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90% water chages and other odd moves



In the morning I will be moving my 35 gal tank.  I am
going to leave an inch of water above the substrate so
I won't have to chase down the fish and tear apart the
plants and substrate.

Sound foolhardy?  You aint heard nothing yet.

I'm moving it to the front porch.  No, I don't live in
a tropical area, and yes, a cold front did just settle
in.

I live in a "block house" with a concreate floor.  It
is pretty "tight" and the heat and humidity from the
tanks is causing a mildew problem in the fish room. 
My land lord fears that this will cause the cheap
cieling to disentergate so at her request....

The front porch is larger than the fishroom, and is
screened in.  I put a layer of .8mil plastic over both
sides of the screened windows.  Then I realized that I
dropped a decimal point and added an additional layer
of 4mil plastic to both sides.  

When I moved the 55 I put the fish in a 10 gal with
the plants that came loose while I was chasing them,
and drained the tank.  With the help of a neighbour I
moved the tank, substrate intacted, using a dolly.  I
was trying to avoid uprooting all of the plants and
mixing up my layered substrate.  I was mostly
successful.  I had gotten used to indoor water
pressure.  When I used outside water to fill the tank
it caught me by surprise and some of the substrate got
jumbled in sections.  To fix this I added some more
gravel to cover the jumbled sections and added a sand
"beach" area to about 1.5 sq ft of the right side. I
have some shelldwellers coming in.

I refilled, replanted, waited for the water to heat
up, and put the fish back in.  Every thing is fine. 
But that tank wasn't well planted in the first place.

So tomarrow I am trying a modified approach.  Leave 1
inch of water above teh substrate. Buddy up to the
neibour with some Christmas cookies, move the tank,
add dechlor, and refill with luke warm tap water from
the inside sink. 

If this works, it will become my standard transport
method for when I transport the tanks to my classroom.

Wish me luck.

My next message will be a detail of my local water supply.

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