How do you move a Sand Bed !?!

[rikacarl]

I am moving my 2 year old 65 gallon reef into a new 120 gallon tank next month. I am moving into a house (finally!) that is three miles away, not too bad. I have only one problem, and that is I will not get the new tank until weeks after I have moved out of this rental. Maybe even a month later. While waiting for the tank, I am going to set up a spare holding tank for my corals with no sand and hope that I can keep them happy. However, I am worried about the live sand bed, as I would have to move it twice. Should I just start over with fresh sand in the new tank? Or should I try to keep the old sand bed somehow? I am worried about the sand bed turning into fallout like nuclear winter. I would think that moving it would kill most of the small creatures and worms resulting in nutrient overload. How can I move it with the least amount of disturbance? It is 2-3 " deep of sugar sized & very fine sand 36" X 18"

-carl

 

[MFisher]

IME moving a live sand bed results in a lot of lost diversity. You will likely need to get some innoculations from other's sand beds. Nime hasn't looked right since last summer when it was moved (twice) .

 

[2poor2reef]

Good luck. I have been trying to learn how to do this better for years. The only trick I have learned is to skim off the top inch of sand and store that seperately. Then move the rest of the bed and add the top inch back on top. This will preserve some of the infauna in the top inch. I have found that worms can dig out after being burried but some things can't, like mini-brittles. Not much help I know. Please let us all know how your moves worked out as this is an area that everyone seems to struggle with.

 

[Chucker]

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/j_ ... 01898.html

 

[fishfarmer]

The only trick I have learned is to skim off the top inch of sand and store that seperately.

I just moved my system, I luckily was able to set up one tank at the new place and move in steps. My main tank was only about an inch of sand/cc. This got scooped out twice, once into the cooler and once more out of the cooler. This sand went on top of a new 4" bed, I was seeing worm trails within hours. I tried moving my 20 gal sump DSB(small bed with caulerpa) several days before the big move. Joe Weider I aint, so i had to scoop the top layer of sand and caulerpa out and moved the remaining bed intact. I reinstalled the sand/caulerpa. It's closing in on a month since the move. Caulerpa is growing well and will get harvested today. Everything is doing fine except one head of my trumpet. I think it's still early to say the move was successful, but so far things are normal.

 

[Roach]

I have to admit I didn't read all the post because I have seen this thread so often. Anyways when I moved my tank I used a spatula(sp) to scoop the sand out and keep the layers intact. I have seen that some people have used dustpans as well, which would probably work better. The main thing to keep in mind is to keep the layers intact. It helps to drain as much water as possible from both tanks. I would also have some water ready so you can do an emergency water change in case things go wrong. 8O

 

[MaryHM]

Here's my experience:

http://www.reefsource.com/moving_a_sand_bed.htm

 

[rikacarl]

WOW! Moving a 3000 gal system makes my troubles seem petty. Thanks everyone for all the tips. I went to Target yesterday and found 30 gallon rubber containers for $7 each. I plan on using a plastic dust pan to scoop the bed out by sections and then lay it down in the containers. I plan on using an old 100 gal tank to hold all the rock and corals, and then I will set back up the 65 with just sand while I am waiting for the new tank. So that means I will have two working systems running for a month while I wait for the new tank. and I guess that will make 3 moves for the sand. I will follow up next month and we shall see how it goes.

 

[plankton123]

Carl,

I recently upgraded from a 50 to 100 gallon reef tank and basically setup a new sand bed and innoculated with some of the top layer from the old. The reason for not trying to transfer the DSB from one tank to another is that the copapods, worms, etc are very fragile and will mostly likely not make the transfer, die-off and pollute your tank (at least this is how some of the horror stories go). My new sand bed consists of 80 pounds of new sand plus about 20 pounds of the old top layer. I now have about 60 pounds sitting in the garage in a large plastic tub and boy does it stink!! It will probably take a few water changes before I get the smell under control enough to sell it off. BTW, my DSB was setup for four (4) years.

Scott