Arguement with hubby - please settle! ASAP - war iminent!

[auntynatal]

I am in the process of changing the substrate in my marine tank from CC to LS and today have acquired a second tank to use as a holding tank while I do so.

Hubby has been reading on the net that if I simply clean out the second tank, dry thoroughly and transport my live rock, corals and livestock over using water from the original tank to fill it then the tank will need to recycle and everything will die.

I am saying in heated reply that this is absolute rubbish and as long as the glass is clean then there will be no such occurence as the rock and tank water has already cycled in the main tank.

I'm getting so angry I'm nearly crying and he can't understand what I mean about the glass being immaterial in cycling and it being to do with what is inside the tank not what is not on the glass, if that makes any sense.

Could as many of you as possible settle this arguement please, you will probably word it better than I can.

[ccorpse27]

I've swapped tanks to new tanks in the same manner and never lost a thing. Your husband is being a drama queen.

[johnd4g]

Wife 1, Husband 0. Go ahead and make your move. You'll be fine.

[m2434]

Originally posted by ccorpse27
I've swapped tanks to new tanks in the same manner and never lost a thing. Your husband is being a drama queen.

+1

[sabazerehi]

did the same thing a couple months ago and i didn't even put everything in another tank, i put them in a giant bin and everything was still ok.

[Daniel v]

Done it before with no flux in water quality, we would be surprised by how much bacteria there are in the rocks alone, and it is plenty to keep things in check, just watch your water quality, and if you like add some benificial bacteria, although probably over night the bacteria will start to colonize every clean surface, dont worry about it, it will be fine.

[Mattmcf]

i moved a 220 over about 6 mo ago full of livestock (fish, lps, a lot of sps) just added new sand to the new system and had no deaths.... if he is like me he does not like to be wrong, so make sure you relish in this moment and do not let him forget it for some time!

[vessxpress1]

The only problem people run into when doing this is when they try to re-use their old existing sand bed. Especially DSBs. It gets all mixed up, too much junk gets expelled into the water and it's thrown out of whack leading to nitrate spikes. Which you obviously are not doing. You're completely replacing the substrate going from CC to LS. There's nothing wrong with this.

Using a majority of the existing water is fine. All the new water is no different than doing a large water change in the new aquarium if it were already set up. Using everything from the existing system with bacteria colonies already established won't hurt a thing. You're fine.

[kenwendyb]

Come on hubby, whatcha thinking??????

[Freed]

There should be more than enough nitrifying bacteria in the rock, coral skeletons and water to keep the holding tank from going thru a cycle. The glass in a tank does harbor some of the same bacteria on it but would be negligible(sp?) to the amount that is in the rock, etc.

[auntynatal]

THANK YOU!

Hubby much calmer, me happier!

He has trops and apparently got some very misguided advice on another site. His biggest fear is that his wallet will suffer, like it hasn't already!

[Freed]

Do you have any other type of filtration or skimmer on the holding tank?

[James983]

Moved from 45 to 150 w/old rock new sand in 1 day.

[Pmolan]

Well hubby is not completely misled. When you move from one tank to another detrius and such that was been settled in the crevaces will get stirred. I have always experienced some sort of cycle as all of this crap gets processed. Most of the time it's very minimal and will do no harm. Its when moving the sandbed where things get nasty.

[auntynatal]

I have a fluval 4 on standby for the new tank and I will just move the skimmer over while I empty the main tank. I am expecting a lot of detrius shifting as early on I was over-feeding like an idiot plus a starfish disappeared never to be seen again, so there's definitely going to be turbulance during the transit. I'm just planning on going one step at a time completing the whole changeover and back in approximately 48 hours.

I'm bricking it now cos I've ordered the LS so there's no going back!

[RevRoy]

I changed from a 50g to a 24g nanocube changed the from a black sand to regular sand moving the water and and rock with no ill effects.