Moving the 40s was the warm-up. Emptying the main display is the part that has kept me up at night. This is years of growth, the colonies the whole shop is built on, and there is no pausing a reef while you renovate around it. It needs a stable home to sit in, and that home has to be genuinely ready before a single coral comes out.
Prepping the holding tank
The 150 gallon Rubbermaid was bought back at the start of the project, but a new stock tank is not reef-ready out of the box. Two things had to happen first: better plumbing, then a real cleaning.
Stock tanks ship with thin-wall drain hardware I do not trust under a full load of water and livestock. So on May 13 the bulkhead got upgraded to Schedule 80: a heavier Spears fitting through the wall with a plug cemented into it, so the drain is solid and will not weep or crack down the line.
Then on May 16 came the cleaning: vinegar only, never soap. Soap leaves a residue that no amount of rinsing fully clears, and residue is a slow killer. Vinegar cuts the manufacturing film, then saltwater and a lot of wiping finishes the job.
A lid that actually works
A round stock tank has no rim to hang anything from, so the cover had to be built. On June 6 I made a lid out of mesh and leftover egg crate: rigid enough to hold shape, open enough for gas exchange and light, and fine enough to keep jumpers in and curious hands out.
Light over the water
Holding is not just parking. Coral still needs light to hold color and not starve, so on July 3 I built a simple canopy to suspend a reef light over the tank at the right height. Temporary does not mean neglected.
Fill day
July 4: filled, matched to temperature and salinity, and the first colonies started coming across.
This is the moment every reefer's stomach drops. Some of the larger pieces have to come out of the water to move at all, and this Montipora cap has been spreading for years.
The rule holds no matter how big the piece: minimize air time, keep everything wet, stay calm, stay quick. Corals handle a careful move far better than people fear, as long as you never let them dry out or bake under a light while they are exposed.
The main display is coming down into stable water. With the other tanks already relocated out of the room, the fish room is finally clearing down to what stays: the lab, the plants, and the empty footprint where the ten-footer goes. The next entries get to be the fun ones: the stand, the tank itself, and ten feet of open water. The full set of move photos is below.
