Advice needed from Saltwater veterans...

[Clown Monarch]

I finally bought a 125 gallon tank on Ebay - the guy sounds really cool.

Came with everything I think I'll need - stand, hood, reef lighting, UV sterilizer, protein skimmer, clearwater system, pumps, wet/dry sump, and 80 lbs of fully-cured live rock. I think the price was pretty incredible at $860. I think I probably would have spent twice that new.

Anyway I've gotta go pick it up. It sounds like he's had very good luck with it (I know, luck is not a factor). He's had it set up for 8 years, he cured the live rock himself and says it's very healthy. He offered me the fish but I'd like to have the tank fully set up with the healthy live rock before I even start thinking about fish.

My question - How should I go about starting this tank up? I don't want to damage the live rock with tap water obviously, but I currently have a 44 gallon saltwater tank set up (but the water hasn't fully cycled yet). I was thinking I could transfer those 40 gallons into the new 125 for the time being and add water slowly until it's filled. He's going to throw in a reverse-osmosis water purifier to create water for the tank, which was really cool of him.

So how would you go about this?

 

[fishfreek]

Well the first thing I would do would be ask the guy selling it if he could help you set it up. Im assuming your both close as far as geography is concerned. If he is willing to help you set the tank up then he will probably also be willing to give you a good summary of what he has been doing to the tank as far as maintance, etc.

 

[Clown Monarch]

Actually he told me he would probably buy several large buckets and use the water purifier to prepare the water and let it sit - then add the water slowly.

He said most of the fish in the tank are 6-7 years old, so he must being doing something right. I'm sure I'll hit him up for plenty of advice, but thought I'd get some suggestions here.

 

[Atari]

Can't you get the water that's already in the tank?

 

[fishfreek]

INdeed this site will be a good resource. I was implying that you could find out what schedule the previous owner did things in so you could try to match that as best you could. Those conditions would be what all the items in the tank have become accustom to.

How far is it between his place and yours? Allow a full day for teardown, transport and setup. Plan the location of the tank in advance and make sure the floor is good and sturdy as well as the ample electrical service. Try to find a spot where its not in direct sunlight or where there is a heat/ac return.

Your first post is sounding like your not going to keep two tanks up and running. What I would suggest is transfering as much water from the old setup as you can when you move the tank. Again the reasoning is that this is the water the tank is used to. Thus the stress of the teardown, transport and setup will be less. Inevetably you will lose some water in transport so have 20-30 gal ready to go. I would personally use new saltwater vs saltwater from a cycling tank.

I think you will find the larger tank easier to maintain than the smaller tank in the long run aswell. If you go the route of slowly filling the tank back up you need to find a place for the live rock and the substrate while your doing this. Unless teh RO unit is a large 100GPD model its gonna take at least two days to fill that tank back up in addition to mixing up the salt and brining it up to temperature. By using the old water your able to have it up and running with the substrate and rock in the same day its tore down.

Try to arrange a few friends to help you as this is going to be alot of heavy lifting. Never try to move more than 5 gal of water at a time. Use pumps and hoses to aid in draining the tank into some large 50gal plastic drums or use several rubbermaid tubs. Put the rock in the tubs and have hem covered in water but dont fill the tubs more than 1/2 full. Remember the water and the rock will make those tubs fiarly heavy and the last thing you want is to rip a handle off or have the bottom bust out of one.

 

[Clown Monarch]

Well, I'm picking up the tank on the opposite side of Chicago, maybe a 2 hour drive with traffic. Not to mention my little ¼ ton pickup probably won't do too well with the tank, rock, stand, and 1,000 lbs of water - so I'm probably going to have to limit the amount of water I take.

I'll ask him to save as much water as he can for me though.

 

[Clown Monarch]

Do you think it would be a good idea to perhaps leave the live rock in buckets (with the old water), set up the new tank with new saltwater and live sand, let it cycle and then transfer the rock to the new tank?

I don't think taking much water is going to be an option, unfortunately. I really don't want to impose on this guy's good nature too much.

 

[cj10488]

YOu could also check with your LFS around in the area.. There are alot here locally that sell premade SW and ro/di... Thats an option... If you could take enought water to cover the LR and keep it covered for the 2 days or so it took you to fill the tank and get the SG and temp right that would work.. Just make sure you have a heater and powerhead in with the Rocks... I have found that Rubbermaid tubs are good for this... I would also keep some sort of light on the LR if you would like the Rock to stay looking nice... Whatever dies off will come back but it will take a bit of time... Basically I would just fill the tank up with 1.025 sg water heat to about 79F and add the rock... Test it in a few days and make sure all the levels are still the same.. With Cured LR like you have you arent going to have much of a cycle if you even have one at all..

HTH<
James

 

[fishfreek]

There is no need to cycle the tank. If you put the old substrate back and the rock you should se minimal ammonia.

 

[Guest]

I had a 55 gal salt water tank ,all fish and live rock ,live sand for bottom ,tank has been up and running for a year give or tank
I recently upgraded to a 125 gal tank as my fish out grew the tank ,i used all the sand and live rock from the 55 plus had to add four more bags of sand and 70 gal of new water
for filters I used the emporier 400 that had to bio wheels and a 280 that has one bio wheel ,i put those filters on the 125 and added another 400 with 2 bio wheels
my nitrites are up about 1.0 ,tank it has been swithed over for about 9 days now ,I added some cycle to help but does not seem to work ,at the advise of the fish store I added some prime that I was told would keep the amonia and nitrates from hurting the fish, will still have nitrates and amonia but its to mack it no toxic to the fish ,what should I do?, I don't want to loose any fish
I have a large sail fin tang-a large nasa tang-large unicorn tang-large panther grouper-small clown fish-small huma triger-med dog puffer
help help

 

[Nitrate]

Its a good thing you moved up to a 125, it sounds like you were way overstocked in your 55.

Chances are your biowheels, substrate and rock (how many lbs did you have?) were not enough to keep the tank from cycling. I hope I'm wrong, but I would be prepared for some large water changes.

BTW welcome to AA, and good luck with your fish

 

[Guest]

I have aprx 75 / 100 lbs of live rock ,when I did do the switch I added the old sand and filters along with four new bags of live sand that has all the bio in it ,I added an additional filter but put they old ones on there as well to keep things going
I only have seven fish in that tank , four large and three small

 

[austinsdad]

Here I go again preaching about the QT tank. Gonna use the 44 gallon as your QT? I'd recommend it.

 

[Guest]

You lost me there austinsdad

 

[austinsdad]

That message was for clown monarch, the thread originator. Assuming this is a new tank setup (the 125 gallon), I wuz hoping the 44 gallon tank would be used for quarantining.

 

[Guest]

any thoughts on how I can get my ammonia down on my 125 gal tank recently upgraded from a 55 gal?

 

[Guest]

the ammonia seemed to laugh at the water change, helped the nitrites but did not faze the ammonia

 

[Clown Monarch]

austinsdad -

Yep, after visiting this site for a few days I decided the best use of the 44 would be as a quarantine tank. The last time I had the 44 set up as SW it ran well for maybe a year or so, but then a new blue tang pretty much ruined the whole tank.

The tank has a homemade hood with 4-15 watt bulbs (lighting is a problem with the odd-shaped 44 gal) and a fluval canister. Because of the way the tank fits in the corner, there's no room for a skimmer. I'm thinking of keeping perc clowns in this tank and trying to breed them, along with using it as a QT. I'm assuming after I establish a number of new fish in the 125, the 44 won't get much use as a QT anymore...

How would you suggest I set up the QT tank?

 

[austinsdad]

Might consider moving the tank out of the corner enuf to fit a hang on skimmer. I'm presuming the tank is a V shaped back and round front? Heck, put in in the laundry room or something if you can where it aesthetics don't matter. It's not gonn be pretty anyway - a bare bottom, a few pcs of PVC pipe, and maybe a couple of small dead rock.

Maybe someone else might pick up on this and help you, especially on the lighting situation.

Since you're gettig started, you'll be using your tank to QT each new addition and that could take some months. Can't add fish too fast anyway because the necessary good bacteria has to keep pace. Even after QTing and stocking, I feel better keeping my QT tank running just in case of illness and the need to treat out of the main tank.

 

[MarineFlake]

I put this together when I moved my current tank from its owners house. If you find it useful, great. I highly recommend using the water from the tank if you can. As for the fish, quite honestly, they were the ez part. You will have some spikes in Ammonia/Nitrite due to some things dying off. However, I headed that off by having some Bio Spira on hand. Once I saw the spike start, I added some...No more spike. You should also have a backup plan as to how your going to store everything overnight or possibly even longer in the event something should go wrong. One thing I had not counted on was placing the water back into the tank. Sand went everywhere causing the water to cloud up. I was lucky, a friend had a large cannister filter that helped me get the water cleared in about 5 - 7 hours. I did have a gramma crash over night, but he recovered the next day no problem. Also, this is *the* opportune time to make any changes to the layout of the tank. I wish I had put more thought into mine, but I was so flustered by the idea that I may have to house everything overnight in buckets (which I had not plannedon), I hurried and placed all the LR and corals back in without thinking once the water was clear enough. O well, make for a good project sometime..If you like I can send pics of what to expect..

http://www.fishdomain.com/forum/read.php?f=1&i=4534&t=4534