Moving with tank

[Dsnakes]

We finally close on our house Friday! Thankfully we built a house which is only down the street from where we rent. I have to move my 20 gallon IM fusion tank. Currently it is set up as sort of a frag tank, which is very full. Occupants are 2 snowflake clowns, a turbo snail, a rock flower nem, a couple hermits, and maybe 50 + frags.
Set up barebottom now, I would like to add sand and more dry rock during the move. How should I handle the move?

-Bucket the water/inhabitants and transfer all together and refill with same water?
-Bucket all and use new water?

Can I add sand during the move or should I wait and slowly add later after adjusted? Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[mtraylor]

That's a small tank. So I would not add the sand and rock at the same time. I would start with the sand. If you added live sand I would bucket the water and inhabitants all together and refill with the same water. Wait a week or so and do a regular water change.

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

You're gonna be best off starting with brand new live sand as yours will most likely contain loads of nitrate/organic. I would transfer all fish/coral/rock in 5 gallon buckets, as well as all of your filter media. I would take ~15g established water and then use ~5g new water to start up the tank.

After removing all of the tank's contents (excluding the sand) I would rinse out the tank with RO water to remove all detritus. The sand you can toss. After the tank is rinsed, you can transfer it to it's new home then first add the new sand, and all your rock/ any new rock you want to add. You may experience a mini cycle, so I would also add some bottled nitrifying bacteria.

 

[Dsnakes]

Thanks for the replies!
Currently the tank is bare bottom. The sand I am looking at is caribsea arag-alive reef sand. I will add some biospira when setting it back up with the live sand and dry rock. The rock is some sort of man made rock I purchased from Lfs. I just put it in RODI with power head to soak now. Not sure if that's needed or not.

Starting to build the tanks new stand today, so still have time to plan the move.

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

I would NOT soak your used rock in Fresh RO water! This will kill all of the live bacteria on it as well as any other small organisms hiding inside