Upgrading to larger tank on same stand

[ReeferRyanTN]

I’ve currently got an 80g tank and I’m upgrading to a 120g with the same footprint…so I’m using the same stand and canopy.

Disclosure: I’m currently battling a bit of Cyanobacteria and my nitrates and phosphates are 0. Been dosing those two for about 5 days. I haven’t yet given in and gone to Chemi-Clean, but with the upgrade coming, I might end up doing that.

Really need some experienced advice here. I’m curious whether I should bring over the rock, sand and “old” water, then top off the tank with new saltwater to fill it, or whether I should only bring over the rock and get new live sand and new water.

I currently have 11 corals with my biggest, most expensive one being an elegance. The others are frags except for a decent sized toadstool leather. I also have 4 small fish…2 clowns, a 6-line wrasse and a yellow coris wrasse. The current CUC isn’t much….a handful of nassarius and cerith snails.

I also have an unused LED BioCube 16 available if I need it to hold the corals and fish in for a bit.

 

[Wave Whisperer]

Ditch the old sand and move the rocks over. I recently did an upgrade as well and I've used dry sand but moved my existing rocks from my previous system.

IMO and experience, and from taken on knowledge in this forum, as long you have established rocks, using dry sand is fine. Just needs to be thoroughly washed beforehand. You can save a lot by going this route. Live sand to me are an unnecessary cost for a tank upgrade. You'll be fine with going dry as long you have established rocks carried over from the previous system. Just remember to sieve thru your old sand to look for any inverts or snails that you might have missed.

For water, you can just mix up a fresh batch. In my recent move, I mix a whole batch of new water for total system volume and just threw out the old. Seeing that you are not SPS dominated, my best assumption is you'll be fine. My LPS are grumpy for a few hours, but soon realised its better in the new tank. Just remember to keep your salinity, temp and alk similar or near to your last parameters. Try to up the nutrients a bit in the new system though.

Good luck with the move!