Moving 10 gallon into a 20 gallon

[kendall]

Can I do this safely without throwing the tank into a cycle and killing my inhabitants. THe tank has been running for a year with a couple pounds of live rock, 2 gobies a snail and Conch...I have a ton of black moon sand in there also. My concerns are really with pouring the water in on top of the sand after I move it...Wouldnt' that cloud up the water, ect.? I've never moved a tank before so any help would be greatly appreciated.
The original project was for it to be an acro tank, but now that I ordered the Sunpod 20 inch 150HQI, I'm thinking of just getting a little bigger tank to make things easier and make it more flexible...
Oh yeah, I have a 46 gallon running also, so I could put things in there if disaster struck, but that's a sensitive tank with lots of acros, splitting anenomes, Clowns, ect...

 

[jon321]

Ive always filled the new tank with new water, then when temp and sg is right, put in old sand and filter. Keeping fish, inverts, lr in a 5-10g bucket overnite with a powerhead. Next day I test water, do a small waterchange if necessary, then add most of the rock. Wait a few hours for things to settle again then start dripping in the fish and inverts. Keep an eye on paramiters for the first week or 2. Might need to do a small like 5% waterchange every other day for the first week just to make sure all is well. Ive never had problems doing this, has always been fine.
Jon

 

[debbie]

I moved my 10 gal to my 25 gal a year ago. I used all the water, sand and filters that were on my 10 gal and moved this all to the 25 gal. The only thing I had to add was 15 gal of new water to makeup the 25 gals needed. It sent my tank into a tiny bit of a cycle but I never lost anything in the way of fish, mushrooms etc.
The more of the stuff from the 10 you can add the better it will be, you said you had another tank also you might want to take some of that water plus some new water to add to it.
Good luck.....

 

[kendall]

I did something similar and it was reasonably smooth...Ended up with a 16 gallon Bf...
1.) Fill 16 gallon with water, adjust temp and salinity.
2.) Remove live rock from 10 gallon and put in 16 gallon.
3.) Syphon sand from 10 gallon into 5 gallon bucket.
4.) Topoff 10 gallon with extra aged water.
5.) Syphon the rest of the sand.
6.) Fill 10 gallon with live rock from 16.
7.) Topoff 10 gallon with aged water.
***I was topping off the 10 gallon because I left the 2 gobies and inverts in there while I removed stuff.
8.) Dump excess water from 5 gallon bucket into sink.
9.) Pour nice clean black sand into plastic grocery bag.
10.) Put grocery bag with sand into 16 gallon. Cut the bottom of the bag with razor blade and slowly pulled up. The sand fell perfectly without clouding up the water.
11.) Moved Live rock over.
13.) Moved fish over. One of the fish I just dropped in forgetting to drip. The other I drip acclimated him. They both are chillin, happy and eating...
14.) Moved inverts over...
15.) Moved Chiller, Filter and powerhead over...
Boom.....Done...A little water on floor, a few panic moments but all is well. The bag trick works really well and allows you to move everything without worrying about cloudy water...
It's been 1 day...No ammonia..Cross fingers.
All I need now is a remora to complete the system.