BryceM

ingg,

That's funny. We both have degrees in civil engineering. I emphasized in concrete & steel structure design. We both have 180g planted tanks. How odd is that?

Tex Gal

Natalia, how goes it with the floor/weight concerns? Did you get things settled?

I guess I'm lucky. My house is on a slab.

Natalia

TexGal: We are having floors reinforced. Many thanks to everybody who contributed to the discussion, it was really helpful. The contractor is coming in two weeks to look at things and deside what needs to be done. Fish things are slowing down a little because the weather is getting nicer here in CT and it is time to dig the garden. We moved into our current house a year ago and have not done much in the garden yet. Neither my husband nor I have experience in gardening, i already see that it will be a lot of fun....

ingg

Great minds think alike!

I should note with embarrassment - when I say I calced the floors in this house, I mean I also did the initial design work. Fish tanks just load an area like you can't imagine... well.... like you wouldn't imagine when running designs anyhow, heh!

Natalia

Hi everybody. It has been awhile since my last post and things have been moving very slowly due to a general lack of time.

Nevertherless, I am having my floors reinforced this weekend and I need advice with the following. I now have a 75G in that spot. It has to be moved few feet away into a temporary location. I am wondering if there are any tricks to move the tank without emtying it completely. I can pump out 75% of the water, but I have a lot of fish inside ( including about a dozen 1/2-inch gouramy babies) that are not easy to catch. Is there any way just to push the quater-full 75G tank few feet without causing a leak? It would be very helpfull if someone could comment on this.

I also have a question about the lighting. I have considered many options and decided to go with 6 80wt T5HO bulbs. I think will follow a staggered design described by c4cache http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...tro-light.html. It seems to work well for him. Fortunately, I do not need to build a hood, just to mount the bulbs onto the existing hood. Now I need to buy T5 retrofit kits and I am deciding between this (http://www.horticulturesource.com/pr...oducts_id=2043) and this (http://www.reefgeek.com/lighting/T5_...unlight_Supply). It looks like the difference in price for the hardware w/o bulbs is 60$ and the only thing that is different is the ballast. The cheaper version comes with Fulham Workhorse ballast and the more expensive comes with Advance Centium ballast. Are these two really that different in quality?

EcoGeek

Natalia,

I recently moved my 75 a few feet while it still had about 25% of the water left in it. It worked, but it was not at all fun. I made use of those little "moving men" discs under the tank. Lifting it enough to get the discs underneath the stand was no fun. The success of my plan relied entirely on the fact that my stand once lifted enough out of its carpet prison would slide with the benefit of the moving men discs. If you stand is not the type that will easily slide, I would suggest you look at biting the bullet and draining it. You can seriously damage the seals on the tank if you attempt to move it by lifting it and end up doing so in an "unlevel" way.

http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Men-8-P.../dp/B0000645RF

Ecogeek/ Deron

Fishtory

Ya, somebody moved one of mine with water in it (I was not home) and the glass cracked right down the front middle! By the time I found it, almost all water had leaked out, furniture, carpet, and ceiling below destroyed, most fish dead.

Natalia

EcoGeek and Fishtory,
Many thanks for the good advice. What I did was draining most of the water so that only about two inches left and sliding the stand very slowly and carefully. I have hardwood floors and sliding was really easy and the floor was not damaged. I was very stressed about doing this, but it looks like everything worked fine. It has bees 2 days and there are no leaks yet. Funny enought, I thought that fish would get very stressed by the move, but they were happily swimming like nothing ever happend half hour later.
My floor is now reinforced, so I can go ahead with setting up my 220g!

BryceM

Very cool.

Post some photos so we can play along!

f1ea

Hmmm... i also have a degree in Civil Engineering, with an MSc in Hydraulic Engineering (River Basin Development). That would allow me some Gals over you guys, right?

Well, as a matter of fact: I have a 200 Gal planted.