The Free Tank!

The Free Tank!!!

If you stay in the hobby long enough, they will appear – The Free Tank!!! People move, people get busy, people don’t want to look at their dirty tanks anymore. And there you are waiting like the Rock Fish to ambush his prey and sweep up the free tank. Well, maybe not quite so dramatic, but you can get lucky and get some really cool stuff.

new friends

I got lucky a few weeks ago. A friend of Bob’s, the host of The Reef Aquarium DVD, A Set Up & Maintenance Guide,  was moving and did not want to take care of her 14 gallon Bio Cube Nano any more. I had always wanted a nano for my office and when this one came available I jumped at it.

little maroon clown

It needed a good cleaning as the algae had really built up, but as it was only 14 gallons it did not take long at all to clean. I kept all the fish and rock in the tank and just did a 50% water change, making sure the salinity and temperature were the same. In the 210 gallon demo tank, I am not as exacting when doing a water change as I change such a small percentage every week (5%) that the tank will absorb any variation in temperature or salinity.

Bio Cube Protein Skimmer

I added an Oceanic Bio Cube Protein Skimmer. It is not my MTC- HSA-1000, but at least it fits in the tank and I can still close the lid. The jury is still out on other things for the tank that I wish to add. However, it looks like everyone is doing quite well right now. There is a small Yellow Tang, two Blue Green Chromis, two Blennies, a Cardinal, a Cleaner and a Blood shrimp and a Maroon Clown. I thought it would be a little much for the tank, but they are all so small and everyone gets along well.

The Cardinal Rule

Don’t forget my Cardinal Rule! Make sure you know when you get into the hobby, that when you decide you want to get out of the hobby, all the money you spend on your tank will probably go right down the drain. Very few people starting out want to risk their money on a scratched used tank. Thus, resale on used tanks are almost nothing.

“That’s as heavy as a car!”

a lot of support

“That’s as heavy as a car!” is what the architect said when we starting talking to him about the weight of the  demo tank. With the 35 gallon sump and 210 demo tank that was 245 gallons. Multiply by 8.5 to be on the safe side, as water is closer to 8.1 pounds, we have 2,083 pounds. Add 300 pounds of live rock, and 250 pounds of sand, extra water standing by for water changes along with pumps, salt for mixing and everything else you need close by for a successful reef aquarium, we estimated the weight to be about 3,000 pounds.

What the contractor did was rip out the floor boards and run them east/west instead of north/south. This allowed the weight to be distributed on every floor board instead of just the two directly under the tank.

(An interesting aside: this riping out the floor opened up the downstairs floor to the sky. As you can imagine with a contractor, it took a while to close it up. The contractor sent one of his guys to protect our basement floor and he used one piece of plywood flat – no angle – and one little tarp. One night while it was open in the summer, at about 10 PM the skies opened up. I was there waiting with five buckets. At one area next to the window, it poured! It was like someone had turned on three faucets full blast onto the carpet. Fourtunately I had a Pythone and was able to siphone the water out from the 55 gallon garbage can. Needless to say, the contractors named was mentioned several times by the lady of the house in a not too flattering manner…)

We also used two steel beams bolted together (top part of the picture). This steel has kept the floor from sagging and the tank level.

Most tanks will hold up fine with regular construction. We know of a couple of 180 gallon tanks that are on a second floor and doing fine with no added support. But we like to recommend that you use caution and good sense. If you go big, make sure you are safe, because going light for support on a big tank can be a crash worse than anything the stock market can do.