ksicard
New member
Hey all,
A little info on me, I've been in the hobby for about 11 years now mainly fowlr and lps/softies tanks and after having a 180g tank for 7 years I took a break for awhile. Then two years ago I got scubba certified and as soon as I took my first dive I knew I had to get back into the hobby, I started small with a Red Sea Max 130d and long story short I replaced every single piece of equipment on the tank and had no stock parts left over and pretty quickly my tank became full and the desire for a larger tank kicked in. Only issue was I knew that I would be moving within the next two years so I decided to get a used 75g tank that I picked up for $300 with the sole purpose of being able to keep my various corals I had collected and also to test my hand at a SPS dominant tank as well as collecting various pieces to stock the brand new tank I would be buying once I had moved. Fast forward a year later and it turns out that after a few rookie sps mistakes in the beginning i've become pretty decent at caring for SPS and am still learning. The time has come to move and I'll be out of my current house in the next 1-2 months so I'm starting the journal to my soon to be 120g reef tank I'll be setting up at the new place.
I wanted to go ahead and start posting my plans as well as questions regarding the move to make sure everything rolls over smoothly with the hope I don't loose any of my SPS. So here's the jist of what's all going to happen.
Fortunately I'll be able to leave my current 75g tank up and running for the next 5 months if I need it running that long so I should have plenty of time to be able to transfer live stock over without having to rush it. I'll be purchasing a standard 120g tank 48"x24"x24" that's reef ready w/ starphire glass, oak stand, oak canopy, and a 30-40g sump. For lighting I'll be using two 18" DIY led fixtures I've been building that will be wired to a controller for dimming/sunset/sunrises. The LED fixtures each have 16 royal blues, 7 neutral whites, 10 true violets, and 2 ocean coral white led's (which are red/green/true blue LED diodes that when mixed together like they are produce a white light but provide the spectrum I'm missing from my fixtures). Here's a picture of what they look like, they are pretty much finished and I actually plan on finishing the wiring this weekend.
For my skimmer I'll be using my current one a SSA ES2 cone protein skimmer.
For flow I'll be using two of the wp40's at 75% on else mode, as well as a DC return pump. I think this will provide me with more than ample flow.
I'll have my tunze osmolator for my top off, and two seperate reactors for carbon/gfo.
And for Ca/Mg/Alk I'll be using my bubble magus BM-T01 dosing pump that doses BRS dosing solutions, I've had pretty great success with this and I actually enjoy my automated doser more than my old koraline calcium reactor I had on my 180g tank, that I actually still have. If the tank was 180g plus I'd probably use the calcium reactor though.
I plan to have a sand bed, probably not super deep and I want to re use my current 110lbs of live rock I have in my 75g tank.
So here's where I need some advice, I'm trying to correct all the mistakes I made on my 75g and my current concern right now is that I want zero pests in my new tank and my 75g doesn't have any of the pests that eat coral such as AEFW/nudi's/zoa pests etc..... but I do have those damn annoying aiptasia that no matter how many times I zap them with aiptasia-x there's always some hiding in the rockwork that re populate the tank. I want zero aiptasia in my new tank and since I want to re use my current live rock I need advice on how to rid all my rock of aiptasia so that I can have a pest free environment. I was thinking I would have to rip all the rock out and give it all a vinegar or bleach soak 1-2 times and then re cure the rock in a brute. That's about the only idea I have on how to go about it and I'd like to hear some advice on how I should go about eliminating 100% of the aiptasia. So I'd basically have zero live rock in my 75g while I'm doing this and then once the 120g is in the new house I'd transfer it over.
I plan to just buy new sand as I don't want to re use my current sand since I made the mistake of putting to much rock in the 75g to the point I couldn't siphon it ever. And then from there I'd let the tank cycle if it even cycles with the cured rock for about a month and then transfer all my fish over along with the skimmer, and leave the coral and dosing unit on the 75g. After a couple of weeks transfer all the lps/zoas/non sps over and if all continues to go well and my water is ready for it I'll move all my SPS over which is the nerve racking part, along with the dosing setup.
Let me know what you guys think about this process and if there's a better way to reduce possible losses, with SPS being my primary concern. The 120g should be at the new house in about 6-8 weeks and then I'll have 3-4 months to get all the live stock transfered over.
So just let me know what you guys think.
To sum up my questions:
1.) best way to eliminate aiptasia from my current live rock and whats the best process to do it.
2.) Is starphire glass worth the extra bucks?
3.) Does my live stock/equipment transfer sound logical? If not let me hear your ideas on the best way to transfer everything given that I have about 4-5 months to move everything.
For making you guys read all this I'll post a few pics of my current sps in a few hours.
A little info on me, I've been in the hobby for about 11 years now mainly fowlr and lps/softies tanks and after having a 180g tank for 7 years I took a break for awhile. Then two years ago I got scubba certified and as soon as I took my first dive I knew I had to get back into the hobby, I started small with a Red Sea Max 130d and long story short I replaced every single piece of equipment on the tank and had no stock parts left over and pretty quickly my tank became full and the desire for a larger tank kicked in. Only issue was I knew that I would be moving within the next two years so I decided to get a used 75g tank that I picked up for $300 with the sole purpose of being able to keep my various corals I had collected and also to test my hand at a SPS dominant tank as well as collecting various pieces to stock the brand new tank I would be buying once I had moved. Fast forward a year later and it turns out that after a few rookie sps mistakes in the beginning i've become pretty decent at caring for SPS and am still learning. The time has come to move and I'll be out of my current house in the next 1-2 months so I'm starting the journal to my soon to be 120g reef tank I'll be setting up at the new place.
I wanted to go ahead and start posting my plans as well as questions regarding the move to make sure everything rolls over smoothly with the hope I don't loose any of my SPS. So here's the jist of what's all going to happen.
Fortunately I'll be able to leave my current 75g tank up and running for the next 5 months if I need it running that long so I should have plenty of time to be able to transfer live stock over without having to rush it. I'll be purchasing a standard 120g tank 48"x24"x24" that's reef ready w/ starphire glass, oak stand, oak canopy, and a 30-40g sump. For lighting I'll be using two 18" DIY led fixtures I've been building that will be wired to a controller for dimming/sunset/sunrises. The LED fixtures each have 16 royal blues, 7 neutral whites, 10 true violets, and 2 ocean coral white led's (which are red/green/true blue LED diodes that when mixed together like they are produce a white light but provide the spectrum I'm missing from my fixtures). Here's a picture of what they look like, they are pretty much finished and I actually plan on finishing the wiring this weekend.
For my skimmer I'll be using my current one a SSA ES2 cone protein skimmer.
For flow I'll be using two of the wp40's at 75% on else mode, as well as a DC return pump. I think this will provide me with more than ample flow.
I'll have my tunze osmolator for my top off, and two seperate reactors for carbon/gfo.
And for Ca/Mg/Alk I'll be using my bubble magus BM-T01 dosing pump that doses BRS dosing solutions, I've had pretty great success with this and I actually enjoy my automated doser more than my old koraline calcium reactor I had on my 180g tank, that I actually still have. If the tank was 180g plus I'd probably use the calcium reactor though.
I plan to have a sand bed, probably not super deep and I want to re use my current 110lbs of live rock I have in my 75g tank.
So here's where I need some advice, I'm trying to correct all the mistakes I made on my 75g and my current concern right now is that I want zero pests in my new tank and my 75g doesn't have any of the pests that eat coral such as AEFW/nudi's/zoa pests etc..... but I do have those damn annoying aiptasia that no matter how many times I zap them with aiptasia-x there's always some hiding in the rockwork that re populate the tank. I want zero aiptasia in my new tank and since I want to re use my current live rock I need advice on how to rid all my rock of aiptasia so that I can have a pest free environment. I was thinking I would have to rip all the rock out and give it all a vinegar or bleach soak 1-2 times and then re cure the rock in a brute. That's about the only idea I have on how to go about it and I'd like to hear some advice on how I should go about eliminating 100% of the aiptasia. So I'd basically have zero live rock in my 75g while I'm doing this and then once the 120g is in the new house I'd transfer it over.
I plan to just buy new sand as I don't want to re use my current sand since I made the mistake of putting to much rock in the 75g to the point I couldn't siphon it ever. And then from there I'd let the tank cycle if it even cycles with the cured rock for about a month and then transfer all my fish over along with the skimmer, and leave the coral and dosing unit on the 75g. After a couple of weeks transfer all the lps/zoas/non sps over and if all continues to go well and my water is ready for it I'll move all my SPS over which is the nerve racking part, along with the dosing setup.
Let me know what you guys think about this process and if there's a better way to reduce possible losses, with SPS being my primary concern. The 120g should be at the new house in about 6-8 weeks and then I'll have 3-4 months to get all the live stock transfered over.
So just let me know what you guys think.
To sum up my questions:
1.) best way to eliminate aiptasia from my current live rock and whats the best process to do it.
2.) Is starphire glass worth the extra bucks?
3.) Does my live stock/equipment transfer sound logical? If not let me hear your ideas on the best way to transfer everything given that I have about 4-5 months to move everything.
For making you guys read all this I'll post a few pics of my current sps in a few hours.
