Replacing tank stand and setting up temp holding tank - questions!!

[jkobel]

Hi Team,

I'm preparing to replace my tank stand for my 75 as its starting to crumble and become unsafe. I had planned on doing the entire move in a weekend but after thinking about it I'm wondering if making the transition a little longer and gradual doesn't make sense, I'm looking for input...

Current thought:

1. set up a temp 20 gal tank with HOB skimmer, heater, powerhead, lights for my livestock to be kept. Today that includes a few peppermint shrimp, two headed torch, two headed hammer, about 10 very small lps/sps frags, a large monti and a 4" LT plate coral along with mandarin/1.5" clown/pseudo/cardinal.

2. set up a 30 gal Brute can for all live rock with heater/powerhead/skimmer and let that just be until the project is over.

3. rinse my sand bed until clean and transfer into tank once on the new stand then fill with fresh salt water.

4. transfer rock to fresh tank set up

5. transfer livestock to new set up

My questions:

1. Because i'm not putting LR into the livestock tank i'm not expecting a cycle. Does this seem realistic?

2. Does this tank seem adequately sized to hold this number of creatures for up to 4 weeks?

3. with the plate coral (and any other sandbed critters i can salvage like stars or nassarius/conch) should I move some of the existing sand bed to the temp tank? How much?

4. what holes/gaps am I missing??

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

 

[jmm]

Question 1: A cycle could be experienced from stacking the rocks differently and crushing some life on it. It should correct itself quickly.

Question 2: Have fresh salt water mixed to dilute any pollution. If the 20 gallon is cycled, it should support that light load easily.

I don't know about the other 2 questions.

 

[Wazzel]

I would do it all in a weekend.

1/2. If just for a day the tank will be fine, if you go with the longer option I would get a bigger tank and put a piece or two of rock in the tank. In a new sterile tank there will not be anything to process the waste.

3. Ditch the sand. Reusing sand can be a problem.

4. Have plenty of new saltwater on hand. As you drain and move things around you are going to end up with some nasty water that you just do not want to reuse. I probably ditch 10 gallons of water during my move just due to all the detritus I stirred up.

 

[jkobel]

Thanks for the input and I like the idea of doing it in a weekend.

I might need it to be longer for two reasons:

First, I am not confident that my current stand is stable and I want to avoid any possible issues (my new stand is not ready yet)

Second, I have design flaws in my sump that need to be addressed, dont think a weekend project is long enough to do this.

 

[thegrun]

I agree, reusing the old sand is a risk, you are better off starting with new dry sand rinsed well to remove the fines. I would place the old rock and fish Brute trash cans or split up between your 20 gallon tank and the Brute trash can, but either way since you want to keep the fish out of the new tank for a couple of days I would put some of your live rock in both holding tanks to process the fish waste, without live rock you risk a cycle.

 

[Grayhead]

Have your stand completely ready to put in place. Consider building a new sump if the one you currently have is giving you issues. Or find a good used one. Take the time to address and know issues you have with your current setup. Consider a stock tank for housing your live stock as well as your live rock. I set my contents up in a 100 gallon stock tank recently. Build a contraption to mount my lights. I housed everything for 2 months while building a new system. Everything survived just fine.
I'm sure most are like me, and only want to do that once. Like said above, have plenty of water on hand. Take your time and do it right. You don't want to rush things just because you are scared your livestock will crash.
Good luck

 

[jacksonpt]

IME -

1) As long as it stays wet, at a reasonable temperature, and has reasonable flow, you should be fine. Basically, you need to support the life that is on the rock. If you don't, it'll die off and you'll have a cycle. If you do, you should be fine.

2) That sounds really small. I have a 38g and have used 20g as temp tanks when I've done big, invasive maintenance in the past, and 2 tanks is just barely enough for my livestock. I'd get a tank with more floor-space. But depending on the size of your corals/frags, a frag rack could give you more room to work with.

3) I have no first hand experience here, so take this for what it's worth, but I wouldn't bother. If you do, you probably don't need very much, and you probably only need it in 1 corner of the tank so the critters have a spot of their own.

4) Plan for everything to take longer, be messier, and require more work/water/salt than you expect. If you think your stand will be ready in 4 weeks, plan on 6. If you think you need 30 gallons of holding tank, plan on 40. If you think you need 20g of fresh salt water on hand "just in case", plan on 30.


A couple of other thoughts...

I agree with not reusing sand. Sand is fussy enough as it is... reusing it probably sets you up for more issues than it's worth. IMO. I also agree that if you can do all this in a day or in a weekend, that would be MUCH preferred, but if your current stand is really that bad, then 4 weeks of inconvenience > a weekend of total disaster. I assume there's no way you can reinforce your current stand? Doesn't have to be pretty, just enough to get you through the next month or so. Last, use this as a chance to correct any design or plumbing issues you may have with your current setup, which it sounds like you are ready to do.

Good luck.

 

[Wazzel]

If you are planning a longer duration you might want to look into getting a kiddie pool. They are cheap and hold a lot of water. This way you can have everything in one spot, run heaters, skimmer, etc.

 

[jkobel]

This is good feedback, I like the idea of a kiddie pool. That might be overkill but maybe a large flat holding bin of some sort...

Let me ask (because I see a lot about reusing sand after you rinse it on this board) specifically, why would you folks not reuse the sand? What is problematic about removing it/rinsing it/reusing it?

Its not like a new sandbed is prohibitively expensive but I dont want to waste any resources either...

Thanks!

 

[thegrun]

There are a few drawbacks to re-using your old sand bed. First if you had elevated levels of phosphates in your old tank the sand will have absorbed it and then will release the phosphate into your new tank. Second you have to do a very good job of cleaning the old sand or you risk causing a new cycle, both from trapped detritus in the old sand and also from the die-off of organisms that live in the sand. It's a bit of a catch 22, if you clean the sand well to remove the detritus you are going to kill off most of the organisms. You could transfer a cup of your old sand into the new tank to help seed the new sand bed, but really your old live rock will do the same thing. In the end I just don't thing the risk is worth trying to reuse the old sand.

 

[thegrun]

I prefer Brute trash cans over a pool. With the new environment your fish are going to be much more likely to jump than they normally would. If you keep the water level 12" below the top it is highly unlikely any of your fish will be able to jump high enough to get over the rim of the trash can, but in a shallow pool there would be a substantial risk.