Upgrading Poll!

I am upgrading from a 28 gallon bowfront aquarium to a 90 gallon tank. I have soft coral, as well as several fish. The 90 gallon tank will have 100 pounds of dry rock as well as dry sand.

I plan on re-establishing my 28 gallon as a species only tank a month or two after I move everything over.

For my poll, I am trying to get opinions on how I should move items over. I am debating whether I should completely cycle the tank, and then move everything over (ie: the conservative option), or if I should move all my live rock into the new tank and transfer it after my water is at desired salinity and temp.

My local reef club seems to lean toward the less conservative option, saying that I'd do better with only one tank functioning during the initial stages of the upgrade since I wouldn't need to worry about two seperate tanks. Also, since I am transfering all my live rock I should, in theory, have a minimal cycle.

So, I am asking for 3reefs opinion. If this was your situation, what would YOU do!

 

I would split the difference, move a FEW pieces of your LR over to help the cycle along. Dont move anything else except maybe one (inexpensive, not your fav) fish to cycle. In theory you will not have much of a cycle, then you can move the rest, but it would suck royally if you moved it all and a cycle killed your corals.

 

I vote move everything over and just don't add any more livestock until the new biological filter catches up. That's what I did with zero cycle, granted it was a 55 to 90, but i think the theory would hold the same, just have plenty of WCs ready.

 

That's kinda what I was thinking. In addition, I will be using MicroBacter7, since I got some for a free trial through my reef club. Couldn't hurt

 

Most of the time jut moving works fine. last time I did so though, I did get a cycle and lost some stuff. It's "usually" okay not to, but always safer to cycle first if possible.

 

+1. Your new rock and sand are dry, so there should be nothing on there to cause a cycle. I am about to upgrade and I am doing the same thing

 

I've moved lots of tanks without cycling first, but as I said, last time, it didn't work so well.... Do you have the room to setup the new tank first, or is there a reason you don't want to? I guess that would be my question...

 

I have it already setup (minus rock/sand/water).

Big reason was the logistics of having a huge (for me) new tank and an established tank to maintain. Especially when breaking down the old one (if there isn't much threat of a cycle) allows me to progress toward getting it cleaned up for restart later.

 

Are you going to have all new water in the new setup or will you be using some from the water from your smaller tank? I would add a good amount of that water as part of my new tank water.

 

I could go either way.

I have a remote fuge (30 gallons) so I could leave that closed (allowing salt to mix into the water and water to heat in the rest of the setup), then move ALL my water from my nano into the fuge and open up the plumbing.