How to transfer tanks?

[Fishbro]

Ok everyone, so I found a 70-75 gallon-ish total volume star fire glass tank comes with canopy, stand, tank, sump, skimmer, cheaper leds, ato, test kits, uv sterilizer, full coral colonies, fish, live rock, pretty much everything needed for a tank you name it. All for $100! I currently own a Biocube 32 and am absolutely ecstatic to upgrade for so cheap to a tank with a sump. My question is, what’s the best way to go about transferring all my livestock and everything to the new tank? The tank I’m buying is full of corals and only has a few fish so I’m thinking I just set up that tank for a couple days to sell all the livestock for cheap and maybe cheap a few things. Can I use my old tank water plus new water when I transfer to the new tank? What’s your opinions? I have quite a few high end pieces in my current tank and want the transfer of those to be as smooth as possible.

 

[brandon429]

We have a 35 page thread of these jobs

it condenses to this

in both systems as they’re taken apart, cleaned before re use, tap rinse all sand for about an hour in buckets, over and over for 1.5 hours if needed, until crystal clear can’t be clouded even 2%

final rinse sand in ro water, set aside, this is the sand you put into the final tank. Transfer zero unrinsed sand in tap for 1.5 hours / clear / ro

Hold fish and corals in buckets of clean water half old half new
take all live rocks you will mix

swish them in old clean tank water to be discarded. Twist them harsh mid tank, draft off the detritus set aside these are your ready rocks


take new reef tank input perfect sand. Set rocks on it or vice versa won’t matter. Fill with 100% new salt water

acclimate animals add

drop lighting intensity back to ramp up over seven days dont go full bright. Cloudless assembly no cycle


We can opt out of a cycle when blending tanks by avoiding all clouding from every source and not hesitating that the bacteria aren’t able. They are.

in this entire process notice this detail:

We didnt need to buy bottle bac, you have more than enough bac for skip cycling.
we didnt care about the bacteria from anywhere but the rocks, that’s all that matters. Swishing live rock in saltwater twist style harms no bac + casts off detritus by design. Cloudless re assembly

 

[brandon429]

This isn’t just for transferring tanks safely

it’s for
cyano issues
dinos
cloudy water
green water
algae issues. Direct clean rocks when apart with peroxide detailing outside water, rinse, put back clean sand minus algae fuel waste


prevention. Old tanks can be reset to new, keeping all the gear in place, it’s merely a waste ejection model and it’s not harmful to any reef tank. It’s refreshing, like a reef storm. the deep cleaning isn’t harmful, it’s why other claimed better methods don’t feature a 35
page example thread fixing tank after tank. The animals in a sandbed aren’t important, they’re optional + the waste they associate with, thats why bare bottom reef tanks don’t die they grow elk antlers of red and yellow sps without once thought irreplaceable sandbed fauna.

animals reseed back into clean sand, from live rock, ad Infinitum

my reef has been blast cleaned over 14 yrs more than any reef on the planet for proofing, and as of today there’s worm tracks in the dsb. Live rock reseeds sandbeds as long as the rock is kept in the tank. Start laser clean, age the sand in place. Don’t transfer the aged sand for the safest method, we have no losses across hundreds of doc’d jobs.

 

[Fishbro]

Dang that helps more than you could know Brandon thanks so much! So for the sand the bacteria on it won’t matter if I wash it clean? Just the live rock as my main bacteria source and filtration? If so that’s awesome I would love to have a clean sand bed for a little bit!

 

[brandon429]

We suit up, and dive into these reefs and their sandbeds are out in front yard getting blasted with the hose in Home Depot buckets they said it takes over an hour to cleanliness

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

live rock alone did all but one job. A 300/1 ratio lol nice data set.

our fella has a reef that is all large corals and no live rock but attachment nubs at the bottom, I guess I’ve never seen a reef like that. owing to a no live rock reef, we broke rank and bought some bottle bac I don’t admit to that easily.

 

[vetteguy53081]

When you go out and steal tank systems for $100, dont ask for advice

On real note - Thats a steal and congrats. get a couple of people to help slide the bio cube 1/2 emptied off to the side and place your 75g in the spot you intend to keep it. Mix new sea water and as much as you can from biocube into the 75g.
Place the fish and coral into a tub temporarily. Set up your tank, add rock, etc, and bacteria. Add tank water from new tank to the tub with the fish (acclimating them) and transfer over thereafter

 

[Fishbro]

When you go out and steal tank systems for $100, dont ask for advice

On real note - Thats a steal and congrats. get a couple of people to help slide the bio cube 1/2 emptied off to the side and place your 75g in the spot you intend to keep it. Mix new sea water and as much as you can from biocube into the 75g.
Place the fish and coral into a tub temporarily. Set up your tank, add rock, etc, and bacteria. Add tank water from new tank to the tub with the fish (acclimating them) and transfer over thereafter

Thanks so much! So is it fine to use a bit of old water or should I do 100% new? I would prefer to use some old too.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks so much! So is it fine to use a bit of old water or should I do 100% new? I would prefer to use some old too.

Blend it

 

[Fishbro]

Hey one more question @brandon429 I have a bunch of pink Fiji aragonite sand left over that is unused, could I just rinse that and use it as my sand instead of the older sand that I was basically rid of bacteria anyways?

 

[brandon429]

Yes for sure it will work, we simply don’t need sandbed bacteria and we dont have to ramp down slowly when removing it to rinse or replace

the truth turned out to be the opposite of what forums said bacteria do, again.
that doesn’t mean sandbeds don’t have beneficial bacteria worms, pods and micro fauna, they do. But it’s optional, not required life which is why we get away with rinsing it. The live rocks carry all the filter needed for the reef, even though it was adapted to + sand surface area just before the rinse. Being thorough and cloudless rinse and final assembly is how we care for the bacteria, by removing the interfering waste riding on top of the valuable bioslicks, under rinsing is dangerous and pure cloudless rinse is the safe way

we rinse live rocks in old tank water to jet off the waste from the pores and preserve the bacteria, but sand gets the full tap rinse to the core
take pics we want to use the steps to show others

 

[Fishbro]

Yes for sure it will work, we simply don’t need sandbed bacteria and we dont have to ramp down slowly when removing it to rinse or replace

the truth turned out to be the opposite of what forums said bacteria do, again.
that doesn’t mean sandbeds don’t have beneficial bacteria worms, pods and micro fauna, they do. But it’s optional, not required life which is why we get away with rinsing it. The live rocks carry all the filter needed for the reef, even though it was adapted to + sand surface area just before the rinse.

Sweet thanks so much!