Help! Moving planted aquarium to bigger tank

[SmolAquarium]

Hi all,

I wondered if anyone could give me some advice on moving my current set-up into a larger tank, with the minimum distrubance to the fish and plants?

I currently have a 30L planted gravel tank which is fairly tall, but have recently picked up a 40L which is shorter/wider in shape which I am keen to use as it will give my fish more space to swim across the tank! As the actual volume of the tank is not increasing dramatically, my heater and filter will be moving into the new tank with them and I'll keep as much of the water as possible so parameters don't change much more than during a usual water change! All sounds lovely, but I am struggling to find information on the practicality, and the best way to do this...

Due to the larger space I will be buying some new substrate, and am thinking a sand area in the front would be a nice addition for my cory. So the substrate set up will be: plant substrate topped with gravel at rhe back and sand at the front. Any thoughts on this?

I have new/unused plant substrate I can put straight into the new tank, however all my gravel/rocks and plants are in the current tank and will need to be moved, along with the residents.

Any tips for getting this move done with minimal distrubance to my fish, and without kicking up a weeks worth of mud cloud would be amazing!! Thank you all in advance for your help/expertise!

 

[TMaier]

I recently broke down a 20g and 29g to set up my new 65g. Remove about 50% of the water to buckets and keep the fish in there with a bubbler while you move. You don’t want to rush.

Now take more of the water into buckets and start moving plants. Be gentle with the roots. Once all plants and fish are safe in buckets I strongly suggest you use some of that old substrate. Tons of beneficial bacteria in there to minimize your risk of having a major cycle crash.

Once you have the substrate in the new tank fill it about 50% full with prepped water. Prime or whatever your using to treat for water changes. I do not suggest treating water as you are adding to the tank but pretreatment. Match temperature too.

Now put in your hardware and filter.

Add plants. Get them planted and placed.

Take the water from the old tank to fill the remaining volume of the new tank.

Add in the fish.

You’ll probably see a mini cycle or bacterial bloom cloud but you should be good otherwise.