Old water to a new tank?
- Thread starter ptreef
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Use new water (with all the trace minerals). Use new sand (lots of bad stuff gets dug up when digging around in old sand), and use the established rock. The amount of a cycle will depend on how much die off you have from the rock. I would, however, use a little (cup) of the old sand to seed the new system.
to start my 25cube i did a water change and used 10gal of wc water and with an open ended 1/2" hose sucked some sand off the top of the 120, about 2" in a 5gal bucket and the rest new water. i used about 5 to 10# of lr in the dt and about 20 to 30# in the sump. i then used stability for the tank start up.
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+1 the only time I re-use old water in a new tank is if its being setup in emergency situations where we cant afford time to re-acclimate fish.
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I would suggest Live Sand + Live Rock + Live Water (or at least some of each)</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I wouldn’t use very much old sand since it will stir up too many nutrients and cause more trouble than its’ worth, and buying Live Sand allows you to start fresh WITH nitrifying bacteria.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">Live Rock will also contain nitrifying bacteria, and there is very little disagreement on its’ benefit.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">Water is the source of much disagreement, and experimentation. The general consensus is that bacteria does not live in the water column so therefore it provides no benefit. However, I believe that ignores the fact that bacteria also goes through an acclimation process, and newly mixed saltwater using de-ionized RO water is devoid of all nutrients that bacteria require to survive, let alone thrive.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I spent last summer studying bacteria and we grew various cultures in the lab. Cultures that were grown in samples of pond water or tank water grew much faster than those that were grown in sterile water, and in fact many cultures that were placed into sterile water simply died. All of the nitrifying bacteria require phosphorus to survive, and commonly receive it via phosphates, but phosphates are stripped out by de-ionized RO units. Bacteria also require many other nutrients and, unlike fish or coral that require clean water but have other sources of energy – for bacteria, water is everything. Using hyper-filtered water as the growing medium for bacteria will starve them of the nutrients they need. Some will probably survive, but the lag phase (period of no growth) will be greatly increased and it is little wonder that is often takes newly setup tanks 6~8 weeks to “cycle”.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I think you would be pleasantly surprised on the benefits of using “live water”.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I wouldn’t use very much old sand since it will stir up too many nutrients and cause more trouble than its’ worth, and buying Live Sand allows you to start fresh WITH nitrifying bacteria.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">Live Rock will also contain nitrifying bacteria, and there is very little disagreement on its’ benefit.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">Water is the source of much disagreement, and experimentation. The general consensus is that bacteria does not live in the water column so therefore it provides no benefit. However, I believe that ignores the fact that bacteria also goes through an acclimation process, and newly mixed saltwater using de-ionized RO water is devoid of all nutrients that bacteria require to survive, let alone thrive.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I spent last summer studying bacteria and we grew various cultures in the lab. Cultures that were grown in samples of pond water or tank water grew much faster than those that were grown in sterile water, and in fact many cultures that were placed into sterile water simply died. All of the nitrifying bacteria require phosphorus to survive, and commonly receive it via phosphates, but phosphates are stripped out by de-ionized RO units. Bacteria also require many other nutrients and, unlike fish or coral that require clean water but have other sources of energy – for bacteria, water is everything. Using hyper-filtered water as the growing medium for bacteria will starve them of the nutrients they need. Some will probably survive, but the lag phase (period of no growth) will be greatly increased and it is little wonder that is often takes newly setup tanks 6~8 weeks to “cycle”.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I think you would be pleasantly surprised on the benefits of using “live water”.</span></span>
