Move from 55 gal. to 90 gal. - I'm a little nervous!

Move from 55 gal. to 90 gal. - Updated with Photos

OK - after much contemplation, we got a new tank today. It's a 90 gal. with a center back overflow. So now comes the fun part - moving everything from the 55 gal. to the new tank! I'm gonna take photos as we do it, so more to come!

Thanks to all who gave us input on 75 gal. vs. 90 gal. It really helped.

Wish us luck!

And I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. ;D

 

I did a 75 to 90 gallon move here about two months ago. Use what you can out of my thread.....I started it when I upgraded.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-off-your-fish-tanks/pharmrjohns-90g-thread-52614.html

Good luck.....just have all your ducks line up in a row. That is key.

 

good luck
and......

wash your sand!!!

 

Sounds really cool, good luck and make sure to update your progress as you go

 

you have to cycle that tank? or if you move everything from an existing tank to another it doesnt matter?

 

You do not need to cycle the tank ITO what we did at the beginning of our existing aquariums. However, when you move the rock and the sand, you disturb a lot of gunk that starts to rot and you move into a mini-cycle. Mine lasted two months solid, because not only did I move my rock, I didn't have the time to do my sand correctly. I just dumped it into two five gallon buckets and then dumped them back. My ammonia was up there for a loooooong time (0.25 to 0.5)

 

OK - it's 10:45 pm Utah time, and it's way past my bedtime! (I'm a sissy.) We have the new 90 gal. tank about 80% full, and have run into the "the temp is too low" problem. However, we have our fish and coral in a nice plastic storage bucket with a heater and a bubbler, and no one seems to mind so far. It's kind of like an overpopulated tide pool. Other than the temp issue the only problem so far is setting up our lr. I had a design I liked before I pulled it out, and now I need to find a photo to remember how I did part of it :/

This is just as much work as I thought it would be, but it's sure gonna be pretty when it's done. We changed out most of the crushed coral substrate for argonite (sp?)otherwise known as "sand." My daughter got quite a kick out of telling people I couldn't come to the phone because I was washing dirt. We put 1 large bag of dry, and one medium size bag of wet/live. It covered about 60% of the bottom of the tank, and we put some of the crushed coral from our 55 gal. and a new bag of the crushed live stuff on the remainder.

Now if I can just stay awake long enough for the water to warm up. . . note to husband. . . (I know he will read this), when your wife says "don't you think it would be better if we started this first thing in the morning so we have all day to work on it. . . "
You get the idea Oh well, tomorrow I can be glad it's done!!!

Photos tomorrow, and hoping everyone survives!!!

 

I've been currious about this for a while. is a mini cycle safe for corals and fish??
I will be upgrading tanks shortly, and it would be swell if i dont have to wait a month or more. But i will do whatevers best for my fish.

 

its still disturbing the balance its not good for the livestock. its better to add livestock and rock slowly over a week. but most of the time it will be able to reestablish itself before the parameters get too out of control. if you have particularly touchy livestock i would keep both tanks up and add those animals last after everything else and the tank has passed the mini cycle.

 

A mini cycle can cause some undue stress, but IMO unless you have acros everything should make it though. I just moved from a 50 gallon to a 120 and had a pretty big minicycle (I added about 5 more fish right away because i was getting the 120 from a guy who already had fish in it. I didn't add much more rock than what was already in my 50 gallon, causing the mini-cycle to be not so mini. Everything made it except one of the fish the other guy had in the 120, I think it actually died because of the shock of clean water... Lets just say he didn't take real good care of them... Karcury, let's see those pics!!!! "I'm gonna take photos as we do it" so please share.