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Russell

Moving a tank, 10 feet

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by
Russell
, 12-08-2010 at 07:08 AM (1730 Views)
I'm about to move my 40 breeder across the room to a new, and better location. The tank is about 3 years old, and it's been kinda neglected lately due to a busy fall. The way my stand is built i could easily lower the water to the sand and slide it into position and refill, but I want to take this opertunity to take out my rock and clean some nuisense algae off it and reaquascape the tank. The tank houses mostly soft corals, 3 small/med fish, and has a 4" DSB. The sump contains a refuge.

So heres my plan.

I'll have plenty of SW mixed up and extra RO water. I plan on moving the fish and corals to a large tote with tank water, then I'll indivualy clean and inspect each piece of rock and place it in another tote. I should beable to keep the exposure to air at a mininum. That will leave the tank and sand.

Now for my question, i think the sand bed could be at blame for some of my problems, so i plan on taking it out to clean. But can i wash it and reuse it or should i just start over with new sand? Due to space constraints in a 40B i'm planing only putting 1-2" back. I've read that i can wash and reuse and I've also read that i'd be better off starting new due to possible contamination. Any suggestions? I plan to keep a little old sand to reseed the new bed as it is still lively in places.

Once the tank is empty I'll wipe it down and slide stand and all into place very easily then resand, rerock and restock and hope for a minimum spike. I'm open to any suggestions, Thanks.

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Comments

  1. Heathd's Avatar
    I would start off with new sand, and then clean your old stuff and store it dry in a bucket (or tub, whatever) for later use/tanks.

    If you start off with new sand, scrub down your rocks and knock off nuissance algae, ditritus, etc.... probably wont have much of a spike. Doesnt sound like you have much of a bioload in your tank.
  2. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    What problems do you think the sand bed is causing?
  3. Russell's Avatar
    Not sure if sand bed is too blame, but first 2 years of the tank's life it was pretty much spotless with minimal algae. Now it looks pretty funky. I think the bed has died in places, you can see black spots along the glass. I'm planning on going back to a shallow bed in the main tank. The sump has a 6" dsb that is very alive and clean looking that i plan on not disturbing. The sand i have is fairly old, so new sand in the display may not be a bad idea.