rostervandross
Active Member
Hi everybody,
Wanted to see if anyone has had experience or insight into with these things when converting a freshwater tank to salt and moving an existing tank into it.
I have had a salt water 20 gallon long for about a year or so along with two freshwater tanks. I decided to combine the two fresh tanks and make my 75 gallon the saltwater tank. I've cleaned it out, added new crushed coral, salt water and new live rock. Using bio spira and waiting to transfer in the rock currently in my 20 gallon.
Now I am wondering what my next steps are (how and when to add things from the existing salt tank in to the new tank (rock, small bits of coral and organisms, pitch the old sand and?). The rock in my saltwater 20 gallon are pretty covered with algae that I don't necessarily want to transplant but I am thinking it may be inevitable. Should I take the ones out that don't have corals growing on them and brush off all the algae?
As well as two specific concerns:
One is whether my freshwater 75 gallon's cannister filter's years of bacteria colonies on the ceramic pieces will still benefit filtration in salt water? Is it advisable to use the same ceramic media?
My other concern is with the rocks that were in the freshwater tank. Will they be able to be "reinvigorated" back into live rock? I somewhat wastefully bought some live rock several months back to use in the freshwater tank and I assume most of the marine life within them that made them "live" died off. Now that I've rinsed them and they are back in salt water amongst new live rock... is it just a matter of time until they become colonized with life again? What do you guys think?
Thank you and happy fish keeping!
Wanted to see if anyone has had experience or insight into with these things when converting a freshwater tank to salt and moving an existing tank into it.
I have had a salt water 20 gallon long for about a year or so along with two freshwater tanks. I decided to combine the two fresh tanks and make my 75 gallon the saltwater tank. I've cleaned it out, added new crushed coral, salt water and new live rock. Using bio spira and waiting to transfer in the rock currently in my 20 gallon.
Now I am wondering what my next steps are (how and when to add things from the existing salt tank in to the new tank (rock, small bits of coral and organisms, pitch the old sand and?). The rock in my saltwater 20 gallon are pretty covered with algae that I don't necessarily want to transplant but I am thinking it may be inevitable. Should I take the ones out that don't have corals growing on them and brush off all the algae?
As well as two specific concerns:
One is whether my freshwater 75 gallon's cannister filter's years of bacteria colonies on the ceramic pieces will still benefit filtration in salt water? Is it advisable to use the same ceramic media?
My other concern is with the rocks that were in the freshwater tank. Will they be able to be "reinvigorated" back into live rock? I somewhat wastefully bought some live rock several months back to use in the freshwater tank and I assume most of the marine life within them that made them "live" died off. Now that I've rinsed them and they are back in salt water amongst new live rock... is it just a matter of time until they become colonized with life again? What do you guys think?
Thank you and happy fish keeping!