The sand is kinda preference thing. I've used sand that's 4 years old that I just rinsed with each tank change but recently I added some new sand for the extra sparkly look of a new sand bed. Keep in mind that if you use new sand you will likely get a diatom bloom on the sand bed. Nothing to panic about tho. Unsightly but you can easily wait it out. If you want to save a few bucks using the old sand is fine to.

Old sand it is. I'll just be sure to give it a really good rinse. One postive about the move is I can finally break down my aquascape and search and destroy some nasty hitch hiker crabs. They are black and getting massive.

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We just moved two aquariums and I thought I would post some things here that I found helpful with the move.

We first moved a 190 gallon custom tank and sump. This tank was being moved into our house from another persons house. The biggest thing that helped with this move was NO SAND!! The previous owner had a no sand bed approach and although I found it difficult to get use to I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm telling you, the day after the move, the tank looked like it had been in my living room for years. The water was clear and the corals looked amazing. We weren't moving too much livestock but bought a used 10 gallon and had it setup and ready in my basement so that is where the livestock lived for the first 24 hours after the move. We used their tank water so there was no need to acclimate them or anything. This was helpful as the day after the move we did some more aquascaping and it was just easier to do knowing there was no fish in the tank to watch out for. We used tupperware bins to move the water and just took our time with everything. The whole tank move from start to finish took 10 hours.

The second tank was a 90 gallon reef, it was being moved from our home to it's new home across town. This one did have a sand bottom and it was being moved later at night so we did not take our time. Something that we did with this tank I think helped, we took a big bucket and filled it with the tank water, then we started to fill the tupperware bins. Once we got down to where the rocks were starting to stick out of the water we started to take the rocks out. We first would take the rock and rinse it off in the bucket of water. we would stick it the bucket and shake it. This allowed any debris to be remove from the rock before we would place it into the tupperware bin full of water. Someone might have a different option on this way of doing it I'm sure but I really think it helped. The bucket water got really dirty after awhile so we dumped it down the drain and filled it again with tank water and continued on with this method. It's almost like you're cleaning your rocks just as you would with your sand. Once we moved the tank and started to put the water and rocks back into the tank we could see that the rinsing method worked as aquascaping was much easier than moves in the past as we could actually see in the tank instead of just murky water. We had planned on doing a water change anyway when we moved it so dumping some of the water was not a big deal. There was some definite murkiness to the water though from disturbing the sand bed. We went to see the tank the next day and you could see the brown dust film on the bottom of the tank. It made me appreciate the NO SAND approach even more. The fish in this tank were put into the tank immediately after the move and they had still not come out from hiding. It's way too stressful for them which is why I used the extra 10 gallon for our new fish.

I hope this info helps you, good luck with the move!!

Great info thank you very much.

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D-day has arrived!! Starting the move in t-minuse 30 mins. I think this is going to be a interesting learning experience. Wish me luck..

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good luck! Remember, don't panic! It's clear to me that you have it well planned out and you know exactly what you're doing. Keep calm, and carry on. You got this :biggrin:

i wash a little bit of sand at a time in a bucket and grind handfuls against itself in my hands. i spend a lot of time doing this and old sand ends up looking new when you're done. It seems that a lot of detritus is not only mixed with the sand but stuck to it as well.

your hands will be palmolive smooth afterwards too lol.

also thermometers are not always accurate even if they're consistent. i'd test temps in both tanks with the same one to make sure you're not stressing the livestock too much.

Awesome thank you.. I bought all new sand yesterday

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Remember to have fun, don't swear at your wife too much its not her fault and from my expirence lousey helpers!

Good luck!

Lol she steered clear of this. Had a buddy come out. Tank took 4 hours to dismantle and clean. Fish rock corals are in a 45 gallon brute with powerhead and heater. I'm hoping they all make it. Can't set the tank up till tomorrow. Now I wait.

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