Category: New Fishtank

Huge plumbing progress

Kevin with the tank, refugium in place (under the tank in the stand) and lots of work finished on all the plumbing.

He has all of the stand plumbing done and is working on finishing the plumbing through the wall. It’s slow going – precise and not much room for maneuvering, but so far things seem to be going well, without any mistakes that would necessitate cutting all the plumbing apart (though there was a near miss tonight – luckily the solvent worked just in time before things were totally solidified). Here’s an under-the-tank shot of all the plumbing there.

And a close-up on the monster-sized fittings, not yet joined up.

There’s still more to do in the garage after the in-house work is complete, but it’s looking like we might have water in the tank this weekend? We’ll fill with freshwater first and wait a few days. If everything looks good and no leaks, even after all the pumps have been turned on, then we’ll add salt. If that all still looks good, we may be able to start adding live rocks and sand in two weekends, and then it will seem like a real tank instead of a “someday” project!!

Rock Layout, v1 and v2

Due to all of the lighting and plumbing progress recently, I pulled out the “tank” batch of homemade playdough and some freezer paper so that we could start drafting rock layouts. Fun. The top three are Kevin’s, and the bottom three are mine. Each one is constrained by the tank layout, plus the two return lines that will run along the tank bottom.

The top left was the preliminary winner. Next step was using old boxes (and a school bus, and a container of little people) to build the structure in the tank.

We had to add some extra nodules for visual interest – the initial idea was functional but not interesting. I’m excited about the new plan.

Plumbing

Here’s Kevin during naptime on Saturday, “playing” with the fish tank plumbing.

He’s missing a few pieces but they’re ordered and on their way. It’s been too cold to do much out in the garage for the last week, but he’s still been making progress here and there on the cabinetry in the garage. He also installed magnetic baby locks on all five cabinet doors for the fish tank in the house, after the kiddo finally realized there were doors there and spent a delighted 25 minutes walking through the fish tank stand, closing himself in, and slamming the doors. Awesome toy plus all of the satisfaction of closing yourself in the bathroom, and yet it did not meet the parental activity approval bar. He’s been so disappointed to find himself locked out since then – hopefully he’ll forget quickly…

Fishtank update

Kevin made a ton of progress out in the garage over the weekend on the new systems for the new tank. First of all, the new sink is installed in its new location (against the laundry room wall instead of the back wall).


I can’t even tell you how happy I am to have the old one gone and a shiny one with nice knobs in its place. He also made major progress on the new counters/furniture that will hold the pumps, skimmer, sump, etc. Lots of cutting and gluing — a few pieces clamped and drying shown here:


The weekends keep galloping by, but there’s been good, steady progress.

Meanwhile, our current tank is still trucking along. We’ve been putting off replacing any of the live rock or sand until the new tank is ready, and have been paying for it with some very high nitrates. So, stepping up the water changes, and Monday two weeks ago, Henry and I took a trip down to the fish store right after work to buy some new live rock for the refugium. It’s a huge piece, about 20 pounds, and will hopefully help stabilize things a bit.

It came with the neatest little white thick-bodied starfish (not sure if they’re friends or foe, but there are certainly a zillion of them, and we have enough experience with how irrepressible starfish are to just shrug and enjoy watching them on the glass). And here’s a shot of the tank mid-cleaning after blowing detritus out from under the rocks.

An hour after this activity once the sponges and filters have had a chance to remove the murk, the water always looks gorgeous and so clear.

Tank!

Our gorgeous new tank arrived tonight!!

It’s way too heavy for us to lift, so the guys will come back out with their special tools and extra manpower once we’re ready to put it in the house. Next step is getting an electrician out.

Not quite swim-in size, but Kevin could totally fit in it. 🙂