Reef nutrition

Eric’s 150g resto project

yosemiteclimber

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So I saw a post on one of my reefing Facebook groups, “Posting for a friend, free 160 gallon, custom built goes to whoever can pick it up soonest.”

It included a wonderfully deceptive picture of its current state, that made it look clean and lovely.

*Narrator: It wasn’t clean, nor lovely.

So I jumped on it, rented a single apartment size U-haul truck (and thank goodness, never would have been able to fit everything in a van or standard pickup truck) and suckered a friend and drug my wife along (who was VERY pissy about it, until she saw it in person). I have a crappy dolly, moving rollers, a few 5g buckets… none of which were enough.

Too be continued… it’s quite a little saga.
 

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Hopefully you didn't have raised wheeler wells to deal with
It did unfortunately, big 'ol sharp, metal wheel wells! I was able to tetris everything in though, and brought towels, moving blankets + sheets, tie-downs - and everything else I could think of like a drill, sawzall (which came in handy, some bulkhead threads were stripped and others stuck/frozen in place after so many years).

For expediency sake I ended up just hacking out all the plumbing - as we had to spend quite a bit of time digging out the rockwork and old, thick sandbed, which a jackhammer would've struggled with. And the one thing I didn't bring was a ladder (or a gardening shovel, which I had placed in the garage but missed on the way out), so I had to use his little 9" step-stool to be able to reach in and dig it (top rim of the tank is 5 feet high on the stand) out while trying to break through the crust and scoop it out with a 2 gallon bucket and a tupperware my wife happened to have in the car! I used the tupperware to scoop in to the 2 gallon bucket, which was then dumped in a 5 gallon bucket. Rinse, repeat 5000 times. Sheesh.

It took about an hour to clear it out enough to lift, then we had to dismantle, and haul out. It took quite a bit of effort to separate the tank from the stand - and I got my thumb completely smashed in the process. Pretty sure it was broken, and I should have had it looked after, but I mean, it's just a thumb right? Apparently I was ghost white after from what my wife said, it got me good - but I bucked up and hauled it to the truck.

The dollies and moving carts were basically worthless, his front entry walkway was about 20 yards from door to street, and just WRECKED - a rock-crawling jeep would have a hard time getting down it - so we had to carry everything by hand and try not to trip, it was seriously dangerous and wildly uneven footing with huge cracks and splits in the concrete, one side often jutting 3-4 inches higher on one side than the other. But I didn't want to be hauling everything across his lawn... so we dealt with it. Surprised I managed to not roll an ankle lugging a 400lb glass tank, by hand, no suction cups, nor moving straps from what felt like the Earth to the Moon! Also why is the back of the Uhaul so damn high? Luckily I brought the ramp I used to load my old race bike in the truck with, so I had my wife run ahead of us and set a beach towel down on it, and we were able just slide it in by pulling the towel up the ramp. My thumb really hurt, the nail was already black and blue with a bit of blood seeping out from the cuticle, and the joint was severely swollen and getting tough to bend.

This setup was top notch back in the day for sure, but after a couple of years of neglect he just gave up on it, powered everything off and left it.. EVERYTHING was cemented together by years of salt creep, and evaporation from the remaining tank and sump water over the following year(s) coated everything in bullet proof grade salt encrustment! It was a very crunchy job, and I should have brought a chisel and a proper shovel too ;)

Here's a few pics from the ad, you can see it's right against the wall on the left, I could barely fit my arm in there (my thumb fit just fine though). And everything was pieced together and assembled in place, which meant complete disassembly - even the brace on the back of the stand had to come out as the sump was too large to fit through the stand front doors! - notice the METAL ELECTRICAL BOX in the sump/skimmer pic - just, yikes (they had plastic on top of the hood for lights and controllers, don't understand the mentality there). I will say whomever plumbed it did a fantastic job - the drain, return, and cooler were all plumbed in beautifully, I kinda felt bad hacking them apart. Let me just say I HATE HATE HATE plumbing (especially sprinklers)! I was in the trades for over 15 years, and was actually in the process of getting my contractors license when I blew my knee out and sheared my tibia in half (tibial plateau fracture, I do not recommend - but that's a story for another time!), and actively avoided any plumbing work whenever possible! Mad respect to Eric and all the plumbers out there, plumbing is a tough, shitty (see what I did there?) job.
 

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I'm close, hoping to have it in the living room in a week or two! One of the big delays was the heat this summer, just made it impossible to work in the garage when it was 100+ in there - but I'm moving quickly now!
I was looking at that actually but i was late, glad to see you were the lucky one to grab it.

How's the thumb hopefully not actually broken. Don't forgot you can ask for help here moving tanks.
 
I was looking at that actually but i was late, glad to see you were the lucky one to grab it.

How's the thumb hopefully not actually broken. Don't forgot you can ask for help here moving tanks.
Haha the thumb is pretty much healed, the nail was growing funky for a couple of months and I'm surprised it didn't just fall off! I can't quite bend it all the way any more, but it's nothing that hampers me in general.

I definitely would've asked for help but this was a shotgun thing, happened fast! And I (stupidly) thought the two of us could easily manage, he's a big dude who has been doing construction for 20-30 years, plus I drug along my wife - "assumed" it'd be quick and easy. Nope. But if there's a next time I'll be more than ready, but I'm getting too old for this kind of stuff!
 
On a positive note your thumb should match your banana fingers now? Ha! Thanks for the detailed description surprised you left out the ****! bleep! ***-***** bleep bleep words which coulda been added to any sentences lol...
Looks like that sump has lines drilled down low interesting..
All T5's under the hood?
What's your plan lighting wise and types of corals?
 
Been a while - let's see, where did we leave off? Ah yes - getting it OUT of their house. Fun. So I had th U-haul overnight and parked it in the driveway, backed up very closely to the garage door so nobody could get in. Nosey neighbors had all kinds of interesting theories (HOA President lives across the street, and comically relayed them to us).

On the next day, it was still big, and heavy. Just like my thumb. My wife volunteered my brother in law to help unload, I hated asking but had to - but I was prepared. Kinda. I had a system, strategy, to minimize movements and time spent holding heavy things.

It actually worked. We systematically pulled anything out that didn't weigh 12,000 lbs and stuffed that off to the side. I had a series of heavy-duty sawhorses setup and ready which worked out perfectly.
After pulling all the perfunctory buckets of crap, sand, REAL rock, plumbing, sump, and all the other intangibles we had three pieces left.

Stand
Tank
Hood

I backed the truck up even more, until it was a millimeter away.

We unloaded the Hood, took it a tad deeper in the garage, put it on the sawhorses I had set up beforehand. Good move. Put it upside down so I could re-do the lighting more easily. (old T-5 had to go)
Next, the stand. This thing is solid. and by solid I mean SOLID. REAL wood. Not ikea with melamine, not pressed and treated. Big. Heavy. Solid. Beautiful.

I utilized the ramp mentioned above, and let gravity do the work. Re-arranged it so it was lined up with what was coming next. The Tank.

The Tank, is heavy. VERY heavy. I don't know how we got it in the U-Haul, but we couldn't get it out. You could barely lift it, if/when you did you knew you were about to lose some fingers.
I like sliding. Sliding is easier than lifting. Physics. I backed the truck up until it was touching the house, just barely. Scooted the stand as close as we could.

Picked up the left corner, set it on the rear corner of the stand while BIA and wife stabilized.
Picked up the right corner, set it on the back of the stand on the other side.
Pushed the stand towards the truck, for quick purchase, and to ease the pressure of the dropdown angle.
Picked up, and inched one side, then the other repeatedly until it was fully seated, safe, and happy.
Shoved stand with tank just enough so I could close the garage door. Bloody hell that was hard, but all nestled in with no damage to stand, tank, or more importantly, FINGERS.

We were drenched in sweat. It was hot, even at 10am!

I don't have any active pictures of the offload unfortunately - but any fellow Engineer would have been proud.
I started taking doors off to
1. Clean
2. Re-do lighting
 

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I put the sump back underneath, just to have some room, but this should give you an idea how literally CRUNCHY everything is. Zoom in on the sock - that is basically cement in there.
 

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Step ONE - pull doors
As you see from the pic above, screws were in bad shape and I had to drill a few out. Aside from that here are some good pics of what kind of state I was dealing with:
 

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