Funny you should mention that. My 5 year old was observing the tank yesterday and he said my cleaner shrimp was going after a crab and my purple firefish got in the way of cleaner shrimp to help let the crab escape (or it just really wanted to be cleaned). Also yesterday, I shut off my powerhead to do my nightly feeding for my Green Mandarin (I do that with a turkey baster). I left it off for about 20 minutes and the mandarin actually swam up to the top of the tank a few times to grab some small pieces of shrimp (the first time I have ever seen it do this). I also watched my cleaner shrimp swim vertically into the water column to try and get at the turkey baster as I was pulling it out of the tank. In addition my scissortail and purple firefish stole my diamond watchman goby's original burrow and they share it together.
If it's a used tank, go with the bleach water, rinse out and dry as best as possible and let air dry for 24 hours then do distilled WHITE vinegar, rinse out as best as possible and let air dry for 24 hours. If you have a used filter or any other equipment that you want to use you will need to run them during the process. I actually learned the sanitation method I used to get rid of the goo gone ick in my tank from people who buy used tanks and that is what they do to throughly clean it out. The distilled vinegar spot treatment and salt with a little bit of water only works for cleaning off label adhesive on the inside of a new tank. For the rinse out I actually stuck my tank in the bathtub and hit it with the shower sprayer for 15-20 minutes for each time before wiping it down completely.
Honestly you can't add anything that won't be throwing away money and the live sand and live rock will be a problem as once they are kept out of saltwater for a period of time you have to start the cycling process all over again. The way the cycling process works is that there is an initial die off on the live rock of dead organisms from when they are kept out of saltwater, which involves spikes of ammonia, followed by nitrites and then nitrates before everything zeros out and then it is followed by a brown algae bloom. Until that algae bloom hits anything beyond the saltwater, dry/live rock and live sand is exposed to things that would be lethal. As for feeding what is in your tank, the only thing I can think of is if you are converting your dry rock to live rock, you might need to add some live bacteria to jump start the cycling process. The problem is that there is no real practical way to transport any of this stuff for a cross states move and you will have to start the process over again when you get there, unless you can get a bunch of 5 gallon buckets with gamma lids and put the live rock in there submersed in salt water while you drain the tank. It might save it from being a complete waste but you will need to completely clean the tank out before starting this again. I'm not trying to be debbie downer here but I am trying to explain how the process works and why it would be foolish to add anything more to the tank at this point.
The big question is whether or not you will have the space to move them (how big is your tank and how many lbs of live rock and sand are you going to have to move). If you keep the stuff submerged in saltwater it should be okay, but you will have to hope the seal is tight enough to not have salt water sloshing around all over. I am afraid you will likely lose the live sand since there simply is no practical way to scoop that stuff up and keep it wet and then transfer it back into the tank. The good news is that it is not nearly as expensive as the rock is. You will definitely want to keep a close eye on the Ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels when you get it setup again and it might need a week or two to get the new live sand settled in.Okay and thank you! I have ordered 5 five gl covered buckets from *****, online. If I put the rocks in the water do you think they will live? I am not planning to move the aquarium until December or January. If putting them in the buckets will save them, I am willing! I already have $1,800 in this precious hobby!
Just out of curiosity, why so much sand? I have a 36 gallon tank with 40lbs of live sand. I would go with more rock and less sand unless you are looking at getting some really deep burrowing fish.
