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Our 57g rimless

NikkiT

NikkiT

I am pleased to report that the 57g is finally up and running! So it may have taken us 21 months and 22 days since buying it to get it up and running, but whose counting?
So. . . the tale begins!
As many of you know, this is the tank Mike and I bought for ourselves as a wedding gift to each other, which as sat dry for quite a while (did I mention that it has been dry for 21 months and 22 days? )
Well, on Friday we moved to our new house, and on Saturday, Ethan came down and plumbed it and set it up for us (thanks again Ethan!), and yesterday we introduced the livestock.
We moved most of the former inhabitants of the 45g cube into this tank, and reshuffled the inhabitants of the 30g cube into the 45g. I had a bit of a problem getting some of our small fish out of the rockwork before we moved; as a result, some of our fish are still pretty stressed. The sunburst anathia traveled over in a rock, as did more than one of the barnacle blennies, and the yellow assessor basslet traveled over in a container full of rock. Unsurprisingly, the fish that are doing best (ie out and about rather than cowering terrified in the rockwork) are the picaso clown pair, the mandarin pair, the neon goby, and the barnacle blennies that traveled in the fish bucket. The Yasha Hasa goby and the helfrichi traveled in the bucket as well, but they have been hiding since we released them into the tank- terrified, I assume. The Mystery Wrasse was out and swimming this morning. The Basselt was out and about last night in the late evening, he is a bit skittish to begin with, so I'm hoping that he is ok. Tonight I'll be on the lookout to make sure everyone is ok.
The gorgonian and spiralis made the transfer well, and most of the SPS had PE this AM (and yes, i did autofrag more than one of them in the transfer- I'm sure no one is surprised by that). The Duncan was being harassed by the clowns as usual, and not happy, and the clam did not look particularly happy this morning either. I am hoping that they will look better this evening.
Once we get internet in the house, we will post pictures.
 
P

picasso

WorthlessWithoutPics.jpg


Glad you finally got some water in it. I LOVE rimless tanks!
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
I kept thinking to go grab my camera but the weekend was so hectic I just forgot. Also there was a snafu with the lighting so that won't be here until tomorrow.

The live rock was pulled from our previous builds and we put in a brand new sand bed. We also adde seachem stability and another instant cycle product. We have moved and setup our tanks twice before with this method and been successful. I wish I had more time to cycle but all we had was the weekend.
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

SHLUZER said:
What about cycling the tank, rockwork (and some pics) ?
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We have actually done this before, hence the fact that we do not reuse sand. Moving a sand bed stirs up all sorts of nastyness, so we restart with a new, live sand bed. By utilizing a large amount of live sand, and plenty of fully cycled live rock, which has been in our tanks for some time (some if it is more than 4 years old) which we transport wet, we reduce the "cycle" and further reduce it by using an instant-cycle product.
This is NOT a recommendation for how to set up a tank.
In an ideal world, we would have had the tanks up and running before moving livestock, but when the alternative home was a rubbermade with live rock a powerhead and a light in the basement, this was the best of limited options. We also have lots of saltwater in the house right now, so that if we have to do large water changes, we can. When doing a restart this way, you have to be VERY VERY careful, and things can still go wrong. We have our fingers crossed.
 
TanksNStuff

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Good luck with it you two. I'm looking forward to seeing pics, but understand all the other stuff that needs to be taken care of when moving into a new home. If you could throw up one or two quickies to at least let us see the rockscape... I'm sure that will tide us over until you post up the rest. ;)
 
Tazmaniancowboy

Tazmaniancowboy

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
TanksNStuff said:
If you could throw up one or two quickies to at least let us see the rockscape... I'm sure that will tide us over until you post up the rest. ;)
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I think you should hold on to the pics and keep the suspense until the meeting! ;D
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Quick update, I bought a shopvac and they make water changes the easiest thing in the world. Stick hose in sump, 10 seconds later the water is out, highly recommended. Pulled the filter socks, was not a huge fan of them. AI units are up and running, started at 30%, going to ramp up slowly.
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

Ok, so the livestock has been in the tank for a week. The good news: the clowns, the mandarines, the cleaner goby, and the blennies have settled right in. The wrasse is skittish, but looks fine and so far has left the cleaner shrimp who snuck in alone. The helfrichi and the assessor seem to be afraid of the wrasse; they spend a lot of time hiding. However, the gorgonian looks really nice, as does the spirals.
The bad news: We lost our clam, and I have not seen the sunburst anathias in 5 days, I am afraid he is no longer :(
It took us a while to get ourselves in good shape with lighting (for those in the market for a rimless tank, take note: standard sized lighting fixtures may not fit). The leds are on the tank, on feet right now rather than hung, so we have them dialed back to 30 percent as we have a bit of a spotlight effect going on at the moment.
We also had some trouble with space; there were several fags on the sand bed that lost flesh as a result of being partially buried, and a couple that chalice warfare did in, unfortunately. We also have several that are alive, but lost flesh to each other. We are hopeing to get things situated a bit better over the next few days. Our corals have definitely browned out a bit, I'll be running some tests tonight to figure out what our water parameters are.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
So bad news strikes the 57g.

The 46g tank was uncovered for an entire year with not one fish jumping out, and that included a helfrichi and a yasha. So we move everything and put covers over both tanks (one over the 45g for the jawfish and one over the 57g for the wrasses). I left a tiny opening in the front of the tank and the cover and both the helfrichi and yasha freaking jump. We are sure they were just freaked out by the mystery wrasse and went carpet surfing. We are not contemplating pulling the mystery wrasse (if we can get him out) and going with all small fish in the tank.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

sorry to hear the news.

how are the blennies and assessor reacting to the wrasse? i do hope those cool blennies are fine.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
The blennies could care less they have found a bunch of little holes in the live rock and just hang out.  The assesor does not come out really at all during the day but later on he is out and about swimming and looks really nice.  We are going to pull the mystery wrasse, we just have to come up with a plan to get him out.  We loved the 45g with a bunch of small non aggressive fish and I think that is how the 57g is going to be setup.  Also I saw a bunch of small fish at the LFS that would fit just fine, a sohal, vlamingi, and hippo tang, they all stay small right? ;)
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

downbeach said:
Heck, I think you could include a Desjardini Sailfin Tang in with those other Tangs too. ::)
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LOL, thats a GREAT idea, I think that another good fit might be a dogface puffer. . . they are reef safe, and 57g is pleanty for them, right :)

No seriously, I think that we are going to go with some super small fish. I was REALLY REALLY upset to find the helfrichi and the yasha on the floor last night, the worst part is that it is all our fault for not making sure that the cover was fully secure.
Let that be a lesson to you NJRC members, just becuase you had a fish that didn't jump in the past doesn't mean that it won't find a tiny little hole in a new enviroment if it is uncomfortable :(
 
NikkiT

NikkiT

blange3 said:
Sorry about the losses but it sounds like a great tank!
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Thanks Bill :)
We'll get it back up to par, I am just bummed about the fish. Hopefully, we'll get the wrasse out soon and everyone else will calm down. We'd love to show off if you can make it down to the meeting :)
 
howze01

howze01

NJRC Member
Can't wait for some pics! Of course I think this is going to be the one meeting in the past 5 or 6 months I can't make it to :-\ Stupid vacation....
 
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