Leaking Aquarium

[errattiq]

Well, I wake up this morning to find a small area of water on my floor. I couldn't figure out for the life of me where it was coming from but I finally took a look between my tank and the wood lip of my stand and bingo, a thin layer of water

! I have a 55gal reef tank, and I have a question. I'm going out to grab a new tank in a couple days and do the swap. However, my tank has been set up for a year and 3 months with a live sand bed about 2.5" deep. I know it's best to use new live sand so I'm going to grab some. Now, what is the likelihood I'm going to go through a cycle just by adding in new live sand? With my current livestock and coral, going through a new cycle isn't an option. Should I salvage some of my old sand? Any advice from anyone that has done a tank swap because of a leak would be great. I mean, I plan on removing all contents of the tank at night, remove the old tank and replace it with the new, fill it with sand and water and leave it overnight for the sand to settle, and put everything back in the morning. Good plan? Let me know. thanks
-Josh P.

 

[mr_x]

you aren't going to have a cycle.
do yourself a favor. buy dry sand. it will become live soon enough. you can use some of your sand to seed it if you like. all the bag-live sand has in the bag is some bacteria. you already have that on your live rock. it will spread to all surfaces including your sand bed in a short time.
just make sure you rinse the dry sand well to get the powder out of it or you'll have alot of cloudiness for a few days.