Beginning a Reef Tank

[Skeez330]

Hello All,
Looking to get my first coral in my 36 gal tank. The tank is established and water parameters are in check. The issue is I will be buying a house in the next year so I will have to move the tank, preferably upgrade to a bigger one. I would like to start a few small corals in the tank but I don’t know if adding corals will make the move more difficult. So I was curious if anybody had gone through this situation, and if there were corals that would do better with the move than others. Any advice would be appreciated!!!

 

[tsouth]

If you plan on upgrading - you will need to validate whether or not the new setup has completed cycling, even with the use of your old rock. Dependent on the difference in size, there will be a spike and you will have to account for that. That means re-acclimating all live stock, and having downtime in-between the breakdown of the old tank and cycling completion of the new. This makes it much more tedious.

On the other hand, if you were able to relocate the same tank and same habitats, it's then a matter of storing all your livestock in containers with lids, and if necessary, adding heat and/or batter powered air pumps, and then putting everything back into the tank at the new home. Always have some extra water on hand ready to use. Inhabitants may only need to be temp acclimated and you can use the majority of old water too. This is all subjective of the distance you will be traveling.

I would recommend the latter. It's less risk, and you can have the 36g running while you setup the upgrade and allow it to cycle. Then you can begin your upgrade, complete your cycle, and acclimate your livestock to the new tank. You never know what snags you may hit during an upgrade. Now if you were to have the tank fully setup, ready to go, and cycled in the new home before you break down the tank, that'd be somethin