Tank Swap Plus Tank Move Question

[joeboots82520]

My buddy needs to downsize his tank. I'm inheriting the old tank and adopting a few of his fish and getting him a smaller tank. My question is what do you guys think is the most efficient safest way to do this? Can we just take out sand rock and water transfer it to the new smaller tank and relocate the fish or should we give the tank a few days/week? I'm not worried about the rest of the inhabitance that I'm taking since I will be putting them in my 90 and his old tank I plan on basically restarting with new sand and maybe a few pieces of rock depending on what he gives me. Any advice from anyone with experience would be appreciated since I have only ever set up new tanks and never did a move. Thanks in advance

 

[saltyphish]

Ive done this many times but i never reuse the sand. As a matter of fact the first time i transfered tanks i removed all the sand and stayed bb. If there are no coral in the tank rinse them off well in saltwater. Keep the rock wet. Drying will kill bacteria and cause a cycle. Also gives you a chance to remove any algae on the rock. I literally scrubbed all my rocks with a scrub brush. I cleaned and added the used rock to my new tank and added new water then fish and coral all in the same day. Just make sure sg and temp of new water matches old water. This is not the case if your adding new uncured liverock. No matter where i get my rock i re cure it even if they claim its cured.

 

[joeboots82520]

Thanks for the reply. He has a few small corals mostly frags still so it shouldn't be an issue just popping them off the rocks and reattaching them in the other tank. Do you think it would cause any issues using a bit of the old sand? I know he's a fan of the sand look. And I figured using the old water would keep the parameters exact so we could literally net the fish and put them right in the new tank it's only 15 feet away. But it's reassuring hearing that just putting the rock in will be substantial bio filtration.