New Tank considerations

Mixedupreefer · Jan 27, 2020

I have been working on my tank upgrade for many months. The plan was to move everything over from my current 75 gallon mixed reef to the new 110 gallon rimless. The tank is all set and ready for the move but of course I am having second thoughts about moving all my stuff over. I have mixed feelings and wonder if I should start all over and only put corals in my tank that I really like. I have several colonies of SPS that I want to keep but have also had some recent issues with different algae issues and wonder if this could be my opportunity to rid myself of some of the issues that I have in my current tank. Has anyone moved everything over to only wish they should have started over.

Ron Reefman · Jan 28, 2020

I'm kind of in the same situation. But there is no way I wish I had started over. But then I have lots of corals and RFAs that I love and want in my new tank! Have you tried removing the algae? If so, how? I literally took rocks with coral and algae on it, run water from the kitchen tap at 75 to 80 degrees, and held the rock and coral in the stream of water and brushed the algae with a tooth brush. I even upgraded to a small wire brush on some of the really stubborn spots. I did big rocks, small rocks and even lots of frag plugs. It's not a perfect solution, but I got about 75% of the rocks perfectly clear od algae. I'm still working on the other 25%.

I had a 40g cube (24x24x20) full of coral and no room to grow.

So I tore it down and put everything in several holding tanks while I built a new 90g tank (36x30x20). It's just been set up and the old corals and anemones added to it. They are still acclimating after being washed and cleaned of macro algae and aiptasia.

My plan is to include everything that was in the old tank (and that survived the holding tanks... there were some losses). But that is just for now so the new tank doesn't look so empty. My goal is to have the new tank look similar to the old tank but better. And to me, better means more corals that fluoresce under blue leds. So as I get new corals and RFAs, I'll pull the corals that don't fluoresce or that are invasive like green palys.