Moving from Miami w/ 210g

[tiger_eyed1]

Moving to San Antonio next week from Miami. Yes, one hot place to another. Bringing my 210 along. I’ve been in the hobby for about 15 years. Went from a 20 to 30 to 135 to 210. Wife not letting me go any larger… for now. Founding member of Razorback Reef (Arkansas), active member of FMAS (South Florida). I’m a certified diver (padi), and computer geek by profession.

I’ve already taken my corals and fish to my LFS. They’ll ship once I’m up and running. Shipping rock separate from movers will be to expensive so I’m putting it in plastic barrels and letting them move with the tank.

Current Equipment
210g All-Glass Reef Ready
42” stand, 15” canopy (island style)
75g Sump
MRC2 Skimmer (Mag18)
3 – 250w 20k MH
Coralife Aqualight Pro (Backup Lights)
¼ HP Chiller
5g Auto Topoff/ Limewater Topoff
2 - Two little fishes phosphate reactor
Reeflo Barracuda Return
Little Giant 4 (backup pump)

75gpd RO/DI
2 – 50g drums + 1 – 75g drum for semi-auto water change.

30g & 20g Quarantine
AquaC Urchin skimmer
Reeflo Dart Return

Questions:
Are there any Saltwater Delivery stores in NW San Antonio?

Since rock will be dead/dying, anyone willing to trade me a dead rock for a live rock so that I can seed my tank?

Getting new sand so anyone willing to trade me two cups of sand from their established tank for two cups of new/dry sand?

Thanks,
Marcus

[jrsatx20]

Welcome to maast and San Antonio. Look me up when you are ready I can give you some sand and macro to get started.

[allan]

Welcome to sa dude. I can get you some rubble rock. I've got some on hand, but I'll be in one of the stores in the next few days I'll pick up a pound or two of rubble and cook it in my sump to give you some 'seed'.

[tiger_eyed1]

Thanks! Draining tank now. Found 30 more hermits and two conch. I'll probably find more when i take out the sand bed. Not looking forward to taking apart the plumbing.

[greatwhite@AlamoAquatics]

welcome to s.a. dude ! good luck with the move ... looking foward to seeing some pix

[txav8r]

Welcome! There are ton's of people on here that will help you out when the time comes. All you have to do is ask!

[kkiel02]

Welcome abroad! I cant wait to see some pics!

[tiger_eyed1]

I took this video a few months ago. I'll be able to aquascape allot better this time now that the tank is empty.

http://s102.photobucket.com/albums/m103/tigereyed1/?action=view&current=MyReefAquarium.flv

[RayAllen]

Welcome to Maast! Sounds like you will be a great member with some good knowledge and experience. If you need a helping hand when you arrive let us know. There are a lot good people here willing to lift a tank.

[Mr Cob]

Welcome to MAAST and your soon arrival to SA!

WOW...that's going to be a move. Serious move. Good luck with it all.

Post up when you are ready to seed your tank...macro, sand, rubble, etc.

[ErikH]

Brass Cajones!

:D

Welcome Welcome Welcome. GL with the move.

[tiger_eyed1]

Movers came yesterday and loaded everything. The truck should arrive in San Antonio on Saturday. Firsts will be to get the R/O running. Found a house off Prue between Fredricksberg and Babcock(sp). Really close to the job.

[tiger_eyed1]

AT&T just turned my dsl on. Being without was hard. We arrived in town last Thursday. Movers got here on Saturday morning. Sunday afternoon I added the dry sand and aquascaped the rock into a shallow ledge. I didn't bother cleaning the tank as I'll be getting a hard cycle this time. I'll throw a cocktail shrimp in there tomorrow to get the process started. Not looking forward to the smell. Going to venture out to find a store this weekend to get two buckets of salt.

The tank is separating the family room from the kitchen. Laundry room is right around the corner so I'll be able to run a line from the R/O unit. I decided that I'll start out with my backup fixture (Coralife Aqualight Pro) to cut down on heat. I don't have any high light corals so I'll be fine. If i see a need, i can always pop the 250's back in. We are still unpacking so please ignore the mess.

87618760

[Europhyllia]

moving a tank like that must be a ton of work!
Glad to see you are almost done :)

[jrsatx20]

Welcome.

[jrsatx20]

Check out gabes off of evers and 410. Aqaurium designs on brook hollow and 281

[ismvel]

Welcome to SA. Eyes were playing tricks on me, in your posting with the pictures a brief look, it appears as if you have two tanks across from one another creating an open space in the middle. LOL

Happy reefing.

[Mr Cob]

Great looking tank! Guess you can say the hard part is over...!?

[BIGBIRD123]

Man, your right down the street from me. I have plenty of macro to seed your fuge and can help if needed.

[tiger_eyed1]

<RANT>
I was awaken to my car alarm at 4am. Got a really nice welcome to San Antonio. Notice the hole where the window should be. Oh there the window is on the ground. But wait, i only see half the window. Oh, there the other half is shattered all over the inside of the car. Lets see was anything take? No, just moved and the car was completely empty, not even a stick of gum. So $1500 in damage and nothing was taken.
8771

</RANT>


Decided that I was going to use my 30g as a sump vs the 75g (which has to be put into the stand while the stand is upside down)

:( Well, opened the box containing the 30g. It was inside a box wrapped in a shipping blanket which was wrapped inside a larger box. End of tank still cracked. So looks like I'm in the market for a 30 or 55. Then I'll have to find someone to drill a hole for the baracuda.
http://www.maast.org/images/misc/pencil.png

[BIGBIRD123]

I have an acrylic sump that is somewhere near 30g that you might like to look at. I live less than a mile from you down Fredricksburg. Shoot me your number and I will bring it by or you can stop by and look at it...and check-out my set-up...:)

...sorry about the welcome, it happens in all neighborhoods...mine they got my briefcase, Escort radar detector, MP3 and golf clubs...

[jrsatx20]

Forgot to tell you to not lock your car in sa. Cheaper to replace an iPod than a window.

[Europhyllia]

lol @ Ruben

Had a similar experience when I first moved to Texas: car burglarized TWICE, then got run over by truck while riding my bike, some other things not working out as planned. I told my mama: This is it! I am coming home.

It got better as the years passed. Welcome to Texas!

[jrsatx20]

Really ran over by a truck car broken into twice can you do me a favor and buy a lottery ticket for me

[BIGBIRD123]

here's a FTS of my tank...come on by

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j20/onebrickstrait/015-2.jpg

[tiger_eyed1]

BIGBIRD123 you PM inbox is full.

[tiger_eyed1]

As some of you will learn, I'm not big on test kits and tweaking things based on what someone has said on a board or in a book. What works for me? I do regular water changes, and drip limewater. If the tank looks funny or smells funny to me, I'll do a water change. I usually do 75 to 100g water changes every 3 weeks. Every 3 months or so, I do a 100% water change in the display. That'll be harder now that I don't have access to the ocean but I'll try to get close. I'll probably have to add more iron and mag to my water change water to supplement having to make my own water. TDS is pretty high here.
Last week I could tell the cycle spiked. The whole house smelled like low tide. The water is pretty clear to the naked eye but I can see a hint of yellow when I hold a glass of it up to a light. I added some macro from gabes on Monday. I also added some pod eggs that I brought with me from Florida. On Tuesday I added my urchin skimmer to the display to see the quality of the skimmate. In 15 minutes it made a 6in dome. It was nice, yellow and thick for the first hour. I removed the cup so that it'll just airate the water and not strip it.
Mega thanks to “thebully” for the acrylic tank. I was going to use it as a display for my daughter. But I was able to score a 29g from petco for her so I’ll use the 55g acrylic as a sump. I just have to add some baffles to slow the water flow and have it drilled for the external pump. I hope to have that done and everything plumbed this weekend. I’ll remove the shrimp and take some water to the petstore for testing on Sat or Sunday to make sure the tank has settled. If everything is good, I’ll then call the Florida store so they can start shipping my livestock.

[Submariner]

Welcome to MAAST! Hope things go smoother for you.

[tiger_eyed1]

I met two awsome people last night, Mike & Kristy. Their setups are awsome.

My LFS will be shipping my corals to me on Thursday so I should get them on Friday. They'll ship the fish next week.

It is amazing hom much louder the tank and water flow is on the tile floor. I didn't think the carpet was that much of a buffer. I even had to tune back my return pump. By not having the chiller on the tank, the overflows are having a time keeping up. The other night, we were upstairs and the wife asked me, is the tank going to always be that loud. So I'll be add some sound buffers inside the stand and canapy along with altering the flow into the sump to reduce noise.

Got a PM about me not testing my water, sorry if I offended anyone else. I wasn't trying to give anyone bad advice. Just telling my methods. So, I took your advice... Well, i tried. We were going to walmart to do a little shopping and said, hey, there is a COmpany that sells PETs across the street. I can have them test my water. Yes, I know you are all laughing. Took the cup of water in to the fish dept and the girl just looked at me when I stood beside the sign that says they test water, and asked her if she could test my water. After about 10 seconds she said sure. She took the cup and walked over to a cabinet ant took out a single bottle and disapeared to the stock room. She returned two minutes later and told me my water was fine. I said, OK... How was the salinity, she said fine. What about the nitrates, she said they were fine and handed me back my full cup of water. I smiled, and said OK, Thank you so much. Needless to say I'll take some water to one of the sponsors for testing.

[allan]

Hey dude, still need your rock seeded?

I'm off for the next two weeks if you're still in need. I can also check your water... In front of you of course. :-)




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tiger_eyed1]

Wife just called and the UPS guy just dropped of three heavy boxes. I'm all giddy. Don't know if 'll be able to wait until noon.

LFS sent me a email yesterday to tell me that he had to go get a bigger bags for the sailfin and parrot. He thinks they grew over the past three weeks.

[txav8r]

Keep us posted! We need Pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Big_Pun]

good luck with everything, and don't worry about the testing if it works for you go for it. I don't test at all and I dose no problems in my tank, I've never owned a test kit and I check salinity with a little float type thingy lmao

[jrsatx20]

Im with Chris on this one also. I dont test. What works for one person may not work for the other. We all learn our systems in time. I only did water changes when the house smelt like corpus Christi beach.

[cbianco]

Im with Chris on this one also. I dont test. What works for one person may not work for the other. We all learn our systems in time. I only did water changes when the house smelt like corpus Christi beach.

Nice! lol!

tiger_eyed1, welcome to MAAST. We're always glad to see new faces around here.

I may have missed it but what types of coral tickle your fancy the most?

Christopher :)

[tiger_eyed1]

Thans everyone, I feel very welcomed. I can tell I'll get a chance to build some friendships here.
I was able to throw... aclimate all the corals into the tank. They are just in there. I'll arrange them today.
Corals, Well I love my bi-color parrot so I'm limited. Vrious zonthids star polypds, hammers, frogspawn, pagodas/cups, plates. Just anything thats not tastey. I may setup the 75 and turn it into a all reef.

[tiger_eyed1]

I've been working on the tank again over the last two weeks. Its running fine, but you can always tweak something. I picked up a used coralife 220 skimmer from a member. I dropped my mrc2 and didn’t feel like trying to repair it right then.
I picked up my rock that has been seeding since July. Thanks Allen, Mike, & Kristy. Its full of life and surely is helping add new bacteria to the tank.
I started a Rotifer Culture, and Added baffles to the sump.

Yanked the sump out from under the tank. Having a true union between the pump and the sump is great for situations just like this.
http://www.maast.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=9929

Acrylic glue that I picked up from hobby shop. We looked it up and saw post on other forums where tank mfg and hobbyists use it. Has warning all over it saying that it is shown to cause cancer. Needless to say, I used gloves.
http://www.maast.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=9928

Measuring the Acrylic before the cuts. It didn’t help that the tank has a bow in the middle so I had to curve my cut to compensate so that the fit was snug.
http://www.maast.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=9930

Adding Acrylic Glue between sheet and tank wall. The pharmacist at wallgreens had a good laugh. I went in there to buy some syringes and needles to apply the glue. He said that my story to why I needed them was so wild that he believed me, but it was illegal for him to sell them to me without a prescription. He ended up giving me two syringes anyways. I widened the hole a little and it fit right over the applicator that I got from the hobby store. It was like a needle anyways so everything worked out perfect.
http://www.maast.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=9932

Finished product. I can now open the run the barracuda wide open with no micro bubbles in the display. Even have a safe place for the rubble, macro, and mineral block.
http://www.maast.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=9931

[tiger_eyed1]

Got the Rotifer culture in two weeks ago
9934

Couldn't see a thing in the bag but yellowish brown water. I was like, I hope I didn't get what was supposed to be going to the lab.
9935

Started everything up and let it go. By day two I could really notice the phyto being consumed. On like day 7 they started eating even more. I now feed them three times a day to make sure I don't over feed, while making sure they don't run out. And just my luck, this morning, in my rush to feed them and get out the door to work, I left my bottle of rotifer diet out. Luckily Alamo had a sample bottle that the vendor had brought them last week. I asked them to order me some more. I went ahead and used todays harvest to start a 2nd culture. What am i going to do with all these rotifers? The pods in my display are already being bullies to my fish.
9936

This is why I started the culture. The next time the perc spawns, I'll be trying to raise the fry. Yes, that's a pair of b/w australians in the pic. Yes, the male fertilized the perc eggs and they hatched. Just didn't have any food to keep them. I'm now prepared.
9933

[Big_Pun]

very nice glad to see everything is moving along

[tiger_eyed1]

Went by Texas Tropical today. They we super nice. They have ALOT of stuff in that store. When I asked if they had any live Nannochloropsis, they looked at me funny. So I asked them if they had any live phyto. Guess what, they have the full line of Reef Nutrition products. Even the "Rotifer Diet". I found my local source! AND they had like 4 bottles of live tiger pods. I wanted to get a bottle but I don't have another tank setup yet. Reef Nutrition price model sets their internet price at what the recommended store price should be. That makes it cheaper. ALOT cheaper to buy the product local. Overnight shipping can cost the same or more than the product (coming from California).
Next time petco has their $1/gallon sale. I'll get a few 10g so I can start more culture tanks. Gonna setup a concrete block, grow out tank wall in the garage.
Had to pull the heaters out the box last night. Brand new, had them 5 years but never needed them. I've had them in a 5g bucket all day testing them to make sure they don't go crazy. It was like 47 outside this morning and 72 in the house. Tank was 76 when I looked at it this morning. I usually keep it around 78.

[tiger_eyed1]

Like a few others, when RN came out with the bottle of live tigger pods we dumped the bottle into the display and forgot about them. WELL, I think they have a hold. I was downstairs last night and walked by the tank and saw my young clowns swarming under the moonlights. I walked up to the tank and could notice that they were feeding much like they did as fry. I turned off the pumps and got a flashlight. To my surprise the water column was teaming with thousands of tiger pods darting around. ALSO it appears that I have a healthy population of Mysis as they were everywhere. AND, either my young clowns are breeding or the molly millers as i estimated about 300 fry darting around. Its amazing how much life can go unnoticed.

[Europhyllia]

how awesome!~ :)