Tank transfer

[Nikolaj_Romanov]

So my 5G been running almost a year now. I want to transfer to a 14 bio cube tomorrow but I don’t know about the sand. I of course want to move it but people say it’ll cause problems and I do not wanna rinse it. 
 

Should I just get new sand? I want to avoid a cycle because I have nems and shrimp they won’t survive a cycle. 

[seabass]

21 minutes ago, Nikolaj_Romanov said:

Should I just get new sand?

You can reuse the sand if you rinse it thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly).

 

Don't disturb the old sand until you've removed everything else that you can.  And once it has been disturbed, you must discard the remaining water in the tank.

 

Sure, new sand would work, but there is no reason you have to throw out perfectly good sand.  Rinse the new sand too.

 

You can use saltwater to rinse the sand.  However, freshwater can be used if you really want to.  If you use tap water, I like to do a final rinse with RO/DI, just to get rid of most of the tap water.

 

22 minutes ago, Nikolaj_Romanov said:

I want to avoid a cycle

You shouldn't experience an ammonia spike if you rinse out all of the organics in the substrate.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Yep, just get new sand. 

[seabass]

3 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Yep, just get new sand. 

That's often the easiest thing to do (especially if you are in a time pinch during the transfer).

 

Sometimes, if reusing the sand, I leave things bare bottom for a day while I rinse out the old sand.  Then I'm not spending precious time cleaning the sand when livestock still needs to be moved.

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, seabass said:

That's often the easiest thing to do (especially if you are in a time pinch during the transfer).

 

Sometimes, if reusing the sand, I leave things bare bottom for a day while I rinse out the old sand.  Then I'm not spending precious time cleaning the sand when livestock still needs to be moved.

Yeah, I left my pico barebottom when I did the TTM (mostly because I ran out of new sand lol). 

 

The TTM went over well - no livestock loss. I re-added new sand to the tank several weeks later with no issue either. 👍