Getting ready to move a tank...

[SRT80]

My brothers tank has been set up at my house for about 2 years now. We are finally gonna move it to his house in the next week or 2. I have a 65 acrylic GC tank mentioned in another thread. It's 48x18x17. The plan is to move most of the rock and the fish and corals to this tank. I will run a Penguin 330 (up to 75 gal.) HOB filter.

This 65 will probably be set up at my house for a week while he paints the stand/canopy and cleans the old tank.

Last time we moved it, we kept the sand in there with about 2" of water over it. This was a pain as it sloshed around alot. This time he's gonna throw out all the old sand and repace with new. Should we save any of the old sand or not worry about it?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[poolkeeper1]

You might want to seed the new sand with about 10% old to kick start the bacteria, Unless your using live sand to replace the old.
Just rinse It good with tank water B4 adding to the new sand.

 

[NeveSSL]

IMO, it depends on how many fish are in the system and how dependent you think the system is on that sandbed. If there's a lot of live rock, a large skimmer, and you can do frequent water changes once the new tank is setup, then you could probably do it without any consequences or at least minimize them.

Personally, I'm nervous about replacing my sandbed as well. Someone who has experience with it is c_stowers, tho, if you wanted to shoot him a PM. He replaces his sandbed every 2 years if I'm not mistaken.

Brandon

 

[SRT80]

But you're not suppose to disturb the sand right? I couldn't just scoop the old sand out in buckets and reuse could I? That would be better as it would save him money on new sand. Last time we left the sand in the tank with about 2" of water over it. It still got stirred up from the drive though. The tank is heavy enough as is. The sand (probably around 70lbs) and extra water in tank doesn't help. Removing the sand would make the load easier...

Any thoughts?
Steve

 

[Nashvegas]

I'm kinda partial to keeping the sandbed and letting it settle and doing weekly water changes for about 3 weeks ..just keep an eye on water params and act accordingly..

 

[SRT80]

so can you scoop the sand out in a bucket with water or does it need to stay in the tank?

Steve

 

[NeveSSL]

You can scoop it out and reuse it, BUT... and this is a HUGE BUT!

You will need to rinse it and clean it THOROUGHLY in saltwater. You will want to get all the detritus you can out of it, which means you could possibly do 3 or 4 5g buckets of saltwater, put some sand in the 1st one, swish it around, take it out, put it in the next one, swish, ad nauseam. The idea is that with each bucket rinse, the sand gets cleaner and cleaner. Hopefully by the time it gets swished in the last bucket, the water stays fair clear indicating its clean.

That's the only safe way to take the sandbed out that I know of. You just clean it and get all of the stuff out of it while hopefully keeping at least the aerobic bacteria.

Does that make sense?

Brandon

 

[SRT80]

Yea, I think that might be more trouble than we need. I think he is just gonna go with new sand and maybe some old to seed it.

Thanks for all the info...
Steve

 

[Mikeyjer]

When we moved 3 tanks 2 years ago here's what I did. I threw out all the old sand in one of the tanks and replaced it with all new live sand. In the other tank I kept all the sand but it was a huge pain to move!!!!! I did extra water changes during the first month or so. BUT I still had a huge algae bloom in the tank that I replaced with new sand. The one that I did not replace the sand did not have that much impact. But the algae bloom eventually goes away over time.....