First I hauled all the rocks out of the tank, and siphoned water from the aquarium into our large cooler (this is a handy way to transport fish!) and Jonathan caught all 14 fish and dumped them in. I have a small pile of unused filters, so I hooked up my Whisper 20 interior filter (no media) to the cooler rim to provide water flow and aeration. Then it was a matter of siphoning the rest of the water out and scooping out the sand. Once that was done, I used our small shop vac to vacuum out the remaining sand and water, and we were ready to move the tank! It's been stuck downstairs awaiting cleaning and repair.
Then it was time to dismantle the tank stand and rebuild it to fit a 48"x18" footprint. Jonathan had previously cut four lengths of 2x4 to my measure, and I had stained them to match the rest of the wood. (Putting stain on was like seeing magic! It was amazing!) The screws holding the two framing rectangles were in there so tight that Jonathan's cordless drill made enormous noise as the anti-stripping feature kicked in repeatedly, but they did all come out in one piece. We replaced the four pieces and screwed the frames back together, then drilled the holes to connect the four legs of the stand. I didn't time it but I'd guess it took less than an hour to finish that part! To top the stand, Jonathan cut a piece of insulation board to fit over the whole rim of the stand (unfortunately these insulation sheets are always an inch short, so he cut a strip out of the middle). This will serve to even out potential pressure points between the top frame of the stand and the tank. Considering the full aquarium probably weighs about 800lbs, it's a good safety measure!
Then we were ready to bring up the 75 from downstairs, where I had spent the last couple of days painting the back with a can of blue sample paint. I topped off the dry paint by taping posterboard over the back to protect it from scratches. Carrying it up the stairs was an anxious few minutes for me - it did hit the corner once, but Jonathan said he didn't think it had hit hard enough to damage anything. Thank goodness for tempered glass! We set it down and centered it on the frame, and then it was time to decorate.
I managed to convince Jonathan to set up the hardscape - I feel quite clever about this, actually, since I will be the first to tell you that he is a much better artist than I am. Even if he did compare aquascaping to playing Warhammer! The results of our labor:
Next we added sand. It looks like there's already sand in there because the bottom of the tank is painted, but those rocks are actually resting on the glass. I had washed a whole extra bucket of all-purpose sand in case we needed it, but because of all the rocks we needed far less than I had anticipated. The 55 had had a lot more in it than I thought because the bottom was covered by a plastic grid to help anchor the stones despite fishy sand-digging: the new hardscape is extremely stable alone, and anchored by the sand makes them doubly secure. The downside is that now I will never be able move them to clean behind them! (Not. Touching. Hardscape. Again. This is the third and final rearrangement in less than a month!)
All that was left was to use the Python to fill the tank with water and hook up the XP3 again. The sand did cause a bit of cloudiness despite my thorough washing of the new stuff, but it had filtered out and settled by this morning. The fish went back in after the tank was full (and the tap water treated with Prime) - I took care to match the temperatures of the water in the tank and in the cooler, but didn't bother with matching water parameters otherwise - none of the old water went into the new tank, except what was in the filter. Since none of the 55 gallon lids will fit the 75 (six inch gaps are quite enough for jumpers!) we covered most of the top with plastic wrap, leaving a small gap for air exchange.
I am amazed at what a huge difference those six extra inches of width make - my "Tank Boss", the alpha acei, is a full adult 6" and looked quite cramped in the 55, but he fits in here! Once all the other fish are 5" and 6" it might start looking a bit crowded again but I don't think so. The old, useless "rule of thumb" for 1 inch of fish per gallon really doesn't work aesthetically. A better rule might be "If your largest fish's adult size is half the front-to-back width of the tank, get a bigger tank or smaller fish." A thin, long fish might be the exception to the rule, but my cichlids are fairly heavy-bodied.
Then an amazing thing happened this afternoon - the lids I had ordered for this tank came in far earlier than I had anticipated! They're beautiful -
You can see the reflections of the recessed lighting above the tank here. I could put the 48" light strip back on at this point, but in the spirit of meddling, now that I have glass tops on the planted tank, I put the second light strip on the planted tank as well, so that the whole width of the tank had lighting - and it made a big difference to the color of the fish to have the foreground lit as directly as the back half of the tank! The foreground will still be dimmer simply because the bulb is a T12 rather than a T8, but that's no problem. So I'm going to stick with ambient light on the cichlids for now!
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