Moving, ugh.

I don't think the tanks are causing the mold, it's most prevalent in our bathroom and bedroom and there is only a 20 gallon in the bedroom. We don't really have a problem in the living/dining room where the big tank is. Also our neighbor above us has said that she has a problem with it as well, the walls in her bathroom turn nearly black and she has to clean them with bleach every month, which I can't even do because my boyfriend is allergic to bleach.

 

So what is your plan on the move?

 

So we have some new developments with our moving situation. I was talking it over with my boyfriend and it turns out that the holes for the refugium are currently plugged with plexiglass and silicon. When my boyfriend got the tank he didn't know what he was doing and didn't want to set it up. So basically if we want to set it back up for a refugium, we are going to have to do it now when we move.

Our plan at the moment is to use the water that we have in the tank currently and get the fish set up in three separate 20 long tanks. Our lionfish would be housed alone, a clown, puffer (he's still very small), an anemone, and two damsels in another, and a yellow tang with our two slightly more hostile damsels in the other (they tend to gang up on the other pair of damsels so we don't want to put them together).

The other idea that we had is to buy a new 55 gallon tank. We wanted to set up a reef tank in the future anyways, and we already have the stand for it. We would use the water from the old tank and pretty much start over fresh on the 125 gallon, which would be nice because then we can take our time with it and not rush it.

How long would it take to cycle the 125 gallon with refugium? I don't think we would be able to retain much of the water that we have after using it in the other tanks. I'm thinking that the 55 gallon idea is probably going to be better for the fish, but we'd like to keep it as low cost as possible as well, since we have a lot of other moving expenses. I want to be able to take our time and do this right but I also want to do it fairly quickly as our lionfish is growing like a weed and we don't want to keep in him a tank that is too small, though the 55 gallon or a 20 gallon (if kept by himself) will probably do for the time being.

Any tips are, as always, HUUUUGELY appreciated.

(Will probably be following up with pictures of the equipment we have for the refugium soon)