Got a bigger tank and need some help?

The sand is pretty easy to take care of IMO. Instead of pushing the vac into the gravel just hold it a little above the sand to suck up the poo and anything else laying ontop of the sand. And I kinda stir my sand up every so often make sure nothing sits buried to long. If you are goin to move your established filter or filters that will give u a jump start on your cycle. I have never transfered directly from one tank to another if that's what your planningn on doing so I'm sure somone else with more experence wil give you more detailed help on that.

Thanks for the response that's great advice because I no nothing about sand lol!!! But yes I'm trying just to transfer everything except the gravel over to the new tank, my tank,filters and rock are all established so hopefully this will give me enough bacteria just to do a transfer. Thanks again :thumb:

If you're not increasing the number of fish from the original tank as you move to the larger one, the new set-up should be able to handle the change without any problems (you should still monitor the ammonia and nitrites for several days just to make sure there isn't a spike). The beneficial bacteria manage the bioload (fish) not the volume of water in the tank.

Thanks good to know and no I won't be adding any more fish till I know everythings working out ok. Thanks for the great advice I'm looking forward to transferring my tanks now!!!

Just a little more piece of mind: I switched from gravel to sand (same tank) a few years ago, but between the filter and the rocks my bacteria didn't take a noticeable hit.

I did put all my saulosi and the running filter in a rubbermaid bin while I changed the substrate...

kevin

I would put some of the old gravel in a net. A stocking works then put it in the new tank for a few days. It's not hard to do.

I just wanted to chime in as someone who did a switch to sand from gravel in a large tank. I had no shift in bacteria from the change. It's a bit different I'm sure since you are also moving from a smaller tank to the larger one, though you should be just fine especially if you keep water/rocks/filter.

Now that I've had sand long enough to know it's quirks and whatnot, my biggest dilemma has been trying to keep a good flow over the sand to keep waste from settling. It took many times moving jets around to get it just right without digging up the sand over time. The heavier waste still doesn't make it to the filter intake, but it all settles in one place now, so I can vacuum it up in just a minute or so whenever I feel like.

Thanks for everyone that responded to my post. I appreciate all the good advice that I got and I'm a little more at ease in making the switch now because hate to lose any of my fish its taken a long time to get the ones I have, so thanks again everyone :thumb: