Bringing home a new tank

O

Ourfish

Reefing newb
So we're going to be bringing home an established 33 gallon red sea max 130. It has some live rock, fish, soft coral, and urchin.

Our plan is to put the rocks, coral, urchin and fish in buckets with water for transporting home.

When we bring it all home, should we have mixed water ready to go to pour into our new tank? I guess we'll need to buy a heater to make sure the water's all at the right temperature.

After we pour the new water into the tank, can we just put our rocks, coral, urchin, and fish straight in?

Is there anything else we need to do/be aware of? We wanna do everything right.

thanks!
 
You should start making your water a few days ahead of time. Once you add the salt, you should ideally give it 24 hours to mix before using the water. It can take a little while for the salinity to even out. So yes, have water ready at the correct temperature. You can put the animals straight in. They will probably be a little stressed from moving, so it's not ideal, but there isn't any other way around it when you're moving an established tank.

It may help to keep some of the old water and add that to the new tank.

Be sure to put the rocks on the bottom of the tank first, then arrange the sand around them. If you put the rocks on top of the sand, you may cause a rockslide.

Good luck!
 
+1 Biff

If you want toi be super extra cautious, you could also drip-acclimate animals, just in case your pre-prepared water has a different PH/salinity. The less stress the better. If you can bring some of the old water with you, it would be even better to mix it w/ the new water. At least the parameters would be more or less the same.
 
wontonflip said:
+1 Biff

If you want toi be super extra cautious, you could also drip-acclimate animals, just in case your pre-prepared water has a different PH/salinity. The less stress the better. If you can bring some of the old water with you, it would be even better to mix it w/ the new water. At least the parameters would be more or less the same.
Click to expand...

What exactly is drip-acclimate?

We'll fill the buckets we're transporting the animals in with water so there will be some old water
 
https://www.livingreefs.com/acclimation-guide-t491.html

Drip acclimating is when you take an airline tube, put one end in the display tank, and the other end is below it into the place where the livestock is (usually, you only have a few cups of water in a baggie from the store).

You can tie a knot on the drip line or cut the line in 2, and put a gang valve to control water flow. Start your siphon. The point is to get water to drip slowly into the bag/container at a rate of a couple of drops a second (but the rate varies depending on who you ask).

This process takes 1-2 hours, but it ensures that the livestock slowly adjust to the parameters of your display tank. Also, when you fill it up to maybe 2-3 times the original volume, dump some water out.

I'm not sure if it's necessary with yours, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Normally, you would do this with fish you get from an lfs, since they usually keep their tanks at a much lower salinity than the average home tank. Plus they may have copper in their water. So you do not want to introduce fish store water in your tank. You would scoop out the fish, and put it in the tank. But since you're using the same water anyway, it'd be ok to dump the fish in the tank w/ that water after you drip-acclimate.

Again, it might be overkill, but it wouldn't hurt to do the drip.
 
If the tank has sand then just toss it and get new sand.... the old sand is going to be FULL of stuff that could cause a cycle when disturbed.

Like wonton said i'd also save some of the old water help acclimate... maybe 30% if you are able to?
 
Dakwan said:
If the tank has sand then just toss it and get new sand.... the old sand is going to be FULL of stuff that could cause a cycle when disturbed.

Like wonton said i'd also save some of the old water help acclimate... maybe 30% if you are able to?
Click to expand...


Would it help to not cause a cycle of we transported the sand in buckets of water..?
 
The problem is that there is LOADS of poop and old food and other stuff in the sand that as soon as you scoop it out is going to get stirred up and suspended in the water. If you clean it really well then you might be fine but sand is what 30 bucks for a 30 lb bag? i bought 3 for my 180 and ended up with WAY too much.. in a 30 gal you'd probably get a smaller bag for 20 bucks and be fine.

There is also the possibility that the tank has a gravel or crushed coral substrate which you would want to toss and replace with sand ANYWAYS
 
Dakwan said:
The problem is that there is LOADS of poop and old food and other stuff in the sand that as soon as you scoop it out is going to get stirred up and suspended in the water. If you clean it really well then you might be fine but sand is what 30 bucks for a 30 lb bag? i bought 3 for my 180 and ended up with WAY too much.. in a 30 gal you'd probably get a smaller bag for 20 bucks and be fine.

There is also the possibility that the tank has a gravel or crushed coral substrate which you would want to toss and replace with sand ANYWAYS
Click to expand...


oh, that makes sense. I thought that live sand was supposed to be a source of filtration, but it sounds like it only makes the water dirtier..
 
Haha sorry to confuse you... but it's kind of both. It provides a place for bacteria to grow BUT it also is a place were detritus gets trapped. It's why you are encouraged to get an assorted of snails, hermits and other clean up crew members. It helps keep your sand free of all that junk while you can still have it there for aesthetic and filtration reasons
 
If you are dead set on using it here is what i would do.. and others can comment if they think there is a better way.

Drain the tank with out disturbing the sand at all if possible, put aside a bucket of old tank water.

rinse the sand super thoroughly in old tank water (not the bucket you saved! or other water you are saving to use in the tank). . Keep rinsing until there are no suspended particles in the water when you stir the sand up. if you can't get it clean with the small amount of water you have left you might have to use RO water if you can or even tap water. If you have to use freshwater it will kill all the bacteria which you don't want. But in a 33 gallon i don't think there will be enough old tank water left over to rinse it enough.

Stick the rinsed sand in the bucket of tank water (after draining all water out of the sand) and then when you get home stick a powerhead and heater in it... wait 4-5 or so days and start testing for ammonia. If you have no ammonia then you can put it in the tank otherwise it means the sand is cycling and you can wait out the cycle
 
Dakwan said:
If you are dead set on using it here is what i would do.. and others can comment if they think there is a better way.

Drain the tank with out disturbing the sand at all if possible, put aside a bucket of old tank water.

rinse the sand super thoroughly in old tank water (not the bucket you saved! or other water you are saving to use in the tank). . Keep rinsing until there are no suspended particles in the water when you stir the sand up. if you can't get it clean with the small amount of water you have left you might have to use RO water if you can or even tap water. If you have to use freshwater it will kill all the bacteria which you don't want. But in a 33 gallon i don't think there will be enough old tank water left over to rinse it enough.

Stick the rinsed sand in the bucket of tank water (after draining all water out of the sand) and then when you get home stick a powerhead and heater in it... wait 4-5 or so days and start testing for ammonia. If you have no ammonia then you can put it in the tank otherwise it means the sand is cycling and you can wait out the cycle
Click to expand...

So I can put the live rock and coral in, and then add the live sand later?
 
okay.

when we're stacking the rocks in the tank, is there any special way we have to stack them or things to consider?

We're wanting to do a sort of stairs formation where like the whole back of the tank is covered and the tinier rocks are at the top. Is this fine? Does it make much of a difference for how we arrange our rocks?
 
It doesn't make a difference. You can stack them how you like. Just make sure the rocks on top are stable so that they can't come crashing down. Try to leave holes, crannies and crevices for fish to hide and swim around in.
 
In terms of chemicals, test kits, etc., will the following be enough? Or are we missing some important things?

One test kit for Calcium, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia Phosphate etc. A master kit.
Calcium Additive
Iodine Additive
Prime water conditioner
Mysis shrimp food (is this fish food..?)
seaweed (what's this for? is this also fish food?)

thanks
 
You don't need the iodine additive. Doing water changes will keep those in check. Be sure you have a pH test kit. You can also skip the phosphate test kit. They are really inaccurate and their readings don't mean much. Be sure to add an alkalinity test kit. If you are using tap water, you will need the water conditioner. It's not necessary if you use RODI water. Mysis is good food. You only need the seaweed sheets if you have herbivorous fish like tangs and rabbit fish. Which you should not have in a 30 gallon tank! So you can pass on the seaweed sheets. Stick with a variety of frozen food. You are also missing a refractometer to measure salinity and a thermometer to keep track of temperatures.
 

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