Need you to help me make a decision.

[Ram_Puppy]

Yup, and that is the total antithesis of 'me'... I can't keep up with that, my schedule for work alone would prevent a standard way of doing things... the 110 high is my best bet...

I am going to use some PVC and egg crate that I allready have on hand to move create a tray high up in the tank for the SPS corals to survive (since I know my lighting won't punch down far enough.) I am trying to figure out a way to move my 3 inch sand bed without a disaster (anoxic layer dieing off.) I am not sure that CAN happen... but here is what I have thought of...

Get all the critters and rock into the 115 scoop sand into another small rubbermaid, just big enough to hold the sand, then put that rubbermaid into a larger rubbermaid container and run my Magnum 250 HOT on it for a couple days with Carbon, and such, with frequent water changes, with the goal of preserving as much life int hat sand as possible, becuase it is really alive. Then, because I don't want a mess cleaning that sand outof the 110 later, I am just going to put the entire rubbermaid in the 110, cover it with saran wrap or something as I am placing it in the water, and then essentially feed it like a critter until the new cube tank arrives, at which point the sand will go into the refugium of that tank as I decided I don't want the black specks in the new tank.

Whaddya guys think?

[dan]

what kind of cube are you getting? i have a 60 and a 250 for sale. both are cubes

[matt]

1 gallon/day evaporation on a 30 gallon is not a lot, IMO. I replaced almost 5 gal/day on my old 45; it was an open top tank with LOTS of circulation. There's nothing wrong with increasing your evaporation if you can. Probably the simplest option is to ditch the mag 5/sqwd set up (both not very good products anyway) and just use a couple of maxijets for circulation. Another very effective thing would be to get your lights up off the tank a few inches.

I've often thought about using ice cubes as top-off for cooling. If you could set up an ice maker with an R.O. filter, automatically dumping ice into your sump, sort of like icebergs melting, you'd have your own little polar eco-system; get a few tiny seals and penguins, maybe a miniature polar bear, some sort of aurora borealis display...

[NaCl_H2O]

... your own little polar eco-system; get a few tiny seals and penguins, maybe a miniature polar bear, some sort of aurora borealis display...

I bet you could win TOTM with that one :o

[GaryP]

Ram, a few ideas on moving your sand bed. I have been giving this a lot of thought as well because of my plans to move my tank to a larger one.

I plan on stirring my sand with a power head and trying to filter out the silt and accumulated debris with a Magnum and/or filter sock. Hydrogen Sulfide is volatile and water soluble so it should off gas fairly easily if stirred. The anaerobic bacteria won't be killed by aeration. They will simply shut down and wait until the conditions they need are restored. The black specks you mentioned is probably iron sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide from bacterial action reacts very readily with soluble iron to form iron sulfide.

I'll use a collander to remove any larger stuff like snail shells and any macro critters like stars, snails, and hermits.

Once I get my sugar fine sand back in the tank, I plan on putting in a 1" layer of special grade aragaonite on top of it to prevent blowing sand.

GARY