Need help Swapping tanks to a sand less bottom

Eckolancer · Mar 1, 2013

I currently have a 90 gallon corner DAS tank that has about 3-4 of sand, about 150lbs of Live rock and a lot of corals (mostly SPS and Zoas and few fish. I am switching to a 105 gallon tank that I am going to do sand less bottom, but limited on time to set it up. I have a plumbing issue that is causing me to tear it down and start with a new tank. My question is, can I setup my new tank and use all the water live rock ect.. and just add more already mixed saltwater and be ok? Or should I try and take like half the water out use it with already mixed saltwater, let it run a mini cycle and then do another big water change before moving live stock? My thoughts are moving over current water with a little extra new water is that it will already be cycled and would not be much different then people setting up a temp tank for a move. I really just don't want to lose much live stock during the switch. I only have about 2 weeks time frame or less depending on how bad the plumbing in the house gets.

Reefing Madness · Mar 1, 2013

The water holds little bacteria, so don't worry about how much of that you actually use, if any. If your not setting up the other tank in the same spot, thats a huge bonus. Set up your new tank, get it to temp and SG, basically the same levels your DT is set up to, move all the rock over, don't move the rock until the tank has been running and mixed for 24hours, let sit for a couple of days to see if ts mini cycles, which i doubt it will, then move your other things over.

Eckolancer · Mar 1, 2013

Its not the same spot. only bad thing is moving live rock. Almost all the rock has some corals on it

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Otter_rs · Mar 1, 2013

Reefing Madness said:
The water holds little bacteria, so don't worry about how much of that you actually use, if any. If your not setting up the other tank in the same spot, thats a huge bonus. Set up your new tank, get it to temp and SG, basically the same levels your DT is set up to, move all the rock over, don't move the rock until the tank has been running and mixed for 24hours, let sit for a couple of days to see if ts mini cycles, which i doubt it will, then move your other things over.

^^^Agreed... You may have a small cycle once everything is transferred because you are losing the bacteria in the sand bed, but it should be short. I would just cut back feeding for a week until the bacteria colonies stabilize.

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