Preparation Day

Wednesday evening we started the final preparations for the rebuilding. We filled the second aquarium with fresh water and salt to let it mix overnight. Also we searched all our barrels/buckets and crates to put rock and corals in.
My girlfriend started cleaning a piece or life rock already, getting rid of the sea pearls located on the rock and trying to clean of the grey dirt cover.


Everything is set to start!

Rebuilding Day 1

The alarm went pretty early, and of to work we went. The salt in the other aquarium had mixed with the water perfectly. I started pumping out the water and dividing it over the buckets and crates to make sure a small layer was in each one, leaving just a small layer in the other aquarium as well. Everything will be supplemented with water from the aquarium.
In between I brought rocks to my girlfriend for her to clean. She removed all the Sea Pearls and Sea Anemones from the rocks and brushing of the dirt.


I started pumping out water from the aquarium into all the buckets and crates and after that filling up the other aquarium with this water as well for the fish and invertebrates to stay in. Also I took out all the corals, checking them for any plague things and putting them in the buckets after they where filled up. Also took out the tube worm and put it in a bucket, hope he makes it there for a day.




Three corals needed special treatment. The Toadstool was the first, the rock had two Sea Anemones on it, so while I was holding the Toadstool up, my girlfriend injected boiling water on the spots the Sea Anemones where located. Some time later the Kenya tree rock needed work, also bit hard since Sea Pearls where growing close to it. And the last coral rock was the rock with mushrooms. We noticed that moving the red one would be very difficult, it has a long root set between rock points.
After a big part of the rocks where removed I put one cleaned rock in the other aquarium, and started catching fish and invertebrates. The Hermit Crab was easiest to catch, the big clownfish also didn’t put up much of a fight, but the others didn’t make things easy for me. Especially the Sailfin Blenny made things hard, by attaching itself to the bottom of a rock and not letting go. But in the end I got them all, and meanwhile my girlfriend had cleaned most of the rocks. Only three more left in the aquarium. Unfortunately none of the missing creatures where found. Yeah the fragment of the toadstool, but we can’t reach it since it’s stuck between parts of a rock.



After getting home in the evening we took of the hood, and removed all the pumps so they could be cleaned. My girlfriend still has a day of tomorrow so she will continue the cleaning so that we can put everything back in on Saturday.

Rebuilding Day 2

During the daytime my girlfriend continued the work. There was still a lot of water left which needed to be removed.

And also the main tank needed a lot of cleaning. And so she also cleaned the back and the windows.



She also started cleaning the pumps, filters and the skimmer. She didn’t do all of them in one day, because there was still a lot of work that needed to be done.

Also she cleaned the remaining rocks and took out the sand of the aquarium. It’s at those moments you notice how much life there is besides what you buy in the store…like some 5cm big worms.

Late in the evening I cleared the back rooms from water and cleaned them. Everything was now set to start building the next day.

Rebuilding Day 3

Next day I started cleaning the hood, while my girlfriend continued on the pumps. I moved some water to the backrooms to be able to put the filters back in. Then I started to put the pumps back in one by one.

Also put in the racks we build, pumped some water in the front chamber and started putting in the rocks. Pretty quick we noticed the nice triangle I had in mind wouldn’t work, it wasn’t firm enough, so we removed it and just kept the two tables.

Then when all the rocks where in we started pumping water from the other aquarium and moved the fish again.
We got a pretty scare from the other aquarium, we found something we thought was the hermit crab, fortunately it turned out to be just his skin, he was still alive. Catching the fish gave a lot of problems, the Salarias had moved himself underneath the pump chamber somehow, and the Foxface wanted to move on its own and jumped out of the aquarium. But we got everything out and they seem to be doing fine.
After we put in more water we started moving the Corals, they had a pretty big blow from staying in a bucket, and especially the Toadstool and Kenya tree looked pretty bad.
We went to the fishstore to look for some extra rocks and more, but we forgot to buy rock and only got new water.

Rebuilding Day 4, the conclusions/lesson’s learned

Day four is more the day after, only thing we did today, besides cleaning the house after all the work, was remove the Toadstool and put it in the other aquarium. We did this because he is either dying, or at least getting rid of skin and he is creating a lot of mess. We didn’t want to risk anything happening to the aquarium itself and the other life forms, so he is in quarantine now. Hopefully he recovers, but I have my doubts.
The rest looks good, the fish and invertebrates have found the caves and cliffs which are plenty available now. Downside for us is that it’s harder to spot them now, especially the Cleaner Shrimp hide himself well. The buttons are opening up already, at least one group of them, the others are slowly opening as well. The mushrooms are looking nice, not as big as before, but at least they don’t overgrow each other anymore (we didn’t move any of them, was too much trouble). The Kenya tree isn’t looking too well, not sure if he will make it either, but I’m giving him a chance. The tube worm has already showed himself, that is more then he did before the rebuild.


As you can see, some rock is still needed, so expect big changes still!

Well, what did we learn from all this:
It’s a hell of a job, so it needs the preparations and time…but I think we did that part right. But I don’t think we will do anything like this anytime soon :p

When you go buy something, make a good shopping list…this way you don’t forget that which you wanted to buy.

When removing corals it’s best to keep them in an aquarium as well, keeping them in buckets for such a “long” time obviously isn’t very good for the corals.

Check a new habitat for fish before using it, expect everything and anticipate on it. We had to break of the filter chamber to get the Salarias, with the risk of course of crushing him…better to make sure that something like that can’t happen.

Tomorrow there will be more update on the status with the values of the water. Tuesday we want to try and buy the stones we needed…maybe look for some corals also…but that’s not sure yet.