What's up, everyone. Welcome back to FishOfHex. This is Travis here. Today we're going to be talking about the move, pretty much how it all went. I'll be showing you guys some pictures and close-up video of the tank. Lets go and get into it. Now, when it came to moving this tank, I really wanted to keep it in the crate that it was shipped in, mostly because there was less chance of causing any damage of scratching it on the way, and if you drop the crate for whatever reason, if it was to come off the lift, there was less chances of something happening to the tank, because it obviously was shipped in that crate and it went through being picked up from forklifts and moved in and out of truck. So I knew overall it was safer to just keep it in there.
That being said, I needed to find a way to move 900 pounds into the basement. Now originally, I was thinking about going down the hill to the left side of my house, just because it was a shorter distance, and we could use gravity to help move the tank, but after closely looking at the hill and the whole way, it wasn't safe. There's too many chances of it maybe coming loose or one of the wheels breaking on the lift. It just wasn't a good idea.
We decided to go ahead and wheel it around the house the long way and then take it through the grass into the fish room. A couple days prior to the move, I went to Harbor Freight and picked up to dollies rated for about 1000 pounds a piece, and then I also picked up a dolly handle, which allowed me to steer one end of the tank. It worked out really well when it came to moving it on the grass, and on top of that, I also picked up four straps to attach the tank to the dollies.
My overall plan was to go ahead and jack up the shipping crate, attach these dollies be of the straps, and then we can just simply roll the tank all the way into the fish room. Because the door to the fisher room was 34 inches wide and the shipping crate is only 31 inches, it worked out perfect. I'd actually slid right through. We did have to move the straps a little bit because the buckles were in the way, but other than that, it slid directly into the fish room and in front of the stand.
That works out great because basically we only have to lift up the tank wants to be the suction cups and it only had to move about two and a half feet, so the chances of dropping the tank were almost non existent. It was literally pick up, put on the stand, and it was done. Now before I continue on, I just want to give a quick shout out to everybody who showed up. I really do appreciate it. There were so many of you who reached out to me and said, "If I was only closer, I would come help out."
It actually worked out perfectly because I think we had about eight people who showed up. If we would have had one more, they probably would have just been in the way at that point. I'm going to go ahead and put a link to Billy's and Scott's briefing channels in the description below because they're the only ones I know that actually have YouTube channels, but other than that, I just want to say thank you to everybody who showed up and it worked out perfectly. It was literally a well oiled machine. We had people pushing, steering, holding up the tank when we're at an angle there, as well as two people picking up and moving plywood to lay back down in front of the tank while we're on the grass.
It was just a Perfect and flawless. It look like we've been doing this for years. It really didn't hit me until we actually put the tank up on the stand and I took a step back and just took it all in. This thing is massive. It is absolutely gorgeous, attention to detail is amazing and the glass, it was speechless, because you can actually look through the side of it and see the fried tank and your vision is actually better and clear looking through this glass than it is just by itself.
I can't wait to actually get coral and get some light over this tank just to see what it looks like in the own that perspective. I'm going have to get a new camera or something to really bring out the beautiful color in this tank because the one I'm using now is just not going to work.
You guys might be wondering when am I going to fill this thing up and start putting coral in it. Well, we have a little while because we're still waiting on the sump calcium reactor and auto top off container to get here from GEO. We're looking at about three half, four weeks until that actually arrives. Of course, we can't do anything till we have the sump. Once the sump gets here, we're going to do all the plumbing for the overflows of returns, all that good stuff. Then we're going to be building the rock structure. Now the rock is still carrying, it's been in there for about seven or eight weeks so far. We're going to do another month of curing that. Then we're going to be building the rock structure in front of the tank outside of it via acrylic rods, superglue is eventually going to be used, but we're going to be pretty much doing a mock structure with the rock and then building it again inside the tank.
I find this going to be safer way. Also, I can do all the drilling and everything beforehand for the acrylic rods and then, of course, we'll superglue everything together. Once that's done, we're going to go ahead and fill it up with RODI water and let us sit for a couple weeks before adding the fish from the quarantine system. Once the fish are added, I'm just going to let the tank run as normal without any light at least until everything's done with a canopy and we got all that stuff taken care of. Now when it comes to the light, I'm still raising the money to actually purchase everything that I need. I'm not cutting corners on this.
Basically, I was going to go ahead and use some lower end LEDs that I use on all my other bills, even the ones that I have over my flag tank, but I decided I want to go a higher end route for this bill because everything else is high-end, so I just I can't go cheap on the lights. That means that we're looking at for Ecotech radion pros, Gen 4 pros at that, and we're going to do four T5 retrofit kits. Giving us the 85 bulbs. Four Ecotech with two bulbs on each side of those giving us a ton of light for this tank.
I definitely see that being a plenty of light for whatever reason, they do recommend that I turn the Ecotechs the other way and put more on them. Basically, this tank is rated for eight radions. I don't have five grand to be dropping on that many lights. We're going to go ahead and use the T5s because personally I like having the mix between T5s and LEDs. I think we're going to be fine with the setup that I'm thinking about right now.
Overall, I'm not really concerned about raising the money because the website sales have definitely taken off since I've added all the new coral, did the complete layout on the website. I'm getting a good response. I appreciate the support. Some of you guys that I actually already done five or six orders with and it just blows my mind that you guys have given me that kind of support. I really do appreciate it. Now, coral sales, as I mentioned before, here and they're not going anywhere, I'm going to continue to get coral in as I sell, colonies and sell frags on this stuff.
I'm still going to be bringing in new stuff, so the website is going to be updated, mostly probably every month with new stuff. Now, we do have a frag swap coming up October 21 here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at that fish place, and I do plan on bringing a ton of stuff. If you guys want to come out, check that out, that'd be pretty cool. I'll give you guys more details on that Frag swap as we get closer to the date. But either way, guys, I've already set my mind on what I want for lighting. There's been people and companies that have been throwing out different suggestions. Basically, I can go with a sponsorship and get free lighting right now, but it's not what I want.
I've decided and set my mind on the Ecotechs and those specific T5 bulbs layout and that's what I'm going to use. If it takes two months to get the money, that's fine. If it takes six months or it takes a year for whatever reason, that's the layout I'm going to go with and I'm not going to accept anything less than that. Either way guys, that's about it for this video. I hope you enjoyed it. I didn't have a lot of footage of the move just because you guys can imagine how in depth and stressful that was.
A camera man, I don't have a budget for that right now, but I'm guarantee once that repaint for veterans takes off next year, I'm going to have to hire somebody to work the camera because I can't multitask like that for whatever reason anymore.
Either way guys I hope you enjoyed the video. If you have any questions, go on and put in the comment section below, and I'll see you next time. Peace.
