I am setting up my 110 again

[jakano]

I tore down my tank because I had become kind of bored and really didn't like how I had things set up originally. I had it up for sale as I am sure some of you have seen and I had no takers. I have since decided I cant stand not having a tank so I am going to set it back up.
I have drilled a new 1.5" drain to use in place of the three 1" drains I had before. Since I have the plumbing already in place I am hoping to have the 1.5" drain split into the two existing 1" pipes going into the basement to save from having to buy 30+ feet of 1.5" spaflex. My main problem with the 1" drains was the 90's in the tank itself. They made a terrible sucking sound if I had the flow to high but I am pretty sure that was due to the restrictions of the street elbows going into the bulkheads and not of the pipe diameter itself. The return is only a 600 GPH pump so it should be fine. I also plan to run the tank with no sand this time. I really feel that the sand after three years had started to be a problem in my tank and I hope to avoid a lot of that this time.

I did have a question for you folks since many tanks have been upgraded by you. I have all my fish and corals in my 150 gallon sump in basement right now that is only filled with water about half way. Do you think I could just fill the tank with saltwater and match the parameters to the sump and just turn the return on to get the new water flowing down into the sump? I was hoping to avoid having to cycle this new tank since I have all the live rock in the sump. I didn't know if this would be to much of a shock to the livestock or not? I figured this might be like a really big water change so it might not hurt things. That way I can have all the livestock acclimated to the new water so I could just place everything right back in.

I also wanted to get some new rock from Reefsystems that is dead right now and put it in the tank. I will of course be adding some of my existing rock but would like the majority to be the new dead rock to seed it. Anybody see any problems in this plan?

 

[Shark Keeper]

That is essentially what I did when I upgraded from my 120 to my 180 with a 100 gallon sump. I used all of the existing water that I could from my 120 and added all new for the sump and to top off the tank which came up to roughly 100+ gallons of new saltwater and I did not miss a beat.

You should be fine. Just make sure that you get your parameters to match.

 

[zeppelin]

I would just have a ball valve inline so you can add the water slowly at first, so the fish in the sump get a chance to acclimate to the new water and dont get shocked too bad. Once its run for an hour or so, open the ball valve up to what you want you flow to be and start transferring livestock.

 

[jh2pizza]

Thats what we did. Opened the valve and after an hour or so, we opened it up. Just make sure the temp, PH and Salinity are very close. Seemed like just one big water change.

 

[RokleM]

My recent change was similar.

I filled the 200 w/ saltwater and let it run closed for a while so it could cycle. I then prepped a large fresh batch of saltwater in the basement, and drained a bunch of cycle water from the 200. I slowly opened the valves on the 200 and let current saltwater into the 200 while simultaneously adding new saltwater back into the sump. After an hour or so, the 200 was full and online.

In the end, I basically went from ~380 gallons to ~580 gallons temporarily. It's not really that big of a deal as long as you do all the normal checks. Ensure your water has mixed for plenty of time (ensures pH and o2 levels are good which could shock a system if they're low), try to match it to temperature, and add slowly.

 

[jakano]

Thanks a bunch guys!!! Thats pretty much what I figured but its always nice to seek out others advice.

 

[jakano]

Ok I finally have things going in my restart. I drilled my 1.5"drain and plumbed the closed loop so that it exits from the old 1" drain holes. I got my new light fixture ( thanks again Geo) and I got my new bulbs. I went with Iwasaki 14k bulbs and man are these things bright. Its an intense pure bright white light with no yellow in them at all. I also am running two 54w t-5 aquascience Blue bulbs. I also bought a bunch of dry rock from Reefsytems and it worked out perfect. I was able to epoxy it out of the tank into the taller pillar piece and it had time to set up properly so now its as solid as one big piece. The left side I just stacked some rock for now so that I have something to rearrange later since I get bored with my aquascapes so easily. All I need now are the new seals for my Dart and I can start filling with water. Here are some pics so far.

This pic is a tad over exposed but it really shows how bright white these bulbs are.

 

[szwab]

Looks good nice to see you taking your time It'll pay off in the end. remember to make up extra water (just in case)

 

[hollback]

Lookin' good Jason. I really like the open aquascape look. What are your tank dimensions?

 

[jakano]

Thanks guys. J the tank is 48x18x30 I really wanted to get a tank with deeper dimensions but that didnt work out, 18" front to back is not a lot of room to do some things I would like to do.

 

[zeppelin]

Lookin good Jason.