Changing Tanks - Anything I should do

[Redwitchdiver]

Hi
Due to moving I need to change my tank. Currently I have:
Juwel Rio 180, with undergravel filter, plus standard Juwel filter, Prizm skimmer. Stock are yellow tang, blue striped clown, dragon wrasse, cleaner wrasse, a cleanup crew, soft toadstool coral, polyps.
I am going to buy a Juwel Trigon 190 and was thinking of moving the fish into a small temporary tank for a few hours while I then removed all of the water into containers and transferred the existing coral sand etc into the new tank, and move the internal filters as well.
The tank is very stable and has been up and running for 3 years. I now wnat to re-establish in the new tank and then move on a little.
Is this feasible?
I am also considering putting in an external filter instead of the undergravel, and some live rock. Not sure of the best way of doing all this and was trying to avoid setting up a complete new system if I can. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[fraservet]

This may be tricky.

The main problem I can see is the undergravel filter.
At the moment this is probably doing the majority of your filtration.
When you move to the Trigon, you will lose this.
This will mean your new tank will have to cycle to some degree.

The filter media will obviously provide some biological filtration, but I don't think it will be sufficient to support your stock. What media do you use?

If you buy a load of cured live rock for the new tank, this should minimise cycling.
If you do this, use the internal filter only for chemical media and as a place to keep the heater.

If you decide to go with the external filter rather than LR (both together don't work very well), try to run it in your existing tank for a month or so first.
There will probably be posts saying LR is the only solution. This is not so - particularly for fish only tanks - but for this size of tank, it would probably be the ideal, especially if by moving on you mean you want to keep more advanced corals etc.

The other problem is with your fish.
The tang really wont like it in the Trigon, they need swimming space, and the shape of the tank really reduces this.
The dragon wrasse will cause a lot of problems when it gets to a reasonable size, and will be too big for this tank.

Why not go for the Trigon 350 instead?

 

[Redwitchdiver]

Many thanks for this. Trigon 350 was my first choice but will not fit as I am a bit space restricted now (My current Rio is stood in the middle of my kitchen and I am walking round it!).
I think I shall go the live rock route and keep the internal filter only as it appears to be the easiest way forward.
Will see how the Tang reacts but if necessary I will pass him on to someone with a bigger tank and look at something else. My dragon wrasse is about 3.5 inches long and has not grown in the last year or so, not sure what they do grow to?

I am also looking at adding a different light unit as the Trigon one looks a bit small so will proably go for one of the arcadia units or similar hung from the ceiling.

Guess I had better start looking for the tank then

 

[fraservet]

Dragon Wrasse grows to 30cm!
Known as the Rockmover Wrasse for good reason - likes to rearrange rockwork so not good for a reef tank.
Also needs deep substrate to bury itself in.

If you are only keeping low light corals, arcadia does a t5 I-bar for the trigon 190 - you may have to ask for it to be ordered as it was released later than the other sizes so some retailers dont have it on their lists.