- Joined
- May 16, 2019
- Messages
- 423
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- 335
I can attest to the people saying you moved too fast. I bought two tanks about a month apart. One was used and I helped the previous owner take it down. When I got it home it had been drained for only about an hour and I filled it and added back the coral sand and rock that was transported in buckets of old tank water. The other was a DIY build with fresh equipment and tank. After a few weeks I started adding fish... and in 3 months each tank was littered with frags of all kinds and fully stocked with fish. Everything in the used tank thrived and the DIY tank saw half the coral die-off and about 1/4 of fish didn't make it either. Both tanks have asymptomatic populations of ich because I didn't quarantine perfectly. but all fish in the used tank were comfortable and healthy enough to shrug it off while the fish in the DIY tank seemed to succumb more easily due to stress. The established ecosystem I carried over with the used tank, despite being dismantled and rebuilt, seems to have made all the difference in keeping a healthy tank.