Yet another "Sand" question...

Will soon be transfering contents & residents to new home ( larger tank).

Old tank (55 gal) has about 60 lbs of now "very live" Carrib "very fine"(?) sand. (now about 6 mos old)

Have two bags of new "Southdown" (100+ lbs) to go in new tank.

Wondering about advisibility of moving all old sand to new new tank (is my current plan) - or should I just "seed" the new with the some of the "old"...

Also have heard possiblity of "cycle" maybe occuring on sand moves. Any validity to?...am trying to avoid as much stress on current residents on move as possible.

One thought is, there will be a tremendous temperature change in new tank (new very cold water) - should probably let it warm up before adding in old sand..

Anything else to worry about? :-/

THX

OmarD

 

Sorry Omard I can't remember if you will have the two systems up at the same time?
no sense writing until answered.

 

How big is your new tank and how deep of a sand bed do you want? Your tank dimensions will determine the sand requirement and as J said, the timing of what you want to do will be very helpful.

 

Omar my advice is to make up your water days in advance of the tank setup and transfer. Then if you are moving all the contents of the old tank use the southdown first then add the old sand on top I have found if you mix the old "dead" sand with the established live sand too much the effect is more die off. Premixing water and warming it over the course of a few days makes bringing it up to temp easier. Are you adding rock along with the sand in the new tank? Are you ready for the new cycle spike if you are doing a tear down and setup? I know you use nsw from the aquarium so the premixing should be a little easier. My advice is to put some of the rock in the tank before the sand so it sits on the glass less chance of a burrowing creature causing a rock slide or getting crushed. Kinda took a right turn and added more to the sand question sorry! I have done this about a thousand times including moving two lfs to new locations it is hard and time consuming but can be very successfull if you take your time.
P.S the last store I moved the owner moved the freshwater stuff and I got all the salt. Phil=no casualties owner =about half dead and this was after two week cycle in the new store YIPPEE! Good luck!

 

when we went from our 49 to the 75 we put the new sand in and the live sand on top seemed to work ok that way