i need a lot of help on this ... this is going to be my 1st serious upgrade. i am going in a few minutes to pick up my new 125gal with built in overflows. i am upgrading from a 55 gal to this. what is the easiest and safest way to this without causing to much of a cycle ?? i am going to NEED to do this fairly quick, because my 55gal is going to be the sump for this system, and because all of my corals will be in rubbermaid containers for the duration of the upgrade. any quick upgrade suggestions ??
When I did my upgrade I upgraded everything (skimmer, lights, sump). What I did was buy my new rock and placed it in a rubber-made tub with the new skimmer a week before I was planning on filling the tank. I also placed all of my old rock with it. I placed all of my coral in rubber-made tubs and put my old skimmer in with them and then placed my old hood with lights on top of the tubs. I set up the new tank minus the skimmer in the sump and filled it with water and sand. I let that settle for a week to make sure the salinity was good and then added the live rock and skimmer to the sump. I had a very short cycle maybe a week. I then started placing my coral in. I only lost 2 fish from stress of being in tubs and a RBTA form a power head. Hope my experience helps good luck
I would make sure everything is ready to be assembled on the new tank before you do anything to the old. I had mine built in the garage down to the last bit. So when the time came it was a simple matter of bringing it into the house. My wife was not happy with the front room having several small tanks and 4 large tubs and cords running everywhere but in the end she was happy.