Moving Day

I'm so nervous about today!  Today's the move from my 55 gallon to the 90 gallon drilled.  I have a course of action but I'm still afraid the nitrate spikes are going to kill all fish, inverts and coral.  I'd feel better if someone could give me their 2cents on this.

I've had highly concentrated saltwater cycling since yesterday, I'm hoping I can just dilute it and not have little salt particles in the new tank... hurrying things up a bit.  I have about 40lbs of new live rock, a new PH and I think I'll keep my 20 gallon sump/fuge as the one I'm getting with the tank is sump only.

I'm putting egg crate down on the bottom of the tank.. a suggestion to distribute rock weight.  I have made a PVC stand for the rocks in back (thanks Jamison!).  I may use it, I may not, cost me $3 so I can go either way.

So I plan on laying down the egg crate / pvc stand and adding water then rock... aquascaping a few gazillion times.  During this my critters will all be in the 55, probably a VERY cloudy 55 with nitrates from moving all the rock.  I'll leave a tinsy piece of rock for my brittle star to hide under.

Once I get my rocks set I wanted to add the sand... this is where it's getting me nervous.  All of that sand is going to release a TON of nitrate, both in the 90 and in the 55!  It's also going to put up one huge cloud of dust particles in both tanks.   Do you think this will hurt the fish and coral?

I do have a QT but it has copper in it so I could put the fish but no the coral in there. 

Once the dust settles I'll move over the livestock, hook up the lights and let everything calm down.

I'm going from 260W PC's to 2 175W MH's so I'm assuming I can't just run the MH's 4 hours the first day so I figure 30 minutes for 2 days, 60 min for 2 days, then upping 30 min every few days.

Did I miss anything?  Is there any chance at all things will survive?

TIA

Tanya

P.S.  Adam, you may be able to come get the Coral Nipping Coral Beauty this weekend if you are free.

Eeeps, I didn't know I need new sand!  Where's the cheapest place to get that?  I'm pretty tapped out from the upgrades.  Also how do you get all of the worms, clams, snails, etc out of the old sand?

i just took everything out and put it in buckets moved tank and started puting things back in when i moved my tank i used the same sand and just dumped it in i had to ad fish that night and every thing made it  so i dont think you will have to much to worrie about

here is what I did when I moved to my 90 gallon tank, nothing died. no spikes detectable.

scoop the top layer of live sand (about 1-2") and put it into a separate container and keep it covered with tank water and with as fine a layer as possible,( I.E. don't dump it all into a 5 gallon bucket) rinse with old tank water slightly.
   then rinse all of the sand that is left in fresh water, until there is no dust, debris.

then when you are ready to add the sand, add the washed layer first, then add the old top layer to this washed layer.

this way you get to keep the live.

 you are going to need more sand to maintain the same depth. (90 vs. 55) you would want that layer down first. but it could also be added later very slowly, I would suggest 1/2" amounts if you go with the later route.


Edited by bbeck4x4 - March 15 2008 at 12:07pm

dion, you are referring to the egg crate in the sand bed and not the shelf, correct? Guess maybe I was too cautious.

hey, as long as there is a deep sand bed in your sump you'll be fine

you could even go bare bottom and do the 5 gallon bucket dsb, if you ever get unhappy with it, pull it out. although I think the livestock expect a bottom to dig around in.
I have yet to see a bare bottom ocean