moving my tank

[macawmagic]

I'm going to be moving/upgrading my tank in about 3 weeks. My game plan is to get a bunch of buckets...fill the buckets with the water and rock so that the rock stays under water. Put the fish and corals in a bucket with a bubbler, but separate the ones that would sting the others. so I got all that part down. Only part I don't know what to do with is the sand. I know that when I scoop the sand from my 55 and put it into the 90 its going to cycle. I've got no way to setup the tank first either. Its gotta be an all 1-2 days thing. Should I get new sand and just add a little of my sand? Use all my sand and hope for the best? Use all new sand? I'm kinda scared!

Carol I know you just moved your tank so you could probably help me out with some answers. Only diffarence is I believe you had your new tank up and running when the stuff was being moved.

P.S. If anyones going to be getting rid of any buckets anytime soon please let me know as I'll probably need about a good 10-15 buckets...probably more!

 

[lusenut2]

I never had a problem when I moved my tanks. I took them down and moved and put them back up. Never lost a fish or my corals. I wouldnt do all bucks, go to walmart and buy the 30 gal rubbermade containers. 3 of them should do the trick.

 

[flfirefighter13]

coolers and rubbermaid tubs work well and you can use them afterwards, unlike haveing 20 buckets with nothing to do with them. Ditche the sand if its been in the tank for a while, nothing but problems reusing it. Grab a few lbs to seed the new sand and you will be fine. If you transport everything under water you should have no real cycle problems, may a quick mini cycle when you setup the new on so make sure to have a water change ready just in case but in the many tanks Ive moved ive never had an issue...... excpet for when sand was reused, that would always give me nasty algae outbreaks. Good luck, its not that daunting of a task in reality, wear gloves though, there some crazy things that grow on the bottom of rock after a while

 

[macawmagic]

my tanks only been up for im gunna guess like 9 months. so I should only bring back a couple pounds of sand and then get all new sand?

 

[flfirefighter13]

Yeah I wouldnt risk reusing the sand, sands cheap in the grand scheme of things

 

[macawmagic]

maybe i'll set it up without sand down there because then again in 3 months i'll be moving it back up here...but I dunno if my engineer goby would like that very much...hopefully that'll be the last move...I gotta go home for summer and theres no chance the tank will live up here on its own!

 

[flfirefighter13]

3 month old sand should be ok with a quick rinse in saltwater after the move so you can give the goby a place to live and still reuse that sand. When your pulling your sand out smell if, if it smells nasty then it will most likely cause a cycle. I know its not a scientific method but its worked for me in the past.