Big setup change, need advice

[~Flighty~]

Sorry this is long, but having all of this livestock from the MACNA tank has messed up all of my planning. I want to see if this new plan sounds like it will work to everyone or if I should do something else.

I have two running tanks right now.

One is a 58g with a DSB(deep sand bed). Going well lots of biological filtration and can handle a good bioload well.

The other is the MACNA 70g tank with no DSB. Thin layer of crushed coral, nice LR, Canister filter and mechanical filtration in sump. Lots of water quality issues, not much biological filtration, lots of livestock, new setup, every kind of alge imaginable everywhere.

I am setting up a 120g with a 100g sump an the basement, a SSB(shallow sand bed) in the tank, and a refugium with a DSB in the basement.

I want to use the 70g as the refugium and DSB location.

If I transfer all of the liverock from the 70 and a little from the 58, and transfer the canister filter and machanical filtration and most of the water will I have an OK setup to put all of the corals and fish right into? My theory is that I'll have the same filtration capability that the 70g has right now right away and the bioload will actually be a bit lower because I'll catch some of the fish I want to sell. The filtration will only get better with macro in the refugium and as the DSB comes online.

 

[Ray]

That is pretty much what I did when I set up my 120 and have had minor problems
Use a few cups of sand to seed the new sand

 

[dz6t]

I did the same thing at a much smaller scale. I merged two 20 gallon nano to a 55 gallon. It seems OK so far.

 

[Aquadiva]

Why don't you use the 58 as the refugium? The DSB is already in place (be careful moving the tank) and you would still have the 70 for another tank....

If I remember right, you had a lot of "Marco rock" in the 120. Are you going to be able to get all the LR from the 70 and the 58 into the 120? Or did you re-aquascape?

Linda

 

[~Flighty~]

Ok, it just seemed so fast after waiting months for the first tank to cycle and planning to do the same for this one.

Really, I think the livestock will be better off the sooner I can get them into this system. Bigger water volume, more stable temp, salinity, and everything else. More swimmin room for the fishies too. I'll put the clams and RBTAs in the 58. Anything else I should move to the stable system?
Pictures here (I wish it still looked this clean):
http://216.235.242.50/forums/showthread.php?t=2703

 

[~Flighty~]

Why don't you use the 58 as the refugium? The DSB is already in place (be careful moving the tank) and you would still have the 70 for another tank....

If I remember right, you had a lot of "Marco rock" in the 120. Are you going to be able to get all the LR from the 70 and the 58 into the 120? Or did you re-aquascape?

Linda

I took all of the dry rock out to do some plumbing hidden by the rockwork. I'll put a mix back in and some of both will go in the refugium.

The 58 will hold the most delicate stuff for now as I anticipate unexpected problems with the new setup. The 58 will probably stay up for a while as an anemone tank. It is shorter and fits in an odd nitch in the wall too. We do kind of want to be down to one tank by the time the baby comes, but I'm not sure I can do it. I'm torn between keeping anemones and getting a zebra eel, but thats a whole other bag of fish

 

[NeO]

Cindy,
I would skip the Canister filter and mechanical filtration for your new 120.
And if you are having problems with water quality, I would use that water ( 70g tank) as little as possible or not use it at all into the new system, one thing that you can do, is save the old water from your 58 when you do water change and use that water for your new setup.
If all the LR is cured, you wont have any problems, and you can get some of the live sand from the 58 for both 120 display and for the new fuge.

Gustavo

 

[DSOUZA]

I Have Transferred My Contents Of A 72gallon Tank (minus The Old Sand Bed) Into A New 135 Gallon Tank With A Brand New Sand Bed And Had No Problems. I Did Have Lots Of Live Rock And Used All My Old Water To Fill The New Tank.

Dara

 

[Ray]

scott M here on rays login,
how many fish to you plan to keep from the 2 tanks?
what size skimmer do you plan to use?
when i moved rays tank and restarted my own i had great results with NSW.
i would agree with gustavo about the canisters. they may have benificial bacteria but i think your going to stir up alot of detrius durring the move.

 

[~Flighty~]

I was planning to use the canisters for biological filtration just untill the DSB comes online, then removing them. I also thought they would get the fine particles of sand out faster so the corals don't have problems. Not a good idea?

I have the skimmer that is on the 70 to use and will be building a mongo unit in a week or two.

My fish are all pretty small still. I'm getting rid of four of them soon.
In the 58: 1 watchman goby, 1 maroon clown, 1
neon dottyback (going)
in the 120: 1 small and 3 very small O.clowns, 1 Copperband, 4 (1 going) Anthias, 1 fourline damsel (going somewhere(cat?)), 1 bar goby (going)
So 8 fish in the 120 and 2 in the 58

 

[~Flighty~]

Ok, I'm doing this this weekend. Wish me luck.

 

[Ray]

Good Luck, may the force be with you......