Hello all,
New to the group.
I entered the hobby (I call it the money pit, in January). My wife and I had a freshwater setup for several years and decided to convert. We sold the 46 gal bow front and located a 65 gallon on craigslist. the tank came with about 30 lbs of live sand, 35 lbs of live rock, 20 gallon sump, Hermits, snails and fish. The fish included 2 clowns, coral beauty, damsel, six line wrasse, two bartlett's anthias, and a hippo tang (I know, I know, NOW, that the tank isn't big enough for the tang , shes small right now and I will be forced, by the better half, to upgrade to a bigger tank for "Dora").
I disassembled it, moved it 15 miles, and set it up temporarily in my heated garage while we waited for new carpet to be installed. Now the fun began. After a few weeks I way over payed for about 15 lbs of live rock at the LFS, a week later I found Ich on the tang. So I ran back to the LFS and spent another 80 bucks on No-ich, of course that didn't work.
I was shocked to find out that I would need to do copper treatment of all fish in a hospital tank, and leave the tank fallow for 6 to 8 weeks. Not having an extra 30 gallon laying around, I decided to do a sort of reverse hospital tank by taking out all the live rock, sand, and inverts, I stored them in a large container with heat and flow. I treated the main tank with cupramine for 21 days, my hope was that the bioballs in the sump would keep amonia under control.... I was wrong... within a few days ammonia started rising, the water changes commenced, my day pretty much consisted of changing 20 to 30 gallons of water, then spending the rest of the day running enough RO/DI water for the next.
After a week I added a canister filter to the setup, after another week or so ammonia stabilized. It was pretty much smooth sailing for the next several weeks while I let the rock and sand go fallow. Of course friends and family thought we were nuts, a 65 gallon tank in the garage, with nothing but fish and PVC fittings. I did a combination of big water changes, cuprasorb, and carbon to pull out the cupramine.
After 8 weeks, i scrubbed out the tank with vinegar and moved it to my living room. I added an additional 30 lbs of dry (Largo) rock, ( Im still pretty convinced I picked up the ich from the LFS live rock....... never again), I slowly removed the bio balls. Things went pretty well, no cycling, no deaths (my wife would have killed me if "Dora" had died).
I've read mixed reviews about coppering a tank and then using it some day for coral, after five weeks I have not had a any inverts (Snails, shrimp, crabs and a small zoa) show any ill effects. I will keep running cuprasorb and carbon for the next several months. Give things a six months or so to settle down then try a few beginners corals.
The Coraline is growing like crazy, fish are eating like pigs, and best of all no white spots.
Long story short, it only took me 3 months for my tank to move 20 feet, from it's temporary location to its new home.
Being a newbie, I'm sure I'll have questions that need answered. So far, even after starting off with a disaster, I still love my little bit of the ocean in my living room.
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