making a tank swap

sillygoose

sillygoose

New member
We are looking forward to moving our stuff into our 180 (I feel guilty not calling it Mike's 180:wavehand:). I talked to a fine SEA employee - who's advice I trust - about making the move. But I like to ask and ask - so please share your advice and tips and process if you have done the switcheroo.
 
Im about to go through the same thing. While Im looking forward to it, Im not, im sure you know what I mean. Im gonna go with a bunch of rubber maid containers and do the one day switch out route and hope for the best. What are your plans thus far? What ever you decide I wish you the best and hope it all goes smoothly. That 180 looks real nice, you'll love it, im sure.
 
I thought I had to cycle the new tank for a bit and that would mean having two set up at the same time. They will both have water in them due to getting all of the plumbing worked out. Then Joe at SEA said that as long as I had cycled rock and sand that I would be fine to do it all at once. He recommended that I gravel vac the heck out of the sand before moving it. Using the old gravel still has me concerned.
 
I felt the same way. I decided to go with all new sand just to be safe. How big is your current tank?
 
Our current tank is a 90. I was thinking of just seeding new gravel with a cup or two of old. I wonder how long I would have to wash/dry my old gravel in order to really clean it up for reuse. It is going to cost me a fortune to get enough gravel to cover a 6x2 footprint.
 
sillygoose said:
Our current tank is a 90. I was thinking of just seeding new gravel with a cup or two of old. I wonder how long I would have to wash/dry my old gravel in order to really clean it up for reuse. It is going to cost me a fortune to get enough gravel to cover a 6x2 footprint.
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i was buying my dog food the other day at petco on wetmore and oracle and they had 30 pnd bags of sand for 15 bucks on sale.
 
its funny cuz im gonna go through this in about a week as well. im moving to my new house, and im joining two 55's into a 180. I've been breaking my head on how to do it as well. I think im going to have mine with water in it for about two days before i need to put the 55's content in there. Here on line, it called reef rocks. com, they sell 40# of sand for $15 and shipping is only $10. I ordered 80# and have about another 120# of used sand from another reefer. Im not sure if i want to use the used sand either :S ive heard that a good rinse with vinegar and R/O water should suffice but im still iffy about it. I probably will end up using it and see how it goes.

If your not gonna put the 180 where your 90 currently is, i would set it up and let it run for at least a week with some used sand and rock so you know that its been cycled a little bit. thats what i was going to try and do but i need to get out of my apartment really soon and wont have time to let it cycle, but if its going to be in the same spot then i would do the same as brett is going to do. Best of luck to both of you :) i feel your pain lol
 
Yeah - my problem is that the new will go where the old is. The new one is next to the old one right now since we have no other place for it while we work on the system. I think I will still set it up to run for a few days before we do the swap. I mean I'm going to have to have more water anyway. We'll just have to drain two instead of one - she says as if it's no big deal :crazy1:
 
When I moved from the 55 to the 180, I used as much of the old water as possible and also used some of Ed's water change water from his 120. I set aside about two gallons of the live sand and then took the rest in rubbermaid tubs out in the yard and washed it thoroughly with the garden hose. Just kept tipping it one way, spraying it, and draining off the water until it ran clear. Then I left it dry in the sun a few days. Once the sand was in the new tank a week or so, I added the established live sand from the old tank.

As I transferred the live rock, I swished it all in clean new saltwater. It worked out perfectly, and I never got any blooms because of the move.
 
Satori said:
When I moved from the 55 to the 180, I used as much of the old water as possible and also used some of Ed's water change water from his 120. I set aside about two gallons of the live sand and then took the rest in rubbermaid tubs out in the yard and washed it thoroughly with the garden hose. Just kept tipping it one way, spraying it, and draining off the water until it ran clear. Then I left it dry in the sun a few days. Once the sand was in the new tank a week or so, I added the established live sand from the old tank.

As I transferred the live rock, I swished it all in clean new saltwater. It worked out perfectly, and I never got any blooms because of the move.
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I agree 100 %
 
I switched the 150 to my 225 saved all of the water, placed the sand in rubbermaid and ran the hose in the rubbermaid for about 30 minutes as I sifted the sand. The water was finally clear and then placed the rinsed sand in the new tank. I did the complete switch in a day. Had a minimal bloom 2 days max. The only issue that I had was the ALK balance between the new/old saltwater, lost some SPS due to it. Every fish made it except 2 (Anthias/blenny)
 
sillygoose said:
Hmmm- did you have then both setup at the same time in different places? What was your time frame?
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The new tank had to go where the old tank was. We transferred everything but the sand in one day, and added the sand a few days later.
 
Oscarsir - so was the sand wet when you put it in the tank? Do you think the tap water might have affected the alk?

Mike - I hadn't thought of doing the sand after the fact. Did that affect your alk stability?
 
No, it didn't affect any levels. I already had that monster calcium reactor running at that point. :)
 
Do you have a controller? I had the calcium reactor hooked up to mine and had the product water empty into a separate container with a pH probe in it above the sump so it could turn the co2 on and off automatically, and the water would then just overflow out and drip into the sump.
 
We don't have a controller. We may need to ask you some questions when we get ready to set up the Ca reactor - we haven't had one before. We haven't had a controller before either.
 
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