Inheriting a reef

[Cflow]

I moved to a new state and want to start up again. I found another reefer that wants to shut down. They want to sell all livestock and rock/sand together. My tank is approximately the same volume. Would it be ok to just take their livestock and put it in my bare system or should I bother to cycle my tank first? I want everything except their sand. Lighting and flow will be closely matched. It’s basically a softy tank with mostly torches and zoas. Any suggestions? Plug and play? Obviously I’ll closely monitor ph, dkh, and other basic parameters.

 

[mjgonereefing]

I moved to a new state and want to start up again. I found another reefer that wants to shut down. They want to sell all livestock and rock/sand together. My tank is approximately the same volume. Would it be ok to just take their livestock and put it in my bare system or should I bother to cycle my tank first? I want everything except their sand. Lighting and flow will be closely matched. It’s basically a softy tank with mostly torches and zoas. Any suggestions? Plug and play? Obviously I’ll closely monitor ph, dkh, and other basic parameters.

 

[mjgonereefing]

I would imagine it would need to be cycled again unless you keep his or her rocks in the water without letting them dry out.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

I would say, if you have a chance and the resources, to A do a large waterchange in his tank. Bring half of his water and some of his rock to tour system, let it run and stabilize, ghost feed the tank, see if there will be a nutrient spike. Let it run for a week or so. Get the flow dialed in, add some bacteria in the bottle (microbacter) then move the rest of the stuff with corals and such. Again that would be my ideal scenario. If you decide to just rip his rock and put it in your tank that’s def doable but not ideal IMO.

 

[Suohhen]

It depends, a lightly stocked stable tank is the least risk but moves are always risky. I have lost fish every time I've moved. My recommendation is to quarantine any nervous swimmers. Tangs especially but angelfish and really any big fish. In my experience the more dominant and mature the fish the worse.

 

[Cflow]

I would normally do a full in cycle, but since I’m just taking his rock, fish, and coral, they should provide some bacteria. It isn’t feasible to make two trips for the rock since it’s a pretty good commute. I could do the Dr Tim’s cycle in my tank with no rock or sand, but only siporax and matrix. I also have aquaforest mud. I believe this is somewhat beneficial for a balanced bacterial population. I just don’t want to over do it.

 

[Dburr1014]

Load his rock in a bucket and fill it with water and move everything over. Just keep the rock wet you won't have a cycle.

 

[malacoda]

Dburr1014 nailed it.

If you're bringing all of the live rock over from his tank to yours, there is no need ... or point ... in cycling your tank first. The rock already has all the denitrifying (e.g. ammonia processing) bacteria needed to handle the existing livestock load.

I've moved/upgraded 4 different tanks. And while there is no need to use any of the current tank's water, it does help...

Nano reefers do 100% water changes quite often.

However, I have found in my last two tank moves that transferring 40-50% of the existing tank water over to the new tank ... as suggested by Macdaddynick1 ... helps lessen any mild shock that sps might experience ... and they resumed growth much quicker. About 1-2 weeks versus 3-4 weeks when they went into 100% new water. My suspicion is because it kept at least some degree of nutrients in the water for them.

It isn't necessary; but if you have the water in the transport containers, may as well use it.

My lps and softies never seemed to care either way.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

no need to worry about a "cycle" and leave PH of your list of things to watch. all you need is bacteria to process the ammonia produced by live stock as long as the rocks are kept wet the bacteria should be intact. in a few days of running it should be just fine and able to process any bio load as long as you don't over load it with fish and coral day one there is no issue. I would put the fish in there day one with the wet rock with all new water, hopefully their tank isn't a mess and the reason for their quitting.

 

[Troylee]

I just did this a couple months ago with a 400 gallon system.. have the water made at your house ready to go for the new tank.. grab his rock and corals and throw them in your tank with all new water and it will flourish! No cycle and no problems.. I even used the old sand and just rinsed it well with my garden hose lol.. I didn’t wanna spend $300 on new sand for such a large tank. The rocks I just kept in trash bags with no water for about 7 hours and they were still moist inside but dry on the outside with encrusted Sps and they even survived believe it or not. Check my build thread page one you can see the move.

 

[Cflow]

I’ll probably just make my water and try to match his alkalinity then put everything in. I have some Dr Tim’s bacteria in case anything gets out of whack. I usually carbon dose a little anyway. Hopefully it doesn’t slime up.