Tank going fallow, good time to drill an overflow?

[archangel91]

So long story short, I believe I had a case of Ich going on in my DT and pulled all my fish into QT and am treating with tank transfer and will most likely do hypo after to be safe.

I do have several LPS corals in my DT (several Acan, a frogspawn, hammer, and few zoa's) as well as a CuC consisting of a few types of snails and an urchin.

My DT is a 46g bowfront and currently using a lifereef hang on overflow, and while the overflow does work, I find it to be a bit bulkier and noisier than I would like.

In everyone's experience, would it be unreasonable to pull the corals, CuC and live rock into a cheap 20ish gallon tank off craigslist hooked into my sump with the lifereef. Most of the live rock would likely go into the sump or into a bucket in the garage with a heater and powerhead so as not to overdo the rock in the tank. I would end up keeping all of the live rock (of course) but throwing out and replacing the substrate.

My main concern is I dont want to end up killing all of my corals and CuC if there is something I have not thought of that would cause issues.

[DrBoxedWine]

So this isn't an answer to your question, but i'm looking at a LifeReef overflow. Do you have the silencers? How noisy is it?

[archangel91]

I do have the silencer, and it does help a bit. I found that using a coupler and some extra pvc to raise the height of the drain in the outside box to bring the water level inside the overflow actually reduced the noise more than using the silencer.

[DrBoxedWine]

Thanks! Any chance you could get a pic of what you're talking about? Do you feel it's as flood proof as the website says?

[darbo1212]

My 2 Cents. If its not to big of a pain and your tank can be drilled do it. I have a 40 gal and I wish I would have drilled mine. Do you have any friend to baby sit the corals until you get it back up and running?

[archangel91]

I'll snap a few pics and PM them to ya when I get home DrBoxedWine

I do have a few local people that could take them for me, however I couldn't in good conscience do that to anyone being 99% sure that there's ich in my system. The more I think about it, the more I think I'll just go ahead and do it, put some 2x4's across my stand and turn my lights down a bit since it will be going through less water to be safe.

[Odysi]

I just did the exact same thing you are talking about, but didn't have as much livestock. Just CuC and 1 GSP frag. Emptied my 40B into 2 Rubbermaid and drilled the tank. I am very happy i did it so if you have the means to do i suggest you do. BTW 1 week turned into 1 month because of life, but only lost maybe 5-6 snails

[DrBoxedWine]

Thanks!!