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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Tank transfer help or hurt Cyanobacteria?


Firefish15

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Hey all! 
My 10g aquarium has been running for 3 years now, and I’ve been preparing to transfer the rock and livestock to a much nicer looking 14g bow front. 
I’ve been experiencing a Cyanobacteria problem off and on again for a few months now. Right now, it’s not going as well, seems to get pretty bad in two or three days, a large part of the sand bed is covered, and a little bit on the rock work. 
Would it be okay to do the tank transfer and put in a new sand bed? I have a 20lb bag of the Caribsea Fiji Pink live sand that I’ll use. 
I don’t want to make things worse against the cyano though, if that disruption would help them. 
Any input would be great, also happy to provide any other information like my maintenance and feeding routines, lights and schedules, and livestock. 
Thanks!

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If i was in the position, i wouldn't use any of the sand.

All new sand. 

 

With the rocks i would blast cyano off them with a turkey baster before transferring. 

 

Do you plan on using the water in the 10g for the 14g or all new water?

 

Cyano is a common issue most go through. Its not a huge problem if you control it. 

 

You mention lots of cyano on the sand. Sounds like a build up causing cyano.

 

Do you vacuum the sand during water changes?

 

Do you have good flow? If there are dead zones in the tank, food and such doesn't stay suspended and filtered out. It then gets trapped in the sand, breaksdown to waste.  

 

I would consider adding pods once the new tank is settled. Since you will have new sand, adding pods will help with biodiversity.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

If i was in the position, i wouldn't use any of the sand.

All new sand.

What about just using a cup or two for the sake of seeding the new sand with some diversity? I’ve got some different types of worms around.

 

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

With the rocks i would blast cyano off them with a turkey baster before transferring.

Oh yeah, definitely. I want to use this opportunity to get the upper hand on some bubble algae too.

 

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Do you plan on using the water in the 10g for the 14g or all new water?

I was planning on using about 5 gallons of old water and the rest new. What would you recommend?

 

p

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Do you vacuum the sand during water changes?

Yep! I get very little detritus out of it though. 
Sometimes during the week I’ll stir it around some too. Use the turkey basted to inject water down to the bottom and make the sand bubble up.

 

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Do you have good flow? If there are dead zones in the tank, food and such doesn't stay suspended and filtered out. It then gets trapped in the sand, breaksdown to waste.

I upgraded my flow a few weeks ago. I have the AC70 HOB running at the lowest setting (~100gph) and then I have a Jebao SOW-3 pointed up at the surface running at the minimum, pushing around 130gph. I could turn both of those up, but I’m having a hard time diffusing the flow enough to where the corals aren’t getting battered and the sand bed isn’t getting blown around.
The HOB intake is near the sand bed, seems to collect stuff pretty well.

 

I’m for sure adding more pods. I also regularly add nannochloropsis phytoplankton.

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Seeding sand can help a little but the main bulk of your filtration happens via the rock. I would rather fully replace the sand or rinse the current sand until it's entirely clean and free of any detritus / life. 

I pulled all of my sandbed out and cleaned it for an hour before adding it back a few months ago to help with cyano. The results we where instant.. so much detritus hides in the sand it's amazing to watch the water run off and how filthy it is....

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Always have new SW made up for a transfer

 

If using water from the existing tank as well, the first thing to do is remove the water you want to use and put it in a buckets BEFORE removing rocks and sand.

 

I usually put fish and corals in tank water with water movement and heater. I keep separate containers/buckets of tank water

 

After that,  remove rocks, you can use remaining water to get the cyano off.

 

Place rocks in the tank, add new sand, start filling it up with tank water/new water

 

Then continue adding livestock once the temp and salinity is correct

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