Tank upgrade tips

[krazykrakr2186]

In the next couple weekends I'm combining two tanks a 90 gal and a 54 gal both are decently stocked with fish and corals (mostly LPS and softies). Their new home will be a 180 gal 6x2x2.

I am looking for any tips anyone has to offer.
Re-use old sand or new?
scrub rocks before putting them in new tank?
anything out of the ordinary I should plan for during the process?


ps: I tried the search bar but my Mac and iPad apparently don't like it unless the site is having tech problems..

Thanks in advance
Kevin.

[alton]

•Re-use old sand or new? How old? If your tanks are fairly old and it stinks replace with new, if you have a shallow bed this should not be an issue?
•scrub rocks before putting them in new tank? How much algae do they have, when moving rocks with a ton of hair algae it can die and release poison back into the tank killing fish.
•anything out of the ordinary I should plan for during the process? Watch the Temperature in your temporary tanks, use as much water from your two tanks to maintain the bio load

[allan]

Here is a tip that I learned every time I got a bigger tank.

Most of your livestock grew into their current space, so it fits.

Despite the fact that you're jumping up in size, I imagine that you will feel crowded in the new tank because your colonies haven't grown together and now you have to jostle them around to make them fit.

BPT leave many on the sand bed as water clears and you adjust rock/coral. I found that despite moving coral/rock into the new tank in a few hours, actual final set up would take a week to two. And many, many, Motrin tabs later.

Also I'd wear some heavy duty gloves when pulling rock and coral. I don't, on an account of me being obstinate, and I always get tagged by something. Just this last time I was tagged and ended up losing the top layer of skin on one of my fingers, similar to the reaction you get from the tarantula hair that gets into your skin if you agitate them.

It could be worse.

I've always used as much of the old water as possible. When you start filling that new tank you'll get a very good idea of just how much more water it will need. Once you've started to agitate the coral I'd stop using the water. Just personal preference.

I agree with everything Alton mentioned above.

[ramsey]

•Re-use old sand or new? How old? If your tanks are fairly old and it stinks replace with new, if you have a shallow bed this should not be an issue?
•scrub rocks before putting them in new tank? How much algae do they have, when moving rocks with a ton of hair algae it can die and release poison back into the tank killing fish.
•anything out of the ordinary I should plan for during the process? Watch the Temperature in your temporary tanks, use as much water from your two tanks to maintain the bio load

Even if the sand was thin, if you didn't vacuum it or stir it regularly, I'd get new sand or rinse the heck out of it. It becomes a major detritus trap so moving it is likely going to cycle everything possibly and cause a major phosphate and nitrate spike. It's just not worth it. If it was me, I'd just start with new sand either way.

[aquasport24]

Get your carbon media reactor ready, you'll have a lot of die off in new tank. Pre plan where you want everything to go to so you don't have to touch the corals too much, less stress for them.

[Scutterborn]

I agree with just about every response here. I just did this the weekend before last. I should've gone with new sand. Unfortunately, I was a miser and used my old sand. I still rinsed it out really well. I spread out reintroducing it to the tank over a period of 48 hours to let things adjust. I've lost eight SPS colonies and all my torches. If I were to factor in the cost of those corals, the sand is considerably cheaper. Have carbon ready in a reactor or in a mesh bag. The mesh bag isn't going to be anywhere nearly as effective. You will likely lose some coral. That's just part of the game we play.


-Ben-

[krazykrakr2186]

All very useful info. I'm taking notes for sure.

My rock work is pretty clean, no hair algae or nuisance algaes, cyano etc..

The sand in one of the existing tanks is about 2" deep and 2 years old. The smaller tanks is the same depth but only a year old. I also have more sand that was extremely rinsed from an old tank tear down. It was completely dried for a few months and I currently have it "curing" in a hodge podge of tanks I have linked together with more live and dry rock. I was hoping to use that as the extra sand I will need. Think that would be a bad idea to use?

I currently am not using any type of reactors and don't really know the in's and out's of how they work. would it be a good investment to purchase one I can run carbon or some other substrate in?

Thanks again for the help

[Flyride95]

Yea a carbon reactor works GREAT! So much better then the bags. And don't be scared of it it is really easy to understand.