Upgrading To A New Tank (10x Bigger)

[Hoppy]

Hi

We are soon going to be upgrading our 60 litre (UK) - 'small' to a 600 litre (UK) - 'large' volume tank - ten times bigger than the one we currently have

We want to make sure that we cause as little distress as possible to the current inhabitants of the small tank (1 x Bristlenose, 2 x Neon, 6 x Cardinal and 5 x Amano Shrimp).

I've done a search on upgrading tanks but couldn't see anyone who had upgraded on this scale so posting a message was the way to go.

The main question I have (apologies if it has been asked a thousand times in the past) is how do we go about this as we would like to use the bacteria from our established small tank to start the large tank?

We will be adding more fish once it is established and are aware that we shouldn't add lots of fish at once due to the bioload so will be doing this in stages.

Hope this makes some sort of sense!

Many thanks in advance.

Hoppy

 

[-SPB-]

The easiest way to use the bacteria from the small tank would be to transfer the media from the old filter into the new filter, this will give the new filter a head start. I think i'm right in saying (someone correct me if i'm wrong) that you should have enough bacteria from the old filter for the fish in the new tank. The best way to find out would be to keep doing water tests to make sure you don't get any ammonia or nitrite spikes. I would leave it a week or maybe longer before adding any new fish to make sure the process has gone ok, and add small amounts of fish at a time.

 

[Behold]

Not quite as large of a jump but we did 100 - 500 the other week and we empted all the old water in to the new tank and mixed in the same again in Declor water then added another 25% of dechor water. run your filter and heater. and slowly add in 50% every 12 hours/day your new media will then cope with the sparse amounts of ammonia in the diluted water with out it being subjected to loosing it all immediatly.

then add your new fish 3-4 a week to allow the filter to catch up each time.

We have managed no ammonia or nitrite spike at all through out the last 3 weeks.

 

[OldMan47]

For as big jump like that, I would set up the new tank and decorate and fill it with dechlorinated water. Get the filter running and the heater working. Once everything is sort of stable, clean your old filter in the new tank then start a fishless cycle on the new tank. This will seed the new tank with the bacteria from the old one and the fishless cycle should finish very quickly. Once its done with the cycle, make sure all your water parameters are well matched and move your fish. If you can't get a near perfect match on the water parameters, acclimate the fish to the new tank the same way you might with fish from a fish shop. Use a drip acclimation and everything should be great. Don't be surprised if your fish don't know what to do with all that space. They have become used to a much smaller place.

 

[joecoral]

you could just fill, dechlor and heat the new tank, then transfer your current filter along with your fish and run your current filter in the tank along with the new filter, and after several weeks you can just take out the old filter.
this is what i did when i moved from 54L to 180L