Transition to Larger Tank- Advice?

[texasreefer92]

Good Morning!
I am incredibly new and mostly let my husband do everything with the tank but i am trying to learn more. So please have patience lol

We are upgrading our tank from 55 gal to Waterbox Infinia Reed 150.4..... My husband and i have done a lot of research but getting conflicting answers. Its ironic that i am now opening up for more opinions but i figured actually being to ask those in the hobby directly who are more experienced would be very helpful for me to understand the process.

The tank is going in the same place as the old one. Unfortunately that means emptying the old tank to be able to move and resetting it up with everything the same for a couple of weeks while we set up the new tank. We were going to cycle the new tank before moving anything.

We ordered live rock and plan to cycle with that rock and move the live rock in the current take at a later date. Is that crazy?

We were going to get all new sand because youtube has scared me to reuse but just saw a BRS video saying you can wash and reuse it.

Anyways those are my rambling thoughts.... the real question is how would you make the change? Any help would be great!!!!

 

[Oldreefer44]

The one thing that you don't mention is what the bio load of your tank is. What fish/ inverts do you have currently?

 

[Marquarium]

When I upgraded my 125 to 300 I tried to save as much water as possible and use water from my other tanks too because I was downgrading from 3 tanks to 1. With the multiple tanks it was easy to move my fish to temporary homes. You can easily find cheap tubs at hardware stores that can serve as a temporary tank.

My sand was never that dirty so I kept it all and mixed it in with fresh live sand. Kept all rocks too and added a bunch more live rock.

 

[texasreefer92]

The one thing that you don't mention is what the bio load of your tank is. What fish/ inverts do you have currently?

Sorry we have a pair black and white ocellaris, lunar wrasse (who may not go to the new tank he is kinda a dick), Purple firefish, scopas tang, and a scooter blenny. Invert 20-30 hermit crabs, 5 nassarius snails, 10-15 astraeas, 5 turbo snails, 1 conch

 

[texasreefer92]

When I upgraded my 125 to 300 I tried to save as much water as possible and use water from my other tanks too because I was downgrading from 3 tanks to 1. With the multiple tanks it was easy to move my fish to temporary homes. You can easily find cheap tubs at hardware stores that can serve as a temporary tank.

My sand was never that dirty so I kept it all and mixed it in with fresh live sand. Kept all rocks too and added a bunch more live rock.

that is very helpful in the past that is what my husband has done but much smaller tanks. He has gone from a 5 gal to 13.5 to 55 gal. so the larger tank is what i was not sure of but this is positive feedback. Our sand is clean as well

 

[Naekuh]

I went from a 24G to a 150G....

So i basically did the entire new tank set.
I did not reuse my rocks, because i wanted a HNSA scape, and knew this is my only chance to do so with Dry Rock.

I had to cycle the tank with dry rock and dry sand... nothing live.

I had ceramic bio bricks in my 24G that had been seeded, which i moved over to the 150G once filled.
Then i proceeded with the fishless cycle and it took about 8 painful weeks, constantly thinking i stalled somewhere. (the Nitrite -> Nitrate) was probably the most painful part in the cycle.

I still have not moved over all the stuff yet.
I am doing this very slowly, trying to avoid any nasty hitchhikers from my previous setup, although i think that is wishful thinking.

But seeing how you don't have the luxury like i did to let your tank cycle for 8 weeks while your other is running, if you move all the live rock, technically your new tank bioload should be able to handle whats already in it, and it will just grow as you expand out.


But if your doing a new tank, i highly suggest you look at HNSA.
NSA - Negative Space Aquascape
HNSA - Habitat Negative Space Aquacape - basically means NSA with a bit more caves so fish don't stress.

 

[texasreefer92]

I went from a 24G to a 150G....

So i basically did the entire new tank set.
I did not reuse my rocks, because i wanted a HNSA scape, and knew this is my only chance to do so with Dry Rock.

I had to cycle the tank with dry rock and dry sand... nothing live.

I had ceramic bio bricks in my 24G that had been seeded, which i moved over to the 150G once filled.
Then i proceeded with the fishless cycle and it took about 8 painful weeks, constantly thinking i stalled somewhere. (the Nitrite -> Nitrate) was probably the most painful part in the cycle.

I still have not moved over all the stuff yet.
I am doing this very slowly, trying to avoid any nasty hitchhikers from my previous setup, although i think that is wishful thinking.

But seeing how you don't have the luxury like i did to let your tank cycle for 8 weeks while your other is running, if you move all the live rock, technically your new tank bioload should be able to handle whats already in it, and it will just grow as you expand out.


But if your doing a new tank, i highly suggest you look at HNSA.
NSA - Negative Space Aquascape
HNSA - Habitat Negative Space Aquacape - basically means NSA with a bit more caves so fish don't stress.

Thank you! I am going to look into HNSA right now

 

[HAAAAAAAA]

From my experience, when i upgraded my 30 gallon to a 150 gallon's with 2 of my moray eel's and a grouper, these are the step's I took

(Reusing the rock from your older tank)
If you don't want to use the rock from the older tank, you can alway's put some of them in your sump if you have any. I used new dry rock for the scape in the 150, I put the previous cycled rock from the 30 gallon into the sump.

(Reusing sand)
If your sand isn't fine Sand, I believe you can put some of it in a mesh bag and put it in your sump with new biological media, if you also want to reuse your sand you can, unless, your worried that pesky critters can also get in with the sand to your new aquarium

(Reusing old media like sponge, bio media, chemical filtration)
I believe sponge contain more bacteria than actual bio media and would be wonderful to jumpstart an aquarium, if you have chemical filtration which is under a month old you can use that aswell but, using a older chemical media like carbon which has been runing for more than a month can leach out some nutrients in your new tank

I hope the transition goes smoothly, you can also keep the live rock alive if you put it in a tub with a few fish or pellets every other day.

 

[texasreefer92]

From my experience, when i upgraded my 30 gallon to a 150 gallon's with 2 of my moray eel's and a grouper, these are the step's I took

(Reusing the rock from your older tank)
If you don't want to use the rock from the older tank, you can alway's put some of them in your sump if you have any. I used new dry rock for the scape in the 150, I put the previous cycled rock from the 30 gallon into the sump.

(Reusing sand)
If your sand isn't fine Sand, I believe you can put some of it in a mesh bag and put it in your sump with new biological media, if you also want to reuse your sand you can, unless, your worried that pesky critters can also get in with the sand to your new aquarium

(Reusing old media like sponge, bio media, chemical filtration)
I believe sponge contain more bacteria than actual bio media and would be wonderful to jumpstart an aquarium, if you have chemical filtration which is under a month old you can use that aswell but, using a older chemical media like carbon which has been runing for more than a month can leach out some nutrients in your new tank

I hope the transition goes smoothly, you can also keep the live rock alive if you put it in a tub with a few fish or pellets every other day.

thank you so much for sharing the new tank arrived today! Building the cabinet and stuff tonight and tomorrow starting to transition everything