing running. The bottle on the filter clears up so I run it on the tank where it immediately fills the vats with powder.


Normally I would start the filter and pump water into another bucket where it would be crystal clear. But it just kept getting worse.
I opened up the filter and notice the bag is torn almost all the way off the tube that water pumps through. (A diatom filter has a porous bag in it that gets coated with diatom powder that has microscope holes through it so the water gets as clear as it will ever get)
I find a needle and thread and try to sew up the bag. No luck, it still shoots powder all over. Then I get a towel and sew it around the bag. It still doesn't work and the water is horrible. It's 10:00 PM and I am falling asleep so I leave it and go to sleep.
The next morning I wake up and being I am no spring Chicken the only thing that doesn't hurt on me is my left pinky so I go and take two Naprosyn Sodium's or anti inflammatory pills like aspirin. I tell my wife we need more of them because we are almost out. She says, no were not, we have a ton of them. "Let me see what you took"....Sleeping pills. Yep I took two Tylenol PMs which are used to put you to sleep. That's just great. One of the most hectic days of my life and I hardly slept at night and now I took twice the dose of sleeping pills. Today is going to be fun. (The next time I will put on my reading glasses before I take pills.)
The powder settled and the water was clear so I gently took water from the top of all the buckets to where the tank is about half filled.


I drive back to my old house 60 miles away and my Son N Law comes over to help me catch all the fish and put them in vats along with the water, coral and rocks. I gently removed the corals, then the rocks and siphoned out half the water. Now I had to remove the gravel and the water immediately turned to tar. I mean the top layer of gravel was fine but as I neared the bottom the gravel was replaced by mostly mud. There was no hint of hydrogen sulfide or toxic waste and it didn't smell.
My Son N Law is holding up the UG filter plate which you can see is full of mud. Under it was more mud, bristle worms and Godzilla Larvae but no smells and nothing rotten. I don't remember the last time I lifted the thing but it was quite a few years go. Maybe 20 or 30.


I threw out the old UG filter although it was in perfect shape. I bought a new one for the new 125 gallon tank but it was a mistake because the old one was built like a 1957 Chevy which was nice and strong and the new one is built out of that plastic that frozen meat comes in that you throw out with onion skins and bald tires.
My plan was to wash my old gravel in the sea but that State Trooper put an end to that. I can do that but besides the fish I still have an entire house full of stuff to move and remember I am also falling asleep. My alternate plan was to rinse the gravel in water that I was running a diatom filter in but my defective filter put an end to that. Now I have a tank filled with fish, corals and rocks that is about 3/4s filled. I also added a lot of the water from my old tank which really woke up my fish because my old water had a nitrate reading of 160 and my new water reads zero.
I added some of my old gravel but most of it is still in filthy old seawater that I have not cleaned yet. I now found a diatom filter that works but haven't had time to mess with the fish yet. Initially I couldn't find my bluestripe pipefish, Janss Pipefish, bleeny, or hermit crabs and I figured they were toast but they eventually showed up. I have no thermometer except for my finger so the temperature could be 40 degrees off and so could be the salinity. I have very little RO water that I brought from home because there is no water or drain near the tank, that will come later. The tank is lit with a couple of temporary lights that my friend Andy lent me but the fish are wearing minors helmets with flashlights on them because it is very dim. I am surprised my corals are still living. My old water cooled LED lights need a piece soldered but I did not find my soldering iron yet or have a place to lay the thing down so I can fix it. Also, no time.
The fish haven't eaten in a few days because I ran out of food and no matter how much I try, they won't eat Cheerios. The mandarin is not speaking to me because I have not hatched shrimp in over a week and the Janss pipefish is also not happy.
I was scared to look at the tank the day after I threw everything in but the fireclowns were spawning so at least they were happy but clownfish will spawn in an earthquake or on opening day of "Star Wars, Revenge of the Seth" or "Yoda gets a Date".
Fathers Day I left my house and fish to fend for themselves and took my wife for a nice dinner on the water.


The tank looked like this before I moved it. About 20 or 30 lbs of my rocks don't fit but I built a big rock before I put the stuff back in.


This DIY rock is about 15 lbs and is the backbone of the new aquastructure.

 

[myrjon]

Tank moves are always longer than anticipated. Looks like you had good help ( should of asked the cop for help) I hope that the tank is settling. Good reward after ...

 

[Mark_C]

I brought almost no furniture, it's all my tools, fish stuff, boat stuff...

You got all the basics there. Why would you need furniture?

 

[Paul B]

We are settling in here and some of our friends came over to help us. Actually 2 of them are our friends that bought next door.


Yes, I know, we are all Geezers now. But we have friends since high school. Don't worry, you will get there and good friends for so long are one of the best things you can have.

The tank is starting to look decent although I have a lot more stuff and water to put into it. Still no skimmer, ozone, thermometer, UG filter or much light or gravel.


The bed I built looks very cool and industrial if I do say so myself. And I do.
Check out the wheels

​

 

[Paul B]

The tank is on the ground level and my condo is above it so until I get the elevator in, it is a hike to get up the stairs. A few weeks ago I had those 3 sets of shots in my knees. It is supposed to be some kind of Jell that takes up the place where meniscus used to be when I was 20. I think he switched the needles and put in crushed coral instead. I had those series of shots twice and I can tell you, they don't work.
I just need new knees and when I get time I will go to Home Depot for some of those pressure treated ones.
The problem with new knees is they want you to go for therapy after that and I feel therapy is for Sissies who got a splinter and figured that was the worst thing that ever happened to them. Either that or Golfers. I live next to a golf course and just don't get it. I know, its a fault in me.
It's also $250.00 to play a round so I doubt I will be partaking in that "sport".
Tonight we are going to the Country Club. Yes, in our Condo, you get a free one year membership in this Country Club so I can walk around with my nose up in the air and look rich, intelligent and Snooty.
Actually the people here are all very nice like the people in California. But with less of a tan. Everybody is extremely nice I can't believe it. We went to Home Depot yesterday and when I got out of my very cool canary yellow new Jeep a woman near me was struggling trying to put this box in her car. I went over and asked if she needed help. She said "Om my God, Thank you so much, that is so nice of you". I was thinking maybe she thought I was going to give her a kidney. She kept thanking me and saying how kind I was. The box weighed about 3 1/2 lbs. Then she ran after my wife to thank her for lending me to her. I mean really nice. If I had time she would have baked me a pie, tucked me in at night and trimmed my nose hairs.
Most of the people here are like that. It's a nice change from where I lived closer to Manhattan. People were nice there too, after they mugged you, they thanked you and gave you a tip.

 

[Paul B]

I am trying to work on the tank but I am married and my wife has other plans. Today we are going shopping for Sissy stuff that we "need" so I have to make her happy even though I have a ton of things to do in my garage and workshop/man cave/ fish room. I can barely walk to the tank, half the lights aren't working, I have almost no RO water and didn't start installing the thing yet and the tank still isn't even full.

I think my bluestripe pipefish will croak soon. He is past his lifespan but is not dying from old age. He misses his new born brine shrimp every day and I have no space or time to hatch them. The mandarin is still fine but I really need to get things started.

I am installing a toilet bowl and putting water there so I have a drain and can hook up the RO/DI.



We got this new giant TV yesterday and my friend helped me put it on a cabinet. It will go on the wall eventually. It is a Samsung and is full of bells and whistles. The thing makes you breakfast, gets your shoes and checks your dating scores on Match .com.



It does everything but let you watch TV. I can't figure out how to get regular TV on the stupid thing.

I tried to watch something and it told me to go to my computer and put in "Samsung. go and take gas" or something like that and hit program or whatever.(yes, it talks to you and you can have a conversation with it. It doesn't listen good though, kind of like kids)

I did all that and it wanted me to buy apps for $29.99 a month but a free subscription to Dancing with the Nerds comes with it. You can't make this stuff up.



I just want to watch re runs of Star Treck or Ed Sullivan (google him)

I finally got re runs of Blue Bloods so we watch 4 or 5 episodes of that all night.

I think we will be listening to the radio for a while. :confused1:​

 

[Paul B]

I still have about fifty lbs of gravel I need to clean as it is sitting in vats of muddy water from my old tank. I also have the same amount of rocks sitting in that water that I will have to fit in somewhere (not all of it because I built some new rocks) The water level is still about 2" low. I have no thermometer, didn't put on a skimmer or algae scrubber, I can't find my magnetic glass cleaner and the tank is bigger so it needs a lot more coral and fish. I plan on getting some more livestock today if I find anything interesting which I doubt because I like oddities. I need to fix my NSW collection device because I used some of that hose on my unsuccessful diatom filtering of my newly collected water to get out the seaweed and jellyfish. My RO/DI is temporarily mounted to a wall feeding a 30 gallon vat but it is not automatic so I have to tell Alexa to remind me to shut it off or I will flood my workshop. I have to put water in the tank manually because I didn't build the ATO yet. The blue LEDs on my water cooled lights went out and it is a pain to fix because I have to drain the water from it and the radiator and solder it. I didn't start to build my workbench yet because I have to much stuff in my workshop/Mancave.

My goal was to get water in the tank and keep everything alive and I accomplished that. My fish are very robust so won't get sick even thought they are not on any schedule, eat at all times of the day, if they get to eat at all, the temperature is all over the place because I test it with my finger. The salinity could be anywhere in the range of keeping brine shrimp alive or raising kissing gouramies.

I have so much other work to do around here that the tank is way back on the list. I painted the workshop and garage but I didn't finish because of the enormous amount of stuff, mostly tools I have. My car has a screw in the tire and I don't want to pull it out because I don't have time to get the thing fixed. My normal day so far is working on the house from about 7 or 8 am straight through to 6 or 7 at night with no stopping to eat or breathe. I have been living on Gatorade.

Yesterday we took off. I also have a wife and she doesn't feel very well so I need to take care of her. My marina had a barbecue yesterday which we went to, then we took a nice long boat ride with friends to check out the new water we have here. Then we went out to a nice dinner and planned to watch the fireworks, but we all fell asleep.

I also have a ton of paperwork to fill out and get submitted for the elevator which has to get signed off on by a few agencies like the Fire Dept, Health Dept, Lady GaGa and SETI. (Search for Extraterrestrial Life )

I put up 2- 3'X 8' $350.00 worth of racks in the garage to get some stuff off the floor. Important things like my wife's 60 year old Barbie Dolls, including poor Ken who must have had health issues because he has no hair, just a glue head. Barbie's wardrobe including shoes, My 39 year old daughters baby doll carriages complete with two Cabbage Dolls. Glasses that we have had in the box since our engagement party (we are married 44 years) Enough luggage to transverse the world 4 times with two homeless Sherpa's and a bunch of old socks.

Some of our furniture didn't arrive yet so we are still living out of boxes. We have a lot of glass in this house and we have paper shades on them so people can't see me doing the Macarana in my Speedo which I like to do before I exfoliate in the morning (whatever that is, but I found a bottle of exfoliating stuff in my Man bathroom that my wife stocked for me) ;Shifty

I have one outlet near my fish tank and I have about 17 extension cords coming out of that to feed the tank along with 5 heaters and a refrigerator which is just running because of frozen mysis and clams. My workshop light consists of an 8' LED light hanging from the ceiling on string. And I am an electrician.

So I have a few things to work on before I get the fish settled. ​

 

[Paul B]

I bought out all the electrical adapters from Home Depot so I am going to Lowes today.
My extremely cool water cooled LED lighting system croaked. The room is so damp that the entire fixture was dripping with water and shorted the entire thing out. The LEDs on there have connections so close to the copper tubing that is a mosquito blows his nose on it, it will short. It just won't work in that condition so I had to turn in my Man card and buy a light fixture, and there is nothing I hate more than buying something. I know it will be a piece of junk, cost more then my car and won't last 2 weeks. It's also probably made in China so I can't even look at it and won't be able to hang my American Flag in that room. If I ever get time, I will build a water prof light and junk the new one.
Yesterday I drove 60 miles back to my old neighborhood and visited my favorite LFS. Aquarium Village in Westbury. I saw two fish that I liked because they were unusual. One was a perchlet like my other one but smaller and he looked very healthy.


I am not sure what the other fish is but he didn't look to be in great condition and I hesitated buying him. I told my friend that I give him an hour to live.
I put them in a cooler in my car because it was 98 degrees and drove straight home.
I opened the cooler and the weird sickly fish was fine. I acclimated him for 10 minutes, threw him in and he started to eat and smile in 30 seconds.
The little healthy red perchlet croaked. He was dead in the bag and looked like he had a coronary. Maybe he heard I run an undergravel filter and got the horrors. I didn't have time to give him CPR or do an autopsy or necropsy but I know de didn't have any diseases. Maybe a social disease but that is none of my business. I left him in there for any bristleworms that may have survived the move here.
Right now I have 4 floodlights over the tank that looks a little more than candlelight until I get my new (garbage) embarrassing lights.
Today I may run some electric power to the tank so I can get the massive rats nest of extension cords off my floor. I will also order an exhaust fan for that room. Not one of those Sissy exhaust fans, I am ordering a fan that will pull the wax out of your ears from across a crowded LFS.

 

[Paul B]

My fish all had to get plastic surgery to make their face bigger to fit their smiles. They are so happy they poop in rainbow colors.
The fireclowns are spawning so much they give me a headache and the water smells like eggs benedict. I have not fed my mandarin in a month and he is still in ecstasy because he hunts white worms that I throw in every other day. My copperband loves the new aquascape and thinks he is in a circus working for Barnum and Baily. All is well.

As I keep saying my fish stay healthy because of bacteria in the guts of the food I feed and they are not delicate creatures. They are withstanding huge temperature swings along with salinity cycles so far apart that I can keep Koi in there with them.
The lighting is ridiculous which is making my bristle worms cross eyed. I don't know how any corals are living but I have not lost one of them and they went from 160 nitrates to probably zero. I don't test for anything except Gatorade as I have been taking that stuff intravenously because my fish room is so damp there are cumulous clouds forming above the tank and Al Roker is predicting thunder storms in there.

The air is so full of water that my hermit crabs crawl out at night to watch the sunset on my workbench. I can test the salinity by licking the walls. I mean it is really damp in there and my next move (as I mentioned) is to install a huge exhaust fan. One that will make your nose hairs stand up from across the street.

I want it to suck so much moisture out of the room that if I forget it on, the tank would go dry.

Do I make my point?​

 

[Paul B]

I got new lights but I discovered after I opened the box that they are made in China so at the first opportunity, I will junk them. But they are very bright. All my fish are straining to close their eyes and they don't realize they have no eyelids. so they are scrunching up their faces .
The lights have all sorts of dials and switches but I plugged them in and they lit so I won't be needing or using all of that stuff.

Today I started to build my workbench. It is tough because the place is so full of stuff but I need the workbench so I can make my closets and shelves to put stuff away on. I also uncrated my radial arm saw and drill press so I will have some stuff to work with.
It is so damp in there that I get flashbacks from Viet Nam

Soon I will get an off the road permit so I can go to the sea easier to wash my remaining gravel that is still in my old, muddy water. ​

 

[Paul B]

I finally filled my tank up almost to the top, now it will be easier for the fish to jump out. I collected some water when we were watching fireworks on the beach. Everyone was looking up at the fireworks and didn't notice the Geezer in the water with a bucket.
I just had to strain out the bottle rockets and roman candles.

I have to clean the glass every day because of diatoms as the Long Island Sound water is loaded with "Stuff". I am sure it will grow red algae also but I kind of like that stuff. I have my diatom filter running on the tank all night because when I initially added water to the tank I used a defective diatom filter which dumped a bunch of diatom powder in the water. I didn't see the tank yet this morning so it will either be very clear, totally empty or the pump went on fire and looks like a lump of coal. It's so exciting to wonder about these things. Eventually I will finish hooking up my UG filter. It had all the tubes connected but one of the big rocks I added separated the tubes and they are now laying on the bottom housing bristle worms and God knows what else. It is so nice to have a clean glass in the back where I can see everything but that is short lived. Algae is starting to grow there and there is no way to clean it. I need to re-connect the tubes before it gets totally covered.

My new (garbage) China lights are still working and I didn't smell any smoke yet but they are still about 18" above the tank. I need to get some chain to lower them. The fish are all doing well which is surprising being I don't know what the temperature or salinity is. . I know many people feel those things need to be right in the middle of the line that someone said it has to be and they stay up at night measuring those things with laser beams and what not.

The tank looks much to sterile to me and I don't like it yet. I need to add more rock (which I have probably 100 lbs left in buckets) and more gravel. But most importantly it needs life. Microscopic life that I will collect as soon as I go out in my boat during low tide. I keep going out high tide and it is hard to collect anything during that tide.

My blue sponge which covered about a third of my tank shriveled up and turned white. It was thriving on nitrates and now there are none so it is croaking. Better it than me. But my other corals are really enjoying the new NSW. I need more corals, a lot more because this tank is bigger and so far has a lot less rocks in it.

I moved the door in my workshop and the electric base board heater because they were in the way of my new 10' workbench that I built yesterday.
The place is coming along. I need to finish installing the floor tiles and paint. There is still vats of rocks and gravel along with enough tools to build the stage for Lady GaGa concerts so I need places to put all that stuff away . I will be tossing out a lot of tools as I just have to much
I did too many things in my life and no longer need a special wrench to adjust the tailgate on 1969 Vista Cruiser Oldsmobile station wagon or adjust the points on Toronado's. Yesterday I threw out my timing light and dwell meter. As soon as I find it I will dump my valve grinding tools as well as my ring compressor and cylinder and brake cylinder hones. I can open a Sears with all the tools I have, a small Sears but a Sears none the less. I am expecting NASA to call looking to have some extra tools.

I hung an 8' LED light in the middle of my workshop on string temporarily because the 7 watt bulb the builder supplied just wasn't cutting it.
I need to permanently install lights and outlets. But I know an excellent electrician

​

 

[Paul B]

My tank now is full of diatoms. I could say I am "Battling" them but they really just sit there and don't fight back. Normally I would like this as it is a challenge, but I don't have time now and the front glass looks like sheet metal 10 minutes after I clean it.
This is from the Long Island Peconic bay water which had more diatoms then water, but it is fine and makes the hobby enjoyable. If it didn't do these interesting things, I would take up golf. (God Forbid)

6 years old yesterday. My Grand Daughter, not my tank.

​

 

[Paul B]

I took pictures of my tank and they are still in my phone which is right next to my sleeping wife and a sleeping wife is a wife that is not asking me to go shopping for a bunch of stuff that we don't need or want and will return next week. I will post the pictures when I can get my phone.
Yesterday I added about 20lbs more rock from my old tank. Some of it smelled of hydrogen sulfide because it has been in a bucket of old water along with a lot of mud and it had a cover on it.

I also added a few gallons of gravel, also not in great shape but it is what it is. I have a lot more rocks and gravel but I will unfortunately have to either dump it or bleach it as it really developed to much sulfide so I can't put it in.
It is a testament of the health of the tank when you can take everything out, throw it in buckets, move it 60 miles and dump everything back in with no thermometer or test kits, no lights and everything is better than ever. No mini cycles, no spots, no stress, no red tide, no heartbreak of psoriasis. All the fish ate right away. (That is due to the bacteria in their diet)

Yesterday I got my Off the Road permit and found a beach about 2 miles from here that I can drive on. I figured I would be the only one there. Nope!

We went there and you go down this steep rocky hill to the sand and near the entrance there were about 100 people dancing, swimming, playing volley ball and bowling

It was a big party. Then we drove down the beach a while and there was almost no one just a couple of fisher men and Girls Moon bathing.

The water was like linoleum (google it) Very clean and not a ripple. The sand was pristine and you can drive right up to the water. You can drive into the water if you are a Jiboni.
Now I have a very clean source of NSW that I can easily get all year and I am thrilled beyond belief. Well,,, Not that much, but I am happy. I am normally happy but now I am happier.

If my wife was healthy I would be the happiest man on Earth.​

 

[Paul B]

I think my diatoms are pretty much gone. Must have gotten bored. I am starting to get a nice growth of algae on the back glass which I think is pretty essential so things can start growing and grazing there. Now I can start to add smaller fish that can hunt there. My mandarin seems pretty fat and I may have to introduce him to Jenny Craig even though I have not added baby brine shrimp in 5 weeks. He must be living on those white worms I throw in there every other day when I think about it.
I want to get more corals and fish as my tank seems a little sparce. I still have a lot of rock and gravel soaking in bleach but that container is covered in construction debris and saw dust so It may be a while before I get to it.

I have been building closets and putting in the floor in my work room/Man cave. I still need to sheetrock around the tank, water heater and furnace. The temperature in that room is all over the place in that room so the fish are just going to have to deal with it. I am going to put in a huge exhause fan which I ordered yesterday. This fan is so powerful it is supposed to pull out your ear wax from 20' away.

 

[Paul B]

I really need to add my skimmer because I have foam that looks like hot chocolate that was made with bad milk forming on the surface of my water. Being that there is no top on the tank and it is in my workshop where the door is open all day to the outside the tank is also collecting a bunch of beatles that are up side down on the surface. One of them looks like Ringo.
I am also getting some lightning bugs in there but I feel that is a good thing because they are supplementing my lighting. I am not exactly sure of the spectrum though and they may grow cyano.

I need an archer fish in there to eat them because they don't sink and are starting to form an Island. ​

 

[Paul B]

I plugged in the fan while I was holding it. The very first thing that happened, was that it tripped the breaker.
That was one of the builders 15 amp GFCI breakers which is a silly, Sissy thing to have on a garage circuit.
So I then held the fan and plugged it into one of the Real Man 20 amp Non GFCI circuits that I installed and the fan started to spin. Then spin faster, then faster, then it was going like an SST and I was almost pushed backward into my collection of Milly Vanilli tapes.

The thing acted like a gyroscope and I could hardly hold it. I can't wait to install this thing but I am worried it will pull the hermit crabs out of my tank. ​

 

[Paul B]

I finally rinsed the rest of my gravel in fresh water to remove the bleach and added it to my reef. I didn't add all the rocks yet. But at least the gravel is up to the level it was in my last tank. I also turned on the Reverse UG filter just for kicks. You know no matter how much you wash gravel, no matter how old it is or how much you wash it, it will cloud your water so i had to run my diatom filter for a couple of hours until it overheated and stopped. I un plugged it before it went on fire but thats what diatom filters do.

Now the tank is very clear and the corals stopped exuding coral snot. Corals hate change, but they just have to get over it.

 

[Paul B]

Hello, is any body here? It's awefully quiet.

We are going to the old neighborhood today and I will get to my LFS. I hope they have some interesting corals and fish as I need to fill this tank.

We are going there to see out Doctors. My Doctor is a Supermodel so I really just go there to see her. She is a Lousy Doctor, but who cares!. I even think she is a Gynecologist.

From working Commercial construction and having a body filled with asbestos, Agent Orange, sea urchin spines and seawater I have so much arthritis, and am so stiff that I was sitting in the lumber aisle in Home Depot yesterday and someone mistook me for a piece of 4 X 4 pressure treated wood.

 

[diana a]

You're a hoot and a half. Don't stop writing because I enjoy reading it as much as you enjoy looking at your supermodel doctor