It's time to get a new tank....

So my 75g is leaking again. I silly-coned it for a fifth time and it was leaking worse than ever this morning. So. It's time. I am going to stick with 75g because of cost. A new 75 runs about $150 and anything above that is a good solid jump in price. So 75g it is.

I have it planned out that everything goes into buckets and garbage cans. The LR will be kept in water and I will split up the livestock. Some will go back to the LFS. Most will stay with me.

The sand I am going to remove and wash. I will use this in any nano projects I have later on or whatever. I am going with medium grade aragonite purchased from the LFS to replace what I have.

In terms of background, I need a few suggestions. I want to paint the background. I have seen blue and black. I am leaning toward black. I need to know what kind of paint to use. I will pick up the tank tomorrow, paint it tomorrow night, let it dry until Sunday morning and put everything back together.

Since I am going to use new sand and am keeping all else in water, I am not going to worry about cycling. I don't think it will happen. I am going to put some eggcrate on the bottom to help support the LR then the sand goes on top of that. I am going to put the sand in first, a cut piece of tarp on top of it and run the water in slowly from the garbage cans. I am going to use half old water and half new water.

Everything is going to go back in Sunday afternoon and I will fire it up and go with the flow (no pun intended).

So, if anyone sees anything wrong with the plan, let me know. I already asked this question once and have just combined what a lot of you said I should do.

Also, if I am missing something I should do while the tank is torn down, let me know.

TIA.......John.

 

Best of luck man.
I havent actually painted a tank myself, but I would imagine plasti-cote or something similar for smooth plastic/lexan would also lend itself well to setting up on smooth glass.

 

well first off John you need to keep your "Toga Party" themed background, i think it works well on your system ;D;D;D second, if you dont have any corals on your live rock you do not have to keep it in water, in fact thats how they ship it. but it is better to keep all of the micro-life alive, especially if you have any pods. where is the eggcrate going exactly? i know you can put down starboard on the inside bottom and that helps, but not sure about eggcrate, mostly used in frag tanks. i dont see why you would need to wash the sand off, thats getting rid of the bennificial bacteria that could seed the next tank, unless you dont plan on setting it up for a while.

 

If you do decide to go with new LS, beware that you will go through a small cycle. Wish you luck, I know what a pita it is to change out systems. Keep us posted and dont forget the pics.;D Luna

 

Oh man what a project you are about to embark on. I feel for you my man. But its gotta be done.

 

you can really use any paint, it doesn't matter. If you want, you can get one meant for plastic, if it's acrylic, if glass, I used just any general paint. I painted mine blue, think it looks better than black, but it's a real personal choice

 

OK, new deal here. 75g is not available. I have an odd 48x19 footprint. All I can get is a 90g 48x18. My stand only has a rim to hold the tank. So here it goes.

1.) Will the extra water weight affect the stability of my stand? Loaded question, I know.

2.) I was thinking about putting a 3/4" piece of plywood to make a platform for the tank to sit on and putting additional bracing in the back to support the lack of 19th inch. Two 2x4s and a 1x2 on top of that. I have a very thing floor in my stand that would have to come out. That is fine. I don't want it anyway.

Suggestions? Thanks.

 

I upgraded from a 75g to a 90g 2 months ago. Used the same sand (didnt get a chance to wash it prior)... Ended up witha small cyano bloom that lasted a month and then went away (mainly from shaking up the sand when switching tanks)..... However, my upgrade was also from one house to a new house 30 minutes away.. had to split up all my livestock/corals/LR between 4 giant 30gal tupperware containers and then haul them in the back of a trailer down the highway (water splashing all over the place)... overall,, the setup of the new 90g and everything took about 8 hours (with over 40-50% of the water being replaced with newly mixed SW - made that day)... Everything lived, and had no major problems with any of it except for the cyano bloom (but was to be expected with the shake-up). SW fish and corals are alot more hardy than people give them credit for.... a day's worth of shakeup should not bother them too much!

Good luck with everything- should be fun!