Tank Upgrade

[ickmagnet]

I'm planning on upgrading my tank soon to a 180 to 200+ . I am currently running a 120-130ish gallon tank ( don't have exact volume because it is a bowfront). I have various fish and some soft corals and was wondering, how would they fare during a transfer? I will probably do everything in one day. Also, I remember with my current tank ( a new set-up from 3 yrs ago), it took around 6-8 months before I could trust putting less hardy fish in there. I was planning on taking all of the water out of my tank and putting it in the new one and filling the rest of the new tank with RODI water. Will this off set the new-tank waiting period? Will it be just like my old tank running but bigger or will i have to wait a few months before adding my fish. I do not want to throw them back in and have them die. Of special concern is my powder blue who is thriving in my current setup but appears to be getting bored with the restricted swimming room. I have finally managed to keep one of these guys alive for an extended period and definitely do not want to jeopardize it.

[ickmagnet]

Anyone wanna take a stab?

[Chase31]

if you take the rocks out of one tank and reach across and put them in another one, so only out of the water for like 30 seconds you shouldn't get a cycle, as long as its tank to tank should have no problems

[mark]

I moved from a 75g with extra LR in a 33g to a 145g, worked okay.

Would bring across the water from your bowfront then top off with SW you have heated and waiting.

[Eb0la11]

Are you running a bare bottom tank? If you have sand I would either scrap it or else give it a super super good wash to get any of the trapped waste it has accumulated out of it, otherwise you'll release it into the water column by stirring it so heavily.

[kien]

I upgraded from a 90g to my current 150g in the same fashion and everyone made it over just fine. All inverts, corals and fish without skipping a beat.

Preliminary steps:
a. calculate aproximately how much new salt water you will need to top up the new tank after everything from the old tank has been dumped into the new tank.
b. make up some new salt water in rubbermaid tubs or trash bins before hand. Heat this new water to the same temp as your current tank. Also Aerate.

Now..

1. start to pump water from old tank to new tank
2. once new tank has enough water for rocks, start placing rocks from old tank to new tank.
3. Continue 1-2 until everything from old tank is in new tank. If need be, live rock and be out of the water for a while so long as it is kept damp.
4. Once all the rock is out of the old tank then start fishing out the fish and place them in the new tank.
4. At this point the entire contents of the old tank should be in the new tank and other than some dirty water they should be okay (just a little freaked out is all). Also the new tank is only about half full because it is a larger tank..
5. Start to pump New Salt water from its holding area to top of the new tank and mix well with powerheads.

key notes:
* You will want to have a heater and possibly a powerhead in each tank (old and new) while you are in transition.
* also, i recommend using mostly new sand but seeded with some of your old sand. The old sand is probably all old and nasty.

[ickmagnet]

Sounds good. Thanks for the suggestions.

Just a bit of a problem though. i cannot pump from one tank to the other because the new one will be going into the place of the old one. So, I have to empty out the old one and save as much water as possible in various rubbermaid containers (by the way, if anyone has an old tank I could borrow or a bunch of containers, please let me know. I can leave a deposit). It will be too heavy to move with water in it. Then, I would move the old tank out of the way and place the new tank in it's place. I would make a new sand bed for the new tank and start adding water from the containers. I will hopefully have enough RODI saltwater saved up as well to top it off.

Hopefully this can all happen in one day.

[kien]

Originally Posted by ickmagnet

Sounds good. Thanks for the suggestions.

Just a bit of a problem though. i cannot pump from one tank to the other because the new one will be going into the place of the old one. So, I have to empty out the old one and save as much water as possible in various rubbermaid containers (by the way, if anyone has an old tank I could borrow or a bunch of containers, please let me know. I can leave a deposit). It will be too heavy to move with water in it. Then, I would move the old tank out of the way and place the new tank in it's place. I would make a new sand bed for the new tank and start adding water from the containers. I will hopefully have enough RODI saltwater saved up as well to top it off.

Hopefully this can all happen in one day.

It may sound like a lot of work.. but something else you can do is, use your new tank as an intermediate holding area as well. So..

1. move everything from the old tank to the new tank that is sitting on the floor nearby.
2. Move the old tank out of the way and onto the floor or somewhere nearby.
3. Move everything from the new tank to the old tank.
4. Move the new tank onto stand and into position
5. move everybody from old tank to new tank.

This is why it is important to keep both tanks/holding areas heated and flowing at the same time. If you do this they'll be fine. Just a little freaked out but the water is the same, no parameter changes as far as they are concerned. Just a bit of shuffling around.

And take your time. :-)

[ickmagnet]

Never thought of that. Sounds like a great idea. That is what I'll do.

[imcosmokramer]

why not just get a big rubbermaid or two so that you only make two moves.

old-->container
container-->new
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