mandy111
Active Member
hi all,
As I am new to this forum I thought I would share a recent new build that got underway in Dec 2014, so now just over 2 months old.
My husbnad & I had freshwater fish for about 18 months (loved it ) but walked into LFS saw our fist Tang (yellow) & was hooked.
We didnt want to spend a whole lot of money to start with, because we werent sure if it was going to be along term hobby. Reading forums etc, we saw so many people dropped out before the 12month mark. So we hunted for a second hand tank, with all the gear.
We found a 6 x 2 x 2.5 that had a lot of very expensive equipment, all under 6 months of age, guy had to sell because being transferred for work. So grabbed it.
Boy, was that an effort, took 7 people to move it over 5 hours transport and another 13hrs setting back up .
here is a picture of the day we got it
Boy i was so proud of that, but over the next 12 months it changed lot, I didnt even know what mag cal and alk was.
Here is the tank exactly 12 months later (what a difference )
Hubby and I got talking and decided that the room was a little crowded and we would love a bigger tank, so hubby says, I know lets bash a wall down and make another room for the tank.
So we did, the work started on the 11th October, the wall that need bashing was directly behind the tank, so the boys had to be very careful.
Tank got ordered, work was completed and the we waited for the build to arrive,
We had an engineering company design and make the stand rated to 3 ton. Tank arrived,
Its a 7 x 2.5 x 2.5 peninsular with star fire glass 3 sides and end weir, boy was it a monster.
We had never plumbed a tank before so decided to go with the Bean animal silent set up because the old tank had been magically quiet.
So hubby started the plumbing.
We want a it a little more organized and tidy this time, as we knew a little more about things, and what we did and didn't like.
So came to fill day, we had purchased a whole heap of cheaper pumps etc so that we were able to have both tanks up & running at the same time, This was critical to us. We left the tank running for just over 3 weeks and every 3 days we would take 250lt out of the old tank into the new tank, and then new tank back to old tank. This was planned so by the time we moved everything over water parameters would be spot on and a 100% mix of old and new for fish and corals.
3 weeks after filling we started the move over.
Well we started the move at approx 9am and still had not finished by 2am next morning
All rocks & attached BTAs were moved over successfully by 2am while all the corals and livstock remained happily in our still running current tank.
Thank god we were able to keep it running (skimmer and all) while moving, we just kept filling it up with NSW as the level dropped every time we removed rocks etc.
As all corals & fish are still in the current tank, threw in some makeshift rocks for them all to sleep in overnight, they are all very happy and normal next day.
All the BTAs are still alive and doing well, parameters in new tank are fine
All corals, fish and skimmer moved over the next 12 hrs of so. We only had the electrics left to day and that was going to be a day 3 job.
That was day 3 of the move, before we started the electrics. extension cords everywhere.
Water was really cloudy, only to be expected that soon i suppose, but being used to crystal clear water I must say we were a little disappointment
I think the hardest thing about this move was actually getting the scape to look nice on both sides of the tank, because we couldn't walk around darn thing, we had to go outside and through 2 doors it took forever to do,,,,hubby also forgot to bet some glue or putty for rocks, so we had to just stack and turn until something worked. Not easy I can assure you.
We woke up day 5 to a crystal clear water, which told me things were well on there way to settling. We were in the middle of a small minii cycle with ammonia being detected. I used prime and sability to combat that and we were over it by day 10 with no loses.
Water clarity on day 5 -
corals sulked for about a week after the move, but the fish seemed to settle in very quickly.
We added a few little tweeks to the tank this time, eg alarms for ATO water filling and emptying, Skimmer shut off when skimmer wast container too full, Heater controllers. level alarm if return section is too full or too low. etc. just a few little gadgets to make this tank a little easier to run.
We had a small diatom outbreak for the first few weeks but that went by itself without too much drams.
organized the power cords, moved into our new room and there you go our new build.
As I am new to this forum I thought I would share a recent new build that got underway in Dec 2014, so now just over 2 months old.
My husbnad & I had freshwater fish for about 18 months (loved it ) but walked into LFS saw our fist Tang (yellow) & was hooked.
We didnt want to spend a whole lot of money to start with, because we werent sure if it was going to be along term hobby. Reading forums etc, we saw so many people dropped out before the 12month mark. So we hunted for a second hand tank, with all the gear.
We found a 6 x 2 x 2.5 that had a lot of very expensive equipment, all under 6 months of age, guy had to sell because being transferred for work. So grabbed it.
Boy, was that an effort, took 7 people to move it over 5 hours transport and another 13hrs setting back up .
here is a picture of the day we got it
Boy i was so proud of that, but over the next 12 months it changed lot, I didnt even know what mag cal and alk was.
Here is the tank exactly 12 months later (what a difference )
Hubby and I got talking and decided that the room was a little crowded and we would love a bigger tank, so hubby says, I know lets bash a wall down and make another room for the tank.
So we did, the work started on the 11th October, the wall that need bashing was directly behind the tank, so the boys had to be very careful.
Tank got ordered, work was completed and the we waited for the build to arrive,
We had an engineering company design and make the stand rated to 3 ton. Tank arrived,
Its a 7 x 2.5 x 2.5 peninsular with star fire glass 3 sides and end weir, boy was it a monster.
We had never plumbed a tank before so decided to go with the Bean animal silent set up because the old tank had been magically quiet.
So hubby started the plumbing.
We want a it a little more organized and tidy this time, as we knew a little more about things, and what we did and didn't like.
So came to fill day, we had purchased a whole heap of cheaper pumps etc so that we were able to have both tanks up & running at the same time, This was critical to us. We left the tank running for just over 3 weeks and every 3 days we would take 250lt out of the old tank into the new tank, and then new tank back to old tank. This was planned so by the time we moved everything over water parameters would be spot on and a 100% mix of old and new for fish and corals.
3 weeks after filling we started the move over.
Well we started the move at approx 9am and still had not finished by 2am next morning
All rocks & attached BTAs were moved over successfully by 2am while all the corals and livstock remained happily in our still running current tank.
Thank god we were able to keep it running (skimmer and all) while moving, we just kept filling it up with NSW as the level dropped every time we removed rocks etc.
As all corals & fish are still in the current tank, threw in some makeshift rocks for them all to sleep in overnight, they are all very happy and normal next day.
All the BTAs are still alive and doing well, parameters in new tank are fine
All corals, fish and skimmer moved over the next 12 hrs of so. We only had the electrics left to day and that was going to be a day 3 job.
That was day 3 of the move, before we started the electrics. extension cords everywhere.
Water was really cloudy, only to be expected that soon i suppose, but being used to crystal clear water I must say we were a little disappointment
I think the hardest thing about this move was actually getting the scape to look nice on both sides of the tank, because we couldn't walk around darn thing, we had to go outside and through 2 doors it took forever to do,,,,hubby also forgot to bet some glue or putty for rocks, so we had to just stack and turn until something worked. Not easy I can assure you.
We woke up day 5 to a crystal clear water, which told me things were well on there way to settling. We were in the middle of a small minii cycle with ammonia being detected. I used prime and sability to combat that and we were over it by day 10 with no loses.
Water clarity on day 5 -
corals sulked for about a week after the move, but the fish seemed to settle in very quickly.
We added a few little tweeks to the tank this time, eg alarms for ATO water filling and emptying, Skimmer shut off when skimmer wast container too full, Heater controllers. level alarm if return section is too full or too low. etc. just a few little gadgets to make this tank a little easier to run.
We had a small diatom outbreak for the first few weeks but that went by itself without too much drams.
organized the power cords, moved into our new room and there you go our new build.
