barkingshark
01/08/2009, 10:08 AM
Hello,
We are new to saltwater aqauriums but are jumping in by purchasing an existing 180 gallon saltwater tank that has been operating for about 8 months already. It comes complete with several hundred pounds of live rock, sand, an engineer goby, and a wrasse (which will be traded in at the LFS).
We have been obsessive with research and have hit all the LFS to spread out our list of questions, we’ve spent many hours searching the internet and great sites like reefcentral.com as well. Now it's time for the big move and we have all sorts of questions so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
The move is scheduled for Saturday. We are accumulating rubbermaid containers to help with the move, we want to keep as much of the existing water as possible.
- If the rubbermaid containers have ever been cleaned with an ammonia product like Windex, can we still use them to move the water/live rock? They will be rinsed out prior to being used. We're not sure if they have or haven't - our thought was to fill them with tap water and run an ammonia test on each container to see if there is any ammonia present but is this needed?
- We live in Michigan and it's freezing cold here. The water/rocks will be in heated cars to try to minimize exposure to cold - are there any other risks to think about? What would happen if the live rock/water did get cold?
- Can we use a garden hose to pump the water from the tank into the rubbermaid containers that are in the car? Any other suggestions on how to move the water?
- We have 3 SUV's lined up to help with the move, do you think that's enough? It's about a 40 minute drive from the old location to our location so we're hoping to do one trip with all 3 SUVs.
- Once the set up is at the new location should we put the live rock in first, follow with the sand, and then add water by pouring it on a plate? Or put in the sand, then water, then rock? Does it matter?
We will not be putting any fish/invertebrates/etc in the new tank for at least a week or two while we are giving the tank a dark treatment to cure the remainder of a hair algae problem. Any fish will be quarantined prior to going in the tank.
Thank you so much for your input!!!!
We are new to saltwater aqauriums but are jumping in by purchasing an existing 180 gallon saltwater tank that has been operating for about 8 months already. It comes complete with several hundred pounds of live rock, sand, an engineer goby, and a wrasse (which will be traded in at the LFS).
We have been obsessive with research and have hit all the LFS to spread out our list of questions, we’ve spent many hours searching the internet and great sites like reefcentral.com as well. Now it's time for the big move and we have all sorts of questions so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
The move is scheduled for Saturday. We are accumulating rubbermaid containers to help with the move, we want to keep as much of the existing water as possible.
- If the rubbermaid containers have ever been cleaned with an ammonia product like Windex, can we still use them to move the water/live rock? They will be rinsed out prior to being used. We're not sure if they have or haven't - our thought was to fill them with tap water and run an ammonia test on each container to see if there is any ammonia present but is this needed?
- We live in Michigan and it's freezing cold here. The water/rocks will be in heated cars to try to minimize exposure to cold - are there any other risks to think about? What would happen if the live rock/water did get cold?
- Can we use a garden hose to pump the water from the tank into the rubbermaid containers that are in the car? Any other suggestions on how to move the water?
- We have 3 SUV's lined up to help with the move, do you think that's enough? It's about a 40 minute drive from the old location to our location so we're hoping to do one trip with all 3 SUVs.
- Once the set up is at the new location should we put the live rock in first, follow with the sand, and then add water by pouring it on a plate? Or put in the sand, then water, then rock? Does it matter?
We will not be putting any fish/invertebrates/etc in the new tank for at least a week or two while we are giving the tank a dark treatment to cure the remainder of a hair algae problem. Any fish will be quarantined prior to going in the tank.
Thank you so much for your input!!!!