Tank Transfer

[swanedog]

Good evening,
Tomorrow we are acquiring a 120 gallon aquarium with sump system that we are going to transfer our 55 gallon reef setup to. The 55 gallon has a canister filter. We currently don’t have much coral to transfer only have an anemone, a monti digitora, devils finger leather, and pulsing Xenia. We do however have many fish. Just wondering what the “do-s” and “don’t-s” yall may have for doing a tank transfer. Thanks for the advice in advance!

 

[EnterName]

I recently transferred my system without upgrading the volume much, but I still think I can offer some advice:

If you have substrate, I would leave it in the old tank. You can take a tiny bit of it to "seed" new substrate with microbiology, but transferring old substrate is kind of dangerous and will just release a bunch of ammonia and phosphate if you aren't rinsing it completely and carefully beforehand.

I opted to not transfer the sand and instead bought completely new dry sand (but you can of course use live sand). To avoid it depleting phosphate levels immediately I transfer small batches of sand every now and then. The only backdraw: You will have diatoms for some time, as new dry sand will release quite some silicate (even if it's aragonite-based). However, they aren't causing any harm on the substrate and even help to reduce nutrients if that is an issue for you. I'm dosing ammonia and phosphate so I just test frequently and adjust the dosage to compensate any changes the diatom growth and new sand causes.

Unfortunately it will be a stressful day for your fish, so prepare as much as you can before you start messing with the running tank and get one or two people to help you. I used a pump to transfer most of the water, then carried the rocks and corals over, and now I was able to catch the fish because there wasn't too much water left and they couldn't hide in caves anymore.

As you will be upgrading from 55gal to 120gal you will need a lot of fresh saltwater. This is fine, but make sure the salinity matches your current tank's salinity as close as possible.

There will be quite a lot of new surface area in a new tank. Sometimes dinoflagellates will take advantage of that, but it will pass if you keep nutrient levels low, but detectable. Good Luck!

 

[swanedog]

I recently transferred my system without upgrading the volume much, but I still think I can offer some advice:

If you have substrate, I would leave it in the old tank. You can take a tiny bit of it to "seed" new substrate with microbiology, but transferring old substrate is kind of dangerous and will just release a bunch of ammonia and phosphate if you aren't rinsing it completely and carefully beforehand.

I opted to not transfer the sand and instead bought completely new dry sand (but you can of course use live sand). To avoid it depleting phosphate levels immediately I transfer small batches of sand every now and then. The only backdraw: You will have diatoms for some time, as new dry sand will release quite some silicate (even if it's aragonite-based). However, they aren't causing any harm on the substrate and even help to reduce nutrients if that is an issue for you. I'm dosing ammonia and phosphate so I just test frequently and adjust the dosage to compensate any changes the diatom growth and new sand causes.

Unfortunately it will be a stressful day for your fish, so prepare as much as you can before you start messing with the running tank and get one or two people to help you. I used a pump to transfer most of the water, then carried the rocks and corals over, and now I was able to catch the fish because there wasn't too much water left and they couldn't hide in caves anymore.

As you will be upgrading from 55gal to 120gal you will need a lot of fresh saltwater. This is fine, but make sure the salinity matches your current tank's salinity as close as possible.

There will be quite a lot of new surface area in a new tank. Sometimes dinoflagellates will take advantage of that, but it will pass if you keep nutrient levels low, but detectable. Good Luck!

Thanks! Was planning on getting new live sand already. We struggle currently with keeping nitrates and phosphates low, so hopefully getting a refugium and sump will help out. Appreciate the advice!!

 

[EnterName]

We struggle currently with keeping nitrates and phosphates low, so hopefully getting a refugium and sump will help out.

Removing the old substrate will certainly help with getting rid of some nutrients.

If you are extending your rockscape with new rocks you might also notice quite some phosphate adsorption at first. Increasing the volume from 55gal to 120gal is equivalent (water parameter wise) to performing a 54% water change, which will also help quite a bit.

 

[swanedog]

We struggle currently with keeping nitrates and phosphates low, so hopefully getting a refugium and sump will help out.

Removing the old substrate will certainly help with getting rid of some nutrients.

If you are extending your rockscape with new rocks you might also notice quite some phosphate adsorption at first. Increasing the volume from 55gal to 120gal is equivalent (water parameter wise) to performing a 54% water change, which will also help quite a bit.

Phenomenal. I’ve read somewhere to use the canister filter in conjunction for a couple of weeks. Do you have any experience with this or swapping filtration types?

 

[EnterName]

Phenomenal. I’ve read somewhere to use the canister filter in conjunction for a couple of weeks. Do you have any experience with this or swapping filtration types?

Unfortunately I have not. I've always used a protein skimmer for filtration and (even more important to me) gas exchange. I makes sense to have the canister filter running in the new tank though, as it probably holds a decent amount of beneficial bacteria you might need.