How bad will it cycle?

[Godfrey]

I have to move and I have a twenty gal tank that im thinking about trading a friend for his 40 gal ( i think) corner tank. He has fresh water fis in his and mine is a softy reef with just one blk occalaris with a large carpet nem in it so the switch had to be quick . I'm probably going to more sand for it but all live rock and filtration ( overflow to sump with bag filter protein skimmer and pump) will transfer. Questions are
How bad will it cycle and should I rinse out my current 3" sand bed or leave it as little disturbed as possible or change it completely?
Tryin not to stress anything to bad in an already stressful move

 

[Andyden71]

I moved and took my 55g with me I kept all the water in 5g drums I put all rocks on a few buckets with water in out of the tank I got rid of all the sand apart from a large cup full when I got moved in new house I added the water and new sand and added the cup of old sand then quickly added all rock then mixed some fresh salt water to fill tank up I put heater on and filtration as soon as I could then added live stock I didn't lose a single fish and every thing seems ok

 

[saltcreep1025]

You will probably want to get rid of the old sand bed. It will stir up too much stuff if you try to move it over I think. I'm not really sure how much of a mini cycle it will go through, but considering your bioload is so small, I wouldn't imagine it would be a very big one if it does.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Yes it's better to get rid of old substrate and put new sand bed. I would reuse about not more than 80% of old water and you should be ok. I replaced my crushed corals with sand in one setting by quarter portions and I did not experience any problem except a little cloudy water but cleared after a while.

 

[Andyden71]

That's what I did I used about 70% of old water as I used the rest to transport rocks in it then mixed about 30% of fresh water and added just a cup of old sand and added new fresh sand