I decided that having my reef tank in my bedroom is a waste. I want to be able to show it off to visitors so I am going to move everything into my 180 and move the butterfly and emperor angel out and into the 90. I know the emperor will grow to big for it but I plan on selling him when he out grows it. My first problem is that the nitrate level in the 180 fowlr tank is about 60 ppm. All other levels from both tanks are good and equal. I plan on moving all of the LR in my 90 to the 180. That would make about 180 pounds of LR. How fast can I expect the nitrate to drop? When I move the rock can I pull the bio balls out of the wet/dry and not have an ammonia spike? I am hoping all of the new LR will balance out the ammonia spike from taking the bio balls out and hopefully bring the nitrate down. Can I do the move all at once or will the nitrate be too high for my corals. I have a mixed tank with sps, lps, and softies. When everything is moved the 180 will have 180 lbs of LR, a G2 skimmer, 3' long sump with no bio balls in the tower, a 20 gallon high fuge loaded with cheato, and a uv filter. The fish will be a purple tang, powder blue, flame angel, coral beauty, 2 firefish, and a royal gramma. Lots of inverts. What tips can you give me about making this move.

Here are some pictures of the 90 and the 180 from a few months ago.



Next question. Since I plan on moving all of the LR out of the 90, what do I use to provide biological filtration for the 90 that will house my 4" butterfly and 3" angel? The 90 will have a 20 gallon high fuge with cheato and LR rubble. The tank has about 1" of sand and the fuge has 1" of sand and a protein skimmer. Will there be enough surface area to provide bio-filtration , can I use the bio balls in the 90? and how would I use them? maybe just dump them in the fuge?