Transfer from 80g to 180g

[bemyself]

Dear all,
Can somebody please teach me how to transfer my existing 80g to a new 180g without having to cycle the tank again. My existing 80g has about 100lbs of live rocks and about 3" of sand. No corals at all. Sump consist of CC and is about 60g. will be using the existing sump when change to 180g.
Please advise. For your information, the existing tank is about 2 over years old.
Thanks

[Max]

Well, I can tell you how to do it without much of a cycle anyway. This will also depend on how you want the set up to look etc . If you want a d.s.b. what I would do is fill the tank about 20-25% with water put in your first tier of l.r. ," on the glass bottom so you don't have problems down the road", put in new clean play sand and run a small cycle," shrimp a little ammonia etc." This will make your sand sticky with bacteria and will help out with instant denitrification it will probably take a couple of weeks though. Get a small power head attach to glass for water movement etc and a heater. You don't have to follow this first step but, if you want a sand bed I would other wise you'll have the mother of all sand storms when you set up your tank .
The next of first step depending on what you decide would be to add your l.r. Do this as quickly as possible try to remove as many sponges as possible or, to make sure the rock that they are on aren't exposed to the air. Air will kill them on contact and it can greatly increase the amonunt of ammonia in your water leading to a domino affect. Again do this step as quickly as you can safely place the rock in your new tank time really is of the essence the longer the rock is exposed to the air the more die off you'll have. Fill tank with new s.w. have it ready to go before you start moving your rock. You might also consider adding more curred live rock at this time to fill up your tank. You'll need from 80 to 140 more lbs to reach the desired amount. If I recall you have quite a few fish that get fairly large and this will really help with your water conditions. Add your fish after normal temp adjustment if you use water from the same source as your tank water acclimation for FISH should be a pretty quick straight forward matter. For inverts like corals, stars etc you still will want to do a slow introduction they are very sensative to changing water conditons.
After this process is done check your water at least 2 times per day for the first week or so. You still might have a mini spike that can be fixed by water changes if you can keep your ammonia below .5 ppm it won't hurt your fish and below about .01 ppm for inverts like corals, star fish etc. As a matter of fact if you have a hospital tank it might be a good idea to put your stars, corals etc into it until you're sure that there won't be a spike.
If you do have a cycle from this it's will most likely be what we refer to as a mini spike. It should end within a couple weeks max it's also possible that you won't have one at all.
hth and please keep up posted.
Chris

[Oliver]

if you are moving the tank between houses, always keep the rock under water, otherwise there will be die off and it will cause a ammonia spike.

[bemyself]

Thank you very much for the recommendation.
Dear Maxilaria,
So there will still be a small cycle that might take weeks right? The problem is that I'll be using the same place to place my 180. So I'll need need to shift the 80g out first before putting in the 180. So where am I going to put my fishes? Will a small tank with the existing water from the 80g help? And can my fishes survive under the small tank while the 180g is undergoing cycling? And am i to understand that I'll place my existing live rocks and sand into the new 180g. Then add more live rocks and sand to fill up the 180g. How about water? Do I need to transfer all the existing water from my old 80g into the new 180g and that add more new saltwater to fill up the whole tank?
Add shrimp to start cycle with existing live rocks and new live rocks in the new 180g. And then test this, test that,blah,blah etc... until i'm ready to put my old companions back into the new tank?
Forgive my limited knowledge on the SW but I'm really glad that this site and the people here are always ready to give a helping hand.

[Max]

I'm not saying there will be a cycle just that there may be one . I don't know what and how many fish you have but, if they are of any size or number no they won't make it in a small tank. They'd be better off just going into the larger one.
I wouldn't do what I said at all in a case like this. I'd have several large plastic tubs on stand by and move all my fish and an airstone into one, l.r. into another corals etc at third.
Then as fast as you can set up the new tank fill with l.r./new water and introduce fish. You can then add some more fully cured l.r. later as time and budget permits. As to the bottom I wouldn't do the mini cycle it will cause you way too much trouble and your fish won't make it through the wait. You can either run the tank bare bottom , has some advantages like easy cleaning and some really neat coralines will grow across the glass. You could also add lr and then sand put a bowl in the tank and fill with s.w. You will have a sand storm for several days but, unless your water somehow loses o2 or there is an impurity in your sand it won't hurt your fish. Near shore areas often get really murky after a small disturbance not mention a storm.
To cut it short the length of cycle will depend on how long your rock is out of water. speed is of the essence what ever you decide to do sand bottom or bare make sure your rock rests on the glass.
hth and let us know how it goes.
Chris

[bemyself]

Chris,
Thank you.
Bemyself