Up grading

Jason lowe · Nov 25, 2016

Hey guys have a question... I am going to be upgrading from a 75 g to a 125g... So my question is about the water ... Can I add 50g of new water to my existing water? Or will that shock the fish and coral?...

alyee5 · Nov 25, 2016

I would think that would be ok as long as you match temperature and salinity...you should also calculate the amount of Alk, Ca, Mg etc is in the new salt mix vs your current tank levels and determine how much of a swing you will get...for example if your 75g day tank has an Alk of 8.0 and your 50g of new saltmix at the same salinity is 10.0, the resultant Alk would be 8.8 for the 125g....that might be ok depending on your corals...lets see what others have to say...

sbash · Nov 26, 2016

To be clear, it sounds like you are going to take the contents of your 75G and put them into the 125G.

Next, you want to simply add another 50 gallons of fresh salt water to top up the 125G tank?

As @alyee5 says, the parameters are important. How important completely depends on your livestock. It might be a good idea to share your current stock so we can help out more accurately.

Really, if you have the ability to slowly add the 50 gallons (i.e. over the course of a week or so perhaps), that would be your safest bet.

Ty Hamatake · Nov 26, 2016

I may have missed something, but will you be using the same salt? If so it's comparable to doing a large water change which in most cases is just fine. If you're worried about it, and are able to, what you can do is do a smaller water change (25 gallons or so) keeping the old water. Then when it's time to fill the new tank you can empty the contents of the current tank+the water from the previous change+the new water. That way you're only adding 25ish gallons of new water as opposed to 50.

Jason lowe · Nov 26, 2016

Ok that sounds good guys thanks for the info as far as my stock I have yellow tang, Kole Tang, 3 anthias, a Hector goby, blue damsel, a bangai cardinal, 2 blue cromis, a fire goby, a long spine urchin, fire shrimp, Sally light foot, ..... as far as my life stock goes that's what I have. But my Coral I have LPS SPS softies I just don't want to shock and kill my Coral or any of my fish. Also if I understand what you guys are saying do not transfer the sad because that will do more harm than good it's better just to go get new sand?

Ty Hamatake · Nov 26, 2016

Jason lowe said:
Ok that sounds good guys thanks for the info as far as my stock I have yellow tang, Kole Tang, 3 anthias, a Hector goby, blue damsel, a bangai cardinal, 2 blue cromis, a fire goby, a long spine urchin, fire shrimp, Sally light foot, ..... as far as my life stock goes that's what I have. But my Coral I have LPS SPS softies I just don't want to shock and kill my Coral or any of my fish. Also if I understand what you guys are saying do not transfer the sad because that will do more harm than good it's better just to go get new sand?

How long has your tank been up? I transferred all 80 pounds of mine when I upgraded without any ill effects. The broken down tank was only about eight months old though.