I've started 5 months ago...I want to go bigger

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punky34

punky34

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
48
Location
los angele, california
So back in Sept 06 after a trip to Hawaii and snorkling, I came back to Los Angeles and decided to set up a reef tank. I went to a LFS and bought a 55 gal; they told me 60gal but after calculations it was closer to 55 (my ignorance). Bought the stand and hood. Went to a diffrent LFS and bought a protein skimmer. Jumped right into it (should of taken it slow) so after 5 months...I decided to get a bigger tank [48long x 15.5 deep x 30tall about 97 gal]

Any suggestions and help on how I can successfully move my exisiting inventory to the new tank? I will be using the exisiting stand, hood and sump.

Thank you in advance for your help~!

55?60gal main tank
20 gal plant and one emperor angel tank
30 gal sump
[20gal plant tank feeds back to the one common sump with the main tank]
Hamilton 250 14K x 2
 
Nice looking tank! :) As for the swap, should be pretty simple...You'd just need a nice sized container or two to hold your corals, rock, fish etc and fill them with water from your tank and put them all in there with a few powerheads running for circulation and heaters to keep the temp stable (if necessary). I'd also take the opportunity to do a nice sized water change siphoning up any nasties you see coming off of the rocks while removing them, but with that said, I'd probably try to save atleast 70% or so of the old water for the new tank. Once you get the tank drained, you can swap tanks, add whatever new makeup water you will be using to the tank and get your water parameters like temp, salinity, ph etc the same as before. Once all that is done, then you should be able to move everything back in and finish filling the tank with the old water you had the livestock in so that you can have some nice aged water back in the system. Oh the sand:oops: Is that a deep sand bed or shallow sand bed? If it is a deep sand bed, maybe one of the more experienced dsb keepers can tell you how best to swap it without disturbing things, but if it is a ssb, then you should be able to swap that right over without any problems. Just my 2 cents worth on how I'd go about it. Good luck with the new tank:D
 
I think that you should be fine doing everything that krish said to do. The only thing that i would add is watch out for a cycle. When i changed out just my refugium, my nitrates shot up to 65 within a day :shock: But after a few WC and once the biological filteration picked up again, they went back down to zero. Luckily i have multiple tanks to put the corals in, because they were shrinking drasticly.Hope that helps:D

By the way, nice tank. Alot of fish too

-augustus
 
Wow, great advice; thank you. I will goto HomeDepot and get some rubber made containers I saw last week. I didn't even consider about the sand. its about 1.5 to 2 inches deep, is that a SSB? I'm a bit worried since this is first time I'm doing this. Your advice is giving more confidence.

I'll also keep an eye out for Nitrates and Nitrates...good to know.
Thank you.
 
Wow, great advice; thank you. I will goto HomeDepot and get some rubber made containers I saw last week. I didn't even consider about the sand. its about 1.5 to 2 inches deep, is that a SSB? I'm a bit worried since this is first time I'm doing this. Your advice is giving more confidence.

I'll also keep an eye out for Nitrates and Nitrates...good to know.
Thank you.
Click to expand...

Yeah...You'll be fine.:) I had 4 different tanks last year and all were swaps so...:p As for the sand bed, 1.5 - 2 inches is considered a ssb so you you should be fine just transferring it over. You may find a lot of detritus/waste settled under your rocks when you remove them so it may be a good time to vaccum up what you can which is always a plus where water quality is concerned. Good luck and if you have any more questions feel free to ask:)
 
Definately meant for a larger tank, but at the current size, seems more than fine.:) I see a lot of people in the hobby (freshwater as well) buy a fish that eventually will be too big for their tanks, but will get them as juveniles (sometimes the size of a quarter) just to have them for a while and when they start to get a bit bigger, put them in a larger tank. I've kept juvenile french and queen angels before knowing they will eventually get too big and they are gone before the time comes. Looking at the pic of the tank, the chromis are just as big:p In any event, if the long term plan is to keep the tangs, a larger tank is defintely a must and the upgrade will definately help some:)
 
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Krish, how do you know its a juvinile? I only can see it in the pic of it alone....looks like its got full coloration....how can you tell?
 
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ahhhhh I see I thought I was going blind, I kept looking and looking lol
Click to expand...

LOL!!! I'm the blind one...My bad(LOL) I didn't realize there were 3 tangs in there and one was a powder blue until I went back and re-read yours and sid's posts!:p
 
Yeah it just looks like a tremedous load of fish crammed in the 55. Its just sad to see such an awesome fish (the PB) in a stressfull inviroment :( I hope he gets them in the 97 real soon, although I still think the 97 is too small for the PB :p
 
Yeah it just looks like a tremedous load of fish crammed in the 55. Its just sad to see such an awesome fish (the PB) in a stressfull inviroment I hope he gets them in the 97 real soon, although I still think the 97 is too small for the PB :p
Click to expand...

Yeah...Well I guess the most important thing right now will be a smooth swap and once that goes well, I guess seeing the feedback he got on the tang situation, he may address the issue :)

BTW, just for some additonal reading on tangs, here's a thread deedicated to them:)
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20568
 
Thanks guys... I feel loved :lol:
That is why i started it though, just to many people not knowing what they were doing with the wonderful fish. (Including me)

-augustus
 
Thanks you guys...I just got home from work and saw all the post.

Yes, I do have a Yellow, Hippo, and did have PB for almost 2.5 weeks...

here is a list of what I have - had:

Yellow Tang ( I got it when it was 2 inches) now almost 3
Hippo Tang ( I got it when it was 1.5 inches) now almost 3
PB Tang ( I got it when it was 3.5 inches before I did my homework "BAD")
Flame Angel (I got it when it was 2.5 inches) now 2.75
Domino Damsel
6 line wrass
flame goby
7-green chromis
6-bartlett anthias
4-cleaner shrimp
1-red shrimp
2-blue damsel
1-three stripe damsel
1-lawnmower
1-P. clown
1-Golden Headed Sleeper Goby

Reef tank running for 5 months now.

now back to my PB...sigh~ it hurts when I see a fish, any animal suffer. I would like to say I'm sorry to God first for not being responsible with his creation and to my fellow reef/fish keepers who knew about the PB and all other fish and their specific needs. My foolish enthusiasm over shadowed my ignorance. I was in a gut wrenching pain and couldn't eat for days when I found about the needs of the PB after I saw the first signs of the ich. When I saw the first signs of ich... (it was eating and swimming well in my tank after 2nd day ich showed after 6 days) I immediately went online to find out what was going on. I came upon RF forum and began to read every post available, I've tried every remedy posted except LARGER tank! I will never buy a PB again without specifically supplying the proper care and environment, I became a one time PB killer and to this day I am ashamed that someone will find out. I'd rather be honest and let everyone know that I made a mistake. I tell everyone I know, online or face to face about the facts I've learned from personal horror and from RF about the PB. These days the only place I enjoy the PB is at the Aquarium of the pacific in Long Beach, CA. yearly member.

The reason I'm getting a ~100 gal tank is to keep what I currently have in a little better place. I worry about oxygen starvation everyday. Everthing is growing and thriving, more the reason to worry. My water parameters are excellent - I check everyweek. I have been doing weekly water changes with enjoyment and that has definitely helped. I am picking up the new tank this afternoon being its 1:22am right now.

With all the care and suggestions everyone in RF has given I have confidence to migrate to the bigger tank. I will post pics when It's up and running.

Thank you for not killing me and I am sooo sorry about the PB... I think about that fish everyday.
 
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