upgrading tank

[cailan]

i was at texas tropical today and found a neat tank i liked. i'm not sure exactly what size it was but it looked like about a 100 gal. i have a 55 reef tank that's doing pretty good right now and we've been looking at getting a bigger one. my question is what is the best way to transfer everything over.

i was thinking of getting some trash cans and siphoning all the water into them to save it and putting my "less tough" corals in my 30 gal until everything's pretty stable. most of my live stock is fairly hardy. i've got a big colony of green star polyps, some other polyps, zoos, a brain, xenia, some bubbles, and a huge goniopora. all of the fish are hardy and i'm not worried about them. (fire fish, yellow and blue tangs, tomato clown)

another thing to bring up is the wet dry. it's the perfect size for the 55 but not for a 100. i would keep the sand bed and live rock i have as far as biological filtration goes but what are your suggestions on the wet dry? should i get another wet dry of the same size and just have two running or just get a completely bigger one?

thank you for your help.

[GaryP]

Gonipora is definitely not a hardy coral. How long have you had it? Not many people can keep one alive.

I've been told by other LFS owners that Texas Tropical has very good prices on their tanks. They make it up on the other things that always get sold with a new tank.

I'd just keep your wet/dry and not upgrade. If you have a fair amount of live rock and a mature sand bed its carrying a lot of the biological load of a wet dry.

Doing several large frequent water changes will help accelerate the process of stabilizing your new tank. I would recommend at least 20% changes a couple times a week for the first 2 weeks, then 10% weekly changes after that. I'd also run some carbon and phosphate absorber in the chemical tray of the wet/dry. Change that out weekly. A mecanical filter like a sock filter or Magnum would be very helpful it clearing up your water after the silt gets stirred up in your sand bed.

HTH,
Gary

[cailan]

yeah, i knew that the goniopora wasn't a real hardy coral. but we've had it in the tank for at least 3 months and it's doing great. it expands to at least 8-10 inches across during the day. we had to move the brain out of the way because it did so good. the tank we are looking doesn't have a much bigger bottom area, but it is doubled in height.

the main thing we are concerned about is the shock on the fish and corals.

oh yeah, and i forgot to mention we also 2 sponges, galaxia and a frogspawn that are all doing good.

[GaryP]

1 year seems to be the critical time frame for keeping a Gonipora alive.

Good luck and keep us informed. We have a member down in Corpus that had really good success with them until his tank crashed. Are you doing anything special with him to get the type of growth you are seeing?

Gary

[cailan]

yeah. i've heard about a year and i'm hoping to go that long. i just feed zooplankton and phytoplankton which probably has something to do with my flatworm infestation so i've cut back on that. maybe it's just the particular piece that i ended up with :lol:
i'll post a pic later. thanks for the help so far.

[GaryP]

I doubt the flatworms are a result of the phyto and zoo you are feeding. They feed on detritus. You shouldn't get that much detritus from phyto and zoo. Probably uneaten fish food and fish waste is more likely. Try increasing the circulation in your tank. Hermits also help keep the detritus to a minimum too. That's what I have found is the most useful in controlling their numbers.

While you are moving to the new tank might be a good time to treat for the flatworms with Flatworm Exit or Melafix.

Gary

[blueboy]

i recently upgraded from a 55 to a 120, about 4 months ago. my 55 was also about a year old. i just got a bunch of 5g buckets for the water from the old tank, and used a big tub to mix up the rest of the water i would need well ahead of time(one less thing to worry about while your doing everything else). i used several tubs(like bus tubs from a restaraunt)for the corals. the fish went in a 5g bucket. i then transfered the rock and substrate(adding another bag, also rinsed well ahead of time). i hooked up my mag350 canister and then took my time getting the rock just right and letting the water clear up. by 3 in the morning i was adding corals and fish! make sure your fresh water is at the proper temp, ph, slinity, etc. and all should be well. good luck.

[mathias]

so Im going to do this also in about 2 or 3 months.... so everyones opinion is to do it all in a day or two .... rather than setup the 125 like a new tank and then after a month or two start moving stuff over?

[GaryP]

I did it 3 times in 13 months when I moved. Its pretty much the same thing without baking your livestock in a 100 degree U-Haul trailer for 24 hrs.

I would say letting your tank stabilize is better if you have the capability of doing it that way. But how many people have an equivalent tank and the space to hold your livestock? Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Gary

[cailan]

if i could i would set up the new tank and let it cycle but it is going to go right where my 55 is right now so that's not going to happen.

blueboy,
how much more sand did you have to add in your new tank on top of what you had?

[blueboy]

i think i just added one 40lb bag, but i don,t use a dsb. just calculate the diff in the footprint of the tanks and you should be able to tell how much you need. probably about double what you have now.

[cailan]

okay, the bottom area of the tank isn't too much bigger than what i have now so probably just one bag will do it. were you running wet dry, did you upgrade? i will probably won't to save money- i trust gary's advice ;)

[GaryP]

Most reefers don't run a wet/dry at all. The're OK for a FO tank that has a higher bioload.

Gary

[blueboy]

go with garys advice. i've never had a wet/dry, but in your case(since it's already carrying some of your bioload) i'd move it over to the new tank and maybe phase out the wet/dry section down the road.

[cailan]

okay. i'm just running a bakpak on my 30 gal reef.