melev

With the 400g needing to be repaired or replaced, I had to do something for the current livestock. I called a local fish store that often sells used aquariums, looking for something big enough for my reef. He called me back within minutes letting me know he had a 215g that would work out great.

It's an interesting story, showing how small this world really is. Many years ago, I ran a BBS (bulletin board system) and one of my friends was a regular visitor. When my computer fried, the BBS was retired and I lost connection with all those people that were members for so many years. Time passed. One day, I got an email asking if I was the same Marc Levenson that ran an Atari BBS. When he got my affirmative reply, he introduced himself with his former nickname, letting me know that he was now joining the saltwater hobby only to find me doing the same. We reconnected, and one day I took my son to meet him in person at his job, as he's an air traffic controller. We toured the place, and marveled over the ancient computers they used to keep us safe in the sky. The most modern part was the weather tracking computer in the middle of the room!

Over the years, he and I have traded emails, and stayed in touch. We have the same birthday, were born in the same city, and his son has the same birthday as well. Guess who's getting out of the hobby right when the 400g needed assistance? I called him up to arrange a schedule to pick up the set up, and he was really happy to hear it was something that could help me out for the time being.

I'd had a lot of people offer to help lately, so I posted up a request on DFWMAS for people to help me get it loaded up at my friends house Saturday morning, and another group help me unload it and set it up in the fishroom two hours later.

The tank is immense (72" x 24" x 28"), with a very tall 44" stand. It didn't take long to get it completely out of his house and into my trailer. The night before, I bought two new tires to replace the aged cracked 12+ old ones. The drive was about 40 minutes back with a lot of weight.

Upon arrival, we took the doors of the hinges in the fishroom, removed some stuff in my garage and got the stand and tank in the fishroom against the wall where I had some shelving before. The canopy isn't on the tank as I have quite a bit to do still.









I'm glad I built a big fishroom, but it's a tight squeeze between the power station and the 215g now. I'm planning to move the powerstation and plumb the 215g to my sump and refugium since it is still running and will be the simplest solution.

Once the temporary has been cleaned out and plumbed, I'll move the livestock over and clean out the 400g completely. I'm pretty much resigned to taking the 400g out of the house for repairs / rebuilding, so there will be a day in the future when I'll need help to get it outside. Then later, to bring the new & improved tank back in. And then subsequently to take the 215g back out again. Lots to do in the next few months.

The temporary tank is almost as big as my last tank (seems ironic to me). I get to aquascape it and fill it up with livestock, and get some lights suspended over the top. I don't know if I'll put any sand in this tank yet, that's still up for debate. I'll have about 450lbs of sand to take out of the 400g, and I"m thinking about using the 100g trough in my garage to keep the schlepping to a minimum.