upgraded from a 50 to a 75... got a few questions

[Swifterz]

finally upgraded from my 50 gallon to a brand new 75. i'm going to use the existing filters, heaters, sand, rocks, fish, etc. i'll be using the 50+ pounds of existing pool filter sand, but will have to add more to have enough the 75.

1) should i fill with 100% new, dechlorinated water or use some of the existing water?
2) will i have any issues with the tank "cycling"
3) what's my best method for moving the fish? the problem is, the 50 is in the spot where the 75 is going.. so i can't have the 75 up and running until the 50 is broken down all the way and moved aside, and then the 75 is put in place, filled, and heated to the right temp.

my tank is well established. i've been running it for 3 years. the last thing i want is to lose any fish. i have 7 adult peacocks/haps with a lot of money invested.

in addition to my questions, any general advice you may have regarding upgrading to a bigger tank would be great. thanks for your help.

 

[FormulatedFire]

1.) In my opinion I would use all new water which would basically be like doing a 100% water change
2.) As long as the filters you are using on the 50g go onto the 75 then no
3.) The best method I've found for moving fish from one tank to the next would be to not fed them the day before, and then fill a couple totes full of the current tank water and put the fish in them with a heater and filter if possible. If you can't put a filter on there atleast some sort of airstone to keep the oxygen level up. If all the fish get along well you can use one tote if not divide them up into a couple. Make sure you put the totes out of the way so you don't have to move the fish around once they are in there.

It would also be very important that the new tank water is the same temperature as the water in the tote. Also make sure the new sand is cleaned out well to avoid clouding. Hope that helps.

 

[C L O W N K N I F E]

Fill it with the water thats in the 50g and add 25g's of fresh water

 

[Rmelz]

I agree with Clownknife. Thats what i did when i setup my spare aquarium.

 

[postshawn]

My 55g just sprung a leak a month ago and I had to do a swap. I just filled a couple rubbermaid bins with water and the fish. Then I removed the old tank, setup new tank, moved all gravel, decor, filter, etc and then added the old water and fish. I basically did a 50% water change too. I did this with just me and it took about an hour and a half to complete, longer if I count getting the new tank out of the car and cleaning it. But with an extra set of hands it should go real smooth. I agree though, if you can put an airstone and the filer on the bins. I did that too. I have two airstones in that tank and two AquaClear70 HOB filters. I just put one filter and airstone on each bin. My fish were very happy in the end and so was I not having to clean up leaking water every few hours.

The only other advice I would say is get as much stuff handy as possible. Nets, bins, buckets, etc all ready to go to minimize tank downtime. Also available outlets near the bins to remove the filters and plug them right in again. I had all my stuff ready to go and it made it much easier.


I was just about to do this with my 20g to the new 29g but of course the 20g had to get a fungus outbreak right when I was getting ready. That meant I couldn't use the same water or filter or anything. Have to start from scratch and cycle new water. So what should have been a weekend afternoon now was going to take a couple weeks at best. Just finished cycling and starting slowly moving fish over. Luckily it's a small tank. This tank sits in the dinning room so on the dinning table the 20g went for a couple weeks while the 29g went in its place to cycle. Also my dinning table is nothing pretty so I didn't care having a tank on it for now.