Bit of an Emergency

Hamsnacks

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So I have been posting a lot of questions lately because my equipment comes in on Friday (RODI, Lights...) and I plan on taking a over a tank the following week, live rock, sand, fish...
Just received a phone call from the seller stating he needs to be gone Wednesday Night due to an emergency and is packing up right now.
Say he needs everything gone Wednesday afternoon or its staying at his rental and he's leaving it all behind.

I have no clue what to do right now.
I am thinking I have no choice but to grab everything or else it pretty much dies.
Here are a few dilemmas I am facing and wondering if you guys had some solutions.

1) The Water! My RODI doesn't come in until Friday and even then its a 90 Gallon per Day. My tank volume is a total of 300 Gallons. Can I pull off Conditioned Tap water for now and then just do water changes and top offs with the RODI water or am I asking for trouble that way? I will post the city's water specs below.

2) He plans on having the live rock ready to go in a bucket and said he'd have wet newspaper on top of them, is that good enough for a 2 hour drive? Until I can put them in my water. Can the sand just be put in a bucket as well or does it need to be in water at all time.

3) My Refractometer comes in Friday, can I depend on the instructions of the salt mix bucket or should I just go buy a hydrometer from the local Petsmart? If I get my target Salinity, will the live rock and sand raise that or I do not factor that in?

I think that is it for now, any other advice or help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

NOV-25NOV-26NOV-27NOV-28NOV-29NOV-30DEC-01
Total Hardness (mg/L as CaCO3) (2)164164165172177180182
pH (pH) (3)7.87.87.77.87.97.97.9
Temperature (°C)--------------
Total Chlorine Residual (mg/L) (4)2.002.011.821.991.991.981.99
Alkalinity (mg/L as CaCO3) (5)121122121128135136131
Conductivity (µS/cm) (6)386384181401419418426
Caustic Soda (mg/L) (7)13.912.411.746.114.312.912.7
 

bryanfuel

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So I have been posting a lot of questions lately because my equipment comes in on Friday (RODI, Lights...) and I plan on taking a over a tank the following week, live rock, sand, fish...
Just received a phone call from the seller stating he needs to be gone Wednesday Night due to an emergency and is packing up right now.
Say he needs everything gone Wednesday afternoon or its staying at his rental and he's leaving it all behind.

I have no clue what to do right now.
I am thinking I have no choice but to grab everything or else it pretty much dies.
Here are a few dilemmas I am facing and wondering if you guys had some solutions.

1) The Water! My RODI doesn't come in until Friday and even then its a 90 Gallon per Day. My tank volume is a total of 300 Gallons. Can I pull off Conditioned Tap water for now and then just do water changes and top offs with the RODI water or am I asking for trouble that way? I will post the city's water specs below.

2) He plans on having the live rock ready to go in a bucket and said he'd have wet newspaper on top of them, is that good enough for a 2 hour drive? Until I can put them in my water. Can the sand just be put in a bucket as well or does it need to be in water at all time.

3) My Refractometer comes in Friday, can I depend on the instructions of the salt mix bucket or should I just go buy a hydrometer from the local Petsmart? If I get my target Salinity, will the live rock and sand raise that or I do not factor that in?

I think that is it for now, any other advice or help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

1) Your LFS should sell RODI water if you’re fine with lugging buckets. If they don’t, you can also buy 2.5G jugs of distilled water from the grocery store. I wouldnt trust just declorinated water and you want to do this right from the beginning.

2) Yeah, that’ll definitely be fine. Most live rock bought online ships like that.

3) Do you have any livestock in the tank? If not, I would just follow the mix instructions closely and adjust later. If you do, then maybe it would be a good idea to get the hydrometer. You can still use it as a ‘double check’ later if your refractometer ever gives you a funky reading.
 

Dierks

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Hey Hamsnacks

Sorry you are getting put in this position. I will offer my advise and my input. I am sure you will get lots of answers and advise as you are in the right spot!

am I asking for trouble that way?
I think you are asking for a bit of trouble, is there any local fish store around that would be willing to sell you 50 or so gallons of RODI water? You could get enough to give your fish enough space to swim. i have no idea how well this tank is stockeed. Just an idea.

He plans on having the live rock ready to go in a bucket and said he'd have wet newspaper on top of them, is that good enough for a 2 hour drive?

You bet, they ship live rock for a couple days wrapped in wet newspaper. Is it ideal? NOPE!! But if you cant get around it then you should be okay.

I just go buy a hydrometer from the local Petsmart?

Yes!!!
 

Dine

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Big question: is there any livestock you’re taking over? I’m assuming yes so...

buy enough distilled or RODI from your local fish store to fill the tank up enough to keep everything swimming and alive. Better yet buy salt water so you dont have to worry about the salinity. Just have them show you the salinity at the store

rock will be fine.

if you fill the tank partially remember to keep the powerheads on. Buy some extra RODI for top off. Don’t bother feeding the tank.
 

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Also if he’s just walking away don’t give him his asking price. He gets nothing if he walks. Lowball him. At least get something out of this headache. If he questions it remind him how much water you have to buy to accommodate his schedule.
 

bryanfuel

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Also if he’s just walking away don’t give him his asking price. He gets nothing if he walks. Lowball him. At least get something out of this headache. If he questions it remind him how much water you have to buy to accommodate his schedule.

Seriously. He literally said he’s going to leave it if OP doesn’t take it. Taking it for free would save him money that he would otherwise lose from his security deposit for the landlord needing to dump it. Especially if there are fish in there he was just planning on letting die.
 
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Hamsnacks

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Thank you all for the responses.

Yes he has a couple tangs, foxface, dwarf Lionfish and a couple other smaller fish.

The issue is I guess no LFS actually sells RODI water, I'll call tomorrow and check again but I guess one owner was telling me they used to but there wasn't a big enough demand so they stopped.
There is a coral store right next to my place, 2min walk, I was speaking with the owner and he said the only stuff in the grocery store is RO water and when he tested it, it was almost equivalent to the tap water and that it was a waste of money. But maybe I'll try a different grocery store for actual distilled water. He suspects they don't actually change the filters in the grocery store or rarely ever do until there is a noticable issue.

In regards to paying the guy, we discussed it, I'm pretty much paying for skimmer and his extra salt, everything else is going to be really cheap.

First saltwater tank and it's going to be tough haha I think if it comes down to it, I'll do regular water and then start doing major water changes until I've replaced all of it.
 
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Hamsnacks

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Going to play devil’s advocate here. Are you taking over any corals or is it just fish? If just fish, they will do fine in conditioned tap water. So can most soft corals and leathers. You can do multiple large water changes later To get on track for higher needs corals.

Don't think he has any coral to be honest, and based on his actions I doubt he was paying for RODI water or had his own system.
 

bryanfuel

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Thank you all for the responses.

Yes he has a couple tangs, foxface, dwarf Lionfish and a couple other smaller fish.

The issue is I guess no LFS actually sells RODI water, I'll call tomorrow and check again but I guess one owner was telling me they used to but there wasn't a big enough demand so they stopped.
There is a coral store right next to my place, 2min walk, I was speaking with the owner and he said the only stuff in the grocery store is RO water and when he tested it, it was almost equivalent to the tap water and that it was a waste of money. But maybe I'll try a different grocery store for actual distilled water. He suspects they don't actually change the filters in the grocery store or rarely ever do until there is a noticable issue.

In regards to paying the guy, we discussed it, I'm pretty much paying for skimmer and his extra salt, everything else is going to be really cheap.

First saltwater tank and it's going to be tough haha I think if it comes down to it, I'll do regular water and then start doing major water changes until I've replaced all of it.

Worst case scenario, the fish don’t do well in whatever water you get and you have to give them to your LFS. You’ll still have a full system for really cheap it sounds like!
 

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I know people do it... but I would never put WET NEWSPAPER on top of aquatic rock or life... it literally BLEEDS ink all over the animals and rocks, which I am sure is "not helpful". I am not talking about "huge amounts" or even "noticible amounts" but I am talking about enough to cause more harm than good. It would be better to just use some other paper that has NO INK, like paper towels or "anything" else
 
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Hamsnacks

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I know people do it... but I would never put WET NEWSPAPER on top of aquatic rock or life... it literally BLEEDS ink all over the animals and rocks, which I am sure is "not helpful". I am not talking about "huge amounts" or even "noticible amounts" but I am talking about enough to cause more harm than good. It would be better to just use some other paper that has NO INK, like paper towels or "anything" else

Oh okay, maybe I'll use just a bunch of wet towels then
 

vetteguy53081

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At least by me, my LFS sells premixed saltwater. See if that’s available.
Newspaper wrap is common and safe and the ink-is food grade and safe
 

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if you can't get RODI from a LFS, distilled water from you local grocery store is just as good. Just use that for top-off until your RODI system gets there.
 

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Get some new sand and dont use the old sand if serting up again eighr away! And if u want to try and save some of tank water to use when u reset up then be sure and get water BEFORE u take rock, sand, etc. Out. If system has been up for any amount of time then as soon as start moving rock, etc. The water going to get dirty fast! And stay that way. Other people will tell u that u can reuse sand, which u technically can. The trouble is u will need to rinse it for so long to get clean that I'm sure u will use cold tap water. Which will then just kill most bacteria, snails, worms, pods, plus a million other things in sand and u will end up with that rotting in new setup if reuse right away. If u want o reuse sand then rinse for far longer then u ever think is necessary and then let sit for a month and the rerinse for another long time till clean and then rinse some more.
 
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Hamsnacks

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Get some new sand and dont use the old sand if serting up again eighr away! And if u want to try and save some of tank water to use when u reset up then be sure and get water BEFORE u take rock, sand, etc. Out. If system has been up for any amount of time then as soon as start moving rock, etc. The water going to get dirty fast! And stay that way. Other people will tell u that u can reuse sand, which u technically can. The trouble is u will need to rinse it for so long to get clean that I'm sure u will use cold tap water. Which will then just kill most bacteria, snails, worms, pods, plus a million other things in sand and u will end up with that rotting in new setup if reuse right away. If u want o reuse sand then rinse for far longer then u ever think is necessary and then let sit for a month and the rerinse for another long time till clean and then rinse some more.

Sorry just trying to understand your message.
His tank is currently up and running as of right now. Wednesday he plans to shut it down and put it all in buckets and bins I bring. I'm just trying to understand why I can't use that sand anymore?

This is worst case scenario: I use conditioned water.

Plan was to fill the tank quarter way, put in the sand. Set up the rocks to the way I want them, fill up the tank the whole way. Have that running for 24 hours and then introduce the fish.

Is there a reason I can't use the sand without rinsing it?
 

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1. I would say that RODI water is preferred, but not absolutely necessary. Just use prime to condition the water until you get your RODI unit.
2. I’ve heard of this method with live rock and I think it should be fine.
3. I would rinse the sand with tap water until the water is clear, before putting it back into the tank because moving it can stir up a lot of detritus which can cause a big ammonia spike in your tank.
 

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When I first started I only used tap water with chlorine remover added and my fish were just fine. Of course that was 25 years ago and there wasn't internet around to tell me otherwise. Would I do it with corals, no.

Where are you located? Maybe another r2r member can help you out.
 
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Hamsnacks

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I looked into the sand situation online, I guess it a pretty big debate, toss it or reuse it.

I think my plan is going to be, grab the sand, put it into a large container with salt water, stir up the sand and remove any dirt and debris that floats up. Put in new water, siphon the sand, stir it up again and repeat the process until I'm happy with the batch and then put it into the tank. Will take a while but I think I'm going to go with that method.

The plan is to try to get distilled water from a store but if not take my chances with Prime and hope for the best. Worst case scenario, if it starts crashing, take it all down and start from scratch.
 

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