So either have the best fiancé in the world or the most easily persuaded. We are moving in about a month and I can’t take my current system to the new place (too big). So I decided to pick a few of my favorite fish and coral that I will keep and get rid of the rest (I have another thread for items for sale).
So it dawned on me, how am I going to start a new tank in the new place if I have fish and coral that need to go in immediately? I really don’t want to sell a few of my items because I’ll never get my money back and then I’d have to pay more to repurchase. So it dawned on me - start the new tank now, so it’s cycled, move it and the few fish/coral, then it’ll all be ready day 1 in the new place. But who the heck starts a whole new system before they move? Apparently I do. I ran this by my fiancé, she looked at me kind of cross eyed, wasn’t so sure, and then says “makes sense, want to go get it now?” Uh, yea!
I decided I didn’t want to mess with the sump setup so I did an IM AIO the 30L to be exact.
Wanted to get the cycle started ASAP so immediately did the rock work:
And after 15 sets of gloves, 10 solo
cups, a bunch of hammering, and 2 containers of reef safe cement:
(Wow those pics are bad, I’ll take better ones tomorrow).
I used two types of reef cement. One from my LFS which is really fine cement mix that you combine with a resin. The other is NYOS reef cement (Amazon). I have used NYOS before but never the stuff from my LFS. NYOS is way better - cures much faster, mixes with water, and makes the whole process go much smoother. The other stuff says it needs 8-12 hours to fully cure so rocks will go in around lunch tomorrow. Only thing I regret is not having dry sand on hand to put over the cement to make it look more natural
That’s the tank wet behind it in the pics. Should have taken pictures of that process, but it’s poring water into a glass cube - you kind of had to be there.
Once rock is in, I’ll add pure ammonia and a bottle of bacteria to kick off the cycle.
This is not the IM pro this is the old version. My LFS had it for $100 cheaper and I saw no need for the DC pump as I plan to use my APEX from my current system. Will get the media caddy down the road.
And lastly, what are you keeping: my angler named Dave. Jack and Jill the two seahorses, my blueberry bounce mushroom, a few types of zoas, and my candy canes (they are just so yellow, I can’t not). Stay tuned to see how I keep my angler from eating the seahorses.
Lastly I plan to do bare bottom on this. I’ve never done it before, but I think I am going to lay down either white or black acrylic and have zoas grow on it instead of sand.
Wow, went on a bit of a ramble there...
So it dawned on me, how am I going to start a new tank in the new place if I have fish and coral that need to go in immediately? I really don’t want to sell a few of my items because I’ll never get my money back and then I’d have to pay more to repurchase. So it dawned on me - start the new tank now, so it’s cycled, move it and the few fish/coral, then it’ll all be ready day 1 in the new place. But who the heck starts a whole new system before they move? Apparently I do. I ran this by my fiancé, she looked at me kind of cross eyed, wasn’t so sure, and then says “makes sense, want to go get it now?” Uh, yea!
I decided I didn’t want to mess with the sump setup so I did an IM AIO the 30L to be exact.
Wanted to get the cycle started ASAP so immediately did the rock work:
And after 15 sets of gloves, 10 solo
cups, a bunch of hammering, and 2 containers of reef safe cement:
(Wow those pics are bad, I’ll take better ones tomorrow).
I used two types of reef cement. One from my LFS which is really fine cement mix that you combine with a resin. The other is NYOS reef cement (Amazon). I have used NYOS before but never the stuff from my LFS. NYOS is way better - cures much faster, mixes with water, and makes the whole process go much smoother. The other stuff says it needs 8-12 hours to fully cure so rocks will go in around lunch tomorrow. Only thing I regret is not having dry sand on hand to put over the cement to make it look more natural
That’s the tank wet behind it in the pics. Should have taken pictures of that process, but it’s poring water into a glass cube - you kind of had to be there.
Once rock is in, I’ll add pure ammonia and a bottle of bacteria to kick off the cycle.
This is not the IM pro this is the old version. My LFS had it for $100 cheaper and I saw no need for the DC pump as I plan to use my APEX from my current system. Will get the media caddy down the road.
And lastly, what are you keeping: my angler named Dave. Jack and Jill the two seahorses, my blueberry bounce mushroom, a few types of zoas, and my candy canes (they are just so yellow, I can’t not). Stay tuned to see how I keep my angler from eating the seahorses.
Lastly I plan to do bare bottom on this. I’ve never done it before, but I think I am going to lay down either white or black acrylic and have zoas grow on it instead of sand.
Wow, went on a bit of a ramble there...
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