switching tanks

[mikeyd]

just need some advice...i want to switch everything from my 29gal to my empty 37 gallon. What would be the best way to do this?

[Coldwater]

Well from my experience theres no real clean and quick way. Are you using your old sand and live rock. I just put all the rock work in first and ran a a few filters to try to get rid of most of the crap in floating around. All my livestock was in buckets waiting to be put in. I slowly acclimatized them and had nothing die. Hope that kinda helps.

Matt

[Slipstream]

Couldn't u just basically TRANSFER everything over?.. water and all?.. Without adding anything new to it.. than once the fish are set, and LR and all that, just slowly add new water too the tank.

[bloat]

Hope you don't mind if I tag along....

Me doing the same this weekend too....
I'm going from a 114gal DSB reef to a 175gal........
Contrary to to what Iv'e read a bit.....gunna use most of my DSB and top it off with some new stuff....I'm guessing its gunna be a nasty job that will take a full day, morning till late at night to complete it all.

My plan is to:
Do the Plumbing (transfer sump essentials)
Take out & store rock/livestock/water
Transfer Sand & new Sand.....T
Add water & new mixed water, & Live Rock.
Let system run for a couple hours to clear up a bit.....
Slowly add livestock for the rest of the day.
Do water lotsa water changes during the next couple weeks.

Things that might help.....??

Large water storage containers.....
Pump setup to move water rapidly.
Kitchen rubber gloves.
Beer.

Any other ideas that might help?

[howdy20012002]

I would definitely not reuse the sand.
if you do, clean it totally IMO
there is alot of nasty stuff in sand and if you just switch it over, that nasty stuff is going to be released into the water.
I have done lots of tank moves and now just throw the sand out and start new...in the beginning, I moved the sand and I lost quite a bit of livestock.

I am switching over from a 90 to a 180 in my living room and plan on adding the new sand and the new water to the new tank..let it settle...pull the livestock and put them in containers temporary with powerhead and then move the LR and old water over to the new, let it settle, move the Livestock in...this is a FOWLR.
If you have corals, I would find someone to hold for a couple of days till things really settle as I find corals are more likely to react negatively to changes.

Neal

[Kryten]

I agree with Neal. I reused sand once and it was gross and I had very high ammonia for quite a while. I'll never do that again without totally cleaning it like he suggests.

[bloat]

hmm......I think I may clean it a bit then....at least some of it anyway....
Any tips on how to clean the sand easily??

I was thinking if I put the old sand on the bottom, and new sand over top......and add water without disturbing the substrate too much, then not as much nasty stuff woulld leach out......
That's kinda how I did it when I bought the original setup from the previous owner.....and it worked well.

[howdy20012002]

I would use a window screen or something similiar to clean it.
I have left sand in the tank, moved the tank and put the water back in without much problems.
However, it seems that when you start to remove the sand from the tank, you just move it around too much.
Neal

[digital-audiophile]

I did a switch over the holidays and reused my sand, topping it up with some new stuff. The only adverse effect that I have experienced is a nasty diatom bloom.

[bloat]

Well i did it!!!
114 to 175!!
Used ALL my old sand and topped it with about 60lbs of new sand.
I strained out most of the water out of the sand as I moved it over, and that's it. Took a couple days to clear....but everything is A okay now.
Not as ugly of a job as I thought.....but my DSB was only about 4 yrs old too.
Would reccomend doing...if you spend the time to strain out the water.