Tank Migration Help Needed!

[ntrueman]

Hello Guys & Girls!

I'll get right to the point! I currently have a mature 2 year old tropical tank (45 Litre Nano Cube) I've never had any problem with the tank or it's inhabitants, but around 3 weeks ago I was browsing in the local tropic/marine centre and came accross a bargin that would not let me turn it down! I decided to upgrade and get a little bit more serious about my hobby so walked out the proud new owner of a Fluval Osaka 155. The look of the tank really did seal the deal for me!

This is my first experience of a tank migration etc so I feel slightly out of my depth! I have been changing the water in my old tank twice a week and putting the out-take from it into the new tank, I filled the other half of the tank up with fresh water and its been stood for around a week now so some advice would be greatly appreciated!

The Equipment:
Fluval 155 Litre Tank
Fluval 205 External Filter
Fluval Tronic Heater 200w
Life-Glo & Power-Glo T5 HO Bulbs
3000L/H Powerhead / Wave Maker

The Inhabitants to be moved:
4 x Marble Sailfin Molly
5 x Zebra Danio
2 x Black Swordtail
1 x Clown Loach
2 x Harlequin Rasbora

Any help or advice about moving the fish over or pointing out error's I may have made would be greatly appreciated! I've had these fish a long time and really am quite fond of them!

Old -vs- New

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to thje forum NTrueman.
Let's make this as simple as possible. If you move both the fish and filter together, the filter that has already been cycled to support your fish will continue to do so. Water from the old tank may gi8ve you some consistency in the water that the fish see but it will do nothing to promote the growth of a healthy biological filter.
Once you have moved your present fish over, try waiting a week or two before adding any more fish to the new larger tank. That way everything will stabilize and your old filter will be ready to take on a larger load. The new filter cannot be expected to carry the load of your fish until it has had considerable time to mature. Only because the old filter probably has excess capacity compared to the tank volume is the new stocking possible at all.

 

[ntrueman]

Welcome to thje forum NTrueman.
Let's make this as simple as possible. If you move both the fish and filter together, the filter that has already been cycled to support your fish will continue to do so. Water from the old tank may gi8ve you some consistency in the water that the fish see but it will do nothing to promote the growth of a healthy biological filter.
Once you have moved your present fish over, try waiting a week or two before adding any more fish to the new larger tank. That way everything will stabilize and your old filter will be ready to take on a larger load. The new filter cannot be expected to carry the load of your fish until it has had considerable time to mature. Only because the old filter probably has excess capacity compared to the tank volume is the new stocking possible at all.

Thanks for the swift reply OldMan47, Would it help at all if I moved one of the internal filters from the old tank into the new one immediately before migrating the fish? There are currently 2 in the old tank because up untill around 4 months ago there were also 2 goldfish in the old tank and I found 2 filters helped to keep the water alot cleaner?

 

[OldMan47]

If you are going to move all of the fish, I would simply move the fish and the filters at the same time. Without a biological load, an early moved filter would start to experience a slow die back in bacterial levels while the other filter would be overloaded trying to continue to maintain the old tank.

 

[ntrueman]

I moved the fish and both internal filters over today, I have shut off the external filter for now to give the water a chance to balance. All is looking well so far but it's very early days!