Reef Rebuild

[Rjohn]

I developed a small leak on my outflow bulkhead. It's on the bottom of the tank so I am going to take it all down, seal it, and put it back together. While I have it down, I want to change the outflow from just a tube to a DIY spillover box. I also want to change the inflow from a tube to something else. I am told the PVC tubes get very brittle after several years and I don't want to risk another leak or even a complete meltdown.

What I am planning is to get 2 or 3 fairly large containers from Walmart and offload all my rock, livestock, and some of the crushed coral bed into them. I will add a power head to keep the water moving and maybe a bubbler as well.

The instructions on the sealant say it needs 48hrs to cure before adding water back into the aquarium. Does anyone think this will have adverse affects on the livestock if they are in makeshift containers for 2 or 3 days? I know livestock is shipped but that is mostly overnight, isn't it?

[+KeeperOfTheZoo]

Ric,

When I moved my tank across town my fish were in storage containers for 24+ hours. I put aerators (pumps with an air stone, though I've read this can cause pH spikes so I'm not sure it's a good idea, I think a slow power head would be better) in the containers and everyone did just fine. No losses as all. All live rock was in containers and covered with water, ditto my CC and the few inverts and corals (tough stuff) that came with the tank.

If you can get the real big containers it's like a mini tank. Fill it with water from your tank (which is what I did, didn't make new water), add in some live rock so the fish can hide. You'll be fine. Just make sure that you don't overfill the plastic containers and explode them, I've heard stories about it happening!

Coolers make great water containers too. I brought inverts home from FL in a cooler, 48+ hours on the road and pretty much everything did fine and that was quite a massive change in environment.

[Timfish]

You should be fine. I've gone a week or more with corals in a bucket with an airline and a strip light set on top without problems.

[pbnj]

I would keep the livestock separate from the rocks and coralbed (maybe one or two pieces of rock for hiding places). You're going to stir-up an awful lot of detritus moving the rocks/coralbed.

[Hamp]

+1 on being careful moving the sandbed around.

[mFrame]

I'd talk to Prof, he has a very large (110g?) container that he often lends out to people.

[Rjohn]

I would keep the livestock separate from the rocks and coralbed (maybe one or two pieces of rock for hiding places). You're going to stir-up an awful lot of detritus moving the rocks/coralbed.

I thought I would use this opportunity to clean up the crushed coral a bit. I don't want to recycle the tank if I can avoid it but I'd like to remove as much detritus as possible. I am also going to remove about half of what I am currently using.

[Timfish]

When I move a tank to clean the sand without doing much damage to the bacteria I'll dump it into a bucket of salt water. DON'T DO THIS ON CARPET! I'll save the sand for the very last thing to take out and dump about a 1/4 bucket of sand into 1/2 bucket of saltwater. I like to do this at least 2 or 3 times if I've got enough saltwater made up. It doesn't get all the detritus out but does a pretty good job. This isn't real practicle though with a Juabert system or deep sand bed where you may have several buckets of sand, I'd be tempted to throw out part and get new live sand.

[Rjohn]

When I move a tank to clean the sand without doing much damage to the bacteria I'll dump it into a bucket of salt water. DON'T DO THIS ON CARPET! I'll save the sand for the very last thing to take out and dump about a 1/4 bucket of sand into 1/2 bucket of saltwater. I like to do this at least 2 or 3 times if I've got enough saltwater made up. It doesn't get all the detritus out but does a pretty good job. This isn't real practicle though with a Juabert system or deep sand bed where you may have several buckets of sand, I'd be tempted to throw out part and get new live sand.

I am using crushed coral, not sand. However, I think my bed is too deep. It's about 3 inches. I am going to lower it to about an inch or so - more than a bare bottom but much less than a deep sand bed.

[Timfish]

Doing the dumping thing should work with crushed coral too but I'm guessing as deep as you have it you've got at least two 5 gal buckets if not more and it'll be a lot of work doing a quarter bucket at a time and it is a messy technique.

[Rjohn]

Doing the dumping thing should work with crushed coral too but I'm guessing as deep as you have it you've got at least two 5 gal buckets if not more and it'll be a lot of work doing a quarter bucket at a time and it is a messy technique.

Assuming my memory is correct, I used a 40lb bag of crushed coral which was almost a 5 gallon bucket full. I am planning to dump half of it. Washing half a bucket of CC a little at a time shouldn't be too awful.