Hi all!
I am planning an upgrade from my current 10 gallon nano to a 40-65 gallon tank. I really want to go ahead and get the 65 (I found one in my price range that is reef ready) but also, I am afraid if I upgrade, I will lose my 10 month old biofiler...I was originally going to just do a 20-30 and then I was researching and of course I have come to the conclusion that I will eventually want a larger tank anyway, and since I got the OK from my parents, I thought I would just go for the big upgrade now instead of doing two upgrades this year lol. I'm renting in their downstairs apartment, and they originally said I could not bring my 55 gallon tank bc they fear it will leak or burst or something awful like that lol. I think I convinced them it will be okay but I got rid of that tank when I moved and have been running the 10 since. Still have a ton of equipment that I can use on a larger tank though!
So my problem is this:
I have an anemone (That im nursing back to health due to him being bleached when I got him, I didn't know until after bc I just thought he was supposed to be white...should have researched first!), a leather coral, a candy cane, clover, zoas and star polyps with 2 clowns. I am extremely good about siphoning my sand and I redo my aquascape almost every other week or more and it gets stirred up quite a bit. Never have ammonia. Weekly 25% water changes with red sea water. Running an AquaClear 30 right now.
So I want to use my sand, and knowing how much it gets cleaned, and knowing that I've used my sand in new tanks before with no issue, I am going to do it. Only half of it is the old sand anyway. When I downgraded 2.5 months ago, I used about 5 lbs of my old and and 5 lbs of new sand. So the sand is good. I will be using my current 20 lbs of live rock and getting more base rock (don't want to get more live rock because i've had serious hitchhiker problems in the past) and I want to use all of my water as well so I can get as much of this filter transferred over as possible. I know the filter is not really in the water column so much, but still I need all the help I can get with this big of an upgrade lol.
Problem is, I am afraid that the nano biofilter will not transfer over to be enough filtration for a 50-65 gallon without a decent size cycle. Is there a way to do this and still be able to say I have a 10 month old, established tank? lol I do not want to go back to a new/baby tank status again. My corals cant handle that.
I had one idea that would require more patience than I really want to have, but its doable:
Get a 20-30 gallon tank and temporarily upgrade to that (adding new sand and rock) while using my HOB aquaclear 70 to get a bigger volume of cycled water, sand and rock then in a few weeks or so once the new stuff has integrated with my old stuff, do the big upgrade to the 65 with sump?
Would this be a safer way to do it or is there anyone who has successfully upgraded from a nano to such a larger tank in one try without losing livestock?
Im also willing to keep my 10 gallon running for a while but that would mean less of the biofilter going from 10 gallon established tank to 65 gallon new tank. So im torn!
Please help!
I am planning an upgrade from my current 10 gallon nano to a 40-65 gallon tank. I really want to go ahead and get the 65 (I found one in my price range that is reef ready) but also, I am afraid if I upgrade, I will lose my 10 month old biofiler...I was originally going to just do a 20-30 and then I was researching and of course I have come to the conclusion that I will eventually want a larger tank anyway, and since I got the OK from my parents, I thought I would just go for the big upgrade now instead of doing two upgrades this year lol. I'm renting in their downstairs apartment, and they originally said I could not bring my 55 gallon tank bc they fear it will leak or burst or something awful like that lol. I think I convinced them it will be okay but I got rid of that tank when I moved and have been running the 10 since. Still have a ton of equipment that I can use on a larger tank though!
So my problem is this:
I have an anemone (That im nursing back to health due to him being bleached when I got him, I didn't know until after bc I just thought he was supposed to be white...should have researched first!), a leather coral, a candy cane, clover, zoas and star polyps with 2 clowns. I am extremely good about siphoning my sand and I redo my aquascape almost every other week or more and it gets stirred up quite a bit. Never have ammonia. Weekly 25% water changes with red sea water. Running an AquaClear 30 right now.
So I want to use my sand, and knowing how much it gets cleaned, and knowing that I've used my sand in new tanks before with no issue, I am going to do it. Only half of it is the old sand anyway. When I downgraded 2.5 months ago, I used about 5 lbs of my old and and 5 lbs of new sand. So the sand is good. I will be using my current 20 lbs of live rock and getting more base rock (don't want to get more live rock because i've had serious hitchhiker problems in the past) and I want to use all of my water as well so I can get as much of this filter transferred over as possible. I know the filter is not really in the water column so much, but still I need all the help I can get with this big of an upgrade lol.
Problem is, I am afraid that the nano biofilter will not transfer over to be enough filtration for a 50-65 gallon without a decent size cycle. Is there a way to do this and still be able to say I have a 10 month old, established tank? lol I do not want to go back to a new/baby tank status again. My corals cant handle that.
I had one idea that would require more patience than I really want to have, but its doable:
Get a 20-30 gallon tank and temporarily upgrade to that (adding new sand and rock) while using my HOB aquaclear 70 to get a bigger volume of cycled water, sand and rock then in a few weeks or so once the new stuff has integrated with my old stuff, do the big upgrade to the 65 with sump?
Would this be a safer way to do it or is there anyone who has successfully upgraded from a nano to such a larger tank in one try without losing livestock?
Im also willing to keep my 10 gallon running for a while but that would mean less of the biofilter going from 10 gallon established tank to 65 gallon new tank. So im torn!
Please help!
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