Is there a guide to relocating a reef system?

[nothing_fancy]

I plan on moving my system to a new place about 45 minutes away. Not doing it anytime soon so this is not an emergency and I will likely have a 1 month layover time to plan and move the system and potentially have some stuff setup at the new place before I arrive. I would just like to know if there is a guide to doing this that has been proven. My situation is that this system has been setup for 5 years at this location. The tank is 10 years old and was moved once 5 years ago and I did this move very sloppy at least I think it was sloppy so I want to make sure I do it right this time. Its a small tank at 40G but has a fair amount of gear hooked up to it: 8 dose pumps, reactor, skimmer, fuge, apex, etc. I rebooted this tank a year ago after a crash and it's becoming pretty well stocked at this point with corals but not that many fish or inverts, (1) Clown, (2) Damsels and a mandarin, crabs and snails (3) shrimp and an urchin.
My rough plan is:
(2) 20 G Rubbermaids for live rock and coral
(2) Buckets for fish and inverts.
(2) Buckets to pre rinse new sand
I would: Empty the tank, shop vac water and old sand out, transport the tank empty and dry, carefully transport live stock. Set it back up at the new place, put in rinsed sand, start adding old tank water from the Rubbermaids, rocks, corals, inverts, fish. Done?

My concern is re cycling the tank, bacteria from the tank being left dry. Is there a cleaning method prior to setting it back up? Should I re cycle it with Dr tim's or equivalent. Thanks in advance.

 

[brandon429]

there sure is such a guide, here's about 200 various jobs like that:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

The best way to prepare your sand for use in a transferred reef tank, an upgraded reef tank, a reef tank under invasion etc is to put the sand in sections in a bucket and TAP WATER rinse it outside over and over with the garden hose until all the silt / waste is ejected, expect hours of work per...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

key takeaway

out of 200 jobs, 200 are doing the exact same steps. that's a mix of presentations: some are tank moves, some are invaded tanks, some are tank upgrades but they all do the exact same thing, exactly each job.

notice it's a takedown + cleaning + reassembly for all

you'd simply move the clean items after you do the first two, and do the reassembly at the new place. that thread deals with how to prep substrates to move, upgrade, relocate or uninvade. it's all the same.

notice in each job, there's a step where all their fish and corals are in holding containers. That's the exact point you'd be relocating all the cleaned material to another home/tank etc.

pick some jobs from the final few pages, study them for an hour, enact that cleaning + relocation process for a skip cycle tank transfer. take pics, we'll add you in if your rinsing is clean/assertive enough. you can see that how you handle sand is the single most important part of the entire process.

Your question about bacteria is answered: only the rock bacteria matter, none else matters.

 

[Dom]

I plan on moving my system to a new place about 45 minutes away. Not doing it anytime soon so this is not an emergency and I will likely have a 1 month layover time to plan and move the system and potentially have some stuff setup at the new place before I arrive. I would just like to know if there is a guide to doing this that has been proven. My situation is that this system has been setup for 5 years at this location. The tank is 10 years old and was moved once 5 years ago and I did this move very sloppy at least I think it was sloppy so I want to make sure I do it right this time. Its a small tank at 40G but has a fair amount of gear hooked up to it: 8 dose pumps, reactor, skimmer, fuge, apex, etc. I rebooted this tank a year ago after a crash and it's becoming pretty well stocked at this point with corals but not that many fish or inverts, (1) Clown, (2) Damsels and a mandarin, crabs and snails (3) shrimp and an urchin.
My rough plan is:
(2) 20 G Rubbermaids for live rock and coral
(2) Buckets for fish and inverts.
(2) Buckets to pre rinse new sand
I would: Empty the tank, shop vac water and old sand out, transport the tank empty and dry, carefully transport live stock. Set it back up at the new place, put in rinsed sand, start adding old tank water from the Rubbermaids, rocks, corals, inverts, fish. Done?

My concern is re cycling the tank, bacteria from the tank being left dry. Is there a cleaning method prior to setting it back up? Should I re cycle it with Dr tim's or equivalent. Thanks in advance.

Rethink those 20 gallon Rubbermaids. They're going to be very heavy to move. I would stick with 5 gallon buckets and lids.

 

[LJLKRL05]

If you keep your rock in containers with air and flow, you should not have a cycle. All the bacteria will stay alive in the rocks.
You really don't even need to use the old tank water. There is no beneficial bacteria in the tank water. It is all in the sand and rocks.
I think your plan is good. you can use some Dr. Tim's if you want, but as long as your rock stays live you will be fine.
Make sure you have good air pumps feeding air to the buckets your fish are in.

 

[Troylee]

I plan on moving my system to a new place about 45 minutes away. Not doing it anytime soon so this is not an emergency and I will likely have a 1 month layover time to plan and move the system and potentially have some stuff setup at the new place before I arrive. I would just like to know if there is a guide to doing this that has been proven. My situation is that this system has been setup for 5 years at this location. The tank is 10 years old and was moved once 5 years ago and I did this move very sloppy at least I think it was sloppy so I want to make sure I do it right this time. Its a small tank at 40G but has a fair amount of gear hooked up to it: 8 dose pumps, reactor, skimmer, fuge, apex, etc. I rebooted this tank a year ago after a crash and it's becoming pretty well stocked at this point with corals but not that many fish or inverts, (1) Clown, (2) Damsels and a mandarin, crabs and snails (3) shrimp and an urchin.
My rough plan is:
(2) 20 G Rubbermaids for live rock and coral
(2) Buckets for fish and inverts.
(2) Buckets to pre rinse new sand
I would: Empty the tank, shop vac water and old sand out, transport the tank empty and dry, carefully transport live stock. Set it back up at the new place, put in rinsed sand, start adding old tank water from the Rubbermaids, rocks, corals, inverts, fish. Done?

My concern is re cycling the tank, bacteria from the tank being left dry. Is there a cleaning method prior to setting it back up? Should I re cycle it with Dr tim's or equivalent. Thanks in advance.

Exactly what I would do besides the old water.. use all new water in the tank with clean sand and your old rocks and everything will be perfect! I suffered zero loses with tons of Sps

 

[geeked]

Rethink those 20 gallon Rubbermaids. They're going to be very heavy to move. I would stick with 5 gallon buckets and lids.

about 160lbs. On wheels, it would be easy. Not too difficult to lift for a fit adult.

 

[Dom]

about 160lbs. On wheels, it would be easy. Not too difficult to lift for a fit adult.

On wheels, in the back of a van. Make sure its secure.

 

[geeked]

On wheels, in the back of a van. Make sure its secure.

Oh yeah, definitely going to be some splashing and water waste unless they glue a rubber ring on the lid. Spillage will be an issue for sure. May be better off with some 5 gallon buckets. Probably cheaper too.

 

[nothing_fancy]

Thanks Everybody, appreciate that and I will read through that thread on tank transfer. I believe I'd probably start with fresh sand, rinsed of course. Whats the consensus on dry vs live sand in this sort of situation. Is it beneficial to use bagged live sand or is there enough bacteria on the rock alone to get the tank started back up?

 

[brandon429]

That's specifically what all 50 pages of the thread answers: rock bacteria is enough in all cases

 

[brandon429]

You only need to read a few pages to gain the pattern, all else is just repetition of the same set of moves

No bottle bac is used in the new tank we can see in any job

No ammonia or cycle testing is used in any job, clean rinse sand=skip cycle transfer, always.

 

[nothing_fancy]

You only need to read a few pages to gain the pattern, all else is just repetition of the same set of moves

No bottle bac is used in the new tank we can see in any job

No ammonia or cycle testing is used in any job, clean rinse sand=skip cycle transfer, always.

Amazing thank you, I do recall seeing this tank transfer thread not long ago. This is exactly what I was looking for

 

[FishTruck]

My advice... the fish and rocks you should take. Take frags of the SPS corals and sell the colonies.

The large coral specimens are the hardest thing to deal with and likely won't survive.

 

[The_Skrimp]

your plan sounds solid to me. I just actually went through this and moved my tank 3 hours away. I used large 20 gal totes from home depot and filled them up about half way. They were a bit heavy but my wife and I didn't have any trouble lifting them. Definitely get yourself a waggon or cart to make moving things easier. We stuck an air stone in each tote but didn't use a heater or anything else while transporting them. We actually opted for keeping our old sand with no major nitrate or phosphate swings although I know that's not usually advised but I didn't have to worry about re-cycling the tank doing it that way and we added quite a bit of microbacter 7 once we set everything back up just to be safe.

The hardest part honestly was putting the rockscape back together once we had the tank filled up so if your rocks are stacked a certain way, I'd definitely take several pictures before taking things apart and possibly even load your rocks into the totes in a way that will help you remember which rocks went where - left vs right vs top vs bottom etc.

I would definitely make several five gallon buckets of extra salt water just in case. We ended up using quite of extra water.

There's a longer post about our move in my build thread if interested. We didn't have any loses aside from a few accidental frags.

One thing I will say about your plan is, since you're adding new sand first and then the water, Its going to get really cloudy and make setting your rocks back up pretty difficult so I would try to slowly add the water in and use a sponge or filter floss to break up the water so it's not directly hitting the sand causing a dust storm in the tank.

Good luck with the move!

 

[Troylee]

My advice... the fish and rocks you should take. Take frags of the SPS corals and sell the colonies.

The large coral specimens are the hardest thing to deal with and likely won't survive.

Weird… I had Sps encrusted to my rocks during my move last month that sat out of water for 7 hours and all survived and thrived… lol they were dry too!

 

[The_Skrimp]

Weird… I had Sps encrusted to my rocks during my move last month that sat out of water for 7 hours and all survived and thrived… lol they were dry too!

same here. I had some coral growing on the back wall that I was worried about so I fragged some pieces off to make sure I could keep a piece but to my suprise, they all actually made it. They did bleach a bit from drying out but now, a few weeks after the move, the stuff that was still encrusted to the back wall has actually started to color back up and grow again.

 

[FishTruck]

Yea. I ran my old system got the new one up and running, matched the parameters.

Yet... none of my colonies survived the one block move. I did keep frags of four species alive, which have over time formed new colonies.

Not to say that I paid two mortgages for three months just to try and keep my coral colonies alive at full size... but... if that was the reason for paying double mortgage - it was not a smart financial move.

 

[Paul B]

I moved my 125 gallon 5 years ago after it was in one place for 40 years. The day before my move I bought a new tank and set it up in my new place on the stand. The next day I removed everything from my old tank into vats, drove it out the hour and a half to the new place, rinsed the existing gravel in old seawater and added it. Put back the rocks, coral and fish.

I didn't lose anything, not even a pod.

 

[brandon429]

Paul, if readers who do not use a RUGF attempt what you posted, partial sand rinsing in saltwater, they can kill their system

clear and obvious examples of tank and fish death are the first warning threads on our transfer thread example

you must must must x10 provide context when you chime in with actions that aren't documented across 200 tanks, but rather one tank set up like only 2 reefs on this entire site use... RUGF = inherently clean and aerated sand

everyone's sandbed is piled on the bottom, you know this...that's a huge risk in copying your method.