Moving

[Ryan Depoister]

I’m getting ready to move an my substrate has been in the tank for around 15 years. My question is when I move could I clean my substrate or would that remove a lot of the live stuff in the tank?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Best advice I can give is to get all new sand. When you stir up a sand bed, especially one that's been around for 15 years, your going to kick up alot of trapped detritus and other stuff that can cause big spikes in nutrients when you re setup the tank. You can clean your current sand, but to clean it, and let it dry out, and rinse again takes time. If you're moving and need to reset up the tank right away, brand new sand is the way to go :)

 

[ectoaesthetics]

+1 with @Crabs Mcjones

I’ve moved several tanks. The oldest with a sand bed was 3 years old. There is NO way to move a tank without a massive disruption on the bed. In a bed that old I would pull it all (unless you are one of those guys who stirs the bed to the bottom or maticulously vacuums it all the time).

A word of caution is that sand is a LOT of the filtration space of your tank. When setting up a new tank I’m not a fan of live sand... but in your case I would absolutely spend the $ on a high quality love sand delivered the day of the tank move. It will still be a massive disruption but will give you the best shot IMO.

 

[Matt Carden]

I think it depends on if you can house your livestock somewhere stable while your tank goes through a mini cycle. Either way there will be a period of time where your livestock may perish unless you have a stable environment for them to wait out stabilization of your main.