Tropical to Rift Lake ?

[Kerbside]

Looking at changing my 40 breeder to a tanganyika setup. Currently I have my clown loaches and other small tropicals that will be moved to my 220 as soon as I rescape.

When switching substrate and the like in the 40. Will I be able to do a quick switch and be able to save most/all of the bacteria in the filters? Not sure just how fast cichlid sand would change the PH and how much of an effect it will have.

 

[Rhodes09]

Should be a quick and painless transition if you choose to use the existing filter media. From personal experience I recently transitioned my complete stock from a 55g into a 90g tank with brand new substrate and decor, I simply transferred my 2 HOB filters one at a time over the course of a few days. I did not have any issues what so ever and all fish are happy and healthy. Hope this helps!

 

[Kerbside]

Thing I'm worried about is going from a nice even 7.0 PH to whatever it's going to go to after adding the crushed coral/cichlid sand.

 

[Rhodes09]

The crushed coral will have a tendency to raise your pH, perhaps some methods of buffering this change? Here's a link with a few ways of lowering the pH, if any sound convenient see how stable you can get that pH.