Insta Cycled or Insta Stocked or something else?

What would you call a fully transferred, instantly stocked tank?

  • Insta Cycled

    Votes: 74 29.5%
  • Insta Stocked

    Votes: 68 27.1%
  • Something Else

    Votes: 109 43.4%

  • Total voters
    251

brandon429

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proposed 2021 definition of a completed cycle





-the surface area in a given arrangement is active with ammonia oxidizing bacteria such that any degree of surrounding water change does not reduce bioload carry when measured on calibrated digital free ammonia (nh3) test equipment.


here comes a tldr

how new definition differs from prior old cycling rules:

-differentiates suspension cycling vs completed/adhered cycling where tank maintenance can begin. Suspension cycling is the fish+water+bottle bac and dry rocks on day one, the mode all non digital test owners decry as harmful but on seneye/where folks consult accurate readings/ always checks out as safe. Bottle bac do control ammonia when dosed immediately, check any seneye cycle from a display tank and post back. The risk is disease vectoring in the rush, not ammonia burn.

A seneye owner from Uzbekistan taught me this

Before the dosed bacteria migrate from being suspended in the water to surface adherence, you wouldn’t run UV or do a large water change. It would pull out the suspended bacteria that are reducing fish waste immediately out of the bottle. Tank maintenance needs to wait until adherence sets in. After adherence you can run UV, or do a big water change = suspension vs surface area cycling.

after bacteria seat onto surfaces, you can do tank upgrades and home moves without recycling and without buying new bottled bacteria as the new rule governs your new tank as long as you didn’t mix in filthy detritus during the move

to know when a particular brand adheres, see its label or read Dr. Reefs bottle bac deposition study.

-ammonia-oxidizing bacteria are mentioned to the exclusion of other clades that produce nitrite and nitrate. We only need to sample that step in updated cycling science, one param--not three. to feverishly begin debating the claim join up in the chemistry forum and have your example links handy.

-the new definition incorporates objective measures / digital measurements for the first time in cycle rules, meters that finally show truth in cycling. It means to challenge the rules you need to own a digital nh3 meter :)

To see how old cycling was doing before the advent of digital nh3 meters, just google “stuck reef tank cycle .25 ammonia” and read the twenty million search returns, none were stuck. now do a comparative search for stuck cycles on seneye, is that a skew or what.
 

LRT

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I would just call it a transfer. All your doing is going from one tank to another. Maybe it's bigger, and you add more rock, but your not increasing bioload.

Insta cycle I would call adding rock, water, sand, and livestock on day one.
Nice in your definition of Instacycle are you referring to cured cycled rock for this?
 

Wrmurphy22

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I've done two significant moves. I agree with everyone who called it a transfer. I think I saw a quick boost in bad parameters for a few days but it evened out quickly.

The bigger issue was the logistical nightmare of moving all of those heavy rocks and 90 gallons of water an hour away.
 

Bruce Burnett

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Transfer from mature tank to new tank should not be a problem. It is not an insta anything except new tank. Can even rinse the sand and reuse. All your bacteria is in the sand and rocks. You won't get a real cycle unless you increase your live stock at the same time. Any new sand and rock will eventually get bacteria. So instant new tank.
 

homer1475

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Nice in your definition of Instacycle are you referring to cured cycled rock for this?
Bottled bac and dry rock, or LR, how ever you want to do it. I've done it both ways, and they both work.

Even though we all know that the biodiversity found on real LR(not that stuff just sitting in water at the LFS) cannot be had with a dry start.
 

LRT

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Bottled bac and dry rock, or LR, how ever you want to do it. I've done it both ways, and they both work.

Even though we all know that the biodiversity found on real LR(not that stuff just sitting in water at the LFS) cannot be had with a dry start.
Right on great point. I have been following a bottle bac dry rock start up that was instacycled and stocked pretty quickly to my amazement.
 

NaplesReefMom

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I wouldn't call it either I don't think....you are basically just moving an established system from one tank to another....I would call it a move :) . I have relocated an entire tank without any issues.....no changes in water chemistry at all.
Hello! I have a 4 month old 90 gallon tank that is doing great but I am out of room. I am going to upgrade to a 200 gallon tank, that will go in the same location. Do I reuse my sand and add more? Will my fish do ok during the transfer? Any advice or tips you could offer would be great! I am also switching to the different shelf rock in the new tank. Non of my coral is glued to the rocks. But I could keep my existing rock in the sump or along the sides, so the bacteria is there? I currently have a mixed reef of corals: 3 torches, 2 hammers, a few acans, a bubble coral, some zoa's, a green plate coral, ...2 anenomes, 2 star fish, 8 crabs, turbo snails, 3 shrimp, a blue posder tang, a blue hippo tang, 4 pajama cardinals, a damsel, 4 smaller chromi's. Help! Thank you!
 

homer1475

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The trap most people fall into.....

They go to a big box store, or even the corner LFS, and they buy everything they need, including the API saltwater master kit. And you can't blame a noob for buying a cheap kit when they just dropped a huge chunk of coin for a complete setup. No one thinks testing is that critical when starting out, hence the cheap test kit.

Now you know, as we all should by now, that there is always a hint of green when using API for saltwater ammonia tests. So everyone thinks there cycle is "stuck". When in fact, it's just the fault of the API kit.

Once I stopped using the API kit(I use salifert now when needed) I realized you could insta cycle a tank and add a small bioload on day one.
 

LRT

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The trap most people fall into.....

They go to a big box store, or even the corner LFS, and they buy everything they need, including the API saltwater master kit. And you can't blame a noob for buying a cheap kit when they just dropped a huge chunk of coin for a complete setup. No one thinks testing is that critical when starting out, hence the cheap test kit.

Now you know, as we all should by now, that there is always a hint of green when using API for saltwater ammonia tests. So everyone thinks there cycle is "stuck". When in fact, it's just the fault of the API kit.

Once I stopped using the API kit(I use salifert now when needed) I realized you could insta cycle a tank and add a small bioload on day one.
Great point seriously. That same thread i reffered to earlier showed Api at green level. Seneye showed hundreds I believe. Def need a good tool of measurement to know whats actually happening!
 

homer1475

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Hello! I have a 4 month old 90 gallon tank that is doing great but I am out of room. I am going to upgrade to a 200 gallon tank, that will go in the same location. Do I reuse my sand and add more? Will my fish do ok during the transfer? Any advice or tips you could offer would be great! I am also switching to the different shelf rock in the new tank. Non of my coral is glued to the rocks. But I could keep my existing rock in the sump or along the sides, so the bacteria is there? I currently have a mixed reef of corals: 3 torches, 2 hammers, a few acans, a bubble coral, some zoa's, a green plate coral, ...2 anenomes, 2 star fish, 8 crabs, turbo snails, 3 shrimp, a blue posder tang, a blue hippo tang, 4 pajama cardinals, a damsel, 4 smaller chromi's. Help! Thank you!
If your going to use new rock, throw the old rock in the sump for the bacteria. I would also add a bottle or 2 of bacteria just to be safe. Then in a few weeks, take the rock out of the sump, or leave it there, won't matter.

EDIT:
The sand, rinse the snot out of it! Seriously, your sandbed is a cesspool, it needs to be clean when going in the new tank, or you'll certainly have problems.

Search out @brandon429 rip clean threads. It's basically what your going to do, and will give you great tips on the transfer.
 

LRT

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Hello! I have a 4 month old 90 gallon tank that is doing great but I am out of room. I am going to upgrade to a 200 gallon tank, that will go in the same location. Do I reuse my sand and add more? Will my fish do ok during the transfer? Any advice or tips you could offer would be great! I am also switching to the different shelf rock in the new tank. Non of my coral is glued to the rocks. But I could keep my existing rock in the sump or along the sides, so the bacteria is there? I currently have a mixed reef of corals: 3 torches, 2 hammers, a few acans, a bubble coral, some zoa's, a green plate coral, ...2 anenomes, 2 star fish, 8 crabs, turbo snails, 3 shrimp, a blue posder tang, a blue hippo tang, 4 pajama cardinals, a damsel, 4 smaller chromi's. Help! Thank you!
Hi. Check out post #35 in this thread its invaluable to your situation.
Set up new tank transfer everything you can over. Leave fish in old tank. Go through the motions of checking params. Once your ammonia reads 0 which could literally be same day after feeding. You should be ready. Your not increasing bioload. Your rocks are already sufficiently handling the load your carrying.
What you may find is nutrient levels may bottom out. Keep and eye on nutrients and all params and keep everything at acceptable levels.
Your trying to create a flawless extension of current cycled mature tank. Long as you keep params locked in to current tanks params you should have no issues after initial feeding and ammonia levels bump and back to 0. If you see any ammonia bump at all.

On edit: Definitely want to clean up and remove all nasties while you have opportunity. Sand and pretty much all that you can so your not moving nasties to new system.
 

coralcoralcoral10

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I'm currently researching a tank upgrade but as the move will be from a small-ish tank (30G) to a much larger one (140G), I don't plan on insta- moving, but rather more of a re-cycle and then a gradual introduction.
To many variables to manage/compensate for otherwise?! But that's just my opinion
Hey shadow. I just did this with a 46 to a 144 my 46 was 4 months old. A few underwater friends didn’t make the transition and now I’m dealing with NTS. But everyone else is fine but my coral isn’t the greatest. I tried to do to much to fast. Let it ride it will all be fine.
 

blazn

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Wow, can I say I actually agree with @brandon429? Even though we but heads from time to time, he's usually pretty right about cycling a tank.

I found Brandon's posts on tank-transfers/sand-cleaning to be very informative and assisted me in the decisions I made in successfully transferring/upgrading my tank.
 

Reef.Exotico

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Perfect timing. I was just about to start to research this exact topic today. I am going to upgrade my WaterBox 20 cube to the 50.3. Want to know what issues I may run into. Tank has been running for 2.5 years. It’s had it ups and downs. But thing are starting to grow into each other and I need the space.

Following
 

Dburr1014

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I have replaced a 100 gallon plenum style setup to a 90 gallon reef ready tank and had no issues. I moved contents to buckets (even sand), moved tank out and new tank in and set it all up again (including sand). I waited a couple days and moved all live stock in the tank. No rinsing of sand. I new stirring up the sand would spike ammonia but when I tested after a day I had none. I waited another day to be safe. Anyone who has had a plenum style tank knows what the sand looks like, nasty. It's like a dsb with space under the sand. I chalk it up to a lot of bacteria doing its thing.
 

MikeyG

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I am actually going through a similar process of moving some things from an existing tank to a new 2nd tank.
I am considering this an expansion because i am plumbing the new tank into my existing filtration system. Therefore i will have 2 tanks when it's all done.
While the tank is new all the rocks will be from my existing system. They have been sitting in my 100gal refugium for about 4 months.
Plan is to mix the salt in the new tank and get it to same temperature of the existing tank before I add the rocks and tie it into my existing filtration.
This will add an extra 300gal of water to my system.

So in my case i would consider it an expansion, and not a new setup.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Look what the team did here as an instant cycle with updates savory, just now


a legit need for skip cycling, done ethically.
 

Richsoar

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Relocation, your not really doing anything with the tank if you move the whole thing, other than replacing some of the water.

On the other hand I have moved two 72s and a 45 gal tank from Wichita, KS to OFallon, IL then had to move the reset 72 from one temporary living place to our new home. I essentially tore down one of the 72s put the relevant items (fish, corals, inverts) in the other and the none relevant items (rock, sand) in 5 gal buckets with wet news paper. Moved and set up the down 72 put in some of the rock and cycled it over 45 day period then moved the other 72 and 45 after taking out most of the remaining rock, leaving enough water for the fish and corals to remain wet. 8 hours later we transfered the fish and corals to the set up/cycled tank. All survived that move. Repeated this maneuver a month later to the new house except that I didn't have time to cycle, so I moved all the water that had been in the tank to the new location in buckets. Got it all back together albeit a bit crowded with only one loss, our 12 yr old Tomato Clown.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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