House Tenting

[Lacy]

We are having our house fumigated. I will be taking the corals and fish out, but I won't be able to take all of the rock out. We will cover it with plastic and tape it up without having positive pressure. Does anyone know what my chances are of my rock still being alive?
TIA

 

[Oldreeferman]

Id leave the heater & pumps going for circulation, no need for skimmer or lights to run.
Make certain everything... both tank & cabinet is completely sealed air tight from floor to top of tank or else............Good luck, should be ok if you are diligent in wrapping & sealing.

 

[moondoggy4]

You could hire a company that does asbestos remediation they can seal the area off and pump in fresh air as well.

 

[Zalick]

In addition to the above, I would operate under the assumption that chemicals will enter the tank. I'd do successive big water changes - 50% and then run carbon for a week prior to putting anything back in tank.

 

[Kevin Guthrie]

100 feet of airline tubing and an air pump for positive pressure? Just keep the pump far away, like in your neighbor's house.

 

[Lacy]

Thanks for the info. What I ended up doing was taking all my corals out except for 1 and my 2 fish out. I put those in an aquarium under a tent on the pool deck. I also took out about 2/3 of the rock and put that into another tank also on the pool deck. Taped up the 180 and another tank (40 g) with rock in it. The tanks on the pool deck were there for 6 days (don't ask ; ) ). The first day the tanks got to about 83 - 84° because the tent wasn't placed correctly and the sun hit it for 2 long and we forgot to turn the fan on. We were still doing a bunch of last minute stuff. That was the week we had cooler temps here at night. Go figure in S. Florida where it's always hot.

Before we put everything in we did a massive vacuuming in the sand bed. Every square inch got completely vacuumed to the bottom and I scrubbed all of my rock in saltwater. I seriously expected to have some problems. After all this I didn't lose any corals or fish. I have been down to 2 fish for a little while and my corals browned out some except my ORA Red Planet which lightened up a bit. Since being in the tank the colors are coming back.