Moving!!! Please help

[Noturaveragereefer]

So I thought I was going to sign my lease for another year, but came up on an offer that is better suited for my family. Anyhow I need to move my tank. I have just about a month to plan this lovely move. Also while I'm moving things I'd like to switch from crushed coral to sand. Any suggestions? I have two fish and quite a few hard coral. Goni, torch, hammer frogspawn leathers etc
Thanks

 

[jeffaquarius]

You can start cycling the sand before you move out. Use a very large plastic container from Home Depot to cycle the sand with raw shrimp. When it's time to relocate, the sand should have already cycled and you can transfer the inhabitants and LR to that container while cleaning up the DT. When DT is moved, transfer the fish and corals on separate containers and move sand and LR to new location together with the inhabitants.

 

[Noturaveragereefer]

You can start cycling the sand before you move out. Use a very large plastic container from Home Depot to cycle the sand with raw shrimp. When it's time to relocate, the sand should have already cycled and you can transfer the inhabitants and LR to that container while cleaning up the DT. When DT is moved, transfer the fish and corals on separate containers and move sand and LR to new location together with the inhabitants.

Sooo I have to go through the cycling thing again? Urrrggghhh! So what's with the sand with the live bacteria? And am I not to keep the majority of water that I have? The tank is over 2 years old..so I thought I'd take large buckets of water from the DT, put the live rock in it, transfer the coral and fish and while the stuff was out of the tank swap the crushed coral for sand (with live bacteria). And if I cycle the sand as use suggest do I need any extra equipment or just bucket saltwater and a raw shrimp?

 

[Daniel Fishy]

Use dead sand or if you want a certain type only in live rinse the live sand really good to remove all die off. The lr should have enough bb to suffice your lite bio load and using your old water should be fine. I did this twice and everything was fine just test your parameters. Check out the thread made out like a bandit she did the same thing with upgrade.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Sure you can put original water in bucket with LR or inhabitants when moving. You can set up the new tank at new location with new sand but I suggest to mix it with some amount of live sand to seed it. May be you can use 50% of old water. There is a chance of a mini cycle so it is best to put new water in. No need for raw shrimp to cycle in this process.

 

[Rutrag]

You could probably fill a filter bag with some of your crushed coral to help seed the new sand. That might give you a little added piece of mind. Keep any filter socks or foam wet for the move to keep soem of the BB as well. If you don't, I might would throw a foam block in the sump for a week or so before the move to help seed too.

Make the tank the last thing you take down and first thing you put up. Keep all the live rock underwater for the move, preferably with some kind of aeration. I'd also try to bag each coral separately and each fish separately. Float the bags to temp acclimate and then drip the fish. If you have and crustaceans, bag and then drip acclimate them as well.

I'm with you on saving as much water as possible in this kind of scenario to minimize any change in water chemistry. Undoubtedly, you'll need to replace some though.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

How big is your tank?

 

[Noturaveragereefer]

How big is your tank?

It's a 37 gal bf