How do I move fish and live rock from one tank to a new one??

[Prinzessin]

I am new to the saltwater tank system. A few weeks ago I purchased a 14 gallon oceanic biocube, and got live rock, and live sand, premixed saltwater from my LFS store and now I am upgrading to a 29 gallon oceanic biocube. How should I do this? I want it to go where my current one is. Can I move the water, the sand, the live rock and the 2 clown fish I have in the 14 gallon directly to the 29 gallon without having to let the new tank cycle? Or should I set the new tank up with live sand and water and move the live rocks into it and then let it cycle for a week and then move the fish? I also have a small cluster of mushroom coral I bought a few days ago.

In the 14 gallon all together I have, 9 pounds of live rock, one bag of live sand, two small scarlet hermit crabs, and two clown fish.

I'll have the new 29 gallon tank by friday.


Thank you for the advice!

 

[bgjersey]

very easy...done it dozens of times.
1)buy 15 gallons of premixed saltwater
2)buy three 5 gallon buckets from loews or wherever
3)put your current life(fish, inverts, rock)into the 3 buckets
4)move the 14 gallon tank at this point
5)put the new tank in its place
6)put new water into new tank and add rock
7)put the rest of the water from old tank and all life into new tank

 

[bgjersey]

save all your old water by the way

 

[Flake]

I dont think you'd need to save water as long as you bring all the rock and acclimate the fish to the new water.

 

[bgjersey]

You are probably right about the water. All the bacteria is in the rock. But...better safe than sorry and why not bring some of their old water to their new home and have 15 gallons of water they already are acclimated to when they make the transfer.

 

[ezy33]

save all your old water by the way

If the water is only a few weeks old I would use it all. Why waste it?

 

[Prinzessin]

I know that if I plan on moving the fish directly into the new tank i HAVE to use the old water that has already cycled, I just didn't know the easiest way to make the move and if I needed to let the new tank cycle first. I can't wait til my tank gets here, it shipped out on tuesday morning. I will take BgJersey's advice on how to make the move, my LFS store said to do basically the same thing. Thank you all for the advice I greatly appreciate it.

 

[redneckgearhead]

yea, should be no issues if you use the old water as long as the parameters are good. I used approx 50% of the water when i moved my tank just so the fish where already used to it seems like its less stress on the fish.

 

[cmor1701d]

Use no more than 50% of the old water. You'll have a big PWC to go along with the dredging up any accumulated detritius in the substrate and LR. As the new tank is twice the size that would mean use all the old water <G>.

You may want to be prepared to do another 20-30 PWC a few days later depdending on if a mini-cycle is started by the move or not. It shouldn't happen in a tank that new, but better to have the PWC ready in case it's needed.

 

[Brimso357]

whatever you do, keep few things in mind.
The water temperature, condition of water and everything should be identical in both tanks; otherwise it may result to death of the fishes.

 

[phil47952]

PWC

I don't know what PWC is, could you tell me?

Thanks

Phil

 

[Mitchell0605]

PWC = Partial Water Change.