Moving

[ryanrichter]

I am moving from a 110 to a 150 gallon tank. I am going to set the tank up and let it cycle. I am then going to use most of the water from my existing tank and the live rock and corals. What can I expect from this move? Will I get the algae cycle? How is the best way to move, all at once or over several days? Any input is appreciated.

[::pete::]

New sand and the rest from the old tank?

[ryanrichter]

No I thought I would use some new sand and some from another tank that is live sand.

[seamonkey2]

casualties, i just did the same thing sunday and got 3 casualties :cry :cry

and lots and lots and lots of work, try to get some one or better more than one person to help you, and have a good plan in place, I know, if I have not had a plan I would have been there even longer

good luck

Jose

[don-n-sa]

I ugraded from a 100g to a 240g...I used all of my rock, sand , water from the 100 plus more new sand and fully cured rock and of course more water that was freshly mixed...I did not have a cycle...I transfered all livestock into the new tank over the course of one day with no losses.

I had the new rock and sand in the 240g tank first and did water changes from the 100g and used that water for the 240g...this process took about a week. This was done the week prior to the move. My sandbed that was 2 years old from the 100g had a fresh seawater smell due to me constantly stirring the sand and having sand sifting critters in my sandbed. I have moved other tanks in which the sandbed had a noxious rotten egg smell to it. If your sandbed smells bad that then I would not use it, unless I was not going to put livestock in it for a while and let it cycle.

[::pete::]

I agree with Don, thats why I chose new sand and am waiting to see if I get any blooms.

[ryanrichter]

I thought about setting up the new tank with maybe 50 gallons of new water and the new and live sand. Then I was going to wait about a week or two and transfer the rock, fish and corals in one day. Sound ok?

[Polkster13]

I would transfer the LR when you do the LS. Then after a week, introduce the corals and move the fish last. If you have a lot of fish, then I would move them in small groups with the least aggressive first and move up the line to the most aggressive in last. You would also need to do your acclimation procedures as if these were new fish from the LFS. I would only do this if you were going to spread out the transfer time.

The other way would be to move eveything all at once and then you won't have to try and reacclimate your fish to the new system.

[ryanrichter]

Polkster- Whatif I put a few pieces of new live rock in, let it cycle and then move my other liverock fish and corals?

[::pete::]

Simply put you dont want a cycle after you add your fish and corals because you may lose them. Just be certain the new water is ready and what ever you will be stirring up has settled. Obviously there will be some coming off the rocks as you transfer, but that shouldnt cause a problem. Also make sure the parameters match up.

[mathias]

I would say if you do it your way no livestock or corals in the new tank for the first month?

[Polkster13]

The live rock is coming from an established tank and will be full of denitrifing bacteria. When you move it to the new tank, you will have some bacteria die off because the nutrient level will drop (no fish in the tank). Then as you add back, the bio load will go up and the bacteria will multiply to use up the new excess.

If you were to leave the fish out for over a week and then add them all at once, you would get a spike on ammonia and then on nitrite, until the bateria colonies can catch up. Since you are going to only a 150 gallon tank, unless the fish load is quite small, there is not a lot of water to dilute this increase in waste by-products. Therefore, it is like a mini-cycle.

If you move everything at once, including most of the water, you will not have to reacclimate the fish nor will there be much of a spike in ammonia or nitrite as the bacteria colonies are already in sufficient levels to handle the load.

If it was me, I would set up the new tank and put in new sand and about 40 gallons of new water. Move a couple of small pieces of LR from the existing tank along with a handful of sand. Put in a powerhead to circulate the water and wait a couple of weeks. Then move all of the LR to the new tank and fill it up using water from the old tank. Crank up the filteration system and start moving the coarls. Then move the fish over last. I would do this final move all in the same day making sure that the temperature of the two tanks were equal. I would leave the lights off for the first 24 hours to let the fish settle into their new home.

[eric]

But certainly putting some of the existing live rock in the new tank will speed up the bacteria growth. The amount will determine whether it just gives it a jumpstart or eliminates a nitrogen cycle completely.

I began with new sand and seeded it with a few cups, a few hunks of LR and had a reasonably short cycle. Almost no algae to speak of also. Introduced the snails in a week or two.

[dow]

Why don't you make up your new water, regulate the temp and salinity to match your existing tank, put a powerhead in it, drop a piece of liverock in it, and let it run in the salt mixing can or tub or whatever you use for a week or two to age? Then it wouldn't be "new " water any more. Otherwise, you could do waterchanges over the next couple of weeks, and save the water coming out of your tank to run the new tank on. That way all of the water going into the new tank would be aged.

[GaryP]

I doubt that the bacteria will actually die off. More likely they will just become dormant for a while until the nutrient load is returned. What little die off that occurs will be rapidly replaced by the existing seed culture. Bacteria are not that easy to kill.

[Sherri]

When I transfered from my 100 to the 180...I used about 1/2 of my old water...the balance RO/DI. New sand bed - topped off about 1/2" to 1" from my old sandbed. All the same rock - lost no fish and no corals. Everything was in a holding tank (100 gal) for about 3 days till we got the 100 out of the way & set the 180 in its place. So far - no bloom.

[::pete::]

Its just like a big water change ... providing it clean fresh water.

[dan]

thats what i'll probably do when i do the swap, is use new sand and 1/2 my old water. would be great if i could tie both systems together and let that run for a week or so. then i could do the swap a little at a time over a week if i wanted.

[GaryP]

thats what i'll probably do when i do the swap, is use new sand and 1/2 my old water. would be great if i could tie both systems together and let that run for a week or so. then i could do the swap a little at a time over a week if i wanted.

Your wife wouldn't mind some tygon tubing running through the house for a week or two, would she?

[::pete::]

It already is!!! :D Well half anyway!!

[NaCl_H2O]

Your wife wouldn't mind some tygon tubing running through the house for a week or two, would she?

Well, I used 98% new sand on my system when I set it up, and 700 lbs of new uncured LR, so I had ONE HELL of a cycle (some of you witnessed it). I did seed the sand with LS from my old system and dumped water changes from the old into the new. However, I didn't move the old LR, etc. until the new system cycled - it was just too much increase in volume (125g to 600g) to make that feasible.

But, once it was cycled, I ran slow siphons (1/4" tubing) between the two systems for over two days to acclimate the inhabitants to the new environment. This worked great and I had 100% survival.

[::pete::]

I saw it!

My setup:

I used @ 60% of my 100gal tank water and filled the 180 along with fresh rodi salt mix. It might come out to 50 50 in the end.

My rock in the 180 now is from my kitchen (and Steve which also sat in my kitchen for a few weeks) and has been there for 4-5 months with heat and circulation. I have no bloom and added more pieces of rock from my 100 fuge.

Today I wanted to see what would happen so I added corals (still no bloom) and all polys are open. I have sps, lps, polyps, mushrooms and critters in there and all is stll good.

If all is still there tomorrow and the parameters are good the switch will take place.

[NaCl_H2O]

(and Steve which also sat in my kitchen for a few weeks)

... and he didn't feed me even once during those many weeks sitting in his kitchen :blink

[::pete::]

LoL ... you never asked!!!

[ryanrichter]

THanks for everyone's response. As always I have learned a lot.