Hi I just got a 36 gallon bowfront. I'm wanting to transfer my 29gal reef tank over to this new bowfront. My questions are how can I do this without throwing my system into a cycle? I'm planning on adding about twenty pounds of new dead rock and probably going to get new sand. What can I do to make this seamless? any help is appreciated guys.
Transferring to a new tank
- Thread starter Baker28
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mpderksen
New member
I see it like this: you have the biological filter running to deal with the current bio load. If you add another rock and more water, the balance hasn't shifted. As long as it's DRY rock/sand. The challenge is that it's not usually recommended to transfer old sand. But when you replace that with new sand, even "live", your balance is shifted since you're leaving a few quadrillion bacteria behind.
If you can run both for 2 months, I would take 1 rock from the old tank to seed the new one. Thinking again about balance, I wouldn't take too many. You don't need lights, skimmer, or a ton of flow. Were you hoping to use the same heater etc? Then you might need to get a few things. Good reason to know your local reefers. If you were local, I would loan you and extra heater or PH no problem.
If you can run both for 2 months, I would take 1 rock from the old tank to seed the new one. Thinking again about balance, I wouldn't take too many. You don't need lights, skimmer, or a ton of flow. Were you hoping to use the same heater etc? Then you might need to get a few things. Good reason to know your local reefers. If you were local, I would loan you and extra heater or PH no problem.
i do have more heaters - 2 redundant but my problem is I plan on using the sump from the old tank on the new one. So if I take and get new live sand and my 20lb of dry rock, add a few cups of my old sand to it. Half drain my tank into the new one add my established rock into it add my new water and make sure temp and ph everything is correct. I will still get a nitrate cycle? I've been reading and everything I've read says I should be fine but I don't want to crash my tank and kill my inverts and corals.
