Is this a bad idea?
 

So the new 180 is almost full, I hope to add salt tonight, and the rock I've had in a tub for a month will go in over the weekend.
So here's the dilema. Lots of the gear I need is on the 90. So my thought is to shut down sump, move over skimmer/reactor/zeo setup and maybe remove the 2 Tunzes from the 90 and replace with smaller pumps.
Now this will be for about 2 weeks, until I'm happy with the 180 and can start moving stuff over. Only 2 pieces of rock from the 90 will go, so 180 is mostly new with sort of seeded rock.
I plan an extra water change on the 90 while it's sumpless and skimmerless.

So what am I not thinking about here, that's going to make life difficult?? :)

the only thing im concerned about is if the 180 does a cycle spike the live rock in tubs may have die off or may not.. i would hate toseeyou lose fish due to a cycle spike.

i could be wrong tho.

The rock in the tub should be stable, it's been in new SW for a month, heated, with fish food added every now and then to build bacteria. I figured 2 weeks to build it up to where it would be sufficient for the livestock to move over, follwed shortly after by a good water change.

I just went from a 55 to a 135. I set up a water transfer with my 2 tanks at a slow rate for a day, with new tank draining into old sump, and vise versa. I had new sand in the new tank, and wanted to acclimitise everything before the transfer. I moved everything over in about 2 hours, left the old tank setup just in case i needed to move some stuff back.

I showed 0 ammonia and nitrites through the whole thing, i tested every 2 hours for that day, and the next 3-4 days 3+ times a day.

My coral and everything transfered great, everything was open within hours and looking better than ever. I had a pretty light fish load, but none of them where affected it seemed, just more room to move around.

I might use the water from the existing sump (it holds about 60 gallons) but the sand is new, rock is new but partially cured/seeded, some existing rock will move over eventually.
Fish load is medium for 180, 15 fish total. 5 butterflies, a tang, a wrasse, 4 clowns and 3 damsels. Pretty sure I'll need to have new water on hand in case of a spike.

Is it possible to move half of your fish, wait a bit to make sure that everything is ok, then move the other half a week or so later? Or move all or as much of your existing rock over as possible, even if it is only to the sump for a bit. Then you will know for sure that your bacteria will handle your bioload.

Rock in the sump is a good idea, I'll do that.

:thumb:
also FWIW everything I have read suggests that transferring over your old water will do nothing to help out the cycle but it will help acclimate the fish a little better.

Agreed. Bacterial content is insignificant, but chemistry could make transition for the fish easier. I prefer to start with all new water though, as I'm switching salt between tanks.

Can you just move everything over at once? If you move all the water and rock from the 90 over as well you shouldn't have any cycle problems, it's really the same as just doing a large water change. I've done this a few times with large upgrades without problems.

The sump won't fit all the rock from the 90, but I'll put 40 or 50 pounds in. The trasfer might take a while as I'm cutting all the corals off the existing rock and remounting to the new rock. So I have to at least keep the 90 3/4 full and just use the water from the sump.

Yeah you should be fine if you can use as much water and rock as possible from the 90. The rock is obviously more important since the water actually has little bacteria in comparison. Is there any reason why you can't use more rock from the 90 and less from the bath tub? Also maybe you can move some of the corals with the attached rock to speed things up and then as time goes on you can do a little rearranging in the 180 when things are 100% stable.
The faster the better IMO and I would spend your time and focus on the 180 rather than trying to maintain the 90 as well.

If it helps pretend your 90 gallon is going to explode in a the next few days and you're not sure exactly when, could be tomorrow or next week. Better work fast! :wink:

lol, ya, I'm going the exploding 90 route, but I want to build all new structures from the new rock. I suppose I could add some of the existing rock around the bottom, but 50 pounds in the sump should be enough, I think. Coupled with the new rock (about 130 pounds), I should be OK bacteria-wise...I think :)

I used prodibio when I swapped tanks , I used stability for the move and strat up throughout the next week or so never had any issues done it all in a few hours.

Consider moving some of the sand as well if you can do it without making too big of a mess. Tons of bacteria there.

Current tank is BB :)

I've upgraded a couple of times and frankly as long as you're not adding uncured rock you're good to go. All you're doing is increasing water volume so unless you're adding a crapload of new livestock to the new tank at the same time as you move the contents of the 90 into the bigger tank you're certainly not increasing the bioload. Even if the rock you have in tubs was dead you're still fine as you're just moving the same bioload from the 90 into a tank with more water. Its like doing a massive waterchange and everyone will be the happier for it (noting temp and salinity is the same of course).

edit: LOL, ok I just missed all of page 2 and basically repeated what sphelps said.

Carry on.... :razz:

If not already mentioned, watch pH closely...turning the skimmer off like that can cause pH to drop quickly enough to cause trouble. If that happens just add a big airstone.

Christy, I'm not moving all of the 90 contents in, and in fact wasn't moving much other than 2 rocks with lots of corals growing on it. But, I can add a fair bit to the new sump, just not all. The rock I'm using should be able to catch up quickly, it's been cooking with food source for over a month.

Mindy, yes, O2 content will be something to watch with the skimmer offline...

Progress report. 180 full, salt added, the sump is setup with my skimmer, the sump for the 90 got shut down last night. I've added some rock to the new setup (in sump). Waiting for temp to come up.

Meanwhile, back in the 90 (without sump or skimmer), my 3 clams decided this afternoon was a good time to spawn. Currently, I can't see the fish....big sigh, didn't see that one coming. Setting up for a water change now, and going to the expidited move schedule, hopefully starting tomorrow..

Yeah clams typically spawn when something changes in the water chemistry, they think something has changed for the worst and spawning is their attempt of spreading their seed one last time to keep the species alive. Once things stabilize they should settle down, hopefully. Just be glad they are not that big. All the clams in my last tank spawned at the same time, now that was a mess.

One was a fair size, I couldn't see in the tank for a day. The temp jumped up 5 degrees once I shut my basement sump down, which I wasn't expecting. But now I'm sort of rushed to get the fish moved over to the 180..

What's a fair size? One of mine was over a foot.