Moving a full reef tank

[b12002]

Here is the situation. My wonderful sister and her husband are heading off to pharmacy school in the next couple months and have offered me everything from their well established 55 reef tank.
Here is the main problem, they are in San Antonio and I am in Houston. It would pretty much be a full tank transplant, live sand, live rock, coral, fish, shrimp, everything. I am very nervous about killing off the entire tank.
I am planning on using the wet/dry filter that they are currently using but swapping out the bio balls with a thick layer of my crushed coral substrate that I currently have in my tank. Is this ok?

Here is the current set up:
75 Gallon
Lights: Eclipse compact fl. 2x65Watt.
Skimmer: Coralife Needle Wheel Skimmer 125 gallon size
Filters: Filstar XP2 Canister Filter & 2213 Filter Classic Plus (Eheim)& I'm trying out a Nitrex Box
Stock: 25-30 lbs of LR
Fish: 1 Bicolor angel, 1 Tomato clown, 1 blue damsel, 1 humbug damsel, 1 domino damsel

Equipment I will be adding:
Orbitz lights 4x65Watt
Wet/Dry Filter for 75 gallon
UV Sterilizer 18 watt turbotwist
Enough Live Sand for about a 4" DSB
65 lbs of Live Rock
Lots of both soft and hard corals. (sorry don't have a full list
in front of me right now)

This move should be taking place within the next couple of weeks and I am looking for some advice about how to avoid a major crash. Also let me know what you think about the set up.

 

[Avi]

Hmmmm....so, I take it that you're going to take the contents of the 55-gallon tank and enhance your existing 75-gallon with stuff from it. I have some things that I'd recommend. First of all, I'd pass up on the deep sand bed. You can add that later, but make sure you do a lot of reading and seek advice on that before you commit yourself to it.

Also, I wouldn't bother with the crushed coral in the wet/dry...or with the bio-balls. Instead, I'd use the wet/dry as a sump with a compartment dedicated as a refugium for Chaeto (a kind of macro-algae) which would be grown under effective lighting on an opposite photo-period from the reef itself.

With a total of about 90-pounds (Try to get it up to 110-pounds or so, if you can) together with your protein skimmer and the sump/refugium you'd be all right and be able to get rid of the canister filters, (which I'd recommend against using unless you're willing to clean them once a week or so.) Another thing you could do, is use the 55-gallon tank instead of the wet'dry for a sump/refugium if you have the room to do that. The bigger the better with that kind of thing.

 

[b12002]

Avi, thanks for the advice.
I do have a couple of more questions.
Since everything is going to be going through a lot of stress with the move, how much of a cycle should I expect the tank to go through? (In other words, when should the alarm bells be going off for major problems?)
I have an old 29 that I might try to use for a refugium. How much Chaeto will I need to keep things under control?

 

[Avi]

I expect that the stuff...live rock, primarily, that you are going to take from the 55-gallon tank and put into your 75 will make it just fine. There may well be some slight die off...so keep testing rather often...maybe twice a day for the first five days or so, to see if you have any nitrate increases. If you do, just do some water changes...maybe 25% and test until you get the numbers down. I doubt that you have anything to worry about.

Well, I'd say that you'd do well to get yourself, say, two "balls" of Chaeto, each the size of a grapefruit. And, for a light that will go over it...I'd definitely recommend this one....

http://www.lightsofamerica.com/floods.htm

You can get it at Home Depot. I had a bulb over my refugium that had been highly recommended in one of the threads here in RC about it, but it didn't foster any growth. I changed over to this one and it just took off...what a difference.

 

[b12002]

Thanks, now comes the work of finding a decent overflow. My tank is bottom drilled with 4 equally spaced ports right in the middle about two thirds the distance to the back of the tank. I guess I can try to rig something up through these. But without draining the entire tank and making a box I'm not sure how I will do it. Any suggestions out there for a simple on the run overflow? Keep in mind I'm still paying off college debts.

Also how much more of a fish load would you recommend?
I have the option of adding an small Regal Tang and a Yellow Tang.
Will this push me over the edge?