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Moving from 5.5 to 9.1 gal?


atonyshepherd

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atonyshepherd

My 5.5 Nano has been up for around a month and a half and I finally gave in to the temptation to buy a nice tank - a 9.1 gal aquamaxx rimless, low iron beauty. I'll be transplanting the contents (as much as possible) to the new tank when it gets here. My water right now is perfect (according to API's tests at least) and I want to avoid cycling or mini-cycles because I do have a couple damsels, CUC, and some frags in there which I don't wish to rid myself of. I've read of others upgrading tanks and putting new sand in rather than using the sand from the established tank, however, what I can find is usually people going from 55g to 90g, not 5g to 9g.

 

In your opinion, would you use new sand entirely or would you just add more NEW sand (meaning not live..) to what is already there seeing that the tank is still relatively new, and relatively small?

 

Also, I had some rock in my brackish tank that I've pulled out and rinsed under hot water in attempt to kill anything on it so I can safely add it to my new tank - (I've got about 8 more inches in length on the new one) - is rinsing and letting it dry enough to kill the stuff on it?

 

Or would you go about this entirely differently? Everyone seems to have different opinions, and I'd love to hear yours - especially if you've experience with doing this.

 

I've attached a pic of my current setup for what it's worth. It was taken earlier last week - I've moved some of the frags and added a couple too, but generally this is it.

 

Thanks!!

-Tony

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If you are looking to avoid a cycle/mini cycle you can't add rock you rinsed and dried out directly to the tank. It will have dead organics on it. You can cure/cycle it in the old tank/bucket or get some reef cleaners rock.

 

I usually replace sand but since it is only 1.5 months old it may be okay to use with a good rinse in old tank water. It really depends how much waste is trapped in it.

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atonyshepherd

If you are looking to avoid a cycle/mini cycle you can't add rock you rinsed and dried out directly to the tank. It will have dead organics on it. You can cure/cycle it in the old tank/bucket or get some reef cleaners rock.

 

I usually replace sand but since it is only 1.5 months old it may be okay to use with a good rinse in old tank water. It really depends how much waste is trapped in it.

 

That's good to know about the rinsed rock - you definitely helped me avoid some confusion for varied water params a little ways down the road.

 

I can definitely replace the sand. There's a decent amount of...stuff....on the surface of the sand bed, though I could clean it off fairly easily. When I started the tank, I used a bag of live sand - so my only concern in using all new sand, is that I'll lose the bacteria in the sand and cue an ammonia spike for the lost filtration, but steady bioload. Is this even something to be concerned about?

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I have never had an issue replacing sand beds, the main thing is not to disturb the sand inside the tank. I do however, have prime on hand and dose some whenever making a big change to a tank in case anything unexpected happens.

 

You are more likely to get a mini cycle moving a sand bed than replacing it due to the fact moving it releases any debris it had buried.

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there are a number of threads and ideas about sand bed cleaning / rinsing. Again, your tank being only setup a month or so I doubt it's very dirty. I would get a gravel vac and next water change do some siphoning of your sand to see what you're dealing with.

 

I upgraded tanks after 1 year. Previously I didn't touch my sand for that 1 year and disturbing it was like opening the gates of hell - basically black smoke came out- I removed all livestock first then rinsed the sand 40-50 times with tap water until it was sparkling clean. I reused every bit of the sand in my new tank. It was a lot of work, I don't recommend leaving your sand undisturbed for a long time for that reason.

 

Now I clean at least a portion of my sand every week or two - it retains all the benefits and none of the demonic forces. I just posted a pic in my tank thread of 2 cups of sand that I just cleaned, check it out.

 

TL;DR - clean your sand and reuse it.

 

as far as your other rocks? Like Tamberav said - do not add them to your tank. let them cook in a bucket for 2 months then they should be ok. or get some new very clean dry rock.

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atonyshepherd

Great. I'll just clean the sand I've got then and save a few bucks. Looks like I'm also in the marked for some dry rock haha. Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help!

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I recently transferred from 5.5g to 13.5g. I got the new tank, added some new sand, added a piece of rock ruble from the old tank, some biomedia from the old tank, and let the new tank cycle for a week. When the new tank is cycled, I transferred the livestock and rock from old tank to new. IMO, you should still cycle the new tank and not just transfer everything over...just to be safe.

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