Question With Cycling A New Tank

[bueller]

Hello All,

I am a new member here and have a question that I hope you can help me with [ might be alittle dumb]

I have a 90 gallon reef setup for about a year now and I am almost done with my 125 FOWLR tank, my question is: when I do my next water change { about 15 to 20 gallons worth} from my 90 gallon and put that water into the 125 { empty- no fish just sand and a few pieces of live rock} Will that help with the cycling of the new tank {faster}.

Thanks for any responses>

Bueller

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF Bueller! Hope you enjoy it here As for using the aged water to speed up cycling, I honestly don't think it will do that much for the cycling aspect of it. The length of the cycle will all depend on the condition of the live rock you will be using as you can have more die-off from some rocks than from others. Aged water they say is always a plus, but cutting down cycling time, I don't really think it will do too much, but I could be wrong. Just a few personal thoughts. I guess the others will chime in soon. Good luck!

 

[mmkeeper]

Welcome to Rf. If you visit regularly you will recieve alot of help here. As to your question you will help very little with using seasoned water. You are looking to build the bacteria that convert the waste to ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and then help break down the nitrate. How ever if you move a rock or to from your older tank or ran asponge filter in the older tank for awhile and moved it to the new tank it would help. You could also suplement your new sand with some garf grunge from garf.org or get some rubble another seasoned stuff from another cycled tank.

 

[DonW]

I would not try to speed the process in any way. I also would make it a point not to exchange water or anything else between the two tanks, or anyone elses for that matter. Let the bacteria grow slow and steady avoid spikes and the population will be much healthier.
Using things like garf grunge borrowed live sand or what ever is like swapping boxers with your neighbor, you never know what your going to get.

Don

 

[bueller]

I thought so, Thanks

Bueller

 

[returnofsid]

I disagree with not exchanging anything between the 2 tanks...although water changes aren't the answer. If you wanted to seed your live rock, you could put a piece of live rock from your existing tank, or some live sand from your existing tank into the new tank. That'll seed your sand and rock and will help out with your new tank start up. Also, if you don't have anything but rock and water in your new tank, your cycle probably won't start to begin with. You need to add something in there to decay or add ammonia. The beneficial bacteria and critters you're looking for "eat" ammonia. You need to supply them something to start on. You could throw a couple store bought shrimp in there to start it out. There's several great links in this forum to starting the cycle in your tank.

 

[saltwater newbe]

ask your LFS if they sell something called bacteria now.
this stuff establishes your bacteria cycle into your tank
in 24 hours.

 

[DonW]

I disagree with not exchanging anything between the 2 tanks...although water changes aren't the answer. If you wanted to seed your live rock, you could put a piece of live rock from your existing tank, or some live sand from your existing tank into the new tank. That'll seed your sand and rock and will help out with your new tank start up. Also, if you don't have anything but rock and water in your new tank, your cycle probably won't start to begin with. You need to add something in there to decay or add ammonia. The beneficial bacteria and critters you're looking for "eat" ammonia. You need to supply them something to start on. You could throw a couple store bought shrimp in there to start it out. There's several great links in this forum to starting the cycle in your tank.

Incorrect. The cycle will start and do very well with LR alone. Seeding a tank is totally not needed with LR. The days of seeding tanks are long gone, live rock is all that is needed. A slow steady growth of bacteria is so much better than throwing seafood in a tank to rot. "seed your live rock" with live rock???? if you have live rock it has plenty of nasties, thats what makes it live rock.

Don

 

[saltwater newbe]

i agree with don
a couple of pieces of LR from your old tank
would be no different than going to your LFS and buying LR

 

[returnofsid]

Except that a lot of LR you buy at the LFS is uncured. Established LR in an established aquarium has a much denser population of the critters you need. Saltwater Newbie...please don't buy into that hype. Nothing in a bottle is going to compare to nature. Most of what's in that bottle, if not all of it is dead and will do your tank no good at all...let alone in 24 hours. It takes a SW tank a good month or more to properly cycle.

 

[chris&barb]

Hello All,

I am a new member here and have a question that I hope you can help me with [ might be alittle dumb]

the only dumb questions are unasked questions

Welcome to Reef Frontiers

 

[Jan]

It takes a SW tank a good month or more to properly cycle.

Always? Does it always take a month? Even if you added a large quantity of cured, live rock to your new tank setup? I don't understand why it takes a month...I want to understand, I just don't. My readings continue to be 0, 0, 0 on the NH3, N02, NO3...my rock seems very "alive" based on the critters on it. What am I waiting for?

 

[DonW]

Always? Does it always take a month? Even if you added a large quantity of cured, live rock to your new tank setup? I don't understand why it takes a month...I want to understand, I just don't. My readings continue to be 0, 0, 0 on the NH3, N02, NO3...my rock seems very "alive" based on the critters on it. What am I waiting for?

No not always. In fact some tanks never do get a large spike. A large spike just means there are lots of nutrients nutrients. In fact if you can keep it very low and return down to 0 without a spike the tank is going to be much more stable. Its pretty simple as long as you dont rush it by throwing in dead seafood, funcky stuff in a bottle or sacrafical damsels.

Don

 

[Krish]

Always? Does it always take a month? Even if you added a large quantity of cured, live rock to your new tank setup? I don't understand why it takes a month...I want to understand, I just don't. My readings continue to be 0, 0, 0 on the NH3, N02, NO3...my rock seems very "alive" based on the critters on it. What am I waiting for?

It all depends on the condition of the rock as well as a few other factors as to how long a tank takes to cycle and saying 1 month is kinda broad. My tank took more than 1 month to cycle. It actually took about 6-8 weeks or so to read 0 ammonia and nitrites. Every set up will be different. The fact that you are reading zero across the board is great! What test kits are you using btw and how long has it all been set up?

 

[Steve 926]

How about some advice about staring new with non live sand & should you use cured or un cured rock. Can you start out with just a small amount, or the prescribed ratio of 1.5 lbs. per gal,? all coments are appreciated

 

[vwmoneypit]

wow that is all heated isnt it sheesh well here is the answer finally I started my tank with new water/sand 25lbs of [UNCURED live rock] and some grass CURED OF COARSE and it cycled in 3 weeks w/o a hilide light and it didnt spike for a month and a half then I added 20lbs of cured rock and all the little bottom feeders ect and snails here is a good Idea have a buddy with a tank acouple of months ahead remember the brown algea build up @ first scrape it into a sponge squeeze into a bottle and dump it in and one cup of seasoned sand and twala.I was a fresh water guy for 10 years and i never seeen a tank take off so quick wow.that is what hooked me!!!!!Hope this works?

 

[Krish]

How about some advice about staring new with non live sand & should you use cured or un cured rock. Can you start out with just a small amount, or the prescribed ratio of 1.5 lbs. per gal,? all coments are appreciated

Welcome to RF Steve! Starting out with base sand is fine. It will eventually become "live" in no time anyways as the tank cycles and matures. Cured rock is always a plus as it cuts down cycling time etc, but sometimes you will buy rock said to be cured and it isn't so you have to be careful as cured rock typically sells for a lot more than un-cured or even base rock. As for how much rock to start out with, usually people would recommend getting all the rock you'd need one time so that you can cure and cycle everything one shot and be done with it. However, sometimes that's not always an option so If you can only get so much now then that is fine as well. Any other rock you get later will just need to be cured it in a seperate container so as to not throw off things in your main tank and either prolong the cycle or start another cycle from potential die-off in the rock. As for the 1-2lb per gal thing, that isn't always the case. You basically only need as much rock to support your bio-load and also, some rock is more porous than others meaning 50lbs of one type of rock can be more beneficial than 100lbs of a another. Just a few thoughts...Hope that helped

 

[Jan]

Hi Steve, I'm a newbie myself but I started with non-live sand and a ratio of 1 lb live cured rock to 1 gallon water and so far it's working great for me. No ammonia spikes etc. I'm pleased and relieved that I used live cured rock in my start-up.

 

[billaweed]

I have a 50 gallon tank I just started not more that 9 days ago. I put unfiltered tap water in it, 15 lbs of cured LR, and one cheap fish that died after one day. I then added soft coral and anemones after one day of cycling. Right now i have a snail, hermit crab, starfish and coral and nothing has died. Yesterday i added 20lbs of live sand to the mix

oh and all my amonia, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate levels are perfet. Am I just lucky or what?

 

[Scooterman]

I have a 50 gallon tank I just started not more that 9 days ago. I put unfiltered tap water in it, 15 lbs of cured LR, and one cheap fish that died after one day. I then added soft coral and anemones after one day of cycling. Right now i have a snail, hermit crab, starfish and coral and nothing has died. Yesterday i added 20lbs of live sand to the mix

oh and all my amonia, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate levels are perfet. Am I just lucky or what?

Don't count your eggs just yet, you already lost a fish!
this is a bad practice & a bad way to get started in reefing.