Moving/changing tanks - advice needed

PranK

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Hi all,

A big day is approaching. I'll be moving my 5 foot in-wall and 2 foot frag tank to a new house.

I've moved tanks a heap of times and I'm not too worried about that part of it, but what I am worried about is the new tank I'm getting.

The new house has not much room for an in-wall or a big display, so I've bought a Red Sea 425 XL for inside the house. I'll combine the 5 and 2 from the current house into one tank in the garage and then move things slowly into the new tank.

Because I've had my current live rock for 15+ years and my sand for 11+ years, they host heaps of unwanted pests (majano, palythoa, morphs, vermitid snails, + lots more) so I am getting a lot of new stuff.

I have new sand and I have a heap of marco rock to build some structures which I'm super excited to do.

What I'm planning to do is to fill the new tank with the new sand and throw my 2 x bacteria-filled marine pure blocks (8x4) into the sump. I'll then build my aquascape and add that over the next week or two. Then I'm planning on leaving the tank for a while. I'll do water changes using water from the tank in the garage to make sure I add as much bacteria and other elements as I can.

After a month or so (maybe sooner?) I will start to add fish. I'll then get a bandsaw so I can cut any SPS/LPS off my existing rocks to put in the new tank (and dipping where possible also!!) I want zero rock or sand from the old tank.

But, the big thing I am trying to work out is how to safely get microfauna from the garage tank to the display. I have a fat copperband who still wont eat prepared foods and a mandarin. In the current tank they spend all day eating. I will leave them in the garage tank forever if I need to - I'm not going to rush them over, but how can I introduce the critters they want to eat? I can grab handfuls of pods from the current sump, thats easy, but theres going to be a lot of other beneficial critters that I'll lose by not using my current rock.

Note also that I use NSW so I'll likely introduce other things from that.

I also have a lot of other beneficial critters in my tanks, tonnes of worms and brittle stars. I'll introduce these also over time.

Any advice, observations etc would be great.

Thanks,

Christian
 

ReefRy

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I had a similar problem after moving my copperband from a 75g infested with aiptasia into a new 120. He refused to eat prepared food and slowly withered away. Best of luck to you and I'll be following along...
 

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