Moving a 55gal tank to a 125 gallon

[mmstillwell01]

Hi,
I have a 55gal tank setup and I am upgrading to a 125 gallon tank, I have 117lbs of live sand, 41lbs of live rock, 4 fish, two corals and 1 anomne.
I have the 125 gal in the same room about 5 feet away from the 55 gallon.
How do I reuse my sand and move everything without killing everything?
I also have a 42" T-5 light that is only a month old can I use this on my new tank that is 72" long x 25" deep x 18" wide?
I am setting here looking at both tank thinking what to do first

Please help
Thank you.

 

[eric b 125]

i did the same move about a year ago. if you really want to reuse your sand you'll have to rinse it out really well and wait for the new tank to cycle before putting your livestock in. i would take all the water out of the 55, then put the livestock in the bucket with the old water. move all the sand to a few buckets then put all the water, livestock, and LR back into the bare bottom 55 where it will stay with the lights until the new tank has cycled with the sand. you will probably need either a new light or another 30 inch fixture.

 

[mmstillwell01]

How do I rinse it?
with saltwater or freshwater?
I would just buy more but I cant see wasting 117lbs of live sand that I paid over $200.00 for.

Thanks for the help.

 

[jigga w00t]

I did this in June this year, but it was transferring sand from a 24 nano cube that had 40lbs of live sand to a 40gal breeder.
-I bought a 30lb bag of aragonite sand (not live sand), and rinsed it with RO freshwater once (it clouded up the water pretty good), then added it to the tank.
-After draining the water from the nano, (which will be used for the 40), I scooped the sand out (probably 20lbs at a time) into a bucket and rinsed it out, with RO fresh, then dumped the water, then rinsed again. Probably using a gallon or so of water each time. The live sand really clouded up that water.
-After rinsing, the live sand went on top of the aragonite, then I started filling the tank with the previous tank's water. There will be some cloudiness, but depending on your technique of adding the water, you can minimize it...
A lfs guy that I trust said there wouldn't be a cycle, since I was adding matured live sand and matured live rock to the new tank. I don't know how accurate that was, but I don't remember noticing anything die... I only had 2 fish, and a handful of snails and hermits to transfer. They are all doing fine today.

 

[saltwaterri]

I did this 3 mounths ago. I went from a 72gal to a 155 gal tank. The new tank had to go in the same spot. I took everything out of the 72 and put it in trash buckets Water and rock. I put my 6 fish and corals in a 5 gal buckets with a heater and a small powerhead. I moved my sand without rinseing into new tank also added some new sand. Put all of my old water in new tank then filled it with new made up water. Rung out my sponges in the new tank to get some good waste going in the tank. Added all my rock in the process of all this. When the water cleared up and was at temp I acclimated everyone and dropped them in. Tank did a little cycle but nothing major. I only lost a couple of crabs and snails in the whole move, And is just because I never found them. Risky but it worked > Took about 10 hrs to make the transfer