Swapping a fw and reef aquarium

[Smokeshow]

Hello. I have a 125g freshwater aquarium with a 55g sump and a 75 saltwater aquarium with a 55g sump. I have a 7" red oscar, some firemouth cichlids and gaint danios in the 125. The oscar is becoming very aggressive to his tank mates so I'm wanting to swap him into the 75g and make the 125 my reef tank. I have other tanks that the other tankmates can go. Also have a spare 75g and a 20g that I can set up temporarily to move the fish to in-between moves. Im thinking moving the oscar to the temp 75 and the other fish to their different homes. Clean the 125 and get it ready. Then start to move the marine into the 125. Clean the 75 then put the oscar in it. The 75 has alot of calcuim and coraline algea buildup as well as a good bit of pineapple sponge in the sump. Thinking about filling it with tap water and use about 13gal of white vinegar and let it run for 1-2 days to loosen everything up. I have more live sand and rocks. Does that sound like it would work? Any better ideas. Planning the swap for 2 weeks from now.

 

[brandon429]

cracks knuckles

u want to double surgery fw and reef at the same time, we live for that in the sand rinse thread. here's added recommends to that option above:

rule out meds for freshwater ever used, that may bind into the glass I read about that

are you clean in the freshwater tank/no contaminants for reef? if so, the swap can be done.

we have to clean the substrates carefully for this to work

 

[Smokeshow]

125 is 7 months old and the 75 is 6months old. Neither tank has had any meds. And both tanks will get a through cleaning and rinsed. Don't see any contaminants in the saltwater aquarium. My eagel eye zoas are gaining a new polyp a week for the last month or so.

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

Neon rabbit did the work recently and I don’t forget a good rip cleaning


very relevant to your plan. That actual page is a freshwater and reef rip clean just the same, but they happened to go back into the same tanks lol yours will be swapped right at the point both sandbeds are 100% rinsed clean, with tap water.

It’s better to destroy the bacteria in the bed with tap rinsing to jet out waste, that filth causes the cycle. Trying to preserve sandbed bacteria and under rinsing is the hidden risk...so that thread is forty pages of sand swaps and all are tap rinsed

*lighting levels drop in the new reef ramped up. Super clean initially means drop light let corals adjust to mega clean and they’ll eat like hogs soon after.


the reef has rocks with high surface area and they will carry the reef we show, after cleaning, without bottle bac. The whole thread is without bottle bac to show that point, live rocks are enough always.

but freshwater is opposite, nitrite (found in piles of waste detritus in both fresh and salt tanks) kills freshwater so once it’s sandbed is rinsed in tap, then RO to jet out the tap, reassemble the freshwater tank cloudlessly but also input bottle bacteria made for freshwater. Those surfaces are more slick and round, our rinsing does dislodge a lot of the filter bac (but never do reef rocks lose theirs, too many crevices)

on marine tank swaps, we don’t care if there was nitrite as its neutral for us but very bad in freshwater

 

[Smokeshow]

Very informative. Thank you very much. I actually have about 10lbs of ceramic media and 30lbs of lava rock in the sump of the 125 so there is more than enough bacteria there for a single oscar. I also have 2 4x4x1 bio blocks in the sump of the 75. Was planning on putting them in the 20 with a sponge filter. Talking to the lfs earlier has got me thinking about something else. Why not swap the sumps? I can do a light cleaning on each sump then move it under the appropriate aquarium. Only thing I would need to do is reroute the return plumbing.

 

[Smokeshow]

New lights came in. Went with 3 of the wills 165w black box leds. Their very similar to the mars aqua lights. Also picked up some lumber to build a canopy. The main sides will be made up of 1x10s. The lights will be mounted inside the canopy. Picking up another bucket of salt this weekend. I will be rip cleaning the sand using the 5 gal bucket method. Plan on using the cleaned rock as the base of the scape. Ill place the rock on the glass first then the cleaned sand around it. Fill the tank about 3/4 of the way with rodi water and mix the salt in. Move the cycled rock from the 75 into the 125. Or can I put all of the rock in at once? One rock is covered in zoas so that one will probably have to wait until the saltwater is fully mixed. Transfer the old tank water into the 125 and top off with premixed saltwater. Then move the fish into their new home. Going to be a long process but starting to get real excited for the project.

 

[brandon429]

Take pics that's gold level surgery coming up how savory

Big $$ at stake, that's how we like the pressure.

Yes all moved rocks will skip cycle, can be installed at once. The whole trick was swishing them/ handling already live and cured portions with saltwater rinsing so no waste moves over

It'll feel so weird rinsing sand in tap, but that's just because the rule writers in reefing didn't know any better at the time until home movers made new rules

 

[Smokeshow]

I'll try to remember to take some pictures lol. I'll pick up some bio-spira while I'm at the store this weekend to help with the transfer. Just don't want to lose all of the bacteria in the rocks. Another concern i have now is should I fix my sump to where I can use filter socks or continue to use filter floss like I've been doing. This is the sump under the 125.

Its a 55g. Ovwrflow is a eshopps large with dual bean animal overflow and an emergency drain into the first chamber. Orginally planned on using 2- 4x15 filter socks but the glass broke when I was putting it together so I filled it with the cheap polyfill from Walmart.

 

[brandon429]

we can't use the example set with biospira, our stuff is to demo the true nature of bacteria to reduce unneeded expenditures.

but that being said, this is your investment so making any extra purchases is fine. it will work the same with or without the bottled bacteria we can see above. when bottled bac is purchased, I like biospira its routinely fast in our cycling threads/quality stuff for sure. its for dry starts