Upgrading Nano Size

[malx]

Ok everyone.... here’s my problem:



I have these this carpet anemone that’s outgrown his tank in the 14 months I’ve owned him. His name is Pancake.

So I’m building him a 20g nano with a 8g sump. I want everyone’s suggestions on what you would do to minimize the risk of killing anything and reducing the cycle time, letting the good biology in from the current nano but keeping nutrients out.

Also, I imagine I’d have to move certain livestock first and the anemone later, so I’m ok with maintaining two systems for a bit.

Here’s the stock list:
Phantom Clownfish (Qwerty)
Wyoming White Clownfish (Cheese)
Carpet Anemone (Pancake)
Turbo Snail (Boulder)
Halloween Hermit (Michael)

Let me know,
Joey



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[ryeguyy84]

You think he outgrew the tank? When I moved from my 60 to the 90 I did the following.

1) plumb the new tank
2) add new (heavly rinsed, this will make the tank clear faster) sand to the 90 and a few new piece of rock
3) fill with water about half way
4) then I drained enough old tank water to fill a bucket and put whatever fish I could catch into it. I put in a small.heater and airstone
5) then I moved all the rocks and coral over to the new tank (this should move all the bacteria with it since it never drys out)
6) fill tank all the way and make sure plumbing isn't leaking anywhere
7) add all the fish from the bucket and the rest of the fish I caught now that they can't hide in the rocks.
8) then I added Dr. Tim's one and only. It's bacteria just in case.

Then I watched for a mini cycle but it never happened.

I'm sure there are better ways but this worked for me in the little time I had. I also had a marinepure block in my old tank that I'm sure helped. Those things are awesome.

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[thegrun]

The safest methodology is to set up the new tank with new sand and whatever additional rock you will be adding to the new system and then cycle the new tank. After the new tank has cycled match temperature and alkalinity (transferring 10-20 % of the water between the two tank for a few days before the livestock transfer is the best way to do this) of the two tank and you should be fine to move everything over at once.

[malx]

Thanks everyone for the tip. So based on your responses here's what I think I'm going to do. Note, both my Nano tank and my SPS Main Display tank run ZEOvit, so here's what I'm doing.

1: I went to the LFS and purchased enough live rock for the new nano. That live rock is currently in my SPS tank that's matured about two years. It's not "cycling" but it is getting all of the bacteria and microfauna from my SPS main display. In fact, when I cycled this Nano I used a piece of rock from my SPS main display as well to seed and in months I had tons of pods and sponges and no problem algae. It will be there about a week. I'm dosing ZEObak daily.

2: The tank will be ready in a week, after it is, I'm going to do two water changes on my SPS tank a few days apart. That will remove about 30 gallons of water total from it. I'm going to use this water to fill up the NANO, and at that point, I'll move some live rock from my SPS main display, a combination of some of the oldest live rock in there, and some of the newer rock.

3: After 1 and 2, I'm going to take the 2" x 2" filter pad that I use in the old Nano and change it out to a fresh one, bring the old filter pad home and put it in the new Nano for a day or two.

I feel 1, 2, and 3, is going to give me plenty of biology and microfauna for the new tank.

4: After these are done, I'm still going to go through a ZEOvit cycle which takes about two weeks. I've done 3 ZEOvit cycles total in my life and ammonia spikes to about .25ppm through the cycle. I'll monitor Ammonia and Nitrite closely. If I don't have an ammonia or nitrite spike within 2 days, I'd say that the tank has enough biology to support the fish which I'll add a week later once I know everything is working. If I do have a spike, I'll wait for the full cycle and add the fish after.

5: I'll then add the snail and crab I have to confirm it's safe for inverts. Then, add the anemone after a day or two once I confirm again, the fish did not cause a spike in ammonia, or nitrite.

The only thing that's moving from my current nano to the new nano is its APEX controller. I'll move that when I move the anemone.

I'm not worried about Nitrate and Phosphate with this new tank. My nitrates in my nano are about 25-40 and everything is happy. I'm almost tripling the water volume with this new tank, and tripling the size of the refugium, which I'm going to grow mangrove trees.

I'll post updates as I go along! If you're interested in the original tank, I have a thread on it here!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2621715

Thanks,
Joey

[malx]

Hi, All.

Wanted to post an update here in regards to the tank cycle. I used Live Rock from my 2 year old SPS main display. Also 15 gallons of water from my SPS main display were used to fill this nano, along with 5 gallons of fresh water.

Still, I started my ZEOvit cycle which should have ammonia spike to about .25ppm and drop over a few days. The next day, I tested both ammonia and nitrite and they registered 0.

I wanted to repost it here since I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread. I'm going to test Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate, Temp (my temp probe is on the current nano) and SG to confirm, but if parameteres all check out, think it's safe to add the two clownfish? Then I'll wait a few days maybe a week, and add the anemone and snails. Because I used water and rock from my main display, is it possible my tank was able to cycle that fast?

Thanks
Joey