Not a typical doctor's waiting room... 450 gallon reef

[KingfishJohn]

I remember and the really frustrating part in this situation is that he lasted so long in the aquarium. I'd had nasos come in with some kind of stomach parasite and waste away slowly but this tang was actually started to put on weight.

This specific fish was unique too as it would brush my hand when I was working in the tank and liked to be pet/ fed by hand.

 

[mcrist]

Sorry for your loss...

 

[jnarowe]

man, sorry to hear about that.

 

[Micki]

that's too bad. I'm sorry...

 

[TandN]

sorry for your lost Cant wait to see some more pics

 

[Elliott]

I too had a large pacific naso tang that died for no apparent reason, looked healthy and fat, eating well everyday, good color, then just died overnight, was like a puppy dog following me around the tank not afraid at all, still wondering what killed it.

 

[GSMguy]

TTWOP

 

[KingfishJohn]

Ok so I had a little leak last night that made me have one of those "DUH" moments.

So I previously said that I removed the hammerhead closed loop pump (yesterday at three). Unscrewed the pump from its single union ball valves, basked in my glory that I could remove the pump that way, went on my way.

Nine rolls around that night and the cleaning staff call to report water on the floor. I immediately begin to wonder if like an idiot I didn't close the ball valves completely and other complete disaster scenarios run through my head as I speed up there.

If you look back at the plumbing behind the tank pics you'll notice that the output of the hammerhead went straight up, into a T, then into 2 90's returning into the tank. Well the hammerhead was supporting most of the plumbing weight and since this is a closed loop, all the piping still had water in it. Remove the pump and gravity begins pulling the entire structure towards the ground. The stress of this caused on of the bulkheads to only slightly tilt upwards resulting in a slow and steady leak.

Three gallons of water later and I was quite relieved but thought this was one of those great leak stories that I won't forget about again.

And how did I stop the leak... well I put a bucket of rowalith C+ with a wadded up towel on top of it to act as the temporary "hammerhead".

John

 

[melev]

Glad you were notified in time. :eek2:

 

[Elliott]

wow, were you lucky, if that bulkhead broke.....:lol:

 

[mcrist]

That was a close one...

 

[Dudester]

Yeah, a little closer than we would like. This serves as a good lesson to all plumbers out there. When plumbing with low tolerances, be sure to provide support when removing pumps. Fortunately we used Sched80 bulkheads and they probably won't break, but this could have been really bad if it happened on a Friday night and wasn't recognized until Monday morning.

 

[Elliott]

I like flex hose!

 

[gkarshens]

How about some of the muffler straps to hold the plumbing in place.

 

[KingfishJohn]

A myriad of random things could keep the plumbing up, the problem was that I didn't even THINK about needing to support it. I just assumed that it wasn't that heavy, and that if I watched the plumbing for 30 mins and it didn't leak, I was good to go.

Lesson noted for the future.

PS: The back room (ie: skimmer, calcium reactor, where this plumbing was leaking) was supposed to be sealed from the stand by the original construction company. I even had to move everything out of the tank room after the install so they could caulk around the edges and "seal" the room. The water instantly went down under the stand and out to the carpet.

Anybody building a tank room out there take that as a lesson as well... make sure you seal the tank room from the tank so that if a leak does occur, it is contained in the area with a floor drain.

 

[Jason1520]

First off this is really and impressive tank. It sounds like you have been through your fair share of mishaps. Just forge through, your results are obvious! Great work.

Oh, I may have missed it, but did you ever replace the "nemo's"? I know you lost the first four, but did you are are you going to replace the clowns?

 

[Dudester]

Thanks Jason. We're looking for a nice pair of clownfish, considering Rod's onyx or some true percs, or maybe even some teardrops if they come along.

 

[GSMguy]

Rods are my Favorite, but i think he only has the lower quality less colored fish right now. new ones should be ready in the next couple month for sure but they are going to be small.

this guy has new stuff on the way though, and his clowns are pretty sweet.
http://bonesreef.com/

 

[jnarowe]

We have a PSAS member (Vicki) that has hundreds of clowns she is trying to offload.

 

[gkarshens]

Well we had a reef club meeting today at Mike's office. John and Brian explained the workings and history behind the tank. They also donated a cool little 30 or so gallon tank and light set up for a door prize. I brought along my camera.

Let me first say this may be the hardest tank in the world to photograph. There are lot's of windows to fight, the tank is viewable from 3 sides so you see stuff from the other side, and it has 20,000k bulbs making it very blue. So I shot these in RAW format and used Photoshop to set the white balance at exactly 20,000k. The only other adjustments was in exposure. I mention all this so you know that the colors are as close as they look to the eye as I could get them.

On to the photos: