Advice for: Rescape a 3 year old with existing LR

[Futuretotm]

Since the tank I want is around 10K, I am looking to re-scape my current tank, I wish my rocks were lower to the sand bed instead of halfway up.

thinking of catching fish and placing in a Brute.
Breaking off all current corals and place in sump perhaps.
Breaking/epoxing the LR that is in the display tank
Any words of advice appreciated.

 

[Lavey29]

I dig the way it looks. Maybe instead of rocks give a few big corals to your LFS for credit and try some different pieces. That's what I did.

 

[tzabor10]

Looks great to me. Good luck with the project

 

[Lemons]

Hear me out... start another tank?

If you're married. Beg for another tank? LOL

 

[brandon429]

I sure do have some advice, that tank is worth over ten grand where I'm from.

do you have any specific threads handy that directly show how to disassemble and rework tanks like that, with that much old growth, as a prep read before you begin? I wouldn't start this job without seeing some prior similars go down.

the job itself is a great idea, but that tank is massive work you'll have to prep and commit in a serious order of ops to keep all that alive for the second assembly. When you set up the new tank, not starting with full power lighting that you run now is key, that's a hidden key bleach controller

what you need is a skip cycle tank transfer thread to copy. that tank is worth far too much dough to risk a method we can't directly read in action before you begin.

 

[brandon429]

what you choose to do with the sand, and how it's done, can be a direct cause of loss. the clouding that it holds simply must not ride over to the new tank

not even one handful, as a 'seed'

specifically do not do that part, start with absolutely cloudless rinsed sand in the next tank. transfer zero clouding from the old tank to the new one/paired-down aquascape version. there is no room for error in a system of that age and maturity. there are examples of a fish kill resulting from a handful of sand moved over. there's something about upwelling waste formerly stratified that we cannot identify as a direct causative in this type of fish kill, but we know it's associate: sandbed clouding.

to move that tank cloudlessly will preserve it. that, and the light power drop at the new start (don't start with the same power level this tank rose to, key bleach control tactic we use in tank transfer threads)

after the setup, reduce your overall light power at the same spectrum setting by -30% and slowly work back up to just shy of this level. that method is core in handling that much live coral in tank surgery.

 

[brandon429]

the specific answer to your breaking/removing live rock (functioning filter surface area) is this based on searchable logged jobs:

you do not risk creating too few bacteria to handle your collective tank waste after a removal job, a thinning down job, as long as you're still using some common degree of live rock afterwards. It is not true that your reef tank's cycle is adapted to this current degree of bacteria, and to ramp down slowly is safer, that's not true at all but it's the common recommend in situations like yours.

the uncommon but completely safe method is to make your pairing down as planned: with the sensitive animals held and covered from jumping elsewhere. this is so that any released clouding during the work doesn't affect them

and we're rip cleaning the tank because preserving that clouding by letting it resettle does not help the tank, being in a state of total waste removed with hungry corals able to eat up a bunch of fresh new spot food is what preserves that tank. you have the ability to de-age that reef at the same time you're handling it in an aseptic manner to prevent detritus cloud upwelling; to rip clean the tank removes years of pent up waste and simply buys more years you can re pack new waste in it. you're reversing the bell curve in quality that aging reef tanks display

you're reducing the need to ever have to use antibiotics like cipro to stop rtn by rip cleaning an aging reef tank, to be free of waste and accumulated detritus does for a reef tank what a trip to the dentist does for a human mouth. if you're going to access the core filtration structure of the tank, it needs to be done in a thorough manner already documented to work well on tanks like this.

lack of surface area due to pairing down the scape is not the risk, the hidden risk is 100% any clouding that results from the access process or is left in the system to resettle afterwards.

make the system waste free for the total win, and years added to lifespan.