Transferring to a new tank

jgreen1025 · #1 04/01/2005, 12:43 PM

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm still new to the hobby so some experienced advice would be appreciated. My 50g tank has been set up for 6 months now and I've tried to go very slow and pay attention to setting up the sandbed properly. Over the last 2 months I've added some fish and was given a few corals. Now a friend gave me a much nicer 60g tank/stand and I'm considering transferring everything over. My wife is remodeling the room where my tank is so I've got to move it anyway, and I thought this would be the ideal time to transfer everything over. When it comes to the sand do I just scoop everything out and put it in the new tank? Is there anything I should be aware of, or is it really that simple? I expect there could be a lot of foul stuff released by disturbing the sand - since my tank is skimmerless would adding phytoplankton or BioZyme to the water help consume anything harmful? How soon can corals and fish be put back? Sorry if I'm making this harder than it should be, I just want to be on the safe side. Thanks for your assistance.

John G.

dhoch · #2 04/01/2005, 02:14 PM

John,

I did this very same thing not to long ago (125->180), and it was for a similar reason (we are remodeling the room the 125 was in). (I wasn't given the 180 though).

I replaced almost all my substrate during the move. I only used some sand to "seed" the new sand (plus a small LS purchase from LFS).

I have heard that disturbing that sand will cause problems.

I put my fish and corals into the tank within 24 hours.

Make sure you use as much of you original tank's water as possible.

Dave

JENnKerry · #3 04/01/2005, 05:13 PM

I agree with Dave. We too moved into a bigger tank a month ago (55 - 125). We used about 1/4 of our sand from our 55 plus brand new sand. We also used all of our original tank water as well. I would get some 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot (not the orange ones though) and use those for the water. I would like to add that we had absolutely no ammonia spike or mini cycle of any kind. The whole process took ten hours from start to finish. Just come up with a solid gameplan and you'll be fine. Plan ahead.