revised plan for my overstocked tank

[lopeyc]

quote:

[hr]
Originally posted by MichaelTX
... here is your list.
there are 8 fish in the tank besides the maroon clown: flame angel, yellow tang, bi-color blennie, cotton-tail damsel, clark clown, canary wrasse, yellow-tailed blue damsel, magenta dottyback. The tang and the wrasse are each maybe 3" and the others are all small, between 1" and 2". I've had the tank a month and am planning to set up a second tank ASAP so that I can move the bigger fish out.
remeber after you get another tank all setup and going you can always get new fish to go in it.
this is what I would remove if it was my tank.
the tang (because of swimming room and if it takes longer than a few months the tang could start to develope HLLE which is really bad for them and can kill them- the main cause of this in tangs is swimming room.
the wrasse
flame angel- really needs a bigger tank to be happy
and the dottyback for aggression reasons.
that would leave you with the bleeny the 2 damsels and the 2 clowns. after the new tank is up and going you can always get these fish again....
HTH some
Mike

[hr]
I've been considering this generous advice very seriously for a week, realizing that the status quo is not so good. But I'm attached to these particular fish already, silly as that may seem. So here's what I've decided, if anybody has thoughts on the wisdom of it:
-- I have the money and in two weeks I'll have the time to purchase a 90g or 125g tank and cured live rock.
-- I'll then take down my current 37g tank, saving all the water, then move the bigger tank into the same spot (I only really have one appropriate spot in my small apartment.)
-- Then I'll move all water and inhabitants into the new tank, adding new water to make up the difference.
-- I'll then turn the old tank into a sump and turn my current sump into either a refugium or a quarantine tank.
Questions:
-- Will adding 60-80g of water mean I'll have an ammonia bloom? Or will this be just like a large water change?
-- How much live rock should I buy.
-- Should I try and quarantine my inhabitants away from the new tank to let the new live rock die-off process out?
-- should I get rid of my damsels in the move?
-- how deep a sand bed would I want in the new tank?
quote:

 

[oregonbud]

Originally posted by lopeyc
quote:
Questions:
-- Will adding 60-80g of water mean I'll have an ammonia bloom? Or will this be just like a large water change?
-- How much live rock should I buy.
-- Should I try and quarantine my inhabitants away from the new tank to let the new live rock die-off process out?
-- should I get rid of my damsels in the move?
-- how deep a sand bed would I want in the new tank?

Yes your tank will cycle, even if you take the water out of the 37g and transfer it to the new tank. The cycle may not take as long, but you will still have a cycle.
The general rule of thumb on LR is 1.5lbs per gallon, so for a 90g you are looking at around 135lbs of rock. For a 125 around 190lbs
For a DSB you would want a minimum of 4" for your sand bed - one cheap way of doing this is using playsand for the bulk of the substrate then seed with LS (I would think around 125 lbs of playsand and 40-50lbs of LS would get you to the depth you want) do some searching online for DSB calculators to figure out exactly how much sand you would need for your specific set up.
I would NOT add your livestock to the new tank until after the cycle has completed, especially if you are buying uncured rock, the chances of them surviving the cycle are pretty slim, although the damsels will probably make it, the other fish probably won't.

 

[lopeyc]

I would buy cured live rock, or possibly some combination of cured live rock and non-live rock.
When I moved the tank to my house 5 weeks ago, I replaced half the water and saw no cycle, so that's why I was hoping that could work again...
So, I need to basically keep two tanks up simultaneously for a certain amount of time -- 6 weeks? two months?
I guess I gotta figure a plan B.

 

[oregonbud]

The reason you did not see a cycle when you moved the tank is because the existing water already had the bacteria built up in it, even though you removed half the water, there was still a good amount of that bacteria present.
So by transferring the water from the 37g to the larger tank, you would transfer that bacteria, however the water you are adding would only be 1/3rd of the tanks capacity, which means you would be adding 2/3rds "clean" - for lack of a better term- water. When you place the livestock in the tank, the bioload will rapidly increase, but the amount of bacteria would not have increased, so this would cause your ammonia to spike, which can result in loss of livestock.
You are kind of in a tough situation because of the amount of livestock you have, have you tried asking one of your LFS's if they could hold on to the fish until you get the cycle in the new tank complete? Other then that the only thing I would suggest would be to take everything out of the 37 except what is necessary, do a waterchange but instead of discarding the water, place it in the new tank, (make it into a QT tank basically) move it to a place in your apartment where it wont be in the way, and as your new tank finishes the cycle (anywhere from 2 weeks to 6-8 weeks) slowly add fish from the 37. I would think that with the addition of a DSB, LR, and using the dead shrimp cycle method you could probably add your first fish from the 37 in about 2 weeks - if your levels check out, and start off by adding the damsels

 

[krunk]

lope - you wont need alot of rock if it's just going too be a FO tank.

 

[lopeyc]

It's not going to be fish only -- have some anemones and corals now and plan to add more.
My problem isn't running too tanks for an interim period -- its that I want the tanks in the same place, and want to minimize stress on the creatures.
I guess what I'll do is:
Break down and move my current tank into another room. Then set up the new tank with lr and ls and cycle it, seeding with water from my current tank extracted during the move. Then move everybody to the new tank bit by bit.
Does anybody think I'll regret this expansion?

 

[squidd]

The "Ideal" senario would be to take "all" the fish to the LFS while you move all your LR,LS and water to the new tank, add the new water and let it "cycle" with a dead shrimp for a couple of weeks and then "slowly' bring one fish at a time back over a period of a couple weeks between each fish.
That's the 'Ideal" way now let's talk "Reality"
First thing...Get a BIG bucket of salt your going to do a lot of water changes. Get the water preped ahead of time.
Your last post is pretty close to the "best' you can do with what you got...
Break the 35 down and move it to another room...
Put 1/2 the LR,LS,and water from the old tank into the new...
Put the two damsels and maybe the clown in the new tank...
At this point you only have 1/2 your biological filter in the 35, but you've reduced your "bioload by 1/3.
And you have 1/2 the biological filtration that (sort of) supported 9 fish in the 35 supporting 2/3 the load!!
Both tanks WILL see a spike of sorts, but it will NOT be as extreame as starting a 'new" tank.
You already have a good amount of bacteria in each tank, and multipling established bacteria to meet their "new" load will be much quicker than starting from scratch with NO bacteria...
Dillution (water changes) can and will keep the toxic chemicals to "TOLERABLE"--NOT IDEAL levels.
As the biological activity increases and becomes established in the "new' tank you will be able to gradualy add the other fish from the 35 one at a time over a period of weeks.
Whole process 2 months..
BUT IDEALY YOU SHOULD TAKE ALL THE FISH TO THE LFS UNTIL YOU COMPLEATE THE CYCLE IN THE NEW TANK WITH A DEAD SHRIMP!!!

 

[wrassecal]

I went from a 55 gal to a 135. I already had 125 lbs of lr in the 55 and I used all the water and all the livestock, some new dry southdown sand with the other live sand on top. When going to tank that much larger even if you use all of your existing stuff you are still going to go through a cycle. It may be minimal and it may be major just like a new tank. The best thing I had going for me was the 125 lbs of live rock that had been in the 55 for several months. I still had a mini cycle and diatom blooms and the other stages of a new tank. I also kept everything in the 55 for 2 weeks while I let the new saltwater in the 135 circulate and reach the proper PH. With what you have I don't think you would be able to just "switch" out the tanks with all the livestock you have with that kind of upgrade. It's a good idea but, you would need to keep your current tank going while your new tank cycled IMO.

 

[michaeltx]

LOL I replied to your other one aswell.
but really really glad that you are takin action on the tank.

 

[lopeyc]

sorry about the double post! should have deleted the other one but didn't know how...
woah! just had a major earthquake here!
better go chekc my tank

 

[michaeltx]

how did everything come out. thats gotta suck living in a quake area.
Mike

 

[lopeyc]

Originally posted by MichaelTX
how did everything come out. thats gotta suck living in a quake area.
Mike
You know, that's probably the first real one I've felt since 1989, when I was in the parking lot of the World Series game!
This one was WAY smaller, but was WAY closer -- in my zip code, according to the geologic service. That's the wierd thing: you feel it, then you immediately try to find out where the epicenter is because it might have been The Big One for somebody else further away.
the tank came out fine, I believe -- i asked a question about salt creep on the "earthquake" thread.
I'm on the ground floor, on cement, which may or may not make it safer for the tank. Less sway, anyway.

 

[lesleybird]

Hi, I would do it but buy some of those bags of live sand......I like the seeded agronite that say that they already have a lot of the benafecial bacteria in it. Use a couple inches of this in the new larger tank along with severl pieces of cured live rock.....meaning some that has been sitting in the tanks long enough at your LFS for all of the die back to be over so this will not add amonia to the tank. You can use a lot of dead base rock if you cannot find enough good live rock. The live rock should not be used as base rock anyway because if you place rocks on top it will cause a lot of die back. I would also get a bottle of cycle bacteria or some other brand of bacteria made to help salt water tanks cycle go easier on the inhabitants and go faster. Hopefully if you keep a daily check on the amonia and nitrate you can do more frequent (maybe weekly if needed) water changes and feed sparingly for a few weeks to help if it goes through a mini cycle. I don't think it will be too bad if you move all the contents of the current tank and add what I have suggested.....I have done this before moving to a larger tank and nothing died. Good luck, Lesley

 

[jlem]

Congratulations on thinking about getting a bigger tank. I really hope you get the bigger tank.