Tank Has A Leak

Yep that's right tank has a nice small slow leak somewhere. What a shame. :-[ So I wen out and bought another 55 tonday. Way cheaper than I expected also. I don't know how I'm gonna do this transfer when I get in from work tonight. I have an extra 20 gal that i will use to house everything until it goes through a quick cycle. I'm gonna use everything thats in the tank now including majority of water. (atleast 20 gals that maybe all I can salvage of the water have nothing else to hold it in. I have about 70lbs of LR, about 130lbs of LS 80Lbs if fiji white sand 50 lbs of aragonite at the bottom. I have a clownfish, blu/green Chromis, yellow tang, algea Blenny, and a Mandarin that I just bought yesterday thats in my 10G QT. I know my tank can't handle the mandarin yet but it was free so I said the hell with it. Numerous snails, crab, and a sandsifting starfish.

How long will the new cycle be I'm not gonna use all of the sand this time maybe just a lil layer of the aragonite then the rest of the figi sand on top. my sb was 5 inches in some places. So everything is still active and alive gonna turn back on my fluval 405 with the same media. Will my fish and inverts be alright in the 20 gal? Any help will be appreciated.

 

just move it all and let the dust settle, shouldnt have a full cycle, should take less than 24hrs to get it ready to put livestock back in I've had to go through this in the last year it's not fun

When mine busted I woke up to a dining room totally soaked in saltwater and 1/2 the water in my tank on the floor, luckily I had a gfci and it shut everything down so I didn't lose any hardware. This weekend's project for me is actually prepping for putting down new floor in the dining room and living room which means I have to move my nano
anyway back to the subject sorry

Move your rock and sand to clean buckets or rubbermade totes, whatever you have to store them in and keep them wet.

setup the new tank, lay down the sand and rock, put in water, leave powerheads off but startup filters, let the dust settle so to speak then test parameters and should be good, die off is very minimal on live rock when it's just out of the water for a few seconds shouldnt really have a cycle to speak

 

Thats a good thing to hear. I might give it a few days anyway before i put any fish in there. Sorry to hear about ur situation thats why I just switched tanks as soon as I found this out too bad I have to wait till tonight to fix this. Want to get it over with.

 

Would have with mine to, was fine one night, no leaks, next morning the seal on the left rear side split about 1/2 way down made for a fun day

 

How long has the tank been set up? The longer it has been set up, the longer the new cycle will be. You're stirring up all the crap thats settled on the bottom for however long the tank has been up. Alot of that stuff is meant to be released gradually overtime, not all at once. Sulfates for example, if you have a DSB, which it appears you do, its full of sulfates. You'll see black masses of hardened sand, its best to toss those out, you dont want that going into the new tank, it will for sure kill everything.

but anyways... Expect a full cycle, might only be 2-4 weeks.

 

Wow that is terrible... I am always thinking about the impending earthquakes that will his the socal area soon... scary stuff. I hope everyone comes out ok.

 

The tanks been set up since feb. yes i have a dsb. so it would be better for me to use all new sand huh damn that sucks.

 

I just got done combining a 16,10 and 29 gallon tank into a 56. The 16 and 10 had been set up for about 10 months the 29 for 5. I would skim the top layers off and reuse it, as geek said, if you find black sand don't use it. Or you could do what I did which was to clean it really, really good in fresh water then rinsed it in some tank water from some water changes. I then added it to the tank mixed with the "Live Sand" I took off the top.

I used all the sand, rocks, water and the inhabitants from the other tanks in the 56. As Iraf said I moved everything all at once, let the dust settle and put the corals in the tank. I watched and tested it for about a week, during which it did go through a minor cycle but nothing that hurt anything. After the week I added the fish and my adult seahorses to the tank.

Here is a photo of the tank right now, unfortunately the seahorses are shy and are hiding behind the rocks.. As soon as I took this picture they both peeked around the corner but would not come out. I will have to sneak up on them one day. The only rocks that are new is some of the stuff on the right, as if you couldn't tell.

 

when did u add inverts?

 

So I CHanged the tank on thursday took about 6 hrs. I used maybe about 20-30 lobs of the old sand it was all clean looking no black spots very little detrius. I could't salvage any of the water though had to use fresh SW. I have everything in the 20g, hoping they will be alright gonna do a 8g PWC tonight and every 3 days. I'm running my Fluval 405 on the DT. With all the same media that was in it before the tank change. I dont see any kind of cycle though ammo is just a little over 1 when i checked yesterday. Is this the cycle since i used the sand and media from before? I'm just waiting for the rest of my sand to come from fijiman on ebay. Ordered another 50lbs. Then I will add inverts and 2 of the fish and see how that works out.