Tips on moving fish to a new tank

[cj_basser]

anyone have any tips on moving the livestock from my eclipse 12 to a 10 gallon? there wont be a re cycle will there? im going to use an AC 500 as a fuge.

thanks

[Tarasco1]

Whether there's a recycle will depend on how long it takes to transfer, and if you're disturbing the sandbed. A cycle is a possibility, but I don't think that it will be that bad. What kind of livestock? Be prepared to do partial water changes during the days following the move.

[Ron Leversee]

^^^Dito^^^^

[Tang333]

Any time you disrupt a tank to this degree you will have a recycle. The intensity is dependent on many different things. Most likely you will simply have a small ammonia spike. Best advice is, plan ahead and be prepared for anything that might happen during the transfer. The faster the process goes, and the less stress on the livestock, the smaller the recycle will be.

I don’t think it is a good idea to use all of your old water from the 12gallon. Have some water made up before you start…think of this a big water change (The only difference is instead of removing water, and then adding it back you are removing all the inhabitants of the tank and moving them back). You want this water to be identical to your 12 gallons in temperature, salinity, ect so the LR and LS won’t have allot of die off.

Remove your corals, fish, inverts and any other live stock from the tank and keep them in some bowls filled with water from the 12 gallon.

Remove your LR, and keep it in a bin or tote with water from your 12 gallon (Siphon water out as you are removing things so that nothing is out of water for more than a minute.)

Start adding some new water to the 10 gallon, and add in LS; then add some more water and add LR. Acclimate all of your livestock back into the tank, and then add new salt water until you fill the tank (don’t fill the tank and then expect to fit 10lbs of LS, 10lbs of LR, and all your other livestock in without having it overflow….)

I used this basic technique to transfer an 18 gallon nano tank over 300 miles about 2 weeks ago. My ammonia hit a maximum of 0.25ppm, and was back down to 0 in less than 24 hours of the new tank being set up and all my live stock lived happily ever after….The End.

Tang


“Kermit da’ Frog Here…�

[fishinbuc]

Sorry to dig up an old post, but there is one thing I wanted to add to this, as I have switched tanks more times than I care to think about.

Remove your corals, fish, inverts and any other live stock from the tank and keep them in some bowls filled with water from the 12 gallon.

The thing is to make sure that whatever you put your rocks and livestock into, make sure the water stays relatively the same temp.. Un-heated water, especially small quantities, will get cool fast. Try using a cooler...preferably with the heater, or if you have an extra one.


Also, if you have live sand you could use one of those plastic flat edged kids beach shovels. Just take it out flat and put it in flat, trying not to disturb the sand bed to much.

[Reefer0916]

I just moved my tank the other day (10G) and all i did was take all the live rock and and corals out (tried not to disturb the snd bed but i'm sure I did ) ... set it back up with the same water and put in RO water as top off water when I was done (lost a litle water during the move) and everything seems to be happy now ... corals all open up inverts are active as ever .... 0 on everthing ...

just my experience on teh move ....