Moving into a new system question

[Jdavison911]

Everyone I have my new system set up and running. It is a 300 gallon display, 2 80 gallon frag tanks and a 75 gallon sump. I have approx. 200 pounds of cured rock and 200 pounds of CaribSea Aragonite Special Grade Dry Sand. This has been up and running for 3 days. Im going to move approx. 300 pounds of mature live rock out of my old system along with 6 fish and some non sps corals. Do I need to worry about a cycle or should the mature live rock handle it? I would think it would be fine but wanted to get the input from members that have done this in the past. Thanks in advance.

 

[Subsea]

Do you have a tank thread with pictures?


Mature tanks have mini cycles everyday, I call that Dynamic Equilibrium.

I see no reason to expect a nitrification cycle.

 

[Jdavison911]

Not yet but I do have pictures and will start one soon. Its been a crazy 3 weeks. We closed on our new house 3 weeks ago and I am converting the garage into a fish room so trying to move, build a fish room and take care of a remote tank hasn't given me a bunch of time. I will get something going once I get the old system broken down and everything in the new system settled down. Thanks for your reply that helps out on the comfort level a little more for the move.

 

[Subsea]

Movingi

Not yet but I do have pictures and will start one soon. Its been a crazy 3 weeks. We closed on our new house 3 weeks ago and I am converting the garage into a fish room so trying to move, build a fish room and take care of a remote tank hasn't given me a bunch of time. I will get something going once I get the old system broken down and everything in the new system settled down. Thanks for your reply that helps out on the comfort level a little more for the move.

Moving in the cold of Winter during Christmas. That is an ingredient for stress. Take care.

A friend of mine, @PaulB, moved his system of 47 years during Christmas. Recently, he left his tank for two weeks to get a titanium knee. This morning, he saw his display after two weeks of neglect for the first time. It looked better than when he left it.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

It won’t be perfectly smooth sailing, but it won’t be anything your corals will care too much or that you should worry about.

Pretty much plug-and-play...just keep an eye on things.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Movingi


Moving in the cold of Winter during Christmas. That is an ingredient for stress. Take care.

A friend of mine, @PaulB, moved his system of 47 years during Christmas. Recently, he left his tank for two weeks to get a titanium knee. This morning, he saw his display after two weeks of neglect for the first time. It looked better than when he left it.

Like our children, our reefs do much better when we just kinda stay out of their way.

 

[Pellikan]

+1 when I did something similar I didn't notice a cycle. Maybe a mini cycle but not much. Don't let your live rock stay in the open vey long and add new livestock slowly and you should be fine.

 

[Jdavison911]

Thanks everyone. I feel better now about the move. I didn't think it would be a problem just wanted to get other input. I will be transporting the live rock and corals attached to it in water from the old system. I was planning on adding that water as well to the new system to help out. I will have 100 gallons of new mix ready to go if I see a raise in ammonia. I expect a little die off but with a system that has close to 500 gallons it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I do have 6 fish that will make the move at the same time and will keep a close eye on them, they are smaller and very healthy.

 

[davocean]

As long as you keep rock moist or submerged it should be no big deal.
Don't worry so much about the old water, most of your beneficial life is in your rock, water column itself contains very little if anything, but you do want to keep params similar, that is the only thing to really watch for.

People do swaps all the time sometimes doubling in size using existing rock and have little or no cycle type issues.

If your old tank was dsb I would take this time to change that out for new sand mostly, preferably dry sand, and a scoop, or maybe even the top half inch of your old to seed the new sand.

I would have brute trash cans and furniture carts for easy transfer of rock, and keep submerged, and you can take time to scape as you wish.

Just stay on top of weekly WC's and check params.

Good luck, post pics when you can.

 

[Subsea]

I would think that waterborne bacteria & other spores would be of a differrent group than in substrate.

From experience with using water transfer from a mature, healthy system to help stabilize bacteria population imbalance in a new system, I consider water transfer a good thing. Except for the weight of it. It is not necessary to bring in thousands of pounds of water to establish healthy bacteria cultures. Bacteria will grow if their enviroment is healthy, just as a handful of substrate from a mature system will inoculate bacteria, so will 1G of water.

Better than bacteria, micro fauna & fana in the substrate is the heart of biofiltration in a natural system.