FarmerTy

Realized I never added to this base of experience: 3 Years Ago: Added 11 Blue Chromis to my 125g about 3 years ago. Tank size: 125 Shoaling/Schooling: All fish schooled initially. Fighting: No fighting or pecking order noticeable. They were all roughly the same size. One Larger Fish: All same size. Feeding: Rotated flakes, pellets, and frozen and fed once a day or every other day. QT: I did not QT. All fish added at once. Result: Initally all chromis schooled together, but over the course of 6 months, they slowly died off one by one until there were only 3 left. Those 3 survived for 1.5 years before they started swimming off by themselves and stopped eating and died. None survived. Present: Ordered 10 from Reefs2Go about 3-4 months ago Tank size: 125 Shoaling/Schooling: All fish schooled initially. Fighting: Fighting and pecking order noticeable. The two larger ones definitely let the others know who's boss. One Larger Fish: Two slightly larger than the rest. Feeding: Rotated flakes, pellets, and frozen and fed 2x a day. QT: 2 died in QT immediately, 1 died later in QT. The remaining 7 fish added at once to main display. Result: 7 still going strong. Some observations: 1) Feeding 2x/day seems to cull aggression a bit. As I have noticed that when I miss a day or don't feed 2x a day, they tend to fight and bicker more in the group. 2) Interesting observation during the holidays... was not able to feed the fish for about 2 days and on the 3rd day, one chromis was missing. I found him hiding in an acro colony and separate from the rest of the group. He happened to be one of the smaller chromis as well. I suspect that the lack of food caused them to turn on each other and fight more. Naturally, the smallest one got picked on the most and thought it was in his better interest to separate from the pack and hide in the acro colony until better times came around. It's been about a week now of normal feeding and he is still not swimming with the pack. He comes out to eat but then goes back to the colony for safety afterwards. I'll update if this changes. 3) My little SPS frags are large enough now that they can actually be used as protection. I think perhaps my original group of chromis may have had more of a chance of survival if I had these same colonies back then. Isolated from the group during feeding (he's on the left by himself) Can you spot the chromis? Cause he's got his eye on you!

Juiceman, that's what I'm doing right now. I'll continue to do this to aid the cycling in the new tank. Once its cycled, then tie them both together using the same sump and do a very low turnover from the new system to mix it slowly over a weeks time.

Water change? We talking about water changes!? Never! You can't make me!

If I set up the rock cleaning station, I'll record you a video that you can put on loop and run the oompa loompa music in the background. That'll probably get me a smack on the head by my wife as well.

Sometimes I'm too wordy for my own good. Here's the plan: 1) cycle new rock and sand in new tank 2) slowly do my transfusions of old tank water into the new tank to help jumpstart cycle 3) once new tank is cycled, slowly mix the water from the two tanks together, probably by sharing a sump. Aim to have all water mixed 100% between two tanks over the span of a week. To control the mixing rate of the water, I will be using a very slow turnover rate for the new tank water in the combined sump. 4) aim to dip all sps during this transfer 5) move over fishes Understandably it isn't a totally clean procedure to dip the corals and not the rock, but only pests I'm concerned about reside on the sps colonies themselves. Yes, planktonic forms are not accounted for but knowing that I don't have pests on my colonies, this is more for my own piece of mind then it is a totally fool proof form of pest control. As for my old system having the capability of absorbing any nitrite and ammonia spike from the non-cycled water, I may have tried that with softies or LPS but for SPS, I'd rather just be safe. Also, the new tank is a larger volume of water so having my old tank system account for that much new non-cycled water seems like it would be asking for trouble.

Big fan of my WP40s. I have them controlled through my Apex. They push lots of water, decently quiet, and you can't beat the price. Hope it makes some of the other manufacturers think twice about their pricing structure. Longevity is to be determined but my bets are it'll be just fine. I do observe a noticeable drop in flow rate when the powerhead needs some cleaning but thinking back, I think it was similar to my koralias drop in flowrate so not a huge deal. Just have to keep those bad boys clean.

My tangs took a liking to chaeto after I left a ball of it in the display for over 6 months. I think they started eating it out of boredom. I fed those guys plenty! Had to take it back out of the display once they started snacking on it as it left chaeto droppings all over the tank. The structure holds up decently well after digestion.

I'll get on that tank upgrade!

Thanks Dave!

GFO strips the water quickly if you've never used it before. At this point, I would remove some and leave whatever is recommended left in the reactor. I wouldn't change anything else at this point and just let your corals recover.

I can host whichever month KimP doesn't do. Maybe I can discuss how to upgrade your tank and move livestock over (successfully or unsuccessfully... tbd). Hopefully the new tank will be up and running by then and not covered in cyano or hair algae.

I like both of your lines of thinking. What I may end up doing now is to make a hard switch to the new sump. Move all of my reactors to the new sump and plumb the old tank drains into that one. I will have it return right back to the old tank. It shouldn't have any impact as I don't run a refugium in the old sump so it was basically just additional water volume and a place to run reactors. That will allow me to start using my new skimmer and return pumps which is my goal for now. Once the new tank is cycled, I can just run my normal plumbing and slowly pump small amounts of the new tank water through the sump and let it slowly mix over time.

The risk I was thinking was more based on parameter swings of introducing that much new water at once. I'm guessing if the new tank is cycled already and parameters are stable, there wouldn't be that much of a shock to introduce the new water. I'm just like an overprotective parent right now with the coral. They haven't been through a water change in 3 years so adding 260g of new cycled water scares me a bit. For new rock, it's all dry rock so I'm not worried about pests. Sorry if I forgot to mention that. The rock cleaning station I wanted to setup was more to pick clean my currents rocks before transfer to the new tank. I don't have anything I would consider a pest but its nice to have a crew there ready and waiting to clear off anything that should or shouldn't be there. I just want only coral and rock coming over.

Long and painful is my goal for the move... and just for kicks, I'm going to dip all corals before going into the new tank. The eventual plan is once the new tank is cycled, to tie both systems together so that the eventual move with be more like a change in location than a change in tanks. I'm still mulling over the pros and cons of this, as introducing roughly 260 gallons of newly cycled water to my current system has me "concerned", but the hope is the stable nature of my existing tank will help to stabilize the new tank versus the new tank crashing my old tank. If it feels too risky, I may just do some tank water "transfusions", where I periodically exchange water between the two systems until both are stabilized and as homogeneous as can be before I start moving corals and fish over. Once both systems are stable, I aim to move a section of the tank at a time. Basically, move over one metal halide setup and at the same time, move over any corals that are under it. Since I have 3 metal halide setups, I'd essentially be doing this 3 times over, each time letting the tanks both stabilize before continuing further. I have been toying with the idea of setting up a cleaning station for live rock. Have a separate tank (or sump section) where I can house an overstocked and hungry clean up crew to pick clean each rock as I transfer them over. Perhaps a mix of emerald crabs, hermit crabs, snails, peppermint shrimps, and maybe an aiptasia eating filefish for good measure. Each piece can sit in there for a couple of days to be picked clean and then tossed into the new system. All these ideas... probably most will not come to fruition but its good to think out loud.

You're always two steps ahead of me. Thanks for the tip bud!

Thanks Ceastman. The pictures came out better than I expected with my cellphone. I hope to have the water running through the sump and through my skimmer soon once I finalize my plumbing. Hopefully that'll take care of the cloudiness. Sascha- my plans were to run one straight return and one that has a manifold setup with my two external return pumps. I'm toying with the idea of running the manifold plumbing above the sump or at least along the back glass of the sump for easier connections to reactors and also in case there is a leak, at least it will just drip into the sump. The goal was to also tie the two return lines together with a ball valve so that in case one pump seizes up, I can just turn a couple of valves and have one pump at least continue to provide turnover through the sump while the other is being repaired/replaced. Biggest issue now is to modify the return pumps to lessen the noise. The fan cooled Iwakis never had the reputation of being quiet. They were built to last and not for quietness. That would be great if I had a dedicated equipment room but these bad boys are underneath the stand. Most of the noise is because of the fan shroud and external fan on these pumps. I've read about people removing the stock fan (which sounds like a jet engine) and replacing it with a PC fan and just building a pvc shroud to mount it on the body of the pump. I may aim to try that this week or else look into some serious sound dampening once I skin the stand.

I snapped some pics of the old tank... 1) to preserve the memory of it in case I blow it on the tank transfer and 2) because I got bored.

Nothing like the holidays to delay your tank build spend time with your loved ones. Finally got to rinse the sand and do some dry plumbing test runs. I'm still figuring out how best to run the plumbing as I keep tinkering with it. I'll update with a pic once I get a plumbing setup I like. Even after rinsing each bag of sand twice, it still came out pretty cloudy, which was kind of to be expected with what I read of other's experiences with the special reef grade sand from Caribsea. Either way, I knew what I was getting into and I am not concerned about it as it will settle out. For now at least, I have a giant tank of chocolate milk. At least I have a good 2" of sand in the tank now. Definitely digging the walking space I have behind the tank. It was useful for plumbing the overflows and its going to definitely pay off when I have to do aquascaping and also cleaning the backglass. The to do list now includes: 1) finalizing the plumbing 2) building the canopy 3) skinning the stand 4) modding the Iwaki pumps so that they are quieter 5) waiting for everything to cycle

Looks great! I like the coral placement and the tranquil feel of the tank. Kudos to the cinematography as well... it felt like I was in a submarine flying around a huge coral reef.

1/16" isn't too shabby for the bow James.

Here's a link to my tank build to see what 2.5 years of $13 bulbs looks like. Again, my tank is mainly SPS dominant. http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/29288-jeepertys-215-gallon-sps-tank/

Forgot to mention I've been running them for the past 2.5 years with a mainly SPS dominant tank.

I was running Reeflux for many years and then switched to the plusrites. Big cost savings and minimal difference in lighting. The Reeflux gave a slightly better color but not $40 worth of difference per bulb for me. I ran the 250 watt SE bulbs, 20k spectrum.

I say go with the wider tank and extend into the kitchen. You got plenty of space to go that way without having the house feel tight... not that that is even possible at your new place! You're going to be at the new house for a long while I would imagine so might as well get the tank you want and that you could run awhile before feeling the itch to upgrade. With a room divider style tank, my preference would be a minimum of 24" wide just so you can have a sandbed showing on both sides and not have the live rock leaning against the glass. I like 30" ideally though. Looking forward to your new tank build thread!