Rock Swap and Tank "Reset"

[rtparty]

I am going to try and keep this thread short but it may ramble on...you have been warned

My tank (build thread badge attached) is a little over 18 months old. Although, I have coral and rock much older than that in there. I have learned a lot of things with this peninsula and want to rectify a lot of the self inflicted wounds. My list is below but is not in any particular order:

1) Redo all my rockwork with NEW rock
2) Frag and sell off a bunch of coral. After the reset, the tank will be 95% SPS
3) Rearrange the bottom of my stand. All electorincs and sump setup moved around

We won't worry about numbers 2 and 3 as they are pretty straightforward. But they will take place around the same time as number 1.

There is a lot of my current rock that I don't want to keep long term and a lot of it won't fit in the sump to help with the exchange.

So how many have done a full reset like this while keeping all your fish and remaining coral happy? How did you do it or how do you propose I best go about this?

 

[brandon429]

heres one example we did.

Connecting Established Reef To New Tank

EDIT: In conclusion, if using the method I did - connecting an established reef to a new system with dry rock (clean), I recommend the following: 1. Dose your new tank prior to connecting to your old tank with NO3 and PO4 enough to raise to your established tank levels. 2. Take your skimmer...

www.reef2reef.com

all you have to do is cycle up your new rock in a brute can then move it into the new tank, and you'd re ramp your lighting. your lighting can't be as strong as it is now or that risks bleaching. prepare to battle uglies, as he did very well above

 

[brandon429]

in that case, we didn't upcycle his new rock in a brute we used the existing tank water from the current tank to cycle it, without bottle bac, so we could prove Dr Tim wrong when he said that reef tank water doesn't have transmissible filter bacteria. it darn sure does, on detrital floc rafts all reef tanks have if we just put one drop of water under a microscope.

if you put some existing tank water in a brute of dry rocks it'll self cycle in a month free of charge

feel free to goose them with any brand cycling bottle bac + a pinch of feed and in a month they'll be done, testless cycled. they can't not be done by that degree of wait time. we pushed it, and did his on day twenty above, they're ready that fast. 30 days just to be safe is prudent

 

[rtparty]

Thanks @brandon429

I am using the CaribSea tree kits and have built them out of water. It’s actually not as simple to put them back together so I may have to cure each “tree” in its own Brute can. I can pull little pieces of rock from my current setup as well and add them to each Brute along with water change water.

 

[brandon429]

If you are trusting aged corals adapted to a maturing biome to be relocated to a setup with zero biome u need to cycle the rocks really well

Not for ammonia control, that's the easy part detailed in his thread example but for the microbial supports in your live rock that feed aged corals and make sps growth without rampant dinos invasions remotely possible

A lot of your live rock should stay in your water loop a while before it's removed to condition the new rock by transfer time for food web builders well beyond ammonia control ability

Why not just pull your current live rock, keep it, drill it for pvc mounts and have the exact same peninsula scape above

 

[Sesty22]

I've done it twice on my tank, its a lot smaller than yours. It's my first tank and I feel like it got better with each reset. But all I did was take out my existing rock, add the new uncured rock dumped in a bottle of Fritz for my sized tank and let it rip. I tested the water a few times the first time I did it and I never saw a spike in anything and my fish, shrimp, clam and corals all did fine both times. I'm happy with my current rock work so I think this will be the one I keep!

After the first rock reset went off without a hitch I wasn't nervous a bit the second time.

 

[rtparty]

If you are trusting aged corals adapted to a maturing biome to be relocated to a setup with zero biome u need to cycle the rocks really well

Not for ammonia control, that's the easy part detailed in his thread example but for the microbial supports in your live rock that feed aged corals and make sps growth without rampant dinos invasions remotely possible

A lot of your live rock should stay in your water loop a while before it's removed to condition the new rock by transfer time for food web builders well beyond ammonia control ability

Why not just pull your current live rock, keep it, drill it for pvc mounts and have the exact same peninsula scape above

I don’t like the Real Reef rock in there