Looking for some friendly advice

[SaltLife]

I am going to switch my current tank over to a new tank, and want some advice on doing it properly with the tools and resources I have at hand. I don't have the luxury of quarantine tanks or other tanks, it's going to have to be a cut-over within a weekend timeframe. I was thinking getting some "clean" live sand to start with and transfer my live rock, livestock and water over to the new tank once the sand settles. is this feasible? Doable? I was reading about something I can add to the water to make the switch faster? Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

[ohioreef]

There are several brands of nitrifying bacteria out there; Bio-Spira, Fritz-Zyme, API makes one as well.

[Heinbaughb]

If it's just a straight transfer with both tanks up and running at the same time, I would move the rocks, then sand, then finally livestock once things settle down. Moving as much of the water over as you can will also help. This is my own opinion but if the sand is fairly clean, you can re-use the sand without any trouble. If you are worried about a nutrient spike, you can rinse it with extra water change water to clean it up a little. Prodiobio makes my favorite bacteria additives by using sealed single use vials. They sell a product called Prodiobio Startup which contains Biodigest for bacteria and Stop Ammo in case you do end up with a slight ammonia spike.

[dbjonesjr]

If you transfer your rock first you can clean your sand well before transfer while it’s still in the tank. My advice it get some rock cycling in that tank ASAP before ever transferring anything.

[dbowman]

looking at a forum thread on R2R that was suggesting MACNA displays are possible by transfers of live rock without a cycle. if this is accurate then most of your bacteria is on/in your live rock with water and sand negligible contributors. the author believes that a straight transfer from tank to tank can be accomplished with no loss. your issue would be to minimize the parameter shock by using your water for your parameter continuity. you did not mention if you have a deep sand bed that you want to continue or if you just had sand for the look. Stuff i should know if i paid attention to your previous threads lol. if 1. your room is the same temperature as your tanks, 2. you have airstones or powerheads that you can put into holding containers, i am thinking a spare brute or part of your mixing station. How many gallons are your tanks? if 3. your livestock can be housed for 24 hours and 4. you can save most of your water or match the SW or acclimate them to new water you might be good to go.

[SweetReefOH]

looking at a forum thread on R2R that was suggesting MACNA displays are possible by transfers of live rock without a cycle. if this is accurate then most of your bacteria is on/in your live rock with water and sand negligible contributors. the author believes that a straight transfer from tank to tank can be accomplished with no loss. your issue would be to minimize the parameter shock by using your water for your parameter continuity. you did not mention if you have a deep sand bed that you want to continue or if you just had sand for the look. Stuff i should know if i paid attention to your previous threads lol. if 1. your room is the same temperature as your tanks, 2. you have airstones or powerheads that you can put into holding containers, i am thinking a spare brute or part of your mixing station. How many gallons are your tanks? if 3. your livestock can be housed for 24 hours and 4. you can save most of your water or match the SW or acclimate them to new water you might be good to go.

Live sand is a MASSIVE biomedia environment.

[dbowman]

ok

[SaltLife]

Thanks for the advice so far, I am having to re-type this due to got timed out for being busy working haha.

Tank A = old tank, Tank B = new tank:
So, plan is to bring in trash cans, what I did when I moved it the last time. Drain water from A into cans, remove live rock and corals, capture livestock and put them in the the cans with water circulating. Drain A completely into cans. Move out of the way, bring in Tank B. Add new sand to B (sand in A is really old and 2-3" deep and I had a red-tide event from a pistol shrimp a few years back so I don't even want to touch that sand. It is also from all my fish tanks going back probably 30 years). Start filling B from cans. Let sand settle, add live base rock, again let sand settle. Add rock with corals and then corals, and then fish (only 3) and other cleaner crew. I will have water ready to add if needed. Then pray.

Plausible?

[ohioreef]

Sounds like a plan! I would think that by adding mostly old water and your current LR will help. You’ll still probably have a small cycle due to the new sand.

Maybe use one of the nitrifying bacteria products to help with the cycle.

[dbowman]

it would work for me if i was contemplating the work, good luck on execution!!

[lazylivin]

What are you using from old system? Sump, return pump, plumbing of any kind?

[SaltLife]

All new sump and in/out lines and maybe new return pump, depends if I can get all this done AND hook up my old return pump.

[Amstar]

what about adding a bag of seachem matrix or something similar to your current tank to build up good bacteria.   Then use this as an additional bacteria builder when you move over to the new tank -- might help limit any small cycle that might take place in the new tank? -

[lazylivin]

1.) setup the new tank
2.) fill it with new saltwater and let run to warm up for a few hours.
3.) now you have two tanks running. bring over your rock next. Swish each piece in a 5g bucket of saltwater to get any detritus off
4.) bring over fish, inverts and coral
5.) remove sand and rinse it super well until fully clean. Maybe 10 cups at a time in a small 1-2g bucket in sink. Fill with a little tap water, swish it around, Poor off water and repeat until it is completely clean and clear.
6.) add sand to new tank

Once the new tank is up and running you should be able to bring over rock, fish and coral in a couple hours. Longest part will be the rock scape. Their won’t be any cycle or any issue. All your doing basically here is a 100% water change which is a great thing to do. Take your time on the sand cleaning. It can be done same day or you can do that on another day.

[SaltLife]

So Brian, do you think cleaning my sand -vs- buying new "clean" live sand will be ok? Any issue with buying new sand? Again, this is old sand from many tanks I've rolled over, it has a lot of bigger pieces of old sand and shells I would like to get rid of while I'm transitioning. I do like the thought of cleaning it and sifting out the unwanted sand parts.

[lazylivin]

It would be a benefit using the old sand in that there’s bacteria inside and on surface. The fresh water wash won’t kill it although much would we rinsed away but not all. But either way new or old would be just fine. New will require much more rinsing then the old. Seems to take forever to get that white powder out of it.