Critique My Tank Upgrade Plan

[NanoSteam]

I've done plenty of new setups but only done one upgrade and that was many moons ago from a 40b to a 75g. I don't remember anything about how I did that.

Currently have a 26g that's been up for roughly 2.5 months and picked up an 80g AIO from IM. The 20ish pounds of rock in there isn't exactly mature so I won't rely on it to help prevent a mini-cycle if I did a complete "all at once" transfer with my fish.

So here's my thought process to do this as safely as possible for the fish. I'm certain the corals won't be as much of a problem since they can handle a little bit of ammonia.

1. Fill the 80g with freshly made salt water, add 50lbs of new dry rock, all the bio media from the 26g and NEW "live" sand.
2. Remove half of the live rock from the 26g and add to the 80g. Some with Zoa's and Cloves (hardy stuff) + Lights go on
3. Monitor ammonia levels for 7 days, if all is well, transfer the rest of the corals and my pair of clowns over.
4. Wait another week and transfer two more fish + CUC and so on and so forth until all 6 fish are in BUT may leave the six line in the 26g until the 80g is fully stocked with my wants although it's been fairly calm.

Thoughts? Does this look sound?

 

[lapin]

What sort of live sand?
Tampa bay or Live in plastic bag ?
I would add the instant start bacteria in a bottle. There is a whole thread here on what’s good and what’s not. I think Turbo 9000 or something was the best.

 

[NanoSteam]

What sort of live sand?
Tampa bay or Live in plastic bag ?
I would add the instant start bacteria in a bottle. There is a whole thread here on what’s good and what’s not. I think Turbo 9000 or something was the best.

Just the Caribsea Special Grade stuff. Not actually live just has some beneficial bacteria in it so they say.

That would be the Turbo Start 900, I was thinking about doing that as well as a safety measure.

 

[lapin]

That type of live sand is mostly dead. If you do use it be sure to rinse it well. No need for any dust storms in that shinny new tank.

 

[fishywishy]

Your plan is decent, but I would just do this instead:
1. Fill the 80g with washed sand and new rock.
2. Fill the tank with new water that has matching parameters as old tank.
3. Transfer all rocks and corals.
4. Transfer all water(optional)
5. transfer fish.

You can just transfer everything same day. no need to worry about and ammonia spikes. with the increased water volume and old rock to jump start the tank, you won’t have any problems. You can even add some bottled bacteria if you want to be extra safe.

 

[KrisReef]

Your plan is decent, but I would just do this instead:
1. Fill the 80g with washed sand and new rock.
2. Fill the tank with new water that has matching parameters as old tank.
3. Transfer all rocks and corals.
4. Transfer all water(optional)
5. transfer fish.

You can just transfer everything same day. no need to worry about and ammonia spikes. with the increased water volume and old rock to jump start the tank, you won’t have any problems. You can even add some bottled bacteria if you want to be extra safe.

Yes, but maybe not. IF things get stalled and moving slowly during the transfer the biofilter may suffer a tiny bit(?), so for certain add the bottled bacteria as an insurance policy. Otherwise, the old biofilter should be happy to have a larger tank to spread out into! Without more fish the bioload doesn't increase so the current filtration bacteria should be more than able to keep up.

Otherwise, if things go smoothly this move can be very easy, as @fishywishy correctly pointed out.

 

[NanoSteam]

Your plan is decent, but I would just do this instead:
1. Fill the 80g with washed sand and new rock.
2. Fill the tank with new water that has matching parameters as old tank.
3. Transfer all rocks and corals.
4. Transfer all water(optional)
5. transfer fish.

You can just transfer everything same day. no need to worry about and ammonia spikes. with the increased water volume and old rock to jump start the tank, you won’t have any problems. You can even add some bottled bacteria if you want to be extra safe.

i suppose it can be done then. I'll add bottled bac as a just in case. I'm still not certain if I'll use all of the rock from the 26g as it doesn't exactly fit in with the current scape and since it's an AIO I don't have a sump bit enough to house it in.

 

[fishywishy]

i suppose it can be done then. I'll add bottled bac as a just in case. I'm still not certain if I'll use all of the rock from the 26g as it doesn't exactly fit in with the current scape and since it's an AIO I don't have a sump bit enough to house it in.

Just keep in there for a while to seed the new tank. You can remove it afterwards