hebdizzle
Community Member
Apologies in advance for the long post.
I am about to go through a few stages of reefkeeping, perhaps simultaneously, and want to confirm my strategy.
I have a 150 gallon SCA aquarium with 40 gallon sump. I am moving houses so will need to move the tank and it’s inhabitants, we are only moving a short distance.
I set up the tank in March 2021 and found out soon thereafter that our family was growing and we needed more space, hence the move. Since I knew we would be moving I’ve kept the tank lightly stocked:
- 2 ocellaris clowns
- 1 royal gramma
- 1 fire fish
- 2 emerald crabs, a few astrea snails, and a few hermit crabs.
- Approximately 12 coral frags - mixed reef.
I want to take the “opportunity” of the move to do a few additional things, which I think could best be accomplished concurrently:
- I want to switch from ich management to ich eradication approach to quarantining and stocking
- I want to overhaul my aquascape to move to a NSA-like approach
- My aquarium is currently built in-wall. At the new house, it will be going in the living room. I’d like to skin my dimensional lumber stand in plywood, trim, and paint it. In addition, I’d like to lower the height of the stand as it was too tall in the in-wall setup. This is to say when I move, the tank won’t be immediately available to set-up, as I’d prefer to do these projects in my workshop in the garage, and not my living room.
Here is my plan:
- I assume I have ich in my system. My royal gramma had white spots and was flashing frequently early on when I got him. I have a 20 gallon tank that I will set up as a quarantine/hospital tank. I will transfer the fish directly to this tank and use a copper-based medication to quarantine before transferring to the new tank location.
- I will get a small tank (perhaps 10G) to house the corals and invertebrates temporarily as they can’t go in the medicated tank. I will dip the corals at the time of putting them in the holding tank and again when going into the 150 display.
- I will move the 150 tank from old house to new garage and get to work on stand changes, and when complete, I’ll setup the tank, stand, and sump in the living room.
- I’ll put some of rock in a tub with heater and keep fallow at 80 degrees for 6 weeks, while ghost feeding, to avoid having to re-cycle. I’ll select some pieces to cook that I think could be re-used directly in the new aquascape.
- The remaining rock I will allow to die and will use it to create an improved aquascape and will add this directly to the display once done.
So in conclusion, my questions are:
- Does the plan above seem sound - are there any time or effort efficiencies you could find?
- Would I need new sand even thought the existing sand is only 8 months or so old? Or rinse and replace?
- Does this plan properly address my desire to eradicate ich in my system (insofar as all further additions are quarantined)?
- Anything I’m missing ?
Thank you!
