Tank Transfer questions

[arvind]

I currently have a 180g which I am tearing down to make room for a new Red sea Reefer 625 xxl. I have about 8 fish currently in the system which I am planning to move them into the fuge (75g). I will move the liverock to a separate holding area which consists of 40g breeder and a 30g tub. I have some coral colonies which will be placed into the 40g breeder and a light will be placed to keep the corals alive. I will also add powerheads to both liverock containers to keep oxygenated.

After the 180g is emptied, I will take it offline. The fuge, sump, chiller etc are supplied through a different pump so the fish will stay in that system with minimal disruption.

The hardwood floor needs to be repolished which I am planning to do right after this. After that I will install Red Sea Reefer in its place. Then transfer liverock, fish etc to the new tank. Worst case scenario, the time between 180g going down and the new system installed would be two weeks.

Now for some questions.

How does my plan look so far? Do I need to allow some time for the new tank to cycle if I am using the existing live rock that is being cured in a separate container? I also want to add fresh aragonite live-sand to the new tank. Will this live sand start a new cycle?

 

[brandon429]

no cycles required.

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

the reason I linked that was just to show that instantly changing to your new sand, and giving away all the old bac, wont matter.

yes the lr holds its bacteria as long as wet. you don't have to feed it nor add anything, the rule of microbiology in reefing is that anything wet holds its cycle, it was a misnomer the whole time for reefers to think they control the expression of hydrated bacteria by whether or not they withhold fish food.

wet=permanently cycled, not going to uncycle. we have a proof thread of live rocks not fed for 36 mos that then instantly were able to process a huge amount of ammonia when retested

to save a 23 page read, when removing a sandbed no ramp down time is required.

live rocks do not take on excess bac to make up for removed sand + current bioload. that's lamarkian its not accurate microbiology, the rocks were always enough if you are using a few decent pounds. for any bioload.

 

[brandon429]

the only method that requires you to add bottle bac just in case (we built 23 pages on just in case never happening) or to risk lacking bacteria is if you took your live rock and reduced it by 90% and kept or added to the current fish bioloading.

even if you reduced your live rock by half I still bet it wouldn't matter, lets see what we've got.

lets see your lr that is the workhorse of the filter

 

[arvind]

the only method that requires you to add bottle bac just in case (we built 23 pages on just in case never happening) or to risk lacking bacteria is if you took your live rock and reduced it by 90% and kept or added to the current fish bioloading.

even if you reduced your live rock by half I still bet it wouldn't matter, lets see what we've got.

lets see your lr that is the workhorse of the filter

here:

 

[Jon Fishman]

Make sure you go the extra mile to move everything as far away from the new floor as possible, especially if you are using a polyeurothane or some other sealant with heavy fumes

 

[brandon429]

for sure that's a skip cycle move, you're clean and ready to go now. very very nice system, not storing up waste, but throughputting it ideally in / out not gunked up

jealous.

that live rock will certainly run the system with or without current sand, no matter what you do to new sand etc. its already a very shallow bed/not much surface area. w you take pics for us we like to feature tank surgery, its essentially what you are prepping for. $$ going on the table n back yep. even your large corals count as biofiltration, they're massive surface area. you have an ideal reef in every way I could ever see one, ha nice.
B

 

[arvind]

for sure that's a skip cycle move, you're clean and ready to go now. very very nice system, not storing up waste, but throughputting it ideally in / out not gunked up

jealous.

that live rock will certainly run the system with or without current sand, no matter what you do to new sand etc. its already a very shallow bed/not much surface area. w you take pics for us we like to feature tank surgery, its essentially what you are prepping for. $$ going on the table n back yep. even your large corals count as biofiltration, they're massive surface area. you have an ideal reef in every way I could ever see one, ha nice.
B

Thanks for the kind words .

So is there any benefit in using 'live' sand over dry sand with added bottled bacteria? I can even start this process right away. Start the dry sand with a bottle of bacteria and keep it running until the day of the move. What do you think?

 

[brandon429]

It won't matter biologically one way or another, we never used bottle bac or extra purchases even once in the whole thread, bacteria are this predictable. We changed beds w no bottle bac.

That being said, to add bottle bac is not harmful. They sell a legit product to meet a consumer need, sometimes it's to bring up dry surfaces and sometimes it's for peace of mind as extra bac don't harm within reason, the system self regulates anyway which is why an overfeed doesn't turn 99% of our tanks opaque white.

the sand in there currently is indeed extra surface area, but not core. The live rock can do all the work without ramp up, but to pre cycle new sand is harmless and to add some to the new tank is harmless the main thing is pre rinse the new sand. We link ten people as first links who followed the directions to not rinse, they hated it. Every pre rinser who installed cloudless new sand was happy, hundred percent.

 

[brandon429]

No benefit in using live vs dry, these bacteria on sand are incidental, exactly like this example, so their bacteria doesn't matter:

Tank A is five years old. Everyone agrees cycle done long ago, has four fish. Running fine no ammonia. Keeper installs 3x extra canister filters and they run in line for six months. Now those canisters, extra surface area way past needs of tank, are cycled too solely due to being plumbed in line for beyond 30 days. If tested, each individual canister passes its own 2 ppm oxidation test, they're legit cycled.

So if the keeper wants to remove them, no ramp down needed.


The other surfaces don't take on, or need more bacteria to comp for -3x canister filters taken offline. They weren't ever required and extra surface area from anyone's sandbed isn't required. Matter of fact, extra surface area + filtration bac is added oxygen tax competing with fish. We need the surface area a particular bioload requires, anything beyond isn't helpful.


Compared to today's widespread habit of over using live rock, which I too practice, you have the bare minimum live rock for this process of being sand independent.

Most are fifty pounds of rock beyond need, and then sand...I'm still certain your rock stacks and elkhorn corals and any other surface area moved over will run without free ammonia. Your system is the most up to date design in reefing because extra surface area always requires cleaning in reefing, it's catchpoints for waste. You are low on catch points and high on accessible areas for cleaning it's literally the longest life span design you could impart to a reef tank. The 90s method of stack rocks massive lets us get away with all kinds of sandbed malfeasances

But those systems are also storing up nitrate leaking waste in every pore unless somehow it's getting cast out. In your design, avail water currents already strike surfaces harder, ejecting better.