Moving tanks & RO/DI questions!

[Crowbar]

Hello hello!

So, I've been around a bit, but still fairly new to the hobby. I've been working with a budget (I say, but in reality I'm pretty sure I've just been nickle-and-diming myself to death), so no really fancy equipment or anything exciting like that. I've got a few newbie-ish questions that I'm hoping you guys can help me with!

My tank's been running since January. Currently it's a 36g bowfront with a pretty boring HOB filter & refugium -- I thought the bowfront would be a good idea when I started it, but I feel like there's a lot of wasted vertical space.

I found a pretty good deal on a 29g biocube which I'll be picking up this weekend. Most of my questions revolve around the process of moving over to the new tank. I've ordered a media basket & refugium insert thingy (along with a new light because I dropped mine into the tank tonight, oops), so I've got a bit of time still before I can really work on setting it up.

Anyway, blah, I'm sorry, I ramble.

My questions:
- When moving over to the new tank, is there any problem with getting new sand? I've been fighting hair algae recently and I don't want to bring more of that along than I have to.
- On a similar note, will I crash my cycle if I scrub the hair algae off of my rocks during the move? I'm most concerned about this, because I don't want to put my fish through the stress of re-cycling the tank, and can't keep both tanks running simultaneously due to space and equipment limitations.
- The setup I'm acquiring has some scratches on the front of the tank. Nothing hugely noticeable unless you're up close, but is there any way to make them look better? Clean them/fill them in, something?

Last question is kind of a wildcard, unrelated to moving my tank over other than maybe related to convenience. I have a RO/DI unit that I bought because I don't have a LFS super close to me, but after using it once, I realized it was super slow and made way more "waste" water than I realized it would. And I never used it again.

Is there anything other than, like, watering plants or filling up the washing machine that I could use the excess water for? I'd love to be able to mix my own water for water changes instead of driving a half hour to buy it, but all that waste makes me feel so guilty.

Also, is it normal for it to take several hours to fill up a five gallon bucket with RO/DI water? On top of the guilt, I'm also prematurely mourning my water bill.

Thanks in advance! And again, super sorry, I'm very rambly.

 

[Dr. Phil]

Congrats on the new tank! Personally I would consider starting with new sand and new rock and letting the new tank cycle. Just my opinion. Lol

On the RODI unit can you post what kind you have or pics of it? That might give a little more for everyone to go on as far as how long it should take to produce.

 

[bdehlin]

I know it typically takes me about 2:45 to make a 5 gallon bucket of rodi. I'm going through something similar right now battling bubble algae in the middle of a tank upgrade.

Our plan is to scrape off what we can in the old tank, rinse in new saltwater in a bucket, then transfer it over to the new tank. After that we'll keep rolling on the manual removal and bump up the cuc.

 

[Crowbar]

As appealing as the thought of starting with dry rock is, I'm super concerned about stressing my livestock out. I'm pretty sure all my guys are pretty hardy, but I'd be sad if I lost any of them, haha. Makes me wish I had more space so I could keep them both running for a bit.

This is the RODI unit I have, I think:

(currently not home, so I can't double check - but it's some version of that product)

Last time I used it, I'm pretty sure I had it running for 2-3 hours and ended up with a little bit shy of half of a 5 gallon bucket's worth of RODI water. And, like, so many buckets of wastewater.

 

[Dr. Phil]

If your water pressure is low that could cause excess waste and low production. That system should make about 4 gallons in around an hour.

Definitely don't put your livestock in the new tank if you were to start dry and cycle it. I meant that I would cycle it and then transfer over my livestock.

 

[Crowbar]

Hmm, I'll see if I can measure the water pressure. Thanks for the insight!

 

[Crowbar]

So measuring the water pressure didn't pan out (relatively new homeowner, wouldn't know how to fix it if it was a problem), but I moved the rodi unit into the basement and managed to make about 8ish gallons over a few hours yesterday. The ratio of waste to rodi seemed a bit better, and I used some of the excess to do some laundry and top off my freshwater tank.

Not perfect, but for my size tank it's probably okay!