The trials and tribulations of my tough little tank

[CAT]

Hi all, long time no see

It was a crazy summer so I wasn't on the boards much, but things didn't really get hairy with my tank until I made the big move from Toronto to Nova Scotia in the middle of October-- over 1000 miles of driving.

I decided to move everything (lps, softies and fish) since there isn't much marine stuff where I was going and I figured the mail order was about as risky as moving it myself. I've had some experience doing this since I've moved my tank 4 times in the last 3 years.

When it came to planning this move, I realized that I couldn't fit the rubbermaid tubs holding the critters and rock, the tank and stand and refugium, and the rest of the junk I had to bring with me in the back of the Outback. Sooo, good excuse to buy a new tank. I picked up a really nice 40 gallon oceanic stretch hex with a matching cherry stand in Toronto and shipped it to N.S with the movers about 2 weeks before I left (Hubby was already in N.S.)

Basically, I tore down the old tank down the day before, hit the road for 2 days, then set up the new tank in N.S. on the 4th day.

Everything went according to plan except for one major problem - I'd bought a 300 watt power inverter to plug into the cigarette lighter in the car to plug in heaters. Unfortunately, the dang thing only actually handles 240 watts consistently (should have read the fine print). Murphy's law being what it is, the inverter did not shut itself off as advertised because the load was too much, the cigarette lighter blew out instead. Bottom line, I had no heat while we were driving. Made for a very nervous trip...

For 2 days on the road, the temp in the tubs would drop to about 72 during the day until we hit a motel the first night and the house the second night when I could plug the heaters back in. Luckily, I was using battery powered air pumps so oxygen was not a problem.

I'm actually quite surprised that all the corals made the trip (though some were still sulking a little). The occelaris was fine as was my 3 year old fire shrimp. I did however lose the royal gramma and 2 green chromis - they made into the new tank but I had to fish them out a couple of days later. Too much stress I guess. For me too, I swear I felt every bump on the road.

The tank seemed to be recovering ok though I was experiencing some diatoms on the new sand and the new refugium looked a little lifeless except for some bristle worms.

One month later, the second major challenge hit. -- a 40-hour power failure because of a heavy snowfall that crumpled 7 towers carrying the power lines to our town... We are renting this house - no generator, no woodstove, and an electric stove which was no good to us. The power went off at about 6:00am. I started the battery operated air pumps and put a heavy blanket over the tank to conserve heat. By the second day with no power and 0 degrees celcius outside, Peter and I hit the road for a motel (with power) about 1.5 hours away because the temp in the house was 50 degrees and I needed hot coffee and a hot shower. The power company was saying the power could stay out for 4 or 5 days. I left like I was abandoning my buddies in the tank but I frankly didn't want to hang around and watch the tank crash.

The temp in the tank was down to 68 degrees when we left at 9:00 am (I did not look under the blanket to see how the critters were doing because I didn't need that image in my head). The power came back on at 11:00 pm so who knows how cold the tank was at that point.

We came back the next morning and I was bracing myself for a holy mess -- got the shock of my life when I saw the clown swimming around chasing bubbles from the air stones because he thought they were food and he was starving. Took a closer look and found the fire shrimp picking away at the rock. Amazing! Those guys had survived the move and then the power failure - who says marine animals are sissys Needless to say, I was thrilled.

The tank is still recovering. I haven't lost any animals yet though the cabbage leathers and the frogspawn are looking a little rough. I think they'll make it in time. The only things I lost were in the fuge - I lost all my macro algae and a bunch of stomatella snails. Since the stomatellas in the display did survive, I'm thinking that the volume of rock in the main tank probably held the heat longer. Interestingly, the cerith snail in the fuge is still trucking around as are the nassarius snails in the main tank.

I love happy endings (so far...)

[Clownfishman]

Thats great to hear, my power was out for 4 days.... but it live in the south and I was worried about the tank getting to hot, but everything survived it makes you feel good when you put so much time and effort into your tank. Especially if you don't have kids, the creatures in the tank kinda feel like your "kids" sometimes. You should get a back up UPS, or a small generator... I know I am...

[CAT]

Yeah, generators are a really good thing, especially when you have cold winters. We'll be looking into them when they're back in stock in the stores- something like 100,000 people were without power for a few days.

Glad your tank made it as well.

[cath]

Whew, Cherry! What a story...too close to my own memories of a power outage. I'm glad your tank didn't completely crash on you! So you don't have your prize-winning 29 any more? You were my hero on that one I'm sure this 40 will be just as great.

BTW...I didn't see any pix, just red background with white X

Good to see you back here on TRT!

[StellaMN]

Hey Cherry! Good to see back here.

Your move and subsequent power outage were enough to try the patience of a saint. I'm glad to hear that it all worked out for you.

Jodi

[tims]

Cherry great to hear from you!

Wow what a story! lets see some pictures! so you going to stay put on?
hope everyone in the tank gets back to it's full self!

[SPC]

Glad to hear all turned out well, Cat. I will be moving my entire 180 contents the first of next month, but only about a 3 hour drive so I am not too concerned.

Steve

[CAT]

Thanks for the sympathy guys, I needed it what a month!

I plan on re-arranging the rock this weekend - need to make room for more corals, but this is a pic of the tank between the move and the power outage - Looks pretty much the same now, even the frogspawn is expanding a little more each day.

In case anybody is interested, the corals that made it through the wars were:

-purple plume gorgonian and purple whip
-candy cane
-Bubble coral,
-assorted mushrooms
-polyps
-ricordia
-zoas
-frogspawn
-alveopora
-clove polyps
-green open brain
-cabbage leathers (still sulking)
-Xenia (kind of) - they were melting after the move so I cut them off, now I have about 8 little guys where there had only been a couple of stalks before.

Also the ocellaris, and the fire shrimp survived everything

[Cosine]

Looks like you pulled through really well all things considered!

Nice pic, tank looks good!
And hey even with the snow and cold you gotta be happy to be back on the east coast!

[Doug1]

What an ordeal, glad it went as well as it did, thats still a nice looking reef , ua done good

[CAT]

I think the biggest factor that helped with all the problems was my investment in a couple of Hagen battery operated air pumps. At about $10 bucks each (plus batteries), they've been worth their weight in gold. The 2 D batteries in each one kept the pumps going for a solid 40 hours and counting. I turned them off before they ran out of juice. Amazing!