wpeterson
Well-Known Member
The last three days have been some of the worst I've had as a reefer in many years. We moved house a week ago and I wanted to move our 40 gallon tank last weekend. Due to Thanksgiving and family conflicts, I didn't have any time until Sunday.
I setup a 40 gallon rubbermaid as a stock tank and got it setup a few days before. I got all of the live rock into 10 gallon holding tanks with heat/powerheads and then packaged up our few coral and fish for the move. I moved the fish and coral first and got them all in the stock tank after an hour-long acclimation since we have a Maxima clam that is delicate. Everything seemed to be going well. Maxima was opened up and corals were looking OK.
I got back to the old house and finished draining/disassembling the tank/sump only to find out that PVC glue or something else had bonded some of the flexible tubing and threaded joints where I was planning to disconnect our plumbing to move it. I had to cut some PVC/tubing that wouldn't disconnect gracefully and also had to toss some of the bulkheads. Not good, but I figured I could get out to an LFS for replacement bulkheads and I had a day or two with the stock tank to get the main tank back up and running.
Monday was work, but I managed to get out and buy new bulkheads, except some of them were nonstandard size - the 3/4 standard bulkheads I was told I bought were actually oversized for a 1" bulkhead hole, not a standard 3/4" bulkhead holes I have. No luck plumbing on Monday, but everyone seemed happy enough in the stock tank as of Monday night. I got all of the live rock moved into two 10 gallon stock tanks with heaters/flow in the basement.
Tuesday morning, feeling paranoid I bought a second non-drilled 40 breeder to setup as a medium term holding tank, got it home and filled with saltwater matching the stock tank. This was when I noticed the smell of death. Our Maxima clam was dead/dying as of this morning and had done serious damage to everything else in the stock tank. Our few SPS frags are toast. LPS are unhappy but may pull through. Fish are a bit stressed. I got them into the new tank ASAP when I realized what had happened and euthanized the clam in the freezer. It wasn't responsive to light and was gaping open - so if it wasn't dead, it would be soon. As of now everyone is in the new 40breeder with totally new water and I'm waiting on a HOB filter to help keep it longer term. I'm running carbon/GFO which I already had on hand and relying on Prime/water changes to manage ammonia in the mean time. I also added 1/3 of the live rock from the two 10 gallon stock tanks.
I'm devastated to lose the Maxima, such a beautiful creature. I'm grateful it seems I caught it within 4-8 hours before it killed off all our livestock. I'm still pretty stressed-out.
Let me know if you can sell me a spare 3/4 standard bulkhead (threaded internal, slip external). There was no way to pick up a second one with work on a Tuesday. I'm hoping to have our full display/sump re-plumbed and up and running this weekend. I'm kicking myself for not setting up a second full display tank in advance, but this is the first time I've ever moved a tank.
I setup a 40 gallon rubbermaid as a stock tank and got it setup a few days before. I got all of the live rock into 10 gallon holding tanks with heat/powerheads and then packaged up our few coral and fish for the move. I moved the fish and coral first and got them all in the stock tank after an hour-long acclimation since we have a Maxima clam that is delicate. Everything seemed to be going well. Maxima was opened up and corals were looking OK.
I got back to the old house and finished draining/disassembling the tank/sump only to find out that PVC glue or something else had bonded some of the flexible tubing and threaded joints where I was planning to disconnect our plumbing to move it. I had to cut some PVC/tubing that wouldn't disconnect gracefully and also had to toss some of the bulkheads. Not good, but I figured I could get out to an LFS for replacement bulkheads and I had a day or two with the stock tank to get the main tank back up and running.
Monday was work, but I managed to get out and buy new bulkheads, except some of them were nonstandard size - the 3/4 standard bulkheads I was told I bought were actually oversized for a 1" bulkhead hole, not a standard 3/4" bulkhead holes I have. No luck plumbing on Monday, but everyone seemed happy enough in the stock tank as of Monday night. I got all of the live rock moved into two 10 gallon stock tanks with heaters/flow in the basement.
Tuesday morning, feeling paranoid I bought a second non-drilled 40 breeder to setup as a medium term holding tank, got it home and filled with saltwater matching the stock tank. This was when I noticed the smell of death. Our Maxima clam was dead/dying as of this morning and had done serious damage to everything else in the stock tank. Our few SPS frags are toast. LPS are unhappy but may pull through. Fish are a bit stressed. I got them into the new tank ASAP when I realized what had happened and euthanized the clam in the freezer. It wasn't responsive to light and was gaping open - so if it wasn't dead, it would be soon. As of now everyone is in the new 40breeder with totally new water and I'm waiting on a HOB filter to help keep it longer term. I'm running carbon/GFO which I already had on hand and relying on Prime/water changes to manage ammonia in the mean time. I also added 1/3 of the live rock from the two 10 gallon stock tanks.
I'm devastated to lose the Maxima, such a beautiful creature. I'm grateful it seems I caught it within 4-8 hours before it killed off all our livestock. I'm still pretty stressed-out.
Let me know if you can sell me a spare 3/4 standard bulkhead (threaded internal, slip external). There was no way to pick up a second one with work on a Tuesday. I'm hoping to have our full display/sump re-plumbed and up and running this weekend. I'm kicking myself for not setting up a second full display tank in advance, but this is the first time I've ever moved a tank.
