Tank Upgrade/transfer

[MadCaddy]

Well as expected I am a recent victim of the Red Sea G1 tank failures…although it was somewhat planned for…I had lowballed my local shop for a new reefer 250 based on the known risks with the G1. Knowing I could get the extended warranty with a new tank and replace it if a problem arose. I noticed a small bubble in one of the seams after two years, followed up with Red Sea (customer service was fantastic) and they offered to replace the entire thing with a G2+ system.
But I digress. I’m going to be transferring to the new tank which is something I’ve never done. The worst part is my current system has a horrible aptasia outbreak. I’m trying to snuff it out but each attempt just brings more of the little beasts. Is there anything I can do during the transfer to help rid me of the aptasia so I’m starting with more of a clean slate? Replace sand? Scrub live rock? Flame thrower? Any other general tips on performing the transfer of livestock and corals etc?

 

[brandon429]

This is the #1 thing i like to do:

Outbound (not my tank, someone else's tank) skip cycle transfers

Yours is already guaranteed successful :) here's 300 examples all in one thread

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/
*you don't have to read fifty pages
All the jobs are the same

Pick four jobs logged across several different pages, study everything we did in the four

Then you run your transfer and take pics please, we build with those. I'm 100% certain yours will be fine though it does seem crazy i know.


The number one thing we did, in all tanks, the title of the thread: if you rinse your sandbed with tap water the tank skip cycles

That's all 300 jobs. If you think it's safer not to rinse that's ironically so dangerous the first few reading examples are those kinds of crashes

Simply copying any four jobs shows tank takedown, fish held in covered totes, all rocks rasped clean of any algae using surgical knife tip scraping like a reef dentist, then you extract sand and rip clean it

Then you use a clear glass to verify the rinse of sand was complete, zero clouding

Then you put all cloudless things in the new tank

Fill with water matching temp and salinity

Test nothing but temp and salinity

Add no supplements like bottle bac, simply do our skip cycle rip clean for the win. I really really need your pics and transfer videos please, some fellas over at Humbles site thought it was a silly offer to assist in preemptive red sea seam split transfers, so the fact you posted for one jn is mighty savory. We can do an extra good job on yours

Let's see the current tank pic to get an idea of stocking details and layout


***no filter media, bioballs, ceramic filter media, sponges, stones in the sump/ literally everything meant for filtration other than simply the tanks live rock: don't move it over.

If you must relocate filter surface area, make it all new dry filter pads installed/ not cycled. Reef tanks don't benefit from extra surface area beyond live rock, it's a liability, a bioload we don't need to transfer. The initial skip cycle is afforded for all those big reefs because we moved the barest degree of ultra clean reef items. We did opposite of the common rule for the win

 

[brandon429]

Also you should see in pattern if you read several pages of pictures: the tanks come out better than they showed up

Because, the masses are wrong about how reef bacteria work and they're training each other that more is always better (not the case, oxygen hogs, acid producers en masse, + other liabilities of extra surface area in reefing)

The truth is less is better, for tank transfers because we're all precisely controlling how much waste goes back into the new system this way (not any) vs old filter pads half rinsed and reinstalled. Ironically, assertiveness in reef washing makes the safer outcome while hesitation and impartial/no rinsing comprises the only fail examples in the whole thread.

The reason all the tanks look better after the rip clean, vs harmed, is the same reason our mouths feel better after a rough dentist office cleaning visit

'More' bacteria in a human mouth isn't better, a balanced, very clean lower bacterial profile via physical controls we apply makes for the healthier mouth

To sit idly for nine years compiling waste does work for many reefs... we're just undoing that trend with a healthy ole trip to the reef dentist then the corals pop and stand out strong because all the offensive allelopathic compounds associated with tank waste are gone. Every one of these tanks is an old mouth being transformed: we're working the teeth and tongue of the reef tank and they like scrubbing, like a reef storm event, occasionally

not the idleness we were once told was the only way. To be waste free and well-fed (the post rip clean condition) is why all these rebuilt tanks look sharp


* we do not ever test for ammonia or any cycling parameter unless someone has a seneye they can use for proof... other than that we don't want testing because misreads make too much distraction

 

[BryanM]

Well as expected I am a recent victim of the Red Sea G1 tank failures…although it was somewhat planned for…I had lowballed my local shop for a new reefer 250 based on the known risks with the G1. Knowing I could get the extended warranty with a new tank and replace it if a problem arose. I noticed a small bubble in one of the seams after two years, followed up with Red Sea (customer service was fantastic) and they offered to replace the entire thing with a G2+ system.
But I digress. I’m going to be transferring to the new tank which is something I’ve never done. The worst part is my current system has a horrible aptasia outbreak. I’m trying to snuff it out but each attempt just brings more of the little beasts. Is there anything I can do during the transfer to help rid me of the aptasia so I’m starting with more of a clean slate? Replace sand? Scrub live rock? Flame thrower? Any other general tips on performing the transfer of livestock and corals etc?

So when I did mine, all the rock went in to a brute with my current tank water.

If it was me, I would use F-aptasia with coral putty. I'd take a rock out, I'd address the aptasia, make yourself a putty disc, fill it with aptasia X, cover the little cuthulu SOB, and place the rock in the brute.

 

[MadCaddy]

So when I did mine, all the rock went in to a brute with my current tank water.

If it was me, I would use F-aptasia with coral putty. I'd take a rock out, I'd address the aptasia, make yourself a putty disc, fill it with aptasia X, cover the little cuthulu SOB, and place the rock in the brute.

There’s dozens of them and each time I kill one there are twice as many the following week. Was going to try nudibranchs but didn’t want to invest in the if I’m going to be transferring the tank (in case I lose them in the sand or something). Aptasia x is what I currently use and I’m convinced it’s what caused them to spread so badly.

 

[winxp_man]

File fish? :relieved-face:

 

[BryanM]

There’s dozens of them and each time I kill one there are twice as many the following week. Was going to try nudibranchs but didn’t want to invest in the if I’m going to be transferring the tank (in case I lose them in the sand or something). Aptasia x is what I currently use and I’m convinced it’s what caused them to spread so badly.

That’s why I like using the putty as well, entomb them.

 

[winxp_man]

That’s why I like using the putty as well, entomb them.

That Pharaoh servant treatment! Get buried alive! Haha!

 

[BryanM]

Otherwise just move em, get the new tank in order, and get some nudis after its re-established.

 

[MadCaddy]

This is the #1 thing i like to do:

Outbound (not my tank, someone else's tank) skip cycle transfers

Yours is already guaranteed successful :) here's 300 examples all in one thread

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/
*you don't have to read fifty pages
All the jobs are the same

Pick four jobs logged across several different pages, study everything we did in the four

Then you run your transfer and take pics please, we build with those. I'm 100% certain yours will be fine though it does seem crazy i know.


The number one thing we did, in all tanks, the title of the thread: if you rinse your sandbed with tap water the tank skip cycles

That's all 300 jobs. If you think it's safer not to rinse that's ironically so dangerous the first few reading examples are those kinds of crashes

Simply copying any four jobs shows tank takedown, fish held in covered totes, all rocks rasped clean of any algae using surgical knife tip scraping like a reef dentist, then you extract sand and rip clean it

Then you use a clear glass to verify the rinse of sand was complete, zero clouding

Then you put all cloudless things in the new tank

Fill with water matching temp and salinity

Test nothing but temp and salinity

Add no supplements like bottle bac, simply do our skip cycle rip clean for the win. I really really need your pics and transfer videos please, some fellas over at Humbles site thought it was a silly offer to assist in preemptive red sea seam split transfers, so the fact you posted for one jn is mighty savory. We can do an extra good job on yours

Let's see the current tank pic to get an idea of stocking details and layout


***no filter media, bioballs, ceramic filter media, sponges, stones in the sump/ literally everything meant for filtration other than simply the tanks live rock: don't move it over.

If you must relocate filter surface area, make it all new dry filter pads installed/ not cycled. Reef tanks don't benefit from extra surface area beyond live rock, it's a liability, a bioload we don't need to transfer. The initial skip cycle is afforded for all those big reefs because we moved the barest degree of ultra clean reef items. We did opposite of the common rule for the win

I had a terrible time with various ugly stages, Dino’s etc when first starting out. Will cleaning the sand like this or putting all new sand like this open me up to that whole process again?

 

[brandon429]

= no, it is the fix to that condition missed as a cure option because the people who teach about dinos work exclude the option since they don't use it.


study of any set of jobs here will reveal complete stability afterwards, there's no other way to make transfers as safely (which is why there aren't 2 tank transfer work threads to reference, there's just one)

most of what we're told about marine bacteria from our peers is not correct, this is why the work we compiled seems doubtful but the truth is this is year 9, we're on a roll thankfully due to all the time people take to document their move jobs.

as you study jobs to gain the patterns, you can select 'find all threads' by someone who ran a rip clean there


and from that, you can chart the history of their tank via posts they made months/years following. data here can be used to verify interesting things for sure, take us good pics we will use em
B

 

[brandon429]

what we're doing is very simple: using skip cycle ordering of ops to simply exclude all waste from the final setup. that's it, nothing beyond that. all we do is remove detritus then set the whole thing back up, and that removal is what skips the cycle, it's not via addition of things. < the real truth is opposite of what the public would advise, that part always interests me. regardless of the sand you use in the new tank, its tap water rinsed, who knew that would be the key to aligning hundreds of reef tanks/it is tho.

actually crashing/ losing a tank from skipping the rinse isn't likely, a huge extended outbreak of waste + invasion is likely, and our patterns show total control there solely due to the rinsing steps. hope this helps

*here's a recent thread I saw for a non rinsed tank transfer, the outcome was predicted/this reader never knew about our system here because the mods won't sticky this thread/and it wasn't up top I guess when he was building transfer plans. if we could get stickied, we could save way more tanks for sure: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tank-transfer-and-cycle.1091619/

 

[MadCaddy]

Well as expected I am a recent victim of the Red Sea G1 tank failures…although it was somewhat planned for…I had lowballed my local shop for a new reefer 250 based on the known risks with the G1. Knowing I could get the extended warranty with a new tank and replace it if a problem arose. I noticed a small bubble in one of the seams after two years, followed up with Red Sea (customer service was fantastic) and they offered to replace the entire thing with a G2+ system.
But I digress. I’m going to be transferring to the new tank which is something I’ve never done. The worst part is my current system has a horrible aptasia outbreak. I’m trying to snuff it out but each attempt just brings more of the little beasts. Is there anything I can do during the transfer to help rid me of the aptasia so I’m starting with more of a clean slate? Replace sand? Scrub live rock? Flame thrower? Any other general tips on performing the transfer of livestock and corals etc?

Any other thoughts on the aptasia? Is there anything I can soak the rocks in first that won’t kill the bio filter I have going? I’d rather not have to start cycling from scratch.

 

[winxp_man]

Any other thoughts on the aptasia? Is there anything I can soak the rocks in first that won’t kill the bio filter I have going? I’d rather not have to start cycling from scratch.

Soaking the rocks in anything that will kill aptasia will more than likely kill anything else along side aptasia. Basic common sense would tell you this. Not trying to be a ******, just fact of life. Now other creatures that will take care of it have been listed in this thread.

 

[Idech]

Any other thoughts on the aptasia? Is there anything I can soak the rocks in first that won’t kill the bio filter I have going? I’d rather not have to start cycling from scratch.

Get a filefish for the new tank. Get one that has been fed aiptasia and also frozen food. No more aiptasia for me since I did (more than a year ago).