It is probably safe to say that moving/changing tanks is the most hated task for any aquarium hobbyist. Typicaly you set out with some sort of a plan or process. You execute it and then somewhere along the way there are hiccups, some bumps, bruises, sweat, tears, perhaps a little blood, and a few colourful metaphors thrown in for good measure. I have moved tanks many many times now, and each time I made note of something I learned that worked well, or was an EPIC FAIL. This tank move went quite smoothly as a result. Here's how it went down.
1. First I mixed two 33 gallon tubs of salt water. I heated and circulated this water so that it was the exact same temperature as the Old tank. That's a totally of 66 gallons in tubs. There was another 25 gallons in my premix Brute tub in the basement on hand and a full 55g of RO/DI water just in case. You may have noticed this tubs in some of the build picture.
They're sitting next to the display tank.
2. After fishing out some of my live rock to build the Cave structure I then proceeded to pump out water from the Old tank into the New tank.
3. Once I had enough water in the display tank (probably about 5 inches of water), I put a heater into the New tank and made sure it was heated. I like to run 77 degrees F. I also put in a power head to circulate the water in the New tank.
4. With 5 inches of water in the new tank I had enough water to move some corals. Using a tupperware container large enough to hold a coral colony with some water I placed colonies one at a time into the container and transported them to the new tank, making sure that they were never exposed to air. I know that they are fine with air exposure but I figured the whatever I can do to minimize the the stress of the tank moving the better!
5. I repeated this process until I ran out of room and then proceeded to pump more water into the New Tank.
6. Once more rock was exposed in the Old tank I took them out and worked on them (aquascaping) for the new tank. (see previous posts on aquascaping).
7. I repeated steps 4-6 until everyone was moved from the Old tank to the New tank. By now the Old tank was empty and the new tank was half full of the Old tanks water. Slightly cloudy. No one was very happy but none the worse for wear. I did not do all the aquascaping as i went along. For example, the last arm of the Bonsai and the Lagoon rocks I just left sitting at the bottom of the tank to be worked on later (after all the water was filled).
8. At this point I proceeded to pump in water from the tubs of premixed salt into the New tank. Slowly. It was like a water changed to them. Although a very hefty 50% water change. The tank was a little cloudy but it cleared up pretty quick.
9. Once the water began to overflow into the sump I turned it on and away we went!
10. I then transferred the refugium from the Old sump into the refugium of the New sump. Mostly just sand, live rock rubble and a ball of chaeto that doesn't seem to want to grow very well for some reason.. mental note, need more chaeto.
The next day I put my old 48" light fixture on top of the canopy. I am still waiting for my new 72" light fixture to free itself from the evil clutches of Canadian Customs. I also cleaned and added a dusting of sand to the tank. The sand clouded things a big.
Well, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. I don't have any pics of the full tank yet because it looks really funny with the 48" light fixture. The new fixture should be here any day now..
In the meantime, here are some shots of the sump in action.
The skimmer skimming..
The 'fuge fuging..
and the sump sumping.
