Switching Tanks

[Awibrandy]

Update on Switching Tanks

Ok guys & gals, as much as I want to honor my friend I cannot live with the amount of scratches on her tank. So I've decided to switch out the tank. The tank is a 155gl. Bow.
DeVious, go easy on me please. I know now that I should have been using RO/DI water. I wasn't. :banghead: :redface:
(1) I would like to do things right from here on, but I don't know what to do. I don't think I can start fresh because of the animals I already have. To start with all RO would mean a complete cycle of 2 months at least, so that won't work. Anyone have any ideas please post here.
(2) I have not decided wether to go predrilled, or not. I don't really like the room you loose to the 2 boxes in the corners of the tank.
(3) May need to increase the size of my sump/fuge which was custom built for my old 120 (27"X14"X13") 1st.chamber is 6"(intake), 2nd.chamber(fuge)13"w/dsb,rubble lr & cheato & calurpa, 3rd.chamber is 8"(return pumps) rio 3100 split by scwd, and external Iwaki wrd 40 also going through second scwd.
(4) Currently using a Multi Turboflotor w/aquabee pump. Love how easy it is.
(5) Been using HD southdown sand for the past 4 or so years with no problems, but been hearing its a bad choice. Can you guys give me some options?
(6) There is approximately 150lbs or so of lr which has been in tap water for over 4 years between my tank and my friends tank.
The current habitants of the tank are a combination of my old 120gl., and my friends 155, and the new additions curtesy of MR. softies, leathers, lps, sps, and zoa.
And of course I will be needing you guys physical help with the switch, and the plumbing when the time comes please.:help: Very soon, within the next month or so.
I'm not as young as I was when I started out, and with the surgery and loss of use of my left arm I don't think I can do the plumbing required.
I've enclosed a pic of some of the scratches, they go up the entire front of the tank 4" up.:irked:

 

[nyfireman3097]

Get a tank a ro/di machine if not getting the same size tank then get a new stand and canopy. Get a predrilled tank a reef ready tank makes a world of a diffrence. Buy the live sand in the bag it works great lots of life. Use all you LR you have now and get a nice new reefscape. Re- locate your current tank to a diffrent area on a stand that will be just to hold it up so that you can run your tank while your new tank is cycling. If you use the proper stuff you shouldnt have to worry about your tanks cycling too long for the corals and fish you have. As for the plumbing I can come by and help you through the whole thing im sure theres others that will offer to help also.
Nick

 

[nanoreefer22]

Not quite sure but if he was to do a 100% water change using all new Ro/Di water and have his rocks in the tank right away, without too much time exposed to air, wouldn't his cycle be minimal? Since the rock is cured, he should really take 2 months to cycle the tank right??

Like Nick said definately go reef ready. If you dont want internal boxes, see if someone can help you with an external one. Well worth the effort ot have a RR tank.

Where are you in Qnz? I might be able to help you out too, depending on the date.

-Kris

 

[Awibrandy]

Thank You Nick. Here is lays the problem, I am only replacing the tank. There will be no other tank to put the fish, corals, inverts into while going through a new setup.
The current parameters are as follow:
PH 8.4
Salinity 1.024
Temp. 79
Ammo. 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Alk unknown, got get a test kit.
Calcium 560, doesn't seem to want to go down. Haven't dosed in about a month.
Water changes once a month. Salt used is coralife.
Phosphates are very high 1.25, just incorporated phosban reactor w/phosban media.;(

 

[Awibrandy]

Not quite sure but if he was to do a 100% water change using all new Ro/Di water and have his rocks in the tank right away, without too much time exposed to air, wouldn't his cycle be minimal? Since the rock is cured, he should really take 2 months to cycle the tank right??

Like Nick said definately go reef ready. If you dont want internal boxes, see if someone can help you with an external one. Well worth the effort ot have a RR tank.

Where are you in Qnz? I might be able to help you out too, depending on the date.

-Kris

Hi Kris, I'm not a he:lol2: . Old woman here:smile: . I will probably end up going with the RR. Don't want to trouble people unnecessarily. I'm in Far Rockaway very close to Nassau Exp. (878).

 

[nyfireman3097]

yeah keep all the fish and coral in the old tank on a handmade stand just for a month while you slowly add everything into the new tank you would have to do WC everyweek. Kris the tanks normally take up to 6 month of big and small to tiny cycles while using fresh wter and the old rock i say a month since ger nitrates are high and new sand

OR

Set up 2 holding tank small ones for the livestock or a rubbermaid container

 

[Awibrandy]

This option would probably work better. The larger of my fish could go into my fowlr. The smaller ones into the turtles 30gl., turtle goes into the 20lg.. Now where to put the corals for a month? Rubbermaid tubs? What about filtration, lighting for them? Ok, my chemo brain is begining to spin in my head. I'm gonna go do dishes...........:lol_large

 

[nanoreefer22]

Hi Kris, I'm not a he:lol2: . Old woman here:smile: . I will probably end up going with the RR. Don't want to trouble people unnecessarily. I'm in Far Rockaway very close to Nassau Exp. (878).

oooppss

Nick, got ya . I never really made it to that point :lol2::smash:

 

[Awibrandy]

oooppss

Nothing to be . Just :biglaugh:, everyone assumes guy cause of love of reef.

Be blessed,
Awilda

 

[Awibrandy]

I don't know if this will work, or how it would work. But I have another idea that I'd like to pass by you.
What if I start the RO/DI right away with large water changes, something like 50%? Could I get rid of all the damage done, and how long would it take? And then switch to the new tank. I haven't ordered the tank as yet, so I could postpone it.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I would say you should run some serious carbon and phosban for a little while and with big water changes over the course of 2 or 3 months you should be in much better shape.

 

[Awibrandy]

I would say you should run some serious carbon and phosban for a little while and with big water changes over the course of 2 or 3 months you should be in much better shape.

Thank you Chief.
How often should the water changes be done? I currently do monthly. And after the 3 months can I just switch tanks?

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Oh I thought you meant keeping the old tank, I may not be the best person to ask about this then, one of the pro's might have some better advice for you.

 

[Awibrandy]

Oh I thought you meant keeping the old tank, I may not be the best person to ask about this then, one of the pro's might have some better advice for you.

Nah, I can't live with those scratches they're horrible. Especially when they get the algea in them, I can barely see the zoo in the bottom of the tank. And besides, my friend had apparently really dug at the silicone seams with her razor. I see pieces of silicone come off just from my cleaning the corners with the magfloat. Not good, I'm afraid the tank will leak, or worse bust open one day. I'd rather get rid of it before the horror show happens.:biggrin:
Where are the pros? Hopefully they will chime in this evening.:smile:

 

[fritz]

Here's something I know about

The tap water that you've been using is high in phosphates. The food, waste etc also adds phosphates to the water. Your sand, rocks, everything will leach up these phosphates like sponges the second that any phosphates hit the water (the reason phosphate test kits never give accurate measurements.) What has happened is now your rock and sand are saturated and most likely can hold no more.

On the plus side you'll have to ditch your sand when you switch to a new tank, that will get rid of much of your phosphate problems. The trick now is to get those nutrients out of your rocks. As Chief mentioned doing the right thing starting now is the first step. Start using RO/DI water for all of your top off and water changes. Add a phosban (or similar) reactor running phosphate removing media such as phosban. Running carbon wouldn't hurt either. It will probably take you 6 months or so to snatch up all the phosphates as your rocks slowly leach them back out into the water column. Change your water as often as you can (20% weekly would be fantastic but 20% biweekly ain't bad either.)

Also with RO/DI it takes a while to make water. For every 1 gallon of RO/DI you get 4-5 gallons of waste water. It will probably take you a few hours to make 5 gallons worth of RO/DI. Some people on here (although they may not admit it) use the "Tap Water Filter" from Aquarium Pharm. It is a canister of carbon and DI Resin. The water existing this canister will have a TDS of zero, just like RO/DI but without the waste water. Since there's no waste you can make water faster.

I highly recomend running phosban in a reactor perhaps even two reactors since your tank is on the larger side. Tony from Reefexotics (MR Sponsor) sells them http://www.reefexotics.com/

Here is a water change calculator that will help you figure out how long it will take to change 100% of the water without shocking your system too bad. (I'm not a fan of 50% water changes)
http://reefcentral.com/calc/RODICalc.php

Also, for what it's worth Reef Ready tanks are fantastic and I'd consider one for your next setup.

One more thing, you can switch tanks anytime you want, you don't need to wait. Whenever you switch to your new tank you will have what's called a "Mini Cycle" This is due to the newness of the tank/setup more than anything and is 100% normal so don't sweat it. Just save as much of the tank water as you can in rubbermaid tubs, buckets even pump it from the old tank straight into the new tank. Add in some new water and you're done. There's a GB going on for some ESV products you can check out the sand that ESV offers. Many MR members use it and I've heard highly of it. Personally I prefer black sand but that's just because I rock!

 

[meschaefer]

I have moved my tank, into a new tank, on two prior ocassions and will try to give you the benefit of my experience.

Since you are currently having some algae problems, and admit to not using RO/DI water, I would start with picking yourself up an RO/DI unit and using that for all of your water changes (I/M/O the tap water purfier is an excellent 2nd choice, the RO/DI unit does have some very distinct advanatages though). I would also start running phosban or it equivilent, to start removing phosphate from your system. ( I have just started using phosban, so I will leave recommendations regarding its use to others)

If you where to move everything in your tank, to a new tank, you would have a small cycle due to disturbing the sand bed. The sand bed re-establishes itself fairly rapidly as the variouls areobic and anerobic bacteria are present in large numbers. Since you are going to change your sand bed out, I would start by slowly removing the old sand bed, before you make the move. I would take out a little bit each week, untill it is all gone. Remember many people run BB tanks, and the live rock is capable of handling the amonia to nitrite, to nitrate to nitrogen cylce by itself, but it needs time to adjust so that it can pick up the slack caused by the sand that has been removed. Remeber to monitor your tank for amonia, Nitrite and Nitrate while you are doing this and don't remove any more sand if your tests show the presence of Amonia or Nitrite.

Once the sand is gone, you can move everything over to a new tank, without much worry. You may see a small cycle, but nothing that can't be handled with a water change or two. I have moved a 55 gallon tank with a DSB, and 100lbs of Live rock, without replacing any of the sand, into a 75 gallon tank without reading any amonia or nitrite in my system. The only thing that happened was that I had slightly elevated Nitrate levels for a week. Just remeber to test everthing on a daily basis after the move untill you are satisfied that your levels are not rising.

 

[Awibrandy]

Thank you guys. As a matter of fact I just incorporated the phosban reactor w/phosban this morning.
I use to use the "Tap Water Purifier", but was told that "it did nothing, and I might as well just use regular tap water". Wonder who told me that? I can't seem to remember, it was such a long time ago. So I stopped using it. Going up in my addict to retrieve it, and order new resin.

"the RO/DI unit does have some very distinct advanatages though)."

Matt, exactly what are the distinct advantages you speak of? I don't like the waste factor involved with them. And no I can't safe the waste water for my washer, I have a frontloader..

 

[meschaefer]

Matt, exactly what are the distinct advantages you speak of? I don't like the waste factor involved with them. And no I can't safe the waste water for my washer, I have a frontloader..

I find that an RO/DI unit is cheaper in the long run, especially for the volume of water that you are going to need. Your typical RO/DI unity has a number of prefilters and carbon chambers that are going to extend the life of the RO membrane and the DI unit. I was replacing the cartridge in the tap water purifier once every two three months, at $25 dollars a pop that adds up quickly. I need to replace the prefilters and carbon filters on my ro/di every four months, and they cost me half the price for all three of them (two sets of filters for $25). The DI unit I need to replace every year and half, and I have yet to need to replace the RO membrane in three years.

You get a higher quality water. I don't remeber the tds readings fromt the tap water purifier, but they where not zero. With an RO/DI unit I get zero readings.

I plumbed the RO/DI unit right into my pipes, and therefore it is always on. I have it hooked up to a float valve, that fills up a 35 gallon trash can. I always have pure clean water for top offs, and to make salt water. I.. i really mean my wife... hated having the tap water purifier hooked up to the sink on a reagular basis.

I realize that there is alot of waste water, but water is fairly cheap. I did not notice a change in my water bill after I got the RO/DI unit. (On the other hand, when my tennant was letting his toilet run all the time..as opposed to calling me so that I could fix it.. I flipped out when I saw my water bill)

 

[Awibrandy]

I realize that there is alot of waste water, but water is fairly cheap. I did not notice a change in my water bill after I got the RO/DI unit. (On the other hand, when my tennant was letting his toilet run all the time..as opposed to calling me so that I could fix it.. I flipped out when I saw my water bill)

:lol_large

Thank you for the explanation Matt. I agree, water is not that expensive. Just two things bother me. When the reservoir get really low, and we begin to realize that water is not a given, but a gift.:splitspin The other thing is the DAMN surcharges the city taxes the water with. 150%...:arg:
Guess I'm back to picking up a RO/DI unit. Any recommendations?

 

[fritz]

I use this one
http://www.melevsreef.com/ro_di.html

Lots of people use the ones on e-bay