Advice on migrating livestock to new tank

[Morpheosz]

I'm sure there are as many opinions as people on this forum on this topic but I'm interested in some perspectives on timing of migrating livestock from my old tank to my new tank. I have just setup a new 75 gallon tank with marco rock and Ocean Direct sand. I have a 9 month old 15 gallon tank that I want to migrate into this tank. It has around 10-15lbs of healthy clean live rock, and around 20 coral frags. Being a younger tank, they haven't grown out a ton yet but they are all healthy and growing. Nothing particularly difficult or expensive.

Here's the question, when do I move everything over? After watching some of the ongoing BRS videos on their biome experiments, the top performing tanks they have going after a month have migrated live rock from an established tank, live corals added right away, and Ocean direct sand - all things I'd have going for me if I migrate my existing livestock. I'm thinking of migrating my rock and corals over and hoping for an insta-tank. I was pretty quick to stock the 15 the first time around with no ill effects (starting with live rock from the LFS). Ultimately I want to put about half of the live rock in the display and perhaps a few of the base pieces that I don't have room for in the refugium (at least for now). It's a bit of an all or nothing proposition though as once I start dismantling the tank, it's going to be hard to leave it up in a half stocked state. Also, I'm planning on stealing the AI Prime from the 15 to get my fuge going on the new tank so my strong preference is to do it all at once.

My theory is that if the existing rock is handling the bioload of the livestock I'd be moving, I shouldn't have any significant nitrogen cycle issues. I also have a small bag of bio media in my 15 AIO filter that I could move to the sump as well for the time being.

What do you all think - is that a bad idea or should be reasonable?

 

[brandon429]

I collect those exact insta starts here, therefore your plan is perfect regarding filter transfer. new challenges may be found in curing the dry rocks alongside living materials, could be common expected algae headaches not a big deal:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

THE GOLDEN EXAMPLE OF A SKIP CYCLE DAY 1 REEF https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/ read that entire thread before you read ours. that's the heart of skip cycling. Everything we do going forward in this thread reflects on that ability above, in the #1...

www.reef2reef.com

also uses insta start reefs: all reef convention reef displays for thirty years, trusted to carry the lifeblood of the company all in 1-3 systems pretty much. these arent luck tanks, they're by design 100% reliable. live rock transfers are powerful, don't invest in bottle bac here that's a waste of money. this is a no bottle bac line the pockets of sellers job.

all those collected jobs above and its title: not bottle bac jobs. they train us to add bottle bac to every setup task we undertake, resist lol.

they're not selling anything that even contributes to diversity given 14 months of maturation/per dna studies post on new cycle reefs vs how they age in a year/ so this is literally not a job for bottle bac. your current live rock is plenty, even if you added new fish there's also new dilution in play. this is a no bottle bac job, don't ascribe to the peace of mind sales mode they use. their product is for one thing: dry start bringups where someone doesn't want to wait out the month for a feed-only cycle.

 

[Azedenkae]

my strong preference is to do it all at once.

My theory is that if the existing rock is handling the bioload of the livestock I'd be moving, I shouldn't have any significant nitrogen cycle issues. I also have a small bag of bio media in my 15 AIO filter that I could move to the sump as well for the time being.

What do you all think - is that a bad idea or should be reasonable?

I am all in on this idea. I think it's a perfectly reasonable idea, and I have done it so many times. You are right, if you move everything over then there should not be significant nitrogen cycle issues. There may be some die-off or release of nutrients/stuff from the move, but otherwise it should not be a big deal.

 

[Radman73]

Moving over just a portion of your rock will have you covered IMO.

 

[mfinn]

I'm assuming there will be new rock in the 75? Dry or live rock? Is the new rock cycled?
I would cycle the new tank/new rock before moving the contents of the 15 over.
Once the rock is cycled in the new 75 gallon tank, completely, it will be safe to add the corals from the 15 gallon tank.

 

[reddevilant]

I've done transfers both ways, from big tank to a smaller one and from a small tank to a bigger one. Yeah, I think if you transfer some of your current rocks and media and maybe give it a week of ghost feeding (or ammonia dosing if that's easier) so that the bacteria has a head start on spreading throughout the new tank you'll be fine. That's how I did my two transfers and it worked out well.

 

[Morpheosz]

Just to follow-up for anyone's benefit reading this, I decided to move everything over. I was only able to move 2 of my smaller live rocks into the display due to my new dry rock aquascape so I put the rest in the refugium chamber of my sump. After 2 weeks, I traded all of the sump rock into the store and put a ball of chaeto in the refugium and started lighting it opposite my tank. I also added a jar of copepods and have been dosing phyto daily, per the algae barn instructions.

Long story short, things have gone amazingly well. For a couple of days it looked like some nuisance algae (diatoms perhaps) were going to take over for a bit as a thick coating started to form on the light exposed areas of rock but that only lasted 2-3 days before disappearing. With the exception of a coral or two that probably got more light in their new home the rest seem very happy. It's now been 2 more weeks and this morning I noticed I already have speckles of coralline all over the place (I added the bottled stuff as well a month ago when I started things up). I was kind of blown away how quickly it started! I added a school of 5 chromis and 2 firefish to my 2 clowns and everyone is very happy and I'm feeding them quite a lot as my PO4 and NO3 were quite low and I didn't want to starve out my corals. I've added a few more corals as well, including a torch that I couldn't pass up because it was a fraction of the usual cost and it seems very happy so far with excellent extension.

Hopefully things will continue on this path but seems like I managed to quickly build out a workable biome. Also, I started with the Ocean Direct sand which seems like it's panning out to be a winner in the latest BRS testing. I think the combo of the sand, bits of old live rock, and corals gave things the kickstart they needed!