Hi Everyone. I am totally new to the hobby and am looking forward to both learning and sharing with all of you. My name is Noah. I live outside of Raleigh, NC and have just moved into a beautiful house with my beautiful wife. Last week I traded a washer and dryer for my friends 5-6 yr old reef tank. He was moving into a new apartment and needed the machines. We used to work together and always talked about his tank. He also didn't have the room for the tank so we made the switch for both of our benefits.
Being totally new to reef tanks, he has taught me a great deal about how to successfully operate and maintain a happy, healthy ecosystem. Everything was going great until the move...
We live about 40 minutes apart and developed a plan to move the tank as quickly as possible. Once we arrived at my house and started unloading, we noticed that the back of the tank had cracked. this was most likely due to the fact that we didn't remove the protein skimmer. I believe one of the screws hit the tank just right when the truck hit a bump and ruined the tank. We tried desperately last Friday night to locate a replacement tank but had no success. Due to work schedules, all of the pet stores were closed at the time. Our last resort was to let the water, rocks, corals, and fish stay in buckets overnight.
We have a Black Ocellaris Clownfish, a Firefish Goby, and a Coral banded Shrimp. We put the three along with the Hammer Coral into a bucket with the smallest powerhead and the heater and prayed that they would survive the night.
Going into the move we knew that there might be some die off and were prepared for it. The next morning, my Wife and I got up and went to the pet store and bought basically the same tank (55g). We got home, cleaned up the lights, and the protein skimmer and transferred the sand into the new tank. We started placing the rocks with corals attached into the tank and started to fill it with the same water. After it had filled up about halfway, I added the 15 gallons of new saltwater to the tank and topped off the rest with the remaining old water.
We got the tank all set up. The fish seemed to be doing fine in their bucket. We had to wait for the temperature of the tank to rise before we put the fish in. Once it was right, we added the Clown, Goby, and Shrimp. The Clown started exploring immediately and the shrimp quickly found the cave we had built out of the rocks. The Goby looked really stressed and sat at the bottom for a bit before disappearing into the rocks. We actually didn't see him again until over 24 hours later. Now he's out all the time and seems happy.
I won't get into any tank specific problems here but will certainly start a thread in the appropriate forums plus pictures!
I'm excited about this new hobby and am eager to get the tank back on track. My friend didn't do a water change for at least 2 months prior to me taking it over. So I've added the 15g and plan on doing more this weekend. Everything seems to be doing well. The Clown has found his home in the Hammer Coral and loves it. The Shrimp loves his cave, and the Goby is becoming braver by the day. We also have a few hermit crabs that have been cruising around the tank as well as two (what I believe to be) Turbo Snails wreaking havoc. By wreaking havoc I mean crawling over everything, knocking over the Hammer Coral, and getting between the glass and powerhead vibrating louder than the protein skimmer is. In addition to the Hammer, we have a big Toadstool, plenty of small maroon and blue Mushrooms, an open and closed Brain, a piece of green coral that unfortunately broke in the move, and some orange corals which I don't know the name of.
Sorry for the lengthy text, but as I get into this forum I know that it will be easier to diagnose issues and understand each other if the full story is laid out. I'm going to try to post more this weekend.
Thanks for all of the helpful advice I've read already on TRT and for all of the advice I'm sure I'll get in the future.
-Noah
Being totally new to reef tanks, he has taught me a great deal about how to successfully operate and maintain a happy, healthy ecosystem. Everything was going great until the move...
We live about 40 minutes apart and developed a plan to move the tank as quickly as possible. Once we arrived at my house and started unloading, we noticed that the back of the tank had cracked. this was most likely due to the fact that we didn't remove the protein skimmer. I believe one of the screws hit the tank just right when the truck hit a bump and ruined the tank. We tried desperately last Friday night to locate a replacement tank but had no success. Due to work schedules, all of the pet stores were closed at the time. Our last resort was to let the water, rocks, corals, and fish stay in buckets overnight.
We have a Black Ocellaris Clownfish, a Firefish Goby, and a Coral banded Shrimp. We put the three along with the Hammer Coral into a bucket with the smallest powerhead and the heater and prayed that they would survive the night.
Going into the move we knew that there might be some die off and were prepared for it. The next morning, my Wife and I got up and went to the pet store and bought basically the same tank (55g). We got home, cleaned up the lights, and the protein skimmer and transferred the sand into the new tank. We started placing the rocks with corals attached into the tank and started to fill it with the same water. After it had filled up about halfway, I added the 15 gallons of new saltwater to the tank and topped off the rest with the remaining old water.
We got the tank all set up. The fish seemed to be doing fine in their bucket. We had to wait for the temperature of the tank to rise before we put the fish in. Once it was right, we added the Clown, Goby, and Shrimp. The Clown started exploring immediately and the shrimp quickly found the cave we had built out of the rocks. The Goby looked really stressed and sat at the bottom for a bit before disappearing into the rocks. We actually didn't see him again until over 24 hours later. Now he's out all the time and seems happy.
I won't get into any tank specific problems here but will certainly start a thread in the appropriate forums plus pictures!
I'm excited about this new hobby and am eager to get the tank back on track. My friend didn't do a water change for at least 2 months prior to me taking it over. So I've added the 15g and plan on doing more this weekend. Everything seems to be doing well. The Clown has found his home in the Hammer Coral and loves it. The Shrimp loves his cave, and the Goby is becoming braver by the day. We also have a few hermit crabs that have been cruising around the tank as well as two (what I believe to be) Turbo Snails wreaking havoc. By wreaking havoc I mean crawling over everything, knocking over the Hammer Coral, and getting between the glass and powerhead vibrating louder than the protein skimmer is. In addition to the Hammer, we have a big Toadstool, plenty of small maroon and blue Mushrooms, an open and closed Brain, a piece of green coral that unfortunately broke in the move, and some orange corals which I don't know the name of.
Sorry for the lengthy text, but as I get into this forum I know that it will be easier to diagnose issues and understand each other if the full story is laid out. I'm going to try to post more this weekend.
Thanks for all of the helpful advice I've read already on TRT and for all of the advice I'm sure I'll get in the future.
-Noah
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