lost all fish!!

[cuz]

Originally Posted by marie

Just so you know replacing 100% of the water won't get rid of the ick. The cysts settle on the substrate and can take up to 6 weeks to hatch into the parasite that infects fish. The best way to insure an ick free tank is to leave it fishless for 6 to 8 weeks and quarantine and treat if necessary all new fish.

I was not shooting on solving ich by draining my water, It will still run fishless for another 6 weeks, i Seen this as an oportunity to change a few things with my setup and in order to do it the tank needed to be drained to move it. I've kept 55 gallons of old water with my corals but was just curious if i should return that to the setup or go with 100% new water?

p.s. The old setup had about a half inch of sand only at the front, nothing under the rocks and i'm thinking now i'd like to go with a cleaner no sand set-up, how much does everyone think this will throw things out of whack for the first while?