Cleaning/moving tank

[snaggle]

I am looking at removing and cleaning all my live rock. I need to move my tank to a new wall in my room. At the same the same I am going to rebuild the stand and re plump the tank and make a new fuge and sump. So I am wondering what the best way to do this? I have 55g tank set up in my room and I what thinking about moving every thing in there I am wondering the how I can do this as fast as possible? Is what I was thinking about is to just set the salt and temp and the ammonia all at the same level and just moving the fish and corals at the same time. Any advice in this move. I also have a red slimy hair algae out break in the tank so I want want to move too much of the water from 75 to the 55.


Brad

[Beverly]

Brad,

I had a hard time understanding your post because of all the typos :confused: Would like to offer some opinions, but am not sure exactly what you are talking about, other than you have algae problems, need to clean the rock, want to build new sump/refug, want to move the 75g to another wall. Do I have the gist of your post? Is there more I need to know before offering opinions?

Ahh, I'll offer a few opinions anyway since I am cleaning up some cyano and algae problems currently :razz: I would find out the source of your algae problems before cleaning the rock. Whatever you clean off will probably grow back fairly quickly anyway. Things I would check are nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, calcium levels. Also, when was the last time you changed your lights? How much LR do you have and what kind of clean up crew do you have and how many of them do you have? How often do you do water changes? How much water each time? How many fish and what speices are they? Is there leftover food when you feed?

Solutions we have used to get rid of cyano and algae in our 120g tank are:

- changed the lights. Under the new lights, the cyano started to go away, leaving green algae underneath. The old lights were at least 1.5 years old and should be changed at least once yearly :redface:
- changed filters immediately in our RO/DI unit when we found .5 ppm ammonia coming out of the unit
- bought a whole load of snails to work on the green algae that had been growing under the cyano
- am doing weekly 30-40% water changes for the next while, rather than the weekly 15%
- added calcium and magnesium
- have tested alkalinity and adjusted it. Am also now dripping kalk daily to maintain alk and calcium

[snaggle]

Thanks Bev,

Sorry for that bad spelling I am working on that. I have a new light set up, less then 2 months old. I do a bi weekly 5 g water change :redface: I don’t have a RO/DI unit so I use tap water. As for a clean up crew I have about 60 snails right now, 45 hermit crabs, and 2 emerald crabs. I have around 40lbs of LR. Tee algae problem stared when I added a new power head. As for the levels I can tell you right now i need to get a new test kit. I feed every 2 days and 98% of the food is eaten before the bristle worms get it. The main point I was asking is what is the best way to move every thing to the 55 for now while I move around my room?

Brad

[Beverly]

Brad,

Read your edited first and subsequent posts. Thanks for the improved spelling :biggrin:

Your tapwater may be part of your algae and cyano problems. Don't know what tapwater is like in the Fort, but I would go the extra mile and use RO, RO/DI or distilled water from the local Safeway store, unless you can set up your own RO or RO/DI unit.

That said, I would set up the 55g with this new water (about 45g), aerate/heat it, then salt it to 1.025 sg.

In this order, if this was my tank I was moving:

- set up a 20g with water from the 75g for livestock. Heat and aerate this tank while changing tanks. This will mean you will have to remove most or all of the rock to get the fish. Put the rock in buckets for the short time you are catching everything. You can also move the sandbed, if you have one, while the rock is in the pails. Make sure powerheads are off in both 75g and 55g while moving the sandbed to reduce sand from flying all over the place.

- turn powerheads back on in both tanks right after all sand has been transferred. If you have mechanical filtration for the 55g, it will filter out small particles of crud and sand. Clean the filters often so they don't clog.

- have one bucket of 75g tankwater for scrubbing rock and one for rinsing it after scrubbing to remove all the tiny bits that might be stuck on the rock. After scrubbing each rock, put it into the 55g. When the water in either of the two buckets gets dirty, dump it and get more from the 75g. Dump often.

- once all the rock has been cleaned, aquascape the 55g.

- fill the 55g with water from your 75g.

- catch and acclimatize your livestock to the 55g's SG, temp, pH. Take your time acclimatizing them as the two tanks may have very different chemistry, especially pH.

And, you're done :biggrin: See how easy that was :biggrin: :eek: :razz:

One VERY important thing to do is WEEKLY 15-20% water changes. Every freaking week, no matter what! There are no excuses, like my dog drank all the new salt water I made, that are acceptable here :exclaim: I guess I'd have to say I am the Water Changing Police, so you'd better listen up good or bad stuff will again happen in your tank if you don't. Certainly go the extra mile and use RO or distilled water from your local grocery store if you don't have an RO unit of your own. This too is VERY important!!!! Also use RO water for top up and for mixing kalk.

Hope this is helpful.