My 75 Gallon Reef Upgrade

[Sink_or_Swim]

I should have known better than to start small... In less than a year, I'm already upgrading from my 32.5 gallon Fluval Flex AIO to a 75 gallon tank. Dipped my toe in the proverbial reef and got addicted. Alas, here we are with another build thread. Rather than update my original one, I'm just going to document the new build and tank transfer here.

This is going to be somewhat of an experiment (hopefully a successful one): we're going sump-less, folks!
I'm very excited to get this build started and document the journey. Photos to come.

 

[Peace River]

Congratulations on the new setup and good luck on the continued journey!!! We're cheering for you!

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

Congratulations on the new setup and good luck on the continued journey!!! We're cheering for you!

Thank you so much! Hoping to iron out a few issues and employ what I've learned over the past year with this new setup. There have been ups and downs of course, but I'm hoping to make things a little easier on myself with this tank. I have a lot going on, and quite a few obstacles to deal with - so I firmly believe if I can keep a reef going, anyone can! R2R and other online resources have been a Godsend. Hoping to be able to pay it forward eventually and help others as I gain more experience in the hobby.

 

[Reefer Matt]

You're gonna love the bigger tank. Good luck!

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

You're gonna love the bigger tank. Good luck!

I'm sure it's going to be awesome. Thanks! Feeling half super excited to get started tomorrow (my dad is coming over to help my fiance with moving the heavy stuff), and half super nervous, lol. I just really don't want to lose any fish. At least they're all fat and happy/healthy, so hopefully the stress of moving from one tank to the other won't be too much for them. I'm sure the end result of having a lot more room to live in and more stability will be worth it though.

 

[kevgib67]

So exciting, following.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

So exciting, following.

It is! Thank you! Fingers crossed all goes according to plan and I'm able to catch all my fish without any carpet surfing, lol! (Looking at you, diamond goby). I'm actually looking forward to breaking down my current tank - might actually find my serpent starfish, lol. Will also be evicting all crabs. Murderers, all of them. New tank will be a crab-free zone.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

Well, thanks to unforeseen circumstances and just life in general, the upgrade is running behind schedule.
It absolutely HAS to happen this weekend though - I feel terrible because I've had 2 new fish in an acclimation box for over a week now. I tried letting them out after 3 days but my tomini tang went berserk. He not only relentlessly tried attacking the baby yellow tang, but went after the hawkfish too! Didn't expect that... Tried the mirror trick, but he wouldn't let up on the newcomers - he's an adult and has claimed the whole current tank as his for the last 4 months. I REALLY hope the larger space and new rockscape will shake things up and disorient him enough to introduce the new fish safely. Thankfully I was able to catch both of them and return them to the acclimation box this time, but may not be so lucky a second time. I really thought getting a much smaller tang of a different genus would be less threatening to him, but I was wrong apparently. One interesting thing that came out of this however, is that the YT and flame hawkfish are now best buddies, lol! When I let them out of the box, they stayed together. I guess because they're used to each other. It was pretty neat. I'm happy to have apparently gotten a very chill, unaggressive hawkfish.

The new tank was supposed to be up and running and ready for the fish before they arrived but I had kept putting it off. Anyone else literally get "frozen" with upgrade anxiety? I'm a planner by nature and I had everything written down (livestock, everything needed for the tank transfer, steps to remember, etc.) and yet I still am terrified of messing something up or something major going wrong and potentially losing fish.
I need to just rip the bandaid off and get it done at this point though! This shouldn't be this difficult, lol.

 

[mcdrichj]

Well, thanks to unforeseen circumstances and just life in general, the upgrade is running behind schedule.
It absolutely HAS to happen this weekend though - I feel terrible because I've had 2 new fish in an acclimation box for over a week now. I tried letting them out after 3 days but my tomini tang went berserk. He not only relentlessly tried attacking the baby yellow tang, but went after the hawkfish too! Didn't expect that... Tried the mirror trick, but he wouldn't let up on the newcomers - he's an adult and has claimed the whole current tank as his for the last 4 months. I REALLY hope the larger space and new rockscape will shake things up and disorient him enough to introduce the new fish safely. Thankfully I was able to catch both of them and return them to the acclimation box this time, but may not be so lucky a second time. I really thought getting a much smaller tang of a different genus would be less threatening to him, but I was wrong apparently. One interesting thing that came out of this however, is that the YT and flame hawkfish are now best buddies, lol! When I let them out of the box, they stayed together. I guess because they're used to each other. It was pretty neat. I'm happy to have apparently gotten a very chill, unaggressive hawkfish.

The new tank was supposed to be up and running and ready for the fish before they arrived but I had kept putting it off. Anyone else literally get "frozen" with upgrade anxiety? I'm a planner by nature and I had everything written down (livestock, everything needed for the tank transfer, steps to remember, etc.) and yet I still am terrified of messing something up or something major going wrong and potentially losing fish.
I need to just rip the bandaid off and get it done at this point though! This shouldn't be this difficult, lol.

So, I don't have a much experience with tang aggression however I did have african cichlids which are aggressive. One thing you could try is removing the tomini from the tank then adding the other fish and let them get settled for a few days then try and re-introduce the tomini to the tank after the others have settled.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

So, I don't have a much experience with tang aggression however I did have african cichlids which are aggressive. One thing you could try is removing the tomini from the tank then adding the other fish and let them get settled for a few days then try and re-introduce the tomini to the tank after the others have settled.

That's not a bad idea. I'd have to set up my 10 gal QT to house the tomini separately while the other fish get settled into the new tank. My husband works from home and his desk is in the space next to the tank so we really have no room to leave the old one running after the transfer. My other thought from my days of breeding freshwater mollies is to use an acrylic divider in the 75 gallon at first, so the tomini can see the yellow and I can remove him if he just won't settle down.
My preference would be to either add all the fish together at the same time into the new tank where they'll all be confused, or do what you suggested. I'm actually kind of curious what would happen if I threw all the fish including the 2 tangs together in a 5 gal bucket while I'm setting up the new tank. I was going to separate them at that time, but maybe the tomini will be freaked out enough to ignore the YT in the bucket, and then will be used to it... hmm...

 

[mcdrichj]

From what I have read tangs are agressive to other tangs so a 75 might be too small for both of them but you would want to check that with someone with more experience with tangs. The fact that the tang is being a bully to other fish is why I said to remove it completely. It seems to me that the tang has claimed the entire tank. It only takes a few days or a week to reset the hierarchy of the tank. At least this has worked for me with cichlids. I had a very agressive mbuna and I removed him from the tank for a week and reintroduced after about a week and the issue was considerably better.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

From what I have read tangs are agressive to other tangs so a 75 might be too small for both of them but you would want to check that with someone with more experience with tangs. The fact that the tang is being a bully to other fish is why I said to remove it completely. It seems to me that the tang has claimed the entire tank. It only takes a few days or a week to reset the hierarchy of the tank. At least this has worked for me with cichlids. I had a very agressive mbuna and I removed him from the tank for a week and reintroduced after about a week and the issue was considerably better.

Yeah same here... I went back and forth a ton trying to decide if I wanted to even attempt adding one more. I kept reading that if you add them together and don't add more than one of the same type, they have a better chance of getting along. Also adding juveniles together. I agree - the tomini is just being a bully in general. He chased my melanurus wrasse around for 3 days when I got it, but then settled down and now they're totally fine together. The only fish (other than the YT) that he's ever gotten nippy with is my bicolor blenny (which is also a big fish, for a blenny) when the blenny tries to go after nori at the same time. I've read that tangs can get like that with other herbivores because they see them as competition for food. Funny thing about the tomini though, is he is extremely shy with me - the second I start walking towards the tank he hides in his cave, lol. I'm still surprised he chased the flame hawk, but like you said, he probably sees that entire tank as his and only accepts the existing fish.

I almost started an African cichlid tank before getting into saltwater. ALMOST. Had freshwater tanks for 30 years but the most aggressive fish I ever kept were my angelfish (cichlids, of course, lol). After talking to people with they type of cichlid tanks I was considering however (Lake Malawi), I decided it would probably stress me out too much to have a whole tank of fish that I have to constantly make sure they're playing nice, lol. So I really would like to keep the peace in my reef tank - so far it's been pretty chill.