Best way to upgrade

Pager880 · Oct 17, 2020

Hi all. Iv just finished building / pluming in. My new reef. What would be the best way of transferring everything over. To the new tank. Iv allready bought new sand. As don't wanna use old stuff. Just want to no haw it's don't. Without killing everything lol. That's even if it can be done. But plan on using the light from old tank and wavemakers...... Any help would be verry much appreciated please

xxkenny90xx · Oct 17, 2020

Make sure to rinse the new sand. I would just acclimate everything as you would if you just brought them home from the lfs. Might be good to lower light intensity for a bit too.

ReefLab · Oct 17, 2020

Don't overcomplicate it. Take your time.

If it were me this is what I would do: first fill the new tank with sand and saltwater then move half your established live rock into the new tank. At the same time you can add any additional rock you're going to put into the new tank.
Let it sit for a week (in case there is a mini cycle) then you can move your fish, coral, and the rest of your rock over.

Might be worth testing for ammonia after that first week but if you use your live rock it'll probably be zero.

ReefLab · Oct 17, 2020

xxkenny90xx said:
Make sure to rinse the new sand. I would just acclimate everything as you would if you just brought them home from the lfs. Might be good to lower light intensity for a bit too.

good tip rinsing the sand, unless its the carib sea live sand.

Pager880 · Oct 17, 2020

Brilliant. Advice. Keep the good stuff coming lol

xxkenny90xx · Oct 17, 2020

ReefLab said:
good tip rinsing the sand, unless its the carib sea live sand.

I would definitely 10000000% rinse that bag of rotting dead stuff.... The only sand I wouldn't rinse is the straight from the ocean stuff, I think Kp aquatics sells it.

Pager880 · Oct 18, 2020

So Add washed new sand to tank. Fill with new saltwater. And a few big rocks from old tank. Let it run for a week. Feeding with flake. But will the rocks be OK without a light. As I can't take off my old tank till I do the full move...... After a week. Then just transfer everything over. Do that sound OK at all peeps

Pager880 · Oct 28, 2020

Anyone.

Super Fly · Oct 28, 2020

u can just add livestock (after acclimating to new water) straight to new tank after setting it up w rinsed sand and LR from old tank, I did this when I moved and everything turned out fine. No need to wait a week. I would use 1-2 cups of old sand to help seed the new sand unless there is something wrong w old sand or u used copper in old tank.

Pager880 · Oct 29, 2020

Super Fly said:
u can just add livestock (after acclimating to new water) straight to new tank after setting it up w rinsed sand and LR from old tank, I did this when I moved and everything turned out fine. No need to wait a week. I would use 1-2 cups of old sand to help seed the new sand unless there is something wrong w old sand or u used copper in old tank.

Thanks would you recommend using seachem stability as I have a couple of bottles laying around. Just to be on safe side

homer1475 · Oct 29, 2020

Stability certainly won't hurt.

As long as your transferring over all the biohome(all your liverock), and not increasing bioload, just throw the old rock in the new tank with new sand and water, then acclimate your fish and corals like you would if they were just brought home from the LFS.

It really is that easy.

Pager880 · Oct 29, 2020

homer1475 said:
Stability certainly won't hurt.

As long as your transferring over all the biohome(all your liverock), and not increasing bioload, just throw the old rock in the new tank with new sand and water, then acclimate your fish and corals like you would if they were just brought home from the LFS.

It really is that easy.

No not increasing anything. No new livestock. Just a wanting to put everything in the new tank with new sand not live sand.

homer1475 · Oct 29, 2020

Pager880 said:
No not increasing anything. No new livestock. Just a wanting to put everything in the new tank with new sand not live sand.

Once you have the new sand in(rinse very well even if it's the "live" sand variety), new water and everything is brought up to temp, just transfer everything over from one tank to another.

It really is that simple.

FWIW, stability will help out the biofilter while it repopulates onto the surfaces of the new tank, but your current rock should be able to handle the bioload.

Paul B · Oct 29, 2020

Why don't you want to use the old sand? You have established bacteria in there that will have to start all over again.

Anyway, I recently moved my established 125 gallon 47 year old reef tank 60 miles in one day.

I removed everything to large plastic tubs, moved everything in a large truck and in my new house rinsed my gravel in old water and put it in the new tank. put in the rocks, corals, fish and went out to dinner.

That was 2 1/2 years ago and I didn't even lose a pod.

homer1475 · Oct 29, 2020

Paul B said:
Why don't you want to use the old sand? You have established bacteria in there that will have to start all over again.

Anyway, I recently moved my established 125 gallon 47 year old reef tank 60 miles in one day.

I removed everything to large plastic tubs, moved everything in a large truck and in my new house rinsed my gravel in old water and put it in the new tank. put in the rocks, corals, fish and went out to dinner.

That was 2 1/2 years ago and I didn't even lose a pod.

OOh come on now, you know you lost a few pods. They always seem to stick to the bottom of buckets when dumping water.

brandon429 · Oct 29, 2020

Paul
Your tank is opposite of his. Your tank deals with detritus differently, his is unoxidized. I’d recommend patterning this move off threads that are specific to tank moves, so it doesn’t die.

your sandbed is literally the only rugf in the hobby, it’s that opposite of norm but it really will live to 110 I’m sure of that!

you keep an rugf to have that ability, safety in partial rinsing.

rinse in tank water joe public means run out of water while still cloudy sand, input cloudy sand hoping to save bacteria we already have on rocks, get a mini crash on new setup or heavy welcoming cyano for eight weeks.

sandbed bacteria aren’t helping they compete for O2 they’re just extra loading, and rinsing in tap water sterilizes nothing or those pipes you sawed would be totally clean not full of bac ~~ I still love that pipescum pic have linked to it many times

Paul B · Oct 29, 2020

homer1475 said:
OOh come on now, you know you lost a few pods. They always seem to stick to the bottom of buckets when dumping water.

Do you have any idea how long it took me to count all those pods? Most of them look similar so those were easy, but the identical twins were very hard to tell apart.