How do i properly switch out tanks??

Parent_usmc · Jul 9, 2020

Hey all. I am going to be setting up a red sea 250 in place of my biocube 32 . This weekend I planned on draining the biocube and relocating the tank out of the way to make room for my new redsea 250 coming in next week. I understand that i could just do a fresh cycle on the redsea with all new sand/rock/water. However i was wondering if using the old sand,rock, and 30 gallons of water along with a fresh batch of water as "top off" would be ok to set up with the new tank. the biocube is fully cycled and about 7 months old. I suppose i just want to do a "switch" but dont want to cause any harm to my coral and fish.

thanks all

shwareefer · Jul 9, 2020

Parent_usmc said:
However i was wondering if using the old sand,rock, and 30 gallons of water along with a fresh batch of water as "top off" would be ok to set up with the new tank

This is the way you should do it. It's doubling your water roughly so essentially a 50% water change.

shwareefer · Jul 9, 2020

I should add, if you have a deep sand bed and not just decorative there may be concerns with moving the sand. I've always been bb so maybe someone else could chime in on that.

Parent_usmc · Jul 9, 2020

I believe its about 20lbs or so in total

Indytraveler83 · Jul 9, 2020

I went from 54 gallons to 90 earlier in the year, and I didn't like the substrate in the 54, so I did not reuse it. I put down fresh sand, but reused water, live rock and moved everyone over that day.

I'm sort of glad I didn't reuse the sand, because what was under the LR was nasty. But I also had more than enough LR to keep the tank from cycling.

I would just make absolutely certain you have all of your inhabitants out if you start disturbing the sand, because who knows what you'll stir up.

Cwentz758 · Jul 9, 2020

Two things with the sand. Either get all new sand, as your live rock is all you need for your bio filtration.

or second you could rinse your sand before putting it in the new tank. When I saw rinse I mean scoop it in a 5 gal bucket and take a hose and jam it in the sand and rinse it until the water runs clean out the bucket. Then run it through fresh RODI water.

with established live rock you will avoid a cycle