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How to transfer to a new tank..


Begow

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Recently a local guy offered a trade to me, my Scoly + $100 for his 57 Rimless RR tank, plus stand, plus sump, and return pump. So obviously I couldn't turn this down.

 

 

My only question is, how do I actually go about doing the transfer? Will I get a cycle?

 

My plans are:

 

Sell my Innovative Marine Fusion 20, Radion XR15W, Jebao WP-10, pretty much everything that I upgraded for the 20 Fusion.

 

With that money, buy a new skimmer for the 57, a T5 fixture and add LED's, and then buy ~50lbs of baserock to add to the 57.

 

 

My biggest question is, how do I avoid a cycle? I plan on transferring all my liverock (~20lbs) to the new tank (most likely in the sump) and using all of my sand bed and water. I will probably buy a bottle of Dr. Tim's Nitrifying bacteria just to be safe, but still, will this be safe?

 

Also, I planned on keeping my fish in a 10 gallon tank with a air stone or possibly a powerhead and a heater for a few days, is this okay? I just want to make sur e the tank is stable before throwing them in.

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As long as you are reusing your liverock and don't change the bioload during the transfer, you won't end up with a cycle. Use this as an opportunity to really scrub your liverock to remove detritus and algae and to also thoroughly clean your sand if you are reusing it (I always reuse mine).

 

Here is how I handle moving and changing tanks:

  1. Set up a holding bin with a powerhead and heater and siphon out water from your tank to fill it up. Transfer your coral and rock into the holding container. Prepare enough new water to completely fill your new system and have it heated to the proper temperature with matching alkalinity.
  2. Siphon off 95% of your water so just a little bit is covering your sand bed and discard it.
  3. Stir the hell out of your sandbed and get all of the nastiness suspended in the remaining water, then drain off the nasty water.
  4. Transfer the clean sand to your new tank and add any additional sand to cover the bottom.
  5. Add your base rock* into the new tank.
  6. Add your live rock into the new tank (no water yet) and then place your corals where you want them. Use this as an opportunity to scrub off your rocks using the water from the holding tank (which will be discarded)
  7. Fill up your new tank with teh fresh water and discard the water from your holding tank.

* Make sure your base rock is thoroughly cleaned and treated since a lot of it comes loaded with phosphates and nasty dust. You should read up on this, I am not farmiliar with the process since I used all live rock.

 

Make sure that you don't reuse any water that has detritus suspended in it - this is what will end up causing a cycle. Using all new water and cleaning all your liverock thoroughly between tanks is the best way to ensure you don't end up with a cycle. But, just in case, keep some prime on hand to kill any ammonia that pops up. I've done this process 4 times now and never once did I have to use prime and I still have my original sand.

 

I also always use a temporary holding bin when transferring or moving because of the possibility that something goes wrong. During my last move, my tank got cracked and my entire reef was in the holding tank for 6 days waiting for a new tank.

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Is the new tank going in a different spot from the old one?

 

I just recently made a move from a 10g to a 36g and didn't go through any cycle. This was a new tank in a different spot, so I was able to set up the new tank and get it running first.

 

What I did:

- Got an additional 20lbs of dry rock and cycled it with pure ammonia and a cup of sand from my existing tank. This probably wasn't necessary, but didn't take long since I seeded with "live" sand and was still waiting on the new tank to arrive (2 weeks or so).

- Set up the new tank with fresh saltwater and a new sandbed.

- Placed in the cycled dry rock

- Got temperature in both tanks to match

- Moved the rocks and corals from the 10g into the new tank

- Caught the fish and snails, then dumped them into the new tank

 

I originally planned to acclimate everything carefully into the new tank, but all that planning went down the drain once I got moving :D

 

I was concerned about a cycle before, but like jservedio said, there shouldn't be a cycle if you're reusing the liverock and maintaining the bioload.

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I always use new sand, bit jservedio's post is pretty much exactly what I would do. Unlikely you will cause a cycle as most of the bacteria is in the rock. I wouldn't keep the existing tank going. As long as you somewhat match water parameters you shouldn't have a problem. I've moved and upgraded several times and have never had problems just switching all at once.

Reusing sand just isn't worth the risk or effort in my experience especially if the tank has been setup a while. It takes a ridiculous amount of rinsing to get everything out of it.

 

Get new and at a later time rinse the old and sell it to someone else.

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I always use new sand, bit jservedio's post is pretty much exactly what I would do. Unlikely you will cause a cycle as most of the bacteria is in the rock. I wouldn't keep the existing tank going. As long as you somewhat match water parameters you shouldn't have a problem. I've moved and upgraded several times and have never had problems just switching all at once.

 

Reusing sand just isn't worth the risk or effort in my experience especially if the tank has been setup a while. It takes a ridiculous amount of rinsing to get everything out of it.

 

Get new and at a later time rinse the old and sell it to someone else.

 

I see your point, but disagree a bit with it for the case of a nano tank. It took me far, far longer to completely rinse my new sand than it did to clean out and reuse my sand (plus, I am particular about sand so it took a lot of sifting and grading to get the right consistency). Having sand that already has a biofilm on it definitely allowed me to crank my flow much higher than I could when my sand was new.

 

As for the work to clean it - the entire sandbed of my 20g, once everything was removed, took me less than 30 minutes to fully wash out (I rinsed 3 times) and I only ended up using 4 or 5 gallons of water to do it. If I had a 180g tank it would be too much of a hassle since you can't easily tilt the tank to get out the rinse water, but on a small tank it was super easy. It probably took 50 gallons of water to fully remove the dust, impurities, and fines with the new sand (albeit it was tap water).

 

Who knows, maybe I was cleaing my new sand wrong (I only did it once), got good at rinsing my sand from doing it so many times and my effort isn't typical, or I am just too particular about my sand, but I find it easier to reuse it!

 

*Note: I rinse my sand by leaving about 1" of water above the sand and stir it like crazy. I then pull all the sand to one side and then tilt that side up so the water and detritus end up on the opposite side with no sand below it. Then I dump out that nasty water and repeat a couple of times until the stirred up water is clear or very close to it - usually 2-3 times total.

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I see your point, but disagree a bit with it for the case of a nano tank.

Should have been more specific. The last 2 moves were a 50 to a 90, and a 90 to a 90. 50 - 75 lbs of sand is a lot of work. Probably worth the effort in a small tank since you can probably rinse all the sand in 1 or 2 batches or do the tilted tank garden hose method.

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