View Full Version : recomendations on moving a 180g
TKByrnes
08/17/2006, 01:05 PM
Ok I am upgrading to a 180 from a 75 woooohooooo!!! the 180 comes with a 75 gal sump, 75 gal refugium, aqua c skimmer, chiller not sure on the brand or hp, 2x250 watt MH, 2x110 vho actinic's, little giant 1000 gph pump, and misc other stuff. not really sure what all is going to come with it. it is stocked with coral and fish. not sure how many fish or what species. and honestly dont really care about that. for this 1 reason IT IS ALL FREE!!!!! The guy just doesnt have time for it and is going to give it all to me. Now with all of that said... what would you all recomend to make the move fairly easy? Like i said i have a 75 gal now but i had an outbreak of ich about 3-4 weeks ago that killed some fish. the only ones that survived were my eel and my chalk bass. so i really dont want to move the new fish into that tank. i do have a 30 gal qt but i would think that the stress would be horrible on the fish going from a 180 to a 30. especially since some of the fish are about 6 inches or so (judging from pics)
Any Ideas???
Asuran
08/17/2006, 02:07 PM
first off congrats on scoring a free setup.
the move itself will probably take you a full day. try to save up as much water from before as possible have some new water mixed before hand as you will lose some for what ever reasons.
bag the fish and try to keep their temps stable. if you are quick with the setup and have water and lr and substrate(if any) get the temps back up you should be able to put them back in. given that you keep the LR wet throughout the move.
if not then your best bet is to get either the ref or sump cleaned to house the fish and corals till you get the 180 up and running. i did that for my upgrade used the 75 gal to house my livestock.
TKByrnes
08/17/2006, 02:20 PM
Im going to move about 100-150 gals of the water that is in the 180 now. also the rock will be kept in rubbermaid tubs with water in them. the tank only has about 1" or less of sand in it now. im going to move most or all of that sand and add more when i set it back up. if i keep the sand and the rock in water do you think i will get a cycle? there will be about 1 hour of travel. so maybe 3 or 4 hours of the rock and water being in water with no water movement. as far as the fish...... do you think i should keep them in another rubbermaid tub to make sure i dont get a cycle?
Ne0eN
08/17/2006, 02:29 PM
What you're trying to do - seems easy - but it can cause many problems. I have done the exact same thing and lost a yellow tang due to ick outbreak. Here is what I've learned:
-You need to set-up a q tank for the fish before you attempt the move. Moving a tank is like setting up a brand new setup. It takes time for it to cycle. Save as much of the original water as possible. Make sure the q tank is sized for the number of the fish and their size. You should plan on keeping the fish there for a couple of days while the main tank cycles.
- As soon as you disturb the LS, it starts dying and this will cause a significant ammonia spike. Also, any of the ick postules that've been sitting dormant in the sand (and now I'm starting to believe that ick is present in pretty much every tank in some state on another) will probably get airborne (aquaborne) again and start infecting fish. (Fish will already stressed and weakened due to capture, storage, new water params, etc.)
I would suggest you rinse the LS and get it as clean as you possibly can. (save maybe 10% of it to seed the rest). You can mix the two, or place the sand first, then put argonite on top of it to keep the sand storm to the minimum, and then gently add water. Keep your skimmer going, and maybe even a canister filter to clear the water up. After everything settles, add LR and the rest. Monitor the params and once everything seems ok, add fish. Keep an eye on the fish, measure params daily, and do water changes if ammonia creeps high. The fish may still get ick - just because of stress. Try the garlic, ginger routine first, and hopefully they will be fine.
Good luck!
TKByrnes
08/17/2006, 02:34 PM
ok maybe it would be best to keep maybe 1 or 2 of the fish in my 30 gal qt and the rest in my existing 75. or even take the fish to my lfs and get store credit. then after all is good then ill get new fish.
twon8
08/17/2006, 03:25 PM
dont disturb teh sand, leave it. use new, the rocks will have enough life to start a new sandbed.
Hens4Fish
08/17/2006, 03:35 PM
When I moved my new 150 complete set-up 8 hours down the road, I kept everything in totes and put the fish in the totse with the LR. As for the fish I had set up a QT tank and dosed it with prevent meds to stop any possible outbreaks. They were in there for about 3-4 weeks until my tank re-cycled. By the way, in my opinion I would use all new sand. I tried moving a 5 inch sand bed and WOW what a bad idea. Ammonia spikes that killed half my coral. I had to eventually replace the sand with new and within 2 weeks the fish were in the tank and it was running well.
TKByrnes
08/17/2006, 06:25 PM
so should i trash all but about a cup of sand or trash it all?
dqualls
08/17/2006, 09:57 PM
I recently upgraded from a 55 to a 120 with a 30 gal sump. I put my 80 pds of rock in totes with tank water, all corals in totes with tank water and fish in a bucket with an air stone. Even though I didn't have any drive time, the move took from 6:30 AM until 11:30 PM. I used all new water and sand. Today is one week since the move and everything seems stable with no spikes of any kind and no losses either. Hope this helps.
TKByrnes
08/17/2006, 10:24 PM
dqualls.... yes it does. i dont think i will get any dieoff or very little if i keep the rock in water. I think im going to trash all the sand that is in it now. i was told that there is a stack about 3 feet tall of sand in bags still that the guy has. also alot of salt. im planning on it going very smooth.......... like i said planning!!! the worst part is getting the tank in my basement. there is 125 lbs of lr all is covered in coraline. the tank is beautiful. I still cant believe the guy is just going to give it to me. if anyone lives in the frederick maryland area and would like to help im open for all the help i can get!!!!!! lol
dqualls
08/18/2006, 09:59 AM
Another word of advise. Be Prepared. Have extra water made ahead, heaters available and air stones. I just rotated one airstone between my four totes with corals. My LFS suggested that I seperate any corals that were heavy mucus producers. Not sure if this mattered but I did it. Since you have travel time you might want to use lg plastic food storge containers. One of my return bulkhead fittings would not stop leaking so someone had to make a 30 minute trip to get a new one. Luckily the owner was willing to wait for us. As I waited on this, I began to acclimate all the corals by adding water from tank to totes. This used extra water which you shouldn't use in new system so plan for that. All my corals except for the Fox coral looked like nothing had happened the nexted day. The fox took a couple of days. It took me several days to recuperate. Extra hands are a must. Good luck.
Hens4Fish
08/18/2006, 10:34 AM
I would definately buy all new live sand. Also quarantene the fish for 2 weeks. Once you get the tank in the basement put the sand in first then as much old water as possible and get the filtration going. You can put the corals and LR in while the "dust" is settling it will not hurt them. But once your levels are stable it is safe to put fish in. When I moved my 150 I did it solo and it went fine, just took longer. PM me if you have anymore ??
rooroo
08/18/2006, 11:23 AM
I just moved my 65 about 3 weeks ago. The new location was 1 hours away. I closed on my house 2 days earlier and was moving everything the day before so there was no time for me to set up a QT. I only have 3 fish and my tank is not heavily stocked with corals, nor do I have a deep sand bed. Anyway here is what I did.
1. Left the lights off on the tank the day before.
2. Bought a bunch of 5 gallon buckets and lids from home depot.
3. Sucked out water from tank to fill each bucket half full (all water mentioned from here on is tank water unless otherwise stated).
4. Put all corals in buckets with water, only puting 1-2 corals in each bucket. Then I filled the buckets the rest of the way up with water.
5. Put fish in their own bucket full of water.
6. Put all of the live rock with no corals on it (base rock practically) in 2 buckets without any water at first. I filled these up as much as I could while still allowing me to put a lid on it. Then I filled up the bucket with water.
7. Filled one bucket with sand, put a small amount of water in this one.
8. Any extra buckets were filled full of water, various snails/crabs found.
9. Now I emptied the tank of all the water left in it and the sump, which was only about 10 gallons.
10. Broke down the tank. We moved the tank and buckets in a short bed Chevy truck on a 70 degree day (very lucky for that). The fish and coral buckets went in the cab, the rest went in the truck.
11. Set the tank up at the new place, dumped all the sand in, put some bucket water in there. I set up a powerhead and a heater to warm and circulate the water. The water only dropped a degree on the 1 hour journey.
12. Carefully started with the base rock and set that up, adding the leftover water from the bucket. Same went for corals. I let the tank sit for 30 minutes to warm up again and settle the dust cloud a bit, then put the fish in.
13. I used ro/di premixed water to top off about 20 gallons of water. Where the 10 gallons went, I don't know.
14. Left the lights off for one day.
15. Water change 4 days later.
THe key was not allowing the water temperature to drop too much and doing the move as fast as possible, and transfering as much old tank water as possible.
Good luck!
dqualls
08/18/2006, 11:36 AM
Why would you need to save as much water as possible? I f there is established Live rock and it remains under water there will be no die off and that is your biological filtration. As long as new water matches established tank parameters and you acclimate you don't need to save water.
Ne0eN
08/18/2006, 11:39 AM
To answer your previous question - you can reuse the old sand - you just need to rinse it well. But if you have unlimited supply of sand, just use new sand - that's even easier. Just save a cup or two to seed the critters from the old sand bed and you're good to go.
Hey, if you got some extra sand let me know - I might be interested.
I'm in DC area.
-- Rob
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7962589#post7962589 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TKByrnes
dqualls.... yes it does. i dont think i will get any dieoff or very little if i keep the rock in water. I think im going to trash all the sand that is in it now. i was told that there is a stack about 3 feet tall of sand in bags still that the guy has. also alot of salt. im planning on it going very smooth.......... like i said planning!!! the worst part is getting the tank in my basement. there is 125 lbs of lr all is covered in coraline. the tank is beautiful. I still cant believe the guy is just going to give it to me. if anyone lives in the frederick maryland area and would like to help im open for all the help i can get!!!!!! lol
Ne0eN
08/18/2006, 11:45 AM
To answer your previous question - you can reuse the old sand - you just need to rinse it well. But if you have unlimited supply of sand, just use new sand - that's even easier. Just save a cup or two to seed the critters from the old sand bed and you're good to go.
Hey, if you got some extra sand let me know - I might be interested.
I'm in DC area.
-- Rob
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7962589#post7962589 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TKByrnes
dqualls.... yes it does. i dont think i will get any dieoff or very little if i keep the rock in water. I think im going to trash all the sand that is in it now. i was told that there is a stack about 3 feet tall of sand in bags still that the guy has. also alot of salt. im planning on it going very smooth.......... like i said planning!!! the worst part is getting the tank in my basement. there is 125 lbs of lr all is covered in coraline. the tank is beautiful. I still cant believe the guy is just going to give it to me. if anyone lives in the frederick maryland area and would like to help im open for all the help i can get!!!!!! lol
TKByrnes
08/18/2006, 12:10 PM
ok ill let you know i have extra
sjm817
08/18/2006, 01:04 PM
Know of any other free 180s (or a good deal on one)? I'm in the market for one.
TKByrnes
08/18/2006, 07:19 PM
ill let ya know if i find another one. im selling my 75 if that helps?
Glennw
08/19/2006, 11:17 AM
I'm also in the process of moving and upgrading to a bigger tank. Everybody seems to be saying the best thing to do with the live sand is to chuck it and get new. My nitrate levels are high 40-80. Should I use as much new water as possible and wash out my live sand completely and just use my live rock to reseed the live sand or again buy new sand??????????
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