Combining two 55 Gallon Tanks into a 125 Gallon 6 Foot Tank

[snapper1]

Hi I need some Good Advice I want to combine two 55 Gallon Community Tanks with Clowns and Damsels and Gobys into a 6 Foot long 1 ft and a half high 1 ft wide 125 Gallon Tank.These two 55 Gallon Tanks are over 1 Year old and have 3 Inch deep Sand Beds and alot of Live Rock.Has anyone ever combined two smaller Tanks into a Large Tank?.How did it go did the Tank go through a new Cycle phase and how did the Fish do.I would appreciate some Good advive from people with past Experience on this Issue please Thank you.I have not bought the Tank yet it would be a Used Tank if I do .

 

[mr_X]

i put the contents of my 125 into a 200.
i first filled the 200 about 70% of the way and cycled it with about 60 pounds of live rock. then added the live rock and livestock from the 125, and i filled my sump (125 gallon tank) with alot of the water from the old 125. i had a pretty hard time even seeing the cycle...the ammonia, trite, and trate was so dilluted by the large amount of water.
when i added the live rock from the original tank, i transported it fully submerged, to limit die-off. i didn't see any spike when adding the livestock and rock from the original tank, but algae blooms are as if the 200 is brand new.


hope that helps

 

[Entacmaea]

Hey Snapper, Mr. X's methods look good to me. Just don't transfer your sand bed- start with a new one, and seed it with a small amount of your old one, on top of the new sand, Your old sand bed will contain alot of nasty stuff most likely, so better to start anew.

 

[mr_X]

in addition to the sand bed info, i'd say it was ok to use all of your old sand bed as long as you rince it thoroughly with saltwater to remove all the old nasties.

 

[Anonymous]

I reused the old sandbed, OTOH. Some people have issue, but I did not. You can remove the sand bed first by using a siphon and suck it out as a slurry. Dump the old sand bed in the new tank, let it settle a little, and if necessary, add a little of seawater to make sure it is covered completely. Then you can test the moved sandbed by testing for A/N/N as well as put in some critters that you don't care about (algae, aptasia, etc.) and see if it is toxic.

I am not that cautious, and seem to be pretty lucky so far with no cycle when move content from one tank to another.

The one thing that you want to make new as much as possible is the water. Think of it as a good opportunity to make a 100% water change. But you have to make sure you won't shock your livestocks/rock/sand with the water, so for the sand procedure above, use the old water instead until you are ready to move the rest of the content over.

 

[Entacmaea]

Well, if you rinse the old sand enough to remove all the detritus and nasties, you are removing all the good stuff and critters as well mostly likely- so not sure what the point is... Glad you guys have had success with it, just not worth the risk IMO. In this case, I would actually seed the new sand bed in the 125 with about 20-30 lbs of *unrinsed* old sand on top of the new, to transfer the old sand bed critters and bacteria into the new bed. At this volume, the transfer of nasties in relation to the cycle for the new tank should be minimal, while still preserving some sand bed fauna.

 

[mr_X]

the point is not buying new sand.

 

[snapper1]

Thank you all very much I think I will keep all the old sand since it is cycled and I have alot of Live Rock.

 

[cindre2000]

Rinsing the old sand with saltwater will not remove the bacteria. And if you do it in the 55g tanks, and then scoop the sand into the new tank, you will keep most of the critters as well.