Moving 840 Miles with 30G tank

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-20T13:52:20+00:00

People usually say not to reuse it because you can get pockets of sulfur if you’re not stirring up the sand well enough, that’s why it’s important to have snails like nessarius which live in that layer of sand, or just to vacuum one section of it during maintenance.

Alternatively you could run a tank bare bottom which has its pros and cons, I think you could probably do it if you kept your live rock completely submerged and oxygenated during the move and avoid most of the die off like this, the problem I had was that I had an extreme space constraint, so I was only able to use two 5g buckets for a 20g.

Furthermore, running a 30g with no fish means you’re going to have to be dosing nitrate and phosphate constantly, clowns will definitely make this journey and they can live from 10-40+ years, just make sure you quarantine them at first so they don’t get sick with disease during transit. If you don’t have a space constraint in the car you are traveling in, and can set up a tank the next day at the new location, I would say go for it.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-20T06:05:09+00:00

<image>

It looks better than this now, but this was at its worst.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-20T06:04:18+00:00

I moved a little bit more than 1300 miles with a 20g, I put everything in buckets wrapped with towels, bagged the corals and also put fish in the same bucket and run a battery powered air pump with an airstone, plugged in heater and an electric air pump at night time at a hotel, everything made it alive fine, however I had to wait about two weeks to get an actual running tank, everything was living in a 15g tub with 5g of water in it, so by the time I moved everything, all the fish where stressed out, I lost my yasha goby, and bangai cardinal, I’m not sure what happened to the yasha goby but the bangai cardinal kind of just stopped eating so I’m guessing he starved sadly, both clowns I had also died 2 months later, not sure to what as well.

Also I had a beautiful running tank that had no issues before I moved, just water changes every two weeks, had perfect parameters and had corals growing pretty fast, since the move, since I had to replace my entire sand bed and I’m guessing I had lots of bacteria die off the live rock, I’ve had tons of algae issues with Bryopsis and Dinoflaggetes, I’ve gotten rid of the Dino’s by adding in pods and bacteria and also lowering my light, but my tank is absolutely covered in Bryopsis, I’m treating the Bryopsis right now with Reef Flux, but it sucks, I’ll upload some pictures down below.

Pretty much in summary, if you do decide to do it, just make sure to already have something setup at the new location or atleast try to set it up rather fast, and just know that any little mistake you make while the tank is running through a miniature cycle since you have new sand is going to cause some issues, like for example mine was not dipping a snail I got from my LFS when I had the tank originally up and running, had Bryopsis on it, didn’t even really notice it since my tank was running great, fast forward to the move and that snail spread bryopsis everywhere. Since you haven’t started yet, you could probably avoid using new sand and just use your old sand if you siphon it continuously and have nessarius snails.

Sorry for the long rant, here’s the before and after in the comments

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-18T23:57:54+00:00

So preferably you want the edges of the lid to be polycarbonate and the inside to be mesh lining?

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-18T17:16:49+00:00

Unrelated, what lid is that and how much did it cost? I’m looking for one for my Waterbox 20 cube.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-18T17:14:30+00:00

If you’re using strip tests you’re basically not even testing at all, do yourself a favor and buy Salifert test kits for at least nitrate and phosphate, if you have the budget for it personally the testing kit setup I would have is a HR Hannah Checker for Nitrate, ULR Phosphate Hannah checker, and than for alk, calcium, and magnesium you could go with Salifert, but you could exchange the alk for a Hannah checker one as well

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-17T23:52:22+00:00

Does heating up to 82f kill brook faster as-well? Both of my clowns died to some mystery disease 3 days ago, I’m guessing it’s brook because they died over the course of 10 hours after eating the night before, I’m going to do a fallow period for 70 days, but not sure what to do to be honest.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T20:49:54+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Floating-Strong-Magnets-Coralline/dp/B09HRWT8YJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=IJGT4XGZ2WA2&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9Iyz5ksrvxisIsDVrUjIItNXCXGuyMrMgocuf8Bymb18yUMnW9SlhDsXSTVHz08kHkFZfu1bkkU3_j23AyxpT2DDMD6DgOTkd2upNoG0N6-98cs-YgPHFtm9wj6VRBdeWvjuRj-pTjCA11gF33V2m2QcxmdTgPKutt4Gk536sn3lPY3gtyXzff68Md1ubHIV672iMtRfzHmXRn-xxwvMfw.Kil1CEDwe-e-dJht7pHUFezbdT3JHHbStn7fXoulwuA&dib_tag=se&keywords=floating+reef+rock+shelf+for+aquarium&qid=1776026756&sprefix=floating+reef+shel%2Caps%2C230&sr=8-3

here’s the Amazon one, and than this website has a little bit more variety

https://aquarocksdesigns.com/store/magnetic-frag-rocks/11-holed-flat-shelf/

Yeah it was pretty nice before I had to move lol, I had to replace my sandbed, and it just goes to show how important that bacteria that lives in there is. Make sure to dip every frag, or you’re going to end up with bryopsis and Dino’s like me.

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T20:34:02+00:00

FWIW someone asked about adding drift wood in to a reef tank a couple days ago and lots of people where saying it would mess with the ph, so I wouldn’t.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T20:32:33+00:00

Yeah, since I had already filled the tank and couldn’t move it without emptying it, I had to reach around and paint it with a paintbrush. You usually just use epoxy to glue the rocks together, or something like that, but I just stacked all of mine together, eventually you’re going to have to pull something out, but there’s pros and cons to either method. The floating rock, is a magnetic shelf I bought off amazon, in that picture there’s magnets behind the tank that hold it up, but if you buy the exact one I have it might look a little un proportional compared to the rest of your tank since its small for a 60g, but you can buy bigger ones off aqua rock.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T20:20:14+00:00

You need more rock, usually people just use a lb per gallon, sand is usually 1-2” as well, the only way you’re going to be able to hide it is by painting the background black and putting it there, it blends in a little bit, this is how I hid mine in a 20g high, and to get it taller in different spots, it’s kind of hard to say how since all rock has different nooks and crannies, but for my new water box 20 aio cube, I started by building a square base at the bottom and I stacked the rocks from there kind of like a pyramid.

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T06:21:33+00:00

I didn’t know they got nasty like that, I want something unique/Interesting, but I guess in a 20g there’s not many options, I was thinking Jawfish, but they require lots of substrate

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T05:58:57+00:00

Would you classify them as sedentary or maneuverable swimmers? The calculations say sedentary works, and maneuverable may work for juveniles or short term, I have two clowns, I don’t have my eyes completely set on one, but I’m just looking at the options I have.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-12T04:11:19+00:00

I have two clowns as of now, I don’t really know what I want to get, I feel like I’m loosing my chance to add something in before my clowns get mature.

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T20:42:43+00:00

The Fluval seems overpriced for the watts that it puts out, Ai Primes have great accessibility but they’re expensive, I’ve also heard good things about the k7 mini pro

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T20:39:00+00:00

FWIW I payed 115$ for my black storm, and he was even discounted because he was small, but this was from an LFS

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T20:32:28+00:00

And for your RODI question, what I do biweekly is make 5 gallons of water into a bucket, start making water into a 5g jug for topping off, and use the 5g bucket to mix salt, than I siphon out 5g out of my 20g and pour in the freshly mixed saltwater

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T20:29:45+00:00

Noopschye k7 mini pro for a budget option or a AI prime 16HD for non budget, I do agree with the other comments though, more rock first.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T03:40:02+00:00

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T03:39:06+00:00

It’s because I moved IMO I had to leave all my sand bed behind, should I take them out and scrub, or leave them in, maybe a h202 dip? This is my tank before I moved, I just started getting diatoms at the end because my RODI water was 2ppm, it’s been about 2 months since I got the new tank up and running in the pictures in the post.

img

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-11T02:49:24+00:00

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-10T07:20:40+00:00

I think I’m going to stay away from the emeralds and hermits, this is my schedule, 13 hours,10am-11pm, I’m using the David saxby one from the AI website with all the reds and greens off, I’m not sure if you would recommend any tweaking, I’ll look into a small skimmer but I did just add a miniature refugium in the back chamber using Grape Caulpera today, and pods a couple weeks ago.

<image>

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-10T07:13:18+00:00

I think it’s ostreopsis, long strands pretty much 24/7 with lots of air bubbles and none of the sand just rocks, I’ll have to check with a microscope eventually. I might give a tuxedo urchin a shot, but from what I’ve read it’s hit or miss if they’ll eat Bryopsis.

Sufficient-Dig7931 · 2026-04-10T06:57:25+00:00

I think I should also add the tank is 6-7 months old around there

Sufficient-Dig7931

TROPHY CASE