{"id":18257,"date":"2015-01-26T07:53:30","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T07:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=18257"},"modified":"2015-01-26T08:19:24","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T08:19:24","slug":"aquarium-re-location","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/01\/aquarium-re-location\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquarium Re-location"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems to have been a week or so of re-locating ‘pets’.\u00a0Last weekend it was relocating the beehives<\/a>, this weekend, following on from the fish-tank leak<\/a> it was time to re-locate the aquarium.<\/p>\n

Now or Never<\/h2>\n

The latest news on the escalation of jobs associated with the fish-tank leak is that\u00a0the new Aquatlantis Fusion 101 Aquarium set up complete with cabinet that I’ve ordered is due to arrive today. We’ve also ordered a new carpet for the office in which the new aquarium will go and so will start decorating the room this week. The first job on that front will be to box everything up and move all of the cupboards, bookshelves, desks, filing cabinets and computers out of the room. Quite where we’ll put it all is not yet known, but we’ll work something out. All of this was prompted by the fact that the leak in the fish-tank leak meant that\u00a0it would have to be completely dismantled before a new one could take its place. That in itself\u00a0was a major task and one that we don’t expect to do too often, so whilst that was being done the rest of the room may as well be decorated too. If we\u00a0didn’t do it now, it could be another 10 years or so before it was done.<\/p>\n

The Best Laid Plans<\/h2>\n

So, over the weekend, the task of dismantling the leaky tank was tackled. I bought a \u00a320 second hand tank from someone in Aberystwyth and the plan was to take everything out of the leaky tank, move it into this 2nd hand\u00a0tank temporarily. Then once we had redecorated the office we would have room to set up the brand new aquarium in place of the leaky one and move everything back.<\/p>\n

It was going to be a lot of work but it had to be done and hopefully there would be very few if any casualties as far as fish and plants were concerned.<\/p>\n

Dismantling the Aquarium<\/h1>\n

The first job after siphoning out some water was to remove all of the plants. With such a heavily planted tank there\u00a0was no way I’d be able to catch\u00a0any of the fish without first removing the plants. This is what it looked like before I did anything\u00a0to it. It was a little overgrown as it had been running wild since the tank developed a leak.<\/p>\n

\"End<\/a>

End of and Era – Before the Move<\/p><\/div>\n

The plants were duly removed and placed in buckets, and then the fish were netted and placed in the buckets too. Some of the fish were a little difficult to catch, especially seeing as the water was now a dark brown mess so I ended up using some plastic chopping boards to section off areas of the tank to corner the fish before catching them. Once caught, they were placed in the buckets along with the plants and most of the aquarium water. I also discovered a tiny baby guppy that I\u00a0didn’t know we had.<\/p>\n

\"Buckets<\/a>

Buckets Everywhere<\/p><\/div>\n

As I was going to be putting the fish straight back into a new tank, I wanted to save as much of the conditioned water as possible. Putting them into fresh tap-water\u00a0wouldn’t be good for the fish. The water, and especially the gravel substrate contain huge populations of bacteria that breakdown toxins in the water and act as the primary source of biological filtration\u00a0in the tank. The gravel however was quite mucky, so although rinsing it through with chlorinated tap-water was likely to kill off much of this essential bacteria, it had to be done. By now, there was chaos in the office, but my next job was to remove all of the gravel into yet another bucket and then sit outside in the freezing cold, rinsing it all through.<\/p>\n

\"Chaos<\/a>

Chaos in my Office<\/p><\/div>\n

The leaky tank was now finally empty and could be loaded into the car for a trip to the tip. The stand that it was now accessible and ready for clearing off and cleaning.<\/p>\n

Re-constructing the aquarium<\/h2>\n

We had decided to temporarily place all of the fish, plants and other aquarium fixtures and fittings into the 2nd hand tank I had bought and to set it up in the ‘beach-room’. It would be out of the way here, allowing us to re-decorate the office. This of course meant moving a few things around in the beach-room to make some space. Aquariums take up more room than you think, but it would only be for a few weeks so we’d have to put up with a cramped beach-room for a bit. My turbo trainer was moved into the middle of the room and the aquarium stand put up in\u00a0its place.<\/p>\n

I then cleaned the 2nd hand tank and with some help from Anna man-handled it into place on the stand. The freshly washed gravel was placed into the tank and the process of setting it back up began.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>

New Tank Set Up<\/p><\/div>\n

Once the gravel was in, the bogwood was arranged and then I moved the buckets of water containing the fish and plants into the beach-room ready for re-introduction to the tank. At least, that was the plan, but buckets of water this size are extremely heavy and with Anna and Morgan now out for the afternoon I had to decant some of the water into smaller buckets first. This did at least mean that I could lift these smaller buckets high\u00a0enough to pour the water into the new tank. Once it was part full I started on the plants. There had been some luxuriant growth in the tank previously so I discarded about half of the plants, but replanted many of the healthier looking specimens. This is the fun bit, aqua-scaping a tank and trying to create a nice, natural looking environment that looks good to us and will provide a suitable home for the fish.<\/p>\n

Once this was done it was time to catch the fish again and put them into the new tank. This was easier said than done. They were\u00a0difficult\u00a0enough to catch from the old tank, but trying to fish them out of a round bucket is more difficult as you can’t corner them. Nor can you see anything if the bucket is black. In the end I had no option but to simply pour some of them into the tank along with the last bits of water in the buckets.<\/p>\n

Eventually the gravel, plants, water and fish from the old tank were now in a new tank in the beach-room. All that was left was to install the heater, filter and lights and let things settle down.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>

All Set Up<\/p><\/div>\n

The filter wouldn’t fire back up at first. I took it apart, cleaned it all and put it back\u00a0together again but that didn’t work. I changed the fuse\u00a0in the plug but still no joy. I thought that the expense may grow as I’d have to buy a new filter for the tank, but in the end I cut the plug off and put a new one on and for some reason that fixed it. I don’t even know what prompted me to do that but it worked, even if the filter was a little noisier than it used to be.<\/p>\n

Next I spent ages re-arranging the beach-room to fit things in as best I could. I had\u00a0a good idea with the turbo trainer that allows me to store it vertically but simply lower it down for use. Thanks to this and a few other storage idea somehow I had the beach-room not only re-arranged and ready for use as a home gym, but it seemed more spacious than before despite now having an additional fishtank in the corner.<\/p>\n\n\t\t