Moving a tank

[rws4822]

I am going to be moving my current reef set up to a new tank which is bigger(36 gal bow). Everthing is going to done as quickly as possible with salt water already made and up to temp. I'm going to put my live rock in a rubber maid container with water from the tank or wet paper towels(which do you think is better?)
Then I will put my green polyps, button polyps and feather duster in a seperate container with tank water and the Maroon clown,3 hermits and snails in a seperate container.

Hope this sounds ok so far because this is what I'm not sure about. I'm planning on putting my old sand bed(Golden Shores Argonite)which is full of life over the top of the new sand bed. The guy at the LFS advised me to do just the opposite which does not make any sense to me. I think it may kill alot of things possibly causing an ammonia spike which I am obviously trying to avoid. Which is the proper way to do this?

I am going to use the same filter which is a Fluval 204 and the Media thats in it as to not upset any biological activity and I will use most of the water from my 20 Gal. and just top of the 36 gal. with new pre made water.

I plan on adding about another 8 pounds of LR to start which will make about 24# total. I just don't want to add so much at once as to cause an ammonia spike.

I'm sure many of you have already been through this process so if you could look over what I have planned and let me know what you think I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

[swims withthe fishes]

haven't done this myself yet but read alot on it cause i'm sure i will. sounds like you got it about right. i would put the LR in tank water so as not to cause any dieoff like you will with wet paper. from what i've read here you want to put the old sand on top of the new, you want only the top inch of your old sandbed, trash the rest. i think you do this cause you want the deeper parts of the sandbed to create on it's own, and not add any of the deeper parts of the old sanbed stirred up into your new tank. from a 20 to a 36 just topping off the difference will come to your fish like a 75% water change. i'd get all the levels in your new water as equal as possible to the existing water so they don't freak out.
i had a brain fart one night and hydrovacked my 3" sandbed that had been untouched in 5 months, still fighting the algea from all the crap i let out so be careful with that old sandbed.
good luck

[swims withthe fishes]

also when you add the new rock, try and get cured LR or cure it yourself in a separate container or your old tank, that will keep you from an amonia spike.

[rws4822]

Thanks Plato. Yea the live Rock I will add is cured. My sand bed in my existing tank is only about an 1 1/2" deep, in the new tank I think I am going to go with a deeper sand bed since the sand I'm adding from the old tank is full of life it should take no time to populate a deeper sand bed of about 3 or 4". This deep sand bed issue is cause for some heated debate. My brain hurts from reading about it but I'm going to go for it. It seems to make sense and I like the way it looks.

Thanks,

Mike