Wondering How To Swap Out Tanks

[dan15daman]

Hi everybody,
I'm intereested in swapping out my 55g African cichlid tank with my 75 gallon planted one so I can get larger peacocks. I have sand with the cichs and gravel with the plants. I'm wondering the best way to do this since I have to take out the substrates as well as the fish which would involve draining the whole 55g tank and possibly the 75. I'm afraid of my tanks going into new tank syndrome, but I have about 7 5 gallon buckets. any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[dthoffsett]

Do you mean you want to move the fish and plants from the 75gal to the 55gal and the cichlids from the 55gal to the 75gal? If so, all you need to do is move the fish into holding tanks/buckets and drain both tanks, switch out substrate/decor/plants and fill tanks back up, then add fish. As long as you keep the filters full of water so as to not kill off your bacteria, you shouldn't have any problems.

Also, to make less waste and stress on the filter bacteria, don't feed your fish the day or two before you swap tanks, and only feed once a day for the first week after the swap.

 

[kribensis12]

^ Listen to Dthoffsett

 

[dan15daman]

Do you mean you want to move the fish and plants from the 75gal to the 55gal and the cichlids from the 55gal to the 75gal? If so, all you need to do is move the fish into holding tanks/buckets and drain both tanks, switch out substrate/decor/plants and fill tanks back up, then add fish. As long as you keep the filters full of water so as to not kill off your bacteria, you shouldn't have any problems.

Also, to make less waste and stress on the filter bacteria, don't feed your fish the day or two before you swap tanks, and only feed once a day for the first week after the swap.

Ok yep that sounds like an excellent plan to me. Thanks for the advice!