Captain Hook
03-09-2004, 3:27 PM
I am planning on buying a new tank that has the same footprint as mine but a bit taller. Right now I have a 24"x12" that's 16" high and I want to get one that's about 20" high.
Will moving everything over to the new tank be difficult? I have lots of plants and am wondering how they will do. Any suggestions of what I should do or try to avoid doing?
I was thinking I would pull all the plants then scoop the gravel with a small shovel and transfer it right over. Then replant and add water and fish. Sound like a good idea?
I would dump about 70% of the water, put about 20% in a holding tank, with the fish in it. Then siphon down enough to expose the top of the gravel and start digging out the gravel into another bucket. This will leave you with a bunch of glop(my word:) ). This is your bio-colony all ready to go. Siphon all or as much as you're comfortable with into your new tank.
Now you can lightly rinse your gravel and lay it on top of the glop or if you don't care about the time element for the silt to settle, just put it back into the new tank as is. The rinsing process will cut way down on the surface of the substrate having all that loose stuff on it, and as I said, will hasten the time for clearing the water.
Lay a bowl on the substrate and re-fill slowly into it letting it over flow onto the gravel to about 3/4 full, just as you would at water change checking temp and using Tap Water Conditioner. Filling into the bowl will cut way down on clouding if done slowly.
Siphon some of the fish holding bucket water into the new tank, then back siphon water from the tank into the fish holding bucket to acclimate the fish a bit. They should be fine going into the tank as this process has a similar effect of a large water change.
I would do my landscaping before adding back the fish to cut down on stress.
Sounds complicated doesn't it? Oh well. I'm very picky about my change-overs where the fish are concerned.
One other thing.....don't touch the filter. Just switch it over to the new tank, dirty or not. You want to try to preserve as much of the status quo as possible.
Len