Keeping bacteria alive when doing tank transfer?

[bubbaque]

This weekend I am going to be doing a tank upgrade. I am wanting to know if I need to worry about the bacteria on the LR if I keep it out the water while I try and get the new aquascape figured out. I am not wanting to go through another cycle but also want to scape with no water in the tank. Is this possible or does that bacteria die pretty fast?

 

[tgfitz1]

I am sure you get a lot of die off pretty quickly once the LR has been removed.. not 100% sure though!

 

[twilliard]

You more than likely will see a small cycle. There is more bacteria in the rock than on the true surface (depending on how porous the rock is)
Bacteria will survive as long as it doesn't dry out. I keep samples in the fridge

 

[shoelaceike]

Fill the new tank with water and aquascape under water.....thats what I do and never had a cycle. Established rock is underrated. If you have it, try not to kill it.

 

[Invader_Moose]

How long do you plan on keeping the rock out of the water?
If only for the day while you get the new scape figured out, then I would wrap the rock in water soaked newspaper and it keep at room temperature. This should keep most the bacteria alive.
Longer then a day, I would place the rock in a bin of freshly made saltwater with heater and circulation. This could have the added benefit off "leaching" out anything that potentially soaked into the rock and give best survival rates.
Just keep it moist and you should be fine but I would anticipate a mini cycle.

 

[v10king]

As long as you have water with similar properties and heat level, you should be fin in my experience with transferring.

 

[bubbaque]

Thanks for the help. I am wanting to scape it with no water in the tank, it just makes it so much easier. Will misting the rock with a bottle of tank water keep it alive while I do the scape? I think that is going to be the easiest approach.

I thought about the newspaper route but won't be able to scape with the paper on it.

 

[reef_ranch]

Thanks for the help. I am wanting to scape it with no water in the tank, it just makes it so much easier. Will misting the rock with a bottle of tank water keep it alive while I do the scape? I think that is going to be the easiest approach.

I thought about the newspaper route but won't be able to scape with the paper on it.

Yep. That will work just fine.

 

[Invader_Moose]

The paper would make that hard lol. I don't think you should be overly concerned as twilliard said, there is bacteria deeper in the rock where it will stay moist for many hours if not a day plus. keeping a consistent temp and misting the rock could only help in my opinion. I still say plan for a mini cycle but hope it doesn't happen.

 

[brandon429]

with pics we can tell if it will mini cycle, it has to be covered in sponges. if not, you can set it out in the air for 20 mins and it wont recycle

sounds like a mighty big claim I kno
but the threads we have on doing it, priceless ~

nobody said you have to push it either, just that its a repeated tolerance level we utilize in tank move threads, and in tank cleaning/rescue threads since the work on the offending rocks is often done on the cabinet sitting on a towel. My own reef and corals and inverts is routinely drained for 25 mins like the tide ebb and flow, fine conditioning for a reef to impart strength that's for sure. didn't have to work up to that, that's all live rock except for exceptionally dense uncured stuff

pics

some people fill a squirt gun with sw and go to town during the move lol. fun kids activity.

prying the live rock stack off an old untouched sanded should cause a mini cycle predictably, though they usually aren't eventful/. yes its possible for a worm to die in the live rock, but again this is rare. somehow pico reefers never have problems with this and we have 1/100th of the dilution to absorb mistakes, and a much higher coral to water density.

 

[bubbaque]

Thanks for the help! I will also add a bottle of bacteria to try and help just to make sure things go smoothly.

 

[samnaz]

What about keeping a bucket filled with tank water near by while you're scaping, and you can just give the rock a quick dunk if it's been exposed to the air for a while. I haven't actually done this but I'm transferring a tank next week and thought about doing this.

 

[hartin461]

He was doing it back in January so its probably done, but I would be interested in how it went and yours too. I will be doing a transfer from a 125 to 180 in a week or two also. I did buy a 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank to throw everything into with a heater and powerheads while I set the new one.

 

[brandon429]

a very accurate way to see this issue is the water support isn't for the bacteria, its for pods worms and stars and sponges and tunicates. the bacteria literally need no help, none at all since the rocks would have to be purposefully dried likely for a week before any measurable loss and even after a month+ there will still be some in the inner areas.

its true using a kids toy spray gun wet w saltwater and other holdover tricks will never hurt...insurance easy move. but its also fun to know the technical limits of the bacteria we work with and I estimate the rocks would have to bake in the sun for a week or better before the bacteria would die, measurably. first to come, last to go in a tank...rule of the nitrifier and crew

a helpful takeaway from that scenario is that large sets of live rock that do not have exceptional coverage of sponges and worms galore can be moved without water at all as no bacteria will be lost in anything shy of outside drying well past an assumed completion date...its helpful for large tank transfers to know sometimes its just better to stack all the rock in a tarped truck bed and drive to your new location vs paying someone with a water tanker setup to haul it all wet.

My own rock can handle a drive to Amarillo in the current condition. already trained up

 

[bubbaque]

Since I had to fill the tank to make it was leveled, I ended up just adding salt and making sure it was to temperature and just moved the rock right over. The rock was out of the water maybe 20 seconds. I did add an extra bottle of biospira to be safe but never seen another cycle.

 

[hartin461]

Hoping mine goes as smooth as yours. Only thing is my new tank will be in the same spot as the one coming down so I have to empty it out in order to place the new one. Using as much water, rocks, and sand from the old one to put in the new one, so am hoping to avoid a cycle as I have a fair amount of fish and corals to swap over.

 

[brandon429]

Don't forget to either rinse the sand fully or replace it, it houses only algae fuel. You are at a rare intercept juncture that will add months or years of lesser algae issues if you'll make that sand a no detritus zone

Only remote sandbeds should be left untouched in a move...display tank sandbeds are diapers, this is a change interval coming up

Skipping a recycle is easy. I would use none of the old water or sand, and set up a sparkling new/matured reef.

Using the old sand makes the cycle likely. Rinsing or replacing is how we skip cycles here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445

If you want to capture the water first before disassembly and reuse it, not a prob. I'd love to link new changeout examples in our thread take pics if you can, the tanks there were all skip cycle tanks.

 

[bubbaque]

Hoping mine goes as smooth as yours. Only thing is my new tank will be in the same spot as the one coming down so I have to empty it out in order to place the new one. Using as much water, rocks, and sand from the old one to put in the new one, so am hoping to avoid a cycle as I have a fair amount of fish and corals to swap over.

Mine went in the same spot also. My old tank was a 75 gallon so it was still moveable. I pushed it out and left everything plugged in while I put the new tank in it's place. I also used all the old sand just rinsed it very well until the water started to run clear.

 

[hartin461]

I did buy a new 20# bag of sand for my wrasse in hopes of making an area a little deeper for him and then laying a thin layer of some of the sand I have now just to cover the glass. Shouldn`t use much more than 5# of it.
Probably will have to be pretty much all new water as I`ll use the current tank water to house everything during the switch over. My sump is in the basement so will be easy to pump fresh sw to the sump and up. I`ll try to get a few pictures along the way but It will be just the wife and I and hopefully the son-in-law long enough to get the tank on the stand...lol...

Still got to drill tank,paint stand, mount overflows, and pick up a few more plumbing parts, but hope to have it done before the end of the month. Will start a new tread then.. Thanks guys