NewReefer455
Community Member
Question bolded at the bottom, read below for entire story.
I am getting ready to move a tank to a new location in my house, from a second floor office into our main-floor living area. The tank is a 40 breeder mixed reef with a 20 gallon sump and it has been running for about 2.5 years. All info about the tank, and my previous issues, can be found here.
www.reef2reef.com
I started the tank with 40 lbs of live caribsea fiji pink and it was stirred regularly for about a year and a half by a diamond goby until he jumped one day while the lid was off during a water change. After he jump we opted to not get another goby as we had started getting into corals by then and he was constantly showering them with sand. Ever since I have not really touched the sandbed at all and I am coming to terms that this lack of movement in the sand is more than likely what has been causing my chronic issues with fighting cyano accompanied by stagnated coral growth.
The tank is getting moved to an area where we spend significantly more time so that we are more likely to notice issues before they become big problems and because we aren't spending as much time in the office as our work-from-home covid-schedule allowed. As everything needs to come out anyway, we decided to change it up a bit and turn our system into a peninsula style tank for more viewing area. We just purchased another 40 breeder at petco's dollar-per-gallon sale and we will be drilling it sometime this week.
My question concerns substrate. I know that the best route is likely to strip the tank, remove the sand into 5 gallon buckets, rinse thoroughly with tap, final rinse with old tank water, and put it into the new system cleaned (Rip-Clean Method). I would, however, like to move up a size and go to special grade while the entire tank is already pulled apart as I had some flow issues with the fiji-pink in certain areas (and the flow will need to be turned up to circulate a peninsula style tank). Will I see any significant negative effects from starting from scratch with the sandbed? I am fine if there is a mini-cycle that occurs, but I don't want to significantly stress corals (although I understand with uprooting an entire system comes the possibility of loss).
I am getting ready to move a tank to a new location in my house, from a second floor office into our main-floor living area. The tank is a 40 breeder mixed reef with a 20 gallon sump and it has been running for about 2.5 years. All info about the tank, and my previous issues, can be found here.
NO3/PO4 Out of Equilibrium (lots of data)
I am trying to find a natural nutrient balance in my tank and have been having a slowly recurring issue with cyanobacteria since the tank was started. Tank Hardware: - 40 Breeder, external overflow, 15 gal sump - 2 MP10's running Reef crest, maxing at 40-ish percent - 2 AI primes (mounted 12"...
www.reef2reef.com
I started the tank with 40 lbs of live caribsea fiji pink and it was stirred regularly for about a year and a half by a diamond goby until he jumped one day while the lid was off during a water change. After he jump we opted to not get another goby as we had started getting into corals by then and he was constantly showering them with sand. Ever since I have not really touched the sandbed at all and I am coming to terms that this lack of movement in the sand is more than likely what has been causing my chronic issues with fighting cyano accompanied by stagnated coral growth.
The tank is getting moved to an area where we spend significantly more time so that we are more likely to notice issues before they become big problems and because we aren't spending as much time in the office as our work-from-home covid-schedule allowed. As everything needs to come out anyway, we decided to change it up a bit and turn our system into a peninsula style tank for more viewing area. We just purchased another 40 breeder at petco's dollar-per-gallon sale and we will be drilling it sometime this week.
My question concerns substrate. I know that the best route is likely to strip the tank, remove the sand into 5 gallon buckets, rinse thoroughly with tap, final rinse with old tank water, and put it into the new system cleaned (Rip-Clean Method). I would, however, like to move up a size and go to special grade while the entire tank is already pulled apart as I had some flow issues with the fiji-pink in certain areas (and the flow will need to be turned up to circulate a peninsula style tank). Will I see any significant negative effects from starting from scratch with the sandbed? I am fine if there is a mini-cycle that occurs, but I don't want to significantly stress corals (although I understand with uprooting an entire system comes the possibility of loss).
