The last sequel to the road to rebuilding. Not many pictures this time, the aquarium glass is covered by algae and I don’t feel like cleaning just for today, since tomorrow we are going to start the rebuilding.
So how will this blog go…well, to be short, first a verbal update on how everyone/thing is doing and after that how the last preparations went (with pictures).

The Fish

Not much happened to them, the Flame Angelfish is still nowhere to be found unfortunately, and the other fish are still doing very well.

The Corals

The Corals are a different case, a lot has changed (no pictures unfortunately).
The Green Star Polyps are actually recovering, more seem to be opening lately. A lot of them have died unfortunately, but I’m glad some survived the Dinoplague. Hope in the new setting they will expand even more.
The Kenya Tree is also doing fine, most of it is attached to the big rock it seems, so he will be difficult to remove…we will see how it goes, not the first time he would be damaged if he gets damaged.
The Toadstool is becoming a bit of a problem, he is doing too well. It might become too big for the aquarium, or might already be too big. As far as I can think of we have four options:

• Do nothing and wait and see how it goes
  
• Sell it, but both me and my girlfriend aren’t a fan of that
  
• Cut a piece of it and try to create a new toadstool from it, girlfriend still has doubts…and me also little
  
• Buy a bigger aquarium, unfortunately my girlfriend already said she didn’t want that option :p
  

So it’s still a discussion point….
And then there is the Red Mushroom, also becoming a problem since it’s overgrowing the Green Mushroom. We are going to try and move it a bit, see if we can.
The Green Mushroom is also becoming bigger every day, also doing very well.
The Xenia is all gone now, so that’s a closed topic unfortunately.
And the buttons are slowly recovering from the plague.

The Invertebrates

No sign of any of the sea stars yet, still hope they will show up, but not expecting it.
The Tube Worm has better news, looks like a small crown is slowly showing up from its tube. So it’s not dead. Hope he likes it better when we have moved him in a new setting.
I’m also seeing some small fan worms reappear, so it looks like everything is really stabilizing.
In the last count I found 5 sea anemones, hopefully after this weekend it will be reduced to none at all :p
The Hermit crab and Cleaner shrimp are living happy still, no news on them.

The Algae

Most of it is doing very well, needs to be cut down much or entirely. The Dinoflagellate is almost gone, well actually…it is gone, some left on some other corals, but if we remove those it should be gone entirely. Guess that turning down the light to 9 hours worked like a charm .

The Preparations

The preparations are fully underway. Today I have shaved of the edges of the reef racks and cleaned them together with the tubes. My girlfriend got some different tubes from someone at work then the ones I had in mind, but they are more firm and are already cut to the right size so big improvement I think .

First I started shaving of the edges that where left from cutting the reef rack, started with the two racks that will be the bottom tables.


Then I started cleaning out the tubes with a knife to make sure the remains from cutting where gone as much as possible.


After that I put everything in a nice warm bath to clear it from any lose dirt that still remained.


And then there were two tables all ready after putting all the pieces together


Next was the same process for the racks that would be put on top of the two tables, so first clearing of the edges.


Nice bath together with the tie wraps.


And then attach it all loosely together so that we can still move it a bit when we place it.


Tomorrow the real work is going to start, so this is it for the road to series.