Transfer of extablished tank contents to new tank

[gibz4]

So i'm planning to transfer the contents of my extablished tank of 1 year into a bigger tank. Are there any specific rules i should follow? Right now i have live sand, about 100#'s of live rock, numerous shrooms and about 8 fish and 2 shrimps. Also i have a small outbreak of ick in the tank. Should i move all the livestock (fish and shrimp) into a QT tank and the rest of the stuff into the new tank to let it cycle and kill off the ick by leaving it fishless? If so, for how long? Would the shrooms be alight in the new tank without a cycle? I'm planning to use most of the water from the old tank and add whatever difference there is, (going from 50 to a 90 gallon.)

[NicoleC]

If you are careful, you should not experience any tank cycle, although you will want to monitor carefully -- a SeaChem Ammonia Alert is great for this purpose. Keep everything submerged, heated, and circulated as much as possible. Cure any new rock is very well before using in the new tank. Also, if your old sand bed is deeper than 1", only use the top layer of sand in the new tank and the rest can be washed well for future use. Carefully skim off the top layer to minimize destruction of sand bed life.

Remove the fishes to QT for treatment by hyposalinity. The shrimp cannot carry ick or catch if, so they can stay in the main tank. (And hypo will kill them.) Do hypo for 6 weeks -- with a week dropping salinity and a week back up, that puts you right around 8 weeks to let the ick die out of the main tank.