Tank of the Month - October 2007

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

One more question Paul. I noticed.. you have the mix of Tangs and Wrasses. Some are herbivores, some carnivores. But you only use "green" TherA pellets? If I remember right you do put in other meaty items once a week or so. But still, you use green pellets mostly? I was looking at the package on the pellets I have and it does list some stuff like squid, and some other meaty stuff but it is a "green" pellet for herbivores. All my fish are eating this stuff but I wonder how healty it is for the meat eaters.. if it's giving them what they need. Once a week I do a frozen meat cube.

That trigger you have is so beautiful but ... it's a trigger. I can't find specific info on it but I think you said you keep it well fed and watch it all the time to see if it's causing problems... but triggers can mess up rock, eat corals, be aggressive, etc.? .. or is the pink tail different? Probably nothing I could mess with in a 90 gal anyway.. but curious.

 

[mgs]

great tank

 

[pwhitby]

Well, I guess it is time to finally update this thread with what has been happening over the last few months.

As most of you know, at the beginning of February my wife, lynn, noticed a tiny puddle of water under my tank, by the back corner. At first I thought it was from me doing a water change, but on closer inspection it appeared there was a leak at the seam of the tank. I cleaned the seam- watched for a few minutes as a new bead of water appeared about 8 inches from the top. Worst case scenario right there. I was devastated to say the absolute very least. To go from admiring the view to knowing the entire tank needed to be emptied immediately was probably one of the worst feelings I have had. (well this year anyways.....).

Fortunately, my dining room (in front of the tank) was empty I had the COMAS 150g barrel in the garage as well as my two sumps and my frag tank. Once the decision was made to empty it I called a few friends for support, both moral and physical.

Gary Walker was call number one and he came immediately, stopping off along the way to pick up another 150g barrel as well as the 300g stock trough he had in his store (ART). Those two items right there saved the day.

Tim VanWagoner and Dustin Combs (Zoanuts) also responded immerdiately and came bearing more barrels for the storage of rock. Between us, the tank was emptied pretty fast while the drip continued - very slowly.

By midnight all the corals and fish were out of the tank, the tank was empty of rock lvestock and water...just sand remained and my dining room was packed with barrels ....

That evening I posted i had corals for sale and the next day they started going out of the door. I want to thank all of you guys that came by and took frags of my corals....im so pleased they didnt have to perish during all of this.

While most of the corals were fragged down to a size I could keep in my remaining tanks, others were immediately passed out to people to look after for the period it took for me to decide what I was going to do.

Well its now been 2 months, the old tank is still here, with only sand in it and I finally made my mind up what I wanted to do.

As most of you know, I was really tired of the acrylic front on the tank. What I really wanted was starfire. However - the weight of an all glass tank was just too much to consider moving.

After talking with a tank designer/builder we came up with an idea for a hybrid tank. An acrylic body with an inserted starfire panel. As things stand right now, the tank is hopefully beginning construction and in the not so distant future I may once again have a beautiful slice of the ocean in my dining room.

paul.

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

I was wondering where you went. I didn't hear about this.

This has happened to me once or twice but it wasn't that big of a deal for me to break it down. IF I had a tank like yours... I don't know. Couldn't you have resealed the hole... from the outside.. or even inside?? I had to do my swap-out one time b/c it wasn't just a trickle. I woke up one morning to a few gallongs on the floor... the TILE floor.. about busted my ***.

What is gonna be starfire... just the front panel?... or the sides too since you have to scrape and clean the sides also ...WELL then again your sides on behind the wall so maybe you're just dong the front panel.

 

[Skipper]

Wow, Paul! Sorry to hear about all your troubles. Hope everything works out well for you.

 

[pwhitby]

Hi all,

To anyone following this thread....

I have my new tank installed....at least its sat on its stand. I begin the rebuild process over the next few weeks. The new tank has the same dimensions but has a glass (Starfire) front as opposed to acrylic.

I am very excited about this new tank and have a number of ideas I am playing around with.

For anyone interested, I will be detailing the rebuild in this thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1423726

Regards,

paul.

 

[onefin]

OUTTA SIGHT, just beautiful.

 

[pwhitby]

thought i would update this with the pictures of the new tank, 2 years on from adding water:

Here are the pics.

and finally a full tank....kind of difficult to take since the tank is so wide....