Go all saltwater?

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Nu-Nu the eel

Aquarium Advice Addict
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Aug 19, 2011
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Hey guys over the last few weeks we have had many problems with our freshwater tank. It is a decently old tank, but we had internal parasites and ich that wiped out a few fish. Now there is algea everywhere and the tank looks pitiful :( its a 40 gallon.

We have a 30 gallon saltwater tank that is doing very well (knock on wood) and we were seriously considering moving everything from the 30 salt, into the 40 fresh and use the 30 gallon tank as a sump. We are not sure if we should do this yet. We have all the equipment.

I just wanted everyones opinion, should we do this???? We are hesitant and dont want to make a mistake. Thank you!
 
Oh, and, the light fixture we have for the 30 gallon is 30" but the 40 gallon is 36". Do we hang it? How do we make sure the whole tank is well-lit
 
Is your 30 a reef cause if so id say go for it and jam pack that 40 with corals if not I would just wait til I could do a substantial upgrade in DT size like atleast a 75 from your 30.. that's just my opinion
 
Thank you for the reply! Haha yes the 30 is a reef, but it is not finished so it would be easy to transfer the 6-7 corals and 2 fish. We are thinking about it.., do you see any major problems?

Oh and i am just a kid so my mom wont let me upgrade to anything bigger... :(
 
Well if going bigger isn't an option then I would for sure combine them which would give you roughly 50 gallons of water volume after displacement and everything...then you could also start running some more equipment too which will obviously give you better growth and easier to maintain
 
Thank you! We Are worried about the light. It is 30" because we got it for the 30, an we want to use it on the 40 gallon which is 36" (if our measurements are right) would it work? Its a 4 bulb t5.
 
Also, i am getting lots of mixed ideas about the sand? Ive heard
All new sand
Clean old sand
All old sand and some new
All new sand with a cup or 2 of old..

I like the last idea more because its easier?? Idk! Help with that!
 
The light would be fine unless you wanna go with some sps then u would want a 36" 6 bulb...and for the sand go with new sand cause there is gonna be a whole lot of nasty stuff in your sand bed that you don't want in your new tank once its stirred up...as long as you have enough rock in your 30 if you make the move all at once with minimal exposure to air at best you'll see a slight spike
 
Ya we dont want very high Light corals :) haha now how many fish would we be able to have if we had a 40 gallon with 30 gallon sump? I know it depends what fish, but we only want small reef safe fish. Doesnt the sand hve tons of BB, so we need that old sand? Thanks man!
 
Well to use the old sand you'll have to clean it and by the time its ready for the other tank you've lost tons of BB...your rock should have plenty to handle the swap and as for fish id stock around 5 small fish (gobies/dartfish/cardinals/etc) but if you wanted to push the limits on your Bioload with good maintenance you could probably get away with 7 or 8 every tank is different though if you use a refugium then it'll up your available stocking room
 
Yes we plan on a fuge. Thank you, i think we will try and get maybe 7 fish, we do alot of waterchanges and we are going to get a nice protein skimmer, duel filtration, and with the sump i think it should be fine. Ya only small fish, biggest fish we are considering is a dwarf angel. Thank you for your help! It will be sa getting rid of the freshwater fish :(
 
Mrc8858 said:
Well to use the old sand you'll have to clean it and by the time its ready for the other tank you've lost tons of BB...your rock should have plenty to handle the swap and as for fish id stock around 5 small fish (gobies/dartfish/cardinals/etc) but if you wanted to push the limits on your Bioload with good maintenance you could probably get away with 7 or 8 every tank is different though if you use a refugium then it'll up your available stocking room

How about maybe several cups of un-washed sand to seed the new stuff?

Cool! We will have a refigium, a nice skimmer, and 2 filters:)
 
If you put the old sand under the new sand with atleast a 1/4" of new overtop I'd imagine you wouldn't get an ammo spike and should seed fairly quick
 
If your not worried about spending a few extra bucks is still go with a brand new sandbed...I also forgot to ask...is it a DSB cuz you can get some really potent gases realeasing if you disturb it
 
Ya we are thinking about just buying some cheap pool filter sand. Haha its not really deep, just about 2"

We are scared about the minicycle, should we run the filter on the tank for a while beore we put the fish and shrimp in the tank?
 
Make the entire change all at once and as long as your rock is sufficient it shouldn't be an issue...just have some water ready Incase you need an emergency wc....I just recently swapped out my 20 gallon sump on my 46 with all new sand and never had any issues
 
Alright sweet. The lfs already said that they would take all of our freshwater fish, and give us some store credit :) i think we will start the project in a week and a half. Should we set up the ac50 on the saltwater tabk now to see it with saltwater BB? We will need new carbon and stuff right? Haha
 
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