Give me tips for taking over a tank

[PhreeByrd]

I have done this myself in the past. I try to keep everything from the original tank. When breaking down, leave the sand along with an inch or so of water covering the sand. Remove everything else to buckets, bins, etc. with lids for the move. After setting up the stand and tank in the new location (good advice about making sure you have everything needed for leveling the stand), remove whatever water is still in the tank. It will, or should be, pretty dirty from stirring up stuff during the move. I would leave all the original sand unless it's really nasty. Replace some of it with new aragonite sand if you think it's really necessary, add extra if you like, but I would keep at least 50% of the original sand. I would also add some rock since it doesn't appear that there is much in the existing system, and since you already have an established biosystem, I would probably add dry rock. No need to scrub, wash, or do anything beyond a simple rinse.

Then, definitely, scape it the way you want it and let it settle in. You may well have a low-grade cycle, but it should be short-lived and mild. Just monitor your ammonia and nitrites for a couple weeks or more. Be ready for water changes with new, good-quality saltwater. And definitely, be sure to have plenty of new water mixed and ready to go at the new location. You may not need it right away, but if you do, well, you get the idea, I'm sure.

Good luck with the move! Let us know how it goes.

 

[Noobreefer22]

Get ready to spend unless it is already to your liking because this hobby can be very expensive and takes a lot of patience dont jump the gun on anything

 

[Echomsp]

If I were attempting this, I would check out the local reef club and see if there is someone near willing to help. Good luck and let us know how everything works out.

 

[Jhoussock]

So the plan as of now is to put the tank with the sand bed still in it covered by an inch of water in the back of my suv along with the fish coral and live Rock. Travel the 2.5 hours with a car temp of around 75 The fish coral and live rock will be placed in covered 2-5 gallon buckets using the water from the tank. Stand and remaining water will be placed on a small trailer pulled by the suv. Once home I will place the extra water in the garage inside a covered brute can. I will add a heater at this point and a Powerhead for surface agitation. I will add the fish and coral to this can. Set up the tank, empty the water left in the tank. Put all the stored remaining tank water inside the clean rescaped tank add fish and coral top off with fresh salt water. Test tank daily and change water as needed to avoid problems from any cycling... did I miss anything?

 

[vetteguy53081]

So the plan as of now is to put the tank with the sand bed still in it covered by an inch of water in the back of my suv along with the fish coral and live Rock. Travel the 2.5 hours with a car temp of around 75 The fish coral and live rock will be placed in covered 2-5 gallon buckets using the water from the tank. Stand and remaining water will be placed on a small trailer pulled by the suv. Once home I will place the extra water in the garage inside a covered brute can. I will add a heater at this point and a Powerhead for surface agitation. I will add the fish and coral to this can. Set up the tank, empty the water left in the tank. Put all the stored remaining tank water inside the clean rescaped tank add fish and coral top off with fresh salt water. Test tank daily and change water as needed to avoid problems from any cycling... did I miss anything?

That sums it up

 

[markfmvl]

My suggestion with the sand bed would be to vacuum it just like you were giving the tank a good clean, discard that water put the sand in buckets for the move. Save the rest of the water to transport fish and corals and rock try not to put to many in each container. good luck.

 

[Snookin]

Bag all the smaller corals/frags individually and put in a styrofoam cooler for insulation if possible. It will keep them better protected then bouncing around in buckets. Online coral purchases ship overnight like this all the time with minimal losses. It’ll give you time to set up the tank and not rush/worry about the corals for potentially 24hrs if you run into issues. I would replace sand as well but people are 50/50 on this. I’ve moved multiple tanks and always switch sand. Better safe than sorry. Also, I wouldn’t add any new live/dry rock just what is in the current set up at first. Since you have an RODI unit I would make sure to have double the fresh saltwater you think you need made and ready at the new location. Once you set everything back up in its new home let is sit and establish itself for a month before you make any major changes like adding new rock or live stock.

 

[Snookin]

Bag all the smaller corals/frags individually and put in a styrofoam cooler for insulation if possible. It will keep them better protected then bouncing around in buckets. Online coral purchases ship overnight like this all the time with minimal losses. It’ll give you time to set up the tank and not rush/worry about the corals for potentially 24hrs if you run into issues. I would replace sand as well but people are 50/50 on this. I’ve moved multiple tanks and always switch sand. Better safe than sorry. Also, I wouldn’t add any new live/dry rock just what is in the current set up at first. Since you have an RODI unit I would make sure to have double the fresh saltwater you think you need made and ready at the new location. Once you set everything back up in its new home let is sit and establish itself for a month before you make any major changes like adding new rock or live stock.

Bag the fish as well.

 

[PhreeByrd]

I would definitely not bother bagging the fish. They will do much better during transportation in larger volumes of water than they will in little bags, and the larger water volumes provides better resistance to temperature change as well. Plus it's an extra step that you don't need, since you already have enough to do.

The same for vacuuming the sand. The motion during the move will agitate the heck out of the sand bed, and bring all detritus to the top and into the water. When you have the tank on the stand in its new location, just raise one end of the tank to get all the water to the other end and siphon off the water. If you want to get ridiculous about it, you can then scrape up and remove the top 1/16" or so of the sand and wash it or discard it.

I have never used the secondary container (in this case, the Brute can in the garage). Seems like another unnecessary step unless you think you can't complete everything in one day. For this process, it's generally easier to just temporarily raise the room temperature to 75+ degrees than to heat individual containers. This also keeps everything at the same temperature until you're finished.

Some of your corals may slime pretty badly from the whole process. For this reason I prefer to keep them separated as much as possible by species or type, in separate buckets, in as much water as is feasible, keeping in mind that some of this water might need to be discarded.

 

[Super Fly]

So the plan as of now is to put the tank with the sand bed still in it covered by an inch of water in the back of my suv along with the fish coral and live Rock. Travel the 2.5 hours with a car temp of around 75 The fish coral and live rock will be placed in covered 2-5 gallon buckets using the water from the tank.

When I moved, my old tank water was used only to transport livestock in brute bin and then thrown out. It's just dirty water, all the beneficial bacteria is in the rocks and equipment. I wouldn't bother bringing back extra water than what's needed for the livestock bins. Would highly recommend putting livestock in larger bins than 5 gal buckets since ur driving 2.5 hrs. For faster tank set up, I'd just use new sand while keeping 2-3 cups of old sand in ziplock bag to seed the new sand. U can decide to reuse the old sand but why take the risk of it being really dirty/not maintained sand full of detritus.

I would remove the old sand and water from tank as much as possible to lighten the load to minimize any possible tank damage during move and long drive.

I will add a heater at this point and a Powerhead for surface agitation. I will add the fish and coral to this can. Set up the tank, empty the water left in the tank. Put all the stored remaining tank water inside the clean rescaped tank add fish and coral top off with fresh salt water. Test tank daily and change water as needed to avoid problems from any cycling... did I miss anything?

Yes, heater and powerhead must be added immediately upon arrival for the livestock, I would also place livestock together with LR in same bin. WHen I moved, the heater was on but I forgot to add powerhead and clowns were swimming sideways gasping for air. As soon as powerhead was added, they perked back up. U can keep livestock in brute this way for quite a while (with LR), mine were kept in a brute for a week while a new larger tank was being set up in the new house and they all survived fine.

AGain, I would just throw out the old water and not put that into the tank once it's setup.

 

[bsn_rn_cen]

Welcome to reef2reef!

 

[Jhoussock]

Welp guys here she is ...thank you everyone for the help, don’t think I have a single loss...yet....pretty much just tossed everything in there so I will be giving it a month to relax and then rescaping. I used the old sand after vacuuming the top of sediment and gross water so I will be eventually be changing it to new stuff and adding the live rock I bought/scraping it with more arches and tunnels. My plan is to add more live rock to seed for more bacteria and then adding new sand once that seems finished...the sand bed is 3 years old and there seem to be a lot of dead snails etc mixed in so that’s why I would like to swap it out.

 

[thejuice24]

Cool ! Glad to hear it....

Here is a question for you... it seems your really concerned about the sand situation. Why not vacuum a little out at a time during water changes and go bare bottom! Just thought I had.