Tank move suggestions please!

bt_oma · Sep 20, 2019

Currently, I am looking to transfer my 10g SW tank to a waterbox 45.2 frag tank. I have a few questions and would appreciate some guidance. Here is my plan.

I have 3/4 of a 20lb bag of sand I didn't use in my 10g. I also have some leftover Marco rock from when I was aqua scaping. Probably another 10 lbs.

In your opinions, would I be able to use the remaining bag of sand and rock to start the tank up? Do I need to rinse the sand since I opened the bag and didn't use it? Its Carib sea Arag alive Fiji pink.

I used Dr Tim’s on my 10g, and it was started on the fourth of July, so about 11 weeks now. I currently have two clowns, five blue hermits, three nessarius, and four trochus living in the tank.

Conditions seem very stable. I had been running the tank a bit low on the phosphates and am now up to .02 and sitting around 5ppm on the nitrates. I check the ammonia occasionally and shows zero on the API tests.

Once I get things going and get the temp and salinity stable on the new tank. Would I be good to grab everything from the old tank and drop it in, meaning rock and sand as well as the inhabitants? Would it be best to drop some bacteria in the new tank and then move things in? Or should I be running another cycle on this tank prior to moving things in?

Thanks!
Brian

Picture of my current 10g system.

brandon429 · Sep 20, 2019

here is how to do it free adding no bac and it wont recycle

drain out water and catch animals in clear water/hold leaving only rocks sand and a couple inches mess water.

take out rocks and swish them around in clean saltwater only until the detritus is cast off, set aside.

take out current sand and rinse it in tapwater until it runs 1000% clear even if it takes one hour of rinsing, clear. not any cloud. final rinse in saltwater, that sand is ready now.

rinse your new sand the exact same, combine them now if you want only after cloudless prep.

set this all up in the new tank and add all new water it will not recycle.

add new uncycled rocks if you want, if they have nothing attached to rot after hydration, they wont hurt anything. if they do, that part can cause a recycle.

brandon429 · Sep 20, 2019

the tap portion does not harm, its key to getting a clear rinse. using premade water runs out too fast, and brief tap water isn't stripping sand grains of bacteria its doing nothing to the bac at all, they're tucked under ridges that under a microscope look like the grand canyon.

20+ pages of tank moves using this method.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

its amazing the exact same set of moves above is used for:
-moving tanks
-fixing all cyano invasions where tank size allows such access
-fixing dino invasions without waiting ten months
-fixing greenwater and cloudy water conditions
-preventing old tank syndrome; dont have to wait until a prob shows. rip cleaning is not harmful its regenerative...reefs do have storms in nature. it moves stuff violently

and swishes and dislodges.
*preparing for hurricanes and power outages*** a clean tank lives longer than a cloudy tank in every single case.
*recovering from power outages and storms where no prep work was done. Rip cleaning restores porosity to plugged up systems. its never harmful.

bt_oma · Oct 8, 2019

Thanks @brandon429

Status update. I have rinsed clean the sand and added to the new tank that is now running. I added the extra marco rock that I had not used in the 10g. When I did the drop test there was no cloudiness in the water! Tested parameters and showing no ammonia or nitrite, just some nitrate.

I am still deciding on course of action with the 10g the family likes it where its at so I might keep it where its located. I bought some pukani rock from the LFS that had been removed from someones tank. It has since been bleached and is now curing in a 5 gal of RO with chlorine neutralizer, powerhead and heater.

I still plan on using a bit of the rubble I had in the back chamber of the 10g to help with the bio bacteria.