swapping fishtanks

[gksipps]

Hello everybody. Have a questions for those who may have been through this before. We have a 90 gal on one wall of our living room. It is the ONLY available space in the living room for our tank. We bought a new fishtank (went from hang-on filter to sump system) and a new stand.
How to get the NEW tank in the OLD tank's spot, considering the old tank is full of water, fish, sand, and rock? It would be easy if we could put the new tank somewhere else, but because the fireplace takes up one wall, the TV takes up another, and the 3rd wall has NO wall (open to kitchen) that leaves us with few options....
????
Thanks!
Karen

 

[usinkit]

I just did this for a friend. We basically put the water and live rock in two 55 gallon drums and the live stock went into his QT tank. We put some live rock in the QT and a power head so there would be no problem with a new cycle. We put a power head and heater in with the rock and corals. Switched the tanks out. We put the sand and water in the new system got the temp up, seeded it with some of his old sand. Then put the rocks in let it settle out for 48 hours. After it settled we put the livestock back in. It wasnt that bad and took us maybe 4 hours to do the exchange over. HTH