lkoechle Posted May 27, 2018 Share Posted May 27, 2018 Long time no see guys! Crazy crazy stuff here. So, the 100 days tank is still going. I added a goldfish pond. And I sold,or tried to sell my 25 G. Story time: Mr Cling died. I don't know why or how, he vanished and was never seen again about a month ago. If you don't know who Mr. Cling is, go to my 100 Days journal. I was crushed. Devastated. He was so cool, we just celebrated our first anniversary together. He was a fantastic fish. I doubt I'll find another like him. I had never gotten the 25 back on track. With Mr Cling gone, I decided I'm gonna quit it. So I moved the bangaii to the 25g, moved Xena (the clown) to the 14 and listed the entire 25 system (sans nanobox, mp 10 and apex) for sale on my local reef group including the bangaii for $300. A day later, I am contacted by a member saying due to life circumstances, he has to move and can't take his big tank with him and needed it gone in 2 weeks. He wants a small tank to keep his favorite clown pair and shrimp and asked me if I would do a straight trade. My ad listing for his full 60g shallow set up with all corals and livestock. In order to get his brand new lights, I had to trade my nanobox. Which made me sad because I had put it on the 14g and really loved the color blend on it. lol Oh well. Lights for a 48" long tank aint cheap and I don't have that money lying around. Breaking down the 25 Two days later (friday) we went to his house and picked everything up. And I have never done a move like this before. We were moving to live systems. Taking ours to him and bringing his back. We hired our sitter to watch the hooligans... I mean children... for us and started the final tear down at 8 am for a 9 am departure time to get to his house by 9:30 am to begin breaking down the 60. Thankfully, being 7 years in to the hobby now, I've picked up a few tricks that really helped. One: Collect all the buckets Two: Collect all the styrofoam coolers Three: Collect all the tupper ware If you have all those things, you'll have an easy full tank move. Oh, and an Odyssey. Get yo self an Odyssey. Why an Odyssey? This is why: Because you can fit a 24"x48" long tank, stand, eshopps sump, all your plumbing, 3 shipping boxes of fish and coral, a 48" light and 7 5g buckets full of sand, rock, and water, that's why. Now, usually you don't bring water when you're moving, but we could only make 15 gallons at home and that would not be enough to move the fish and coral in. so we brought 10 g of his home with us. We broke that bad boy down in about 2 1/2 hours. In its spot. Running with just life support to get the fish and coral out of the boxes. Once we got everything home, my top priority was getting the fish and coral into the tank, so we set everything up to the point of survivability and making sure I wouldn't cook them (so quickly bringing the apex back up). Then, we moved on to plumbing. Some of the new critters as we were working: Maxi Mini Nem mated Spotcinctus pair Top down We spent from 8 am to 1 am working on the tanks the first day to make sure everything was live able. Yesterday we woke up to very hungry, active, social fish. So now to speak of our new inhabitants. We acquired: -Spotcinctus clownfish pair -Blue Hippo Tang -Blue Green Chromis -Melanarus Wrasse -Target Mandarin Dragonet -A bleached RFA (he said he was nursing it back to health) -mini maxi carpet nem -A stow away fire shrimp (crawled into a rock and didn't find him until we were unloading) And a ton of various lps and zoas and cuc. The tang I plan on keeping until she out grows the tank so she'll be easier to catch. She's 1 1/2" right now, so there's now way in hell I'll be able to catch her at that size. But don't worry tang police! Lucky for you, I don't care for tangs, so she won't be staying 😛 Ultimately, I think I'd like to get another s. doliatus and a leopard toby puffer to finish stocking. Everyone ate yesterday morning including the dragonet. She eats mysis and calanus. I'm going to pick up a thing of pods though to boost the population in the fuge for her. But I was very happy to see her eating. Day two's priorities were scaping, sand cleaning, fixing the overflow (he was running it with an open standpipe... holy toilet flush batman...), and I can't remember what else... the last three days have been a reef tank blur... lol Anyways, here are some final set up pics. I'm still waiting for the water to clear from me moving shit around again. I'll put clearer pics in later. Everything in the pics except for the vortech, apex, vertex skimmer and BTA are from the trade. Sump Messy electronics. @skoechle plans on building a custom cabinet for this space to put this stuff in as well as the DOS pumps. Double view of the goldfish pond on the patio. Can't wait for the water to clear up! You can see the RFA in this one @SeaFurn gonna need your skills to get this guy back! Maxi mini I plan on cleaning up this first a bit. just wanted to get the story down and out first! Hope the pics work... i used a different way of posting... I'll be mad if they don't. lol 3 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 27, 2018 Author Share Posted May 27, 2018 So this my goldfish pond story. I have always wanted a koi pond, but I don't have the space. For my birthday and mothers day, my husband allowed me to redo our porch and of course I centered it around a fish pond. I say "redo" but it was never done in the first place. It's just a screened in utility closet for all intents and purpose. I found the couch BRAND NEW for $100 off CL, the rug was $30 from ikea, the pond was $60 from Tractor Supply, the filter was DIY with PVC and the Sicce from the 25 gallon. Pretty proud of my shopping savvy on this one guys. And here's the finished product: So quick description of the filter. Its 4 inches by 2 feet. It has holes drilled at the bottom on the sides and through a test cap at the end. The top (pump side) is capped with a hole drilled in it. There is a weir (not sure if thats the proper word) protecting the intake from sucking in media and then the return is the fountain. In the filter going from pup side to the end is 3 liters of pond matrix, a 1 inch thick cut of sponge filter for an AC 110, a bag of carbon, and then another 1 inch cut of sponge. I'm changing the sponge out once a week. I also have a koralia in there to circulate debris from the bottom of the pond to push towards the filter intake. So far it works like a beast. I'm really happy. My fish are: two Shunbunkin (the orange and black is Seaking, the blue faced one is Two Face) one Sarassa (Goldeen) one Wakin (Wakin Phoenix) and two carnival goldfish a student gave me because they outgrew her 10 gallon and knew I was setting up a pond (Magikarp and the white lipped one is Sweet Lips) Okay. Now back to reef stuff! I just love my pond and my goldfish and wanted to share 😛 4 Quote Link to comment
Type-H20 Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 I think you got the better end of the deal 😀 4 foot tanks are great. How are you liking the added length? 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 12 minutes ago, Type-H20 said: I think you got the better end of the deal 😀 4 foot tanks are great. How are you liking the added length? Totally got the better end, I feel bad for him. I think his wife was irritated at him but she isn't into reef tanks and doesn't realize how long it takes to break down and sell a system piece by piece because no one will pay for the entire one. The 85 in my sig was a 4 ft tank and it took us 3 months to sell it. We ended up having to sell it piece by piece. He unfortunately didn't have that kind of time. I'm super stoked for the length. I had a rabbitfish (s doliatus) in my 85 and I would love to get one for this tank with having the length again. 1 Quote Link to comment
1891Bro Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 Great to have you back. Are those plants in the pond real? They look real, maybe too real? 2 Quote Link to comment
Type-H20 Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 37 minutes ago, lkoechle said: Totally got the better end, I feel bad for him. I think his wife was irritated at him but she isn't into reef tanks and doesn't realize how long it takes to break down and sell a system piece by piece because no one will pay for the entire one. The 85 in my sig was a 4 ft tank and it took us 3 months to sell it. We ended up having to sell it piece by piece. He unfortunately didn't have that kind of time. I'm super stoked for the length. I had a rabbitfish (s doliatus) in my 85 and I would love to get one for this tank with having the length again. Ah, now I remember your 85! Very nice tank. The only downside to the 4 foot 60 gallon is that the evaporation rate is basically double that of the 25. Amen to how long it takes to sell...took me a couple of months to sell a simple 40 breeder with stand and glass tops even at a ridiculously low price, not to mention filtering through all the time wasters that emailed me. Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 Just now, 1891Bro said: Great to have you back. Are those plants in the pond real? They look real, maybe too real? No they're fake. $8 from wally world. But the baby guppies love living in them before the goldfish eat them (the guppies). I started with 21, we're in the final 8 now. I think they have a chance though. they're the clever ones. Luckily though the parents are inside, so they'll make more goldfish snacks... I mean babies... 1 Quote Link to comment
SeaFurn Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 Wow! Now that’s an update! Thanks for sharing. You’ve now motivated me to get my new 45g shallow tank thread stared. I actually shut down the contest tank today after moving the last 2 baby RFAs (still have 33 if you can believe that) that we’re on that main rock to the new tank. Had to break the rock to get them out. It’s been a bittersweet day. Glad to have everything moved over but loved the 14. So sorry about Mr. Cling. He was so cool and as far as contest fish go, right up there with Bubba and Qbertasaurusrex. Loving your new tank. 4 feet! That’s a lot of room. I’m sure the tank move was stressful -and a loooong day - even though you were thoroughly prepared. Loved the rats nest of wires pic because I have the same thing going on. Can’t wait to see the custom cabinet @skoechle! Make sure to post pics of what you do so I can copy. Oh geez...that RFA. Those are some white tentacles. Are you sure it’s not one of the albino types?? Haha - kidding. I know they’ll deflate/pull themselves in if the lights are too bright for too long so that seems pretty severe. Otherwise it looks pretty healthy. I haven’t had any that bleached so I’m not going to be much help. I’ve found that they don’t need as much light as you might think. Loving your koi pond too! Been keeping up with that on IG! Keep the updates coming. Can’t wait to see this tank progress! 1 2 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 1 minute ago, SeaFurn said: Wow! Now that’s an update! Thanks for sharing. You’ve now motivated me to get my new 45g shallow tank thread stared. I actually shut down the contest tank today after moving the last 2 baby RFAs (still have 33 if you can believe that) that we’re on that main rock to the new tank. Had to break the rock to get them out. It’s been a bittersweet day. Glad to have everything moved over but loved the 14. So sorry about Mr. Cling. He was so cool and as far as contest fish go, right up there with Bubba and Qbertasaurusrex. Loving your new tank. 4 feet! That’s a lot of room. I’m sure the tank move was stressful -and a loooong day - even though you were thoroughly prepared. Loved the rats nest of wires pic because I have the same thing going on. Can’t wait to see the custom cabinet @skoechle! Make sure to post pics of what you do so I can copy. Oh geez...that RFA. Those are some white tentacles. Are you sure it’s not one of the albino types?? Haha - kidding. I know they’ll deflate/pull themselves in if the lights are too bright for too long so that seems pretty severe. Otherwise it looks pretty healthy. I haven’t had any that bleached so I’m not going to be much help. I’ve found that they don’t need as much light as you might think. Loving your koi pond too! Been keeping up with that on IG! Keep the updates coming. Can’t wait to see this tank progress! Aw, I'm sad to hear the 14 is down! We need to make a reunion thread. I've been following @Mariaface on IG and her's has gone fresh. Yeah, its inflated a bit more now and the water is clearer now so I can see some green coloration. I'm sure you can relate with the constantly fiddling with the new tank. I THINK I'm done with my hands in the tank so it can all settle. lol It ate mysis this morning, so I hope it comes along fine. Quote Link to comment
skoechle Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 4 minutes ago, SeaFurn said: Loved the rats nest of wires pic because I have the same thing going on. Can’t wait to see the custom cabinet @skoechle! Make sure to post pics of what you do so I can copy. Yeah... I'm lazy. Over promise under deliver! Maybe some day 1 3 Quote Link to comment
1891Bro Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 34 minutes ago, skoechle said: Yeah... I'm lazy. Over promise under deliver! Maybe some day Brother, set the bar low and the old lady will always be shittin in high cotton. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lula_Mae Posted May 28, 2018 Share Posted May 28, 2018 I LOVE the new tank, I LOVE the goldfish pond and patio setup (I am down for pics and talk of that anytime, I would love to have a goldfish pond) and I am excited because this has so much awesome potential! I am very sorry about Mr. Cling, though, he was an amazing little guy. I look forward to seeing this grow and develop because it's really lovely. 2 hours ago, SeaFurn said: Wow! Now that’s an update! Thanks for sharing. You’ve now motivated me to get my new 45g shallow tank thread stared. I actually shut down the contest tank today after moving the last 2 baby RFAs (still have 33 if you can believe that) that we’re on that main rock to the new tank. Had to break the rock to get them out. It’s been a bittersweet day. Glad to have everything moved over but loved the 14. Yes, we need build deets. Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 11 hours ago, skoechle said: Yeah... I'm lazy. Over promise under deliver! Maybe some day He also promised me custom sidetables for the goldfish pond... 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 28, 2018 Author Share Posted May 28, 2018 Woke up to a clear tank this am! 2 2 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 29, 2018 Author Share Posted May 29, 2018 Yeah, she ate mysis off of tongs! Talk about a big ole happy dance over here. I was both excited and disappointed to find out a mandarin was part of this tank. Excited because I love mandarins. Disappointed because of their difficult eating habits (we had decided to avoid mandarins again). But I am thrilled to see she isnt picky. I will try to get a video of it sometime. It was unexpected when it happened. We also got some corals when I went to buy pods yesterday. The chaeto from the tank before the move is packed with them, but I am not sure how they faired during the move so I wanted to bolster the population. And I couldnt help myself with the coral. The two sticks are new (dont know about ID, the top I think is a blueberry fields acro) And a little seasons greetings because I love my caps! 2 Quote Link to comment
Lula_Mae Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Looking great! How big are those clowns? They look ginormous lol. Houdini is adorable, I'm so glad she eats! Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 29, 2018 Author Share Posted May 29, 2018 1 hour ago, Lula_Mae said: Looking great! How big are those clowns? They look ginormous lol. Houdini is adorable, I'm so glad she eats! Yeah the clowns are pretty big I'd say the female is probably 4 to 5 in in length and about 2 inches tall. And when I first saw them I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to keep them and that I would eventually sell them to an lfs or another hobbyist. But they've really grown on me and I've decided I really like their appearance so I think they are here to stay. We name them last night. So they're staying. LOL Yara and Theon from Game of Thrones. And yes they're siblings but my husband likes the idea because theon is a little b**** while yara is a badass. I just added a feeding station to the tank so hopefully Houdini will find it and inside she will find some calanus and the smallest pellet size that New Life spectrum makes. It'd be great if I can get her to eat pellets. The jar is actually a jar I found in the stuff that what came with the tank I don't know what in the world it was used for but it has a teeny tiny opening in the front just big enough for a mandarin and not big enough for anybody else I put it in an area of the tank that she frequently explores so hopefully she'll find it. 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 29, 2018 Author Share Posted May 29, 2018 For future modifications I think I'm going to glue a couple frag disk plugs on it to help weigh it down. I just now put it in the tank so I kind of want to leave it be for a bit and if she starts using it then I'm going to add those discs or if you know she seems to be ignoring it I'm going to add those discs anyways. But for the time being just going to leave it be. everybody is super agitated that they cannot get to the jar Quote Link to comment
Lula_Mae Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 9 minutes ago, lkoechle said: For future modifications I think I'm going to glue a couple frag disk plugs on it to help weigh it down. I just now put it in the tank so I kind of want to leave it be for a bit and if she starts using it then I'm going to add those discs or if you know she seems to be ignoring it I'm going to add those discs anyways. But for the time being just going to leave it be. everybody is super agitated that they cannot get to the jar They're all like WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T HAVE ICE CREAM!?! 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 29, 2018 Author Share Posted May 29, 2018 Just now, Lula_Mae said: They're all like WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T HAVE ICE CREAM!?! even Captain Chromis cant fit in the jar. (His name is Captain Chromis because he is missing an eye so he's a pirate... Arrrrggghhh) 1 Quote Link to comment
Lula_Mae Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 7 minutes ago, lkoechle said: even Captain Chromis cant fit in the jar. (His name is Captain Chromis because he is missing an eye so he's a pirate... Arrrrggghhh) I had a little sunset platy once that I got for free cuz he had one eye, I named him One-Eyed Willy after the pirate from The Goonies. 1 Quote Link to comment
Type-H20 Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 On 5/28/2018 at 9:30 AM, lkoechle said: Woke up to a clear tank this am! That's what I love about these shallow tanks, the top down shots. 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 30, 2018 Author Share Posted May 30, 2018 12 hours ago, Type-H20 said: That's what I love about these shallow tanks, the top down shots. yeah I love it! 1 Quote Link to comment
lkoechle Posted May 31, 2018 Author Share Posted May 31, 2018 Got some new coral from WWC yesterday... Not the frag pack I was looking for... J/K here's the real stuff I also got an IM Grazer and the tang is LOVING it. I am too. Before of course I was using seaweed clips from two little fishies, which were great and easy. But so much waste. I am really liking the grazer. I can leave in all day and just let her pick pick pick until its all gone in the evening. Tank is a little cloudy from feeding so I will try to get video of her using it later. 2 Quote Link to comment
burrito Posted May 31, 2018 Share Posted May 31, 2018 Who makes that tank? Deep blue? It’s beautiful 1 Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.