Tank Upgrade Question

[bhuddafunk]

I'm getting ready to upgrade my current 46 gallon tank to a 65 gallon. The new tank will be going in the same place as the old so I was going to drain the water from the current tank into new 20 gallon garbage cans that I picked up from home depot. I was also going to store my current live rock in the plastic cans as I move the old tank out of position. Once moved I was going to add 30lbs of new sand as as well as my existing sand band, add the live rock and put the water that I siphoned out earlier into the new tank. I was curious how long my water can keep before I run into a problem with bacteria die off? I was planing on adding what I'm missing from a water standpoint with new saltwater, which will end up being about a 1/3 water change. I'm not going to be a position to recycle the tank since most of my livestock will be living in Tupperware during this time. I welcome any suggestions for this migration as I've never tried anything like this before and don't want to end up with a dead live stock in the end. I'm moving my corals out to a frag tank I have a day before.

[naterealbig]

Keep a powerhead or two and a heater in each bin with the liverock and water, and be sure to aerate well. You can do this using the powerheads or with an air pump. if done this way, your rock and water will be fine for several days/weeks. Good luck!

[bucman727]

+1 what Naterealbig said. Also if you could set up a small light on it for a short duration each day will help as well. Key though is circulation and temp.

[Barfly]

Sounds like a good plan except for putting the old sand in the new tank. By doing so, you are asking for future problems. If you must use the old sand, make sure to rinse it THOROUGHLY.

[bhuddafunk]

Thanks for the advice, the original tank was only up and running for about 9 months so that is the current age of the sandbed now. I was looking to have the whole operation done in about 4 hours old tank to new tank. If you guys think I should still do a new sandband that's fine also.

[Barfly]

Originally Posted by bhuddafunk

Thanks for the advice, the original tank was only up and running for about 9 months so that is the current age of the sandbed now. I was looking to have the whole operation done in about 4 hours old tank to new tank. If you guys think I should still do a new sandband that's fine also.

I can't stress enough about the use of old sand. Even though the existing sand bed is only 9 months old, that is plenty of time for it to now include plenty of nasty stuff. If the sandbed is more than 3 inches deep, I would be very cautious about reusing it without a serious rinsing first. As you can probably tell by now, I run my tank barebottom. Although I agree a nice sandbed looks nicer than a BB, I will never put sand in my tank again. IMHO, a sandbed is a super detrius trap that turns into a ticking time bomb. There are many examples of tanks with deep sand beds crashing over time. Without going into great detail, over time the sandbed becomes saturated with bad stuff and creates all kinds of havoc on the tank. I honestly believe this is the cause of the countless problems people have when all other parameters of the tank seem fine.