once you're ready to enact the transfer of materials across tanks, post here and we can build an easy tank transfer, pretty much exactly like Hank said above with the option of adding + more rocks to existing or just keeping the existing, and all new sand OR tap water rinsed old sand, the point being cloudless state of sand in the new tank. you can only attain that via rinsing, sandbed bacteria don't matter. that was an old rule made up in 1998 as reefing fact, it's not.
bare bottom tanks exist today by the hundred thousands in numbers due to this proof principle, and, removing sand does NOT mean more bacteria build up on rocks. it means that this whole time, rock bacteria are enough, and it doesn't matter what accessory bacteria you remove. hard to believe, but it's fact.
the rule does not fail and helps reefers in this way: lets say you have 10 fish, 2 canister filters, a sandbed and X pile of rocks in the old tank
when the new tank gets here, the only thing you need to do is transfer over rocks into the new tank and it will carry your ten fish that is carried right now
the 2 canister filters, the sandbed, all the extra surface area people add has no benefit nor can you detect it being missing from the new tank. we were misled that bad regarding filter bacteria in
reef tanks
why:
reef tank rock is inherently craggy/jutted/high surface area and it's enough to power any display including fish by itself.
freshwater tanks are polished / low surface area/ not jutted and craggy, so the training to pack in extra surface area for those setups is legit
reefs don't need it: literally their rock is enough and if you want to know the boundaries of the "rule" we use in the 50 page sand rinse thread, we could even reduce your current live rock by 50% and remove the 2x filters and the sandbed, and any test tank hooked to seneye would still indicate pure ammonia control carrying ten fish
many cycling trolls are angered by this rule he he we are likely to get an angry retort soon based on me typing that.
large tankers were also equally angry when shown a pico reef in 2001, they said it was a lie and couldn't work. what are there, a million running pico reefs now> the masses rarely accept new findings.
in your case, the + dilution means your bacteria existing in the new tank won't see as much waste concentrate anyway. the rule of surface area is so pronounced in reefing that even if you were downgrading, losing dilution and a ten-fish load would present harsher to surfaces, we still wouldnt care. half anyone's live rock will still run their whole reef, we have several rock cull jobs to lesser aquascapes in the sand rinse thread. the rule doesn't fail.
the only way to fail is to let fish jump out while moving, or to fail to rinse new sand to total cloudlessness
total. cloudlessness, not partial cloudlessness because you care about it's bacteria. there's reasons we do 1000% cloudless sand in the new tank not stated here
if you move old sand, it's cloudless rinsed for the new tank
if you buy brand new sand marked on the bag: don't rinse, you still rinse it to total cloudlessness if you want this job done right. move no cloud, that's key to safey.
