Switching tanks.

[Jayva]

Ok so here's the situation.

 

Buying cured live rock again. From someone's 450G tear down. Most the rock I'm buying has corals on it. Like GSP zoas whatever. Anyway. Gonna transport 20lbs of live rock in a bucket full of water 20 minute drive. Hopefully No die off.

 

Take my live sand from my 6G and my 10lbs LR and put it in the 25 lagoon. With the 20 lbs I just bought.

 

Will I expirience any kind of cycles. Mini. Spikes. Or can I transfer my fish right over. 2 clowns. 3 hermits. 1 trochus. 1 6 head frogspawn. 1 frag disc GSP. Medium pipe organ. 2 different types of Xenia.

 

Or should I monitor the 25 and keep the fish and inverts in the 6G barebottom with the old 10lb rock and monitor the 25 for a week with the new live rock and my old sand.

 

This isn't happening til another month.

 

The new rock is actually God knows how old display rock from a 450G. Purple healthy has corals and life in it.

 

I can't go bigger then a 25G. I have size limitations because of space available at home.

[IronChefItaly]

Excellent question. Although its common and good practice to follow a full cycle procedure, I think you can bend the rules a bit provided the circumstances are right. I'm currently in the middle of transitioning from a mixed reef Nuvo Fusion 40 to a Red Sea Reefer 250. Doing my own research, there are absolutely reputable sources out there such as the BRS team that have done single day tank upgrades with seemingly no consequences. A few things I believe we should consider are...

- what are the existing water parameters like? high/low nutrients, etc...

- is there large areas of the sand bed that go undisturbed? most likely, I would siphon and clean these areas prior to the move

- health of live rock... has it been kept in a high nutrient tank, is it mature, does it have any dead or waste contributing material...

- generally how sensitive is your livestock...

 

A few things that I've done to mitigate the above mentioned risks... (do note I have the luxury of having both tanks new and old set up beside eachother)

- purchased live sand and seeded it with my own taken out via siphon

- daily water *exchanges* of 10-15 gallons to bring water parameters closer

- phantom feeding and dosing of Red Sea NOPOX to encourage bacteria growth

- transferred ~20 pounds of mature live rock from my old system to the new

 

As it stands, my new system has been wet for about 5 days and I've added an assortment of corals to test the waters and they all seem to be doing great. Continuing along this procedure, I plan to move the remaining fish and rock in stages over the next week provided everything responds well.

[Clown79]

Great advice given.

 

If the lr is transfered in water there should be no die off. It needs to be out of water and longer than an hr.

 

I'd be more concerned about the state of the LR, if there is anything already decaying on it or any absorbed nutrients.

 

If it was me and I had the option to set up the tank and leave the 6g with fish in it, I'd do that. It gives you time to set up the new 25g, aquascape, change things etc etc. During that time you can test it to ensure no spikes occur.

 

If you choose to do it all in one shot, have a bottle of Prime handy in the event there is an ammonia spike.