my move/upgrade questions

im moving in a month and i plan to upgrade at the same time. im upgrading to a 55 and i already have all of the equipment. im using new sand with a cup to seed it and have about 20lb of dead rock to add to the 40lr i have in my 37 currently. i know ill keep all my water and add to it to make up the difference. what worries me is the cycle my new tank will experience. are my fish gonna be ok through the new cycle?

in a perfect world i would set up the new tank and let it cycle, but as i move from one place to the next i wont have keys to the new house early enough to cycle the new tank. i could set up the new tank and just transfer the 37, but then i only have the 40lb lr to cover bio in my old tank and start the cycle in the new one. then my cycle would just start over again when i transfer the rest of the rock. ive seen this topic here many times, but i still dont feel like the other threads solve my particular set of problems. i appreciate any comments or suggestions.

im even adding some pics of my new equipment since ive noticed that you all like pics.

 

As long as your using good lr and most of your water you will only have a small cycle and everything should be fine. When i up graded my 90 to my 180 i used about the 120ish gallons of water added about another 180(i hvae a 180,100 fuge and 60 sump) and all my fish and corals where fine. Make sure you have a lot of filtration going when this is new and set up.

 

does a marineland emporer 400 and a coralife 125 skimmer seem like enough? i thought that with the lr should be plenty.

 

Heres what you do with the emp filter take out the water sprayers and bio wheels, in one side keep the carbon. Make sure you fill in the holes where the water sprayers where with puddy. The other side add lots of rubble a small clip on light and some cheato. You now have a nice little HoB sump and fuge. I did this with that exact filter on a 55 and it worked GREAT for me.

 

i will definitely do that! thank you so much for the great idea.

 

Just too clarify, the water doesnt cycle, only the LR and LS does.


Luna

 

would it be a good idea to hang my dead rock in the back of my current tank for the next month and start to build the bacteria? i could put it on a shelf and probably fit 2 large pieces. would that be long enough to consider cured?

 

this sounds like a great idea, but would there be any drawbacks as detritus collects and settles at the bottom of the lr rubble? how often would i clean to counteract this problem? i really want to try this method as long as i know im not losing any filtering ability.

 

i am doing the same thing with that exact filter lol. good to know others have done it before! but i have mine on a 30 gallon tank lol