cycle question?

[Dubge]

If I set up a new tank, 30G, with 2-4 inches of new SD, 20-30 lbs of base rock and 20-30 lbs of cured rock (was in a tank 2-5 years) What should I expect for a cycle?

thanks

 

[Len]

If you're asking for a time frame, it's impossible to say. It should be a bit faster then if you were using "raw" transshipped rock, but I still expect 3-4 weeks to be safe. As always, test the water during this period to be certain. And as always, the longer you wait, the better you are

 

[Anonymous]

I think it also greatly depends on how long that established rock spends in shipping. If that time is less than a few hours, you could conceivably end up with practically no cycle time whatsoever.

Let's say you are in this situation, and you never have any appreciable cycle, then you can boost the colonies you already have simply by feeding them. A bit of raw shrimp, or even some fish food tossed in the tank while the new inhabitants are in quarantine is a great way to either maintain colony size, or culture larger colonies.

 

[K9coral]

Water changes often as every 3 days to make it as short as possible.

 

[Dubge]

The rock was wrapped in wet paper towels and brought home, maybe an hour
I am also going to do a w/c with water from my main tank.

thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Just check your water for an ammonia spike for the first couple weeks. If there is no trace of it then you should be fine. Add livestock very sowly. One animal per month and keep checking your water. DON"T do any water change until you know the cycle has finished.

 

[Anonymous]

The rock was wrapped in wet paper towels and brought home, maybe an hour
I am also going to do a w/c with water from my main tank.

thanks

Just watch your parameters as Len pointed out. If you did experience a big peak, I would guess that you're going through a mini-cure. In that case, my preference is to save as much on/in the rock and would do water changes. If you experience no peaks, then you're probably golden, don't need to do any w/c's, and can increase cultures using the method I mentioned above. Good luck!

 

[insearch]

I just did that very thing with a 5yr old 90g into my new 55g. It worked very well for me. I had maybe a 2 to 3 day cycle. That was it. But I believe it is very important to try and keep everything submerged in its original water during shipping. I move mine in rubermaid tubs, cheap at Walmart. I had about 6 20 gal size tubs. It was an hour drive between the two locations and the items were in the tubs for over 8 hours, (plumbing problems). But also IMO use the original water from the tank you are moving the stuff from. Be sure to bring jugs to transport the water in. With a little care and finness it can be done very successfully. I had one small pollup rock show signs of dye off but that came back in a week and I attribute that to possible damage during relocation. I did a 10gal water change everyday for the first 3 days, the another in 3 days after that and then another a week after that. But initially use as close to 100% of the original water as possible. The items that lived thru the transfer was 1-4" finger leather, probubly close to 150 varios button pollups, 1 green brittle star, 1 sand shifting star, 1 feather duster, maybe 50 varios mushrooms, a few yellow polups, 25 some odd clean up crew, a large sea cucumber, and 2 colonys of star polups. Here is a photo taken about a week after I moved it. New things pop up everyday still.