Merging a 75 gallon tank into a 200g need help!

[Bigreeflittlefish]

Hey all crazy question so i currently have a 75 gallon tank running for 3 years and i decided to upgrade to a 200 gallon tank well i have the 200 ready to go hopefully …

The 200 is currently empty im thinking of adding 80lbs of sand into it and filling it with rodi water

I was wondering would it be possible to fill the tank let’s say 60% and transfer all my rock sand fish coral from my 75 into it without killing everything?

Or does this thing have to fully fill and cycle before i add stuff ideas?

 

[TheStrangler]

Its possible but if you have the luxury of time, I'd slowly transfer everything. I'm in the exact same boat moving stuff from my 30g to a 150. There's going to be a cycle, but we should have jumpstarts over starting a new tank. Take it slow and allow the bacteria to populate the new surface area of the tank.

If you don't have much time, you can probably still be successful transferring everything, just with more caution and vigilance. From my understanding you should not transfer your sand. There are ways to do it, but it was a lot of hassle and you're primarily just exporting waste and potentially dangerous compounds. Lots of people lose livestock transferring sand.

 

[Bigreeflittlefish]

Its possible but if you have the luxury of time, I'd slowly transfer everything. I'm in the exact same boat moving stuff from my 30g to a 150. There's going to be a cycle, but we should have jumpstarts over starting a new tank. Take it slow and allow the bacteria to populate the new surface area of the tank.

If you don't have much time, you can probably still be successful transferring everything, just with more caution and vigilance. From my understanding you should not transfer your sand. There are ways to do it, but it was a lot of hassle and you're primarily just exporting waste and potentially dangerous compounds. Lots of people lose livestock transferring sand.

Valid point for sure I’ve transferred sand using a small siphon once with no issues but i also never tried this much sand lol

 

[Dburr1014]

Hey all crazy question so i currently have a 75 gallon tank running for 3 years and i decided to upgrade to a 200 gallon tank well i have the 200 ready to go hopefully …

The 200 is currently empty im thinking of adding 80lbs of sand into it and filling it with rodi water

I was wondering would it be possible to fill the tank let’s say 60% and transfer all my rock sand fish coral from my 75 into it without killing everything?

Or does this thing have to fully fill and cycle before i add stuff ideas?

That is what I did. Your live rock has everything to support what is living in your 75 now. It will support the same thing in a different tank.
The only difference I see that you are doing is adding new sand.
You should be fine doing the move.

Edit;
With regards to the sand, you can always add new sand now and clean the old sand from the other tank and add that later. What I did was added new sand with The Rock from the old 75 gallon. Then I took probably half of the old sand from the 75 rinsed it and tap water completely and then last rinse was in RODI and/or old salt water from a water change and added it later.

 

[Stang67]

Fill up the new one and get the salinity and temp right. Then move everything over. I moved all my sand over after a quick rinse. Your gonna have to add more sand anyway.

 

[TBSB2019]

I moved from a 72 to a 180 in one day with new live sand. Just had a small algea outbreak. Nothing major. Lost nothing.

 

[Bigreeflittlefish]

Fill up the new one and get the salinity and temp right. Then move everything over. I moved all my sand over after a quick rinse. Your gonna have to add more sand anyway.

How much sand you think i need in this thing

 

[Bigreeflittlefish]

I moved from a 72 to a 180 in one day with new live sand. Just had a small algea outbreak. Nothing major. Lost nothing.

Mind telling me how you did your move? Steps you did. Did you use your old water add into new?

 

[Dburr1014]

How much sand you think i need in this thing

My tank for print is 60"x24".
I have about ~60 lbs and it's about 3/4 to an inch deep.

 

[Dburr1014]

Mind telling me how you did your move? Steps you did. Did you use your old water add into new?

I use probably 80% of my old water from the 75 and the rest was all new.

 

[Bigreeflittlefish]

I use probably 80% of my old water from the 75 and the rest was all new.

Interesting

 

[TBSB2019]

We filled the 180 with new water (about half way), live sand and base rocks, moved over most of the rock excluding the base rocks, pumped over most of the water (left enough for the fish to be caught), moved the fish. Last thing we sifted the sand to try to get as many snails as possible. I dosed bacteria for a bit (microbacter 7 if I remember right). Nothing special. It was pretty easy. The rocks are where most of the bacteria live. If your rock is supporting your livestock now, it still will after the move. We didn't have any special or sensitive corals. Did have several anenome that are fine to this day. All fish are still with us. It was the day I learned the hard way what a bristle worm and bare fingers will do. We did trash the sand. It was That was 2 years ago.

 

[Bigreeflittlefish]

We filled the 180 with new water (about half way), live sand and base rocks, moved over most of the rock excluding the base rocks, pumped over most of the water (left enough for the fish to be caught), moved the fish. Last thing we sifted the sand to try to get as many snails as possible. I dosed bacteria for a bit (microbacter 7 if I remember right). Nothing special. It was pretty easy. The rocks are where most of the bacteria live. If your rock is supporting your livestock now, it still will after the move. We didn't have any special or sensitive corals. Did have several anenome that are fine to this day. All fish are still with us. It was the day I learned the hard way what a bristle worm and bare fingers will do. We did trash the sand. It was That was 2 years ago.

Sounds like a plan I’ll give it a try

 

[TBSB2019]

Sounds like a plan I’ll give it a try

Just take your time and all will work out. Biggest thing is watch water temps. You might have a small cycle and corals will get agitated, but it'll be fine.

 

[DanyL]

I moved twice: first time from 35g to 132g, and second time to 208g, and third time I jump started a separate 90g frag tank with live rock and coral from my main system - all in one day.

The important thing to be successful in doing it is to be well prepared.

In my case, the second transfer was the most difficult, because I had hundreds of corals, many of which were colonies that I trimmed heavily before the transfer.
Then, there was also the fact that the new tank needed to come in place of the old one - so I had a huge tub in the middle of my living room which was used a temporary holding tank, with a running skimmer, media, pumps and all.

The whole operation took about a day, though the transfer of corals and fish was around the 2-3 hour mark (we used the almost empty sump as a temp holding space, basically rotating corals in and out while arranging the rocks in the display afterwards).

I did move my sand both times, after throughly rinsing it with tap water, and than a quick rinse in sw. I also added new sand, but not immediately.

I also dosed bacteria for a couple of weeks after the transfer - I doubt it was needed, but I didn’t mind to do it regardless.

What you are expected to see after the move is an algae outbreak, this is normal and will go away after a few weeks to a month.

That’s pretty much all, if you have any specific question you’d like to ask - feel free.

Good luck!

 

[Bigreeflittlefish]

I moved twice: first time from 35g to 132g, and second time to 208g, and third time I jump started a separate 90g frag tank with live rock and coral from my main system - all in one day.

The important thing to be successful in doing it is to be well prepared.

In my case, the second transfer was the most difficult, because I had hundreds of corals, many of which were colonies that I trimmed heavily before the transfer.
Then, there was also the fact that the new tank needed to come in place of the old one - so I had a huge tub in the middle of my living room which was used a temporary holding tank, with a running skimmer, media, pumps and all.

The whole operation took about a day, though the transfer of corals and fish was around the 2-3 hour mark (we used the almost empty sump as a temp holding space, basically rotating corals in and out while arranging the rocks in the display afterwards).

I did move my sand both times, after throughly rinsing it with tap water, and than a quick rinse in sw. I also added new sand, but not immediately.

I also dosed bacteria for a couple of weeks after the transfer - I doubt it was needed, but I didn’t mind to do it regardless.

What you are expected to see after the move is an algae outbreak, this is normal and will go away after a few weeks to a month.

That’s pretty much all, if you have any specific question you’d like to ask - feel free.

Good luck!

Sweet! Sounds like you did it the right way I’ll first add new sand about 50-60lbs for my rocks to have a cushion on
Add the new dry rock 100lbs of it
Then I’ll fill the tank roughly 60% with the sump having some water and then sand moving over everything once the temps are similar

 

[DanyL]

One thing important to note that I haven’t mentioned earlier is that I’ve never ever used dry rock.

Back in the day, when we transferred from the 35g to the 132g (about 13 years ago?) we bought a ton load of real, imported live rock from Indonesia.
It was accepted back then to have as much rocks as possible, because filtration wasn’t as good as today.

So when we had our second transfer to our current tank around 3 and half years ago, we ended up with an excess of rocks in the sump, which than was used to jump start the frag tank.

That being said, I know others that did a similar transfer to yours and as long as you have more live rock than dry, you shouldn’t encounter any serious problem along the way - it’ll simply take a bit longer to cycle.