Methods of cycling a tank

[LukeSivyer45]

Hello everyone, I have setup 2 previous reef tanks, one with Fritz Turbostart and the other with doctor tims. Im setting up a new tank but I don’t plan on using bottled bacteria. If I use live sand with a mix of dry rock as well as live rock directly from the tank next to it as well as cycled filter media do I still need to “start” a cycle with something like food or is there enough bacteria there to make it cycled. For reference its a 20 gallon tank with 20 pounds of sand, 17 ounces of media and 8-9 pounds of live rock?

 

[bluemon]

I would throw in some ammonia source for the bacteria to eat, unless there is sufficient die offs in the live rock.

If you get really good quality stuff( there might be close to zero die offs in the rocks.

Also I would skip the love sand. Not much benefits in live sand

 

[threebuoys]

My guess is you'll be safe pulling the sand and rock from your established tanks. We always recommend using filter medium from an established tank when setting up a QT. You may still want to test over the first week or so to be sure.