sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Well time has come, my 180g tank has been vacated of inhabitants... that I want to keep (aiptasia, brown polyps, and hydroids on rocks can stay)
Here it is in all it's neglected beauty, coraline on the acrylic, along with diatom algae, needless to say it makes it look quite ... yellow. The last two fish inhabitants in the back a yellow tang which is maybe 6 inches round and a foxface which is perhaps 7 inches long, both are quite fat and happy. This is what they called home. It was a fun sized tank, 4 feet long, 3 feet deep, and 2 feet high, that depth is amazing for aquascaping (not that this picture shows it)
Here's a picture about 3.5 years ago.
And another picture 8 months after that... damn I had a knack for growing coral!
But those pictures make me sad, seeing what i had and eventually lost. I even see my Tomini tang in the picture which was recently lost due to the the "fish incident"
Only last picture of my anemone tank, this is the day after I took the lights off, since they didn't open up completely it was really easy to count. Who wants to guess how many are in there? Hint: It rhymes with hurty fun
I'm still sans clownfish too, so haven't quite decided on what to do with them, I know couple have expressed interest
Well this was not a thread about remembering, this was a thread about my mad plans! Why did I even remove everything? Well because I need to remove everything from the room! Already did a bunch with the drywall around the edges, now I need to yank the floor up. Then I need to put down a new floor, and this will be done in steps, the room is approximately 25 feet by 15 feet, so I'll get a little over half of it done, then when the true Machination gets set up, everything will move to that, and I can finish the other half of the room.
So here is the baby machination, a tri-tank system.
BTW, sorry for the picture quality upon closer inspection, seems the flash bounced off corners and didn't get back to the camera.
Setting it up wasn't fun, I'm finding out how old I am by how I feel when I take a 15 minute break and don't want to go back to work.
The main tank which was my "OMG I need to save my coral" tank, is my old "Mikemar" retrofit 32" x 24" x 24", has my custom built LED fixture above it, there is currently one fish in there, it's corals though.
The one on the bottom is a 48" x 14" x 20" tank (60g) which houses the foxface and the yellow tang, lets just say they're not too happy about it, they're in 1/3 the tank space that they used to have. Anyone who's ever moved from a house to an apartment probably knows how this feels. I have a couple corals in there, stuff that won't fit in the other tank, and I'll eventually bring to the frag swap.
The last tank is the same anemone tank, I simply moved it as it was. I removed the water, then lifted it into position then put the water back in, with my luck the anemones will split and I'll have twice as many.
The wiring is ugly as all hell, but I made sure it was partially safe, with no chance for wires to fall into the water, or me grabbing them as handholds. It's ugly but it works and is good enough for the time being. The plumbing wasn't much more fun. I had to change out sumps because in the case of a power outage I was worried the water flow from three tanks draining even an inch would be too much. What I did is had the return split between the coral tank and the anemone tank, and the drain from the coral tank goes directly into the bottom tank, which then overflows into the sump (the drain for that tank is over 2x larger). Overall it's a nasty mess... but it works for now and I'll deal with it. I am a bit worried at how much the bottom tank bulges out though, not sure if I should or not, it's TruVu tank and the bracing is still on it... I'm just hoping it TruVu didn't make terrariums and that's what this tank is! I originally got it from Bryan who used it as a sump/frag tank, but he only had it filled about 1/3 the way.
So what's next? Well you'll have to wait and see. I'm hoping to have it setup within 3 months... we'll have to see if I can get that time table done. Unfortunately school starts up tomorrow, but I'm teaching only night classes which is great because I only see each class once a week so prepping/grading for each class can be done fairly easily. I'm not 100% sold on the direction I'm going with the real machination, but I'll ask for opinions/help when I get to that step... first step is demolition, then it's construction
P.S. Anyone in need of a 180g tank? Nice sized tank (see pictures above), external coast to coast overflow, you can even have the stand (which is functional grade not furniture grade). It does need some elbow grease to get the coraline off and sand out any small scratches, but it holds water and isn't cracked anywhere. $200 and it's yours! That's almost as good as Petco's buck-a-gallon sale! (Although good luck funding a tank this size for that price there!) You need a truck though or SUV though, it only partially fits in my Prius
Here it is in all it's neglected beauty, coraline on the acrylic, along with diatom algae, needless to say it makes it look quite ... yellow. The last two fish inhabitants in the back a yellow tang which is maybe 6 inches round and a foxface which is perhaps 7 inches long, both are quite fat and happy. This is what they called home. It was a fun sized tank, 4 feet long, 3 feet deep, and 2 feet high, that depth is amazing for aquascaping (not that this picture shows it)
Here's a picture about 3.5 years ago.
And another picture 8 months after that... damn I had a knack for growing coral!
But those pictures make me sad, seeing what i had and eventually lost. I even see my Tomini tang in the picture which was recently lost due to the the "fish incident"
Only last picture of my anemone tank, this is the day after I took the lights off, since they didn't open up completely it was really easy to count. Who wants to guess how many are in there? Hint: It rhymes with hurty fun
I'm still sans clownfish too, so haven't quite decided on what to do with them, I know couple have expressed interest
Well this was not a thread about remembering, this was a thread about my mad plans! Why did I even remove everything? Well because I need to remove everything from the room! Already did a bunch with the drywall around the edges, now I need to yank the floor up. Then I need to put down a new floor, and this will be done in steps, the room is approximately 25 feet by 15 feet, so I'll get a little over half of it done, then when the true Machination gets set up, everything will move to that, and I can finish the other half of the room.
So here is the baby machination, a tri-tank system.
BTW, sorry for the picture quality upon closer inspection, seems the flash bounced off corners and didn't get back to the camera.
Setting it up wasn't fun, I'm finding out how old I am by how I feel when I take a 15 minute break and don't want to go back to work.
The main tank which was my "OMG I need to save my coral" tank, is my old "Mikemar" retrofit 32" x 24" x 24", has my custom built LED fixture above it, there is currently one fish in there, it's corals though.
The one on the bottom is a 48" x 14" x 20" tank (60g) which houses the foxface and the yellow tang, lets just say they're not too happy about it, they're in 1/3 the tank space that they used to have. Anyone who's ever moved from a house to an apartment probably knows how this feels. I have a couple corals in there, stuff that won't fit in the other tank, and I'll eventually bring to the frag swap.
The last tank is the same anemone tank, I simply moved it as it was. I removed the water, then lifted it into position then put the water back in, with my luck the anemones will split and I'll have twice as many.
The wiring is ugly as all hell, but I made sure it was partially safe, with no chance for wires to fall into the water, or me grabbing them as handholds. It's ugly but it works and is good enough for the time being. The plumbing wasn't much more fun. I had to change out sumps because in the case of a power outage I was worried the water flow from three tanks draining even an inch would be too much. What I did is had the return split between the coral tank and the anemone tank, and the drain from the coral tank goes directly into the bottom tank, which then overflows into the sump (the drain for that tank is over 2x larger). Overall it's a nasty mess... but it works for now and I'll deal with it. I am a bit worried at how much the bottom tank bulges out though, not sure if I should or not, it's TruVu tank and the bracing is still on it... I'm just hoping it TruVu didn't make terrariums and that's what this tank is! I originally got it from Bryan who used it as a sump/frag tank, but he only had it filled about 1/3 the way.
So what's next? Well you'll have to wait and see. I'm hoping to have it setup within 3 months... we'll have to see if I can get that time table done. Unfortunately school starts up tomorrow, but I'm teaching only night classes which is great because I only see each class once a week so prepping/grading for each class can be done fairly easily. I'm not 100% sold on the direction I'm going with the real machination, but I'll ask for opinions/help when I get to that step... first step is demolition, then it's construction
P.S. Anyone in need of a 180g tank? Nice sized tank (see pictures above), external coast to coast overflow, you can even have the stand (which is functional grade not furniture grade). It does need some elbow grease to get the coraline off and sand out any small scratches, but it holds water and isn't cracked anywhere. $200 and it's yours! That's almost as good as Petco's buck-a-gallon sale! (Although good luck funding a tank this size for that price there!) You need a truck though or SUV though, it only partially fits in my Prius
