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sbakke

Upgrade Strategy

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by
sbakke
, 07-07-2011 at 07:41 PM (1112 Views)
At some point over the last year I had a small leak from my sump. This leak managed to cause a little trouble with my cheap stand for my 95g reef. Of course this gives me a perfect excuse to upgrade to a larger tank . While I'd love to go really big, my current space (home office) only really allows a 180g setup (6ft x 2ft x2ft). During this upgrade, I was hoping that I could setup the new tank and plumb it into the existing system prior to moving any livestock over while both benefit from the existing established system. Does this make sense or is it a better idea to create two separate systems and move live rock, fish over slowly (ie. separate sumps, skimmers, etc)?


Damage from the front:
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Damage from the side:
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While I don't have any exciting corals, my philosophy has been to slowly buy $5-$15 frags with a couple more expensive purchases until I was able to prove I was able to establish an environment favorable to their success. Right now things are getting pretty crowded so I'm excited to upgrade.
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Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Steve

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‎ Questions - Need some input

Comments

  1. Robb in Austin's Avatar
    If at all possible, setup the new system first separately, and let it run for a bit. It won't truly cycle until you get rock/livestock in there. And, it will let you double check for leaks, etc. (I went from a 58 to a 75 this way, they were 2 ft apart, and I added some base rock from the 58 first, along with some Seachem Stability and didn't have any issues.)

    I'd recommend getting rid of any 'newbie friendly but borderline pest corals', eg GSP, during the switch too. If you have to buy some new dead rock first then so be it. I didn't and am regretting it now; gsp/anthelia/xenia are taking over again.
  2. sbakke's Avatar
    Thanks! I will definitely try to eliminate the gsp.
  3. Robb in Austin's Avatar
    Forgot to mention this...

    Your aquascape will never go back together again. If any of your corals are attached to multiple, you will probably break them during the move.

    Good luck and post pics!