When to transfer current tank to new tank?

[vicorhe]

Hello reef2reef.

I have a 2.5 year old aio acrylic 15G tank that is more or less established and stable and its replacement 60G breeder that has been wet and cycling for 4 months. I cured and added some Australian live rock to the 60G last week. The 60G now has 40lbs of dry special grade sand, ~25lbs of dry rock, and 8lbs of live rock.




When and how should I go about the transfer to the 60G? (Bite the bullet and get it over with, or let the 60G mature more than it already has). The latest I can delay this is about another month.

I struggled with my 15G for almost 2 years battling low nutrients and nuisance algae. Only recently seen the light at the end of the tunnel after doing a combination of adding turbo snails, dosing microbacter7 and microbacter clean, and feeding phytoplankton. I’d like to minimize/avoid the nuisance algae fighting phase as much as possible in the 60G.

Steps I’ve taken for the 60G: added biodiversity of ocean live rock, seeded with bottle bacteria (Fritz turbo start, microbacter7, microbacter clean), seeded with pods, fed with phytoplankton multiple times a week, was lit only with ambient light for first 4 months, seeded with coralline spores at the beginning of the year.

How would you go about this?

 

[vicorhe]

Some additional context on the 15G. It runs bare bottom. In the display portion, I have 8 corals mounted to ceramic tiles and 2 shrooms mounted on two pieces of rock/rubble. In the filtration compartments I have couple pieces of live rock, more ceramic tiles, and two crate baskets of live rock rubble, various ceramic bio media. I don’t run mechanical or chemical filtration, I left the mulm/detritus settle on the bottom of the filtration compartments and there plenty of sponges, bristle worms, and feather dusters.

 

[Skippy The Meh]

If it were me, id seed some different strains of bacteria first. microbe lift special blend has been good to me.
Get nutrients in range and go for it!

Are you planning to add fish? I like the deep sandbed you dont see those very often anymore.

Love the scape! Good luck! Keep us updated!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

It looks good to me. The 60 gallon is cycled, I would transfer the fish from the 15 to the 60. The best bacteria is real fish bacteria, there is nothing more you can do with bottled bacteria to prepare the tank, a live animal is the next step IMO.

 

[Seansea]

Move everything over. Your ready. One thing i would add is some tyoe of fuge or algae scrubber. You want somewhere for algae to grow besides your display. Will help with your algae issues. I run my algae scrubbers on all my tanks a few weeks before i put livestock in tank.

 

[vicorhe]

If it were me, id seed some different strains of bacteria first. microbe lift special blend has been good to me.
Get nutrients in range and go for it!

Are you planning to add fish? I like the deep sandbed you dont see those very often anymore.

Love the scape! Good luck! Keep us updated!

Thanks for your input! It’s about ~1.25inch sand bed when spread evenly. I did some sand sifting a week ago leaving ridges. I will transfer my two remaining fish, a clownfish and a clown goby. I placed an order for a pink streak wrasse, not sure when that will arrive as they don’t come by them often.

 

[vicorhe]

It looks good to me. The 60 gallon is cycled, I would transfer the fish from the 15 to the 60. The best bacteria is real fish bacteria, there is nothing more you can do with bottled bacteria to prepare the tank, a live animal is the next step IMO.

Thank you for the input!
Yeah, I can do that.

One thing I’m hesitant about is that I placed an order with my LFS for a pink streak wrasse. They don’t come by them often so it may take a couple of weeks or months. That species being timid makes me want to introduce it first to the 60G first. But with the uncertainty of its arrival plus a 2/3 week quarantine, I think that’s out of the picture waiting for it first. Hopefully the 60G is large enough that my existing 2 fish (occeleris clownfish, clown goby) don’t pick fights with it.

 

[vicorhe]

Move everything over. Your ready. One thing i would add is some tyoe of fuge or algae scrubber. You want somewhere for algae to grow besides your display. Will help with your algae issues. I run my algae scrubbers on all my tanks a few weeks before i put livestock in tank.

Thank you for the input!

I won’t be running a sump for this build.

I was considering a cryptic fuge implemented via a canister filter at first. Now I’m gonna go with a cryptic zone inside the tank via a custom black acrylic box; figured I didn’t want to introduce another body of water out of the display tank if the goal was just flow and a black box.

I wouldn’t really be growing algae in this fuge though.

I’ve looked into the Santa Monica filtration HOG hang on back ATS; I like the concept of it. Do you have experience with this product or their ATS in general? If anything I would be going for a one cube a day model.

 

[Skippy The Meh]

Move everything over. Your ready. One thing i would add is some tyoe of fuge or algae scrubber. You want somewhere for algae to grow besides your display. Will help with your algae issues. I run my algae scrubbers on all my tanks a few weeks before i put livestock in tank.

Thank you for the input!

I won’t be running a sump for this build.

I was considering a cryptic fuge implemented via a canister filter at first. Now I’m gonna go with a cryptic zone inside the tank via a custom black acrylic box; figured I didn’t want to introduce another body of water out of the display tank if the goal was just flow and a black box.

I wouldn’t really be growing algae in this fuge though.

I’ve looked into the Santa Monica filtration HOG hang on back ATS; I like the concept of it. Do you have experience with this product or their ATS in general? If anything I would be going for a one cube a day model.

Have you considered putting some macro algae in the display? Ive seen people do this with great success and skip the HOB ordeal. All filtration is in the tank. Kinda has a tide pool vibe which i think is cool and ive been considering doing myself

 

[mcarroll]

How would you go about this?

If you'd had a more traditional setup, you might've gotten away without needing all that dead rock in the equation – it will be a bummer going forward. The tank is going to go through a serious ugly phase as if you hadn't done anything for the last 2 years.

You're hoping 8 pounds of live will seed and populate 25 pounds of dead. Pest algae is the only thing that's *really good* at populating rock quickly though, so IMO you may have created a challenge you never intended to face since it seems like you want to put the contents of the 15 gallon in there "soon".

It'll be months before that dead rock is any kind of ready. We aren't talking about just bacteria and bio-media (30-40 days) after all. We are talking about live rock. It takes a couple years or so, even under ideal oceanic conditions. (Ask TBsaltwater or any of the live rock aquaculture outfits.)

Still, if you are going to proceed I would preserve and transfer every ounce of the 15 gallon's contents, detritus and all into the 60.

Use that material to displace as much dead rock from the 60 as possible. Since you still don't seem to have much rock in total, displacing might not be too easy. So, make sure your cleanup crew is STRONG and do not pause if you see algae start to grow – double check your CUC, make any needed improvements, and remove the algae immediately. Consider using a micron or UV filter to prevent algae spreading uncontrolled.

 

[wasabi bean]

When i transferred mine i cycled it for about 2 months going from a 20 gallon to 70 gallon with sump. With a much larger system those swings wont be as dramatic and the media in the old tank will prepare the new tank so much better. I would just go for it and transfer it all over

 

[mfinn]

I'd move everything out of the 15 over all at once. With the low fish load and a few corals, ( 3 I think?) that the 15 gallon was already in. I would hold off adding anymore for a while.
With the fresh dry rock it's going to take a while before it can.
I always like to get extra cleanup crew. So as soon as you see any algae,,,,

 

[vicorhe]

Move everything over. Your ready. One thing i would add is some tyoe of fuge or algae scrubber. You want somewhere for algae to grow besides your display. Will help with your algae issues. I run my algae scrubbers on all my tanks a few weeks before i put livestock in tank.

Thank you for the input!

I won’t be running a sump for this build.

I was considering a cryptic fuge implemented via a canister filter at first. Now I’m gonna go with a cryptic zone inside the tank via a custom black acrylic box; figured I didn’t want to introduce another body of water out of the display tank if the goal was just flow and a black box.

I wouldn’t really be growing algae in this fuge though.

I’ve looked into the Santa Monica filtration HOG hang on back ATS; I like the concept of it. Do you have experience with this product or their ATS in general? If anything I would be going for a one cube a day model.

Have you considered putting some macro algae in the display? Ive seen people do this with great success and skip the HOB ordeal. All filtration is in the tank. Kinda has a tide pool vibe which i think is cool and ive been considering doing myself

Inadvertently there some macro algae that survived the curing process on the Australian live rock. I’m open to adding more macro algae, I just never had luck keeping it alive in the past.

 

[vicorhe]

How would you go about this?

If you'd had a more traditional setup, you might've gotten away without needing all that dead rock in the equation – it will be a bummer going forward. The tank is going to go through a serious ugly phase as if you hadn't done anything for the last 2 years.

You're hoping 8 pounds of live will seed and populate 25 pounds of dead. Pest algae is the only thing that's *really good* at populating rock quickly though, so IMO you may have created a challenge you never intended to face since it seems like you want to put the contents of the 15 gallon in there "soon".

It'll be months before that dead rock is any kind of ready. We aren't talking about just bacteria and bio-media (30-40 days) after all. We are talking about live rock. It takes a couple years or so, even under ideal oceanic conditions. (Ask TBsaltwater or any of the live rock aquaculture outfits.)

Still, if you are going to proceed I would preserve and transfer every ounce of the 15 gallon's contents, detritus and all into the 60.

Use that material to displace as much dead rock from the 60 as possible. Since you still don't seem to have much rock in total, displacing might not be too easy. So, make sure your cleanup crew is STRONG and do not pause if you see algae start to grow – double check your CUC, make any needed improvements, and remove the algae immediately. Consider using a micron or UV filter to prevent algae spreading uncontrolled.

Yeah, when I started this build, it was only with dry rock in mind. Only recently did I get my hands on ocean live rock. Sunk cost bias is at play and getting more ocean live rock to replace my dry rocks seems cost prohibited for this tank size right away. And I still have 25 pounds of leftover dry rock laying around.

Displacing the dry rock I have remaining is cumbersome. The core structure is held together with reusable adhesive (softens with hot water). But I’m open to it, since it now seems like there’s too much rock and I would like the flexibility to remove/replace rocks in the future.

In my mind, I was hoping a biofilm will develop over the dry rock over the past 4 months to help mitigate some algae issues, hence the bottle bacteria and coralline algae spores under ambient light.

I appreciate the input on transferring every ounce (detritus included). I’m building an in-tank enclosure to act as a cryptic refugium and low flow zone for the detritus and mulm to settle and to replicate the little ecosystem I have going on currently in my 15G AIO back compartment.

I will definitely stock up on a CUC for 60G, ironically I have a decent amount of algae on the ocean live rock. I suppose it’s something I will have to live with.