Tank Swap advise

[cmacld]

so i have reached a point that has me questioning the best way to do this operation. Here is my delema, I have two 55 gallon tanks, one is a reef tank housing LPS corals,6 fish, and 30+ crabs and snails and a few shrimp. 2" sb and 100lbs of live rock. the tank has been running for over a year and i finally to a stable point with no algea growth. My other tank is a 55 gallon fowlr that houses a pair of ocellaris', a trigger(who will be leaving), a snowflake eel (very small) and various mushrooms. It has a 1.5" sand bed and 40 lbs of LR.

Soooo...... I want to move my corals and some of the fish from my reef tank to my fowlr ( which will become my reef tank). I will also be adding a new 30 gallon sump to the fowlr tank, with plans to add some of the live rock and sand from the Reef tank to it.

With that said, the nitrate level in my fowlr usually runs higher than my reef tank. And my reef tank has been running for over a year,at least 6 months more than my fowlr. How should i perform the swap. A part of me tells me to drain the fowlr tank and replace with the water from my reef, then add new additonal sw to the sump. I plan on breaking down the old reef tank and having just one tank.

I hope that this makes sense... thanks for any input, it will be greatly appriciated. Cheers.

 

[cmacld]

know one has ever been in this situation? No suggestions?

 

[Toddrtrex]

Quick question for you;
Why not do it the other way around, break down the FOWLR and
put the sump with the reef tank?

 

[reefnetworth]

why not use one 55 to sump the other? ok, the ? IME i have swaped. take 30% the H2o and feed the other you are swaping to. this should take 3-7 days. you want your bio to adjust slowly or nitrates will damage. in a yr.old tank you should have them under control. i have a tank that is less in age that stays @ zero. are you overfeeding? or not doing H2o changes on a normal basis? something is a little off research the solution. once stable corals can be moved but ONLY when nitrates are under control. most corals will not survive in nitrates for long. research + patience = reef. REEF-ON!!!

 

[cmacld]

todd, placment is the biggest issue, i want to get the tank out of the spot it is in currently, but my fowlr is already where i want it.
nano4brains, thanks for the input, and as far as nitrates, yes the tank has been kindof neglected, i only do water changes once every couple months, which will change now that it will be my reef tank, back to 20 percent every other week. thanks again, good info. Cheers

 

[Toddrtrex]

Ahhh. okay, I figured it was something like that.

If you could, I would start to up the water changes on the FOWLR now. I just moved, my FOWLR/REEF tank was way over stocked prior to the move. I cut the bio load a great deal, but I am still having some issues.

 

[cmacld]

thanks for the heads up!