Cycle Process: Sped Up

[gmpolan]

Now i know patience is god in this hobby but i am having a problem at the moment. Instead of doing a transfer of one tank and immediately into another, i decided to move one tank out of the way and set up the new one, then accilmate as needed.Well the old tank is having some leaky sump/plumbing issue and i need to get the new one cycled and everything transferred over. So besides using a cup of live sand from the old tank and using some of the old water, what else can i do?

 

[jcusmarine]

Can you get as much of the water from the old one with the leak as possible and transer? The more mature rock and SW, the better.

 

[gmpolan]

Yeah, that will be the easy part as its a slow leak and have it contained at the moment but obviously need to do something quick before it ruins my hardwoods. But realistically, i could drain 50 gallons of the old water into the new tank...

 

[misu]

moving lots of rock from the old one helps, a cup of sand is useful to seed it and wait

I was reading old water does nothing for cycle but it will be good to get your parameters close

 

[jef4y]

Liverock is the key... The more the better. Keep the temp stable, and water movement up.

 

[budsreef]

There are products, I think one is called birospiro, that contains the bacteria that needs to be in the rock. You might want to look into that and see if it would help in your situation.

 

[markl]

Add pure ammonia from Ace Hardware . Not much maybe a spoon full. It will be ready in a few weeks. Mine was done a little over 2 weeks ago on a bunch of bleached dead rock. Mine is ready to go.

 

[jcusmarine]

Yea, the reason I would want to move as much of the old water is to assure as close parameters as possible for the transfer. The established LR is the key regarding the cycle and Bud mentions a good point, you could dose bacteria for good measure. So, all three combined may avert issues, or minimize risk.

 

[jbadd99]

I used Seachem Stability in my. New tank cycle was done in about a week.

 

[gmpolan]

yeah, ill prob pick up some of that and birospiro today as well as transfer over some live rock. I only got 7 days left so lets hope this works...