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I would do a 20% water change and then a 10% water change every day following until the fish stabilizes. It sounds like a lot, but if you add the water slowly it wont be bothered. If it is lacking oxygen (hovering just below the surface, gasping are signs) I would aerate the water with a powerhead or skimmer. Be careful with bubbles/air pumps as they can make the PH fluctuate in a small tank. There are many factors in acclimating fish successfully so your best bet is turning off the lights for a day, mind the advice above, and run some activated carbon.

Sorry for being jumbled,
Justin

I agree with everyone else. Mag 5 with 1" plumbing. Not 1/2".

With that size sump, the Mag 5 would work. I'm running a Maxijet 1800 on a 20 gal sump and 50 gal display and I'm very happy with it so far. Quiet and powerful, I had to throttle it down for my set up.

My situation is very similar to yours. When I had a 40g w/ 20g sump I was using a mag 5. I have since upgraded to 58 using the same pump.

Everything is running great, but I will be looking to upgrade to a mag 7 shortly.

Yep... I was leaning that way myself.. Easier and I like the biodiversity I have accumulated in there for the past couple of years

I don't want claim to be more knowledgeable as anyone else on here, but I think I can help here. I have moved a tank 6 times now from 20 minutes away to 6 hours away and each time I've just left a couple inches of water over my sand bed and all has been fine. I've done it with a shallow sand bed like yours and a DSB without any problems or die off of any said "critters". There is plenty of oxygen in a couple inches of water to sustain many more micro/ macro organisms that live in our sand. Hope this helps!

- Ryan

Yeah I dont want to loose all those things.. I have worms, and brittle stars and stuff... could always try it.. my sand bed is 1 to about 2 and a half inchs deep depending on the location in the tank.

Good live sand, not the stuff in plastic bags that sits on shelves for months, has a lot more than bacteria in it. It has all sorts of tiny worms, baby brittle stars, small snails, pods and all the other stuff that feeds on that bacteria. Many of these are quite visible with the naked eye.

I moved a 20 gal tank with a shallow sand bed 4 years ago. I handled the sand by simply draining the tank down to the top of the sand bed and moving the tank with the sand in it. I didn't experience any cycling or crash or even algae blooms afterwards. But this was with only 1-1/2" of sand in a pretty small tank. I don't know how well that would work with a 40 gal with deep sand bed.

2 years ago I upgraded a tank I'd inherited from a 40 long to a 50 long (the 40 turned out to be a critter cage with platic bottom and 1/8" glass, disaster waiting to happen). I used new sand with just a couple cups of the old substrate to seed the new sand. Again, I experienced zero livestock lose. So there are lots of ways to skin this cat.

Well your ability to change a tank over in a weekend and the five rocks in your new tank are a real testament to your reefing ability. Once I have years of experience I hope to be able to see bacteria and put five rocks in a 75 gallon tank

Iknow from past experience actually, been in this hobby for years. I use to be able to see.

I know it's like beating a dead horse. But being blind, how do you see the "critters" coming to the surface starving for air?

EF

Well, since I'm blind it would actually be hard any way.

I guess I just misjudged Hats ability to view anaerobic bacteria without a microscope.

Oh well....back to my tank to try to find those elusive sand bed critters. It's like trying to look for bigfoot. Some swear they have seen him, but in the end he really doesn't exist.

HTH

Thank you for understanding, I just posted to help ya! ;-)

Woohoo Melev comes to the rescue!! Thanks man.

And its ok Lads I understood HAT when he mentioned creature or critters. Thank you everyone for taking the time to input your 2 cents!!

I've got a couple of articles for you regarding moving your tank and the used sand bed:

http://www.melevsreef.com/moving_a_tank.html
http://www.melevsreef.com/rinsing_sand.html

I just recently broke down my 280g and I saved 7 salt buckets filled with the sand. I'm going to rinse it all out and have it ready to use in the new tank.

For your move, it would be great if you could have some saltwater already mixing at the new location. You never can have too much clean saltwater. When filling up your tank with sand, a big plastic bag, a platter or a bin / bucket lid works great to avoid stirring up the sand as water is poured or pumped into the aquarium.

Moving LR and livestock is easiest in clean trashcans. New ones ares strong, and have two handles for a helper to assist you move them into the new location. An air pump and airstone will keep the livestock in the barrel oxygenated while the tank is being set up. If you are anything like me, you will want to make small corrections on the new set up, and this takes time. The livestock may need a small heater to keep the temperature stable too.

HTH!

I honestly was not trying to be funny. We are all here to help eachother out in understanding reef keeping. If you want to pick and choose who you take information from an be selective on what information you want to hear then you are only limiting your own knowledge and you are hurting other people who might have had a similar question and are afraid to ask or don't want to ask. Just something for you to think about next time you decide to not answer someones question.

LOL!!!!!!!

Hat. Just for my own curiosity what "critters" are you refering to. I am just trying to understand where you are coming from and your reasoning behind putting an air stone in the sandbed.

Most live sand HAVE critters in it. And, if left witout pumps running for to long, they will die. That is what I was telling TheBChamp. That's All! WOW!!!