Move from 55 gal. to 90 gal. - I'm a little nervous!

In my case, I actually had to put the water in my tank a day early and hope the shock of going from really bad water to pristine conditions wouldn't kill anything. If I didn't, it was evident that I was going to start losing livestock in the holding tanks. Everything survived except one Xenia frag. Even the anenome made it.

My mini-cycle is probably the worst you could imagine in a transfer setting.....at least as far as I can see. I did store my rock in water with flow and the same salinity as the DT, but I was careless with my sand. Nothing died bu the cycle lasted 2+ months.

I had assorted softies, LPS's and a Condy that I had to worry about. No SPS.

During the past few months, I have added two or three corals. Everything has acclimated well and nothing has expired. So it's not that bad. Something to watch.....but not that bad.

 

So we got everything back into the tank about 1:30 pm. I checked on it 5 hours later and everyone looks happy and alive so far. As soon as I get about 5 cups of coffee in me I'm going to test the params to see where we stand right now.

Major changes to the tank: size (obviously), location in the room (we live in Utah, home of great snow. Great for skiing, but not so good for a fish tank set up in front of a plate glass window in the living room. Duh! It got cold, our temp started dropping about 3 degrees every night. It is going to get colder - thus the need to relocate the tank. We decided to upgrade now since we had to take everything out of the tank anyway.) Also, we went from all crushed coral substrate to mostly arigonite (sand), which is beautiful.

We bought a used almost new stand, undrilled tank w/all the neccessities to run it, and metal halide lighting system for $200 from a guy who was tired of the tank (freshwater - I think he bought the system used from someone who was running saltwater.) We went to look at it hoping to negotiate down on the price, but then we saw the light and I whipped out the cash! We currently are running T6 lighting - 2 white, 2 actinic and moonlights and are hoping to utilize the MH also. We used the stand, gave the tank to my nephew for freshwater fish - bonus points for Aunty Kenna and Uncle Sammy, and bought new bulbs for the light. We then bought a 90 gal. drilled tank from our lfs and utilized our equipment from the 55 gal., including the sump, to finish it off.

Thus the inability to run both tanks simultaneously. First thing we had to move was the sump. Lucky for us as we bought new equipment (heaters, pumps, etc.) for the 55 gal. we went on the bigger side so we should be ok with the 90 gal.

I took photos while we changed this over. I will get them posted later today with a breakout of what we did.

Today I need to re-organize the aquascape - by 1 a.m. I just wanted to get everything in the tank and go to bed! (I must be getting old - I used to party all night and then go to work. Now if I miss my eight hours I just FEEL like I partied all night! LOL) Then we just hold on for the ride to see what kind of cycles we get.

More later!

 

Good job dude......and the party comment was spot on. Oh.....the days when we were in our early twenties.....So much stamina. I only got 6 hours last night. Guess what?.....

 

Move from 55 gal. to 90 gal. - Updated with Photos

As promised - Photo time!

55 Gal. existing tank




90 Gal. new tank




90 Gal. w/sump added




Adding substrate to tank



Temporary housing - we added a bubbler and a heater to this mini tide pool







Moving in. . .



Moving out. . .



Disapearing fish. . . even in a nearly empty tank we had a fish go missing! This crazy Yellow Coris Wrasse, aka, Twitch, buried himself in the mud in the old tank and we had less than one inch of water left in the tank and my husband finally dug him out. We thought he was dead, but he was just really mad! He lay on his side in a crevice in the bucket until we put him in the new tank.



Home Sweet Home




Notice how nice the end of the tank is without a corner overflow!



The aftermath. . .







It's going to be a few days before I decide where I want everything placed - I'll set up a tank thread with photos when it's done!

 

Move from 55 gal. to 90 gal. - Updated with Photos

By the way, I didn't paint the back of my tank. Instead I placed it against a purple wall.