moving of fish, sand and live rock to a new tank help

[penny ish]

is it possible to transfer the contents of another tank into a bigger tank. I am thinking about getting a bigger tank and i would like to transfer my sand bed, live rock, and all fish to a bigger tank. is this possbile??? do i have to cycle the tank first???? i might add a little bit more sand but i may buy it from my LFS and not use the bagged kind. has anyone done this?? any success????? can my fish die from stress of levels get thowen off? the tank they are in now has been running for about 1 1/2 years. thanks for the help.

 

[fuax]

I did it about 6 months ago Transfered my 100 gal into a 150 gal. i got 1 -5 gal bucket to put my fish in with an air stone and purchased 3 -35 gal clean garbage cans (rubber ones with no holes) I spread the live rock between the 3 cans and drained the water into them. When that was done I took another 5 gal bucket and put the sand in it. Then removed my old tank, set up the new tank and began filling it with the water from the cans by pumping it in with an extra powerhead I have. Set the rock up the way you want it set up while you are filling it (it makes it easier). you may need to mix up some new salt water depending on how much larger the new tank is. I let the tank run over night to clear itself up and then in the moring I put my fish back into it.
The whole change over process took me about 5 hours from tear down to set up. My fish where alil stressed but over all they where fine.
Make sure you use as much of the old water, sand and BIO media from your old tank as you can. My tank was set up for 5 years prior to doing this.

 

[michelle l]

I just moved a 125 gallon from one house to another. I didn't go to a bigger size, but I was concerned about disturbing the sand bed and killing my bacteria. I did it about the same way that the poster before me did...I bought several rubbermaid tubs and placed the sand in it (I would have used large rubbermaid trash cans, but I was moving so I needed to be able to transport the weight easier than large trash cans would allow) Then I filled them with as much original tank water as I could and still be able to move them (if you are just upgrading size, you wouldn't really need to worry about being able to move them) I placed half of my live rock and inverts into one rubbermaid tub, and placed a powerhead in there for circulation, and I placed my fish and the rest of my live rock in an insulated cooler, and placed another powerhead in there for circulation. ( I wanted the cooler to maintain the temperature of the fish's water because the day we moved was a hot day. ) I tried to hang my Emperor power filter on the side of the cooler, and it fit, but the stupid thing didn't have enough ooomph to pull the water up that far, so I scrapped that idea. The advantage you have is that since you aren't changing locations, just tank sizes, you can save most of your original water.
Then we moved the tank, I scooped the sand back into the tank, filled it with the original water that I had saved, mixed new water to replace what I couldn't bring with me, and started the pumps and filters. The water was really cloudy but I had to put the inverts back in because the water temp was dropping fast in the non-insulated rubbermaid tub. Everyone did just fine. The next morning I checked everything and acclimated the fish who had stayed in the cooler overnight, and placed them back in when that was done. All of it went over flawlessly, aside from being a major PIA.
Also, just to play it safe, I purchased two bags of the Bio-Spira bacteria made by Marineland and added that. I'm not sure if it helped at all, but I figured it couldn't hurt. I'm sure that disturbing the sand bed affected the bacteria levels in a negative way. You may want to consider buying some.
I'm sure that increasing the size of your tank is a similar process, except that you have to get the live sand to make up the difference between the two tank sizes.

 

[texasmetal]

Cool, that's something I'd been considering since I'm about to move.

 

[heddy]

in 3 weeks i have to move my tank into another room while we have the room where the fish tank lives tiled. then, a week later, i have to move it back. any suggestions? from anyone? the advice given above is extremely helpful, but has anyone had to do something like what im about to do?
54 gal corner up for approx4 mos
lots of life in there, no corals
60lbs live rock
60lbs sand
any ideas? can i maybe leave them all in rubbermaid containers for a week? that seems really long. i bet they would die. hmmmmm any help here would be greatly appreciated!!!
sorry if i should have started a new thread here... i just thought the question fit with the original :help:

 

[feixjai]

i also did this transfer about 2 months ago. i asked and they said it would be better to wait but i couldnt wait because school was about to begin. so i got a big tub. took out as much water so that it can cover the corals, fish and all the live rock into the tub. then i move the old 20 gallon to the floor for a little bit. then got a net and scooped out all the sand from my old tank into the new tank. then i started adding a little water. then i started to get all the live rock into the position i liked them. added water until my filter could run. i had a qt going and i had nothing to do with it so i just got the qt and pour it in the tank also. but i didnt take that much water out of the tub. since i have a 24 gallon nano cube i had to fill it up into the little vent where water goes through. so got the water up. ran about 5 bags of carbon in the tank. cleared up in about 1 hour or so. then i started to acclimate the fish. put them all in and the hardy corals i had in. and they all lived. my fish were also stress for a few days but then i soaked their food in zoecon so they would come out and eat. and now i have a sucessful reef.