New Tank Setup Questions

[pmeninger]

I am setting up a 30 gallon tank and taking down my 100 gallon tank. I want to move the three small fish and the corals over to my 30 gallon.

I am moving in about 3 weeks and I want to trnasfer all the livestock during this move. Here are my plans and concerns...

Should I setup the 30 gallon now and let it cycle?

I have a lot of live rock that I want to get rid of due to increased algea and red (not cyno) algea bubbles...is there an effincinet way to clean off live rock in thsi time period or should I purchase new live rock?

Should I use the sand and water from my old tank or start all over?

Please any insight would help...

[koyoteturtle]

yea, use 50 to 75% of the old water, and the top of your old sand bed layer.
Thats what I did when I moved mine. Although to be forth coming, I added new sand first, then put the old sand bed on top of that. then take some of your old live rock and set up a sump, then put your extra live rock in there.
As far as setting up your tank, the longer its up and running, the better, in my opinion.
It gives your water a chance to stabilize.
Just my 2 cents.

[pmeninger]

What if I want to replace the live rock overall. The old live rock has masses of red (non cyno) bubble algea. It is a nussance and nothing I have done has subsided it.

Any tips on how to rid of red bubble algea?

[pmeninger]

bump

[Toddrtrex]

I did something similar --- but a move wasn't involved. My old rocks were covered with green bubble algae, and other things I didn't want.

Anyways, I purchased new live rock, and cured it in rubbermaid bins. Then I made the transfer.

More details can be found in this thread,

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1233581

Most of the details are covered in the first couple of posts. If you have any questions after looking at it, feel free to ask.

EDIT --- this may help too, when I transferred my 29 to a 33 cube.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1548848&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

[pmeninger]

I just converted my 80 gallon Reef tank to a smaller 20 Gallon Tank (I was incorrect about the sizes of the tank before) due to moving into a smaller place (NOT MY CHOICE!!!)

I have had a tank running for about 4-5 years and I never did any adding of chemical dosing.

I am interested in any insight on what people add to the tank to keep nutrients up. Also I never ran a carbon media in my reef tank before and decided to add a media bag of carbon to the chamber of my CPR (hang on back filter). Is this a bad idea?

Last...i have a phospahte reactor but I am thinking of getting rid of that and putting the Phosphate media into a media bag and putting that into the chamber of my CPR (HOB) to reduce clutter. Is this a bad idea?

Tank
20 gallons
30lbs of Liverock
3in sand bed
CPR Backpack with Carbon media in chamber
3 fish (clown, domino damisal, and a wrase)
Coral (lether, branch, and trumpet corals)
Cleaning crew

[pmeninger]

bump