40gal. to 80gal. help!!

[Stirfry]

i have a 40 gal reef and im upgrading to a 80 gal tank and i was wondering if anyone could help me on how i would go about doing that?!
i need to know the steps i need to take in order for all my anenome's and corals and fish to survive and i need to do it in a short period of time because my mom wont let me have more than one tank up and going so if anyone could please help that would be very good thx!!

[Beverly]

i have a 40 gal reef and im upgrading to a 80 gal tank and i was wondering if anyone could help me on how i would go about doing that?!
i need to know the steps i need to take in order for all my anenome's and corals and fish to survive and i need to do it in a short period of time because my mom wont let me have more than one tank up and going so if anyone could please help that would be very good thx!!

First question I have is are you going to be getting the 80 gal the day you take down the 40?

If so, you can transfer all your corals, fish, rock etc, into old but clean salt buckets or clean rubbermaid tubs of water from your 40 gal. It isn't crucial if you can't cover all your rock with water, but it is to cover the corals. Fish can go into the corals containers.

If you have much of a sandbed, that's going to be a little trickier because when you stir up the sandbed to move it, all kinds of fine particulate crap matter will darken the remaining (2" or so) water in the 40. Avoid transferring too much of the dark water to your new tank, but get out as much of the sand as possible and simply put it into the new tank. If the new tank is going to be in the same location as the 40, you will have to transfer the sand into a bucket, too, again avoiding adding too much of the darkened water.

You will also have to have more new water made to help fill the 80 gal, though you don't have to have the whole 40 gals made. Probably 10-20 extra gals would be okay to begin with. Over the next few days, you can add the rest to make up the 80 gals. Make sure the new water has been well aerated, is the right salinity and temp before adding to the 80 gal.

Transfer your sandbed into the 80 gal. If you're adding more sand to the sandbed, put in the new sand on top of the old. Put a plate on the sandbed where the water will be poured. Doing this will prevent a big hole in your sandbed and will also reduce the amount of that fine particulate crap from clouding your water too much. Slowly add all the new water by pouring it onto the plate.

Remove the plate, then begin adding your LR. As you add the rock, add the water from your rock container. Take a little time to arrange it in a pleasing way so you have places for your corals and areas where fish can hide and swim in and out of.

As soon as you have enough water and rock for your heaters and powerhead(s) to function, get them up and running.

The corals and fish can be in the buckets for an hour or two or three without too much problem, but they will suffer some stress when adding them back to the new tank because of the temp differences between the buckets and the water in the 80. To reduce this stress, you can remove some water from the buckets and put it into the 80, then remove water from the 80 back into the buckets. This will help acclimatize them to the new water conditions in the 80.

You know, what I've just described is the way we've moved tanks from one house to another. One step we didn't do was to acclimatize the corals and fish prior to putting them in the new tank, and they seemed to do okay.

Hope my instructions made sense, and good luck with the transfer.