Finally got the tank off the stand and out of the living room.
I can vouch for one thing, this 120 is really well built! There were four plastic bulkheads on the bottom that I couldn't remove with the tank in place, and while trying to get the tank off the stand by myself, I managed to sheer three of them off and not hurt the tank.
And now I'm resting, and replaying in my head my wife's comment that I should have hired movers. 'There are 20 year olds to do this sort of stuff"
Does she call you Randy or Dr. Randy?
Depends on her mood. Worst of all is Randall. That's when I know I'm really in trouble.
The combination of the fish loss last fall when I was away, coupled with some slowly creeping problems made it my best choice.
1. The foxface that died was keeping the caualerpa in check. It is out of control again.
2. The Chelmon marginalis that died was keeping aiptasia in check. Not a problem yet, but likely only a matter of time.
3. Vermitid snails have taken over. Thousands of them everywhere. Makes the nice coralline covered rock and glass turn brown with accumulated stuff on them.
4. The electricity cost is hard to justify for the way the tank currently looked.
So the choice was to invest big and fix the problems, or take it down. For various other reasons, I decided taking it down with the option to maybe restart sometime in the future was the best option.
That's impressive. So, will you be reusing them on your NEXT tank?
The arm of these float switches is 316 stainless steel.
I could never seen them in the configuration I was using them, but now taking it all apart, I can.
Both looked perfect! No pitting or visible discoloration. Shiny and smooth (although the underwater one had a brownish coating of calcium carbonate which breaks off in chunks, leaving the shiny surface.
So my conclusion is that 316 stainless holds up perfectly well in reef applications, and while I cannot prove it, it seems unlikely to have leached anything problematic since it was exposed for 20 years with no apparent changes.
