Moving my Nano to a bigger Nano. Need advice.

[Aeiyr]

As the title states, I'm going to be moving my Nano (14g IM peninsula) to a slightly larger Nano (A ReefCasa 24 gallon laguna) And well, I need advice. I've never moved a reef before, or anything outside of freshwater for that matter.

The New tank has already arrived, and I wanted to go bigger, but not "lets involve a sump" size. I purchased a ReefCasa 24 gallon Lagoon style tank. I'm moving my office to a finished basement, where it will be cooler during my working hours, and where utility access the tank will be easier to maintain, floor weight can't be an issue, and the occasional spill won't hurt anything.

What are some things I should do to prep for this move? I'd like to get it all done in a day, as where I run my filtered RODI water from would make maintaining both tanks a nightmare if I were to wait for a cycle. Do I need to worry about a new cycle? I will not be keeping my sand, and have already purchased 40lbs of FijiPink livesand.

The inhabitants of the tank will not be changing, and are as follows.

About 12 lbs of liverock (about 1.5 years old) and live biofil media in my chamber.

1 small YWG, about 2-2.5 inches.
1 small Royal Gramma, about 2 inches.
5 Nassarius snails, 3 trochus snails, 3 astrea snails.
5 small red legged hermits.
1 3.25 inch Derasa Clam.
4 small Stylopgora, still frag sized.
1 hand sized cabbage leather.
1 duncan, 5 polyps.
1 frag sized purple Monti Cap.
4 Rhodactus Mushrooms, 3 Ricordea, 2 St Thomas.
A few small clusters of Zoas, not really colonizing very well yet.
1 single polyp acan frag.

There is also a candycane pistol shrimp living under the rocks. I can see him still alive and doing his thing from the backside glass on my tank. He is very small and failed to pair with the YWG (I think because of its size). I am unsure of how best to capture and contain it for the move as well, so tips on this appreciated.


The big question is, if my bioload does not change, and i keep the rock and filter media submerged to prevent die off, will they be fine to keep a cycle from rebooting and causing an ammonia spike in the new tank? Should I expect a new cycle anyways? I'll be adding a few new bits of rock to the new tank as it has more open space to do so, but these will mostly be to try encouraging my zoas to actuall grow/spred out, as I have not had great luck with them (or many corals to be honest). Corals seem to live in my tank, but they do not grow. I'm hoping a larger water volume will help keep some things a bit more stable than they have been, and I only very recently learned I had been phosphate starving my tank (0.02 po4)

 

[Tahoe61]

Myself, I would run the new tank with SW for 24 hrs. Than move everything over, and test daily. You might see a slight cycle.

It's funny because I am going from an IM 14 peninsula to a 6 gal Reef Casa. I am going to do a fishless cycle on the new Pico, because I have no fish anyway.

What lighting type do you have? Corals should grow just fine in a 14 gallon.

 

[Aeiyr]

Myself, I would run the new tank with SW for 24 hrs. Than move everything over, and test daily. You might see a slight cycle.

It's funny because I am going from an IM 14 peninsula to a 6 gal Reef Casa. I am going to do a fishless cycle on the new Pico, because I have no fish anyway.

What lighting type do you have? Corals should grow just fine in a 14 gallon.

Woo! another reefcasa owner! good tanks imo, love the massive middle chamber they offer.

My lighting currently are two AI blade grows, 12 inch. Mostly to offset and not have a super high par zone running right down the middle, and because I got a great deal for buying two of them at the time, knowing it would be nice to have when I moved to a tank with a bigger footprint (like now) One light sits at 40%, starting with blues, then midday adds in some whites for about 4 hours, then back to blues for the remainder of the day for 12 total hours. the other light runs at 10%, only blues for a dimmer side. I don't have any real overhang space on my rocks, so this has helped me zone a little and not burn up my single head acan.

I cannot figure out what the issue with my tank is to be honest. I've posted before. I keep my SG at 1.025, I use aquaforest reef salt. Mag always seems weirdly high when i test it, for almost two years it's always been around 1500 but I know lots of people have good success with that level. My chemistry is below.

SG: 1.025
no3: between 7ppm to 25ppm, sometimes 30. I have always struggled with this.
po4: 0.02-0.03
Calc: 440-ish
Mag: 1450-1550
Alk: 10-10.5 dkh
pH: 8.05 low point after lights out, 8.2-8.25 peak during light cycle.

I have always struggled with nitrates. I have to do 5 gallon water changes on a system that has 10 gallons of water every 4 days to keep them below 30ppm. I have never found a reason as to why, and have done much to try to correct it. I tried chaeto, it got crumbly, then slimy, then died. twice. I tried very light nopox, It caused a bacterial slime colony to crash my biofilter, the slime died off and caused an ammonia spike. I was lucky to only lose a few snails and babysat it with ammonia binders and water changes.

I have never successfully kept LPS corals aside from the duncan. hammers, torch, button scoly, and some acan frags, all of them slowly wither away and melt. The duncan has by far done the best, growing 4 new polyps, but no new skeleton. It's just 5 fat polyps on a little skeletal stalk.

Some recent delving pulled some info that makes me think having my po4 at 0.02-0.03 has been starving the corals, especially the LPS. So I have some neophos, and am very slowly raising this to a recommended 0.1ppm. I am hopeful it will help, as I would really like to see my corals spread out and thrive. I've even had zoa frags just wither away to nothing and just don't get why.

It's very bizarre as I've seen folks with fluval 13 gallons just bursting with growth. And here I am scratching my head. The only coral that HAS grown is this cabbage leather i bought. I got a frag that was maybe an inch and a half wide, and it's as big as my hand now. (btw I've heard leather release a lot of growth inhibitors, and I do run carbon and purigen)

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I would run your new tank until the sand clears. Remove about 10g of water, set aside. Drain 60% of the water off the old tank, put it in your new tank. Transfer the rock over, then your critters. top up with the new tank water you took out. You should not have a cycle.

 

[Aeiyr]

I would run your new tank until the sand clears. Remove about 10g of water, set aside. Drain 60% of the water off the old tank, put it in your new tank. Transfer the rock over, then your critters. top up with the new tank water you took out. You should not have a cycle.

Thank you, seems simple enough. I had planned to keep the critters and rocks 8n a big ol BRS bucket of their tank water during the transfer, so should I assume that water will be fine for the mentioned 60% from the old tank? Or would it be laden with stress hormones/chemicals and thus no good?

Also does anyone know how to wrangle a small burrowing pistol shrimp? I'd like to try pairing him again with the ywg in the new tank.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

By first draining about 60% of the water, No stress, leave everything in the tank while you do it. The reason why your are doing that is. Of course you will want to make your new water as close as your old water. But by adding your old water it won't be a total shock. Second, removing your rock next and putting it in your new tank next will allow for you to quickly capture your critters with no barriers, so that is less stress for them. They may stress some when you are removing all their hiding places, but they will be calm by the time you finish putting the rock in your new tank. I would if you can refill your old tank and run it for a bit and let it clear, just to make sure you got everything transferred including pistol shrimp

 

[Aeiyr]

By first draining about 60% of the water, No stress, leave everything in the tank while you do it. The reason why your are doing that is. Of course you will want to make your new water as close as your old water. But by adding your old water it won't be a total shock. Second, removing your rock next and putting it in your new tank next will allow for you to quickly capture your critters with no barriers, so that is less stress for them. They may stress some when you are removing all their hiding places, but they will be calm by the time you finish putting the rock in your new tank. I would if you can refill your old tank and run it for a bit and let it clear, just to make sure you got everything transferred including pistol shrimp

Sounds good. I'll leave my media in the old tank and refill it and let it run as suggested. Without rock I'm sure the shrimp will show up, but he does have some tube's running through the sand that seem to be made of hardened sand. I accidentally crushed one such tube while vaccing the sand last week. Literally looked like a straw made of sand with a perfect tunnel through it.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Sounds good. I'll leave my media in the old tank and refill it and let it run as suggested. Without rock I'm sure the shrimp will show up, but he does have some tube's running through the sand that seem to be made of hardened sand. I accidentally crushed one such tube while vaccing the sand last week. Literally looked like a straw made of sand with a perfect tunnel through it.

You don't have to leave your media in your old tank, your new tank will need it more. The sand in your old tank is enough, just put some floss in. I am sure the sand, detritus, etc. will be stirred up in the move.

 

[Aeiyr]

You don't have to leave your media in your old tank, your new tank will need it more. The sand in your old tank is enough, just put some floss in. I am sure the sand, detritus, etc. will be stirred up in the move.

Noted, thanks for the advice!