zeroblake
New Member
I Thank you in advance and wish you a happy new year, I appreciated your help answering this thread.. Gracias.
)
Does live Sand and Live rock from another tank will fastener the initial cicle?
- Thread starter zeroblake
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I Thank you in advance and wish you a happy new year, I appreciated your help answering this thread.. Gracias.
)
Sorry, I might have read your post wrong, but you are saying you are getting live rock from another tank/system that has been running for a while?
If yes, it will help "seed" your new system, but it will still go through its own cycle. It will help speed it up a little bit, but to be honest with you, there are a lot of products/methods you can use/buy now that cycle tanks fairly quickly - all of which you can find on this forum.
The only issue to think about when getting live rock from another system, is potential bad hitchikers. For example, if you are getting it from a tank that has had ich or other fish diseases, you'll likely bring it into your new system. Other things could be aptasia and bad inverts.
If it were me, I'd personally go the sterile route and start fresh. I think you won't notice a big difference!
If yes, it will help "seed" your new system, but it will still go through its own cycle. It will help speed it up a little bit, but to be honest with you, there are a lot of products/methods you can use/buy now that cycle tanks fairly quickly - all of which you can find on this forum.
The only issue to think about when getting live rock from another system, is potential bad hitchikers. For example, if you are getting it from a tank that has had ich or other fish diseases, you'll likely bring it into your new system. Other things could be aptasia and bad inverts.
If it were me, I'd personally go the sterile route and start fresh. I think you won't notice a big difference!
+1 to this, if you move all of it. But you might also experience a mini-cycle, especially if sand is disturbed and there is some die-off in the process.
zeroblake
New Member
thanks! this helps a lot.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
If your are taking old live rock from one system transferring to new system you won't see a cycle. I didnt. Thats how I always start a new tank. Lots of bio media. No cycle and fish in the same day.
zeroblake
New Member
Yes! I’m planning to use different live rock and live sand from another tank, so I may not use the ones in the the photo. and Yes! I thought about the unwanted hitchhikers that may come in the rocks or sand, in the other hand if I decided to start up with live stuff will be from a Anemone Tank from a Friend but my concern is if this doesn’t work as planned I will feel really really bad if anything dies which could happen. that’s why I post this thread asking if anybody has used live rock and live sand from another old tank.
I appreciated your answer my friend.
zeroblake
New Member
great!! have you added an anemone doing the same transfer??
zeroblake
New Member
I appreciated your help.
yes I know there’ll be die-off especially beneficial bacteria, as far I remember.
Reefingmama
Community Member
So, we actually bought our tank from someone else and moved it to our house. We used his rock/sand etc and didn’t experience any cycle. Then, over time, we switched to the rock we wanted and let his old rock seed our new rock. Our tank is pretty dang stable and I totally attribute it to using all that old bacteria/rocks/sand etc
Yup. I do it all the time.
Erik-Reefer
Community Member
I had a RBTA that began to reproduce like crazy in my reef tank. I decided to move them all to another tank I had running. I decided to rearrange the rock work on both tanks as well. How I did it, was small water changes everyday on both tanks for a few days to get the water parameters as close to each other as possible. When everything was balanced, I switched everything over. It worked perfectly fine and all nems survived (over 20). If its your own rocks/sand etc, its safer than using rocks/sand from another system.
Seattlguy
New Member
This is how I hope to combine my 2 -10 gallons into my 45. Water changes ever other day and putting that into the new tank. Also taking 30% of the old gravel and adding that in first couple days. I am setting up a small "maze" of caves that the old gravel will go in, hopefully offering a place for my creatures to play. And then I will place my live rock and additional gravel on top.
that's the dangerous way but it will probably work.
when I mention dangerous, I have several examples where disturbing sandbeds didn't work and all their fish died plus some corals.
the only safe known transfer method is skip cycle sandbed rinsing, where 100% of any sand coming into a reef tank is rinsed so that its 100% cloudless. we didn't need it's bacteria or animals, rocks provide those, we needed cloudless reef tank transfers and combinations to be safe. combining 30% of old sand isn't as safe as using 0% old sand and 100% pre rinsed sand before its used in a new tank.
*nice to see some examples of updated cycling science here on skip cycling. yes for sure transferred cured rocks don't cycle or mini cycle, they just transfer.
the concept of mini cycling doesn't occur in reefing because reef tanks that can control ammonia at all eat it up so fast (thanks to seneye meters we can see it now) there is no dangerous leftovers in the system. those were API misread remnants that made people think ammonia was partially uncontrolled after a rock move including from pet store to home, not just in-home tank transfers.
any time a failed tank transfer happened, it was always the sand (clouding, unrinsed partial old sand transfers) that did it and 0% of the time it was the rock. rocks don't ever emit ammonia, as the old adage goes. the old adage was using API and believed anything it had to say
what seneye shows regarding what reefs do with ammonia is ground-breaking and api-retiring.
when I mention dangerous, I have several examples where disturbing sandbeds didn't work and all their fish died plus some corals.
the only safe known transfer method is skip cycle sandbed rinsing, where 100% of any sand coming into a reef tank is rinsed so that its 100% cloudless. we didn't need it's bacteria or animals, rocks provide those, we needed cloudless reef tank transfers and combinations to be safe. combining 30% of old sand isn't as safe as using 0% old sand and 100% pre rinsed sand before its used in a new tank.
*nice to see some examples of updated cycling science here on skip cycling. yes for sure transferred cured rocks don't cycle or mini cycle, they just transfer.
the concept of mini cycling doesn't occur in reefing because reef tanks that can control ammonia at all eat it up so fast (thanks to seneye meters we can see it now) there is no dangerous leftovers in the system. those were API misread remnants that made people think ammonia was partially uncontrolled after a rock move including from pet store to home, not just in-home tank transfers.
any time a failed tank transfer happened, it was always the sand (clouding, unrinsed partial old sand transfers) that did it and 0% of the time it was the rock. rocks don't ever emit ammonia, as the old adage goes. the old adage was using API and believed anything it had to say
what seneye shows regarding what reefs do with ammonia is ground-breaking and api-retiring.
there was always an unspoken referee that already had this thread judged
in hindsight we get to see who passed
we all know there are reef tank conventions where 300 complex display reef housing the seller's most prized animals are all there on time, to see things to you
all those display tanks show up when? 20 days early to 'cycle' when the convention hall was a monster truck show?
no, they all skip cycled 100% instantly into the convention hall when it became a reef show on a given thursday.
not any seller, ever, fails to meet the start date with a tank and nobody's tank 'crashes' during the convention.
sellers control cycles deliberately. they already know an exact date for a cycle completion even before a tank is moved or built.
buyers, by design, are hesitant and in fear and never certain and believe anything api has to say, this is by training.
99.99% of all cycling material on the internet is written by buyers and it's sold as fact. sellers love that because only buyers believe in mini cycles and the risk of recycles and live in a constant state of fear regarding bacteria. they're hooked on Tim's by design
anyone who wrote here: it will skip cycle = passed
in hindsight we get to see who passed
we all know there are reef tank conventions where 300 complex display reef housing the seller's most prized animals are all there on time, to see things to you
all those display tanks show up when? 20 days early to 'cycle' when the convention hall was a monster truck show?
no, they all skip cycled 100% instantly into the convention hall when it became a reef show on a given thursday.
not any seller, ever, fails to meet the start date with a tank and nobody's tank 'crashes' during the convention.
sellers control cycles deliberately. they already know an exact date for a cycle completion even before a tank is moved or built.
buyers, by design, are hesitant and in fear and never certain and believe anything api has to say, this is by training.
99.99% of all cycling material on the internet is written by buyers and it's sold as fact. sellers love that because only buyers believe in mini cycles and the risk of recycles and live in a constant state of fear regarding bacteria. they're hooked on Tim's by design
anyone who wrote here: it will skip cycle = passed
Last edited:
Seattlguy
New Member
Well you probably just saved me some heartbreak!! I won't flip the gravel then! I was thinking it was going to be much more than I wanted in the new set up. I will keep one of my Nanos as a nurse tank in case I ever need one, so this way all I will pull is the live rock (can get more).
excellent.
it's not to oversell risk, the truth is the majority of partial sand transfers don't harm, you have to have the rare mix of too little dilution plus sands that really did have bad constituents buried down
at a higher % incidence rate are the quick outbreaks of algae and cyano in unrinsed sand transfer tanks
all the waste that could be rinsed out, was kept and withheld from rinse in the name of bacterial preservation (the fear that rocks alone don't have enough bacteria) so the new bright lighting made an invasion last months and months vs just a laser clean start, laser clean running that follows a rinse transfer job
you take out all the sand from the old tank and rinse it in a bucket in sections using tap water and a large mixing spoon, rinse and dump every section over and over until perfectly clean. final rinse in saltwater, set the lumps together in a separate bucket of rinsed and ready to transfer sand
then you set up the new tank, the sand, fill with no old water but all new matching temp and salinity to the norms, you set in all your old rocks and animals, and that's a skip cycle tank transfer 100% safe. rinse the sand until totally clear, not partially clear.
those are the steps by which convention sellers use to skip cycle into and out of reef tank conventions:
-from the pet store 2 states away, box up in styrofoam a bunch of cured rocks and stack inside a covered uhaul
put in a glass tank with all fittings and lights and attachments and stand
have saltwater made and loaded in carry containers
go to the convention and fill it up, set in the rocks, put in 100K in animals it'll skip cycle
and then across the walkway at the convention, the fritz booth has a 15 gallon nano with dry rock/not cycled but 25 clownfish schooling from day 1 harmlessly swimming
and the ammonia doesn't build up because their bottle bac is that good, heck nobody has cycle trouble at a convention. only buyers have reef cycling trouble.
it's not to oversell risk, the truth is the majority of partial sand transfers don't harm, you have to have the rare mix of too little dilution plus sands that really did have bad constituents buried down
at a higher % incidence rate are the quick outbreaks of algae and cyano in unrinsed sand transfer tanks
all the waste that could be rinsed out, was kept and withheld from rinse in the name of bacterial preservation (the fear that rocks alone don't have enough bacteria) so the new bright lighting made an invasion last months and months vs just a laser clean start, laser clean running that follows a rinse transfer job
you take out all the sand from the old tank and rinse it in a bucket in sections using tap water and a large mixing spoon, rinse and dump every section over and over until perfectly clean. final rinse in saltwater, set the lumps together in a separate bucket of rinsed and ready to transfer sand
then you set up the new tank, the sand, fill with no old water but all new matching temp and salinity to the norms, you set in all your old rocks and animals, and that's a skip cycle tank transfer 100% safe. rinse the sand until totally clear, not partially clear.
those are the steps by which convention sellers use to skip cycle into and out of reef tank conventions:
-from the pet store 2 states away, box up in styrofoam a bunch of cured rocks and stack inside a covered uhaul
put in a glass tank with all fittings and lights and attachments and stand
have saltwater made and loaded in carry containers
go to the convention and fill it up, set in the rocks, put in 100K in animals it'll skip cycle
and then across the walkway at the convention, the fritz booth has a 15 gallon nano with dry rock/not cycled but 25 clownfish schooling from day 1 harmlessly swimming
and the ammonia doesn't build up because their bottle bac is that good, heck nobody has cycle trouble at a convention. only buyers have reef cycling trouble.
Reeferbadness
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Interesting thread as I'm about to set up a new 200g tank after a failed seem. Fortunately, i have a 2nd 180g tank and also saved all live rock in a garbage can with flow. I purchased 2 new 20lb bags of alive sand from caribsea and was planning on mixing with some of my old sand to seed the new. Looks like if I do go through with this, best to really rinse the old sand first. Anything else i'm missing here?
don't seed with old sand is the only known safe route agreed, it conveys no benefit to move over detritus
*sandbed fills up with the life we read about because it's up under stocked frags and rocks which have the life forms that drop down
to start totally rinsed and in the safe condition for skip cycling doesn't stop the new sand from getting those same animals in a few months. it's over and over cyclic because the live rocks are the pump source, not the sand, it's the receiver source for the life forms/worms/pods etc.
tbs live sand from the ocean is different, this rule above is for bagged sand wet or dry. even if you're buying the wet version of caribsea live sand, it's still pre rinsed to cloudlessness we don't needs its bacteria we need to be cloud free for a safe skip cycle.
*sandbed fills up with the life we read about because it's up under stocked frags and rocks which have the life forms that drop down
to start totally rinsed and in the safe condition for skip cycling doesn't stop the new sand from getting those same animals in a few months. it's over and over cyclic because the live rocks are the pump source, not the sand, it's the receiver source for the life forms/worms/pods etc.
tbs live sand from the ocean is different, this rule above is for bagged sand wet or dry. even if you're buying the wet version of caribsea live sand, it's still pre rinsed to cloudlessness we don't needs its bacteria we need to be cloud free for a safe skip cycle.
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