Way over my head

[e048]

So I'm a junior science major and my professors, advisors, and research coordinator know that I'm into reefs and aquariums. So Wednesday morning I get a call from one of them asking me if I want a large reef that's been neglected at his church.

I said yes of course who doesn't want a free tank

Well now that it's said and done took me 3 hours and 4 people to take the tank down and I'm still in the process of building it back up. My calculations the tank is anywhere between 90-140g it's a four foot tank, two feet wide and deep. Has about 100-200lbs of lr and tons of coral

Led lights
Wet dry filter

Livestock is
A very deformed yellow tang
Pair of black occelaris clowns
A lawnmower blenny
And a neon dotty back (might trade him at the lfs)

Only cuc was a brittle star about 2feet long from arm to arm


The tank was very neglected a lot of detritus and cyano

I have the fish in temporary set ups as well as the coral as I slowly build the tank back up in my house.

Now I have a total of 4 large tanks and 2 small ones (3 if you count a fuge as a separate tank)

 

[e048]

Pic one

Forum won't let upload more than one pic at a time from my phone

 

[e048]

Picture two

This is the tank set up at the church

 

[e048]

Tank in my truck

 

[e048]

Fish and lr in the suv

 

[e048]

Look how gross the cabinet was

 

[ReefWreak]

Nice find. If the tank is 4x2x2, it's a 120g standard.

To make you feel better, when I got my first 120g tank, I bought it off ebay for $300. The prior owner kept it as a FOWLR. The rocks were blanketed with cyano, as they usually just fed the tank tons of those dried out krill since the fish were huge and the people knew nothing about fishes. The tank was a disgusting mess. But whatever, $300 and it worked, perfect for my college budget.

Within a year it was up and running properly. I ended up swapping out the sump for a 29g glass sump, added a skimmer, ran GFO, and had great luck. Into the second year, I got a calcium reactor, more flow, had about 13 fishes, and the tank ended up being fantastic. It was my main learning experience in reefing.

So the point of my story is that even if it's a mess, it takes time, and some effort, and a lot of learning to turn it around, but it's definitely doable. If you click my name and go to my homepage, it should take you to my current nano thread, where I have some pics from my old 120.

 

[e048]

Awesome it's a 120! I'm just worried that all my moving stuff around and such the tank might go through a cycle and I could lose the livestock...

It has a really nice protien skimmer with a rio 2500 attached to it and a 1hp return pump so the equipment it all good I'm just worried about a mini cycle

Will the yellow tang recover?

 

[ReefWreak]

Just keep the tang fat and happy, lots of greens (nori sheets particularly, plus other foods). He probably won't grow back his fin, but you can still keep him fat and happy, he'll just look weird.

I don't know if I'd call that a nice skimmer, but it is a skimmer, and particularly a free skimmer. Sounds good on the return pump too. It also looks like there was a UV in the cabinet as well, so you could always set that up too if desired. My tank actually had one plumbed inline, but I never ended up using it, as I was sure the bulb was dead, and why bother in general, particularly when you're just getting started.

I would just let the tank do it's thing with cycling, try your best to minimize disruption, keep the flow high in the tank, keep the skimmer clean and running (it helps oxygenate the water as well), and maybe run filter pads immediately after re-setting up the tank to capture any detritus blowing around).

All in all, you have some work to do, some patience to keep, but you're on your way to a beautiful setup.

 

[e048]

The tank alone costs $3000 the skimmer is nicer than the one I have on my my current 90g

The uv sterelizer was broken so I threw it out. As far as flow goes I'll do my best im foog to get some more saltwater and finish getting it set up tonight

 

[Shawn O]

Great score. Neon Dottybacks can be jerks at times but are interesting to watch. They're pretty curious fish, always watching what's going on. What species of Brittle star is in it? Two feet sounds like a pretty big star.

Lots of water changes and siphoning the sand will probably bring it back around. May need to replace the sand. Keep us updated with lots of pics.

 

[e048]

It's a banded brittle star I think the dotty back is to blame for the wear on the tang I'm going to swap him out for snails lol

 

[ReefWreak]

I would definitely vacuum the sand a lot if you're not replacing it. I did that the first year too and believe it helped (though I did use original sand without ever washing it. I never even removed it from the tank, just kept it from original setup, brought it over in the tank, left it mostly damp, and set up the tank the next day).

 

[e048]

I washed it out it was disgusting and I bought another 40lbs of sand

 

[CStrickland]

If the fish are ok in their temporary home, you might consider an acid bath for the rocks. It's a nice way to get a fresh start, and you can seed them with rock from your own tank so the cycle might wind up less drastic than if you tried to use them as is, since it's a pretty small bio load for the water volume.
Just a thought

 

[e048]

Problem is that the rocks are covered in coral and sponges

 

[CStrickland]

My bad, I missed that in the op.
Nice find!

 

[nuxx]

Good score

 

[figuerres]

I washed it out it was disgusting and I bought another 40lbs of sand

hey just FYI keep this for later use:
rectangle type tanks you can get the capacity in gallons with this:

( inches length x inches height x inches width ) / 231 == Gallons of water

may not be exact but it's darn close!

 

[e048]

hey just FYI keep this for later use:
rectangle type tanks you can get the capacity in gallons with this:

( inches length x inches height x inches width ) / 231 == Gallons of water

may not be exact but it's darn close!

What would I do with extra aragonite

And I think it's a little less because Of the overflow area is a good part of the left side of the tank, the wet dry filter isn't that big either so I'm thinking that maybe takes out about 20g of water.

I thought a 200g tank was at least 6ft long this one is 4ft but I could be wrong