Something big happened, and it's shaking up all the aquarium plans!
A friend from my toddler playdate group knew that I was looking for something different for the turtle... maybe a small pond outside (but how to protect from raccoons?), or at least a stand to move his 55-gallon home off of the counter where it's been for a year.
She ended up finding me a 75-gallon reef-ready (has a megaflow overflow) tank and stand on craigslist for just $50! AND she came all the way over to my town with her giant van to help me load it up and bring it home!! She's seriously amazing. I also purchased the guy's aqueon proflex sump model 4 for another $50. It was all pretty dirty and encrusted with calcium and coralline algae from having been used as a saltwater system.
For comparison, the tank new would be about $300, and the new stand $350, and the sump $300-$550 (why??), plus piping for the sump's overflow/return. So theoretically I paid $100 for $1000 worth of stuff, in exchange for being willing to re-silicone the tank, refinish the stand (it has no water damage though), and tolerate one scratch on the front glass. I didn't know it at the time, but when I got home and researched the sump, it had been modified and was missing 2 parts. Still happy with the deal!
So, I'm exchanging time and effort for a cheap tank and stand. This was 2 weeks ago... obviously the problem here is finding time. Potty training the toddler right now doesn't help much with free time, and then I also want to do everything involving fumes/dust while he's not around to breathe it in. So far I've only managed to deep-clean the tank and sump, use the belt sander and orbital sander on the stand, and fantasize about which creatures are going where.
Thank goodness that the tank and sump are still watertight... though the silicone looks a bit rough at the edges in some parts, it is still very much intact on the inside.
I'm going to try to update the blog a little bit every day until the project is complete!
A friend from my toddler playdate group knew that I was looking for something different for the turtle... maybe a small pond outside (but how to protect from raccoons?), or at least a stand to move his 55-gallon home off of the counter where it's been for a year.
She ended up finding me a 75-gallon reef-ready (has a megaflow overflow) tank and stand on craigslist for just $50! AND she came all the way over to my town with her giant van to help me load it up and bring it home!! She's seriously amazing. I also purchased the guy's aqueon proflex sump model 4 for another $50. It was all pretty dirty and encrusted with calcium and coralline algae from having been used as a saltwater system.
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| The sump is cleaned... except for the insides of those 2 impossible-to-reach tubes! |
For comparison, the tank new would be about $300, and the new stand $350, and the sump $300-$550 (why??), plus piping for the sump's overflow/return. So theoretically I paid $100 for $1000 worth of stuff, in exchange for being willing to re-silicone the tank, refinish the stand (it has no water damage though), and tolerate one scratch on the front glass. I didn't know it at the time, but when I got home and researched the sump, it had been modified and was missing 2 parts. Still happy with the deal!
So, I'm exchanging time and effort for a cheap tank and stand. This was 2 weeks ago... obviously the problem here is finding time. Potty training the toddler right now doesn't help much with free time, and then I also want to do everything involving fumes/dust while he's not around to breathe it in. So far I've only managed to deep-clean the tank and sump, use the belt sander and orbital sander on the stand, and fantasize about which creatures are going where.
Thank goodness that the tank and sump are still watertight... though the silicone looks a bit rough at the edges in some parts, it is still very much intact on the inside.
I'm going to try to update the blog a little bit every day until the project is complete!
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