Acclimation: Combining 3 tanks to 1?

[Fishnthecorner]

OK, The time is almost near. My new tank is up and running!

And I'm trying to plan how to transfer the live rock and fish from my existing tank to the new one, plus the new fish in my quarantine tank. All during the same time frame, causing as little stress as possible.
Of course transferring the live rock first is obvious, but then the water will become very "Murky"...

Any ideas??

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn316/rgomez2008p/DSCN1806.jpg

P.S. No corals...

[KSzegi]

When I made my recent transfer I had a brute can set up with fresh salt water in it ..... and another that I siphoned off some of the 'old' tank water. I took the rocks out and gave them a good dunking/swishing in both cans of water before putting them into the new tank - worked pretty well and kept cloudiness down to a minimum. I transferred everything - rock, fish, coral in one afternoon and nothing skipped a beat.

[RocketEngineer]

I did it slightly different than that:

1) Seed the new tank with a handful of LR from the old tank. Not going for a full cycle, just getting the ball rolling.
2) Catch the fish and transfer to new tank.
3) Take LR and shake well in the old tank to remove as much stuff as possible then transfer to new tank.
4) Place a scoop of sand from the old tank into the new tank.
5) Remove sand from old tank and rinse well.
6) Add rinsed sand to new tank.

It took me a day but by that evening, the tank was clear and most of the fish were swimming around. Of course catching the sand dwelling wrasse took some effort but everyone survived the move.

HTH,
RocketEngineer

[Fishnthecorner]

What about getting both tanks with similar water? Like temp, salinity, etc...

[TheAquatard]

I would let the new tank establish for a while, I was in your same situation and lost all my fish.