Mmorse Posted January 21, 2004 Share Posted January 21, 2004 I am ready to switch my 20h to a 20l and was wondering how I should do it. I know that I have to put everything in a bucket with the tank water. can I just scoop the sand out or is there a certain way that i should do this? Any tips or tricks in this process would really help;) Should I wait til the lights go out or should I start now? Link to comment
jmt Posted January 21, 2004 Share Posted January 21, 2004 What types of corals, etc. do you have? When I switched from a 5ga to a 10ga, I left a layer of water above the sand (approx. 1.5" deep) and I filled the 10ga 1/3 of the way up with old tank water. I then Just scooped out the substrate and walked 5ft. to dump it into my 10ga. Since I have no corals yet, I added all the live rock to my new tank and put in enough new water to cover the rocks. I left my false perc. in a bucket with some water flow and old water untill the sand had settled (took about a day). Then I filled the tank up with new SW and had all the powerheads, heaters, etc. running. I then put the fish in a bag and acclimated him to the new tank. I didn't even have the smallest of mini-cycles and the fish didn't seem stressed. If you have a skimmer, I suggest you make sure there is enough water to get it running as well, that way it can pick out waste from the sand once it's stirred up. Hope this helps! -Justin Link to comment
Mmorse Posted January 21, 2004 Author Share Posted January 21, 2004 I have a star polyp colony, finger leather, crown leather, pom-pom xenia, and I have a pink skunk clown. Link to comment
caja Posted January 21, 2004 Share Posted January 21, 2004 It doesn't really matter. The sand bed is going to be distrubed no matter how carefully you try to be. I switched tanks at around the 6 month mark. I removed all the livestock and LR and the majority of the water and scooped out the sand an put it ino the new tank. added about 1/3 of the original tankwater, added the LR back in, then filled the rest of the way with freshly mixed SW. Let it all settle and added the livestock back in. Several hours work, but well worth it. you may see a mini cycle from disturbing the sand bed. I had a mini diatom outbreak but added a hefty clean up crew to take care of it. good luck. Link to comment
jmt Posted January 22, 2004 Share Posted January 22, 2004 Yeup, that's basically the way to do it. Just keep your pretties somewhere else untill everything quiets down in the new tank. Link to comment
Mmorse Posted January 22, 2004 Author Share Posted January 22, 2004 well it worked everything survived so far. What a lot of work that was. Hope I dont decide to do that again anytime soon Link to comment
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