upgrading a tank.

[Snider82]

so, i have  my new 90g tank ready to rock.    i have thought up a plan, and want to see if anyone has some good ideas for me.

I'm going to start by removing the fish and putting them in a bucket with existing tank water and a heater.  then i am going to fill a rubber maid with existing tank water and put my live rock in there with a pump or something.

I'm going to have a garbage can of pre-mixed saltwater.  i will add my live sand in with the new sand in the empty tank.  next ill fill up the tank with saltwater and add my live rock.   buy this time i assume I'm going to have a dust cloud so i will let it settle over night with no power heads/skimmer running.  next day it should be cleared up some and the temp should be pretty close,  i will add my fish and prey for the best.

good plan?  and suggestions?

thank!

[Vincenzo.]

you can keep your skimmer running. it'll pull out crap like crazy..

[Kenny P]

this sounds like a smart plan, even if the sand takes longer to settle ...your fish would still be comfortable

KennyP

[RossW]

Are you reusing sand from an existing setup?

If so, I would not reccomend it unless you are willing to wait out the cycle.  There will definetly be one.

If it was my tank, I would use new sand and if I wanted to save some $$$ I would rinse the old sand really really well.

Something tells me melev has a good article on moving a tank.

[Snider82]

i can use new sand, i already have lots of it.  i figured using the old sand would be a good thing.  i dont want to wait out a cycle, i'd like to be moved into the new tank ASAP.   i was planning on doing this move today.  maby i will wait a little bit to see about any mroe reply's here.

[RossW]

You can use a cup or two of your old sand to seed the new.

[FocusFin]

I have moved a sandbed twice without experiencing a spike or cycle. In both cases I removed all of the water and scooped the sand intact. It is important that the sandbed remain as intact as possible and by removing all of the water first you reduce the amount of crud that is stirred up.

If you are adding live sand then partition it so that you are not dumping live sand on top of existing sand or vice versa. You can place live/existing sand on top of new sand but not the other way around. When replacing the water do it as gently as possible by placing a bowl or strainer or something to diffuse the water.

You must test every day to ensure there is no spike and be prepared to remove the fish if necessary. If you have the time you can leave the fish out for a few days and test.

If you have a decent amount of rock and you are replacing with existing water then you shouldn't see a cycle or spike but that is only my personal experience.

Edit: This worked for me and my purposes but may not be suitable for others.

[mikerobart]

When I went from a 29g to a 90g... I added new LR to the 90.. let it's sand do its thing... and about half of that rock was already cured. I only waited about a week to add mature rock from my 29g and then maybe another week to add fish... because some of the rock was cured and some was quite mature, the ammonia cycle only lasted a couple days and was not very significant. I did also use some of the sand from the 29 but not much... maybe a few cups which I stirred into the new sand in the 90.

All in all it was 100% new water in the 90g, about 90lb of new rock, and only say 40lb of rock from the other tank. Not sure this would be reccomended but worked great in my experience.

[bongo]

I did an overnight upgrade from a 20g to a 90g with 33g sump

used everything in the 20g

added more cured rock over the next two weeks and had no problem

my only recommendations are to plan your rockscaping ahead if you don't want to spent the whole day  and have a lot of towels to sponge your floor 

[Snider82]

thanks for all the advice! it really helped.   im going to try the whole move in one shot.  right now i have the tank 3/4 full of saltwater, new sand, a heater and a SLOW pump just to spread the heat around.   its been like that for 8 hours or so and its clearing up already.   im thinking of clearing out my new tank now, doing my aquascaping, top off the water and get the sump/skimmer going add 2-4 cups of old sand and maby run some charcol to clear it up over night, then add live stock first thing in the morning.   ill post my results after.

[Snider82]

got it all moved over to the new tank.   everything went well... 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, o nitrate (very large water change)  my decorator crab ripped my net,  then i caught a damsel in the hole   i seems hurt and i hope he makes it through.

Edit:   I will be adding photos to my build thread when i get to it.  been a long day so im out for the night!