advice on tank swap

[BYU]

I have a 210 sps dominant reef but it’s 15 years old
i’m in the process of planning an upgrade in the same spot
my tank is barebottom
im planning on keeping same sump and rock to keep as much benificial bacteria
planning on moving everything to bins and tanks and swap everything out over 1-2 day process
any advice on the best process or experiences

 

[bevo5]

Wow - that's a beautiful tank! What are you going to be upgrading too?

Trying to get all of that back into a new tank would give me a massive panic attack. You are braver than I am!

 

[PeterC99]

What’s the reason for the upgrade?

 

[BYU]

What’s the reason for the upgrade?

my tank is old (14 years)
i’m afraid in the long run about seams
i’ve heard plenty of horror stories of friends who’s tanks split at seams and they had to rush to get it replaced
i also hate the internal overflows of aga tanks
and i do a have a few scratches only i notice
hoping to do a controlled swap
we all want something better lol
i’m not sure if you guys have see them miracles tanks but their overflows are amazing
i will def document my whole journey
i’m sure others have done it just wanted to do it as controlled as possible
i was gonna do all new rock but afraid of loosing my bacterial load so i will switch rocks slowly later in the future
i’m still going bare bottom so i’m not loosing the sand bacteria

 

[PeterC99]

my tank is old (14 years)
i’m afraid in the long run about seams
i’ve heard plenty of horror stories of friends who’s tanks split at seams and they had to rush to get it replaced
i also hate the internal overflows of aga tanks
and i do a have a few scratches only i notice
hoping to do a controlled swap
we all want something better lol
i’m not sure if you guys have see them miracles tanks but their overflows are amazing
i will def document my whole journey
i’m sure others have done it just wanted to do it as controlled as possible
i was gonna do all new rock but afraid of loosing my bacterial load so i will switch rocks slowly later in the future
i’m still going bare bottom so i’m not loosing the sand bacteria

It’s going to be a big project but you sound like the type that will have a good plan and will be successful! Good Luck!

 

[BYU]

Wow - that's a beautiful tank! What are you going to be upgrading too?

Trying to get all of that back into a new tank would give me a massive panic attack. You are braver than I am!

thanks i love the corals but the tank is ugly lol
i hate the overflows and the algae in the spots i can’t reach
the corals are hiding the ugly internal overflows
i’m pretty sure i’m gonna do miracles tank but same size since it will fit in my wall the same spot with external overflow

 

[brandon429]

I have a thread of fifty pages of tank transfers, the catch was they were all sandbedded so it took careful order of ops to avoid waste in the sand killing the tank, you're opposite.

just move it all over and match salinity and temp of new water to the old. you can transfer and reuse any old water you've drawn off and held in brutes that is 100% clean. even your system will have some degree of clouding because that entire picture is catchpoints/retention points for detritus bits so dont use anything in the new tank that moves over those bits. make the new tank laser clean and it all skip cycles, no bottle bac needed even if you cull out some rock on the xfer


lower your lighting in the new tank do not run full power for about a week or two ramping up slowly as you feed nicely and guide them into full power mode, we found this prediction move critical for bleach avoidance in new tanks.

be rinsing off any corals and rocks you move in clean saltwater or old tank water to jet off waste, try and think ahead of time what may move detritus into the new tank to prevent it from being 100% clear upon setup and don't move any/

 

[brandon429]

keep fish covered when in holding vats, they'll jump possibly.

 

[polyppal]

I have a 210 sps dominant reef but it’s 15 years old
i’m in the process of planning an upgrade in the same spot
my tank is barebottom
im planning on keeping same sump and rock to keep as much benificial bacteria
planning on moving everything to bins and tanks and swap everything out over 1-2 day process
any advice on the best process or experiences

Wow nice tank, and yeah that's a big project.

Id definitely get a lot of help from friends to make it go quicker. Also make sure your bins have heated tank water if the corals/rock are going to be in there beyond a couple hours. Not having to deal with sand will make it easier too. If you have barrels or some ability to have the new replacement water mixed/heated/ready right away it will also help tremendously in getting things back together quickly.

Once you get everything hooked back up, you'll prob still see some slight fluctuation in stability still but prob nothing major.

 

[brandon429]

please tank pics. that tank would appraise for about twenty grand lol including time spent, artistic guiding of that look, maybe even more so that's a very high value system and others want to be able to pattern your work to save theirs.

take pics of it all, good phone pics and update here pls pls so I can then link this to the official tank transfer thread.


if you simply reduce white light levels in the new tank and keep decent blues, ramping them slowly back to ideal levels, and up the feed and water changes/work loading for export/more than you normally do for two weeks this transfer will not recycle and you won't bleach corals.

(an aged reef like that as it sits now is on cruise control, don't cruise control the new setup for two weeks be feeding and doing water changes to guide out slimes, irritants, and the boosted feed you gave)

the maximum old water I'd move over is about half.

as you drain down and catch the good half in brutes to hold, notice about last 1/2 or 1/3'rd its clouding as receding water levels and new motion starts to dislodge detritus from its catchpoints, throw out that water.

have the new tank 1000% cleaned and set up with half or 2/3rds new and heated water matching temp and salinity a couple days in motion all seated in nicely. Though this is a big job its really just the work equivalent of upgrading 300 pico reefs all at once lol and this biology scales up down and sideways wonderfully. biologically this will be a terribly easy tank transfer, physical work youll burn a hundred thousand calories and six to ten hours getting it all set lol.

if you add any sand to the new tank at all this is the firm rule, no room to customize for safety:

pre rinse all of it in tap water as long as it takes to be 100% clear. final rinse in ro, use the sand, cloudless.

specifically do not skip this step thinking you need its bacteria, you do not. you need cloudless because the #1 physical sign of a crashing upgraded tank is clouding that originates from the system vs sand silt.

if sand silt is harmlessly clouding you for nine days before it settles, ie unrinsed sand, its blocking our core safety assessment visuals in the new tank.

additional trick: unless you own seneye this is a *testless* tank transfer

you would not transfer the tank, run api ammonia to assess a cycle (or red sea) and then make reactive dosing into the water to offset the for-sure .5 you'll see that causes alarm. clouding is all you need to manage and prevent

I've seen a thousand tanks get chemically souped on recycle fears from cheap test kits, don't use them. testless tank transfer is best we have been at this for seventh year now below

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

that whole thread is testless cloudless tank transfers and or sandbed rips. if anyone posted an api reading there showing .25 I'd be angry for the introduction of doubt and the failure to report it as .025 lol/ nh3 vs nh4/just omit it all.

only seneye can be trusted to reveal your nh3 in the new tank but I'll never pay to own one, we can 100% predict what your nh3 range will be if you move cloudlessly. seneye is for doubters or bacteria studying like the various rip clean tests happening in the chem forum presently

 

[brandon429]

even though it seems odd I 100% recommend do not buy or add bottle bac, we don't need insurance here we need cloudless work that's it.

being able to wrangle an aquarium that costs as much as a jeep into a new tank without fearfully adding bacteria really helps to instate old school trust in cycling. bottle bac is for new tanks, or doubters. that whole thread above/no bottle bac allowed our resident bacteria are strong, suited, tough, not going anywhere even if you did tap rinse the rocks which we won't (but have done in several dinos challenge threads you can find, all skip cycled nicely, shows worst case scenario ability of your current bacteria on all surfaces rocks and corals)

bottle bac suck up and use your extra 02, they're aerobes. of course our systems tolerate this flux but its technically a stress load vs a help, you aren't going to be peeling off any bac here leaving sterilized surfaces to have room to take on new bac, if you dose any you're boosting up the COD and BOD of the new tank water which we want to be soupless.

that will be one of the densest costliest sps and lps tank transfer jobs I've seen, am salivating at the chance to get the documentation of the transfer plus all the trust points logged with outcome. huge responsibility, just huge.

 

[BYU]

wow thanks for the advice
i really appreciate you taking the time
i know it’s crazy but i figured if i don’t do it now id be doing this in a few years
i actually own a seneye which i have used in the past when cycling my i’m 20 peninsula torch tank so i can use it
i didn’t think anyone would be interested in my transfer but i will def be posting pics of the progression
def not using sand
i was thinking of bacteria in a bottle but i won’t now
i also breed tigger pods so should i add them
i do add them to my main tank sporadically too
about to pull the trigger on the new tank this week
they told me 2-3 month lead time for the build
hopefully gives me more time to plan for any mishaps

 

[RobbieMaynard]

I have a thread of fifty pages of tank transfers, the catch was they were all sandbedded so it took careful order of ops to avoid waste in the sand killing the tank, you're opposite.

just move it all over and match salinity and temp of new water to the old. you can transfer and reuse any old water you've drawn off and held in brutes that is 100% clean. even your system will have some degree of clouding because that entire picture is catchpoints/retention points for detritus bits so dont use anything in the new tank that moves over those bits. make the new tank laser clean and it all skip cycles, no bottle bac needed even if you cull out some rock on the xfer


lower your lighting in the new tank do not run full power for about a week or two ramping up slowly as you feed nicely and guide them into full power mode, we found this prediction move critical for bleach avoidance in new tanks.

be rinsing off any corals and rocks you move in clean saltwater or old tank water to jet off waste, try and think ahead of time what may move detritus into the new tank to prevent it from being 100% clear upon setup and don't move any/

Any chance you can point to your thread on tank transfer with sand bottoms? Looking to upgrade and trying to get info on how to do it properly.

 

[brandon429]

Hey let’s run it here live time, your upgrade. Post all the succession pics here

Check out just the last 4 pages of the link I edited into post #10 above, those final pages are easy read and have sand swaps

the key is the reassembly: goes into the new tank vs the old

the trick in upgrading is clean the substrate and the rocks before setting in new tank, so that no detritus rides over and risks a cycle. A mini cycle is never caused by cleaning, removing bacteria, it’s caused by waste transfer and bacterial decay in various stages cast into the new tank.
Clean transfers always skip cycle


the tap water rinse of any sand going into the new tank is the most important part, and using a clear glass to verify you’ve rinsed it completely clear. you can verify the rinse is ready vs guess

May take two straight hours per bag of tap rinsing, no joke, that whole thread is people competing to see who can rinse the most thorough for all fifty pages because that makes skip cycle bed swaps and tank swaps and cyano kills.

The bacteria are not needed in sandbeds in reef tanks, they’re expendable. What’s dangerous in some beds is the detritus waste

sandbed bacteria are extra loading on tanks that run sandbeds…like carrying extra fish loading in a system that respires, produces acid waste, used oxygen, sandbed bacteria compete for those resources. They also to the side of that uptake ammonia to a small degree but we used to be trained opposite, that the sandbed bacteria are required and removing them causes a cycle. Not true we show routinely above.

the rocks are washed in saltwater then set aside ready for transfer

the sand in tap water till clear, final rinse ro.

sand and rock go into new tank matching temp and salinity of holding water for fish and corals, keep covered while holding fish will jump.

 

[brandon429]

Last trick is when the new tank is cloudless clear assembled run the lighting lower intensity and ramp back up as if new lights. Some go full blast right off the bat, it’s better to acclimate light power to control bleaching in the new tank, low feed levels, extra dilution…corals will be hungry so feed well and re ramp lights.


any new animals you add in the transfer process may introduce fast acting disease among the current fish, wait to add new stock till weeks after your transfer, nothing wet from a pet store gets in the tank till you’re sure the xfer went well. We don’t want brook riding in on snail shells and causing what looks like a bad tank transfer