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Posted this in the general discussion forum but thought i would post here as well.
Ok so we currently have a 75 FOWLR, non reef ready. Livestock consists of 1 sailfin tang, 1 firefish, 3 blue or green chromis, 2 clowns, 1 bicolor blenny, and a paired watchman goby and pistol shrimp (at least they were paired, haven't seen the pistol in a couple days). I know, I know probably not the best combination (especially the tang) for newbies but we trusted our LFS and learned a hard lesson. We also have various snails, hermits and a couple emerald crabs.
However we received a free 75 reef ready tank. Original plan was to find a stand for it, and sort of swap, turn the existing tank into kind of a predator tank or something. We want to get coral eventually and know a reef ready tank is probably the better option. However we've decided to take a long time before setting up a 2nd tank so we want to just swap everyone over to the reef ready tank.
I thought about a plan going something like this. Empty out our 10G backup/emergency tank and put some sand, live rock and water from the current set up in there. Take all the live stock and put them in there. Drain existing tank water into storage (buckets, new trash can, whatever), throw the power heads on there and a heater if needed. Move enough sand and live rock out of that tank and into the reef ready one to be able to life the existing tank off the stand without dropping the bottom out, at same time, not making new tank too heavy to lift. Put reef ready tank on stand, put the rest of live rock and sand in it from existing tank. Add some water to keep it wet and plumb our sump into to the new tank. Then put the water back in and move the livestock into the new tank (after testing to make sure the sump is plumbed correctly, etc).
Is this a horrible idea? Should I go grab like a cheap 20 gallon tank from somewhere instead of trying to get everyone into this 10 gallon? We are trying to get the swap does quickly but can't dump a ton of money into paying someone to do it or anything like that.
That also brings up, I did ok plumbing my sump (icecap 24 with one intake) to my HOB overflow box and the return but not a great job. I also didn't have any kind of check valve installed or manifolds and I understand that I probably want those installed (already have a check valve). Does anyone have any kind of layout drawings or something that would give me an idea of how to put it together?
Of course if anyone is a sump plumbing expert and wants to help do it I'd gladly provide pizza and beer haha.
Ok so we currently have a 75 FOWLR, non reef ready. Livestock consists of 1 sailfin tang, 1 firefish, 3 blue or green chromis, 2 clowns, 1 bicolor blenny, and a paired watchman goby and pistol shrimp (at least they were paired, haven't seen the pistol in a couple days). I know, I know probably not the best combination (especially the tang) for newbies but we trusted our LFS and learned a hard lesson. We also have various snails, hermits and a couple emerald crabs.
However we received a free 75 reef ready tank. Original plan was to find a stand for it, and sort of swap, turn the existing tank into kind of a predator tank or something. We want to get coral eventually and know a reef ready tank is probably the better option. However we've decided to take a long time before setting up a 2nd tank so we want to just swap everyone over to the reef ready tank.
I thought about a plan going something like this. Empty out our 10G backup/emergency tank and put some sand, live rock and water from the current set up in there. Take all the live stock and put them in there. Drain existing tank water into storage (buckets, new trash can, whatever), throw the power heads on there and a heater if needed. Move enough sand and live rock out of that tank and into the reef ready one to be able to life the existing tank off the stand without dropping the bottom out, at same time, not making new tank too heavy to lift. Put reef ready tank on stand, put the rest of live rock and sand in it from existing tank. Add some water to keep it wet and plumb our sump into to the new tank. Then put the water back in and move the livestock into the new tank (after testing to make sure the sump is plumbed correctly, etc).
Is this a horrible idea? Should I go grab like a cheap 20 gallon tank from somewhere instead of trying to get everyone into this 10 gallon? We are trying to get the swap does quickly but can't dump a ton of money into paying someone to do it or anything like that.
That also brings up, I did ok plumbing my sump (icecap 24 with one intake) to my HOB overflow box and the return but not a great job. I also didn't have any kind of check valve installed or manifolds and I understand that I probably want those installed (already have a check valve). Does anyone have any kind of layout drawings or something that would give me an idea of how to put it together?
Of course if anyone is a sump plumbing expert and wants to help do it I'd gladly provide pizza and beer haha.