How to move tanks???

[Cassian]

hello all! so ive recently upgraded from my 65 gallon to a 180 gallon. The 180 has had water, sand, and dry rock in it for about a week now. If I took all of my water from my 65 gallon and all of the rock and sand and put it in the 180, would it still need to cycle? I've been doing marine aquariums for a long time now, but ive never transferred tanks like this, only setup new ones and I had to cycle those. Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[JumboShrimp]

My first ‘logical’ thought: You’re bringing all the ‘good stuff’ over to your new tank. So 65 gallons of water into a 180 would be— when you add new saltwater to fill the 180– like a really giant water change, no? Is there any way your system would still run (i.e., plumbing circulation, etc), if you just added 65 more gallons at first? Like a 50% water change? Maybe keep it at 130 gallons total for the first 2 weeks, then bring it up to the 180 gallon level? Others might think this is unnecessary, so let’s see...

 

[Sailingeric]

You should be fine since you are bringing over cycled rock, I would get new sand or clean old real good. Just go slow when adding more fish so the bacteria can keep up

 

[Fish_N_A_Box]

You should be fine in adding in water with the existing. Just make sure your water is near to the same temps so not to have a huge temp swing. Same as you would do for a water change.

 

[Cassian]

thanks every one! yes I did get new live sand for the new tank and it is in there already. I plan on adding some of my old sand to seed it and then rinsing well and adding the rest to the refugium in the sump.

@JumboShrimp, unfortunately there is no way to keep less than 180 gallons in the new tank. Any less than that amount will prevent the water from going over the overflow.

Also, my old tank is packed full of coral ( mostly LPS and SPS). I assume if both tanks match parameter wise these will not be affected, correct?

 

[Fish_N_A_Box]

you should be fine.. keep in mind the height of the tank may change (you didn't specify) and lighting may change.. so your corals may take some adjustment period.

think of what you are doing as a very large water change.

 

[Qasimja]

as long as you bring the rock and sand from your old tank you shouldnt experience much of a cycle at all

 

[Cassian]

you should be fine.. keep in mind the height of the tank may change (you didn't specify) and lighting may change.. so your corals may take some adjustment period.

think of what you are doing as a very large water change.

yes there is a height change, I was going to measure and try to placate corals the same distance from the lights they are in the new tank. Thanks for reminding me of that!

 

[Carz]

I will be doing the same thing in about 2 months. I will be going from a 75 to a 250 and the sump I made is 85 gallons. How did it go? Did you add any new rock? I have been adding the big marine pure blocks in my current sump over the past few months. Plan on using those in the new sump for seeding the bacteria. I am kinda scared but I think one big move would be best...

 

[Cassian]

I will be doing the same thing in about 2 months. I will be going from a 75 to a 250 and the sump I made is 85 gallons. How did it go? Did you add any new rock? I have been adding the big marine pure blocks in my current sump over the past few months. Plan on using those in the new sump for seeding the bacteria. I am kinda scared but I think one big move would be best...

Hi! I definitely think one big move is the best. My move went really well. I added all of the live rock to the new tank during the move. I have about twice as much dry rock in the new tank as I had live rock in the old tank. I added my old dirty filter socks and seeded my new live sand with about half a 2 gallon bucket of my old sand. Ive been monitoring params every other day and it looks like this method worked really well. nitrates got up to about 10 ppm, then dropped to 0 ppm, which is what they normally are. All of my corals also did great. the move barely even phased them and they were all polyped out within a few hours. and I have some fairly picky SPS. hope this helps! if you have any more questions feel free to ask!

 

[Carz]

So did you add brand new dry rock as well and at the same time?

 

[Cassian]

So did you add brand new dry rock as well and at the same time?

I added dry rock a few days before, but thats only because I wanted to plan my rock scape before I had everything broke down.

 

[Vstryker]

I'm planning to do the same, going from a 100g to a waterbox 6026 in the next month. Ive been saving my old water changes into 2 barrels (100g so far) which is also cycling my new rock for the past 2 months. By the time I set up the new tank, i will transfer the remaining required water to the new tank along with about half of the live rock and all the corals from my old tank. Hopefully, this will minimize the cycle that i might experience, any thoughts?

 

[Sparkymarc]

I’m planning the same thing in 2 months. Going from reefer 425 to a 260 gal peninsula. Doing pretty much doing the same thing as Vstryker. One thing I’ve learned is if you’re planning on moving sandbed, rinse very well. Don’t want to move over any detritus or other bad stuff that lurks in the sand bed.

 

[ZoWhat]

The two biggest #of threads on R2R are
* How to eliminate GHA
* How to physically move a tank.

There is a wonderful search function within R2R

 

[Cassian]

I'm planning to do the same, going from a 100g to a waterbox 6026 in the next month. Ive been saving my old water changes into 2 barrels (100g so far) which is also cycling my new rock for the past 2 months. By the time I set up the new tank, i will transfer the remaining required water to the new tank along with about half of the live rock and all the corals from my old tank. Hopefully, this will minimize the cycle that i might experience, any thoughts?

I think that’s a very good plan. I don’t see any problems with it

 

[Cassian]

I’m planning the same thing in 2 months. Going from reefer 425 to a 260 gal peninsula. Doing pretty much doing the same thing as Vstryker. One thing I’ve learned is if you’re planning on moving sandbed, rinse very well. Don’t want to move over any detritus or other bad stuff that lurks in the sand bed.

Agreed. I actually just did a new sand bed in mine to minimize the amount of detritus coming into the new tank

 

[Cassian]

The two biggest #of threads on R2R are
* How to eliminate GHA
* How to physically move a tank.

There is a wonderful search function within R2R

I am aware of the search function and I use it quite a lot. I did a ton of research on this topic before I moved tanks. However, I posted this thread because I wanted to get peoples opinion on my specific situation.