Big new upgrade - advice on moving stock and cycling please.

[Walshy]

The story so far,

New Godiva 72 x 30 x 30 arrived a few weeks ago now - had take the door jams off to get it into the study - wife chuffed!

Sump 48 x 15 x 15




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Tanks in and filled it on Monday and Tuesday with RO - yes it took that long

2 buckets of salt to get the SG to 1.025

Sand rinsed and added to the tank and Live sand to the sump - will rinse my old sand and use in the sump to get a 6 inch DSB with Cheato and a hang on mud refugium I have spare, why not.





Installed Aquamedic shorty 5000 - had to sit it up to get the flow right and buy a new O ring as the OR3500 was leaking - how overly hard was that to source! I've also used some push fit pipes to get the flow under the water level - they just pull off if I need to move things or access. Great bubbles but not much to skim currently. Not sure what you guys do to stop them ever over skimming and ruining the carpet? Anyone with a shorty out there - how do you adjust the flow - not quite sure what the two elements that twist on the outflow do?


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Lights fitted - heavy old unit the 3x 250W and my wall is celcon and plater and dab - so used heavy duty bolts and plugs with a pumpable epoxy in the holes - Wickes epoxy is rubbish, goes off too quick. This is an area I've been keeping a close eye on - that weight falling onto the tank wouldn't be a good thing!



Plumbed two large tubs from the garage to the sump with taps - I know I'm changing them for food safe ones, their on order. I could have automated more I guess using a float and ball valve but I'll leave for another day - taps are OK for now.


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Resized to 94% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge


Resized to 94% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge


On Tuesday started adding Bactor Boost to hopefully speed up any cycling. I've also added some sand from my old tank to the new sandbed and also exchanged 5 buckets 125 litres of water between them.

Checked the levels today and were as follows:

Old Tank

SG 1.025
PH 8.2 - I run a calc reactor
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5
Phos - 0
Alk - 9.6 bit low
Calc - 400
temp - 25
Ammonia - 0

New Tank

SG 1.025
PH - 8.3
Nitrite 0
Nitrate - 1
Phos - 0
Alk 12.5
cal 450
temp 25

So my question is what next?

Do I keep exchanging water and hope for no cycle
Can I start moving stco accross tomorrow
I was thinking about taking the large rocks in my tank and begining to scape them and add to the new tank whislt leaving the coral, fish and CUC in my old tank

The wife wants the door fixed PDQ so I would like to start moving stock - however what happens if I move to the old tank to the new one and then it starts to cycle - you would think adding rock would help?

I have plenty of soft coral frags that just drop so I was thinking of adding those to the new tank and see how they go as I've mostly got SPS and LPS and thats the way the new tank is going.

Advice guys?

[peacock]

i did this with mine i did have a mini cycle nothing too bad tho. if ur sg and temp match than u should be fine. there shouldn't be to much die off from the lr so can't see there been a cycle

[gregr]

I think moving livestock to the new... wait-- the new tank is awesome!
Ok- I think moving livestock to the new tank is a bad idea unless you can add a lot of mature liverock into the new tank first and even then you probably want to wait at least a little while to see if the levels spike. The livesand and bacteria are going to help but on their own I think you'll be seeing a cycle run its course, however small.

[peacock]

if he is using the water from the old tank then its just like doing a big water change and the lr won't have much die off on it so there should be a spike. if most of the water sand rock is mature than has long has the sg and temp match there shouldn't be a spike maybe a mini cycle if he is luckly

[gregr]

I hear ya- I was mainly just pointing out that without the liverock there would probably be trouble since there'd be nowhere near the amount of biological filtration in the new tank, but there would be the same bioload as in the old.

[peacock]

I hear ya- I was mainly just pointing out that without the liverock there would probably be trouble since there'd be nowhere near the amount of biological filtration in the new tank, but there would be the same bioload as in the old.

i see what u mean m8.if he use his old filter wool in the new tank because it has bin in the mature system it will carry the bioload over to the new tank and then when the lr goes in that won't have much die off. it just going have one tank to other. has long has he use bout 50% of new water and the rest is mature water it should be fine its just like doing a big water change he will probably get a mini cycle.