I moved my 54g tank, an established reef. I boarded my fish and corals at my friendly local fish store. A good thing.
Disaster attended the move...plumbing problems, moving problems, etc, etc, and I couldn't get my sump set up for 3 days, during which time my good live rock partially 'cooked', meaning: set in buckets, most of the life on it died and went to gross slime. It's not what I would have chosen: I lost all my featherdusters, bristleworms, all but one of my crabs and a cussed aiptasia anemone---if you wonder how tough those rotters are.
Saturday the 31st I set up and got the rock into clean salt water...no time to age the water, just-mixed raw saltwater that was at least fairly warm. [I use ro/di water, and had a heater going all night in a Brute trash can.] It was a gross, incredibly bad smelling mess. No time nor facilities to wash the 50 lbs of new sand: it went in and clouded up the water so you couldn't see the rock, but it's the bacteria I want to preserve. [The sand would be washed in ro/di water, and every drop of ro/di was going into that tank ASAP, because it takes a ferocious long time to produce 84g of ro/di [sump + tank.] I'd rather have dust than my rock partially out of water---and I filled my tank by letting the sump pump the water upstairs, a real step-saver, if you have the luxury to have the sump in the basement in the laundry room.
Sunday: I set up the skimmer and started it running: ordinarily I wouldn't do that on a new tank, I'd just let the chemistry act; but this tank smelled like a hot day at low tide, and I wanted some of the rot out.
By Monday you could sort of make out the rock pile I'd created. Not a bad piece of artwork. But I was pretty heartsick about losing all the animate life in those rocks. Then I spotted my sole surviving crab. I decided, well, he needs something better than rot to eat, and started in with the pinch-of-food a day regimen that you use to cycle a tank.
By Tuesday I'd found the darned aiptasia. Just one, but I'll be glad to get my peppermint shrimp back in there.
By Friday, I had some hair algae growth on a piece of coral [hair algae won't grow real well on corallined rock, so it won't grow too much in this tank.] Test readings still show no appreciable nitrate or nitrate, despite all the rot. This means no real breakdown, bacteria aren't up to snuff yet.
By Saturday I had a reddish brown film starting on various uncorallined surfaces: this is probably cyanobacteria, something you don't usually see in a brand new tank until about the second month: it's not desirable, but it beats dead white. And I set up my refugium---in my sump: about 20g of sand [more dust] and green growing cheatomorpha weed, with a light timed to the reverse cycle, off when the main tank is on: this helps stabilize temperature, for one thing, so you don't have all those heat-producing lights on at once. The cheato will sop up the phosphate that is the bane of corals, and that comes in with fishfood: it's also rife with life of its own, bacteria and small copepods that my fish will one day eat. They can get through the pump intact, because they're so small.
By Sunday, quite miraculously, the water was sparkling clear---this is because the bacteria are now numerous enough to bind the dust particles down and make them sink to the bottom.
Monday morning I test again and the nitrites and nitrates are showing color on the test strips. The tank is starting to process waste on its own, and the nitrate is the product. The rock is alive, and the sand has just a tiny thin layer of life---it hasn't spread through into lower layers yet. I'm going to consider cutting the skimmer off and cleaning it of the foul-smelling goop that's covered the column, and once I do that, I'll just let nature take its course in the tank until the cycle is complete. Then the skimmer will go back on and the cleaning crew will get to work.
Disaster attended the move...plumbing problems, moving problems, etc, etc, and I couldn't get my sump set up for 3 days, during which time my good live rock partially 'cooked', meaning: set in buckets, most of the life on it died and went to gross slime. It's not what I would have chosen: I lost all my featherdusters, bristleworms, all but one of my crabs and a cussed aiptasia anemone---if you wonder how tough those rotters are.
Saturday the 31st I set up and got the rock into clean salt water...no time to age the water, just-mixed raw saltwater that was at least fairly warm. [I use ro/di water, and had a heater going all night in a Brute trash can.] It was a gross, incredibly bad smelling mess. No time nor facilities to wash the 50 lbs of new sand: it went in and clouded up the water so you couldn't see the rock, but it's the bacteria I want to preserve. [The sand would be washed in ro/di water, and every drop of ro/di was going into that tank ASAP, because it takes a ferocious long time to produce 84g of ro/di [sump + tank.] I'd rather have dust than my rock partially out of water---and I filled my tank by letting the sump pump the water upstairs, a real step-saver, if you have the luxury to have the sump in the basement in the laundry room.
Sunday: I set up the skimmer and started it running: ordinarily I wouldn't do that on a new tank, I'd just let the chemistry act; but this tank smelled like a hot day at low tide, and I wanted some of the rot out.
By Monday you could sort of make out the rock pile I'd created. Not a bad piece of artwork. But I was pretty heartsick about losing all the animate life in those rocks. Then I spotted my sole surviving crab. I decided, well, he needs something better than rot to eat, and started in with the pinch-of-food a day regimen that you use to cycle a tank.
By Tuesday I'd found the darned aiptasia. Just one, but I'll be glad to get my peppermint shrimp back in there.
By Friday, I had some hair algae growth on a piece of coral [hair algae won't grow real well on corallined rock, so it won't grow too much in this tank.] Test readings still show no appreciable nitrate or nitrate, despite all the rot. This means no real breakdown, bacteria aren't up to snuff yet.
By Saturday I had a reddish brown film starting on various uncorallined surfaces: this is probably cyanobacteria, something you don't usually see in a brand new tank until about the second month: it's not desirable, but it beats dead white. And I set up my refugium---in my sump: about 20g of sand [more dust] and green growing cheatomorpha weed, with a light timed to the reverse cycle, off when the main tank is on: this helps stabilize temperature, for one thing, so you don't have all those heat-producing lights on at once. The cheato will sop up the phosphate that is the bane of corals, and that comes in with fishfood: it's also rife with life of its own, bacteria and small copepods that my fish will one day eat. They can get through the pump intact, because they're so small.
By Sunday, quite miraculously, the water was sparkling clear---this is because the bacteria are now numerous enough to bind the dust particles down and make them sink to the bottom.
Monday morning I test again and the nitrites and nitrates are showing color on the test strips. The tank is starting to process waste on its own, and the nitrate is the product. The rock is alive, and the sand has just a tiny thin layer of life---it hasn't spread through into lower layers yet. I'm going to consider cutting the skimmer off and cleaning it of the foul-smelling goop that's covered the column, and once I do that, I'll just let nature take its course in the tank until the cycle is complete. Then the skimmer will go back on and the cleaning crew will get to work.
