Tore down and moved my 55g..

FreshyFresh

FreshyFresh

Superstar Fish
#1
Jan 11, 2013
1,337
23
38
East Aurora, NY
#1
I have to hand it to those who do this with any monotonous regularity. Wow what a lot of work!! I haven't done a break-down and re-do in a good 25+ yrs! It took me a good 4-5hrs total.

I used my canister filter lines to fill a storage tote. Transferred the filters, heater, plants, fish, etc to the tote. Scooped out all the gravel, shop-vac'd all the remnants, scrubbed with a plastic scrubby and pitchers of water to rinse... shop vac'd again. Storage tote started to bellow out pretty good, but she held!

It took me some time to level the stand in it's new spot. All new gravel and added a new background.

The white blobs in the background are panty loads *laughingc* of used gravel from the existing setup. I was surprised at the root system the wisteria had developed. My anubias nana had attached itself to the resin stone/cave and my java fern have attached nicely to shells. I hope it all takes! Here's the before and after:


 

FreshyFresh

FreshyFresh

Superstar Fish
#5
Jan 11, 2013
1,337
23
38
East Aurora, NY
#5
Thanks FD. I damaged the heck out of the water sprite pulling/moving it. The stalks on it are rigid and snap easily.

This tank move finally allowed me to scrap the Lowes marble chip 'substrate'. In went 55lbs / ~$30 worth of Petco gravel. Sure is a big difference from the $3 bag of marble chips. :(
 

CAPSLOCK

CAPSLOCK

Elite Fish
#6
Jul 19, 2004
3,682
33
48
39
Cape Cod
#6
Lots of work! Looks nice with the changes.

Moving a tank is one of those things that you wish you could spread out over a few days, but you just can't! Have had the "underestimating the time required" issue when moving tanks before. Also removing sand/gravel from a tank is a royal PITA.
 

FreshyFresh

FreshyFresh

Superstar Fish
#8
Jan 11, 2013
1,337
23
38
East Aurora, NY
#8
CAPSLOCK said:
Lots of work! Looks nice with the changes.

Moving a tank is one of those things that you wish you could spread out over a few days, but you just can't! Have had the "underestimating the time required" issue when moving tanks before. Also removing sand/gravel from a tank is a royal PITA.
Click to expand...
Good thing about the marble chips was I didn't use a ton of it. I was able to relatively quickly scoop it out by hand into a pail. The last of it I shop-vac'd out along with the yummy brown water. Nice thing was, there was no bad stink at all. Just that earthy vegetation smell. As cool as sand looks, I just can't bring myself to use it.

FishDad said:
Sorry freshy, I know. I still feel bad about recommending them. Since then I've vowed never to buy a substrate unless it feels like a rip off.
Click to expand...
LOL!! I didn't really mind it that much. I had it in use for a little over 10 months. It would definitely have stayed had I not decided to move the tank.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.