moving and upgrading tank, any tips?

[pp2000man]

so im moving out of my place and along with the new place i bought a 210 gallon setup that is getting resealed right now.
How should i go about moving the rock, fish, and coral with the least amount of stress and cycle on the tank?
i dont have all that many corals but i dont wanna risk killing what i do have, will this essentially be recycling a new tank or can i just transfer the rock and filters in order to skip that part? the tank is almost 2 years old and i have maybe 10 fish and a handful of corals and frags.

 

[Doctorgori]

Wet warm rock if transferred in less than 48hrs; kept wet not submerged, isnt too bad with the die off … all depends…

 

[Troylee]

Set up new tank with new sand and new water.. add your current rocks and live stock and done! Tank will be fine and do great!

 

[KrisReef]

^agree with what @Troylee posted^ The old tank is just a container for the ecosystem in the rocks and filters you have on the "old" tank.

How far are you moving? IF you are going far the difficulty of keeping fish and coral living for the trip gets way more complicated.

Short moves and be easy if you can set up the new tank before you dismantle the old. Good luck.

 

[BuilderT]

Just moved my 75 Gal. setup a few weeks ago. Here's what I did and only lost a couple cardinal fish in the process. I also have tons of corals in my tank and all of them survived the move.
Supplies needed:
2- 40 Gal. Brute Trash Cans
New live sand for the sand bed
Helping hands lol those trash cans will weigh close to 300 lbs
When I tore down my tank I toke as much of the water as I could and stored it in the trash cans. All my corals stayed on my live rock that was in the tank and sat perfectly in the bottom of each trash can. I also put all my inverts in the trash can loose as well. Hermits, CBS, Urchins, and Fighting Conch
All my fish I bagged them in 1/2-gallon zip lock bags and let them float in the trash can. Everything stayed this way for about 7 hours before I had the tank back up and running.
The 2 cardinals that died I did have bagged together with another cardinal and I believe the ammonia level got a bit to high for them. They both died within 2 days after the tank was up and running again.
I also completely cleaned my tank and sump with RODI water only and a blue sponge for cleaning. No chemicals whatsoever. I got rid of all the old sand as well and replaced it with new live sand.
Couple suggestions I have from my experience will be:
Bag all fish separately to give more time before ammonia builds up.
Don't fill the trash cans up all the way! I have a tractor with a fork lift so that helped a ton but they are awkward to lift if needed. You can also just pump the water to the trash can while its on the trailer and/or truck already. Then pump it back to your tank when you arrive at your new home.
Don't stress yourself out too much. I planned on losing a lot more than what I did and now my tank looks better than ever.
Wet/Dry Vac is your best friend to really get everything cleaned out.

Good luck on your move and I hope everything goes great!!

 

[pp2000man]

^agree with what @Troylee posted^ The old tank is just a container for the ecosystem in the rocks and filters you have on the "old" tank.

How far are you moving? IF you are going far the difficulty of keeping fish and coral living for the trip gets way more complicated.

Short moves and be easy if you can set up the new tank before you dismantle the old. Good luck.

so im moving about 25-30 minutes away, i dont have all that much fish and coral, maybe 15 fish and 10 coral most of which are on frag plugs.

my did forget to mention that i am adding close to 150ish lbs of rock that took a 3 week long bleach bath to cure it, will adding that along with the rock i currently have cause any problems with cycling?

im working with about a 20 day timeframe since the new 210 tank is getting resealed and repaired before being brought to the new place to get set up.

 

[KrisReef]

YOu need to get the bleached rock cycling in a brute (or two) asap. IF you try to add your old tank to a new tank with 150lbs of re-cycling rock you are likely to have issues. I'd work those out in a cycling barrel first. Test the barrel for alk and phosphate. I use baking soda to raise the barrel rock alk high. (Nothing to hurt on dead rock with extra alk) The rock will react with baking soda to fill holes in the chemical structure of the rock. Helps minimise alk swings in the new tank. Same issue with Phosphate, if it is present you can treat the barrel with lanthanum chloride to get that problem resolved. Once the barrel is rocking without phosphate or sucking up alk then you can think about adding it to the new tank.

 

[pp2000man]

YOu need to get the bleached rock cycling in a brute (or two) asap. IF you try to add your old tank to a new tank with 150lbs of re-cycling rock you are likely to have issues. I'd work those out in a cycling barrel first. Test the barrel for alk and phosphate. I use baking soda to raise the barrel rock alk high. (Nothing to hurt on dead rock with extra alk) The rock will react with baking soda to fill holes in the chemical structure of the rock. Helps minimise alk swings in the new tank. Same issue with Phosphate, if it is present you can treat the barrel with lanthanum chloride to get that problem resolved. Once the barrel is rocking without phosphate or sucking up alk then you can think about adding it to the new tank.

i will definately get that going today or tomorrow, i was planning on gluing a rockscape today and would like to do that before i get them wet

 

[KrisReef]

If you test the barrel for alk and P when you get it set up, I would recommend retesting it in a couple of days to see if it is leeching P or absorbing alk. If it isn’t then you are golden with regards to typical contamination and chemistry challenges that follow the rocks around the reef.
Suggestions
Please post your results for these tests so others can see what you get.
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