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It's undoubtedly the worst part of the hobby: moving an active, mature reef tank and its inhabitants to a new residency. It's a stressful process, which often comes with a strict deadline. Here, I've documented the steps I took in my most recent move to try and help you prepare for the future. The Goal: Give your corals (and fish) such a smooth experience that, to them, it was simply a cloudy day because the lights turned off. We want to protect your tank's microbiome and prevent a restart back to "day one" conditions as best as we can. What it's NOT: Contrary to instinct/urges, this is NOT the time to clean your entire system top to bottom. I advise you to restrain from putting everything in citric acid, scrubbing down your sump, using hydrogen peroxide on rock, etc. Your tank's microbiome is stressed enough. Wait a week or two and then you can unplug and soak/clean various equipment. We don't want a full restart. You're already doing a large water change and sucking out some gunk but don't get anal with it. This adds time to the transition and results in a bigger shock to the tank system. My opinion. The Tank: Red Sea Reefer 170 (tank journal) The Move: Moving from my second apartment in Pittsburgh, to my third. Weather is 75C and cloudy. 15 minutes away. 2nd floor. Sounds easy, right? Disclaimer: These practices won't work for every tank or move but can hopefully help you think about the steps most relevant for your situation. This tank was an all acro tank with no fish at the time so this article caters to the coral. ___________________________________________________ Prior to Moving Day 1. The aquarium should be the last thing you move over. Give yourself at least three days to move: small apartment stuff, large items, aquarium. Paying a little extra rent is worth it. 2. Plan, plan, plan: How are you getting to the new place? Who's driving? Parking? What routes with the tank take? Did you account for the weather? Did you measure your doorways or cars? Do you have blankets ready to protect the tank/stand from scratches? Towels ready for water spillage? Do you have mixed, heated saltwater ready to go at the new place? Do you have a toolbox with the essentials ready? (zipties, drill, clippers, screwdrivers, etc.) Consider investing in suction clamps for moving a larger tank. Perhaps gloves for a medium-sized tank. 3. Prioritize heat and flow. The other equipment (skimmer, lights, doser, reactors, etc.) are not priority for the one-day move. This is a good time to have a backup heater and pump with you. 4. Get help. Offer a couple friends beers, dinner, frags, whatever...just get help. Everything is less stressful if you're handling a comfortable weight. You can think more clearly and have greater range for on-the-fly changes of plans. 5. Make the process as easy as possible for your helpers. The ability to give straightforward instructions will come with planning. Ideally, they know when to come, where to park, the route you'll take, etc. You should be the expert for coordinating the big day. Be clear, concise and decisive. I will add additional tips here as others post. ___________________________________________________ Pictures 10am: Apartment empty, tank is hooked up 10:38am: Lights are taken down, doser is removed, side cabinet is removed (heat and flow in main tank) 10:46am: I fill my ATO reservoir with tank water and lift the entire scape up as one piece. In order to fit the structure, I pop off one branch and one frag (which is later crushed as the only casualty). Heater and circulator are in the reservoir. Scape was designed with this convenience in mind. 10:57am: This is the scene now. The coral is safe and the tank is ready to drain. Here I'm filling up two 5gal containers with old tank water. I'm saving this water for filling up the tank in its new spot. I finish draining the tank and wait for my helpers. 11:58am: Helpers arrived well-fed and ready to go. We carefully load the cabinet (back down), sump and tank into the two cars. My friend demonstrates proper measurement form 😉 Notice: enough water is left in the sump and tank to completely cover biological material (rock, sand, bio-brick). 12:29pm: The tank, sump and stand are put in place at the new apartment! 10 gallons of old tank water is ready to go and my mixing vat and RODI unit (with booster pump) are operational to make some new saltwater. Time to take a break, rest, eat something, etc. Apartment is kept at 74F and the sump has a heater running. 4:10pm: My girlfriend and I return to the old apartment to move the coral container over. I optimistically, thought we could carry the container over with water fully covering the scape but it's just too heavy without our helpers. Game time decision is to remove the 80% of the water and hustle up. We're able to get the structure submerged in water (at the new place) in 20 minutes. The acropora didn't like it...but they'll live. Keep in mind, many of these species experience tidal cycles in the wild. We finish filling the tank with clean saltwater and hook up all the pumps/plumbing. This where the Red Sea's unions make things easy! 24 hours later: The hanging lights are installed and everything is running smoothly. One small frag was lost due to being crushed in transit (popped off rock to let the structure fit in its container). Everything looks good. I added 5mL of Microbacter7 to help with the detritus stirred up. I also dosed 10mL NeoNitro, 5mL AcroPower and 2mL of NeoPhos since this was already a low nutrient system before the ~70% water change. After 24 hours, I test all my parameters and dose accordingly. Check up on the tank's progress here: tank journal Good luck everyone! I hope this was helpful to some!
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South African SPS dominant 60L / 15gal tank by Marine Tank Journey
Marine Tank Journey posted a topic in Nano Reef Journals
Hi all fellow reef keepers and welcome to my aquarium journal, I will take you all on an adventure into a complete build of a 60L sps dominated tank. For video footage, subscribe to my Youtube channel where i will document each step. As a slight background story for you to all know who I am, my name is Slade and I am a reef keeper from South Africa whose passion for this hobby has exploded beyond control (I am sure you all can relate! haha) So about the tank that I am going to use, its 610mm long x 325mm wide x 305mm high. Regarding equipment, I am still working on this and have some fantastic, easy, ideas which I will share with you all along the way. If you have any suggestions, put them in the comments below please. I look forward to sharing this journey with you all and dont forget to head over to Youtube and subscribe! link will be below https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNbTEaeFCsoxCvdSJU9CMOQ?view_as=subscriber -
Hi fellow reef keepers, My name is Slade and I am a reef keeper here in South Africa. Please can I ask you all for your support in my journey by subscribing to my YouTube channel linked below? The content and videos will get better I promise! there are major plans in the works and I would like to share all of it with the world. We will see you there! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNbTEaeFCsoxCvdSJU9CMOQ?view_as=subscriber
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Hi everyone new to the hobby been in it almost 2 months now. SUper excited and im obsessedddddd. Recently got a bunch of coral over the span of 2 weeks and everything is doing AWESOME. But I have a couple questions... Salt hovers around... 1.025-1.026 Water temperature hovers around... 78/79 usually 79.2 to be exact. Lights... Radeon XR15W Pro Gen 4 running the Coral Lab template SPS PHX 14 with greens and reds at 5% from 9AM to 6PM Corals I have are.. Trumpet Coral Favia Acan Ricordea Zoas Blastomussa Kenya Tree Discoma mushroom Alveopora And some type of encrusting coral Im currently spot feeding all my corals every Wednesday/Sunday with all pumps off. Their diet consist of.. A half a tablespoon reef-roids mixed with gut loaded bring shrimp, I squish it just enough for the coral to eat. (Spot fed using 11ML syringe) 5ML of Aquavitro Fuel Red Sea Reef Energy A/B 2.5ML (Just started it today) Poseidon Fury (3,000) OceanMagik Live Phytoplankton (4 species) Nano Brine Live Baby Artemia (500) Not sure what else im missing... Edit: I have a Nuvo 40G, I added refugium into one of my chambers with Cheato, and live rock. Hopefully the Copapods do the dirty in there and replicate! Edit:: Refugium has been going for 2 weeks. Today I added the Copapods. (Cheato is growing)
