Safely moving fish/rock/sand into new tank?

TheWackyWiz

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Hi All,

I decided to upgrade my set up and will be moving everything from my 20g breeder into a 20g AIO Peninsula tank when it arrives. I am hoping to get your advice on the best way to go about this transfer so I can hopefully avoid kicking off another cycle? Do you recommend supplementing the nitrifying bacteria with something like Dr. Tims or MicroBacter7? Is there any issue with me mixing in some additional live sand to form a deeper bed? Here what I am working with:

- 20lbs live sand and ~10lbs of dry rock that have both been in tank for ~4mos
- 5 or 6 corals (mushrooms, zoa, Acans, GSP)
- 5 hermits, 5 snails, 1 pin cushion urchin, 1 peppermint shrimp
- 1 clown, 1 two spot goby, 1 chalkbass
- HOB Fuge with cheato, pods, media

Here's what I am thinking of doing
- Fill up two large storage totes with a mixture of tank water and fresh salt water. Put heaters in both.
- Livestock goes into one, rock and coral go into the other
- Mix existing sand with some additional live sand and scoop into new tank
- Move media, chaeto, pods into new AIO fuge.
- Fill new tank with mostly fresh water
-Drip acclimate livestock and coral and add to new tank.

I appreciate your guidance!
 

Don_Jorge

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I feel like if you just transfer everything over you should avoid a mini cycle, just dont let anything dry out.
 
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Super Fly

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If sand is not too old, then safe to just mix w new sand otherwise it should be rinsed clean while saving 1-2 cups of old sand to help seed in new tank. When I moved, all livestock and rocks were in a brute w heat & powerhead in old tank water while a new and larger tank was being setup. Once new tank was up and running, I moved all rocks and livestock to new tank, no need to acclimate as long as temp and salinity match. If ur liverocks are well aged full of beneficial bacteria, then there should be no issue in new tank just maybe a mini-cycle due to new equipment. Oh, fill new tank w clean/new water and don't reuse old water which is essentially just dirty water. GL
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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wanted to add that simply because it allows one to see the outcome of a given transfer method before its ran again, mere patterning. one thing we do differently: break every rule known regarding sand.

why

in order to remove recycle outliers and have a complete consistency rate, even 1% loss isn’t acceptable or we’d have to break the capt morgan pose

in that thread, fixing cyano is the same as swapping sand is the same as moving homes is the same as upgrades or downgrades and it’s the same as pulling the sand out altogether, at once.

if youll notice the hobby picks and chooses it’s allowed bacterial insults based on a thread title. If moving homes, it’s an ok disruption. If changing aquascape, ok.


but deep cleaning to fix cyano, are you crazy, you’ll cause a cycle

You can’t remove all your sand at once, that will cause a cycle they say.


we dispense with all that and log results.

what can be worked knowing those shared similarities of jobs can be shocking given enough years to compile.

rinsing sand does kill bacteria. It’s just that they’re not missed. cloudless is the best, cloudy and wait ten days is so 1998.
 
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brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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I know fifteen readers are thinking tl;dr

story of my life heh

either way we move no waste we cause no cycle, and skip cycle is everyone’s request.

It’s never about lack of bacteria it’s about waste transfer. We were so harsh on each tank to be as thorough because that’s the only safe way. Long before that thread about ten years ago at nano-reef.com we were moving someone’s small reef and we just had them set the whole thing 3/4 drained in bed of pickup

by the time it sloshed on the way over their fish were belly up. It was cloudy

The tank didn’t look dirty at the start, it was up under the rocks and sand.

most tanks are not harmed by full move, but maybe 5% could be, just happened to be one of the first transfer threads I’d tracked.

so the sand rinse thread is the polar opposite of that move. We started noticing nobody got cyano or dinos after the crazy rinse moves. We then began implementing the rinse on any tank small enough to run it, should they simply want that ending status. No relocation required.
We then realized all the formerly illegal reef moves were now made legal because it had the same outcomes tank to tank.

and any nano reef is now immune to invasion depending on what the allowed set of rules are.

we didn’t beat dinos every time, just 90% which is mighty decent and lucky in dinos circles.
 
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