Another tank swap thread: need a sanity check and some advice

[evrydayzawrkday]

Hello all!

For some background, I am running a Fluval 13.5 since ~December 2021 that contains the following:

- Two clownfish
- A bunch of CUC
- A few different zoa on a single rock
- a single branching hammer
- ~10lb of rock (established since the start of tank)
- ~1-2lb of rock in the middle chamber of the Fluval

I am going to be moving to a 25g AIO. Here is what I am thinking:

- Add in the 20lb of new live sand, and 10lb of uncured rock. Afterwards, add in ~15 gallons of new saltwater that matches the existing salinity (1.026)
- From the old tank to new, add in another 5-7lb of cured rock along with ~1-2lb of cured rock to the middle chamber. Also add in 5 gallons of old saltwater from the old tank, and in the old tank replace this with new saltwater temporarily.
- Add in the pods (bought a small bottle to start) and Fritz Turbo Start 900. Move over most of the CUC (snails, crabs).
- Once everything clears up in the new tank, add 5 gallons of old saltwater and then move over the remaining livestock + coral.

Would this work? I shouldn't use any of the old sand, right? I was told in my LFS to do so, but I didn't think that would make much sense due to the detritus being stirred up...
I am mainly worried about my clownfish and zoa, as my bambam have grew from 3 polyps to 15 in the last two months. I also have some utter chaos that I just added in a week ago.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Hello all!

For some background, I am running a Fluval 13.5 since ~December 2021 that contains the following:

- Two clownfish
- A bunch of CUC
- A few different zoa on a single rock
- a single branching hammer
- ~10lb of rock (established since the start of tank)
- ~1-2lb of rock in the middle chamber of the Fluval

I am going to be moving to a 25g AIO. Here is what I am thinking:

- Add in the 20lb of new live sand, and 10lb of uncured rock. Afterwards, add in ~15 gallons of new saltwater that matches the existing salinity (1.026)
- From the old tank to new, add in another 5-7lb of cured rock along with ~1-2lb of cured rock to the middle chamber. Also add in 5 gallons of old saltwater from the old tank, and in the old tank replace this with new saltwater temporarily.
- Add in the pods (bought a small bottle to start) and Fritz Turbo Start 900. Move over most of the CUC (snails, crabs).
- Once everything clears up in the new tank, add 5 gallons of old saltwater and then move over the remaining livestock + coral.

Would this work? I shouldn't use any of the old sand, right? I was told in my LFS to do so, but I didn't think that would make much sense due to the detritus being stirred up...
I am mainly worried about my clownfish and zoa, as my bambam have grew from 3 polyps to 15 in the last two months. I also have some utter chaos that I just added in a week ago.

Sounds like a good plan but the old saltwater will do nothing for the new tank. No need to transfer any of the water. And using new sand is ideal.

 

[evrydayzawrkday]

Sounds like a good plan but the old saltwater will do nothing for the new tank. No need to transfer any of the water. And using new sand is ideal.

Wait, the water won't do anything? I thought it would help bring across some of the existing bacteria + pods that are floating around.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Wait, the water won't do anything? I thought it would help bring across some of the existing bacteria + pods that are floating around.

No. Beneficial bacteria is in the rocks, very little is in the water column. As for pods, pretty much the same thing. If you haven't stirred up a lot of detritus before you remove the old water, there's technically nothing wrong with using it, but it won't be of any particular benefit

 

[evrydayzawrkday]

Then fresh water it is! It will make it a heck of a lot easier when moving from old tank to new.

 

[Sean Clark]

Congrats on the upgrade. Many more to come in the future.

 

[Yamaha1634]

I did something similar a few weeks back moving from a Fluval to a 50g.

I had a rock structure in the Fluval with 4 corals glued to it so couldn't drip acclimate like I'd normally do.

I filled the new tank with fresh salt water and the new sand, waited a few days for it to settle to the correct salinity and temp and matched it to the Fluval. Then took a 1 litre jug and took a jug from the Fluval and added it to the 50g, then took a jug from the 50g and added it to the Evo. I did this 50 times in the space of 3-4 hours. This basically left me with 2 tanks with matching water perams and I could just move the rock, fish etc from one to the other. I then syphoned out the old sand from the Fluval and very carefully added it to the new tank, made the water a bit cloudy but not too bad, very slowly lowered a cup full of sand to the bottom and emptied each time. I also added all my filter media to my sump along with some new. It's been a month now and all is well so far.

Check out my build thread if you want to see it.

 

[evrydayzawrkday]

Congrats on the upgrade. Many more to come in the future.

Don't tell my wife, I had to promise her "this was it"...

... little does she know

 

[Sean Clark]

Don't tell my wife, I had to promise her "this was it"...

... little does she know

 

[evrydayzawrkday]

An update for all...

So far so good. I did the following so far, in this order:

- Lay down the sand (the fine sand, which was the wrong one. Oh well)
- I went ahead and added in the rubble/biocube things from my old tank (1-2lb of live rock) into the new.
- Letting the tank cycle around for about an hour, then I took half of my rockwork (its all glued together), along with the new rocks and threw them in.
- Dumped two things of pods in, along with two bottles of Fritz.

Working on 3D printing a custom media basket because I can. Once things settle down I will move the remaining rock/live stock and lights / pumps (dosing) / other stuff. The old tank is 100% still setup, so don't think I made a booboo there

Now thinking about it, I may go ahead and start a build thread.. just because.

 

[OscarHaglund]

No. Beneficial bacteria is in the rocks, very little is in the water column. As for pods, pretty much the same thing. If you haven't stirred up a lot of detritus before you remove the old water, there's technically nothing wrong with using it, but it won't be of any particular benefit

If you want to increase your bacterisl diversity its probably a good idea to seed a bit of tank water as there is plenty of bacteria in the water column