Upgrading
- Thread starter Jennie
- Start date
Sugar Magnolia
New Member
I've transfeered a few tanks Jennie. It's not really a big deal at all. Save about 2/3 of your tank water in a couple of buckets and store the LR and tank inhabs in the buckets while you get the new tank set up. The one time I did tranfer an entire sand bed ( 2" depth) from a 6 gallon Eclipse to a 7 gallon minibow, I did have a slight mini cycle from disturbing the sand bed, but it wasn't anything huge. Nothing water changes can't handle. If you don't want to transfer the entire sand bed, just keep a few cups to seed the new sand bed with.
If you're going to double the tank's capacity, chances are you're almost doubling the sand as well and/or rock. Your chances of your tank cycling with new sand and LR are very high, I highly recommend that you separately cycle the 20 gallon first before anything else. Just put in the dead sand you were going to mix in with the live sand you had, just seed it a bit and let it rip.
Otherwise...if you just transfer it, monitor your params carefully...much of your substrate does not have the bacteria...so I'd say go for buying a bottle of Bio-Spira or Cycle...this will help speed up the "mini-cycle"...hope this helps!
Otherwise...if you just transfer it, monitor your params carefully...much of your substrate does not have the bacteria...so I'd say go for buying a bottle of Bio-Spira or Cycle...this will help speed up the "mini-cycle"...hope this helps!
i would recommend that you cycle any new rock your going to add in a seperate bucket with a ph and heater before adding it to your tank,
i bought a 4.5# piece to add to my nano and was told by the lfs that it was fully cured but i decided to put it a bucket anyway and 2 days later ammonia was off the scale, it took nearly 3 weeks for that "fully cured" piece to zero out
i bought a 4.5# piece to add to my nano and was told by the lfs that it was fully cured but i decided to put it a bucket anyway and 2 days later ammonia was off the scale, it took nearly 3 weeks for that "fully cured" piece to zero out
I think that cich1 has a good point. Really you should set up all your rock in the beginning and let your tank cycle. As far as a store is concerned rock may be fully cycled, but they're not thinking from the standpoint of a nano tank. Even transporting a piece of rock from the LFS to your house, you're going to get a small amount of die-off. This is normally somewhat minimal, and not too much concern when you're talking about putting it in a 55g tank, but it can have a huge impact when you're talking about a 5g tank.cich1 said:
There are things that I'd do with a larger and inherently more stable system than I'd try with a nano. For instance, I wouldn't try to re-use a sandbed in a nano. I'd take a small amount of the old sand and use it to seed the new sandbed, but I'd use all new fresh sand to avoid the die-off that's just part of transferring any sandbed. If I felt the need to add more rock to an existing nano, I'd only add small (think less than 1/10 total volume), pieces over a long period of time, or I'd put them in a 5g bucket with a PH for a week, and do a couple water changes during that time before adding a bunch at once.
B
Thanks everyone, I appriciate all the suggestions. I think what I will do is let the 20 cycle seperately, and seed it with some of the live sand from the 10. Since I'll only be adding little pieces of LR, I can just add those in as I get them and it won't affect the fish/coral that's currently in the 10.