Broke my 8 gallon and needed to put in uncycled 20 gallon

[Shaina Carey]

Ok, I was doing my weekly partial WC and the front cracked after I put the bucket with clean saltwater. I put what water and sand in the 20 gallon and now I am doing an emergency transfer of all my life rock and livestock. I plan on putting the used filter media in the HOB. What else can I do to make sure everything lives? I am freaking out and feel stupid

 

[astrobuckeye]

Get a Seachem Ammonia Alert and just be prepared to do daily water changes. But if you are transferring over live rock and the filter media you should have a decent amount of bacteria preserved. I set up a QT by having the filter sponge in my DT for a week and added a bottle of bacteria and have had no issues so far.

 

[JayM]

Ok, I was doing my weekly partial WC and the front cracked after I put the bucket with clean saltwater. I put what water and sand in the 20 gallon and now I am doing an emergency transfer of all my life rock and livestock. I plan on putting the used filter media in the HOB. What else can I do to make sure everything lives? I am freaking out and feel stupid

If you're transferring everything from the old tank to the new, you should be ok. Just keep an eye on your water quality and react accordingly. The biggest concern will probably be stress from moving livestock.

 

[Shaina Carey]

I was planning on moving everything over in June. I am glad I still had it waiting. Will keep everyone updated. Just got done filling it up with saltwater.

 

[Dburr1014]

Rock supported the livestock in the smaller tank, correct?
Why wouldn't they in a bigger tank?

You are fine.

 

[Formulator]

I think you will be fine with the live rock being transferred. Depending on the cleanliness of your sand, you might get a bit of a nitrate and phosphate spike from stirring it up in the break. Keep an eye on the ammonia, maybe grab a bottle of seachem prime just in case you do get an ammonia spike. If you are still nervous, you could pick up a bottle of nitrifying bacteria in a bottle, but as others suggested, your live rock should contain all the bacteria you need already.

Sorry for your tank loss!

 

[Shaina Carey]

Rock supported the livestock in the smaller tank, correct?
Why wouldn't they in a bigger tank?

You are fine.

I think you will be fine with the live rock being transferred. Depending on the cleanliness of your sand, you might get a bit of a nitrate and phosphate spike from stirring it up in the break. Keep an eye on the ammonia, maybe grab a bottle of seachem prime just in case you do get an ammonia spike. If you are still nervous, you could pick up a bottle of nitrifying bacteria in a bottle, but as others suggested, your live rock should contain all the bacteria you need already.

Sorry for your tank loss!

Thanks guys. I have a bottle of prime rearing to go. I just got in over my head because of it not being cycled first.

 

[Dburr1014]

Thanks guys. I have a bottle of prime rearing to go. I just got in over my head because of it not being cycled first.

Prime doesn't do anything for ammonia. It will help with tap water if you need it.

 

[Biokabe]

So, something to remember for future tank transfers (hopefully not forced in the future!):

It's not the tank that needs to cycle. It's the biological filter that needs to build up. The biological filter lives on every surface in your tank, but as your rocks have the largest surface area, most of the cycle bacteria live in your rocks. Given enough time (less than most people think, once it's established), your biological filter will size up or size down with your bioload.

The takeaway is that if you're moving into a new tank, as long as you are moving all of your rocks over you do not need to cycle to make it safe for your existing livestock. The filter is already good enough for what you have, and you brought all of that into the new tank.

The only cycling that needs to be done for a tank transfer is for any new rock that you're adding, and all you need to do there is make sure the die-off from shipping happens in a separate container, not in your display tank. Once the die-off is complete, you can add the new rock to your tank. If you're adding new dry rock, it can be added immediately after rinsing (though I don't recommend dry rock in most cases, but that's a personal choice).

 

[Shaina Carey]

It has a mixture of live and dry rock. I feel really stupid. Ugh. I don't get paid until the third, so I am going to watch everything and do WC's when needed

 

[Shaina Carey]

Update. My zoa is starting to open just a bit. The snails are hiding in their shells right now.

 

[Flame2hawk]

Prime doesn't do anything for ammonia. It will help with tap water if you need it.

Please explain as I’ve used prime over the years and it has saved my livestock when experienced ammonia spikes. I swear by it.

 

[Formulator]

Prime doesn't do anything for ammonia. It will help with tap water if you need it.

Yes, Prime is effective at removing ammonia and is advertised as such. I think you are right that the primary/original purpose of prime is to be used as a dechlorinator when using city tap water that uses chlorine/choramine as a disinfectant. This is much more common in the freshwater aquarium realm. The problem with most chemical dechlorinators is that the typical mechanism of action is a reduction which results in ammonia as a product. So the dechlorinators also contain an ammonia binder to pick this up. Note the ammonia is bound to detoxify it, but not eliminated, so the use of carbon is recommended to eliminate completely. There is a great write up on the chemistry here if interested:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/index.htm

 

[Dburr1014]

Yes, Prime is effective at removing ammonia and is advertised as such.

Welp, I think you might want to take a look at this then. It's been studied here and free ammonia was not reduced.

Thread 'Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/does-prime-actually-detoxify-free-ammonia-nh3.849985/

 

[Formulator]

Welp, I think you might want to take a look at this then. It's been studied here and free ammonia was not reduced.

Thread 'Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/does-prime-actually-detoxify-free-ammonia-nh3.849985/

Very interesting, not necessarily conclusive, but worth further investigation. I will dive in another day. Sorry for hijacking the OPs thread with this side discussion on Prime!

 

[jj.man]

Just saw this crawling around in my tank. Kinda worried. Anybody know what this is?? It kinda looks like a starfish with 3 long pokey tentacles.

 

[Dburr1014]

Probably a micro brittle star, okay.

 

[Formulator]

Just saw this crawling around in my tank. Kinda worried. Anybody know what this is?? It kinda looks like a starfish with 3 long pokey tentacles.

Looks like a micro brittle star. They are great to have, so don’t kill anymore! There was actually just an article about them in this month’s issue of Reef Hobbyist Magazine.

 

[jj.man]

Looks like a micro brittle star. They are great to have, so don’t kill anymore! There was actually just an article about them in this month’s issue of Reef Hobbyist Magazine.

Dang. That’s the only one I’ve seen. And I killed it bc I thought it was bad. Rip

 

[Formulator]

Dang. That’s the only one I’ve seen. And I killed it bc I thought it was bad. Rip

Not the end of the world and I’m sure there are or will be more. Now you know