Biff's 90 Gallon Downgrade

bobby said:
Sorry to hear about the problems. Hopefully everything goes well and no more leaks! Sucks you didn't get your center overflow, but none the less it's a killer tank. That skimmer looks like a monster! What size is it? Only on suggestion for you though. I would put some of your sham wows under the sump, because salt water will ruin the hardwood flooring fast. There is an epoxy that you can put over the floor to protect it. It's clear makes the floor shine real good and fills in between the planks to make it water proof.
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Thanks for the tip. I originally had Shamwows under everything, but NDB asked me to remove them, because when they get wet they tend to get kinda stinky.
 
Update!

Water's been running for about 8 hours, and it's halfway full. GROAN. Hurry the eff up already!

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I went to my old house and picked up three 5-gallon buckets of rock from my 240, so I could prep it for this tank. And prep means kill every goddamn thing on it.

You think you got pests? I GOT PESTS.

Kenya:
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Majanos (yes, that is a carpet of majanos. Completely covered, and individual polyps):
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So here is the setup. Clean off as much by hand as I can. Boil that mofo in a big soup pot. Clean off as much of the dead stuff as I can. Repeat. I made clear instructions for NDB as to what beasts we are hunting.
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What's that smell? It's the smell of a million little majanos being nuked.
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And this is what the majanos souls look like when me and the boiling water are done with them.
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Then I put the boiled rock in a tub, where they patiently wait to be added to the tank.
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Anyone ever seen albino bubble algae before? I have a lot of it. Or, *had* a lot of it :)
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Those pics are awesome.. I am sure that Majano stew smells delicious, lol.

Good luck with the setup process. I will be UPgrading to a 90 pretty soon.
 
I forgot to mention. Waffle the cat decided to eat a green mushroom that I had scraped off a rock that was about to be boiled. It's been a few hours and he still hasn't gotten sick, so I think (hope) he's okay. Just in case any of you run into this problem with your pets eating your corals. :)
 
I spent an hour and a half trying to kill little aiptasia with "X" killer. I do it about every 2 weeks and it seems just as bad each and every time. It is hard to kill all these suckers. So no judgement here. If anyone has had a real problem they will understand. My Peppermints don't do a thing except stand around and sway to the underwater disco music. :(

If I could boil, I'd do it too. Boil baby, boil!!! :lol:
 
Yeah it was a tough choice, since my rocks have a lot of good things on them too (mostly zoas and mushrooms). I tried to save what I could, and if the pests were only on half the rock, I'd hold the other half out of the boiling water to try to preserve the good stuff on the other side, but I'd say 9 out of 10 rocks had to be completely boiled :( I'm worried about what impact this will have when I transfer all the fish over, so I'll just have to take it a day at a time.
 
Long story short, we moved the fish, every fish was accounted for and acclimated for 2 hours before I added them to the new tank. The water was too cloudy for me to aquascape so I stacked the rocks as best as I could with the intention of re-doing them once the dust settled. Did a head count, tucked the fish in, went to bed. The next day there was a rock slide. Three fish are dead, one is still missing. All others are doing fine. The casualties are one lyretail anthias, the yellow eye kole tang (his name was Yote) and Tangent the pink tail trigger. They were all found crushed under the same rock. The coral beauty angel (named Doc) is still missing.

The anthias is replacable. The kole tang is a tragedy, but is replaceable. Tangent is not replaceable. Tangent was by far one of the best fish I have ever had. I was absolutely heart broken and I bawled my eyes out. I feel awful today. I loved that fish so much. I had him for a long time, and he was so active and full of personality. I loved being able to keep a trigger in my reef tank.

Why didn't the rockslide kill a chromis? Or a damsel? Of course it had to be Tangent. NDB helped me recover and remove the three bodies. The bad news is the ammonia went up (who knows how long the fish bodies were in there -- it could have been as long as 18 hours). It's less than 1 ppm right now, so I'm not doing anything drastic and am going to try to let it run its course. The skimmer and sump are hooked up and running well, luckily. Nitrites and nitrates are both at zero.
 
Oh Biff I'm so sorry about your fish. That is heart breaking. What can you do, but just move forward. :(

yote, I'm sorry you're dead now! :)
 
The only silver lining (if you can call it that) is that Boo Boo the leopard wrasse is doing just fine. He is the most important and pretty fish I have ever had, and I'm so glad he wasn't a victim of the basketball sized rock. I'm also really glad it didn't bust the bottom of the tank open.
 
Thanks everyone. I'll be okay :cry:.

I am going to wait for the ammonia to drop down to zero before I try to aquascape. I don't want to risk raising it any higher than it already is. So the tank looks like crap. But the fish are hanging in there...
 
HAte to hear about the fish young un.
But like you said,it could have a whole lot worse if the slide had busted to bottom of the tank.
 
Sorry to say that Boo Boo the leopard wrasse passed away while I was out of town over the weekend :( I can't find a reason, the ammonia dropped down to zero over a week ago, zero trites, all the other fish and corals are doing fine. Shit happens I guess. First Tangent, now Boo Boo. This SUCKS!!! Boo Boo was a very special fish that NDB bought me as a gift nearly two years ago. He was my favorite fish I've ever had.

I found his body the night after I flew back from visiting with my (now dead) Grandma. I was sad, but I told NDB, "You know what? As much as I loved that fish, and as special as he was and as pretty as he was, I just can't be sad about a fish dying right now."
 
This is random but I love center overflows. Congrats. And sorry I was not able to buy the 240. What brand aquarium is your new 90 gallon
 

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