Moving from a 55G to a 40G, reusing some of the sand? 3 month old tank. Will I cycle?

mell0w · Sep 23, 2020

I have a 3 month old 55g tank that has about 80 lbs of live rock in it and 60 lbs of sand. I only have 2 clownfish and a buncha coral.

This was a Petsmart 55g long with a HOB filter and HOB protein skimmer.

The new tank is an AquaTop 40g cube AIO with 4 media baskets, protein skimmer, etc.

I want a sandbed, but no where local is selling live sand and Amazon won't ship it to me until October. Since my tank isn't that old and the bioload isn't that big, if I scoop up a bunch of sand (not going to transfer all of it), rinse it in saltwater, add in as much liverock as will fit/works with the aquascape idea I have.. will everything be alright?

The new tank is in the same room, so I plan to just dump the sand directly into the empty tank, pump a little currently running saltwater into it, stir it up really well, siphon the water out. I would then repeat this until I have the sand level I want and then add the liverock/aquascape, pump more saltwater from the old tank and maybe some new fresh saltwater. Give it some time to settle and then add my fish and coral?

I've been hearing mixed responses when it comes to whether or not this is a good idea, so I figured I'd ask on here.

Also I considered going barebottom, but the fear of my heavy chunks of live rock cracking the bottom some how are just too dang high. Plus I have a bunch of nessarius snails that probably need it

lapin · Sep 23, 2020

It will be just fine in my ipinion. Rock holds most of the bacteria and you are rinsing the crud out of the sand. Im sure @brandon429 will chime in if he sees this.

jtlmnop · Sep 23, 2020

Just curious why you set up the 55g and are now moving to the 40 cube? I’m in the process of planning my first SW tank, and would love to hear your thoughts on both set ups.

brandon429 · Sep 23, 2020

Lapin thanks for the referral we want to track this job in our sand rinse thread. The only good use of a thread is to be able to make bankable predictions or track terrible failures and stop a practice.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Not only do I love that job, I did it in my vase :) so it’s been modeled already/ done your job is just bigger. I’m going to link a thread where nobody listens regarding aiptasia removal, apply this to your mushroom tank. the sand cleaning is already covered here / ridding newly cleaned rocks...

www.reef2reef.com

*to save 36 pages of reading lol summary:

instead of rinsing in saltwater above, rinse in tap water. That whole thread is tap water rinsing x 100 reefs, not saltwater rinsing which sounds ironic I know. The reason why is we need the sand blasted, absolutely blasted clean till no cloud, and you'll run out of saltwater before blast level.

*your tank is new, it likely doesn't have the waste we're dealing with there above but that still doesnt mean veering from the practice above is safe, its 36 pages of no loss because tap water is how to rinse sand until really truly clean, it retains its bacteria on the grains and we move it over like snowglobe grains, that clean. not one iota of clouding allowed.

clean = skip cycle

move dirty sand in the name of preserving bacteria= cycle risk. lastly, per that thread you can also elect not to put any sand back we do not need their bacteria (if you go bare bottom instantly, its ok) your live rock stack is enough bacteria even though your current tank is adapted to the rock + sand surface area.

it does not harm to remove the sand fully, what's left is still more rock surface area than you need in every tank Ive seen unless you have ping pong ball sized live rock.

whichever way you choose we like to track the outcomes in that thread above its how we grow it so large with examples, take good pics. don't bother testing for ammonia or anything else (you will get a misread, causes doubt, doubt is dangerous it causes under-rinsing) just move no clouding and it will work.

mell0w · Sep 23, 2020

I will check that thread out, I'm thinking now instead that I dump the sand into a garbage bag, poke small holes in the bottom and hit it with the garden hose max pressure? Or should I just put it in a bucket, rinse, drain water, rinse, drain water, etc?

jtlmnop said:
Just curious why you set up the 55g and are now moving to the 40 cube? I’m in the process of planning my first SW tank, and would love to hear your thoughts on both set ups.

The 55 gallon, while pretty big, is a cheap PetSmart tank meant for probably freshwater. I also built a stand for it out of cinderblocks. I was just running a HOB filter and skimmer and it just looked pieced together. This new tank is an AquaTop AIO with a cabinet, custom protein skimmer, multiple sections in the back that I've now built a refugium into and it's rimless. So while I'm "downgrading" in size, the shape, construction, ease of use is just phenomenally better.

Also thank you all for your responses, it's given me greater confidence that'll I'll avoid a crash since my sandbed is relatively young and I'll just be thorough in the rinsing.