Originally Posted by bacardi151
Puffer32,
Here is the advice given by my LFS for moving an established setup:
HELPFUL HINT OF THE WEEK:
From time to time it becomes necessary to move an established aquarium, either from one room to another, or perhaps to a new home. An in-house move is obviously easier, but it is still a good idea to plan out the steps necessary to accomplish this move with the least amount or risk to you and your aquarium inhabitants. The first step will be to mix-up the required amount of new water and have it in place at the new location for the aquarium. Assuming the move involves using the same aquarium, not a move to a new aquarium, it will be necessary to get together several large containers to store the water from the aquarium. You generally want to try to save at least 50% of this water. Simple (new) plastic trash cans can be used to hold 20-40 gallons of water. Generally you place the trashcan/water container next to the aquarium and drain out all of the water you wish to keep. If this starts to expose part of a mini-reef, obviously you will need to place the exposed rock/corals in a smaller bucket with water from the aquarium. It is important to remove the water to be saved first, since once you start to remove rock/corals and other ornamentation, the water will quickly become stirred up with a lot of floating debris.
Now that you have removed the water, start to remove the rocks and corals, placing the corals in containers with water, the rocks can be placed in dry containers for the move. (If there are lots of crabs lodged in the rock you may need to place even the rock under water, but plan on discarding this water.) Once all the rocks are out, now you can catch the fish and place them also in smaller containers of water; even heavy duty bags can be used. Now you can stir up the substrate in the water remaining and then siphon this really dirty water out of the tank. If the tank is larger than 55 gallons, you will need to remove most if not all of the substrate to make the move. The wet/dry filter should be drained of water, but DO NOT clean the filter at this time. Move the stand, tank and filter to their new location and add the substrate back to the tank. Gently add most of the "old" water to the tank, perhaps using a submersed pump and hose to not disturb the substrate more than necessary. As the tank fills, start to add back the rocks until you have rebuilt the reef core structure. You may want to try a couple of different arrangements to suit your personal tastes. Once all of the "old" water has been added (except for any water with fish/corals in it), start to fill up with the newly mixed water. Once the tank is 90% full, start to drip acclimate you r fish and corals with water from the tank until you double the volume of water in the containers. Now it should be safe to add the corals and fish to the display tank, and use any of the acclimation water to top off the aquarium and filter system and start up all of the equipment. It might be a good idea to add some AmQuel or Ammo Loc II to the water just in case you get a small ammonia surge, otherwise the move is over and everyone is all right!
I have a 75 gal reef and i'm curious as to how you have your pumps setup for circulation? I'm investigating ways to ensure adequate turnover at the lower levels of my tank and I'm looking for ideas from others with similar setups.
My system is setup with a Via Aqua 2600 (550 gph - 4') as the return pump and 2 MJ 1200's (295 gph each), 1 in each upper corner for a total of 1140 gph in turnover. In my current setup, most of my water movement is towards the top of the tank. I'd like to be sure I have good flow throughout the tank but do not like the idea of adding powerheads lower in the tank or moving the ones I have down. I think they take away from the beauty of the tank.
How is your system configured?
Thanks
Thanks for the info! i am still not sure if that will work for me, everything would be in buckets etc for 48 hrs, that might be to hard on everything except the LR. I am more worried about timing then anything right now.
