46 gal to 90 gal

[garyw68]

I finally did it. I upgraded my tank to a 90 gal from a 46 gal bow tank. I needed to know the best way to transfer everything without losing any livestock. I have already filled the tank with water and treated it with water conditioner. I covered the bottom layer with sand and placed 30lbs of live rock from my old tank. Can I just drain 40 gal of water from my 90 gal and fill it with water from my old tank? Then move the sand, live rock, and livestock as well? Is it that easy?

[Reefmaniac1]

Yeah, you can do it the way you described. But why did you use "water conditioner"? Are you using plain old tap water?

[garyw68]

Yes, I filled it using the garden hose.

[Reefmaniac1]

Bad idea. Tap water should never go into your reef tank. Dissolved organics, plus stuff like chloramines, copper and other heavy metals are in there. Then there are chemicals that are toxic to a reef tank that can be leeched out of a garden hose...

You need to use purified water like distilled water or RO/DI.

[garyw68]

Well, I have a water softener for my house which removes a lot of those metals that you mentioned. If some are present, shouldn’t the water conditioner remove it?

[NexDog]

I'm upgrading my 20 to a 50 and I'd like to know the best method of transferring everthing without causing a cycle. I'm thinking of doing 5 daily 50% water changes and dumping that water into the 50. Over these 5 days though, the 50g won't have any filtration. Is this method acceptable? Two concerns:

1) Too many large water changes in the 20 may decrease bacteria and cause a mini-cycle.

2) After 5 days the bacteria in the 50 may have depleted to be worthless so that when I introduce livestock I'll get a cycle.

Sorry to hijack garyw68!