Connecting Established Reef To New Tank

[motortrendz]

So ill give you an update on my woes. Lol. I finally have a hold on my acros, I lost 10 during my addition. It took me a few days to finally get the sodium nitrate in. I recieved it wed and started dosing immediately. Now I have my nitrates at 8 and po4 about .15 and my lights are dimmed to about 60% of what I normally do. My water has cleared up from the sight haze its had for about a week. Dinos in my frag tank have basically dissapeared. And the spots of gha are dwindling. I should have anticipated the nutrient drop and had some on hand. Expensive lesson learned. Lost some of my favorite acros. Most were large encrusted frags. But my red planet and chritmas miribalis colonies died. It really didnt matter how much I was feeding it really didnt bring up nutrients. Dosing them was the only real way to get them up.

I'm so.happy for you that you were able to manage this without loosing any acros. I'm hoping im.in the clear now as it's been a few days since I've seen any acros stn, and I'm seeing decent PE again. I'll feel even better when the ones that faded start to darken again (not worried about colors at this point just thickened zooanthele)

 

[ScottB]

So ill give you an update on my woes. Lol. I finally have a hold on my acros, I lost 10 during my addition. It took me a few days to finally get the sodium nitrate in. I recieved it wed and started dosing immediately. Now I have my nitrates at 8 and po4 about .15 and my lights are dimmed to about 60% of what I normally do. My water has cleared up from the sight haze its had for about a week. Dinos in my frag tank have basically dissapeared. And the spots of gha are dwindling. I should have anticipated the nutrient drop and had some on hand. Expensive lesson learned. Lost some of my favorite acros. Most were large encrusted frags. But my red planet and chritmas miribalis colonies died. It really didnt matter how much I was feeding it really didnt bring up nutrients. Dosing them was the only real way to get them up.

I'm so.happy for you that you were able to manage this without loosing any acros. I'm hoping im.in the clear now as it's been a few days since I've seen any acros stn, and I'm seeing decent PE again. I'll feel even better when the ones that faded start to darken again (not worried about colors at this point just thickened zooanthele)

Thanks for the update. Sorry about the 10 casualties but glad things are settling and you have your nutrients in line with dosing. I am two months post dinos and still dosing (lightly) and feeding heavy 2-3 times a day. So much tang turd flying I have to run socks that overflow every other day.

You'll get there. That first time you realize you need to up your 2-part or CaRx for the growth spurt will be a joyous moment.

 

[MaxFlow]

Great timing for this thread. I'm about to move livestock from a 40g system to a new 200g system. Have also been thinking about connecting the system together for a short while.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Update:

End of day 3

Polyp extension on Red Planet same as before connecting 2 systems.

Other SPS partial polyp extension, no change.

Duncan still closed.

Elegance was completely closed yesterday but shows improvement today - partially open with polyps extended.

Water crystal clear

No signs of STN/RTN

Alk - 8.5
NO3 - 2.5 ppm
PO4 - .08

Other than the 1 teaspoon of potassium nitrate dosed on day 1, no other dosing.

Nitrate and Phosphate remain stable.

 

[Oldsalt]

Absolutely agree with @ScottB regarding dino outbreak fairly soon after connecting a new tank to an existing. I've done it a few times and, to be blunt, dino outbreak occurred in the existing tank within one to two months every.single.time. I'm not saying that you can't do it - I just wish I would have viewed what Scott mentioned above ages ago because I gave up trying and separated each system and had to implement high dose UV in the original tank each time. With isolation valves and a "go slowly" attitude, and with a good dosing regime you will more than likely be successful in beating the uglies that dinos are. I look forward to your progress. Following this. Cheers from down under

 

[PurpleMonsterSlayer]

That’s strange that you were able to start a new tank with old tank water and put fish and coral in within a week but you weren’t able to connect an old and new system without everything dying.

I think it had to do with diluting the nutrient levels of the donating system and messing with the bacteria stabilization. If you have an established balanced bacteria population in your tank then you
A) removal of have the live rock you’ll have negative effects on your system because half your population is gone.
B) you double or triple the amount of water in your system you end up killing off a big chunk of the bacterial population since they don’t have the food source to sustain and maintain the current balanced population since you cut their food in half ( ie you take a protein shake pour out half and fill it up with water it’s not going to do the same for you).

By adding the second tank the bacteria population HAS TO populate the new area and eat which leaves both tanks under feed killing of bacteria in the old system to start the bacteria in new system.

By just using the water from a water change you get Bacteria from the new old tank to the new.
The old tank regrows the population lost due to the water change quickly and balances out.
The new tank get the bacteria it needs to start and populate the rocks you just need to feed this population to get it to grow.

As far as starting a new with water changes and having it up and running in a week one coral can survive the cycling of a tank and two you start with just a couple of fish unless you did a 90 gal water change from your 300 gal tank.

 

[Tuffloud1]

I think it had to do with diluting the nutrient levels of the donating system and messing with the bacteria stabilization. If you have an established balanced bacteria population in your tank then you
A) removal of have the live rock you’ll have negative effects on your system because half your population is gone.
B) you double or triple the amount of water in your system you end up killing off a big chunk of the bacterial population since they don’t have the food source to sustain and maintain the current balanced population since you cut their food in half ( ie you take a protein shake pour out half and fill it up with water it’s not going to do the same for you).

By adding the second tank the bacteria population HAS TO populate the new area and eat which leaves both tanks under feed killing of bacteria in the old system to start the bacteria in new system.

By just using the water from a water change you get Bacteria from the new old tank to the new.
The old tank regrows the population lost due to the water change quickly and balances out.
The new tank get the bacteria it needs to start and populate the rocks you just need to feed this population to get it to grow.

As far as starting a new with water changes and having it up and running in a week one coral can survive the cycling of a tank and two you start with just a couple of fish unless you did a 90 gal water change from your 300 gal tank.

I understand how you could believe this.

Do you have any references or studies showing how adding more water volume and surface area kills off half of an existing bacteria population?

I’m not sure that this is how bacteria works.

 

[Mickeyt1reef]

YouTube fishofhex. He plumbed a lagoon stile grow out system to his 300. He did go through some ugliness/ diatoms and such. Normal new tank stuff.

 

[ScottB]

Update:

End of day 3

Polyp extension on Red Planet same as before connecting 2 systems.

Other SPS partial polyp extension, no change.

Duncan still closed.

Elegance was completely closed yesterday but shows improvement today - partially open with polyps extended.

Water crystal clear

No signs of STN/RTN

Alk - 8.5
NO3 - 2.5 ppm
PO4 - .08

Other than the 1 teaspoon of potassium nitrate dosed on day 1, no other dosing.

Nitrate and Phosphate remain stable.

Is NO3 of 2.5 in line with what you ran in the established system? IMO, that should be the goal level (if not higher as I am paranoid about low nutrient).

 

[ScottB]

I understand how you could believe this.

Do you have any references or studies showing how adding more water volume and surface area kills off half of an existing bacteria population?

I’m not sure that this is how bacteria works.

I was confused by the protein shake (dumping part out) but the analogy still holds. Food supply available in the water gets dropped by the amount of dilution. Plus the colony now has to build film on all the new sterile surfaces.

So, what is the danger in overfeeding at this stage I wonder. A few hours of ammonia exposure while the bac works through it? And lastly, what was the brief, cloudy bloom all about? I never pieced together the cause of that.

Anyway, plow on @Tuffloud1 you are doing great.

 

[PurpleMonsterSlayer]

I understand how you could believe this.

Do you have any references or studies showing how adding more water volume and surface area kills off half of an existing bacteria population?

I’m not sure that this is how bacteria works.

no just from personal experience and my observation. I’m not quite sure how it all works but this is my theory and it’s the only think that makes sense as to what’s happening in my mind. I’ve tried it several times and both tanks go threw new tank stages. It does work out a whole lot better going starting from a larger tank and adding a small tank then the opposite way around.

 

[Tuffloud1]

I was confused by the protein shake (dumping part out) but the analogy still holds. Food supply available in the water gets dropped by the amount of dilution. Plus the colony now has to build film on all the new sterile surfaces.

So, what is the danger in overfeeding at this stage I wonder. A few hours of ammonia exposure while the bac works through it? And lastly, what was the brief, cloudy bloom all about? I never pieced together the cause of that.

Anyway, plow on @Tuffloud1 you are doing great.

Since my system was on auto water changes of 1 gallon per day for the last 4 years, I believe the cloudy water was due to the system receiving a sudden burst of something it wasn’t getting before - trace elements, etc?

My thought is the bacteria likely reacted to this with a bloom, not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Is NO3 of 2.5 in line with what you ran in the established system? IMO, that should be the goal level (if not higher as I am paranoid about low nutrient).

Correct, NO3 of 2.5ppm was my level before connecting the 2 systems.

PO4 was in the .1 range which is why I didn’t dose any PO4, I actually anticipated it going lower from dilution which is okay and now it’s in the .05-.08 range. Now I monitor like a hawk and intervene with dosing if it drops.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Day 5 update:

Alk dropped to 8.3 (first drop since connecting 2 systems)
NO3 - 2.5
PO4 - increased to .13

Testing done 2 hours after feeding “Reef Frenzy” which I normally don’t do. Not sure if this would cause a brief increase in PO4?

Elegance returned to normal extension
Red Planet completely normal
Other SPS show slightly better polyp extension than yesterday.

 

[ScottB]

All sounds like good news to me!

I am not sure about processing time for reef food to become available PO4. My intuition would be that it takes some time. That said, I always test before feeding out of habit I guess.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Day 7 update:

Alk dropped, started dosing again
NO3 - 2.5
PO4 - .058

Duncans polyps opened back up.

Things are looking great.

I have not been running my skimmer through this process.

I am also allowing filter socks to run dirty without cleaning.

 

[ScottB]

Hey Tuffy!

No news is good news I presume? I think you tightroped that event very well with no casualties. Well done.

I just added a nice new 44 sump to my frag system. Preemptively raised my dosing, shortened my refugium light cycle and so far so good. Now running 200g of shallow frag with 100G of sump volume. All good fun.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Hey Tuffy!

No news is good news I presume? I think you tightroped that event very well with no casualties. Well done.

I just added a nice new 44 sump to my frag system. Preemptively raised my dosing, shortened my refugium light cycle and so far so good. Now running 200g of shallow frag with 100G of sump volume. All good fun.

Hey Scott, thanks for checking in!

My family and I have all been sick! We got hit really bad this year.

Nothing really to report. All parameters remain super stable.

I had to increase my 2 part dosing slightly again. I’m back up to the same amount as prior to connecting tanks.

There appears to be a slight diatom bloom on the sand and rocks in the new tank.

I’m still not running my skimmer and I have yet to do a water change.

 

[ScottB]

Hey Scott, thanks for checking in!

My family and I have all been sick! We got hit really bad this year.

Nothing really to report. All parameters remain super stable.

I had to increase my 2 part dosing slightly again. I’m back up to the same amount as prior to connecting tanks.

There appears to be a slight diatom bloom on the sand and rocks in the new tank.

I’m still not running my skimmer and I have yet to do a water change.

Sorry to hear you all got sick. Hmmm forgot my flu shot this year...

Always good news when ALK/Ca consumption goes up! Also means the corals are taking in more nutrient too.

Diatoms shmiatoms. Glad everything is good now.

 

[motortrendz]

Dude I envy you, not bc you got sick... we all got sick this year too. Ugh... but bc you pulled it off... hahah. I'm finally past the uglies, no more acro losses, they're finally starting to color back up and I had to turn my cal/rx back up yesterday. So I'm moving in the right direction haha. Well atleast I know for next time what to expect and hopfully I'll have better results like you.

Good job btw!