Transferring 6 gallon to 16 gallon help!

Mhubb321

New member
Hi everyone I'm new to the hobby and have been running a 6 gallon Eheim aqua style for 6 months now. I got a deal on a innovative marine nuvo 16 the other day that I couldn't pass up so now I will be looking to transfer the tanks. I have a clownfish and a cleaner shrimp in my tank now and a few corals as well, along with cuc and about 3 pounds of live rock. I will be buying 10 more pounds of live rock to add to the new tank. I'm planning on buying a new sand bed as well. What is the best way to go about switching everything over? Should I move everything into the new tank at once or is there going to be a small cycle? Or should I just let the new tank cycle on its own with new rock in it before I add everything else to the tank?
 
If the 10 pounds you are getting is truly live rock and it was kept in water the whole time, then I would add the rock,sand and water to the 16 wait for the dust to settle. I would then ghost feed or add some ammonia source to verify that you can process the ammonia, I would suspect if the 10 pounds is live you will have a small to no cycle. If all goes well then add your 3 pounds of rock and your livestock. good luck
 
When I switched from a 60g to a 120g, what I did was get the 120 setup where and how I liked it using freshly rinsed dry sand and dry base rock. I filled it and brought it up to temp/sg, then transferred all the fish and corals from the 60 into buckets full of old tank water. That allowed me to tear down the tank and transfer the live rock to the new tank and sump (mostly to the sump). I then siphoned the sand into another bucket and used the old tank water to rinse it well before adding it to the 120 as well (once again, mostly to the sump, ~ 1 cup to the DT) The fish and corals were the next to go in their new home. Total time from fish into buckets to fish in new tank was about 1 hour. The rocks and sand from the old system were already enough for the bioload, so no cycle of any sort - I did wait a couple weeks to add anything else, but not a single loss. Just get your ducks all lined up in advance it it will be an easy move.

hth
 
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