Tank Upgrade

[tippeframe]

I'm moving the live stock from my old tank to my new tank. I need advice on how best to do this. Here is what is in my old tank:

 

20 Gallon long tank

Red Sea Prizm Protein Skimmer

Small Penguin Biowheel filter

2x65Watt PC lighting

2 clowns

2 fireshrimp

Devil's hand leather coral

ricodia

hairy shrooms

2xBTA Anemones

shrooms

Candy Cane Coral

Crocea Clam

Pulsing Xenia

Zoanthids

6 blue legged hermits

6 turbo snails(the smaller ones)

calupera

aragonite live sand and crushed coral substrate

 

New Tank

40 gallon high

300 gph overflow box to sump

350 gph mag drive pump (I've done all the plumbing already and I am using a home depot bucket as a sump)

4 foot head by the way(the plumbing works great so I'm not worried about that)

Aragonite Sand(not live)

270gph powerhead

 

I moved some of the live rock into the new tank already. I am careful to keep the live rock submerged so I have little sponge loss. I am working on getting the salinity to match up exactly with the old tank. The old tank will be modified to become a sump/refugium. I have a little 18w PC light for the refugium. I was planning on hanging on the filter and the skimmer while I modify the old tank to become a refugium. I'm going to keep the substrate from the old tank in a bucket to place in the "new" refugium. I'm on a budget (twins on the way) so I can't buy another 20 gallon long tank to ease the transition. I'm planning to use a lot of marineland's carbon/ammo chip combo in the new tank.

 

I have plastic crates stacked so the livestock that needs the most light will be high up in the new tank. I'm using base rock (tufa) to fill in the spaces between the live rock. I don't have it in the budget to buy more live rock or any money for anything else. I have at least 20lbs total of live rock.

 

Has anyone done anything similar? Any tips or tricks so I don't lose live stock? I was thinking of siphoning the substarte and dumping some of the detrius and sand in the new tank to speed up the cycling time and to "seed" the new tank-is this a good idea? Do cycling times apply here as much since the biowheel and live rock are accompying the move?

[tippeframe]

refresh

[Kingfet]

Sorry no one posted yet. My starting advice would be get a big tupper ware tub or bucket from walmart. Throw some saltwater in it with all your base rock and two nice size chunks of your current LR and let sit for a month. Then put in your new tank.

 

As far as moving things when I helped my friend do this he didnt already have a skimmer. So get that out of the way first. Then tank some water and again fill a bucketg from your existing tank. Take all corals and place in bucket. Then fish. Tear down the rest of LR and place in the new tank. Then place corals and fish.

 

Not sure about your sand, as my friend did not keep his.