Move Salt Inhabitants to a New Tank

[Pjordan]

Hello Everyone! I need some advice from Ya'll please???? I currently have a 55g salt setup that is 2 years old. It is a reef tank with 120lbs of live rock and lots of creepy crawlies etc.. I have purchased a 125g tank and stand and want to move the existing animals, rock and live sand to the new tank with as little upset as is possible under the circumstances.
Does anyone have ant prior experience with a move like this? PLease advise. I am in no rush, and will await input from anyone out there who has been successful with this. Thank you Paula

[joetripp]

Is the 125 new or used? Make sure you clean it real good if used,then rinse it well. Do you have the option of setting up the 125 and letting it run for say a few weeks before adding everyone in? This may help to give you a stable starting point.

Of course, just transferring all 55 gal of existing water and adding the rest would probably be fine. Just let everyone sit in a smaller tank or tub until you get the 125 up to temp and salinity. Those are the big two, match temp and salinity as close as possible. That's all I have but hopefully you will get some more responses from people with more experience in this kind of thing.

[carolinacoral]

Hey Paula,

I have done this too many times seems like, lol. This may end up being a long post so bear with me......I will recount basically what I did about a month ago to move a 75G reef tank to a 120G.

First things first though, what is your livestock load like? How many fish, what kind of coral, ie. any sps? Also is the 125 going in the same location as the 55. If it is, the process is going to be a little more hurried and harder to make failsafe. Oh, another question, is the new tank drilled? Do you have a sump and/or refugium?

Anyway, you are going to need to have buckets, bins, insulated boxes etc. on hand and enough make up water to get up to the new total volume. It is important to match the salinity, temp and I will have to add ph to the list, as close as possible. Start as early in the day as possible, there is nothing like starting out late and be missing some part or not have enough water and the stores are about to close, yikes!

So what I usually do is remove the coral first into insulated boxes, covered of course with water. Then next comes the rock which I put in buckets, as long as you end up moving fast you will not need to cover with water but it would of course be better....watch out for hermits, snails and any of those fish that like to hide in rock. By this time your old tank is nice and cloudy and you are thinking omg what have I done.

Next comes the fish......you can actually catch them now with no rock in the way. Into a bucket or buckets they go. For safety you can drop a heater and air stone in to maintain heat and oxygen levels. Then the fun starts.....pump the rest of the water out into containers or straight into the new tank, depends on whether it is in a new place of course, and start scooping the sand out. I have found that those plastic specimen buckets work best as they are square and you can get right down to the bottom.

Now you can reverse the process, sand in, rocks and water. As soon as I get enough water in the new tank, I drop a heater in to start getting temp up. You've now got a cloudy mess in the new tank too so placement of the rock and coral is going to somewhat haphazard but try to make the rocks as stable as possible. As long as my fish are doing ok, I usually let the new tank settle out a little bit. If you need to you can also acclimate the fish just like you normally would, it would be safer since this will be a huge water change for them no matter how closely you try and match. Then in they go. Of course along the way make sure all your components are reconnected and working, the pumps, skimmer, powerheads etc.

Then you are done and things should settle out usually overnight. It will be important to make sure circulation is good in the new tank to keep oxygen levels up. Drop some air stones in the tank if need be.

Hope this helps.....oh and plan on it ending up taking most of the day and make sure if you have a helper or helpers they don't talk back too much, lol, I don't know how many times I've heard 'don't ya want ta' do this or that, the old too many cooks in the kitchen. Whoops that sounds like a personal issue :-$

At this point I think I've said enough, my backs hurting just thinking about all this work, lol.

[91yota]

most people frown on reusing the sand from an existing tank as it can become a nutrient sink and release all of its stored and unprocessed nutrients into the water column... i would suggest starting with new sand and seeding it withe a few cups of your existing sand

[swigs]

i don't have any info to help with the saltwater part of the conversation, but I have moved several tanks several times (from house to house) and have a pretty good routine down for this that may help a little. First, like carolinacoral said, definately plan on wasting a day on this - usually takes me about 6-8 hours to move my 55 gallon FW (haven't had to move my 75gal yet...).

The most helpful thing, i've found, is that I use coolers (anything from nice ones with wheels to the styrofoam (spelling?) ones from the gas sation, and put an appropriately-sized garbage bag inside each. I fill this up with as much tank water as possible (leave some room at the top for air) and put the fish in here. Since i am moving the coolers, I usually fill the bag with air (like when you get a new fish) and tie it off. Then close the cooler to try to keep the heat in. This makes cleanup ALOT easier. using an airstone might be a good idea, but you should be able to keep the lid mostly closed with the line running in (just don't tie the bag off). If you put as much of the water into coolers, rather than buckets, as possible, it will help you not loose temp. After you have exhausted all the coolers, use buckets - but I would do my best to keep this water at temp (heater, back in the tank first...).

carolinacoral pretty much said the rest - just set the rest of it up like it was a new tank. i usually add as little new water as possible at first - just enough to get to the filter and then add more gradually over the next couple of days; but I guess if you have an overflow, that's not really an option.

good luck. let us know if you come up with any other tricks to make this easier/cleaner/more efficient.

[carolinacoral]

Really, 'most people frown on reusing sand'.....I can't even begin to comment or state what most people do or frown upon. One of the things I love about this hobby is that it is a fascinating combination of science, animal husbandry and technology and as such everyone's tank/and or tanks are unique and independent microcosms. What works for one person may or may not work for another and we all need to keep that in mind. I'm not picking on you 91yota but it does seem like a lot of posters on this board often speak with 'great authority' about what should be done, especially to newbies and then you find out they just started their tank 6 mths ago and it's a thirty gallon (not knocking it that's where I started too).

I'm not trying to be nasty but I did state that this is what I do and I think in the past year alone I've upgraded/moved three tanks. In addition, one of my tank upgrades a couple of years ago was carried out by professional aquarium maintenance folks and what I outlined was what they did as well.

I actually think in this instance of going from a 55 to a 125, in order to have an adequate sand bed she will have to add to the sand bed anyway, at the very least double what she currently has, so in fact she will be seeding a new sand bed with the old.

Yes it is possible that there could be an accumulated nutrient sink in a sand bed but if you are maintaining good circulation and sand sifting organisms in the sand bed, it is my opinion that reusing a two year old sand bed would not be a problem.

[91yota]

was just trrying to help by stating what i have read over and over and over in my research... too many horror stories about problems which occured after disturbing and reusing an established sand bed... but to each their own and i wish the OP luck in whatever they decide to do

[91yota]

also, you have to consider and question what kind of "creepy crawlies" reside in the tank....

[Pjordan]

Hello again! Thank you to you both for the info, to answer a few of your questions... It is a new tank. No holes drilled, I like the Berlin Method.
I have lots of differenrt species of snails ,they continue to lay eggs, so to many to count, I have several species of hermits, some cowries that live in the sand bed, a giant yellow slug, that I never purchased, he just showed up. some feather dusters, a red sponge, lots of pink mushrooms, a giant hairy shroom. There is a rose anemone that split so now I have two that are 7" across, 2-3 cury que anemones, a large pink branching shroom type thing that someone gave me last year. some yellow polyps,a silver gorgonian, a little tiny piece of red that is struggling to survive.
I have a really strange creature that looks like an armored truck, that also just showed up. It is getting bigger so its about 1/2' long now. I have a yellow tang, a sail fin tang, a mandarin goby, a dwarf flame angel, 3 pajama cardinals, 1 marroon clown, shes a meanie, 2 false percolas, they are toooo cute!!! Also the original 2 suicide damsels, 1 yellow and 1 that was silver and blue that is almost solid black now. I have 1 cleaner shrimp, 2 fire shrimp, and 1 camel shrimp. Wheww That sounds like alot when I write it all down. I have 120 lb of live rock and a 3" sand bed. Since I live 2 miles from the beach I occasionallly throw in handful of sand I have kept in water. Probably where the aliens keep coming from.. What is really strange is that blue and green are my favorite colors and when I stand back and look at my tank, it is really pink!!!!. I am going to collect some blue and green creatures when the tank is up and settled. It is going in the same place as the original one, My thought was to lower the water level, and slide the 55g out of the way and setup the 125g in its place. I will start collecting buckets from all my neighbors for the event. My hubbie told me he would help me do the move. I haven't found it yet, but there is a place down at Wrightsville beach that pumps salt water from down in the channel thru a protein skimmer and it is free to the public. Several of my customers at the pet store where I work, have told me they get all their water from there. I really need a day off so I can go find it. Thank you guys again, I really appreciate the advice and will use it! Paula

[Pjordan]

Hi again, I just saw all the other comments that have been going back and forth, I am going to use my old sand bed, simply because to much life resides in it for me to nuke it. Also, as stated, I will need alot more sand than what I have for the 125g. I am going to get it from off shore, and I thought I would not layer the new over the old or vice versa, but keep them at opposite ends of the tank, meeting in the middle. What do you think about this idea? I have move my fresh tank before, but never my salt. It is very frighting, I do not want to cause harm to any of the inhabitants no matter how minute they might be... Paula