moving tank and need substrate help please

[gerry45]

I am moving my 120 gallon next week and wonder if I should keep my inch and a half sugar sand bed which I don`t care for as it gets kicked up too much. could I maybe put an inch or so of medium aragonite on top of the sand? the sand is so gross with fish turds etc maybe I should just ditch it and change to medium aragonite. the sand bed is about 6 months old.

 

[mudplayerx]

I would personally ditch the old sand. You are going to have to quarantine all of your critters for awhile after the move anyways do to the cycle.

 

[gerry45]

by quarantine, I have a dozen fish,could I put them together in a 35 gallon tank with circulation and some live rock for a couple of days?
should I mix some of my old tank water with new in the quarantine tank? also,will they be ok without a skimmer for a day or 2? hopefully the cycle won`t be too severe.

 

[mudplayerx]

If you are just moving the tank to a new location in the same house then you can probably just save all of the old water and not really have much of a cycle at all. However, if you used this method I would definately bag up some of that old sand in nylon stockings and put it on top of the new sand for a few days. Just monitor the nitrites and nitrates.
If you are moving the tank to a new house where you are going to have trouble saving all of the old water, then a cycle is most likely going to occur.
I would say that you could probably quarantine your fish in a 35 gallon tank while the other cycles. Just have plenty of hiding places and buy an air pump or two to keep the water saturated with oxygen. Might want to buy some Ammocarb or other brand of ammonia absober and use that too. (edit - I just noticed that you have a 120 gallon tank, so you may have some pretty big fish.... you might not be able to quarantine them in a 35 gallon after all).
Hope this helps. I moved my 55 gallon tank to another place in the house once before and my mini-cycle only lasted a week.

 

[candycane]

Your tank is going to run through another small cycle regardless of what you do. As for keeping the sand, is there a reason that you want to ditch it? If it has a plethra of animal life in it, this could be beneficial. Also there are many chemicals that you can purchase to help your tank cycle a little quicker. I myself just like to let nature take its course. You tank HAS to cycle at some point.

 

[gerry45]

the sand always clouds up my water and is smelly and gross but I am going to have more water movement after I move it. I could keep it and just put some coarser aragonite on top if the sand is beneficial.

 

[candycane]

Why though? It appears to be better to have "sand stirrers" in your tank to keep your sand bed stirred up. Especially in a reef if that is what you have. The smell is normal, might even smell like sulfur. Also there is a product that is supposed to good called Bio-Spira that you may want to look in to. See if any of your local stores carry it. I have read about it, but never used it.

 

[mudplayerx]

Originally Posted by gerry45
the sand always clouds up my water and is smelly and gross but I am going to have more water movement after I move it. I could keep it and just put some coarser aragonite on top if the sand is beneficial.
The aragonite will more than likely settle to the bottom over time, leaving you with sugar sand on the top again.