Any Advice For Moving Fish To New Tank?

[pookerpics]

Hi, I'm new here, and I'm hoping I can get some advice. I just purchased a 55 gallon tank setup with an Aquaclear 70 power filter. I want to move my fish from my 30 gallon tank into it. I'll be moving two Bala Sharks, a crayfish, a few danios, a few neons, and a few Serpae Tetras into it. My 30 gallon has two Whisper filters running in it right now. What is the best way to get the new tank started? Should I take portions of the 30 gallons water and mix it with equal portions of dechlorinated water over a period of time until I have enough water to turn the filter on? Should I put in one of the filters from my 30 gallon and run it simutaneously with the new filter?

I was also thinking of putting in the fish from my twenty gallon tank, but am not sure if I could mix the two waters. These two tanks (20gal and 30gal) have been running for close to 5 years. I'm also not sure about mixing the fish together. I don't want to have a totally stressed out bunch of fish. In my 20 gallon, I have a peaceful, working community of four assorted corydoras, two clown loaches, two purple pulchers, three female betas, and one raphael striped catfish. I'm mainly worried because I have alot of bottom dwellers in this tank, and I have a feeling I'd have a disaster with mixing the bottom dwellers with the crayfish.

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I want to get started setting it up, I just don't know where to begin.

Patty

 

[CruX]

The way I would do it is move the filters from your old tank into the new tank and move the fish. The filters will be cycled to process the waste in your old tank so it should cope fine, make sure your new filter is on too then once everything is running nice and smooth take one of the old filters out and let it settle down, then remove the last old filter out and keep an eye on things. As long as you monitor your ammonia and nitrite levels throughout and take action in the form of water changes if these rise above 0.25mg/l then you should be fine, also keep an eye on your nitrates as this is a good indicater that the cycle is working as in order to get nitrates in your tank it will have processed nitrite and to get nitrites present it will have processed ammonia, ie fish waste.

I upgraded 2 smaller tanks into a larger Juwel Trigon this way, I used identical filters in them and borrowed a faster powerhead that fitted it, fantasically the cannisters clipped together to make a larger intake area and I left it in as it can handle the full tank if the juwel filter breaks and it turns over a large amount of water nice and fast, it is also great at removing particles from the water and keeps it clear, something I don't notice in the media of the Juwel filter.