Had to move the 34 today

[Sancho]

My Solona has been in its home 8 years now. I need to move it to make room for the 90. I have everything in a tupperware bin now. But the sand was nasty. Really nasty. so I replaced all the sand any thoughts on this? I had 50 gallons of new nsw on hand to rinse the LR. All live stock is chilling in the 50 gallon tupperware with power heads. I probably lost most of my cuc to the shop vac Has anyone done this with a established tank? My family is freaked out and think I am going to kill everything in tank. I have moved tanks in the past but never done a complete swap out of live sand.

[Rural]

no personal experience

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/205722-steviets-guide-to-moving-a-tank/

[GTi]

Good move on replacing the sand. Stirring up old sand can cause an ammonia spike or release hydrogen sulphide and other nasties in to the water column. If you have the same livestock and live rock, you should have adequate biofilter. You should be in good shape but it might be worth checking ammonia levels for a few days just so you can take any remedial action necessary. Good luck - it'll be worth it!

[GavinW]

I swapped an established five to a ten gallon. Way smaller scale but I did all the same steps as you. I also used smart start complete just incase and everything is growing and perfectly healthy! It was like the move didn't even happen ahah. I made sure to use the same filter media at least until the parameters where stable, but they never where unstable. The live rock really helps keep the bacteria going.

[gulfsurfer101]

Yes, you're good. You can expect the natural diatomes bloom over you're sand, maybe red slime bit or should clear up pretty quick. I recently set up a 10g on the fly using completely established rock out my 75. The sand was the only thing that wasn't cured and I used nsw to fill up the tank. 24hrs later it's fully stocked holding all the livestock out my 75g with the exception of some bigger fish.