Big tank upgrade, give me some pointers

[Monney00]

Hey all,

I am making a big tank upgrade, going from a 65gallon to a 150 gallon. When I started the hobby, I intentionally purchased large components in the sump to facilitate the inevitable size up, but I have a few questions.

1. I have numerous frags and corals affixed to the rock in my current aquarium. What is the best process to use? Should I remove the coral and affix them to frag discs and reuse the rock?

2. I have a good amount of sand, and I hear I should rinse it. I do not intend to keep both tanks up at once, mostly as the big one must go in the same location as the smaller tank. If I rinse it, what is the process and will it cause a cycle?

3. My sump will be reused, and has a refugium full of rock rubble. Do I need to do anything to the sump to make it viable for the new tank?

4. Using the same sump, if I do not transfer the old rock, will it initiate a cycle?
Thanks!

 

[MnFish1]

I did this. Here is how I did it

1. get some brute trash cans (2)
2. Fill them with water from your old tank
3. Put the rock/coral (attached) - into the buckets (dont break the coral off)
4. Have a Pump for circulation in each tub.
5. Have a heater in each tub.
6. Put the fish in either of the buckets (or use 1 for the fish and one for the rock/coral)
7. Ditch the rest of the stuff you dont want from the old tank. If you're going to keep the sump - keep the water circulating in the sump as well.
8. Get rid of the old tank etc - and place 'new mixed water' into your new tank (1/2)
9. Place the rock and coal from the old tank - into the new tank - with some of the old water as well (so its not a shock) - like a 50:50 mix
10. Pump the rest of the water from the 'bucket from the old tank' - into the new tank
11. Now you have a tank with about 1/2 old water 1/2 new water and the old rock in your new tank
12. Put the fish in bags - and acclimate them to the new tank temp
13. while doing this - pump the rest of the old water into the new tank
14. fill the rest of the tank with new water
15. Once the temp in the tanks is the same - add the fish to the tank

If you're going to add new rock, etc - follow that protocol.

16. Hook up your sump - etc - and start it

Get an LFS to help - at an hourly rate (this is also what I did) - to monitor for problems. results - no losses - no cycle - no problems. again this is my experience/opinion. @brandon429

 

[brandon429]

Agreed

the sand is important because that’s the main step we’ve seen associated with total loss in tank moves. It should be rinsed in tap water in sections, five gallons buckets at a time, until it’s 100% clean running and not 99%.

final rinse in ro water, to evacuate tap from the grains, and the tap carried the mud out from the grains. Final rinse in ro

feel free to get all new sand. Do the exact same pre rinse, do not skip it, even if you buy live sand, see thread below before having concerns over bacteria.

set the system up cloudless, you will get no cycle. Doing opposite of what your instincts say, in this case, specifically saves your tank because live rock in the display is enough surface area the sand + mud is too dangerous to risk keeping, its unneeded in any reef tank. post a tank pic of your current display setup.

aware the sand rinsing sounds crazy made up heres our files on the testing of the statements. If you prep your sand in this way stated, and move the hard scapes like MN posted, guaranteed safe upgrade

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[MnFish1]

PS - this procedure (moving from a 72 gallon tank - to a 105 gallon Red Sea reefer - took 2 hours with help from the LFS

 

[brandon429]

One last kicker, because people moving tanks take one look at that thread and perform tl;dr heh

(=miss vital info to save their four thousand dollars in corals)

we must re ramp the new setups lighting as if new LEDs. When robbing a reef tank of literally all it’s waste, sand rinsing to avoid cycle loss, the new lighting is reduced by about half intensity and worked up over a new week. Prevents bleaching.


this arrangement is guaranteed to skip cycle transfer your reef. Re cycling is not from losing bacteria, ever. It’s from transferring waste that is half rotting proteins in states of decay. Not everyone has a bad sandbed, but we don’t customize the order above to try and find out who did. Everyones tank became snowglobe grains in that thread, and no losses. There isn’t another tank relocation thread on the web I know of to scan for patterns, so rinse that rascal sandbed three hours if that’s what it takes. The cleaner it is in the new tank, the less you will cycle. The polar opposite of what the masses think is the safest way to move reefs.

 

[Monney00]

Tank pics. Please forgive the messy glass/tank. I have been treating bryopsis and today is tank cleaning day. Also attached a pic of the build so far for the new stand.

 

[brandon429]

Hey nice timing.


that is enough display live rock to run any bioload in reefing. That’s why whatever we do to sandbed bacteria doesn’t matter. You’re allowed to go instantly bare bottom in the new tank if wanted, so whatever we do to sand (boiling freezing lol) will not matter as long as mud doesn’t transfer over.

as your rocks are being transferred, use a knife tip to score off target areas from bryopsis, can drip peroxide on the scraped spots for a heck of a plant remove

it won’t harm the bac on the rocks.


then if you need fluconazole in the new tank it will be as a preventative and not a mass remover attempt. This is a certain success, nice find Mn, tank transfers are scary risk then fun when it all works out


take pics pls we want to add to the mix for the gold in patterning!


*nobody would ever do reef surgery if it wasn’t for home moves and tank upgrades, we use the patterning here for all kinds of reef work including total disassembly to blast out dinoflagellates.

the reason why someone puts a tank through surgery doesn’t matter in the least, we just want a reliable way of pulling it off.

 

[MnFish1]

Hey nice timing.


that is enough display live rock to run any bioload in reefing. That’s why whatever we do to sandbed bacteria doesn’t matter. You’re allowed to go instantly bare bottom in the new tank if wanted, so whatever we do to sand (boiling freezing lol) will not matter as long as mud doesn’t transfer over.

as your rocks are being transferred, use a knife tip to score off target areas from bryopsis, can drip peroxide on the scraped spots for a heck of a plant remove

it won’t harm the bac on the rocks.


then if you need fluconazole in the new tank it will be as a preventative and not a mass remover attempt. This is a certain success, nice find Mn, tank transfers are scary risk then fun when it all works out


take pics pls we want to add to the mix for the gold in patterning!


*nobody would ever do reef surgery if it wasn’t for home moves and tank upgrades, we use the patterning here for all kinds of reef work including total disassembly to blast out dinoflagellates.

the reason why someone puts a tank through surgery doesn’t matter in the least, we just want a reliable way of pulling it off.

If I were you - I would be tempted to take the time and treat the bryopsis in your old tank - and then move the rocks, etc etc

 

[Monney00]

Yeah, about 8 days into my fluco treatment. Don’t want that stuff in the new tank.

 

[Brew12]

I highly recommend not trying to save the sand. As said early, if you do save it you absolutely need to rinse it. If you want to save the rubble in your sump, make sure you rinse that too. Otherwise, if you reuse all of your original rock, you shouldn't have any significant losses.