Tank Makeover

Anthrax15

Anthrax15

New member
In the near future, I will be doing multiple things to my tank.

Currently I have a 40g BR mixed reef tank with a Peacock Mantis.

My plans are:

Remove the Mantis for another owner
Remove my crushed coral SB and replace with a finer grade sand
Scrape coraline algae off back and overflow
Respray overflow black
Scrape off black background and spray on blue background
Reaquascape rockwork for more flow efficient style
General cleaning of whole tank

What I plan on doing is removing all rock, fish, inverts and coral into either another temporary tank (i.e Rubbermaid buckets or spare tank), saving all water as well as making 10-15g of new water, removing sand, removing tank from stand and repaint what was intended, allowing time for paint to dry, replacing old SB with new dead sand mixed with 1 bag of live sand, reaquascaping, replacing water, and allowing tank to run for a day with only rock, sand, and water.

First off, does this sound like a solid plan?

Secondly, will all this cause a cycle in my tank? If so, how long should I wait before putting everything back in?

Any and all advice is definetly needed.
 
Hey buddy, I would probably replace 50% of your total water volume with the refill. Save a cup full or your old sand and just reseed the new sandbed with it (wouldnt bother with new LS). I would expect to see a small cycle over the 1st week from all the disturbance, with this in mind I would leave it a week or two before restocking, and testing daily, when you see it hit normality then give it a couple of days to be sure. If you have nowhere to rehouse your livestock for a couple of weeks then every couple of days i would probably preform a 25% wc. Good luck..
 
^ I agree just use some of your old live sand to seen the new sand and I would also do a bit larger water change but less than 50%. If you need help let me know. Also glad to hepl a fellow local reefer.
 
yep, move my tank couple times. i did 50% new water each. with new sandbed and a little old sand. never have issue with cycle, my tank is full with livestocks.
 
langtudatinh01 said:
yep, move my tank couple times. i did 50% new water each. with new sandbed and a little old sand. never have issue with cycle, my tank is full with livestocks.
Click to expand...

When you were finished with adjusting your tank, did you wait or just put your livestock back in the same day?
 
robs.mark said:
Hey buddy, I would probably replace 50% of your total water volume with the refill. Save a cup full or your old sand and just reseed the new sandbed with it (wouldnt bother with new LS). I would expect to see a small cycle over the 1st week from all the disturbance, with this in mind I would leave it a week or two before restocking, and testing daily, when you see it hit normality then give it a couple of days to be sure. If you have nowhere to rehouse your livestock for a couple of weeks then every couple of days i would probably preform a 25% wc. Good luck..
Click to expand...

I have no problem housing my fish, inverts and corals in a seperate container but what should I use? I was thinking about a very large rubbermaid container that I could buy at WalMart for 20$. Maybe throw on a HOB skimmer and HOB filter, put some lights over it and call it a day?
 
See if a fellow reefer has something you could use as temp housing. Lord knows I have several tanks laying around, I doubt I am the only one :)
 
Sounds like you have a solid plan in place good luck. I have moved my display tank and frag tank several times and have always done a 100% water change and put everything back in the same day never had a problem. Water was mixed two days before the move to adjust temp and make sure parameters were good. As long as the rock does not see much air time you should be fine as all the biological filtration is in the rocks.
 
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