From a 14 to a 29 need help

[Copingwithpods]

Hello everyone, I started a 14 biocube a few months ago and although this isn't my first saltwater tank I have been out of the hobby for quite some time. I now wish to upgrade to a 29 as the 14 is getting a little crowded. Question is how? I don't have great pictures of either but here's some so you get the idea



The 14 has about 15lbs of live rock, 20lbs of sand, aqua duetto ato, ai prime, and growing cheato with a very cheap led,I use an industrial temperature controller to run a Cobalt 100w heater and a small fan to keep Temps at 80 (80.1-80.9) I don't dose anything, has the mj900 for return going through a uv sterilizer and a small 90gph pump as a power head. So far it's been great.



The 29 currently has 35lbs of sand and a rock.... I did just order a few things. 2 kamoer x1 dosing pumps, a dosing container 3x 2L, an adaptor to run 1/2 loc line and a random flow nozzle. Also upgraded the refugium light with an actual grow light and purchased the media basket and refugium basket along with other odd bits here and there.

Planned purchases; AI Nero 5, bigger ato resevior and BRS CAL MEG ALK pharma packs (oh I already picked up the red sea test kits for all 3,never dose what you don't test for right?)

The 29 will be getting the ATO, light and pump from the 14. I figured with the AI Nero 5 in there the mj900 should be enough as it will not be used for primary flow in the display (or am I wrong?)

Question is how do I start the move? Do I fully cycle the 29 and if so how do I do that when all my rocks are in the 14?

Do I keep everything on life support in buckets while I fully transfer all equipment to the 29 and then transfer in all the corals once the light, pump and heater are in?

I will be honest, it scares me, it will be my first time ever doing this. I may be overthinking it but I just haven't been able to figure it out.

In case it matters current inhabitants are...
Royal gamma
Clown fish
Red stripped damsel
Yellow watchman gobby+pistol shrimp
Pompom crab
Emerald crab
2 bumble bee snails
4 hermits 2red 2 blue
4 snails
Fighting conch


Any advice, tips and tricks, thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.

 

[dank reefer]

First Off...Welcome to R2R

First question - Are you setting up the 29g where the 14 is at?
If your not, then the approach I would take would be the following

Get the 29g in the spot where you want it to be at.
Make up at 20g of salt water to have on hand.
Move your live stock to a 5g bucket and run your heater in it. Move all equipment that you will be using from the 14, to the 29g.
Move the remaining water from the 14g to the new tank, and also all the rock work as well.
Check water temp in the tank and in bucket and try to get them as close as possible (having a spare heater will help out in this process).
Once tank and bucket are close to same temp, move all livestock and water to the new tank, and get your power heads online.
Again, if you have a spare heater, move it to the new water you made up and bring it up to same temp as tank. Check parameters and try to get them same as water in the 29g. Once temp has been reached, slowly add new water in tank, or sump.

 

[BeejReef]

I like Jose Esteves approach... basically anything you can do to match parameters and avoid having to re-acclimate all your livestock. If you're in no rush, I might do some fairly aggressive water changes... like 20% every other day... until I had 15g of old tank water stored away in a trash can. Between that and the tank water you'll still have from your 14g cube, you'd essentially be able to put them back into their own water. Ofc, you could do half that and probably still be fine.

 

[Copingwithpods]

So new tank will be going in its own spot. It's currently running with live sand and water. Question is if I slowing transfer my old tank water via water changes to the new tank, do I not have to worry about the new sand cycling as the bacteria reaches an equilibrium? I also don't plan on adding more rock, at the most another 2 lbs if that.

How's this, I equalize parameters in both tanks, Salinity, temp, cal, alk, and nitrates (my nitrates are usually at zero) . Assuming ammonia and nitrite are at zero Can I not just one by one transfer stuff over? I'm using the same water mix for both so theoretically as long as I get the specific gravity right the livestock shouldn't even notice the change.

 

[dank reefer]

Since it looks like you don't have any corals, doing the water transfer should be fine. But I would move as much rock from the old tank into the new tank as possible.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Since it looks like you don't have any corals, doing the water transfer should be fine. But I would move as much rock from the old tank into the new tank as possible.

All rockwork is currently covered in corals, going with the get both tanks as close as possible and transfer everything in one go.

 

[dank reefer]

Lol... I'm such a crack head that I didnt even see your pics.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Got the stand almost complete, transfered the main power strip from the old tank over and added a smart wifi strip to put a couple things on timers like the refugium light.

Still need an ato resevior, any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Made a mistake, I ordered heatsinks for the refugium led and we'll....

Didn't read the discription and turns out they are tiny! Will have to replace them in the near future. They are helping but not as much Id like. Light Def runs cooler now.

Another huge mistake I made was underestimating how long this was going to take. Just the dosing pumps and power strips took me 4 hours to set up. I'm glad I'm doing this now and didn't leave everything for the move date.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Finally done, and it only took 8 hours.

As much as I tried a few corals stressed out but seam to be recovering. My anemone bleached quiet a bit and I'm not sure it's going to make it. It doesn't seam to have any color left so we will wait and see. If that's my only loss I'll consider myself lucky.





All that's left to do is give the corals a few days to relax before gluing them in their permanent spots and find a bigger ato resevior.

One issue I'm seeing is the flow in the rear chambers, the mj900 just isn't powerful enough to completely fill the display but, the intank media basket seams to be maxed out in flow. So if I do upgrade to the mj1200 the water will just overflow the media basket into the refugium basket. I'm not quiet sure what to do here.

Anyone recommend a DC pump so I can adjust the flow or stick with an AC pump like the mj1200?