Starting our new Redsea max 250

Hi everyone,

we are now the proud owners of a new Redsea Max 250 and are trying to decide if we should keep our 90Ltr in the same lounge room or move all its contents into the new tank? Our small 90Ltr is doing really well with corals and fish. No issues but maintenance!

I am looking for advice on how to move the live rock, corals and fish comfortably into the new tank. We currently have 20kg of live rock and substrate in the RSM250 and will be adding another 15kg Live rock this weekend.

My plan is to let it cycle then add some of the live rock from the smaller tank along with a few corals and continue to monitor the parameters and stabilize before the next round including fish.

Do i have it right? Or will what is left towards the end in my small tank suffer? I do love the small tank but it takes up so much of my time as i am addicted to making sure its perfect

 

aussiejodie
if it where me, and I only wanted the red sea max and not the old 90 litre
I would do as follows

1)make another approx 120 litres of salt water in the red sea, mix it using power head
2) add enough new base rock and new sand bed with a cup or 2 of sand from the 90 to seed the new stuff with bacteria to the 250 allowing enough space for the rock from the 90 to complete the reef - so the old live rock is front and centre when its all set up
3) let this run for 1 week to bring up to temp and check everything works OK - its only partially full so you will have to use power heads etc to keep water movement as until its full you can use the 250 system properly
4) after 1 week fill a large plastic tub with some of the 90 tank water - this will be your corals temporary home for a few hours - move the corals carefully into this temp accomodation
5) keep 1 bucket of water for rinsing the rock as you move it to new tank (might as well get rid of any accumulated sediment while doing this move - as corals are now gone remove rock, rinse in bucket and aquascape your new tank
6) once rocks are out, let DT settle a while -so sediment drops to sand bed
7) syphon water out carefully to avoid disturbing sand bed and sediment thats now resting on top into buckets and add to your new tank
8) once level is high enough - add corals from the tub to the new tank -and add water from tub making sure corals in tub are always covered in water
9) leave an inch of old water, all the sediment and the old sand bed in the old tank and discard this (most problems when moving tank to tank come from disturbing established sand beds

its also a good idea to have a spare 5 or 10 gallons of salt water ready for top off just in case you end up not quite filling the tank with the combination of new and old water even if its not needed its good for next water change anyway.

thats how I would go about it if it where me anyway
but there are probably many ways of achieving this target.

Steve

 

Thanks heaps Steve. What about the fish in the 90? I have 2 clowns, an angel, manderine and a couple of coral gobby's? Can i do all you suggested above and leave them for a while in the 90 with the water until the RSM has cycled?

 

aussie Jodie

you could do if you wanted, but you could still do all I said above, and acclimatise the fish to the new set up after the corals are located

if you are using your existing rock in the new tank, and provided you keep it wet, you will still have an adequate bacteria colony to cope with the fishes wastes

basically all you would be doing in effect is a very large water change and adding some new base rock and sand ( both inert so neither contributes to any cycle issues)

what filtration system do you have on the 90? if you are relying on live rock, good water movement and a skimmer- then moving these from the 90 to the 250 along with a batch of new salt water is not going to give you any cycle issues

NB - but if at the same time, you buy a load of new fish and corals to fill up the 250 - then you would have issues, simply because your existing bacteria would not be adequate to cope with a massive increase of bio load - so stocking the new 250 to capacity with fish and corals - needs to be done over a period of a few weeks - same as you did when you stocked the 90

Steve