Set up

[oysterxfast5]

I am up grading to a 46 from my thirty sometime soon. My dad seems to think I cant add the much fresh saltwater to the mix. I figure i will lose around 5 or so because i am going to rise my lr off a bit. so can i add that much new water to what i will have left over? Have like 25-30 pounds of live rock. I will be getting new sand though. Wasn't happy with the black sand.

[jefnalyssa]

It will be ok to add 15 to 20 gallons of new salt water.

[dcombs44]

If I calculate correctly, that's going to equal around a 25% water change, but I may not be calculating correctly. That's adding roughly 15 gallons of water to a 30 gallon tank. I figure since you're not replacing any water that you can cut that % in half equaling around 25%. Of course, your tank is not empty, so that change % will go up if nothing else is added. With the LR added, I'd say it will stay close to 25%. Shouldn't be detrimental IMO.

However, I wouldn't swap all the sand out at once. That could send your tank into an unwanted cycle if you destroy all the bacteria in the sand by replacing it.

I'd wait for some other opinions on this one as well.

[oysterxfast5]

Well the problem with the sand is that my sand in the current tank is black and the new stuff is white. I dont think it would look to good to mix them. I was going to see if the LFS has a cup or two they would let me have, or sell to me.

[dcombs44]

If there's any way to divide the tank in half with a sheet of acrylic or something, you could remove half and replace, and then wait a couple of weeks until the new sand has time to soak up some bacteria and then switch out the other.

I would just hate for you to take the chance on having a major cycle that could really mess things up. Maybe that would soften it up a bit.

Anybody else have any ideas?

[oysterxfast5]

Well I have the tank now as an early xmas gift. but dont have all of the sand yet. But there is a chance that I could just recycle the whole tank. Add my live rock in a few weeks then just go from there.

[dcombs44]

There ya go. I didn't know how much livestock would be at risk, so I was thinking from that angle.

Good luck.

[oysterxfast5]

I think with the recycle the only thing i would lose is my nem but it is just a cheap 15 dollar pink tip.

[dcombs44]

You could always QT the nem in a small tank with some water and sand from your current setup until the other one is ready.

Sorry to nag, I just hate to take the chance of killing/causing suffering to something if you can avoid it.

I suppose if your sandbed is shallow, that you may not get too many spikes when you switch it out. It's hard to say.

[oysterxfast5]

if i put some of my old sand in the new tank under the new sand would that work? That way I wouldn't really have to mix the sands.

[dcombs44]

Your idea of getting a scoop of live sand from the LFS would be the same deal. It would seed the sand (which is good), but you're still replacing all live sand with mostly dead sand. It will take a while for all of that dead to pick up the slack in the nitrogen cycle which could in turn cause ammonia/nitrate spikes until it can become saturated with enough bacteria to pick up the slack again.

[oysterxfast5]

What if I set the tank up with new sand new water. Seeded it and when I do a wc on my current tank put that water in the new tank. That way there is cycled water starting to go through it.

[dcombs44]

That could work i suppose. If you could have both tanks running at the same time, get the new one cycled, and then just switch everything over.

[oysterxfast5]

Thats what I may have to do.

[oysterxfast5]

I forget what you need to cycle. Do I need to have a light going? Will having it around 75 be good enough? How long should I expect to wait If I am using some cycled water?

[dcombs44]

Well, that can be based on a number of things. If you are using some live sand and some water from your current tank, that will be enough to jump start the cycle.

You will then want to test it on a weekly basis. You may see spikes in Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates. When you see 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and nitrates below 20 ppm or so, your initial cycle will be close to complete. Of course, it's typical to have mini cycles afterwords with smaller spikes, etc. I'm not sure your experience level, so I don't know how much you want to know.

Depending on how long you can have both tanks running, typically the longer you let the other tank run without livestock, the better. You may want to start working some inverts into the system and toss some food in once in a while, but I'd say the longer the better.

The main thing is to get all the vital parameters stable. Get your pH around 8.3-8.4, get Nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia to 0, get you alkalinity up around 9-10 dkh, and you'll be set.

I waited almost 4 months before adding fish to my tank. I added some crabs, snails, and other inverts to my tank after a month or 2, but I wanted to make sure that my tank was finished with the cycle before adding fish and more difficult corals.

[oysterxfast5]

Well I will Probably go buy some salt tommarow and get it going. Let it go for a few weeks. Test it and figure it out from there. I remember when I set my tank up last time I only let it go for about 6 weeks but no corals were involved.