chnaging from established tank to new tank

Gandolfe

Gandolfe

New member
Hello(again) Any experiences or thoughts on if I can use all new water and just transfer the rocks from my 90 into my new 125 or do i need to use some of the old tank water as well? i want to start with fresh water because my old tank has high phosphate and high alkalinity, and i don't want to bring that to the new tank.The water I'm gonna use in ro/di and ocean salt mix. it comes out .25 or less phosphate, alk around 13 and a PH of 8.5 with calcium a little high around 500 but that will get lower. alk is still high but my old tank is around 21 right now. I'm gonna get a phosphate reactor and use a ATS on the new tank. I only have a few mushrooms right now but I'm upgrading lights and plan on a mixed reef. also anyone have any thoughts on introducing another Maroon clown when i put the one i have in the new tank...It is about 3" or so and been in the 90 for 4 years. will adding a new one when I move the livestock be less of a chance of the old clown attacking the new one then, since it doesn't have an established territory yet? just wondering
 
Use new water but remember that you likely have phosphates locked into the rocks. I would for sure rinse them a few times in clean water to remove any detrius and other matter.
 
Yeah water doesn't matter too much, sand and rocks have the most life, but will prob. transfer some phos. Crank that phos reacter ASAP IMO.

0.25 phos is still a bit too detectable...

Did you say alk 21 in old tank? Wow..how'd that happen? Are/what are you dosing?

Yeah for sure, add a new clown just before, same time, just after, coz what you said. Maybe go for one alot smaller...JMO...GL
 
I've switched to using ro water for top offs and water changes and my alk is down to about 14, still can't get my phosphate down, still showing 2 on the chart. i think it's from the 5" deep sand bed i originally put in it and it's trapping phosphate, used vodka method to drop nitrates from 80 down to 20. I'm not gonna put that much sand in the 125.... just enough to cover bottom of closed loop risers, maybe an inch or 2 at max.
 
I took my water to a LFS and there meter wouldn't even read the alk it was so high, he used a very expensive tester and said that my alk was over 23, the kit i used showed about the same, and everything in the tank wasn't dead
 
There has to something wrong with that reading. If the alkalinity was that high you would see "snow" as the carbonates react with all the calcium. What's your calcium at?
 
I took my water to a LFS that does extensive tests.. My numbers were wacked...
salt - 1.030( I had a bad hydrometer)
nitrates - 100 ( have done a major water change and that reading was a day fater i fed frozen food)
Phosphate - over 2.50 ( bought a Phosban 150 for that)
alk -16.5
mag - over 1500( high as there test could read)
Cal - over 500 ( high as they could read)
I got the salt down to 1.025 ( brand new coralife hydrometer )after doing water changes with pure ro/di water,no salt added, fish seem to be doing fine and ricordias are opening fuller than they have in a long time
 
Add (much smaller) same species clown with little worry when convenient.

Feed much less: likely source of high phosphates and prior nitrates
 
+ 1 on feeding issues and nutrient export.

"The water I'm gonna use in ro/di and ocean salt mix. it comes out .25 or less phosphate, alk around 13 and a PH of 8.5 with calcium a little high around 500"

Also check your water source. You said your phosphate in it is .25? RO/DI should be 0 in phosphate and as close as possible to 0 TDS. Salt should be phosphate free. I presume the KH and pH readings are from the mixed water. If not, your water source is a major contributer of phosphate and needs to be corrected. Think of your tank as a glass of water left to evaporate. You're right down the road from me and have very hard water, too. The glass is going to have a crust where the water evaporated and left the salts and minerals behind. Evaporated water is pretty much pure - everything else gets left behind. If you keep refilling the glass with the same water, everything that's in the water will simply build up in time.

As for adding another maroon clown, I"m about 9 for 10 introducing a mate. You must get one that is substantially smaller than yours. Clowns start androgenous, then turn into males and the dominant fish in the group becomes female. If there is only one, it's dominant and most likely female. My only failure was a maroon and she just won't tolerate another clown in that tank. After I healed the battered male, another female accepted it.
 
I haven't really tested my water lately, The water comes into my house from a well going through a softener. it has 2ppm of rust before softener and goes into ro/di unit at about 252 TDS and comes out 0 TDS. I really screwed myself by having a bad hydrometer, but have corrected that! I finally have my cabinet all put together and just need to do a little polyurethaning to the trim. My problem is finding someone to help me put the 125 on the stand( my wife almost blew out a hemmorhoid helping me put the canopy on top of the stand, and it only weighs about 50 lbs total...LOL " Strong Like Bull " my butt). I mounted my lights ( two 48" 4 bulb 54 watt T5HO fixtures side by side ) in the canopy and the way I'm going to aquascape the first 1 foot of tank on either end will be open with little rock so i will have the middle 4' under lights for corals, should be almost 6 watts per gallon of light. I will eventually add LEDS on the other 1 foot at both ends when i get a little money saved up, was figuring 2 12' fixtures at each end. I have two 96 watt 36" PC's to use but can't figure out a way to mount them without interfearing with the 8 moonlight LEDS in the T5 fixtures or blocking the middle 2 bulbs, with out having to cut apart the fixtures and re-wire all the bllasts and leds and End caps... not worth the trouble for the extra wattage
 
it's been a week since i changed all my old rock and some of the old sand over to my 125 from my 90 and my Numbers have never been better! salinity at 1.025,calcium at 460,ph at 8.4,nitrates at 10 to 15, amonia at 0,nitties at 0,kh at 9 or 10, only thing high is phosphate but I used phosphate sponge and got it down under .5 just waitng on a small pump to hook up my Phosban 150. already have growth on ATS in only a week. Might get another jar of Kent Phosphate sponge and run it again to lower phosphate to less than .25
 
nice. i bet the gfo that you run in the reactor is cheaper than the phosphate sponge, but whatever it takes to drop that level will only help you. the extra water volume is a help for sure - as was moving the livestock since you likely got rid of some trapped waste. your ATS may drop the phosphate on its own via the algae growth. careful not to let the ATS work too effieciently. like biopellets, vodka and other methods of quickly cleaning up the water, you can quickly overdo it and suffer from overcleaning. basically, don't too too much too quickly...
 
I already found out yesterday that my BTA doesn't like top-offs...LOL, my salinity was at 1.28 so i added a 5 gallon bucket of r/o and it dropped to 1.26..it shriveled up until last night when the lights went out except for LED Moonlites. he was all out this morning and now my big maroon clown is all happy in it(first time since i put the BTA in) The little clown i bought yesterday is milling around near the BTA but so far hasn't gone to it..the other maroon knows it's in the tank but hasn't chased it yet so I might jave gotten lucky and they will pair up. I know that before that same maroon let a pair of skunk clowns share the same BTA I used to have without fighting
 
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