Fish distribution and tank planning?

[michaelkittrell]

My setup

Downstairs living room.
Tank 1: 125 gallon display tank, 3-4" sand bed.

Downstairs utility room next to living room.
Tank 2: 150 gallon stock tank with 3-4" blue tang, 2" chromis, 2 adult clownfish, 125 gallons or live rock, a gorgonia and a couple of brown spongy mushroomy looking things (not xenia).

Tank 3: 30 gallon sump

Tank 4: 30 gallon quarantine

Upstairs in master bedroom.
Tank 5: 100 gallon display tank with 6" 6line wrasse, 5" emperor angel 2 adult clownfish and a 1" baby clownfish, 3-4" of sand and 100-150 pounds of live rock, lots of xenia.

I bought tank #1 and moved everything into tank #2 except for the sand. The sand I maintained in a couple of quarantine tanks for about 4 weeks while I redid the seals and stand on tank #1. About a week ago I reintroduced the sand to tank #1 thoroughly washing 80% of it in fresh water and letting the last 20% go into the tank unwashed after I refilled with warm salty water (I've seen bristle worms so the sand appears to be still 'alive'). I've got it up to 80 degrees and salinity of 1.023 according to my plastic specific gravity thingy, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates all read 0.

The plan is to plumb tank #1 to tank #2 and transfer all my livestock into the main. The plumbing is done, I've got 1" drains to a 1.5" pipe to the sump (currently diverted into a 30 gallon sump). The 1.25 return feeds two 3/4 spouts in the tank via a 1100 gph pump. I'm currently running it into a 30 gallon sump (tank #3) for leak testing and all is good.

I think I'm ready to start integrating tank #1 and #2 into a single system. I was thinking I would start by swapping 10 gallons from tank #1 with 10 gallons from tank #2, 3 or 4 times a day for a couple of days. Then doing about 25 gallons, 3 or 4 times a day for a couple of days. Then migrate the rock and livestock and switch the plumbing into tank #2 and pulling tank #3 out.

Complicating this is I bought tank #5 for the ro/di unit and live rock (live stock was nice too). I just got it moved last night (posted a couple of questions in a separate thread). My plan is to plumb tank #3 into the #2 (which is plumbed into #1 as well). I really didn't want a 2nd tank to maintain, but it was so nice I decided to put it in my master bedroom and plumbing it into the system (in my mind that makes it 1 tank to maintain).

Question #1 - Should I re-arrange my livestock?

The wrasse and the emperor angel are pretty big and tank #5 is more of a show tank. Tank #1 is 6 feet long, tank #5 is at most 4'.

Are all my fish "compatible"? Will the blue tang 3-4" / emperor angel 5-6" and the 6" wrasse all get along? I've got 5 clownfish for 2 tanks.. they all look the same species, the 2 biggest and the 1 smallest are in tank #5, the other 2 are almost as big and in tank #1.

Question #2 - Xenia

Tank #5 has lots of xenia. Previous owner indicated that it grows rapidly and they had to clean it out. Tank #1 and #2 have no xenia.

Question #3

The previous owner fed a 1"ish shrimp every other day in tank #5. I notice some brown sludge that I assume is organics that probably needs to be vacuumed up if I maintain the same feeding regimen. I've never heard of vacuuming the sand in a salt water, but that is what the previous owner did... He also supplemented with fish pellets and frozen brine shrip.

I feed the denziens of tank #1 exclusively flake food... mostly because they eat it. I want to improve their diet, but still trying to get the basics in place.

Question #4

I'm kind of thinking that some day down the road (after I get some experience), I might want to switch tank #5 to LPS or SPS (or maybe LPS first then SPS after I get experience doing LPS).

Question #5

Tank #5 has an ultraviolet thingy. I have a 150 gallon sump because I want it to be a huge refugium (also wanted to get my water volume up). At 2500 gph into tank #5, will my refugium be effective? Tank #5 is not inline with tank #1, but will both feed out of tank #3 so I'm thinking it'll just nuke all the pods.

Previous owner said whenever his fish in #5 looked sick or had a scrape he just turned it on and the problems cleared up.

Question #6

On tank #5, the tank has no top and the MH seem pretty low. As a matter of fact, I cleaned caked on salt off the lights when I moved it. I'm planning on putting a glass top on it, but I'm worried about temperature and diffusing the light through the glass then the water given tank #5 is on the taller side (more of a show tank). I turned the lights on for about 30 minutes and went from 80 to 82-3 without a top. The thermometer is one of those digital with a probe that I hung down in the middle of the tank.

Question #7

Anything that I'm doing that I should be doing differently? Recommendations?

[michaelkittrell]

Its a red coris wrasse, not a sixline!