Coralgrowing

I got my bulkhead yesterday, so it was time to start drilling. First I had to move the freshwater fish and shrimps to the other tank. Catching all the little buggers took most of the day so there was no time left to cut the drain hole.

This afternoon I started drilling with my diamond tipped Dremel bit, nice and slowly. After about a million passes the cut was about ¼ thru the glass and the bit was as smooth as a baby ass. I went into the garage only to discover that I had no more diamond tipped bits.

The nearby hardware store only had one bit left, so I had to drive all the way across town to get some more. The drilling is progressing nicely although it takes a lot longer than I had hoped for. The cut is about ¾ thru the glass now, but I have to call it a day because it will be too dark outside in a little while.

My wife just asked me “Why don’t you convert the big tank to salt water?” Are you kidding me? Upgrading from my current 86 liter (23 gallon) to a 243 liter (64 gallon), do I want to do that? Hell yeah! Lets go shopping!

I want to document everything involving the new tank for later reference, so I figured: why not add a blog to my site, so everyone interested can follow the process? So here we are, a brand new blog. I’ll have to create a template for it to match the main site, but right now I have different priorities: I have to go shopping for the big tank, before my wife changes her mind

The big tank has been running with freshwater fish for a few years now. Since it’s not reef-ready (i.e. no drain hole in the bottom) I have some work to do, but first lets have a look at what I need to buy for my new tank:

• Bulkhead
• Lights
• Pump
• Sand

That’s basically it. I already have plenty of live-rock. When the LFS had a sale in their salt water section I got some pretty cool rocks. Later I found out that I had bought more then would fit in my tank. So now I have a tank filled with rocks and a few extra pieces laying in the garage. With all the little critters I see walking on the rocks in my tank, I figure the ones stored in the garage will be re-seeded quite fast once introduced to the system.

Time to search the internets and visit the LFS!